One leaf falls and the world knows autumn! Hong Xiuquan, an ordinary student living near Guangzhou, repeatedly failed the imperial examination. Disheartened, this downright literati gave up Confucianism and sought spiritual comfort from the new Christianity. Perhaps he himself did not expect that his transformation would affect the fate of the entire Qing Dynasty.
Hong Xiuquan used the Christian faith to establish the God-Worshipping Society and led the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement, occupying half of the Qing Dynasty. Hong Xiuquan’s career is inseparable from Christianity, and we naturally believe that he himself must be a faithful Christian. However, in fact, Hong Xiuquan's understanding of Christianity and whether he can be regarded as a qualified Christian are actually controversial.
1. The confusion of a German ambassador to China
The story of Hong Xiuquan and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is very attractive to Europeans. An ordinary Chinese literati took advantage of Christian beliefs to organize a large-scale mass movement to fight against the government. Such stories are more or less magical realism to Europeans.
The German ambassador to China in the 1970s and the famous contemporary writer Erwin Wickerd was very obsessed with this story. He heard this story roughly in 1943. What made him curious was how Hong Xiuquan transformed from a Confucian intellectual to a heretic? His religious thoughts and missionary activities are so weird, how did he attract so many believers?
Such doubts have troubled him for more than 30 years. Until 1976, he served as the German ambassador to China, and had the opportunity to come to China to resolve this doubt himself. Not long after coming to China, Wicked went to the hometown of Hong Xiuquan—Hua County, Guangdong (now Huadu District, Guangzhou City). In Bulu Village of Huaxian County, Wicked visited Hong Xiuquan's former residence and museum.
After visiting, Wicked was even more confused. Hong Xiuquan, who started from religion, why can’t I see anything about Christianity? The instructor told him: Hong Xiuquan’s uprising involved some "superstitious ideas". It was these superstitious ideas that made the Tianping Heavenly Kingdom movement a failure!
After the trip to Hong Xiuquan’s former residence, Wickard determined from the perspective of a Christian: "Although Hong Xiuquan traced his mission back to God, and he also believes that he is the brother of Jesus, according to the information, it is obvious that he Did not understand Christianity.” In other words, in Wicked’s view, Hong Xiuquan is a “pseudo-Christian”.
According to Wickard’s identification with Christianity, his criticism of Hong Xiuquan is justified. But the problem is that both Hong Xiuquan and his Taiping Heavenly Kingdom recognize that they are "Christians", and they believe in the same kind of Christianity as foreigners. Such differences are indeed confusing.
2. Hong Xiuquan’s Strange Dream of Ascension
In 1837, in the seventeenth year of Daoguang, the 24-year-old Huaxian "Tong Sheng" Hong Renkun went to Guangzhou for the third time. Participate in the imperial examination and continue to fight for the scholarship's degree. Along the way, he was worried, and the shadow of the previous two imperial examination failures continued to surround him. His family background is average, and due to his livelihood, he has to work in farming while studying. I started a family at the age of 18, and the life of his wife and children is really boring to Hong Renkun. He wants to get ahead and do a big business! So he took this exam very seriously.
However, the God of Destiny did not favor him, and Hong Renkun once again lost his name to Sun Shan. On the way home, Hong Renkun was depressed and got a pamphlet called "Good Words to the World". The person who issued the brochure said: "It can cure all the sufferings of mortals."
But Hong Renkun's mood is terrible, and he has no mood to watch. He just flipped through it a few times and put it on the shelf. Three failures in the exams dealt a huge blow to Hong Renkun, and he has never been sick ever since. When Hong Renkun was ill, he was in a trance, and his family felt that he could not survive.Up. Until one day, he suddenly had a strange dream. The general content of the dream was:
When he closed his eyes, a beautiful sedan chair came, and the sedan chair carried him to a bright palace. Many elegant men and women gathered on both sides to pay tribute to him...Above the hall there was an elderly man with golden beard and black robe, looking very majestic and solemn. As soon as he saw Hong Renkun, the old man cried and said: "The world is made by me and raised by me. But no one has a heart to commemorate me and respect me; what is even more hateful is that they use the gifts I gave to worship Devil. Don’t follow their example.” So the old man gave Hong Xiuquan a sword and told him to kill the devil...
It was strange to say, after that, his body seemed to be Better, the family let him walk around. Hong Renkun walked in the village, muttering words in his mouth, and yelled "Chop! Chop!" when he saw someone. The villagers were so scared that they avoided him when they saw him. People say Hong Renkun is crazy. After
Hong Renkun kept telling people his dreams. He said to his father: "The supreme old man in the sky has led the world to me, and all the treasures in the world are mine!" At this time, Hong Renkun changed his name to "Xiuquan" and declared that he would be the "king of heaven" ".
Third, the oath and the Qing are incompatible
Is Hong Xiuquan really crazy? Perhaps Hong Xiuquan at this time is just "others laugh at me too crazy, I laugh at others can't see through"! His inner world has changed somewhat. From Hong Renkun to Hong Xiuquan, becoming more than just a name, this strange dream of ascension has baptized Hong Renkun's spirit! The original Hong Renkun, who only wanted the title of the gold list, had already developed anti-Qing thoughts in his heart! There are poems as proof:
Holding the power of killing the universe, killing evil, staying right and solving the people. Looking beyond the northwestern rivers and mountains, the sound shakes the sun and the moon in the southeast.
Who else is in charge of the universe of life and death besides the emperor of the Ninth Five Years? Hong Xiuquan's anti-Qing thoughts have been revealed.
Furthermore, the name a person gives to himself often contains his own inner thoughts. Hong Renkun changed himself to "Xiuquan". What do these two words mean? The academic circles generally believe that "xiu" comes from his nickname "Huoxiu", and "quan" comes from the last word of the last sentence of the book that Hong Xiuquan wrote when he was still sick: "Tianwang Daojun Wangquan". In any case, "Xiuquan" is just an ordinary name, but I didn't expect it to resound all over the world 14 years later.
Hong Xiuquan’s dream adventure did not end there, he kept thinking about and constructing that dream. Although the anti-Qing thought had sprouted, he was still unwilling and decided to try again.
In 1843, Hong Xiuquan, who was in his first year of life, went to Guangzhou again for the examination of scholars with mixed feelings. He failed again, but this time he did not suffer from the last time. Instead, he made up his mind: "If you don't take the Qing Dynasty exam, don't wear the Qing Dynasty clothes, you will not be incompatible with the Qing Dynasty!"
After returning home, Hong Xiuquan I found the "Good Words to Advise the World" that I had thrown away before. This book was originally a simple Chinese translation of the "Bible", but Hong Xiuquan combined the content with his own strange dreams, and finally realized that he had dreamed That old man is God. Hong Xiuquan launched an action. He spread his God and heaven to the people around him. Soon, his cousins Hong Rengan and Feng Yunshan became loyal believers of Hong Xiuquan.
Later, an organization called "God Worship Club" began to spread in the mountainous areas of Guangdong and Guangxi. Hong Xiuquan's strange dream of ascending to heaven will also become the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in reality.
文史君说
Is Hong Xiuquan a qualified Christian? There is a big question mark here. But one thing that must be admitted is that Hong Xiuquan and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom confirmed part of the Christianity as the spiritual motivation for the anti-Qing kingdom.
At the same time, we have to know that Hong Xiuquan is a native Chinese after all, who is in contact withBefore the Christian culture, his knowledge structure was almost entirely Confucian, and his way of thinking was also Chinese. Therefore, when he later understood and accepted certain Christian ideas, he would inevitably add Chinese cultural habits to understand. Because of this, although his "God worship" also believes in God, it looks nondescript.
References
Mao Jiaqi: "History of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom" Shanghai People's Publishing House, 1980.
Xia Chuntao: "The Fall of the Kingdom of Heaven-Restudy of the Religion of the Taiping Kingdom", Renmin University of China Press, 2006.
(Author: awe-inspiring literature and history-corn sauce)
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