alternatehistory.com

Chapter 94 The Taiping Revolution Part 1

"I used to believe the Mormons were nothing but cultists who perverted the faith, but then I heard of the God-worshipers. I think I should write a letter of apology to the Quorum."- Archbishop Sean Conroy 1860
"I am the thirteenth disciple of God. The servant of the almighty Lord who has been sent down to smite the heathens and purify the land."- Hong Xiuqan 1854
"The people say that the God-worshipers are what caused the Qing to lose the Mandate. The reality is that Taiping was but a symptom of a cancer that had been ongoing for centuries."- Sun Yat-sen 1915

Since the founding of the Zhou dynasty, China had undergone a periodic history that was little than an immense Game of Thrones, the rise and fall of countless dynasties, only for little to change. Under the Mandate of Heaven, the Chinese Empire operated where one dynasty would rule with absolute authority until they failed in their obligations to the peasants, once that happened said ruling dynasty would lose the Mandate and power ceded to the next dynasty, often the leader of a Rebel army. Despite this endless cycle, there were several improvements in Imperial China and for a time they were the leading nation in terms of technological advancements in the world. Unfortunately during the Ming dynasty, China's Emperors would chose to enact an age of isolation for the nation and refuse to interact with outside powers beyond basic trade and border treaties. This philosophy was damaging twofold as it allowed the West to gain and eventually overpower the Chinese technologically, while causing a general stagnation of Chinese society in a vastly traditionalist Confucian mindset. By the middle of the 19th century, China was on the verge of collapse thanks to Opium and increasing neglect from Beijing. This would lead to one of two scenarios, either the Qing would lose the Mandate and a new dynasty would rise up to restore China to its greatness, or the once ancient and proud Empire would collapse to a series of protectorates and colonies of Western Europe. No one thought that a third route would be possible, That China could possibly break into new states. In 1851 this would all change with the beginning of the Taiping Revolution, and the start of the Second Warring States Era.


Flag of the Heavenly Kingdom of China.

The man who would become the head of the Taiping Heavenly Church, Hong Xiuqan (born Hong Huoxiu), was born on New Year's of 1814 to a poor Hakka Chinese family in Guangzhou. From an early age Hong made it his life goal to take the Imperial Examination in order to become a Bureaucrat of the Qing dynasty and secure a better life for him and his family. Unfortunately for Hong, he was unsuccessful in this goal due to coming from a poor background which made it difficult for him to have the same level of education as his peers. Three times Hong would take the exam and three times he would fail. After the third failed test Hong would enter into a nervous breakdown and seclude himself from friends and family in his home. During this time while Hong was in a delirious state, he would begin the first of his self-proclaimed visions from God, marking his path into the formation of the Heavenly Church. According to the Book of Heaven (The Heavenly Church's version of the Bible with an added 13 books describing Hong's life and death) Hong's soul was transported to Heaven where he was able to meet both God and Jesus Christ. In his visions, God (dressed in a similar manner to a Chinese Emperor) lamented that the men of China were worshiping false-prophets and demons, that they were being led astray from the path of God by Satan himself. The Heavenly Father (what the Taiping Church calls God in their interpretation of the Trinity) would show Hong of things to come, including the fall of the Qing dynasty, the rape and death of China from Eastern Dragons, and China's eventual takeover by the anti-Christ and his legions of followers who would destroy the presence of God and kill Chinese culture itself. As said in the Book of Heaven, Hong was given an eternal mission to prevent this by being given a Celestial sword of which he would strike down his enemies and restore Heaven (China) to its pure state. In order to show the righteousness of his mission, Hong was shown an image of Confucius burning in hell along with those who followed his teachings (this is something that the modern Church debates heavily the meaning of with Reformers stating that Confucius was misguided due to having been born before Jesus, while Orthodox followers believe Confucius to be a heretic and demon-worshiper). With Jesus at his side Hong would become God's thirteenth disciple and spread the Teachings of Heaven to China whereas others before him had failed. Armed with the belief that he was God's chosen on Earth, Hong woke up from his dreams and emerged from his seclusion a changed man, a fanatic who would seek to spread through his teachings through any means necessary.


Hong Xiuqan

Over the coming years Hong would begin his trek through China on a mission to bring Heaven unto Earth. At first Hong did not know that his beliefs was that of Christianity, with him assuming that the Heavenly Father was a God of China that was before the times of the Imperial Dynasties. In 1840 Hong would come into contact with American missionary Daniel Edwards, a Baptist Minister who was touring China with fellow Protestant Missionaries through the Portuguese port of Macau. Edwards would teach Hong of Evangelical Christianity, and through him Hong would come to realize that the Heavenly Father was the Christian God and that this son in the vision was Jesus Christ. Hong would spend the next three years in contact with Edwards and his band of Baptists, consuming all that he could through the King James Bible and the beliefs and teachings of the missionaries. Much to Edwards dismay, Hong would not convert to Baptism, and instead come to formulate his own beliefs based around him being a Prophet and the 13th disciple of Christ, a Chinese Prester John. Hong believed that Christianity had always existed in China through Shangdi, China's ancient traditional religion centered around the existence of Heaven and Tian as the absolute God of China. According to Hong, for millennia China was the Heavenly Kingdom of Earth through which the Chinese were God's chosen people, supposedly being a lost tribe of the sons of Abraham. However during and after the life of Confucius, demons would begin to corrupt Chinese society with the Emperors becoming servants of Satan and the traditional Shangdi beliefs driven out to be replaced with the "heretical" worship of Confucianism and Taoism. Hong began his mission in earnest by destroying Buddhist and Confucian idols, while preaching his beliefs to his local community. Hong was successful in converting several dozen people to his faith, most notably his distant relatives Feng Yushan and Hong Rengan, Hong's future spiritual and secular second in-commands respectively. Hong was eventually driven out of his town by provincial authorities, beginning his life as a nomadic hermit, traveling around all of Southern China to "enlighten" the Chinese of his beliefs.

During Hong's time as a hermit, his distant cousin Feng Yushan traveled to Guanxi and began his own following based around Hong's belief, a society known as the "God-worshipers", a name which Hong's followers to this day still carry both in China and outside. Due to the relative instability of the Guanxi province, authorities turned a blind eye to Yushan's activities as they believed him to be of no harm. In late 1847, Hong was invited by Yushan to Guanxi in order to take up his mantle as leader of the God-worshipers. Hong accepted and began to center himself around Guanxi where he would preach of his continued visions and try to prevent China from going down the path of hell. On February 16, Hong would release the first version of the Book of Heaven, marking the formal date of the creation of the Heavenly Church. The teachings of the Book of Heaven were heavily Radical of the time as Hong placed a strict emphasis on total sexual equality while advocating a secular policy of land socialization and the breaking of the traditional noble classes into one unified class, giving peasants equal power over the Lords and for all land to be distributed by the state and Church, those who advanced in society doing so due to their dedication to the faith and service to the community. Hong also severely detracted from traditional Christianity by rejecting the Trinity with Jesus and the Holy Spirit being two sons of God who were distinctly separate persons, while Hong's Christianity was centered entirely around China with Chinese as the chosen race. Hong believed that Judaism and the Old Testament merely existed due to God landing favor with the Isrealites after China was taken over by demon-worshipers, that the true center of Christianity was China and Jesus was originally supposed to be born in China instead of Bethlehem. The God-worshipers would over time grow in strength and in 1850 were 40,000 strong. This rapid growth alarmed regional authorities who finally took Hong as a threat and began taking action to end his perceived cult before it was too late, their actions having the opposite effect.

View attachment 345571
A service of the Heavenly Church in Guanxi

On New Year's of 1851, a local Qing Army was sent to the small town of Jiantin to destroy the God-worshiper army and execute Hong for his sedition against the Imperial throne. A battle occurred outside the city limits and under the leadership of Feng Yushan, the God-worshippers were able to band together and drive the Qing outside of the town, wiping out a majority of the contingent. While Taiping accounts claim that the rebel army was able to win due to divine intervention, a more unbiased look reveals that the rebels had won due to the sole factor that they were heavily motivated for their faith, while the Qing forces were heavily corrupt and untrained, a majority of the officers suffering from Opium-addiction. With his victory over the Qing "Demons" proving him to receive the "Mandate of Heaven", Hong would proclaim the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom on January 11th (incidentally Hong's birthday). Most Qing officials upon initially hearing of the Rebel Kingdom, laughed at the audacity of the Hakka rebels, that they could possibly beat the Qing, little did they know how wrong they were. For the next two years the Taiping rebels would launch a viscous guerrilla campaign in Southern China, while often not managing to control large swaths of territory, the Heavenly Army would win a majority of the engagements that it came in, creating a highly-seasoned and professional force that China had not seen in decades. With each passing victory peasants flocked to the Heavenly Banners in hope to find their salvation from their horrid conditions. Hong's preachings along with reported miracles grew the movement from 40,000 to 5 million. The Book of Heaven was published into thousands of copies and a new priestly order was ordained, all the while remnants of Qing China such as the Confucian scholars, Manchu, nobleman, and land gentry, all put to the sword. The greatest of the Taiping victories came in 1853 when the Heavenly Army managed to capture the city of Nanjing, renaming it to Tianjin and then transforming it overnight into the capitol of the Heavenly Kingdom and Hong's citadel of power. The Heavenly Kingdom was truly born.

Fall of Nanjing

For the next five years the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom would grow to encompass much of Southern China. Though far less-equipped then their Manchu counterparts, the Heavenly Army were able to make up for it in their ferocity and droves of numbers in legion, often overpowering their unmotivated foes through the sheer terror of waves of human stampedes. Under the wise strategy and strong leadership of Feng Yushan, the God-worshipers were able to consolidate key resources and become a stable nation-state within a few years with a functioning professional army. The priesthood of the Heavenly Church were highly successful in their mission of conversion and millions would be baptized into the faith of Xiuqan. It seemed that the movement would be unstoppable and that all of China would come under Taiping rule. Unfortunately for the Taiping rebels, problems soon arose. While their revolutionary teachings were able to indoctrinate millions of peasants, the Heavenly Church had a polar effect in that it isolated and turned into enemies the middle-class, landed nobles, and followers of traditional Confucianism; it being said that for every Heavenly convert 10 enemies would be created. Ethnic violence also tore apart China as the Han, Manchu, and other Chinese ethnicities began a virtual genocide against the Hakka for their perceived treachery due to the Taiping leadership being made of Hakka Chinese, this only being successful in turning a majority of the Hakka into followers of the faith. Lastly, and what could've possibly ruined the revolution from the start, the Xianfeng Emperor was able to get foreign support, the British.

While the Taiping Revolution was ongoing, numerous other peasant and ethnic rebellions were occurring across China, most notably the Miao Rebellion and the Panthway Rebellion. The Qing were able to keep these other rebellions contained, though only barely. What made the situation worse was the beginning of the Second Opium War in 1856. The reason for the second war was the failure of the Qing to keep up with their reparation payments to the British, along with a decline in trade in the free ports in the early 1850's. As part of the effort to form an hegemony in Asia in the wake of the failed Afghanistan War and the ongoing Sepoy Rebellions, a British fleet under Vice Admiral Michael Seymour, the man who opened up Japan, was sent to create a new treaty which would end up in more favorable terms for Europe. From 1856-1858, the Second Opium War was far more deadly with constant British victories and tens of thousands of Chinese killed. Thanks to modern firepower developed after Crimea along with the prototype ironclad vessels, the Royal Marines were able to crush the Qing in every engagement. What signaled the end of the war was the capture of Canton in early 1858, one of China's treaty ports that had been closed off before the start of the war. The fall of Canton forced the Xianjing Emperor to sue for peace, opening up the Treaty of Tienstin which opened up eleven more ports to the West with free travel of foreigners and reparations of four million Taels. At the signing of the Treaty, the Emperor would come to shock the British dignataries further. He would promise the British that they would have even more rights and opened ports, if they would help train the Qing Army and arm them to defeat the rebels, specifically the Taiping. Fueled by greed and seeing an even grander opportunity to conquer China, the British agreed and a regiment of regulars and officers under the command of Charles George Gordon. Their mission, to train and equip a modernized and western-style Qing army that would crush the Taiping. Unknown to them, the Taiping would receive their own western aid, the French.

After the First Opium War, it was agreed among Western European diplomats that any future moves on China would be heavily regulated and mediated with the cooperation of the other powers. The British's unilateral intervention into China in the second war led to a straining of relations among those who had an interest in the Far East. One man who was livid at these actions was Emperor Napoleon III. With his borders secure in Europe and the African colonies stable, Napoleon began preparing major plans for Eastern Asia, specifically with colonies in the Indochinese region. To Napoleon the British's actions were nothing more than an attempt to keep the region for themselves and block the French out, much in the same manner that France had lost India after the Seven Years War. Determined not to have the same fate as his Bourbon predecessors, Napoleon swore that he would claim his own piece of China. After lengthy talks with the Foreign Ministry over how to proceed, the French found their horse to bet on, the Heavenly Kingdom. Talks between the French and Taiping would continue throughout much of 1857. Negotiations were difficult throughout most of the proceedings as the Taiping were extremely cautious and wary of the French, with good reason as they did not want to end up in a mirror situation as the Qing whose western decadence had been what caused the revolt. Eventually an agreement was able to be reached in early 1858; the French would have free trade throughout all the Heavenly Kingdom and the right to own the island of Formosa. In return the Heavenly Army would be trained and armed by the French Imperial Army and the Kingdom would gain loans in millions of Francs. In order to train the Heavenly Army, the French Foreign Legion was sent under the command of Charles Mobutan. With foreign intervention on both sides having been cemented, the second stage of the Taiping Revolution, "Charles' War" was about to begin.

French General Charles Mobutan (Left) and British General Charles George Gordon (Right), both men would lead their respective sides until the end of the Revolution, causing the namesake of Charles' war.