Who was Hong Xiuquan?
- The small spark paved the way for Hong Xiuquan’s Taiping Rebellion. He was a Chinese Christian convert and also one of the major driving forces of the Taiping Movement. He followed the ideas of Christianity in his movement.
- Hong belonged to a Hakka minority within the Han population. He wanted to have a higher status in the society. In China, this was only possible by passing the national examination and becoming a part of the local elite.
- But, in the case of Hong, this was depressing for him. As he kept on failing the national examinations. On the day of his third attempt, he got in touch with the translated version of the Bible named, “Good Words for Exhorting The Age”’ written by Liang A- fa who was a protestant.
- Unfortunately, he even failed in the third attempt. On that particular night, he had a dream where he was given a sword by a bearded and golden-haired man, and along with that, there was a young man who commanded him to kill the evil with that sword. The next day, when he woke up he did not pay any attention to the dream that he saw.
- After a year, when he failed in the fourth attempt as well, he thought of reading the “Good Words for Exhorting The Age”. This was when he realized that the dream that he saw was a message that was sent to him by Jesus Christ. According to him, the bearded and golden-haired man was god himself and the younger man was Jesus Christ.
- Hong being a continuous failure in exams and reading Liang’s version of translated Bible, triggered the small spark and led to a full-fledged Taiping Rebellion. Hong wanted to establish his empire as Taiping Tainguo or Heavenly Kingdom Of Great Peace, which gained significant control in South China.
Taiping Rebellion
Taiping Rebellion: The term rebellion mainly signifies those events in History where a group of people organized a violent insurrection against the government that was in power. One such major rebellion that took place around the 19th century was the Taiping Rebellion in China.
In this article, we will discuss the Taiping Rebellion in brief, its causes, how it progressed, leaders who were involved in the Taiping Rebellion, death tolls, and some interesting facts related to the Taiping Rebellion.