Everyone knows that God has one child, Jesus, but what not many people know is that God has a second son? A Chinese man?
He once had a dream in which he hallucinated a golden-bearded old man saying to him, “By the will of heaven, I order you to go to earth to kill demons.” When he woke up he became silent and behaved strangely. Even the Pope of the Vatican had to recognize him as the second son of God. He was Hong Xiuquan, the leader of the “Taiping Heavenly Kingdom” in the late Qing Dynasty.
Since 1840, the Qing Dynasty has entered a stage of decline. Western powers forced open the doors of the Qing government and carried out all kinds of capital expansion, cultural invasion, and horrific land grabbing.
With defeat after defeat and the signing of various humiliating treaties, the Qing Dynasty lost its national dignity. And in the round after round of capital and cultural expansion of the great powers, civil conflicts gradually intensified, the people were full of grievances, and the people did not have enough to live on.
Daoguang thirty years (1850), Daoguang Emperor died, on the 26th day of the first month, Yiji that the throne, the beginning of the reign of Xianfeng era, but that year is still called Daoguang thirty years.
On the 37th anniversary of Hong Xiuquan’s birth, the “Worshipers of the Goddess of Mercy” officially declared an uprising in Jintian Village, Guiping County, Guangxi Province, to celebrate Hong Xiuquan’s birthday.
Hong Xiuquan was declared the “King of Heaven” of the newly established “Taiping Heavenly Kingdom”. “The word ”Taiping“ is taken from a Chinese classic, the word ‘heaven’ is from the Bible, and the term ”Taiping Heavenly Kingdom” is added together to refer to a heavenly kingdom on earth. The term “Taiping Heavenly Kingdom” was added together to refer to the heavenly kingdom of Taiping on earth.
In December 1850, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom storm officially began. On December 10th, Hong Xiuquan started an uprising in Jintian Village, Guiping, Guangxi, and established the name “Taiping Heavenly Kingdom”.
In all fairness, if we want to discuss which force did the most harm to the Qing Dynasty, then there is no doubt that it would be the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
After all, it was because the Western powers wanted to accumulate capital and control the culture and beliefs of the Chinese people, but they still tended to support the backward Qing Dynasty.
The Jintian Uprising completely shook the foundations of the feudal Qing Dynasty, which was already close to decay.
Hong Xiuquan’s four slogans of political equality, economic equality, ethnic equality, and equality between men and women firmly captured the hearts of the people and gained more followers.
The peasants followed him with their heart and soul, and recognized Hong Xiuquan as their spiritual leader.
Some even gave Hong Xiuquan a mythological color, and folklore has it that Hong Xiuquan could easily build a paper corps, and as long as he blew a breath, the fighters would be able to fight.
Under the influence of Hong Xiuquan, in 1853, Hong Xiuquan led 80,000 cavalry broke into Nanjing, with the deepening of the uprising, the Taiping Army wherever the corpses, Nanjing more than 20,000 of the Manchu people were killed.
It was a smack in the face that in just two years, Hong Xiuquan’s territory extended from northern China to the southern coastal provinces, expanding at an unimaginable speed.
In 1856, the invasion of Zhili by the British and French forces made it more difficult for the Qing government to suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
Later, at the request of the Qing government, and in order to support the Qing government as a puppet, Britain assigned a military general named Gordon to command the Ever Victorious Army units formed in Shanghai to suppress the raging Taiping Army. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom began to gradually move towards its demise.
On June 30, 1864, the fall of Tianjing, Zeng Guofan led the Xiang army stationed outside the gates of the city, completely encircled, Hong Xiuquan fire, realizing that there is no way to return to the sky, he collapsed and took poison to commit suicide.
July 19, Zeng Guofan ordered in several Tianjing outside the city gate digging tunnels buried a large number of explosives will be blown away the city walls. With several explosions, the Qing army broke into the city of Tianjing, and the 14-year-long Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement finally drew to a close.
Sensational Western Europe, the Vatican Pope certified
However, it is worth mentioning that at that time, Hong Xiuquan set up the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of a great deal of noise, a lot of Western European capitalist countries in learning that China has a “second son of God” are very shocked. The Vatican Pope was furious and sent three groups of famous missionaries to China to debate with Hong Xiuquan.
In addition, at that time, the Church in Western Europe was facing various situations such as Protestantism, and the Vatican Pope also wanted to establish a “unity of church and state”. However, Hong Xiuquan was objectively ahead of his time in some of his thinking, and by relying on certain loopholes in the Bible, he was able to refute the three groups of missionaries. And he maintained an attitude of equality to all powers at that time.
So the Vatican Pope was faced with the situation at that time in the country, and there was no way to spare any more energy to take care of Hong Xiuquan. Moreover, Hong Xiuquan’s arguments were well reasoned, and the three groups of missionaries sent to debate with Hong Xiuquan were all hard pressed to refute Hong Xiuquan’s theory of thought.
In the end, the Vatican Pope had to recognize Hong Xiuquan’s identity as the “second son of God” and issued an official certificate.
