Hong Xiuquan was a failed scholar who came to the conclusion that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ. He had a series of dreams where he was fighting “demon devils” in heaven. He decided that the ‘devil’ he had to exterminate on Earth was the Qing dynasty. He wanted to drastically reform all of China. His goal was to institute a doctrine of land socialization. He was also wanted many social reforms like equality for women and prohibition of opium. Newly baptized, he also wanted to replace the all existing religions with his version of Christianity. Hong Xiuquan was a very talented man and his powerful ideas were able to enthrall millions of people to the point they were willing to die for him.

People joined him because he prmosied them eternal life after death

After reading a pamphlet he got several years before Hong made some major changes to his life. He quit his job as a school instructor and burned or destroyed all of the Confucian and Buddhist books or ‘idols’ he had in his house. He began to preach to his local village and converted two of his cousins: Feng Yunshan and Hong Rengan. Feng Yushan started his own religious group called ‘the God Worshippers’. A group of mostly impoverished peasants that wanted the farmland in China split up evenly and distributed. They also called for equality for women, even though the rebel army was still divided along gender lines. They also called for the abolishment of prostitution, foot-binding, opium, tobacco and alcohol. This all came as a result of his new ideology. His most radical idea was his particular version of Christianity.

Hong and his relative baptized each other after they read a pamphlet about with translations and summaries of the Bible. Hong read the literature the missionaries handed out and looked for more information. He learned more about Christianity with the help of a missionary named Issachar Roberts; who was going to ‘officially’ baptize him. However, Hong’s beliefs about Christianity caused Roberts to call it off. He believed that he was also tasked with bringing Christianity to China. He wanted to replace Confucianism and Buddhism with Christianity; he even broke into a temple to destroy sacred Confucian tablets. He heeds Jesus’ warning about false prophets “Beware false prophets which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves” (59). His beliefs about Christianity caused other people to call him a hectic and give him the label of false idol. At its height the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom numbers reached well into the millions and this is because of many compounding factors. Hong Xiuquan lived in a time where famine, flooding and other disasters were common. The people of China suffered and they could do little to help themselves. The Qing Dynasty was more concerned with battling western forces for land and economic control.