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Hong Xiuquan, born "Hong Huoxiu", was the third and youngest son of a Hakka family living in the village of Fuyuan Springs (also referred to as Fuyuanshui village [6]), Hua county (now part of Huadu District) in Guangzhou. His father was Hong Jingyang, a farmer and elected headman and his mother was surnamed Wang.
The God Worshipping Society (simplified Chinese: 拜上帝会; traditional Chinese: 拜上帝會; pinyin: Bài Shàngdì Huì) [a] was a religious movement founded and led by Hong Xiuquan which drew on his own unique interpretation of Protestant Christianity [1] [2] and combined it with Chinese folk religion, based on the faith in Shangdi ("Highest/Primordial God"), and other religious ...
On 11 January 1851 (the 11th day of the first lunar month), incidentally Hong Xiuquan's birthday, Hong declared himself "Heavenly King" of a new dynasty, the "Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace". [13] After minor clashes, the violence escalated into the uprising in February 1851, in which a 10,000-strong rebel army routed and defeated a smaller ...
Hong Daquan's confession claimed that Hong Xiuquan had made him co-sovereign of the Heavenly Kingdom and given him that title, but was more likely an echo of an earlier but unconnected White Lotus Rebellion. However, the capture of Nanjing in that year led to a deterioration of relations between the Taiping rebels and the triads.
Hong Xiuquan, the rebel leader, claimed to be a Christian and brother of Jesus who received a special mission from God to fight evil and usher in a period of peace. Hong and his followers achieved considerable success in taking control of a large territory, and destroyed many Buddhist and Taoist shrines, temples to local divinities and opposed ...
When Hong Xiuquan called for his cousin Hong Rengan to come to Nanjing to help him rule, the Taiping administration was entrenched in a bitter power dispute. The powerbase of the movement had largely become split between the devout Taiping religious followers in Nanjing and the generals commanding the armies outside the city.
However, Hong Xiuquan and Feng Yunshan were saved by reinforcements sent by Yang Xiuqing, and they returned to Jintian. On the 1st day of the 1st lunar month of 1851, an imperial force commanded by Zhou Fengqi (周鳳歧) and his deputies Li Dianyuan and Iktambu (伊克坦布) launched an offensive on Jintian.
Hong Xiuquan gathered his support in a time of considerable turmoil. The country had suffered a series of natural disasters, economic problems and defeats at the hands of the Western powers, problems that the ruling Qing dynasty did little to lessen. Anti-Qing sentiment was strongest in the south, and it was these disaffected that joined Hong.