There were countless peasant uprisings in ancient China, and most of the reasons why peasants revolted were because they were exploited and oppressed, and they were about to freeze to death and starve to death, and they were forced to do so, such as Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, who shouted "Prince General Xiang, Ning Has a Kind", and Zhu Yuanzhang, whose family members mostly starved to death. But the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was different, among the six kings who led the uprising, only Yang Xiuqing and Xiao Chaogui were truly poor, while Shi Dakai and Wei Changhui were still rich.
The uprising is a very dangerous activity, and if you don't know if you are killed, you will also involve your family and clan. These people are not too poor to survive, so why do they gather together to revolt?
First, let's look at the identity and family lineage of the six kings of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
Hong Xiuquan and Feng Yunshan are the first children in Guangzhou, who have not even been admitted to Xiucai in their lives, and can only teach in the countryside for a career, and can be regarded as a rural teacher. Although it is impossible to be rich and wealthy, it is not to starve to death, and being born in the richer Guangdong region lacks the reason for the uprising.
And Shi Dakai and Wei Changhui's families are not poor. It is said that Shi Dakai's family had some land property that his father earned.
Wei Changhui's family is a large local household, a rich party, with a large area of land and property, and does not worry about livelihood at all. According to today's division, his family should belong to the big landlords, the exploiting class. Moreover, Wei Changhui is also a prisoner, similar to Xiucai.
The richest of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom leaders was Hu Yihuang, the King of Yu. It is said that his family is a huge wealth in Guangxi, and has land in Pingnan, Tengxian and other regions, and Hu Yihuang himself is still a martial artist.
Compared with the landlords and rich peasants Wei Changhui and Shi Dakai, Yang Xiuqing and Xiao Chaogui are real proletariats, they are all poor people in the mountains of Guangxi, born in poverty, planting mountains and burning charcoal as a profession, and have demands for changing their situation.
Although these people all participated in the Jintian Uprising, they were from different origins and their purposes were also different. It can be analyzed through Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
The American sociologist Maslow divides human needs into five levels: physiology, safety, socialization, respect, and self-actualization.
For Yang Xiuqing and Xiao Chaogui, when the charcoal burners had a hard life and had no food and clothing, they were eager to improve their quality of life, so they participated in the uprising only to eat enough to meet their physiological needs.
Hong Xiuquan and Feng Yunshan, as rural teachers, are not as short of clothes and food as Yang Xiuqing and Xiao Chaogui. However, they also have their own troubles, that is, they can't even pass the xiucai exam in their lifetime, can't become an official, can't get ahead, and realize the pursuit of life. They had only one purpose in the uprising, that is, to overthrow the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty, replace him, and become a figure under one person and above ten thousand people.
Shi Dakai, who is said to be an all-rounder in literature and martial arts, has a wide range of contacts, and has contacts with figures in the Heaven and Earth Society and the Worship of God Sect, and when Hong Xiuquan and Feng Yunshan invited him to join, he agreed with great enthusiasm. Therefore, it can be said that Shi Dakai participated in the uprising to meet the two needs of social and self-realization.
Wei Changhui and Hu Yihuang are both talented and readers, and in the future they can also pass the examination and become officials, so why did they also participate in the uprising?
Judging from the existing historical data, although Wei Changhui and Hu Yihuang's families are relatively rich, because they are outsiders and upstarts, they are looked down upon and bullied by the big landlords in their hometowns. Wei Changhui's parents, Wei Yuanjie, were framed for helping their son donate to prison and went to jail for this. At the instigation of Feng Yunshan, who was preaching everywhere, Wei Changhui joined the Cult of Worshiping God.
And Hu Yihuang's experience is also similar to Wei Changhui's, and his family has a vendetta against another rich family, zhuo family. Once, Hu Yihuang passed by the Zhuo family, passed in front of the Zhuo family's door, was pulled off his horse, beaten severely, and shaved half of his hair. Suffering from such insults, coupled with the foolishness of Xiao Chaogui and others, Hu Yihuang sold all his family property, participated in the uprising, and embarked on the road of rebellion from then on.
It can be said that the reason why Wei Changhui and Hu Yihuang revolted was because they were respected and their security needs were not met.
The addition of Wei Changhui and Hu Yihuang brought great wealth to the cult of God and laid the material foundation for the subsequent uprising. These two families also became the base of the Jintian Uprising. It is said that before the uprising, the weapons of the people were built in Wei Changhui's house.
Although the families of the leaders of these peasant uprisings were not poor, their group of charcoal burners, miners, and the Heaven and Earth Congregation recruited along the way were mostly poor people, to the point of hunger and cold. Therefore, they were able to join the rebel army without hesitation, and finally captured Jinling and established the Kingdom of Heaven.
Since the purpose of each people's uprising is different, when the great things are not accomplished, they can also share hardships and struggle together. When they finally laid half of the country, they were pregnant with ghosts, and in order to fight for power and profit, they went to the road of mutual hatred and killing, which also directly caused the demise of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.