Where there is oppression, there is resistance! In the last years of the Qing Dynasty, the Qing government was cowardly and incompetent, signing a series of humiliating and unequal treaties, and China was reduced to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. The Qing Dynasty was cowardly externally, charging taxes to the people internally, constantly exploiting the people, and the people were not happy. In 1851, Hong Xiuquan and others launched an uprising, rebelled against the Qing army, established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and called themselves the Heavenly King, known in history as the "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement".
Hong Xiuquan was familiar with the Four Books and Five Classics and some other ancient books, and failed to obtain meritorious names four times. After being hit by a serious illness, the old man vaguely told him that he was sent by heaven to exorcise demons from the human world, after which Hong Xiuquan's temperament changed greatly and his behavior was strange. When I went to Guangzhou to take the exam, I was given a leaflet by Christians, who advocated equality for all. After Reading it, Hong Xiuquan decided to embrace Christianity. He also founded his own sect in Guangzhou to promote Christianity.
The conflict between the sect founded by Hong Xiuquan and the local government deepened, and in 1850, he decided to oppose the Qing and prepare for the work. After the Jintian Uprising, he enacted severe penalties to ban opium and did not recognize the unequal treaties signed by the Qing Dynasty. In 1856, when the situation of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was very good, the "Tianjing Incident" occurred, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom began to decline.
In 1863, the Xiang army, led by Zeng Guofan, besieged Tianjing, and the outside of Nanjing had already been captured. Seriously ill, Hong Xiuquan rejected Li Zicheng's suggestion to abandon the city and flee, and stuck to Tianjing. In 1864, Hong Xiuquan died, and his eldest son Hong Tianguifu succeeded to the throne. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom lost an important leader, and soon, the 14-year Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement ended in failure.
After Hong Xiuquan's death, Zeng Guofan reported to the Qing government that he had committed suicide by taking poison. After Li Xiucheng was arrested, the "Li Xiucheng Self-Description" written also said that Hong Xiucheng was poisoned to death. Why a generation of leaders took poison is very doubtful.
There are two main theories about the cause of Hong Xiuquan's death, one is that he died of poisoning, and there is a lot of evidence to prove this claim. In addition to Zeng Guofan and Li Xiucheng's claims, Hong Ren, another leader in the late Taiping Rebellion, after his arrest, wrote the same confession about the death of the Heavenly King as Li Xiucheng.com. Both were close associates of Hong Xiuquan, and their words were so credible that before the 1960s, it was believed that Hong Xiuquan had taken poison and hanged himself.
Some experts and scholars were skeptical of this claim, and in the 1860s, the original "Li Xiucheng's Self-Description" found in Zeng Guofan's home confirmed their suspicions. In this book, it is said that the Heavenly King Hong Xiuquan died of illness, and when the Heavenly King fell ill, he refused to take medicine, and his illness was good and bad, and finally he died. This shows that Zeng Guofan was lying before! After the young King was captured, he also said that the King of Heaven was in good health and liked to eat raw and cold food, and after arriving in Nanjing, he often fried centipedes in oil, and began to fall ill in the first ten days and died on the nineteenth.
Hong Xiuquan died of poisoning? Or did he die of illness? These two claims remain to be examined!