The Great Dao Society may have been born in the early years of Guangxu and originated in the southern part of the mountain, including Heze, Zaozhuang, Liaocheng and other places. It is said that the Big Knife Club is a tributary of the White Lotus Sect, and its real name is "Golden Bell Cover", looking at this name, you will know that they are indeed from the White Lotus Sect, and they have more experience in pretending to be gods and ghosts.
Why is the big knife club called the big knife club, because they are holding the big knife? I think a lot of people have the same doubts as the group leader.
According to some newspapers in the late 19th century and the late Qing Dynasty, the big knife clubs all held red guns. They obviously use red tassels, how can they call the big knife club! This at least shows that the origin of the name of the Great Knife Society has nothing to do with the weapons they use.
There is a saying that goes like this. At that time, civil society such as the White Lotus Sect worshipped Guan Gong. Out of the mix, everyone must always have a basic consensus, morality is the consensus that everyone can reach. Guan Gong is a model of morality, and worshipping Guan Gong is everyone's spiritual connection. It was also known that Guan Gong used the Green Dragon Crescent Moon Knife to take a large knife, so it became the name of the Great Knife Society.
There are also objections to this claim. There is no evidence that the early great knives had the belief in worshipping Guan Gong, and worshipping Guan Gong was already a relatively late time. People in the early days called the big knife society, worship Guan Gong is relatively late, how can you say that the big knife will be named because of the belief in Guan Gong? It is unscientific to use "effect" to reverse "cause", there are countless "causes" that may lead to this "effect", it must be known that the things in human society are not as logical and rigorous as mathematics.
There is also a claim that the group leader thinks is more credible. According to the "Chronicle of the Fist and Bandits of the Plains" in the late Qing Dynasty, the factory front horizontal large knife one, the big knife club by the name also. The author of this book was Jiang Kai of Zhixian in Shandong Plain County in the late Qing Dynasty, and his claim should be credible.
So why is there a big knife in the clubhouse of the Big Knife Club? The big knife club mentioned at the beginning of this article is really called the "Golden Bell Cover", and they inherit the White Lotus Sect's pretense of being a ghost, and often perform divine possession to the congregation. After drinking the boiled water, the performers "possessed by the divine power" and possessed the "Golden Bell Hood". Then lie on your back and show your belly, and then use the large knife to cut at the belly to show that the knife is not penetrating. It was actually street juggling, but at that time it was really possible to fool some people.
People's shock brought about by this set of performances, in addition to the breath of the "Golden Bell Cover", but also deeply remember the big knife that is clearly dangling. So it is not surprising that they are called the Great Knife Club.
Interestingly, the Great Knife Society had a great influence in the late Qing Dynasty, but it is still uncertain who its founder was. It can be seen from this that the Big Knife Club is still quite mysterious, which is also inheriting the tradition of the White Lotus Sect to engage in mystery.
According to the official qing dynasty, the founder of the Great Knife Society was Liu Shirui, mainly based on the notes given to the imperial court by Li Bingheng, the governor of Shandong, saying that "the bandit leader Liu Shirui advocated evil arts and formed a large number of people."
In fact, this is Li Bingheng's mistake, Liu Shirui is just a cover for the big knife to push to the front desk, and the real person behind it is not him. According to newspapers and folklore at the time, the founder and leader of the Great Dao Society was Zhao Jinhuan (perhaps he also had another pseudonym, Zhao Tianji), who was Liu Shirui's martial arts master.
Zhao Jinhuan was a native of present-day Hejian City, Hebei Province, who in his early years was a White Lotus Sect who fled to Cao County, Heze, Shandong Province, after failing to participate in the anti-Qing uprising. Liu Shirui, the landlord of Cao County, took him in. Zhao Jinhuan knew some fist and foot kung fu, and he also knew the divine skill "Golden Bell Hood" (which should be ordinary hard qigong), and Liu Shirui worshiped him as a teacher. Slowly, Zhao Jinhuan's "Golden Bell Hood" divine skill spread in Cao County, and many people came to worship the master.
Zhao Jinhuan did not treat the White Lotus Sect in vain, and he was very good at the White Lotus Sect's set of using various miscellaneous and mixed religions as a cover to develop organizations. The Big Knife Society developed in this way.
The "great achievements" of the Great Dao Society in history were mainly to destroy foreign religions, but now it is generally considered to be anti-imperialist and anti-Qing feudal rule. Their so-called anti-imperialism is the killing of foreign clergy and parishioners, if this is anti-imperialism... Some people have said that foreign priests are one of the tools of imperialism to plunder China, and the catholics are its accomplices, so killing foreign priests and catholics is anti-imperialism. Since it is this kind of logic, it is not refuted, for fear of being put on a big hat such as "washing the floor".
As for the fact that the big knife will oppose the feudal rule of the Qing Dynasty, it is even more ridiculous. Because the big knife could kill foreign priests and parishioners, and "gathered many people", it was not conducive to the rule of the imperial court, so it was defined by the Qing Dynasty government as a bandit (see li Bingheng, the inspector of Shandong, above). The government sent troops to suppress it, and then the big knife would be forced to resist and suppress it - can this be said to be anti-Qing feudal rule? At best, it can only be defined as the suppression of the anti-Qing dynasty government.
Why did the Great Knife Society kill foreign priests and Chinese catholics? It's also just a coincidence (history is often made up of many fortuitous events).
In 1896, several parishioners in Zhongshan County, Anhui Province, secretly cut the wheat of the family of Pang Sanjie, a wealthy local household. At that time, the small peasant economy in Chinese society, grain was the lifeblood of the people, and the theft of wheat occurred from time to time in the countryside, especially in the case of famine years. The landlords often had to hire people to guard the crops day and night, otherwise the wheat would be stolen when they woke up.
Pang Sanjie was not easy to mess with, he was the leader of the local Great Knife Society Branch. The parishioners are not fuel-saving lamps, they are organized, based on the local church, and the parishioners are brothers and sisters who help each other.
Over the theft of wheat, the two sides clashed and fought. Pang Sanjie's side was estimated to have lost the battle, and he quickly asked for help from the headquarters of the Cao County Great Knife Society. Zhao Jinhuan, the grand leader, quickly summoned more than 1,000 people from Cao County and Shan County to support. Not far from Shan County, the Great Knife Society soon came and destroyed the church, killing many parishioners, including those who had stolen wheat in the first place.
In order to gain support and become famous, they played the slogan of exterminating foreign religions. In the border area of Shandong, Anhui, Henan and Jiangsu provinces, a number of Dadaohui branches actively responded to the activities of exterminating foreign religions. In Shandong Shan County alone, 17 churches were destroyed, 168 parishioners were robbed, and many parishioners' houses were burned. In the territory of Cao County, not only did they attack many churches and rob the property of the parishioners, but they also showed a trend of loss of control, and looted the shops, restaurants, grain, and horses of the common people.
After the incident, Qing Dynasty Prime Minister Yamen ordered Liu Kunyi, the governor of Liangjiang, to coordinate with Li Bingheng, the governor of Shandong, and send troops to quickly eliminate the bandits.
Under the vigorous suppression of the government, the big knife will soon pay a heavy price. Several of Zhao Jinhuan's sons were killed by Qing forces during the counter-suppression. Zhao Jinhuan's proud disciple Liu Shirui was also tricked and killed by the government. The backbone members of the Great Knife Society were basically wiped out. Only Zhao Jinhuan managed to escape and disappeared.
Later, the remnants of the Great Dao Society were rumored to have run back to their hometown in Hebei. Some disciples organized themselves to go to Hebei to find the master and ask the master to take them to Beijing to kill the foreign devils. Apparently, they attributed the hatred of the imperial court to suppress the Great Knife Society to the foreigners, believing that the foreigners forced the imperial court to eliminate them in order to protect the foreign priests and parishioners. It can also be seen from here that the Great DaoHui did not want to be an enemy of the Qing government from the beginning to the end.
A group of people said that they were going to Hebei to find a master, but they did not want to go to a heavy rain before leaving, which caused the trip to be postponed. With this suspension, everyone's surging enthusiasm was released, and once the people's hearts were scattered, it was not easy to bring them, and it was impossible to go to Hebei to find a master.
However, the activities of the Great Knife Society did not stop completely, and the remnants of the congregation moved to the northern part of Shandong and Hebei. Later, the Boxer Rebellion flourished, and the Big Knife Association became one of the important forces, but they mostly used the name of the Boxer Rebellion, and the name of the Big Knife Society almost disappeared. It is said that one of the leaders of the Boxer Rebellion, The Scarlet Lantern, had some of them under him, who was the congregation of the Great Knife Society in Cao County.