If there is one of the largest and most significant peasant armed uprisings in Chinese history, but which has not succeeded, I think most people will say that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement was led by Hong Xiuquan.
Indeed, as the first peasant uprising to stand up against the feudal system and the feudal dynasty, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement was very positive in the first few years of the uprising.
Hong Xiuquan has won the support of the people by emphasizing the equality of all people, the equality of men and women, and the idea of justice in the world. Since his slogans were so loud and so popular with the common people, how could this eventually fail in the uprising?
Many people say that it is because he found too many concubines when he was in the capital Nanjing, and all day long he only knew that lying in the gentle countryside let himself be decadent. It is said that women are red faces and bad water, and in Hong Xiuquan's kingdom, it is true that women have caused a certain negative impact.
But to say that it was because of women that their Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement failed would be too much to exalt the influence of women.
The real root cause of the failure of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement was because Hong Xiuquan was a talent who had fallen off the list, and what he had always longed for in his heart was feudal centralization. And self-righteous halfway picked up an imported product, learned something superficial, and used Christianity as a faith.
During the Jintian Uprising in Guangxi, Hong Xiuquan claimed that he was a messenger sent by God to save the common people from the depths of the waters, to lead the suffering people under the rule of the Qing Dynasty to create a new world.
And in this world, there is no exploitation, no oppression, no hierarchy, men are brothers, women are sisters, and everything is shared by everyone.
Just imagine, such a beautiful picture, for the ordinary people who had already been squeezed by the Qing government at that time, only the bones were left, absolutely everyone was looking for it.
Where did Hong Xiuquan's theories come from? What is the religion of God that he believes in and preaches? What are the implications for his future management of the uprising? But after learning a little fur, it is just a golden classic.
Hong Xiuquan is a cultural person, this should not be denied, since he was a child, he was brilliant, he was once regarded as the hope of the whole village, he has been working hard to apply for the exam, and he wants to one day make a name for himself in the court.
Unfortunately, for thirty years, four consecutive scientific expeditions, Hong Xiu all fell off the list. Believing that his talents had nowhere to go, he came into contact with Christianity, and was so disappointed in the Four Books and Five Classics he had learned, the way of Confucius and Mencius, that he converted to Jesus.
After believing in Jesus, Hong Xiuquan actually did not have a deep understanding of christian doctrine, and even only saw too one-sided content, and felt that the idea that the doctrine advocated equality for all people and that everyone should help each other and love was too satisfying to him.
So Hong Xiucai held this half-understood belief and began to play his own small calculation. The way of Confucius and Mencius has been passed down for thousands of years, and he has studied so hard that in the end, he still can't even pass the show talent?
People should be equal, so why should toilers like themselves be oppressed? Why did I exhaust half my life, take the exam four times, and still get nothing?
Or this Christian is good, everything is everyone's, who is equal with anyone, and sure enough, foreigners' things are a good thing.
I don't know if you see it here or not, Hong Xiuquan is actually a complete fan of feudal ideas in his bones. If he didn't want to get a little power under the feudal system, he wouldn't have fallen out of the list four times, and he still participated in four scientific expeditions.
It was precisely because the imperial court he had in mind failed to give him what he wanted, and when he couldn't ask for it, Hong Xiuquan retreated to the second place, destroyed it and replaced it when he didn't get it, and sought what he wanted in another way.
From beginning to end, Hong Xiuquan's original intention was not to want everyone to be equal, but to desire power.
This is his obsession as a student who has fallen off the list several times.
Why is it said that the failure of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement he led was due to problems with his faith?
This is actually very easy to understand, Hong Xiuquan was not a person who was good at management, and the initial purpose of the armed uprising was only because he wanted to get a certain amount of power.
His religion of God, on the other hand, began by preaching the equality of all men, rather than creating another class society to oppress the common people. Later, he became a tool to facilitate the exercise of power, he claimed to be God's younger brother, and Yang Xiuqing claimed to be the son of the Heavenly Father, two people who did not understand the true Christian doctrine at all, in order to facilitate the struggle for power and profit, in the name of God, they fought fiercely.
It should be known that Hong Xiuquan, who called himself the most devout believer, could not even meet the most basic baptismal requirements and was refused to baptize him by the church. Where did such a person who understands a little bit of fur do the so-called brother of the Heavenly Father?
After the initial success of the uprising, Hong Xiuquan had already obtained the position and power he wanted, so he immediately retreated to the second line, no longer willing to charge the front, but began to think about how to arrange and deal with the resources in his hands.
The capital of the country is set first, the imperial city is built first, the official positions are divided first, the power is distributed first, the beautiful women are selected first, and the days of pleasure begin.
As for how to fight the battle in the future and how to arrange the future of the kingdom of heaven, don't ask Hong Xiuquan, because Hong Xiuquan has been lost under the Heavenly Father, in the great satisfaction of ten thousand people, he does not know how to better use the current situation to settle down and establish a country, and he has no energy to think.
His contentment with the status quo and his partiality to pleasure has been slowly revealed, laying the groundwork for the failure of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
But is this right that Hong Xiuquan wants to monopolize alone? Yang Xiuqing followed him to fight the world, the bitterness was eaten together, and of course The blessing must be enjoyed together!
There were several other generals who led the army to fight, and one by one they wanted to be crowned kings and generals. After such a toss, Hong Xiuquan found that his position was too unstable and too dangerous.
He didn't have the talent to rule the world, he panicked, he didn't know how to deal with such a situation, couldn't manage this, couldn't hold that, so he simply settled in the status quo, took advantage of this great opportunity, and quickly enjoyed it.
At this time, under the seduction of Hong Tianjiao, several heavenly kings began to fight for power, Hong Xiuquan was addicted to thousands of beautiful voices and horses, the Qing Dynasty's complete counterattack began, the people of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom also appeared rebellious psychology, and all unfavorable conditions followed.
The failure of the uprising began.
After Hong Xiuquan's death, the internal contradictions of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom were fully stimulated, and the fights, runs, and deaths of several heavenly kings had long become a mess of sand. Even if it wasn't Zeng Guofan's Xiang Army, a few teams of people and horses could also clean them up.
This is the new kingdom established by Hong Xiuquan, in fact, peeling off the skin of hypocrisy, what remains is just a pursuit of power. Where there are so many for the country and the people, in the end, it is Hong Xiuquan himself.