In 1856, infighting broke out in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Eastern King Yang Xiuqing and the Northern King Wei Changhui died in civil unrest, the Wing King Shi Dakai was forced to flee, and about 20,000 people were killed, known in history as the "Tianjing Incident", and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom also prospered and declined. However, what is less known is that from the founding of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to the outbreak of the Tianjing Incident, the Hui Party has always played an important role.
In 1843, Hong Xiuquan, who failed all four township examinations, was determined to abandon the study of Confucius and Mencius and promote the Christian doctrine he understood, and named it "Worship of God". The following year, Hong Xiuquan came to Guangxi, where he was not familiar with the land of his life, to preach, and as a result, there were no followers at all in this kind of unsophisticated cult of God. Just when Hong Xiuquan was frustrated, under the introduction of others, he visited Hong Daquan, the great leader of the famous local "Triad Society" (a branch of the Hongmen Heaven and Earth Society in the Qing Dynasty, with the purpose of opposing the Qing Dynasty and restoring the Ming Dynasty, and his power was mainly concentrated in eastern Guangdong, Fujian, Guizhou, Xiang and other places).
Hong Daquan has a high prestige within the triad. In addition, the triad also has a rather influential figure - Shi Dakai. Shi Dakai was born into a wealthy family in Guangxi, and his family was rich, and he himself was a scholar, and because he acted righteously, he was called "Lu Junyi" by the congregation. In guangxi, Hong Xiuquan, Yang Xiuqing, and others hoped to combine with the triad bigwigs Hong Daquan and Shi Dakai to seek common development precisely because god worshippers could not develop in a moderate society, and the lower society was controlled by the triads.
For the same anti-Qing purpose, and the same surname of the family, Hong Daquan agreed to ally with Hong Xiuquan and others, and became brothers with them. However, the triad believes in Guan Gong and worships idols, while Hong Xiuquan's worship of God believes in Jesus and opposes idols, so the two factions are simply incompatible. Despite this, Hong Xiuquan still relied on the influence and power of the triad to develop many believers, and the power of the worship of God was also growing. Many of the triad members were poor people in the lower classes, who had little education, and relatively speaking, the knowledge level of the worshippers was higher, so over time, the contradictions between the two factions deepened. It was only Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing who feared Hong Daquan, Shi Dakai, and others, so worshiping God did not dare to make a fuss about the Lord.
In 1851, Hong Xiuquan organized the Jintian Rebellion and proclaimed himself the Heavenly King, officially raising the banner of the "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom". And it was the congregations of the Triad and the Cult of God who secretly operated and presided over this uprising. After the uprising, Hong Daquan was crowned king of Tiande, above the four kings of the east, west, south and north.
Since then, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has been divided into two factions: the Guangdong sect worships God, and the Guangxi sect is a triad; the worship of God is led by Yang Xiuqing, the eastern king, and the triad is led by Hong Daquan, the king of Tiande. Both Hong Daquan and Yang Xiuqing were resourceful and well-expected people, but Hong Daquan's reputation was higher than Yang Xiuqing's, and Yang Xiuqing was very jealous of this, but he was afraid of the triad forces, so he had to find an opportunity to indirectly eliminate Hong Daquan. In 1852, when the Taiping Army besieged Changsha, Hunan, Yang Xiuqing designed to put Hong Daquan in danger, and finally Hong Daquan was executed by Qing soldier Ling Chi.
After the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom established nanjing as the capital, Yang Xiuqing monopolized power, often dominating the triad congregation in the name of doctrine, and even beating Wei Changhui, the king of the North, because of small matters, almost unable to rise. Wei Changhui, Shi Dakai, and others were all members of the HongmenHui Party and had long held grudges against the Eastern King. In June 1856, after the Taiping Army attacked the Qing army's Jiangnan camp, Yang Xiuqing saw that the situation in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was very good, so he pretended to be "Heavenly Father and Descended Fan" and forced Hong Xiuquan to name him "Long Live". Wei Changhui took the opportunity to raid the Eastern King's Mansion under the pretext that Yang Xiuqing "had a heart of disobedience and called himself Long Live", killing Yang Xiuqing and his family, along with all the subordinates of the Eastern King. Soon, Hong Xiuquan executed Wei Changhui in the name of indiscriminate killing. Governor Shi Dakai had nothing to do, so he planned another career and led the soldiers of the triad to flee.
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom thus declined, and only eight years later, the Xiang army captured Tianjing (present-day Nanjing, Jiangsu), and the vigorous Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement finally declared a complete failure.