In the late Qing Dynasty, due to the double exploitation of feudal rulers and foreign invaders, the internal contradictions of the dynasty were unprecedentedly serious. When the vast number of peasants had no way out, some people ascended to the top and called out, leading everyone to rebel and survive. At this time, a poor scholar who had repeatedly lost battles in the imperial examination took on the heavy responsibility of leadership, and under his leadership, the Jintian Uprising broke out, and the largest peasant war in Chinese history, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, was officially launched. However, this vigorous struggle failed only fourteen years later, and the reason for the failure was largely due to the change in the mentality of the ruling class headed by Hong Xiuquan.
Let's take a look at the change process of Hong Xiuquan: Hong Xiuquan was born in a family of cultivators and readers, and the father and elder in the village attached great importance to his learning ability, so Hong Xiuquan got rid of the fate of cultivating land and herding cattle, and from an early age, he went to a private school to study, familiar with ancient books such as the Four Books and Five Classics. However, Hong Xiuquan did not even break through the most basic child test of the imperial examination, and after three failures, Hong Xiuquan had reached the age of 25. Hong Xiuquan, who was so hit, suffered from heart disease and recuperated at home for many years, and was once in a coma. During his stay at home, Hong Xiuquan studied the doctrine of Christianity and germinated the concept of believing in God and pursuing the equality of all people, which laid the foundation for his later thinking.
After a little study of Christianity, Hong Xiuquan began to go to the Liangguang area to carry out missionary work and accumulate his own religious strength. In Guiping, Guangxi, the "Worship God Society" he founded absorbed 2,000 members, including Yang Xiuqing, Xiao Chaogui, and Wei Changhui. Such a large-scale sect made the local government very jealous of Hong Xiuquan. Therefore, Hong Xiuquan and others decided to oppose the Qing in 1850 (the 30th year of Daoguang), and on January 11, 1851 (the tenth day of the first month of December in the first year of Xianfeng), Hong Xiuquan launched the Jintian Uprising, founded the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and proclaimed himself the Heavenly King. A down-and-out showman turned into a ruler of half of the country is really something that dare not be imagined.
However, Hong Xiuquan, who had ascended to the center of power, forgot ben, and many of his practices resembled that of a feudal landlord, such as the one we will talk about next: after the capture of Tianjing, Hong Xiuquan decided to build himself a luxurious Heavenly King's Palace. Since the mansion is huge, it naturally needs people to enrich it, so Hong Xiuquan looks for beautiful women in the folk and specially includes them in his harem. The three palaces, six courts, and seventy-two concubines, this is the treatment that the emperor only has, and Hong Xiuquan's behavior has long deviated from his ideological concept of equality for all. What's more, he has a lot of insights on the standard requirements for women.
At the peak of the selection of women into the Heavenly King's Palace, there were as many as 10,000 people, and they were either concubines, or female officials and servants. But they all have three places in common, which are also the three necessary conditions for entering the Heavenly King's Palace. First, women must be pure virgins; secondly, they must be born well, they must be beautiful and official eunuchs. Finally, it is necessary to pass Hong Xiuquan's interview, so that Hong Xiuquan can see well before he can be allowed to enter the Heavenly King's Palace. It can be said that these three conditions are not difficult to complete under the power of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, not to mention that most people are still under the influence of feudal ideas. If Hong Xiuquan is regarded as an emperor, too many people want their daughter to enter the nameless palace of the Heavenly King's Palace.