There was once a man who failed four civil service examinations and lived a life of mere subsistence. When he immediately entered the "35-year-old crisis", he decided to start a business and started from scratch, and the result was successfully "listed" and achieved a counterattack in life.
This person is Hong Xiuquan.
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is known as the highest peak of the Peasant Revolt in China. It took only 8 years for Hong Xiuquan to go from being a xiucai who fell behind four times to establishing the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom with a population of 30 million in 6 provinces.
Unlike many entrepreneurial emperors, Hong Xiuquan was neither a local armed force like Li Yuan, nor did he have any capital as capital, nor did he have the fame that Cao Cao had won by assassinating Dong. No money, no one, no fame, started from scratch. The speed of this entrepreneurial development is rocket-level, and Zhu Yuanzhang, who also started from scratch, has spent 15 years.
The British envoy said that Hong Xiuquan was "strong and handsome." ”
This kind of life counterattack, how did he do it?
First, it all starts with a good story
Hong Xiuquan's real name is Hong Huoxiu, and he is a native of Fuyuan Water Village, Hua County, Guangdong Province. The family is an authentic farmer who farms for a living. Hong Xiuquan is a reader in the family, and the whole family expects him to shine in high school, but he can't afford to study full-time, and Hong Xiuquan also opened a small private school to earn some money to subsidize the family.
In 1836, Hong Xiuquan failed to pass the examination and fell off the list; the next year, he took the exam again and fell off the list. Falling off the list for two consecutive years, it hit Hong Xiuquan very hard, fell ill in bed, felt that he was going to die, and also found his family and relatives to say goodbye one by one. It was during this time that he had a bizarre dream. He dreamed that someone had taken him to heaven and met the Heavenly Father in the dragon robe, who said that Hong Xiuquan was his son and asked him to fulfill his mission. So Hong Xiuquan fought the King of Yan Luo, and then married and had children, and lived in heaven for several years--a bit of Huang Liang's dream. The Father told him that you still have to go back to the human world to slay demons and exorcise demons to save mankind.
He woke up. When he woke up from his dreams, he behaved strangely, sometimes fighting with the air with his hands and feet, sometimes calling himself emperor, and often singing the poems he had written in heaven. The people in the village thought he was crazy.
After some time, he gradually returned to normal. Continue to prepare for the exam. This exam is another 6 years. In 1843, Hong Xiuquan fell off the list for the fourth time. Disheartened, he began to look for another way out. So he recalled that bizarre dream, remembering the Christian missionary booklet he had accidentally received when he first went to Guangzhou for the exam, called "Persuasion to the World". At this time, Hong Xiuquan felt that he had found the key to changing his destiny.
This dream is a moving story. It provides insight into the general moods and needs of some people: the anger of the Qing court who lost the Opium War, the desire to get rid of the difficult and turbulent life, the confusion of nowhere; the story is rich in detail and has demagogy; and most importantly, it gives people a beautiful dream of heaven and draws a big pie.
Good stories are often the first step in starting a business, such as liu Xuande's "I am after the Jing King of Zhongshan", such as "Da Chu Xing, Chen Sheng Wang", even if the modern entrepreneurial story of starting with PPT is still playing out. This dream became the only and largest capital for Hong Xiuquan to start a business, so he embarked on the road of mission.
Second, a meal of operation is as fierce as a tiger, from forming a single shadow to forming a Taiping Army
Hong Xiuquan began to preach. At that time, there was no mass media, all by mouth and legs. At first, it was still in his own village, attracting li Jingfang, Feng Yunshan and other three or five relatives and friends to join. After that, they tried to get out of the village and set their sights on Guiping County, Guangxi.
Guangxi became the most important step for them to go out, and I have to say that the choice of vision is very accurate - at that time, Guangxi was very poor, and the poor people had the strongest desire to change; the geography was remote, the control of the Qing court was relatively weak, and the resistance was relatively small; Guiping County also had relatives and was easy to do.
In Guangxi, Hong Xiuquan soon gained the first followers. However, the pace of mission was too slow, and Hong Xiuquan began to write books—books and words were almost the only "mass medium" at that time. The famous "Salvation Training of the Original Path" was born from this.
Hong Xiuquan's content marketing has been very effective
In 1845, the Society of Worship of God was founded. As their pamphlets spread, more and more believers grew. In order to further improve the impact, Hong Xiuquan also planned an "event marketing":
The locals were superstitious about King Gan and built a temple for Him. But this GanWang is an evil god, and legend has it that he is a monster who kills his mother. Hong Xiuquan took it as a target, and led a group of people to smash the "Ganwang Temple". Although this incident caused some locals to be dissatisfied, it still made them famous.
This was followed by a series of "apocalypse" events. A charcoal burner named Yang Xiuqing suddenly got favor and became the spokesman of the Heavenly Father; a peasant named Xiao Chaogui became the spokesman of the Heavenly Brother Jesus, and from time to time the heavenly gods possessed and conveyed the will.
The image of Yang Xiuqing in the villain book is also quite peculiar, just look at it
In addition to these two super big V, Hong Xiuquan also hatched a group of "seed users": according to some records at the time, there were often believers who would suddenly sweat like gods, and then see the image of the Heavenly Father and the Kingdom of Heaven that Hong Xiuquan had seen in his dreams.
Whether it was instructed or not is no longer known, but this hint spread rapidly among the people, and the influence of god worship and Hong Xiuquan became more and more influential, and the core backbone of a number of entrepreneurial teams such as Shi Dakai and Wei Changhui joined during this period.
As the ranks grew larger, Hong's claims became more and more distinct, directly positioning the Qing court as a demon, which not only resonated with the poor people, but even many local landlords and gentry who were not very popular also brought huge sums of money into the group.
In 1850, Feng Yunshan formed the Taiping Army. At this point, Hong Xiuquan saved the first bucket of gold for entrepreneurship.
Third, unprecedented ideological penetration, strengthen influence
The Taiping Army occupied Yong'an in 1851, and after the establishment of Yong'an, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was initially formed. Then destroy Jeonju, fight Changsha, fight Wuchang... All the way down the river, until 1853, when the capital was Set in Nanjing, Hong Xiuquan had already controlled six provinces in China and had a population of 30 million.
Along the way, Hong Xiuquan's team not only demonstrated excellent military ability, but also demonstrated the ability to penetrate ideas beyond all previous peasant uprisings.
The first is the calendar and the writing. This is the most basic tool used by ordinary people to guide their daily lives. The traditional Qing court calendar was abolished from the calendar, the Taiping Calendar was introduced, a seven-day prayer was added, and the traditional calendar was abolished. At the same time, the text and various names have also been modified, such as adding various kings in ancient and modern China and abroad to the anti-dog side, calling them "crazy" has shown the dignity of God; soul, 魄, and other words containing ghost characters cannot be used; and direct subordination is changed to "sin subordinate".
The Taiping calendar has 366 days a year, setting up sundays, and removing many traditional festivals
The impact of this reform was enormous and far-reaching, and until the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was destroyed by the Qing court and the traditional calendar and script were restored, many people still used the taiping heavenly kingdom script and calendar.
The second is cultural infiltration. In Nanjing, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom recruited more than 400 printing craftsmen within its jurisdiction. A large number of revised editions of Hong Xiuquan's Bible and Matthew's Gospel were printed. In addition to the books for adult believers, Hong Xiuquan also personally changed a version of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom edition of the "Three Character Classic", and also wrote a "Kindergarten Poetry" for missionary work, which can be said to be more grounded than the foreign missionaries who preached in China before him, and still started from the doll.
Behavioral infiltration is also carried out in daily life. On Sundays, for example, women and children, old and weak, must go to church to listen to the Holy Book.
For competitors, it is brutally suppressed. As a result, many centuries-old Buddhist temples and Taoist temples in Nanjing were burned to the ground, and the monks of the two Buddhist and Taoist families were stripped naked and demanded to convert their faith, or they would be killed. Even Catholics were not spared, with at least thirty Catholics burned to death or left in the streets.
From writing and calendar, to cultural infiltration and behavior control, the ideological infiltration system of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is powerful and pervasive. The British observed the Taiping Army and said that although the Taiping Army was hungry and yellow-skinned, it was brave and fearless in battle, probably benefiting from this?
Fourth, just talking and not practicing, not honoring, and eventually leading to failure
There were many reasons for the failure of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, including civil unrest, poor diplomacy, and military defeat. However, there is one thing that cannot be ignored, that is, Hong Xiuquan's promise is mostly just talk and not practice, and it has not been fulfilled.
Hong Xiuquan has always regarded himself as a savior, and has promised to give the people of the world a paradise on earth - "everyone in the world, everywhere is average, everyone is warm." However, in fact, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom committed many atrocities of slaughtering and looting, such as slaughtering the city for two days and two nights in Jeonju, and robbery was commonplace.
The sight seen by European envoys when they visited Nanjing silently satirized the nature of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's words and deeds: in the same city, on one side was the splendid Palace of the Heavenly King, and on the other side were the dilapidated houses of the people.
Hong Xiuquan's "Heavenly Dynasty Tianmu System" has never been implemented in the true sense. On the contrary, because of poor management and continuous fighting, the families of the people in the Yangtze River Delta have been destroyed and displaced. Everywhere you look, "the houses are destroyed, the ground is filthy, and the bones are either abandoned in the wilderness or in the ravines, allowed to rot."
Hong Xiuquan's life can be called a model of Di Si counterattack. In the first half of his life, he was born into a peasant family, fell off the list four times, had no money, no one, and had no fame; in the second half of his life, he started from scratch, crossed six provinces, and created the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
This legend begins with a good story and ends because the story is not fulfilled. It can be seen that good stories are magical, storytelling requires technology, and more importantly, the bragged cow and the painted cake always have to be returned.