Hong Xiuquan holds high the lofty vision of "one family in the world, sharing peace" and the moving promise of "everywhere is uneven, no one is left with warmth", but his actual actions are very different from this ideal world. Under the iron-barrel siege of the Hunan army commanded by Zeng Guoquan, Hong Xiuquan, who was physically and mentally exhausted, finally failed to get rid of the predicament of reality, and died in the interweaving of worry and despair, and walked towards the illusory heaven he depicted.
As early as the journey to Changsha, Hunan, he could not hold back the desire to be the king and hegemon, quickly ordered someone to cast a jade seal, and gladly accepted the honorific title of "Long live", and at the same time canonized his wife as "Niangniang", these measures have revealed the expansion of the desire for power. After Yong'an was stationed in Settling, a set of detailed and strict rules and regulations came into being, such as the "Taiping Military Order", "Taiping Regulations" and "Taiping Etiquette" and other discipline codes were released one after another. In particular, the Taiping Rite System divided the Heavenly King into a strict hierarchical order from the Heavenly King to the ordinary soldiers with complicated etiquette regulations, and even made a detailed distinction between the kings, the prime minister, and even the children and relatives of the inspectors: the sons of the prime ministers were honored as "Cheng Gongzi", and the daughters were called "Cheng Yu"; the descendants of the inspection were accordingly called "Jian Gongzi" and "Zhan Yu", and they had to decide how to use these honorific titles appropriately according to the rank of the officials. Not only that, from the living conditions to the treatment of chariots and horses, to the dress and honor guards, all of them set strict differences according to the size of the official position.
Such a strict and typical feudal hierarchy is in stark contrast to the concept of equality advocated by Hong Xiuquan that "all men in the world are brothers, and all women in the world are sisters", as if it is a merciless mockery of this beautiful ideal. To some extent, his practical actions reveal that even in the midst of peasant uprisings in pursuit of social change, the leaders were unable to completely break free from the shackles of the old system, but quietly copied the feudal privilege structure that they had tried to overthrow when establishing a new order.
On March 29, 1853, Hong Xiuquan walked into the city gate of Nanjing with great momentum. As the shouts of the opening of the road gradually fell, the people of the whole city knelt on the ground one after another, waiting with bated breath for the arrival of this Heavenly King Sect Master. Sixteen sturdy sedan chairmen dressed in yellow coats and yellow hats carried a splendid golden sedan chair on their shoulders, and in front of them dozens of pairs of drum bands played passionate movements, and hundreds of flags hunted and flew to lead the procession forward; more than 10,000 mighty guards followed closely behind, holding spears in their hands, and their momentum was like a rainbow. Hong Xiuquan sat in the sedan chair with a dragon robe, pedaling dragon boots, majestic and solemn, like a real dragon in the world.
As soon as he entered Nanjing, Hong Xiuquan couldn't wait to start large-scale construction and set out to build the palace of the Heavenly King, which symbolized supreme power. More than 10,000 migrant workers are mobilized to work day and night every day, this palace is based on the original Liangjiang Governor's Mansion and expands outward for ten miles, surrounded by the yellow palace wall as high as three zhang, and the royal ditch with a width and depth of two zhang each, and erects a beautiful Wulong Bridge for pedestrians to enter and exit. The splendid Tianwang Mansion is divided into two floors, the inner layer is the noble "Golden Dragon Palace", and the outer layer is called "Sun City". The palace also has the East Garden, the West Garden and the Houlin Garden, among which there is a stone boat on top of the lake, and a towering five-storey building stands on the lakeside, which can be overlooked in all directions. According to historical records, the palace was decorated with extravagant ornamentation, intricate carvings, gold and colorful patterns, vermilion lacquer dragons coiled around the pillars, roofs gilded and shining, doors and windows pasted with satin, walls painted with gold and precious marble. At the entrance of the palace hangs a huge couplet of yellow silk, the upper couplet says: "All the princes, from the west to the east, from the south to the north", and the lower couplet reads: "To one person, it is holy and divine and martial arts."
Outside the palace gate, there is a notice written by Hong Xiuquan himself, warning the ministers: At this point, you must stop, and you can only enter with an edict, otherwise you will face severe punishment. Most of the workers involved in the construction were conscripted women and the elderly, while the skilled craftsmen were recruited from Anhui, Hubei and other places according to the edict of the Heavenly King, and all of them worked without compensation.
In order to meet Hong Xiuquan's daily living and living needs, there are more than 1,600 officials and various service personnel in the Tianwang Mansion. Although Hong Xiuquan implements monogamy among the people, he enjoys privileges, and the harem has thousands of palace maids, and there are as many as 108 official wives. Since the Kaneda Rebellion, the number of his women has been increasing, reaching 36 during the Yongan period. He also formulated a series of peculiar and strict rules for the concubines, such as forbidding women to look up at him, and there is a poem that says: "Look at the Lord against the sky, even if the slightest sin is heinous." You can only see the shoulders, not even the chest. Hong Xiuquan wears a crown made of eight catties of pure gold, a gold necklace that also weighs eight catties around his neck, and a brocade robe embroidered with a golden dragon.
When Hong Xiuquan dined, the scene was even grander, with drums and cymbals and gongs sounding in unison until the end of the meal. After enjoying such a luxurious life, he hardly set foot in the palace again. The kings of Tianjing and other nobles competed to follow suit, competing for wealth and prosperity, and the pomp and circumstance intensified. Starting from the "two horses" with 25 people in charge of the grassroots level, the higher the official position, the more prominent the specifications of the horses. For example, Yang Xiuqing, the king of the East, rides a luxurious yellow sedan chair carried by 48 people every time he goes out on patrol, and even has a glass sedan chair filled with water to raise goldfish in summer.
It is deeply regrettable that Hong Xiuquan has played the role of a cultural destroyer in history. The continuation and progress of a nation are often inseparable from its profound cultural roots. Those who seek to destroy culture can be regarded as the worst offenders in the world. Hong Xiuquan, the tried and failed old Xiucai with resentment, has a bitter hatred for the imperial examination system, and this hatred spreads to the entire Confucian civilization. He was determined to abandon the Confucian teachings that had been inherited in China for thousands of years, and vigorously promoted the way of exclusive respect for "Heavenly Father and Heavenly Brother" - the so-called "Hongshu".
During the Taiping Rebellion, Confucius was derogatorily referred to as a "demon", and the Book of Confucius and Mencius was called a "demon book", and a modern version of "book burning and pit Confucianism" was staged with a stormy and radical method. The official decree stipulated: "Anyone who holds or recites Confucian classics shall be beheaded, and anyone who discovers a 'demon book' in his possession shall be beheaded immediately once it is found." Within the army, it was strictly forbidden to study traditional classics such as the Four Books and the Five Classics, and even the education of the young Heavenly King was strictly controlled, only the reading of the Heavenly Kingdom books was strictly allowed, and it was strictly forbidden to come into contact with Confucian works.
Hong Xiuquan personally supervised and examined all the documents since the uprising, and once he found that the content of the "Four Books", "Five Classics" or other ancient books was quoted, all of them were deleted. For example, the 134 characters quoting the Book of Changes in the "Yuan Dao Xing Shi Xun" have also been deleted. He also set up a special yamen to implement this policy. At the same time, various pamphlets praising Dehong Xiuquan appeared in large numbers, portraying him as "the true son of heaven", "the holy son of heaven", and "the only Allah of all nations."
In Nanjing, the Taiping army even held a blasphemous slaughter ceremony of killing cattle and dogs in front of the Confucius Temple to show their extreme rejection of the way of Confucius and Mencius, which was even more anti-Confucian than that of Qin Shi Huang. Confucianism is the core of traditional Chinese culture, Confucius is recognized by scholars as the "most holy teacher", and the "Four Books" and "Five Classics" are important steps for scholars to enter the official career.
Just as Li Xiucheng said in his reflection after his arrest, "the officers and men mostly use scholars, but there are no scholars among the thieves." It was precisely the improper use of personnel that led to the defeat. "At the time of survival and decline, the country will prosper if talents are reused, and the country will inevitably perish if talents are ignored. "In ancient Chinese society, the worship of gods was deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and all walks of life had their own guardian gods, and Confucius, Mencius, Guan Gong, Yue Fei and others were the idols of the whole people. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom only revered God and abandoned all other idols. In its sphere of influence, Hunan will be destroyed when it encounters gods, Hubei temples will be burned, Anhui has ordered the burning of statues, and temples and temples in Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Zhejiang, and even Shandong have been eradicated or burned. In this way, it not only angered the intellectual class, but also deeply offended the beliefs and feelings of the broad masses of the people.
Looking back on history, one can't help but sigh. Mr. Hong's ethics stand in stark contrast to the accolades he once enjoyed, and his corruption, extremism, and deception prevented him from carrying the aura of the times. His last edict on his deathbed, claiming that he would go to heaven and ask the heavenly soldiers to defend Tianjing, was undoubtedly a final deception. Hong Xiuquan's failure, in the final analysis, lies in himself, and it was he who planted the seeds of destruction with his own hands.