Mavericks › Uprising Leaders
Hong Xiuquan
Founder and Heavenly King of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, a failed examination candidate who launched the Jintian rising in 1851 and ruled from Nanjing until 1864
Mural of the event “Taiping Rebellion”, which this person took part in.
After the Opium War, the Qing court intensified exactions to raise indemnity payments, and with successive years of great natural disasters, class conflict in Guangdong-Guangxi sharpened to extremes. The introduction of Western Christian thought provided the faith medium.
Also known as Original name Renkun · Childhood name Huoxiu
- Roles
- Uprising Leaders
Hong Xiuquan, born Hong Renkun with the childhood name Huoxiu, came from Huaxian in Guangdong and repeatedly failed the civil examinations. In 1843, after reading Good Words to Admonish the Age, a Christian tract by Liang Fa, he founded the God Worshipping Society with Feng Yunshan and others, and in 1847 studied with the American missionary Issachar Roberts at Guangzhou. Feng built up congregations around Guiping in Guangxi, joined by Yang Xiuqing, Shi Dakai and others, and in January 1851 they rose at Jintian, proclaiming the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom with Hong as Heavenly King. Taiping forces took Nanjing in 1853 and made it the Heavenly Capital; in 1856 Yang Xiuqing and then Wei Changhui were killed. With the Hunan Army besieging the city in 1864, Hong died some weeks before it fell, by poison according to the Draft History of Qing and by illness according to the confession of Li Xiucheng. His palace site was later rebuilt as the office of the Liangjiang governor-general.
Life and times
Dates 1814 CE–1864 CE
- 1851Taiping RebellionTook partage 37
- 1851Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movementage 37