Mavericks › Uprising Leaders
Hong Rengan
Hong Xiuquan's kinsman who reached Nanjing from Hong Kong in 1859, became the Shield King and proposed railways, banks and newspapers in his New Treatise on Government
A mountain camp at night, with a beacon fire burning on a wooden platform at the upper left, several white tents on the slope and a red cloth tied to a rope; a wooden palisade with a gate stands at the right beyond a timber bridge over a rough river, under a clouded moon.
Also known as Shield King
- Roles
- Uprising Leaders
Hong Rengan, styled Yiqian, was a clansman of Hong Xiuquan from Hua county in Guangdong and an early member of the God Worshipping Society, but he failed to reach the rebels when they rose at Jintian. He made his way to Hong Kong and worked for years with London Missionary Society preachers, learning about Western government and science. Arriving at the Taiping capital Tianjing in 1859, he was made Shield King and put in charge of the court, and he presented to Hong Xiuquan his New Treatise on Aiding Government (Zizheng xinpian), which called for railways, steamships, banks and newspapers. After Tianjing fell in 1864 he escorted the young Heavenly King Hong Tianguifu in flight, was captured that October at Shicheng in Jiangxi, and was executed at Nanchang in November. The statement he wrote in captivity is one of the main sources for the late Taiping years.
Life and times
Dates 1822 CE–1864 CE