The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Rebellion and the Blasphemy of Empire

Introduction

Introduction T he subject of this study is the Taiping Rebellion, a nineteenthcentury Chinese uprising, and the religious creed that animated it. Over the thirteen-year course of the insurrection, from 1851 to 1864, twenty million people lost their lives, and Qing imperial and Taiping rebel armies fought in and over almost every province of the Chinese empire. Imperial forces finally managed to suppress the rebellion,but at a high cost: the Manchu rulers acquiesced to changes in the political and social order that eventually resulted in the end of their dynasty and, more consequentially , in the fall of the traditional empire. Scholars have assembled a list of factors to explain why theTaiping rebels failed in their immediate bid to topple the emperor. Many have placed the alien character of theTaiping faith at the top of the list.Inspired by Christian teachings, the core of the Taiping creed focused on the belief that Shangdi (Sovereign on High), the high god of classical China, had chosen the Taiping leader,Hong Xiuquan (1814–1864),to establish his Heavenly Kingdom on earth. Does admitting that this faith was new and that it was inspired by Christianity oblige us at the same time to declare that it was alien? And who are we saying found it alien? The Taiping rebel creed may have repelled certain groups, particularly those that wielded power in the established system, such as the gentry. A rebellion, like a revolution, is not a dinner party, after all. But the Taiping faith did not repel the common people. For if it is proposed that the common people found the Taiping creed strange and unfamiliar, we must ask 3 how were the Taiping rebels able to mount their rebellion in the first place, recruiting multitudes of followers in their sweep through inland provinces?1 Perhaps the rebel ideology was a factor in the movement’s initial success among the common people as well as a factor in its eventual defeat. In this study, I am interested in understanding what in the Taiping creed initially appealed to the common people. How was the Taiping movement able to generate more interest, recruit more followers, and sponsor more radical social changes than even the earlier native White Lotus and Eight Trigram sectarian rebellions? Previous scholarship on this topic has failed to emphasize that when theTaiping religion left Hong Xiuquan’s hands,it was no longer a Western religion, a foreign creed. The Taiping faith, albeit kindled by AngloAmerican Protestantism, developed into a dynamic new Chinese religion, one whose conception of the title and position of the sovereign deity challenged the legitimacy of the imperial order. Hong Xiuquan presented this new religion,Taiping Christianity,as a revival and a restoration of the ancient classical faith in Shangdi. This was the substance of the Taiping appeal. In accordance with their faith in Shangdi,theTaiping rebels denounced the divine pretensions of the imperial title Huangdi. Huangdi is the term that the ruler of the Qin dynasty (221–206 b.c.e.) chose as his title after he had conquered all the kingdoms of the classical era and unified China under his control. Westerners translate this title as “emperor.” Yet the di syllable is written with the same character in both Shangdi and Huangdi, and it can be translated as either “god” or “emperor.” In a similar fashion,theTaiping condemned the sacral nature of the imperial o‹ce. The imperial title and o‹ce were blasphemous usurpations of Shangdi’s title and position, and the rebels called instead for a restoration of the classical system of kingship alongside the worship of Shangdi. Previous rebellions had declared their contemporary dynasties corrupt and therefore in need of renewal;theTaiping,by contrast,declared the longstanding imperial order blasphemous and in need of replacement. In the Taiping movement and religion we witness a new development in Chinese history: a radical change in popular thought regarding the authority of the emperor and the legitimacy of the imperial order.TheTaiping was the first movement to advocate not just the removal of the then-ruling emperor or 4 Introduction the end of one particular dynasty but, along with this, the abolition of the entire imperial system and the institution of a whole new religious and political order. The Taiping movement, then, was not based on the traditional appeal of a sectarian rebellion. On the contrary, the Taiping leaders did not see themselves as sectarians or rebels.They related their faith more to the native Chinese...