Such an order surely helps in preventing abuses by the Taiping troops, but it is also essential to gain the active loyalty of the people of Yongan and those in the surrounding villages, many of whom are Hakka, but still frightened and suspicious. The Taiping leaders spread the word that they have no desire to harm the people, only to kill the demons and follow the commandments of the Lord in Heaven. The people of Yongan are reassured that they do not have to join the Taiping armies, or adopt the God- worshipers' religion. It is enough if they follow certain rules of behavior toward the occupying troops, one of which is to hang a simple circlet of bamboo strips above their house doors as a sign that they welcome their occupiers. Special rewards are given to those in Yongan or nearby villages who bring members of their communities to promise obedience to the Taiping, who report on the movements and morale of the "demon troops," who make contributions of cash and grain, or help the Taiping transport military supplies. To temper this generosity with rigor, swift execution is promised to any in Yongan who provide supplies to the demon troops, enroll in local anti-Taiping militia units, and take advantage of the exigencies of war to rape women or plunder and murder local residents.3
To further bolster local support, the Taiping try to get the city and village markets functioning as they were before the Heavenly Army arrived, and to ensure that all goods obtained from the locals are properly paid for at current prices. In cases of wealthier landlords fleeing from the area to avoid expressing loyalty to the Taiping, the Taiping send out sizable groups of troops to raid the fugitives' homes and seize their grain stores, livestock, salt and cooking oil, and even their clothing. In one of these raids, some two thousand Taiping troops—both men and women— move against the Li and the Luo families, and need five days and nights to list and carry away the families' accumulated stores. On other occasions troops are sent to cut the grain from landlords' fields. Some of these purloined goods are shared out among the local villagers, and the remainder deposited in the Taiping's common treasury in Yongan city.4
The idea of all things being pooled in common in this "sacred treasury" draws both on past Chinese historical traditions and on the voice of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount: if the Heavenly Father is omnipotent and creates all things, then of course His delegates on earth can furnish all supplies to all their followers.5 But those showing such a communal sense— whether out of love for their fellow beings, or fear of reprisals if they disobey—also need reassurance that their courage will be rewarded on this earth. Accordingly Hong's second imperial pronouncement in Yongan, issued on November 17, orders all the sergeants in the Taiping army to make a meticulous recording of the performance of the twenty-five corporals and private soldiers under their personal command. Courage in battle and obedience to orders will be marked with a circle against each man's and woman's name; cowardice and disobedience, with a cross. As each record book is filled, it is to be passed up the chain of command to the senior generals themselves, when all the circles and crosses will be tallied. Those of the highest merit will be rewarded with the highest offices when the Taiping army at last makes its home in "the Earthly Paradise." As with the promises made earlier in June and in August, no indication is given yet of where or when this Earthly Paradise will be found.6
To prepare for that projected event, Hong Xiuquan uses the breathing space provided by Yongan to declare the advent of Taiping time, by promulgating a new calendar first devised by Feng Yunshan some three years earlier. This Taiping calendar rejects the dates prepared by the astronomers in the Qing court, which set the rhythms for the festivals and seasons of the country as a whole. Nor does it follow the exact contours of the Western countries' calendar, which Hong Xiuquan (and probably other Taiping leaders) would have been familiar with in Canton, despite that calendar's Christian structuring. Instead, it reaches back to China's early classical texts, and combines them with some aspects of the West, to create a year of 366 days, divided into twelve months and seven-day weeks, with the odd-numbered months having thirty-one days, and the even ones thirty days. Though the familiar Chinese twenty-four solar terms are kept, and the lunar mansions, the new calendar with its Sabbath day for prayer and rest is believed to be purified of its old superstitious elements, which are now seen to have been no more than "the demons' cunning scheme to deceive and delude mankind." By contrast, the new calendar, with "its years, months, days, and hours all determined by our Heavenly Father," will ensure that every moment of future Taiping time is both "happy and peaceful."7
On December 4, 1851, in a third decree, Hong Xiuquan makes his promises broader and grander. Honorary hereditary titles are granted to all those officers who have already given their lives in the Taiping cause. And for the living, who have been fighting for the Taiping, there are— depending on their rank—awards of the caps and coats worn by officers, or of the ceremonial cowls worn by the sergeants. Hong promises too that all loyal followers shall be treated with equal dignity, henceforth, until the day they reach that Earthly Paradise of which Hong has spoken thrice before. At that joyful time, more honorary titles will be handed out, and all "in dragon robes and horn-encrusted girdles" will be welcomed in Hong's Heavenly Court.8
To supplement these promises of future bliss, the Heavenly King drafts lists of ritual titles and ranks for the Taiping leaders, along with the correct terms of address to be used for each of them, their wives, and their children. Hong Xiuquan's own son, Tiangui, now two years old, is to be called "the Young Monarch, of ten thousand years." Hong's future sons, as many as there may be, shall be called "Heir to the Heavenly King, for one thousand years." Hong's daughters shall be known as "Princesses." The senior generals shall be called "Excellencies," the medium officers and sergeants addressed as "Your Worship." Their male children shall be called "Sons of the Just," and "Sons of the Commander," and their daughters be known as "Jade" or "Snow." Women commanders shall be termed "Chaste Ones," and the wives of officers as "Noble" with terms appropriate to their husband's rank: "Noble Lady," "Noble Beauty," "Noble Nurse," and "Noble Bride."9
The same decree provides the forms of the honorific titles for each of the five senior God-worshiper leaders, those celestial voices and military commanders who have brought the Heavenly Army from its fragmentary life in Thistle Mountain to the heart of Yongan city: Hong Xiuquan, as Heavenly King, is hailed as the Lord of Ten Thousand Years. Yang, as the East King, is Lord of Nine Thousand Years, and Xiao, West King, Lord of Eight Thousand Years; Feng, South King and Lord of Seven Thousand Years, while Wei, the North King, will be Lord of Six Thousand Years, and Shi Dakai, still in his early twenties but proven again and again in combat, shall be Wing King and Lord of Five Thousand Years. The honorific terms by which they were known in the previous months— "Kingly Fathers," or "Wang-ye"—will be dropped, for ye is part of the Lord's name Jehovah (Ye-huo-hua), and to suggest that such earthly men share in this fatherhood partakes of the "twisted usage of our mortal world" and has proved "somewhat offensive" to the Lord God Himself.10 Following similar logic, Hong Xiuquan declares that he himself must never be addressed as "Godly" (di), "Supreme" (shang) or "Holy" (sheng) but only as "Sovereign" (zhu), while the word wang itself—"prince" or "king"—will be used for no other mortals but these Taiping chosen ones. To underline the special status of these leaders, in Taiping texts henceforth all references to those figures in China's past who used to be called wang or king will be written with a character that has the addition of the "dog" component on its left-hand side; in regular usage this character is pronounced "kuang" and bears the basic meaning of "wild" or "cruel."11
While Hong drafts the decrees that are meant to reassure his followers that their hardships and self-denial will be rewarded, it is Yang and Xiao—speaking this time as the two "chiefs of staff' of the "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom," rather than as the voices of God and Jesus—who give the rationale for the battles that the Taiping now are fighting. What the Taiping faithful are now experiencing, they tell their followers,
is the fourth manifestation of God's divine rage and power. The first manifestation was when God—"spiritual father, father of the soul, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent"—having created all the heavens, earth, and living things in six days, sent down a great flood for forty days and forty nights. The second manifestation was when He rescued the Israelites from the land of Egypt. As the third manifestation, He sent His own son, "the Savior, Lord Jesus," to be born on earth, suffer, and redeem the sins of men. And as the fourth, he sent an angel to bring Hong Xiuquan up to Heaven, where Hong received his orders to kill the demons, rule the world, and save the people. To help Hong in this task, both God and His son Jesus descended regularly to the world, "manifesting their innumerable powers" and "exterminating great numbers of the demons in pitched battles." The leaders of these demons are the new emperor of China, the "Manchu devil Xianfeng, descendant of barbarians," and his ally the old serpent devil. These two and all their slavish minions have misled many true Chinese, and even the members of the Hong brotherhoods of Triads and the Heaven-and-Earth Society, although at their secret-society initiations these men had "formed blood pacts to exterminate the Qing, with united hearts and strengths."12
In appealing to the secret-society followers of the Taiping, the leaders admit that some of the purity of the earliest God-worshiping congregations has been lost. They also imply that they know there are traitors in the ranks, and indeed much of the prestige of both Yang and Xiao springs from their using their heavenly voices to identify and condemn Taiping turncoats secretly working for the Qing, or planning to desert to them. Some of these schemes go back six months or more, and involve hundreds of men, elaborate deceptions, and dual allegiances, as when Qing supporters pretend to be Taiping loyalists hiding out in Qing encampments until they can enter Yongan to "serve" the Heavenly King. On several past occasions such suspected traitors were executed or savagely beaten—even during the most difficult months of campaigning that preceded the capture of Yongan—and new cases are constantly coming to light, even within Yongan's walls.13
There is of course no certainty that Yongan, despite its greater size, will prove a firmer base than those earlier ones around Guiping. For though the approximately twenty thousand Taiping troops have defended Yongan with greater care than any base before—they have ringed the walled city itself at a distance of about one mile with peripheral defensive earthworks, set up a second line of patrolled defenses that reaches far beyond these earthworks into the countryside, put their boats to patrol the nearby river Meng, and erected high wooden towers to act as watching posts and bases from which to launch projectiles—the Qing armies are not leaving them in peace.14 More and more Qing troops have gathered, forming a massive armed base camp to the southwest of the city, and a smaller encampment to the northwest. They are backed by local provincial officials, militia groups, and defected bandits, so that the total government forces exceed forty-six thousand by the end of 1851. Even though these troops are not that reliable—many of them are often willing to trade clandestinely with the Taiping, bartering meat, fish, and pickles with the enemy under cover of dusk or the smoke of their campfires—nevertheless at regular intervals they have been launching probes or full-scale counterattacks, either to cut the Taiping lines of communication to north and south or to move against the now fortified villages that serve as the Tai- ping's defensive outposts.15
It is on December 10, 1851, that the Qing forces under General Ulantai launch their fiercest counterattack yet on Yongan. Wary, after more than a year of failed or inconclusive campaigning against the Taiping, they concentrate on one limited objective, the village of Shuidou, a Taiping supply depot and fortified outpost on the river, at the very southern tip of the Taiping's outer defensive perimeter, where Taiping land armies can keep contact with Luo Dagang's river fleet. At least five Qing columns take part in the assault, which is successful: the fort is overrun, and the supplies burned. The Taiping attempt to save the depot by rushing two relief columns from Yongan and the inner line of defenses, but the Qing troops beat them off. At this point, prudently content with their minor victory, the Qing forces pull back to their base camp.16
Xiao Chaogui, who for three years has served as the voice of Jesus, is wounded in this battle; the evidence for this is the voice of Jesus, as recorded in one of the Taiping's own confidential records:
In the first year of the Taiping, 10th month, 18th day [December 10, 1851, in the Western calendar] the Heavenly Elder Brother [Jesus] showed his compassion and came down to earth in Yongan. Because the West King [Xiao Chaogui] while killing the demons had received several minor wounds—none of them too serious—the Heavenly Elder Brother wished to reassure the Heavenly King and his followers, and therefore issued them this sacred instruction: "My little ones, console your Second Elder Brother [Hong Xiuquan], reassure him and give him solace, for [Xiao Chao] Gui, his brother-in-law, has received this pain. It is not serious."
When Yang Xiuqing, Feng Yunshan, and Shi Dakai hear of this, they cluster around the wounded Xiao Chaogui, who gives them the same reassurance. Their response shows the extent of their disquiet:
We obey Your instructions. We Your humble disciples have all been blessed by the fact that our Heavenly Elder Brother long ago manifested His great goodness by atoning for our sins. Now (Xiao) Chaogui, our brother-in-law, [Lord for] eight thousand years, has also on behalf of humankind endured this suffering. We Your humble disciples beseech God the Father and our Heavenly Elder Brother to cherish him with Your most especial care, so that he may recover soon, and show us all the extent of Your heavenly goodness.17
The response, given in the voice of Jesus, is that the army as a whole should be reassured that this is "nothing serious," and that all the Taiping troops should "advance with spritely steps and all their courage, uniting their minds and uniting their strength, to exterminate those demon devils.'"8
Two days later, on December 12, far from being reassuring, the news about Xiao seems worse: the "scars from his wounds have not yet healed." Jesus descends again, to talk to another leading Taiping general, Wei Changhui, who was not present on December 10. As the other senior commanders have done, Wei begs Jesus to make special allowances for Xiao, and to relieve Xiao of his "serious pain," and to grant him a swift recovery. Wei also calls Xiao by his new honorific name "eight thousand years." Jesus responds with an ambiguous speech: "Fulfillment as a man does not come from a life of ease; a life of ease does not lead to fulfillment as a man. The deeper your suffering, the more awe-inspiring your reputation. Let your mind be at rest. Whether those demon devils fly or change their form, they will never escape the hands of the Heavenly Father and Heavenly Elder Brother."19 Thereafter, in the Taiping record, with the exception of a few murmured words of encouragement to the troops five months later—"Keep your courage up, be of good cheer"—Jesus comes no more to earth, and his voice falls silent.20
There is a mystery here. According to surviving Taiping sources, Xiao dies a full nine months after this, in September 1852, during the Taiping attack on Changsha city. In the intervening period, he is given military assignments, noble titles, and listed as directing campaigns. The Heavenly King, Hong Xiuquan, in one of his most sacred texts, "The Book of Heavenly Decrees and Proclamations," issued to his subjects in 1852, quotes Jesus' comment that "the deeper your suffering, the more awe-inspiring your reputation," but he does not link it specifically to Xiao's wounds or death.21 Is Xiao in Yongan perhaps incapacitated in some way, so weakened that he is kept in seclusion, so as not to destroy his followers' morale or allow people to think that God and His son have abandoned the Taiping? Is that why Jesus issues no more reassuring or didactic statements, and passes no more judgments on Taiping policies, as he has so often in the past? Has Yang Xiuqing, Xiao's Thistle Mountain neighbor—and like Xiao among the very poorest and least educated of the senior Taiping leaders—who has been speaking so confidently with the voice of God since his own long illness, and exposing hidden trai
tors in the Taiping midst, won some kind of power play? Has Xiao been silenced by a Taiping coup rather than by Qing spear thrusts or bullets?
If there has been some kind of power struggle, it is Yang Xiuqing who is the winner. For on December 17, a week after Xiao is wounded, Hong Xiuquan, with no comment on Xiao's state of health, issues his full enfeoffment of the five kings, including Xiao as "West King." At the end of the proclamation, Hong grants to Yang, the East King, "supervisory power" over the other four kings, clearly promoting him above the rest in the earthly Taiping hierarchy.22
Military training and moral instruction continue side by side as the Taiping, their final destination still not announced by the Heavenly King, seek to strengthen their ranks. In a new summary of military conduct, rules for the behavior of troops, both male and female, in Yongan or the base camps as well as on the march, are spelled out in simple form. As the Taiping now have access to printing facilities, these are copied in large bold type, easy to read and easy to remember. Among the rules are the following:
Make yourselves thoroughly acquainted with the Heavenly Commandments and with the regulations on praise, on morning and evening worship, and on thanksgiving, as well as with all the issued edicts.
God's Chinese Son Page 20
