God's Chinese Son

by Jonathan Spence

  12. Wakeman, Strangers, 50.

  13. Bernard, Nemesis, 2:331; Fairbank, Trade, 87—89; Elliott, "Bannerman."

  14. Isaiah 1:5-7, changing "head" to "heart" in verse 5, following Liang; Liang, Quanshi, 47-48 (1/16). Bohr, "Eschatology," chap. 2, gives a different but intense reading of Liang's text.

  15. Bernard, Nemesis, 1:271, on the Jan. 7, 1841, battle in Anson's Bay.

  16. Ibid., 264-65, 272-73.

  17. On this ship, briefly renamed the Chesapeake, originally the Cambridge, see Bingham, Narrative, 1:167, 2:153; Bernard, Nemesis, 1:357-60; also Hunter, Fan Kwae, 90-91, though Hunter appears to conflate the Anson's Bay battle with the sinking of the Cambridge, events over a month apart.

  18. Isaiah 1:28-31; Liang, Quanshi, 51 (1/18), subsituting Liang's "hemp fibers" for the Bible's "tow."

  19. Liang, Quanshi, 17 (1/1). The strange being(s) is/are termed Ge-lu-bi-mai, Liang's version of "Cherubims."

  20. Ibid., 158-59 (3/13-14), 69 (2/1), 281 (6/1).

  21. Ibid., 158 (3/13b), 23 (l/3b-4).

  22. "Out of a state of nothingness" is zi wuwu zhong, ibid., 80—81 (2/6b—7).

  23. Ibid., 163 (3/16).

  24. Ibid., 163 (3/16), 156 (3/12b).

  25. Ibid., 72-74 (2/2b-3b).

  26. Ibid., 163-64 (3/16).

  27. Ibid., 87 (2/10).

  28. Matthew 5:10-12; Liang, Quanshi, 52 (l/18b).

  29. Matthew 6:9-13; Liang, Quanshi, 59 (1/22).

  30. Matthew 7:15-20; Liang, Quanshi, 64 (l/24b).

  31. Liang, Quanshi, 25-26 (1/5-6). My thanks to Liu Chiu-ti for her rendering of this passage.

  32. Ibid., 82 (2/7b).

  33. Ibid., 25 (l/4b—5).

  34. Ibid., 31 (1/8).

  35. Ibid., 32 (l/8b).

  36. Ibid., 33 (1/9).

  37. Ibid., 35(1/10).

  38. Ibid., 34 (l/9b).

  39. Ibid., 29-30 (1/7).

  40. Ibid., 27 (1/6).

  41. Ibid., 359 (7/17).

  42. Ibid., 362-63 (7/17b—18).

  43. Pruden, "Roberts," 35-45, 66 n. 56, for Hakka speech; Coughlin, "Strangers," 113- 18; Schlyter, Gutzlaff als Missionar, 129-30.

  44. Liang, Ouanshi, 401 (8/3).

  45. Ibid., 88 (2/10b); Matthew 19:18-19; Liang, Quanshi, 96 (2/14b), on opium, yang yan. The "Collection of Missionary Works in Chinese," folder 14, contains several anti-opium tracts, including one vividly illustrated Rake's Progress of an opium addict, and one on "the six evils of opium."

  46. Liang, Ouanshi, 402-4 (8/3b-4b).

  47. Ibid., 407 (8/6b).

  48. Ibid., 409 (8/7).

  49. Ibid., 430-31 (8/17b—18).

  50. Acts 19:1-8; Liang, Quanshi, 461 (9/1).

  51. Liang, Quanshi, 298-99 (6/9b-10).

  52. Ibid., 302 (6/1 lb), 307 (6/14), 308 (6/14b).

  53. Ibid., 456 (8/30b).

  54. Ibid., 496 (9/18b), 498 (9/19b).

  55. Ibid., 500-501 (9/20b—21).

  Chapter 6: Wandering

  1. Hamberg, Visions, 20; TR, 4, 21, 65, retranslated; Liang, Quanshi, 144 (3/6b).

  2. Hamberg, Visions, 24-25, modified according to his Chinese text. The characters were "Zhan yao jian."

  3. Ibid., 19-22; Guo Yisheng, Ditu, 17; Liang, Ouanshi, 306-7; in this work Liang does not, as far as I can discover, translate any of the clearest baptismal texts, such as those in Matthew 3, Mark 1, Luke 3, or John 1.

  4. Hamberg, Visions, 21—22. The puritan essence of Hong's new belief is explored by Zurcher, "Purity."

  5. Psalms 19:3-4; Liang, Ouanshi, 166 (3/17b); Hamberg, Visions, 22, which confuses verses 3 and 4.

  6. Psalms 19:9-10; Liang, Ouanshi, 167 (3/18); Hamberg, Visions, 22-23.

  7. Psalms 19:12; Liang, Quanshi, 167 (3/18); Hamberg, Visions, 23.

  8. Hamberg, Visions, 27.

  9. Huaxian zhi, 2:8.

  10. Ibid., 2:8b—17. Wilson, Genealogy, 23-71, gives a full history of the process of "canon­ization" of Confucius' followers. A complete list is given ibid., appendix A.

  11. Hamberg, Visions, 22; the significance of this incident is discussed in Weller, Resis­tance, 39. Hamberg, Visions, 23-24, seems to suggest it is Hong Rengan who converts Hong Xiuquan's family, but his wording is ambiguous.

  12. Hamberg, Visions, 25, reworked.

  13. Ibid., 26, reworked.

  14. Ibid., 26; Weller, Resistance, 39.

  15. TR, 66; Taiping tianri, in Yinshu, 22.

  16. Taiping tianri, in Yinshu, 22; lunar calendar Daoguang 24/2/15, solar April 2; Jen, Revolutionary Movement, 24, suggests they were "disguised" as peddlers, which seems a rather strained interpretation.

  17. Taiping Tianri, in Yinshu, 22b; lunar 3/18, solar May 5. Guo Yisheng, Ditu, 19-20; Jen, Quanshi, 1:67—68.

  18. TR, 66; Taiping Tianri, in Yinshu, 22b.

  19. See route map in Guo Yisheng, Ditu, 19.

  20. Taiping Tianri, in Yinshu 23; TR, 66, lunar 4/5. For the general situation in Guiping, see Weller, Resistance, 40-43.

  21. Taiping Tianri, in Yinshu, 23b; TR, 67; Hamburg, Visions, 27. A thorough evaluation of these early writings is given by Bohr, "Eschatology," 105-35. The chronology of Hong Xiuquan's own writings becomes an important part of the story at this point, but is not easy to disentangle. Before leaving for Guangxi in 1844, Hong had written only short poems. During the seven months of his 1844 sojourn in Sigu in Guangxi, according to an early brief account by his cousin Hong Rengan, Xiuquan wrote "more than fifty items" (gong you wushi yu zhi). See TR, 4; Xiang, Ziliao, 2:689. The word I translate here as "items" (zhi) could refer to pamphlets, chapters, volumes, or even loose sheets. Hong Rengan specifies four of these alleged fifty: Quanshi zhenwen (True words to exhort the age); Baizheng Ge (Ode on the hundred correct things); Gaixie quizheng (Eschewing hetero­doxy and returning to the true); and a four-word title of which two characters are now missing, Yuan .. . jing (Classic of the original . .. ). Hamberg, in Visions, 29 however, who used mainly Hong Rengan as his source, writes that after returning from Guangxi to Guanlubu, (i.e., after Dec. 1844, or in 1845-47), Hong Xiuquan wrote "An Ode on the Hundred Correct Things," "An Essay on the Origin of Virtue for the Awakening of the Age," "Further Exhortations for Awakening the Age," and "Alter the Corrupt and Turn to the Correct," adding that "most of which are contained in the 'Imperial Declaration of Thai-p'hing,' afterwards printed at Nanking"—a clear reference to the Taiping zhaoshu.

  A median version is presented in the often month-by-month account of Hong's period in Guangxi later published by the Taiping themselves, the Taiping tianri (Taiping heavenly chronicle). This states clearly (Yinshu version, 27a; TR, 70) that only after Hong Xiuquan returned to Guangdong from Guangxi, during the yisi year (i.e., 1845), when he was thirty- three sui old, did he write the Yuandao jiushi zhao and the Yuandao jiushi xun, which surely refer to the two longest titles subsequently included in the four-piece Taiping zhaoshu. But while Hong Xiuquan was in Guangxi in the jiachen year (1844), the Taiping tianri also says, Hong Xiuquan "wrote proclamations {zhao) exhorting (quan) the people to worship the Heavenly Father, the Supreme Lord and Great God, and distributed them among the people." (Taiping tianri, in Yinshu, 23a and b, somewhat modifying TR, 67.) The Taiping tianri does not specify what these proclamations were, but since it explicitly says three pages later they were not either the Yuandao jiushi zhao or the Yuandao jiushi xun, we can conclude that if they were not works now totally lost, then they included the two other titles later collected in the official Taiping collection the Taiping zhaoshu—namely, the Yuandao jiushi ge (Ode on the origin of the way and our salvation) and the Baizheng ge (ode on the hundred correct things). The Baizheng ge seems incomplete, perhaps an aban­doned draft, later rescued and published. But the "Ode on the Origin of the Way and Our Salvation," originally with a different title (probably one of the first two mentioned by Hong Rengan in his list of four in his earliest account) seems to fit the Guangxi circum­stances perfectly. Hong still knew only the six commandments, which he was trying to r
efine to his Guangxi world. He was still genuinely full of praise for Confucius' moral virtue. He did not use too many scholarly analogies, and those he did use were close to his basic memorized readings, and would have needed no textual checking. Jen, Quanshi, 1:84-85, dates the Baizheng ge in 1844 and the Yuandao jiushi ge to 1845, citing the Taiping tianri as his evidence. But this seems to be a slip, since the Taiping tianri in fact says the Yuandao jiushi zhao and xun were written in 1845 or later. It does not mention the ge.

  It also seems to me probable that the earliest prayers used in Guangxi would have been the simplest ones, echoing in part those Hong had just read in Matthew's Gospel via Liang Afa's translation of the Sermon on the Mount; these simple prayers contain no anachronis­tic references to the Ten Commandments or other theological matters of which Hong Xiuquan knew nothing until later (as, for example, does the prayer on TR, 119). Hence I place them here.

  22. The various Confucian elements in Hong's early thought are carefully examined in Shih, Taiping Ideology, chap. 8. If Hong did need help with a quotation or a detail, it is almost certain that one of the families with whom he lodged would have had at least one of the scores of simplified cribs and outlines that circulated in China at the time, and could be bought in local bookshops, perhaps even from roving peddlers in town or country. See Bai, "Primers and Paradigms," chap. 2.

  23. Taiping zhaoshu, in Yinshu, 1; TR, 25.

  24. The six can be clearly seen in Taiping zhaoshu, in Yinshu, 2-5; TR, 26-30.

  25. Legge, The She King (shijing), 19.

  26. Taiping zhaoshu, in Yinshu, 2b, echoing Legge, Analects, 250, feili siwu.

  27. The exact characters used by Hong for this episode in Taiping zhaoshu, in Yinshu 3, are in the Shujing. See Legge, Shooting, 2/3/21, 66. With variants, the passage is also glossed in Mencius—see Legge, Mencius, 5/1/1, 342-43. Hong seems to have conflated this with a Zuozhuan passage on the elephants' and birds' actions at the time of Shun's death— see Yinshu, 3, and Murohashi, Daikanwa, 11105 (10:663), top line.

  Again, Hong turns to an allusion from the Boo{ of Poetry that he learned by heart in school, an allegorical poem in which a grieving son expresses his sorrow and remorse that he could not have served his parents better while they lived.

  Fatherless, who is there to rely on?

  Motherless, who is there to depend on?

  When I go abroad, I carry my grief with me;

  When I come home, I have no one to go to.

  Cold and bleak is the Southern Hill, The rushing wind is very fierce. Other people all are happy— Why am I alone so miserable?

  The Southern Hill is very steep, The rushing wind is blustering. Other people all are happy— I alone have left my tasks unfinished.

  TR, 237, and Yinshu, 3b; Legge, She-King, 2/5/8, verses 3, 5, 6, with minor changes, 350- 51.

  28. Taiping zhaoshu, in Yinshu, 3b-4; TR, 29.

  29. TR, 29; Taiping zhaoshu, in Yinshu, 4; Watson, Meng Ch'iu, 118.

  30. TR, 29; Watson, Meng Ch'iu, 57.

  31. TR, 29, Taiping zhaoshu, in Yinshu, 5; see passages in Liang, Quanshi, 101-2, 490. Hong may well be echoing the philosopher Xunzi here.

  32. TR, 30-31; Taiping zhaoshu, in Yinshu, 6.

  33. Taiping zhaoshu, in Yinshu, 6, modifying TR, 31.

  34. Taiping tianri, in Yinshu, 23b, amending TR, 67; Hamberg, Visions, 38.

  35. Taiping tianri, in Yinshu, 24, modifying TR, 67.

  36. Hamberg, Visions, 35-36. For the hymns, see Isabel Wong, "Geming Gequ," 113- 14.

  37. TR, 115-16 and n. 13, slightly modified following Tiantiao shu, in Yinshu, 3. On dating the prayers, see TR, 111, and discussion in Bohr, "Eschatology," 161.

  38. Hamberg, Visions, 28. This ritual is startlingly like the Taoist ritual of "the Sacrifice of the Writings," as described in Schipper, Taoist Body, 89, though there the documents are burned "outside the ritual area" and the presiding masters "mime drunkenness."

  39. Hamberg, Visions, 28, 35-36, and TR, 116, both slightly modified following Tiantiao shu, in Yinshu, 3b.

  40. Hamberg, Visions, 27-28. Taiping tianri, in Yinshu, 24-25 (TR, 68), gives a rather different time span, with the young man's release being on 8/15. There is a misprint in the son Huang Weizheng's name in Yinshu, 25.

  41. TR, 68; Taiping tianri, in Yinshu, 25-26.

  42. TR, 69; Taiping tianri, in Yinshu, 25b—26.

  Chapter 7: The Base

  1. Taiping tianri, in Yinshu, 25b-26b; TR, 69; Hamberg, Visions, 29.

  2. Hamberg, Visions, 29.

  3. See Taiping tianri, in Yinshu, 26b; TR, 69; and the detailed map in Guo Yisheng, Ditu, 21.

  4. Taiping tianri, in Yinshu, 26b-27; TR, 69-70; Guo Yisheng, Ditu, 21.

  5. Laai, "Pirates," 167, drawing on later Nanjing God-worshipers' registers.

  6. Curwen, Deposition, 83, 88.

  7. Laai, "Pirates," 169.

  8. Murray, Pirates, 57-59.

  9. Ibid., 25, 67-68.

  10. Ibid, 71-73, 149-50. Shi Yang was also often known simply as Zheng Yi Sao, "Zheng Yi's wife."

  11. Fox, Admirals, 89-91, 96-97.

  12. Ibid, 93-95.

  13. Laai, "Pirates," 109.

  14. Ibid, 30, 182; Fox, Admirals, 92, and Scott, Destruction, 7.

  15. Scott, Destruction, 47.

  16. Ibid, 100 n, 141; Laai, "Pirates," 27, 78.

  17. Scott, Destruction, 97-98, 248-50.

  18. Laai, "Pirates," 68-70, 112; Bingham, Narrative, 2:264, emphasizes the number of these mixed liaisons in Macao.

  19. Scott, Destruction, 209-10, 217, 234; Laai, "Pirates," 79-80.

  20. Scott, Destruction, 224, on children and rent; 218 on guns; 235 on spoiled opium; 226, 232, for her possessions.

  21. Ibid, 229, 235; Laai, "Pirates," 83.

  22. Laai, "Pirates," 62, 90, 109, 110.

  23. Ibid, 108, 118-19. There were eleven such "companies"—mifanzhu tang—in Nan- ning alone by 1850.

  24. Murray and Qin, Tiandihui, 16-19, 143-44; ibid, 18, translates the phrase jushi as "carry out a rebellion," which seems too precise in the context. The Heaven-and-Earth Society was just one of dozens of informal and clandestine groups and federations that spread in China at this time, as vastly growing populations brought new pressures on the land, compounded by bureaucratic inefficiencies, unfair taxation patterns, natural disasters, erosion of uplands, and other environmental damage to lakes, hills, and waterways. But unlike many others, it survived and spread, sparking more than fifty-five local uprisings or attacks on cities in the southeast coastal provinces and in Guangxi between 1800 and 1840, prompting massive government reprisals, and thus a deepened sense of injustice. See ibid, 231-35, appendix C. This number also included occasional risings in Yunnan, Gui- zhou, Hunan, and Jiangxi.

  25. Ibid, 189, omitting the Chinese transcriptions; see also Murray, "Migration," 180; David Ownby, introduction to Secret Societies Reconsidered, 18. An excellent overview of the intersection of demographic problems with the growth of the secret societies is Jones and Kuhn, "Dynastic Decline," 108-13, 134-44.

  26. Murray and Qin, Tiandihui, 183-84; Ter Haar, "Messianism," 169.

  27. Murray and Qin, Tiandihui, 45, 185.

  28. Ibid, 44, 48.

  29. Ibid, 30, 290, and other references as listed ibid, index, 344.

  30. Ter Haar, "Messianism," 159, 165, 169.

  31. Ibid, 156; Murray and Qin, Tiandihui, 75, 189, 192.

  32. Murray and Qin, Tiandihui, 69-76; Laai, "Pirates," 13-14, 31-32, 179.

  33. Scott, Destruction, 248; Laai, "Pirates," 15; Scott, Destruction, 219, 233, testimony of the Chinese interpreter Tom Achik.

  34. Laai, "Pirates," 31-32, 36, 112, 173.

  35. Ibid, 185-87.

  36. Ibid, 92-93; 95 n. 18, for the phrase Chou ke fensheng.

  37. Ibid, 96, 101-2.

  38. Ibid, 150, 176.

  39. Curwen, Deposition, 88, with minor changes. The sense of the passage seems much clearer if we drop, as 1 do here, the extra phrase "if they we
re God-worshipers."

  40. P. Clarke, "Coming," 148-49; Schlyter, Gutzlaff als Missionar, chap. 5.

  41. P. Clarke, "Coming," 153, correcting the misprint of "effectuatelly."