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God's Chinese Son · Feb 25, 06:28 PM

Jonathan D. Spence tells the story of the Taiping rebellion. The events are compelling and horrific, the writing is good when it’s on, but requires slogging-through when it’s not. For as little as most American know about the subject, it’s more than worth the read.

The rebellion is called 太平天國.

太 – tai – great
平 – ping – peace
天 – tian – heavenly
國 – guo – kingdom

Brief primer: In 1837 a rural schoolteacher—Hong Xiuquan—has a vision of heaven. Later he encounters a few Christian tracts that convince him he is the young brother of Jesus. He begins preaching, and eventual leads a puritanical revolution against the demonic Qing dynasty. In 1853 his army seizes control of Nanjing (yes, the city later raped by the Japanese), and hold it until the death of the megalomaniac Hong and end of his rebellion in 1864. At least 20 million Chinese are killed during the conflict—it’s brutal on the large scale. Soldiers and civialians die from hunger, cold, disease, battle, and defeat. Hong’s puritanical megalomania equals the pharoah god-kings of old—too large for my American mind to relate; presidents are a small-minded folk in comparison.

An anecdote: at the end of the rebellion, a Taiping general surrenders; his men are massacred and he dies a death of “slow dismemberment.” But he didn’t just wave the white flag,

On June 13, [1864] Shi Dakai simply walks into the camp of the commanding Qing general and gives himself up, in the hopes that with his own life he can ransom the pardon of the two thousand veterans who have been with him all those years. He has prepared for this step by having his five wives commit suicide, and his infant children drowned…

The foreigner governments mostly side with the Qing in the end. Even the preacher responsible for the tracts Hong based his king on flees Nanjing after a visit late in the war. Throughout it all, international arms dealers and smugglers make a killing.

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