Latest / Ridiculous History / Hong Xiuquan: The Younger Brother of Jesus Christ Who Led a Bloody Rebellion in China

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Hong Xiuquan: The Younger Brother of Jesus Christ Who Led a Bloody Rebellion in China · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: I am glad you asked noel uh and we oh,
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Speaker 1: we've also got an alert our super producer Casey Pegram Casey.
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Speaker 1: appreciate those pledge drives, Casey. And speaking of cult leaders,
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Speaker 1: today's story takes us to China in the early eight hundreds.
3:01
Speaker 1: There is a guy named Hong s Quan, and we're
3:05
Speaker 1: we're mispronouncing this name. I'm gonna mispronouncing worse than you.
3:09
Speaker 1: So you're doing a fine job. Oh not really. Uh So,
3:14
Speaker 1: this this guy, Hong sure yeah, is born on January one,
3:21
Speaker 1: eighteen fourteen. He's a New Year's baby, and he is
3:25
Speaker 1: the third and youngest son of a poor Hawka family.
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Speaker 1: His story gets propagandized pretty heavily as it goes on.
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Speaker 1: So now his origins are a little bit the sources
3:40
Speaker 1: are a little bit contradictory. Some people say it was poor,
3:43
Speaker 1: some people say his family was well to do. But
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Speaker 1: you know, one man's palace is another man's stumpster, right,
3:49
Speaker 1: This kind of the idea of success is relative. But
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Speaker 1: let's let's learn a little bit more about Hong Hong
3:57
Speaker 1: x as you call him. Nol. What do we know
3:59
Speaker 1: about this guy? Well, we know that he had the
4:02
Speaker 1: dream in his heart, the twinkle in his eye. He
4:05
Speaker 1: wanted to grow up and be a scholar. In order
4:09
Speaker 1: to do that, it's sort of like um studying for
4:13
Speaker 1: the bar. Right to be a scholar in in this
4:16
Speaker 1: period in Chinese history, you had to take this test.
4:19
Speaker 1: You had to memorize these Confucian texts and take these
4:23
Speaker 1: things called the Imperial Exams. It was the equivalent of
4:26
Speaker 1: going to college or you know, getting your s A
4:29
Speaker 1: T S or whatever. So all of that kind of
4:31
Speaker 1: combined into this life or death test more like the bar,
4:34
Speaker 1: because it was like it was such a big deal.
4:36
Speaker 1: You'd study for it so much that if you failed it,
4:38
Speaker 1: it was a really crushing blow. And nobody wants to
4:41
Speaker 1: take the bar twice. Thusly, no one wanted to take
4:43
Speaker 1: the Imperial Exams twice. Unfortunately, Oh by the way, less
4:47
Speaker 1: than one percent of the people who took the test pass,
4:50
Speaker 1: and Hong was among those that did not. Yes, yeah,
4:55
Speaker 1: the Imperial Exams are a big, big, big deal, and
5:01
Speaker 1: that attrition rate is nasty. It is not something to
5:05
Speaker 1: mess with. Hong, however, does not give up. He decides
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Speaker 1: he will retake the exams. He travels to a city
5:12
Speaker 1: in the south, Guangdreu, and he decides he's going to
5:15
Speaker 1: take the exams again in eighteen thirty six. This city
5:21
Speaker 1: is amazing at this time. It's a port. It's a
5:25
Speaker 1: center of culture for the Qing dynasty. But with all
5:30
Speaker 1: this culture and with all this population and all this trade,
5:34
Speaker 1: there comes a dark side. You see, a lot of
5:37
Speaker 1: the trade that goes through this port city comes from
5:40
Speaker 1: the West, and the West at this time has one big,
5:45
Speaker 1: big product that they are pushing into Chinese markets. It's right.
5:49
Speaker 1: The British were a huge part of this culture and
5:53
Speaker 1: they were bringing in lots of opium that they were
5:57
Speaker 1: growing in India, where they also held in aerial rule essentially,
6:01
Speaker 1: and they were you know, they didn't have they didn't
6:04
Speaker 1: hold sway over China per se, but there was a
6:07
Speaker 1: pretty serious foothold that they had in the Chinese Empire
6:10
Speaker 1: and the Chin dynasty. Correct man, Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right.
6:13
Speaker 1: So the problem here is that the country of China
6:18
Speaker 1: is producing all this really cool stuff that the British
6:22
Speaker 1: forces want. Tea and te find China. They literally called
6:28
Speaker 1: the porcelain fine China and silk, of course, and the
6:33
Speaker 1: British don't really have a lot of stuff that China wants,
6:36
Speaker 1: so there's a trade deficit. They do, however, have that
6:39
Speaker 1: opium growing in India, and they doubled out on this.
6:43
Speaker 1: They're flooding the markets with opium to the point that
6:47
Speaker 1: it is destabilizing Chinese society. But you see, not every
6:54
Speaker 1: import is a tangible thing. Ideas are just as valuable
6:59
Speaker 1: and indeed just as dangerous as opium, silk, fine China,
7:04
Speaker 1: or what have you. So Hang is walking through the
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Speaker 1: streets of this city thinking about his exam when he
7:12
Speaker 1: hears a missionary from the far flung shores of North
7:17
Speaker 1: America proselytizing, which means, you know, attempting to convert people
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Speaker 1: to his religion, to Christianity. And this guy doesn't speak Chinese,
7:30
Speaker 1: he doesn't speak Cantonese, Normandarin, but he has an interpreter
7:34
Speaker 1: with him. So picture if you will. You're a kid,
7:37
Speaker 1: you're hung extra walking through these crowded, bustling streets, and
7:40
Speaker 1: you see a guy probably standing on an apple box
7:44
Speaker 1: or crate, you know, just yelling out in English, save yourselves,
7:49
Speaker 1: learn the truth. So and so, and then there's an
7:53
Speaker 1: interpreter who has to listen, so there's a little bit
7:55
Speaker 1: of a lag. And I don't know whether the interpreter
7:59
Speaker 1: is just calm remarking on the things this guy is
8:01
Speaker 1: yelling about, but I hope he's yelling too at a
8:04
Speaker 1: slight time delay. I too would like to believe that. Ben.
8:07
Speaker 1: So what happens hanging hears him, right, he hears him, uh,
8:10
Speaker 1: And he doesn't think too much of it at the time,
8:12
Speaker 1: but he at least you know, he's gonna he's not
8:14
Speaker 1: gonna be rude. He takes the pamphlet. You gotta you
8:16
Speaker 1: gotta take the pamphlet. So he takes the pamphlet, folds
8:19
Speaker 1: it up, saves it for later. And it turns out
8:21
Speaker 1: that it will end up having a massive impact on Hong,
8:25
Speaker 1: but not until after this next phase of the story,
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Speaker 1: where and he fails the exam again and then proceeds
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Speaker 1: to have something of what you might call a psychotic breakdown,
8:36
Speaker 1: right yet a complete and utter meltdown, nervous breakdown. He
8:39
Speaker 1: fails the exam twice, and then he takes it a
8:43
Speaker 1: third time a year later, and he fails the third time,
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Speaker 1: and this, yeah, this pushes him to the edge. He
8:51
Speaker 1: goes home. He says, I feel sick, and he lays
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Speaker 1: down and he has a fever dream or a vision,
9:03
Speaker 1: series of visions and feversion and he really seems sick,
9:06
Speaker 1: like he seems physically ill. His complexion is all pallid.
9:11
Speaker 1: He is sweating, he is feverish. His parents are very
9:15
Speaker 1: very concerned about him. Um. So he in his let's let'
9:19
Speaker 1: let's someone's walk through this. Yeah, walk through the vision
9:23
Speaker 1: or the hallucinations. Yea, so he um, this is amazing.
9:28
Speaker 1: It's just amazing. It's just like I like this should
9:29
Speaker 1: be a movie. Um. So, he hallucinates that he takes
9:33
Speaker 1: a trip, a sojourn to some sort of paradise um
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Speaker 1: heavenly land in the east, and then his father reveals
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Speaker 1: to him that there are demons that are destroying humanity.
9:48
Speaker 1: All right, yeah, I mean I get it, you're on board. Yeah, okay.
9:51
Speaker 1: Uh So, then of course he has to have a
9:52
Speaker 1: special magical sword. He gets a magical sword that's bestowed
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Speaker 1: upon him by his father. Uh and then with help
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Speaker 1: of his brother, they fight the demons and what he
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Speaker 1: refers to as the King of Hell. Yes. After the battle,
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Speaker 1: he doesn't wake up after the battle. He stays in heaven.
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Speaker 1: He gets a wife and they have a child together.
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Speaker 1: Eventually he returns to Earth, burying his new title Heavenly King,
10:21
Speaker 1: Lord of the Kingly Waya. His family is not on
10:29
Speaker 1: board with this, well know, because from where they stand,
10:32
Speaker 1: he's just been tossing and turning around in bed for days.
10:35
Speaker 1: I mean there's no not exactly a specific timeline, but
10:38
Speaker 1: I can't imagine this. This was happened over a period
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Speaker 1: of time, um, and he just seems like he's losing it.
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Speaker 1: And he, you know, he goes from being fully asleep
10:48
Speaker 1: to turning around in bed and screaming you know, nonsense syllables,
10:53
Speaker 1: to jerking upright and assuming a fighting stance and then
10:58
Speaker 1: going back to bed. I mean, just you know, really
11:00
Speaker 1: really not well. And he finally wakes up and he
11:04
Speaker 1: explains to his parents the dream and he had written
11:08
Speaker 1: like this in the form of poetry that he kind
11:10
Speaker 1: of like dream journaled when he woke up. It's pretty impressive. Oh,
11:14
Speaker 1: and he also came back with the name Hong SiO
11:16
Speaker 1: Kuan because his original name was Hong Ho Shu. But
11:20
Speaker 1: that father figure he meets in the hallucination tells him
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Speaker 1: that his given name violates taboos and has to be changed.
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Speaker 1: So not only is he waking up it's very, very
11:31
Speaker 1: fantastic story, he's also waking up with a different name.
11:38
Speaker 1: Everybody in the village thinks this guy's bonkers. If this
11:41
Speaker 1: guy were a breakfast, he would be nuts and bananas.
11:44
Speaker 1: It's true, is that a breakfast? Well yeah, you could
11:46
Speaker 1: beat like nuts and banana people do that all the time,
11:49
Speaker 1: really like together, like mixed up with what with oats?
11:51
Speaker 1: Maybe sure, oates? Probably yogurt people. Yogurt people are crazy, man.
11:56
Speaker 1: They'll put anything in yogurt. Okay from now, And I
11:58
Speaker 1: think when we say something is insane, we should refer
12:01
Speaker 1: to it as yogurt. You know what. Let's give it
12:05
Speaker 1: a spin. Let's take it around the bloss we can
12:06
Speaker 1: make that. Let's can make that that catch on and
12:08
Speaker 1: we might have enemies with big yogurt. But but yeah,
12:12
Speaker 1: so Hong has gone full yogurt and he uh is
12:16
Speaker 1: looked upon askance by the people of the village. But
12:19
Speaker 1: he's able, He's able to put it behind him. Yeah,
12:20
Speaker 1: he gets better, quickly bounces back. He decides to take
12:23
Speaker 1: the exam a fourth time because of what worked and
12:26
Speaker 1: what happens. Uh, he fails, He fails again, He fails
12:30
Speaker 1: a fourth time. Again. It's a very very difficult exam.
12:33
Speaker 1: There's a lot of corruption involved. Only one percent of
12:36
Speaker 1: the people who take it will will succeed the one
12:39
Speaker 1: percent of the one percent of the one percent kind
12:42
Speaker 1: of and it seems like a bit of a classist
12:44
Speaker 1: kind of thing where well, yeah, I mean you have
12:46
Speaker 1: to every what isn't classes. But what I'm saying is
12:51
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem to be entirely merit based, maybe like
12:54
Speaker 1: certain people have a leg up in passing the exams.
12:56
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely so. He is. He's still in his twenties
13:01
Speaker 1: at this time, and he has failed this exam, but
13:05
Speaker 1: thankfully not once, not twice, three four times, and he
13:10
Speaker 1: still has a certain pamphlet. He has that pamphlet. He
13:14
Speaker 1: finds it neatly folded in his pristinely pressed tunic. Right,
13:21
Speaker 1: I don't know about that. I'm I'm editorializing here, but
13:23
Speaker 1: he definitely finds it somewhere, and he starts to make
13:25
Speaker 1: some connections, doesn't he. Because the tract actually portrayed China
13:30
Speaker 1: as this kind of post apocalyptic wasteland which wasn't terribly
13:34
Speaker 1: far off from the truth. I mean, there was certainly
13:36
Speaker 1: some hyperbole here, but this, these opium wars and the
13:39
Speaker 1: opium addictions that ravaged China really destabilized the country from
13:44
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty nine to eighteen forty two. And finally it
13:47
Speaker 1: ended with the Treaty of Nanjing, which really gave Britain
13:52
Speaker 1: the upper hand and allowed them to be much more
13:54
Speaker 1: of a colonizer, you know of of China, right right,
13:59
Speaker 1: absolutely is ultimately the reason that so many Christian missionaries
14:04
Speaker 1: were able to make it into the country and stay there.
14:12
Speaker 1: As Hong is reading this pamphlet, he's noticing a stunning
14:19
Speaker 1: similarity between the story of Christianity and his personal vision,
14:26
Speaker 1: the one he had thought and he had you know,
14:29
Speaker 1: gotten over he encounters the words of Jesus Christ and
14:36
Speaker 1: he becomes convinced. Hong becomes convinced that that father figure
14:40
Speaker 1: in his series of visions was the Christian God like
14:46
Speaker 1: the God of Abraham, and that the older brother because
14:49
Speaker 1: remember you mentioned that older brother. No, the older brother
14:52
Speaker 1: was Jesus Christ himself. And the quote king of Hell
14:56
Speaker 1: was the serpent in the garden of Eden. And Long
15:00
Speaker 1: is putting everything together, Like the very end of Usual
15:04
Speaker 1: Suspects when spoiler alert three to one, when the investigator
15:09
Speaker 1: starts looking at the bulletin board and notices that Kaiser
15:14
Speaker 1: SoSE has just been making up stories based on what
15:16
Speaker 1: he reads around the room. I did spoiler countdown and
15:20
Speaker 1: plus it's way past the statue think so yeah, I
15:25
Speaker 1: mean it's fine. Also, where do spoilers stop? Man? Is
15:29
Speaker 1: it a spoiler to say that a Lincoln passes away
15:33
Speaker 1: or the Titanic sinks or the Yeah yeah, we're gonna
15:37
Speaker 1: get some angry emails about that because I didn't spoiler
15:39
Speaker 1: alert is and it is a movie. It is in fact,
15:42
Speaker 1: I'm moving, It's true. So hall Is Halling is having
15:46
Speaker 1: this Usual Suspect moment as he's reading through this pamphlet,
15:49
Speaker 1: and he's like, wait, the father in my dream is God?
15:53
Speaker 1: The older brother in my dream? That's Jesus, the king
15:56
Speaker 1: of Hell? Is this serpent from this story Holy smoked?
16:01
Speaker 1: Put two and two together. I am the Son of God.
16:05
Speaker 1: It's like Darren Aronovski trying to describe the plot of
16:07
Speaker 1: one of his movies, right right, So he doesn't take
16:12
Speaker 1: this revelation as a personal thing. He doesn't hold it
16:15
Speaker 1: close to his heart and use it as a way
16:17
Speaker 1: to keep his divine chin up. Instead, he tells his
16:20
Speaker 1: relatives about his dream, and his message begins to spread.
16:26
Speaker 1: He gets followers. He must have been very persuasive. Well,
16:30
Speaker 1: he clearly was tenacious. He kept taking you know, he
16:35
Speaker 1: let us like a little little bit of psychotic break
16:37
Speaker 1: stop him from trying to take those those exams. Um.
16:39
Speaker 1: So he clearly had drive. And yeah, he had to
16:42
Speaker 1: have been very charismatic um. And his his message started
16:47
Speaker 1: spreading like wildfire call style. Right. Right, he gathers followers.
16:54
Speaker 1: They go on the road to evangelize. Right. They're selling
16:59
Speaker 1: ink and brushes to fund their travels, and Hong begins
17:03
Speaker 1: writing his own religious works. He writes exportations to worship
17:07
Speaker 1: the One True God, and this helps him win more converts.
17:11
Speaker 1: He goes back home to work on more religious writing,
17:15
Speaker 1: but his disciples continue to travel and they form a
17:19
Speaker 1: group known as the God Worshiping Society. There's an interesting
17:23
Speaker 1: sociological aspect here because a lot of his original followers
17:29
Speaker 1: are Hakka people, the ethnic group Hacca, just like he is,
17:33
Speaker 1: and they have a relatively lower position in Chinese society.
17:38
Speaker 1: So this is this is a message that paints a
17:43
Speaker 1: picture of an alternate way to live, a world in
17:46
Speaker 1: which you do not have to be on the bottom
17:50
Speaker 1: just because of your ethnicity. Which is interesting because sort
17:53
Speaker 1: of in the same way that l. Ron Hubbard found
17:54
Speaker 1: that a religion based on constantly being rejected by science
17:58
Speaker 1: fiction you know, publishers and things like that spoiler alert
18:02
Speaker 1: out of well that's fair, but out of kind of
18:04
Speaker 1: this bitterness and this it shaped his whole worldview, and
18:09
Speaker 1: Hong was very similar. He rejected those the Confucianist family
18:14
Speaker 1: ideals and the idea of having to be in that
18:16
Speaker 1: one percent of the one percent of society and past
18:19
Speaker 1: those tests and he built an entirely new, uh philosophy
18:23
Speaker 1: that was it wasn't Christianity exactly. It was sort of
18:27
Speaker 1: a twist on Christianity, right yeah, yeah, yeah, it's you know,
18:32
Speaker 1: if you think about it, it's a Pruto version of communism.
18:38
Speaker 1: His stresses sharing property. He has religious ideas and laws
18:42
Speaker 1: based on the Ten Commandments of Christianity. Importantly, he promises
18:49
Speaker 1: free land to all of his followers, and that's when
18:53
Speaker 1: thousands and thousands more people start joining up with Hong
18:58
Speaker 1: and the god worship society, and they really start to
19:03
Speaker 1: openly reject the Ching norms of that time. They chop
19:09
Speaker 1: off their their braids. They have this hairstyle called a
19:12
Speaker 1: que where you've probably seen it in Um in films,
19:16
Speaker 1: where their head is shaved, except they have like one
19:18
Speaker 1: big long ponytail that's in the back. They cut those off. Um.
19:22
Speaker 1: He they start wearing these red turbans as a symbol
19:26
Speaker 1: of their undying allegiance to hang Um, and he even
19:31
Speaker 1: starts preaching this notion that the man Chou were the
19:35
Speaker 1: very demons that he fought in his battle with the
19:39
Speaker 1: King of Hell. Yeah. Yes, so this is during the
19:42
Speaker 1: Qing dynasty, right, and the Ching dynasty was founded by
19:47
Speaker 1: the man Chew people, and they are still regarded as
19:50
Speaker 1: foreigners at this time, you know what I mean, And
19:53
Speaker 1: the Hakka, with valid reason, don't care very much for
19:58
Speaker 1: the man Chu. Did we mention that the Hakka work
20:00
Speaker 1: d of already a bit of a disenfranchised community. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
20:03
Speaker 1: that's that's that's key because he was able to capitalize
20:06
Speaker 1: on those feelings of rejection and isolation and not being
20:10
Speaker 1: part of the same cast system that he was rejected from.
20:13
Speaker 1: And then when he has the revelation that the demons
20:18
Speaker 1: in his vision are the Manchu. You know, he begins,
20:22
Speaker 1: as you said, pushing people to violence, and this marks
20:27
Speaker 1: the beginning of one of the bloodiest civil wars in
20:32
Speaker 1: Chinese history. Within two years, Hong and the God worshiping
20:36
Speaker 1: society have captured the city of Nanjing. There is a
20:41
Speaker 1: rebellion taking place, folks. Hundreds of thousands of people are
20:46
Speaker 1: overthrowing the social status quo. Yeah, here's the thing too.
20:51
Speaker 1: Um Hong really starts doubling down with his um speaking
20:57
Speaker 1: with God kind of uh ang where he believes that
21:03
Speaker 1: he has been sent by God as the son of
21:06
Speaker 1: God because he is a son of God. He's not Jesus,
21:08
Speaker 1: he's his other son. He's the younger He's the younger
21:10
Speaker 1: brother of Jesus. Uh and he is here to change
21:15
Speaker 1: the very course and nature of Chinese society based on
21:20
Speaker 1: the word of God and what he wants. So Um,
21:23
Speaker 1: all of in his society, all of these little kind
21:26
Speaker 1: of sub offshoot society, all of the beliefs of the Chinese,
21:31
Speaker 1: all of the Confucian texts are burned, all those beliefs
21:34
Speaker 1: are scattered and rejected. Um got rid of every single
21:39
Speaker 1: um idol or effigy or you know, any anything that
21:43
Speaker 1: represented the old way right, and even the outlawed opium,
21:48
Speaker 1: because that had been a problem one that was probably
21:51
Speaker 1: the one one of his good moves. Um and heavily
21:55
Speaker 1: segregated men and women officially official, but not for him, No,
22:01
Speaker 1: not for him. He had something of a harem in
22:03
Speaker 1: his in his abode. Very very common with cult leaders,
22:08
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. From l Ron Hubbard and
22:10
Speaker 1: the Sea Org to David Koresh. Usually cult leaders have
22:16
Speaker 1: a do as I say, not as I do, sort
22:18
Speaker 1: of approach to their beliefs and laws. Doesn't he also
22:24
Speaker 1: change the calendar? He does? He changes the calendar. Dude.
22:27
Speaker 1: That's such a power moves. I love. I love that.
22:31
Speaker 1: It's like, all right, I'm in charge. Now April is done.
22:36
Speaker 1: Now we're calling it um Uh hey, Casey, I knew
22:41
Speaker 1: you were going to call me. Then I have nothing.
22:43
Speaker 1: I have nothing to offer on this. Oh sorry, I don't. Okay,
22:47
Speaker 1: you'd rather be on the case than on the spot, right, Okay, Okay.
22:51
Speaker 1: Uh so we'll say instead of instead of April, we're
22:55
Speaker 1: gonna call it Lowell, right, the month of loll Yeah?
22:59
Speaker 1: Or how about grea April. Yeah, April aprist like that.
23:04
Speaker 1: I like that, so okay, yeah, I don't mean to
23:07
Speaker 1: also casey on the case, thank you. I don't mean
23:10
Speaker 1: to diminish the suffering that Hall is becoming responsible for.
23:17
Speaker 1: What we see happening now is that the Qing dynasty notices, Yeah,
23:24
Speaker 1: that society is quickly crumbling. Dude, in the city of Nanjang.
23:30
Speaker 1: He has amassed an army and in addition to all
23:33
Speaker 1: of his followers, but a real legitimate army that can
23:37
Speaker 1: expand this kingdom that he's creating all over southern China.
23:42
Speaker 1: Uh and ends up with more than thirty million people
23:46
Speaker 1: living inside his little sub kingdom called the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom,
23:51
Speaker 1: which is what they referred to their their new territory as.
23:55
Speaker 1: And this is a real threat to the powers that be.
23:58
Speaker 1: I mean, this is huge and will not let this stand. Right. Absolutely.
24:04
Speaker 1: We should also mention though he did segregate the sexes
24:08
Speaker 1: for his followers, he took some steps to try to
24:11
Speaker 1: make women more socially equal to men. So it wasn't
24:15
Speaker 1: all terrible stuff. But yes, war was very much on
24:20
Speaker 1: the horizon. The Qing emperor says, I have to raise troops.
24:26
Speaker 1: This may become an existential conflict, and it does. It
24:30
Speaker 1: becomes one of the most deadly conflicts in history. So
24:34
Speaker 1: by eighteen sixty hangs people that Taiping were at the
24:38
Speaker 1: height of their power. They were smashing ching armies that
24:42
Speaker 1: were besieging Nanjing, and they were capturing other southern cities Hanju, Suju.
24:48
Speaker 1: In eighteen sixty one, the same year that the US
24:52
Speaker 1: Civil War starts, the Taiping attack Shanghai. But Shanghai has
24:57
Speaker 1: been this Internet national hub, right and is where the
25:01
Speaker 1: Western powers go and they send their boots and they
25:04
Speaker 1: trade their stuff. And that means that the British and
25:07
Speaker 1: French empires are not happy to see this fall to
25:12
Speaker 1: a cult movement and the Europeans begin to bring in
25:15
Speaker 1: their own forces to protect the city. Got a question
25:20
Speaker 1: for you man, that distinction between religion and cult or
25:23
Speaker 1: movements and cult. I think thirty million, it sort of
25:28
Speaker 1: kicks it out of cult territory and it becomes more
25:30
Speaker 1: like a new norm. But again, talking population wise in
25:35
Speaker 1: this in the country, just just for a rough ballpark perspective,
25:39
Speaker 1: UH calculations estimates put the population of China and the
25:45
Speaker 1: Qing Empire at this time around just under three million,
25:50
Speaker 1: got it, so no, no small potatoes, thirty million, right,
25:55
Speaker 1: but still certainly not taking hold in a widespread way.
26:00
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, that's that's it's definitely dangerous and
26:04
Speaker 1: they're all hold up or a bunch of them are
26:06
Speaker 1: holed up in this one area and are kicking ass. Yeah,
26:11
Speaker 1: and the European troops arrived to help out there. I
26:15
Speaker 1: don't know, buddies, their relationship is probably a little strain,
26:17
Speaker 1: but it's more to defend their ports, right, absolutely, Uh,
26:21
Speaker 1: the opium must flown, you know. The Europeans come with
26:29
Speaker 1: the latest word, the bleeding edge of military technology, and
26:35
Speaker 1: they use cannon fire to just tear through the Typing rebels.
26:41
Speaker 1: The Ching launches a major counter attack and this this
26:46
Speaker 1: occurs at the same time. This shatters the Typing army
26:50
Speaker 1: and they retreat from the city. They are forced onto
26:54
Speaker 1: the defensive, and now the Ching dynasty is receiving support
26:58
Speaker 1: from the West. They begin pushing the borders of the
27:01
Speaker 1: Heavenly Kingdom back to Nanjing and they're fighting. Think of
27:08
Speaker 1: it this way. They're fighting what's called a total war
27:11
Speaker 1: in one of the most densely populated areas of the
27:15
Speaker 1: planet around this time. The country of China alone is
27:19
Speaker 1: like thirty percent of the world's population. It's a crowded place,
27:24
Speaker 1: and a total war means that everything is up for
27:29
Speaker 1: grabs and everything that can be destroyed probably will. Yeah,
27:32
Speaker 1: And there's no real rules of engagement or anything like that.
27:35
Speaker 1: I mean, civilians are at risk, utterly at risk, not
27:39
Speaker 1: not not just being in harm's way, but resources plundering
27:44
Speaker 1: of villages from the opposition. When they sack a town
27:47
Speaker 1: or whatever, they just take what they want and food
27:50
Speaker 1: becomes scarce. People actually begin to starve to death in
27:54
Speaker 1: the streets. So I think we're talking um millions of
27:58
Speaker 1: people that that died. Brute. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, The violence
28:02
Speaker 1: combined with the famine led to millions of deaths. If
28:06
Speaker 1: this were a film, let's cut two. Hong Hong is
28:12
Speaker 1: becoming increasingly yogurt. He has withdrawn from running his kingdom
28:20
Speaker 1: during the day to day affairs, directing the armies, rallying
28:23
Speaker 1: the troops. Instead, he hangs out in his palace with
28:27
Speaker 1: his harem, with his concubines. His generals begin to fill
28:33
Speaker 1: the vacuum of power, and this leads to a lot
28:37
Speaker 1: of internal conflict and fracturing of the kingdom, Hong begins
28:44
Speaker 1: to you know, suspect members of his inner circle of
28:48
Speaker 1: being traitors, and he has very valid reasons for this.
28:52
Speaker 1: By eighteen sixty four, the Chain armies are at the
28:55
Speaker 1: gates of the city and Hongs General, a guy named
28:58
Speaker 1: Leashu Cheng, demands that Hong g t f O right,
29:04
Speaker 1: get get out of the city. And now they are
29:07
Speaker 1: who they have been, you know, forced into retreat and
29:10
Speaker 1: they're hold up behind walls. They've running the food as well.
29:13
Speaker 1: So what is Hong do you he? He says, Uh,
29:17
Speaker 1: We're just gonna drink tears from heaven, you know, eat
29:19
Speaker 1: mana from heaven. When mana like that's like magical energy juice,
29:23
Speaker 1: like from the Final Fantasy Games, I think, But no,
29:25
Speaker 1: he says. And what he was referring to were like
29:29
Speaker 1: he basically said that that God will nourish us with
29:32
Speaker 1: whatever we put into our bodies. It's so crazy, it
29:35
Speaker 1: almost seems made up, but it's the craziest. So he
29:38
Speaker 1: plucks this what is he plux a weed from the
29:41
Speaker 1: ground and eats it as a sign. They like, see,
29:44
Speaker 1: I'm on board with you, you know, like I'm just
29:46
Speaker 1: like you guys and it's turns out to be deadly
29:49
Speaker 1: poison and he dies Yeah, yeah, just on a fluke totally,
29:56
Speaker 1: you know, good God. And then his teenage son kind
29:59
Speaker 1: of steps sinner places him, but it's too late that
30:02
Speaker 1: the chamber at the gates, like we said, they eventually
30:05
Speaker 1: kicked down the doors. Blood bath ensues night night, Kingdom
30:11
Speaker 1: of Heaven, and the Taiping Rebellion is put down. Estimates
30:15
Speaker 1: vary widely depending on which historical sources you encounter. You
30:19
Speaker 1: will see the estimate of the death toll here ringing
30:23
Speaker 1: in it anywhere between twenty to seventy million people. That
30:27
Speaker 1: makes it one of the deadliest conflicts in human history,
30:31
Speaker 1: and its shaped China and therefore the world in ways
30:36
Speaker 1: that carry over even today in twenty nineteen, all because
30:42
Speaker 1: one guy had a vision. You know, what if he
30:47
Speaker 1: had passed his exams. You always have to wonder. It's
30:49
Speaker 1: kind of like what if Hitler got accepted into art school. Yeah,
30:52
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, that's true. I mean, it's I
30:53
Speaker 1: think it's the with the repeated rejection that really caused
30:56
Speaker 1: him to break. But you gotta wonder too, something was
30:59
Speaker 1: off in this guy, so he would have done some
31:01
Speaker 1: weird stuff the other way, and you have to wonder
31:03
Speaker 1: about the country as well. If not him, would some
31:08
Speaker 1: other kind of event have occurred, you know what I mean? Yeah,
31:11
Speaker 1: it's true because the history of China is largely a
31:14
Speaker 1: series of peasant uprisings, as of the case for many histories,
31:18
Speaker 1: like the French Revolution, the American Remoli. It's all about
31:21
Speaker 1: rising up against the oppressor, perceived or otherwise. Um and these.
31:26
Speaker 1: The dynasty system was so entrenched culturally that it was immovable,
31:32
Speaker 1: and so it makes sense that like, but what's so funny,
31:34
Speaker 1: ban though, is what's that happening is you replace you
31:37
Speaker 1: you you knocked down a dynasty, and then you replace
31:40
Speaker 1: it with your own dynasty, and you become the same
31:41
Speaker 1: thing that you hated and we're fighting against in the
31:43
Speaker 1: first place. Absolutely happens every time. Maybe one time it
31:48
Speaker 1: will be different. Probably not, Okay, probably, do not not look
31:51
Speaker 1: forward to it. I'm not holding my breath. So history
31:54
Speaker 1: tells us that the world is rife, the world is overflowing.
32:00
Speaker 1: If um would be Messiah's We are lousy with people
32:04
Speaker 1: who suspect that they have divine right to one thing
32:09
Speaker 1: or another. And the modern age is no different It's
32:13
Speaker 1: easy for us to say, Wow, that sounds crazy, what
32:17
Speaker 1: the heck was going on in the eighteen hundreds, But
32:19
Speaker 1: you have to realize in there are plenty of groups
32:22
Speaker 1: in the United States, in your home country and your
32:26
Speaker 1: neck of the global woods. I guarantee you there's someone
32:29
Speaker 1: right now who believes that they are either God or
32:33
Speaker 1: the avatar of God, or the younger brother of a
32:39
Speaker 1: divine figure, first cousin. Whatever. Yeah, why not, man, somebody's
32:44
Speaker 1: got to be um. More power to you, just trying to,
32:48
Speaker 1: you know, foment any bloody uprisings. Yeah, do your best,
32:52
Speaker 1: do your best, do your do your best, be a
32:53
Speaker 1: good citizen. This was such a crazy story. It's a
32:57
Speaker 1: story that a lot of Westerners are not familiar with it.
33:00
Speaker 1: And how how how insane is it that a story
33:03
Speaker 1: involving the death of twenty to seventy million human beings
33:07
Speaker 1: that took place over fifteen years at the hands of
33:10
Speaker 1: a psychotic Christian death call leader not really a death call,
33:14
Speaker 1: but certainly, I mean, I stand by, we stand by
33:16
Speaker 1: the whole cult thing. How crazy is that we don't
33:19
Speaker 1: know about that and they don't teach that in in
33:20
Speaker 1: history class. I don't know it's it's it's interesting. It
33:24
Speaker 1: sounds weird because we do host a history show, but
33:27
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff happened. Yeah, I don't know, Casey.
33:30
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna put it in spite here. I just
33:31
Speaker 1: want to know, have you ever heard of this story? No,
33:34
Speaker 1: this is like all completely new to me, and my
33:36
Speaker 1: mind is thoroughly blown, absolutely bonkers. And how has there
33:39
Speaker 1: not been a film of this as well? It seems
33:42
Speaker 1: very good film fodder when you Yeah, when you first
33:44
Speaker 1: mentioned it, I was thinking of Scorsese is Silence, which
33:47
Speaker 1: is also concerns Christianity in Japan. Um and and it's
33:51
Speaker 1: kind of somebody also having maybe a little bit of
33:55
Speaker 1: a savior complex or something, but different era, different country,
33:59
Speaker 1: different culture, very different. But you know it kind of
34:01
Speaker 1: brought that to mind. Yeah, very much. So um well,
34:04
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't I think, uh, I think
34:06
Speaker 1: the story speaks for itself. I think we've said it all,
34:08
Speaker 1: so I think it's time to wrap it up. And
34:10
Speaker 1: what do you say? I know I never want a
34:12
Speaker 1: cult story to end, but yeah, I guess, I guess
34:16
Speaker 1: I got it. All good cult things must come to
34:18
Speaker 1: an end. Band, I know, I know, and you know
34:21
Speaker 1: when you've started as many as I have, eventually you
34:24
Speaker 1: wanted to feel fresh. Said that was in another life.
34:27
Speaker 1: Totally so. Thanks to Christopher hasci Otis, Thanks to our
34:31
Speaker 1: super producer, Casey Pegrom, Thanks to research associate and pal
34:35
Speaker 1: Gabe Loucier, Thanks to Alex Williams who composed our Thanks
34:39
Speaker 1: to you knowld. Thanks to you listeners for giving this
34:43
Speaker 1: episode a spin. If the spirit so moves you, why
34:47
Speaker 1: not dropped by your podcast platform of choice and toss
34:50
Speaker 1: us a rating or review. Yeah, we really appreciate it.
34:53
Speaker 1: You can also join us on our Facebook fan page
34:56
Speaker 1: or community page whatever you wanna call it, which is
34:58
Speaker 1: ridiculous historians. Um. We are on the usual platforms, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.
35:03
Speaker 1: You can also follow me personally on Instagram at Embryonic Insider,
35:07
Speaker 1: and you can find me on Instagram as well. I
35:11
Speaker 1: am at ben Bowland. So let us let us know
35:16
Speaker 1: about the local movements, communes, or dare we say, cults
35:21
Speaker 1: in your neck of the Global woods. Do you think
35:25
Speaker 1: these groups are innocuous? Do you think they are malevolent?
35:29
Speaker 1: If so, why or why not? And I'm especially interested
35:34
Speaker 1: to hear stories of local cults that most people outside
35:38
Speaker 1: of the area don't know about, like Zendig Farms. Yeah, hey,
35:43
Speaker 1: Zendig Farms. There are a ton of Florida just to
35:46
Speaker 1: the south of us. Very strange ones too, but yeah,
35:50
Speaker 1: let us know. We'll see you next time. Books. For
36:00
Speaker 1: more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
36:03
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.