God's Chinese Son
77-85 Fulham Palace Road,
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
Published by HarperCollins 1996
135798642
First published in the USA by
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1996
Copyright
©
Jonathan D. Spence 1996
The Author asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library
ISBN 0 00 255584
0
Set in Granjon
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Caledonian International Book Manufacturing Ltd, Glasgow
The author gratefully acknowledges the following for their generous
permission to reprint copyright materials: Australian National University Press,
Canberra, for excerpts from Prescott Clarke and J.S. Gregory,
Western Reports on the
Taiping: A Selection of Documents
(1982), permission applied for; Cambridge
University Press for excerpts from C.A. Curwen,
Taiping Rebel: The Deposition of Li
Hsiu-ch'eng
(1977); Stanford University Press for an excerpt from Dian Murray and
Quin Baoqi,
The Origins of the Tiandihui
(1994); University of Washington Press for
excerpts from
The Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents
,
volumes 2 and 3, by
Franz Michael, in collaboration with Chung-li Chang (1971); and Yale University
Press for excerpts from Jen Yu-wen,
The Taiping Revolutionary Movement
(1973), and
from Norman Cohn,
Cosmos, Chaos, and the World to Come: The Ancient
Roots of Apocalyptic Faith
(1
993).
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior
permission of the publishers.
For Chin Annping,
and to the memory of
Chin Yu-fu
.
. . and there shall be
Beautiful things made new, for the surprise
Of the sky-children.
—John Keats, "Hyperion"
endpapers
Hong Xiuquan's hand-written response to Joseph Edkins.
This only surviving example of Hong Xiuquan's theological thinking in his own handwriting dates
from the spring of 1861. The writing in black ink is by the Rev. Joseph Edkins, who visited Nanjing
at that time, and constitutes an argument for the incorporeality of God. Edkins argues that all references to God's form, as they can be found
in
John's Gospel, the epistle to Timothy, the Book of
Revelation, Isaiah, and Exodus, must not be taken literally but must all be read as figurative (yu).
Hong's comments are written across the same sheets in red ink. His displeasure can be seen at the
very start, as he scores out Edkins' title and suggests his own version. In the seventh line of the essay,
seven characters down, Hong erases the reference to Jesus being God's "only" son, and substitutes the
word for "elder brother" (xiong). If Jesus were God's only son, then clearly Hong could not be Jesus'
younger brother, and the change takes care of that. In the middle of line twelve, Hong erases the
word "figurative" (yu) in relation to God's form, and writes in the word for "real" (shi). He makes
the same change at the top of lines thirteen and sixteen. The heavy red scoring in the middle of the
essay shows Hong's displeasure with Edkins' reading of Revelation.
At the end of Edkins' essay (see back endpaper) Hong scores out the last line which reaffirms the
incorporeality of God, and writes out a poem of his own to clarify his theological points to Edkins.
(The poem is translated below, p. 289.) On the back of the sheet on which he wrote the poem can be
seen the imprint, also in red, of the massive Taiping state seal. Some of this red ink has bled through
the paper and marked the top center of the poem. The scattered blobs of red ink across the poem
reflect, perhaps, the agitation of the Heavenly King as he wrote out his response.
This document is printed here by courtesy of the British Library, Oriental and India Office Collections.
List of Illustrations
..............................................................
xi
List of Maps
..........................................................................
xiii
Acknowledgments
..............................................................
xv
Foreword
...................................................................................
xix
1
| WALLS
..............................................................................
3
2
| THE WORD
.............................................................
14
3
| HOME GROUND
...........................................................
23
4
| SKY WAR
................................................................
34
5
| THE KEY
.................................................................
51
6
| WANDERING
.........................................................
66
7
| THE BASE
...............................................................
79
8
| JUDGMENTS
..................................................................
96
9
| ASSEMBLING
........................................................
110
1 0 | EARTH WAR
..................................................................
126
1 1 | THE FIRST CITY
............................................................
140
1 2 | THE HUNT
......................................................................
154
13 | THE EARTHLY PARADISE
..........................................
172
1 4
|
THREE SHIPS
.................................................................
192
15
|
THE SPLIT
........................................................................
210
1 6
|
THE KILLING
................................................................
234
1 7 I FAMILY CIRCLES
........................................................
246
1 8 | THE WRONG MAN....................................................... 262
1
9
| NEW WORLDS
.........................................................
268
2
0
| PRIEST-KING
...............................................................
285
2 1
[
SNOWFALL
..............................................................
298
2 2
|
PARTINGS
......................................................................
316
Notes
........................................................................................
333
Bibliography of Works Cited
..............................................
373
Index
........................................................................................
389
Endpapers
Letter of the British missionary Joseph Edkins, "covered with vermilion corrections" from Hong Xiuquan
Frontispiece
The Taiping seal
Pages'10-11
Foreign Factory Site at Canton
The American Factory in Canton
Karl Gutzlaff
Pages 40-41
Images from the
Jade Record
:
The Sixth Layer of Hell
"Life-is-short"
"Death-has-gradations"
Page 175:
A Taiping household registration document
Pages 212-15
Scenes from the retreat and defeat of the Taiping Northern Expeditionary Forces,
1853-1855
Page 281:
Images from Hong Xiuquan's 1853 edition of
Pilgrim's Progress
Page 313:
The Ever-Victorious Army
Pages 318-21
"Pacify the Southern Bandits": Qing paintings depicting their victories over the
Taiping
List of Maps
Canton and the Foreign Settlement in the 1830s,
page 6
Hong's Home Ground,
page 27
Hong's First Journey, 1844
,page 70
Areas of God-worshipers' Control, Guangxi, 1846-1850,
page 112
The Battle of Jintian,
1851, page 131
From Yongan to Nanjing,
157
Nanjing, the Heavenly Capital, 1853-1864,
page 187
Greatest Extent of Taiping Control,
page 217
Shanghai in the 1860s
,page 301
The Flight and Capture of the Loyal King, the
Shield King, and the Young Monarch, 1864,
page 327
