God's Chinese Son (44 page)

As Li advances on Shanghai in mid-August 1860, with a military force of around three thousand men, he sends letters to the foreign envoys sta­tioned there to clarify his views. All foreign residences, and all foreign merchant buildings, will be left unmolested if they simply post a yellow flag as an identifying mark. Yellow flags should also be hung in all foreign churches—both Protestant and Catholic—so that his troops (who may not recognize the buildings by their architecture) leave them undamaged. As a further proof of his good intentions, Li orders the execution of one of his Taiping soldiers who has killed a foreigner—even though in this case the foreigner was in fact fighting alongside a squad of Qing demon troops. To make doubly sure, however, while the Taiping forces are engaged in storming the Chinese city, all foreigners are advised to stay indoors until the battle is concluded.
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Li Xiucheng is shocked and bewildered when Western leaders abandon their stated position of neutrality, and during three days of heavy fighting use the concentrated fire of their artillery and small arms to stop his men from taking the Chinese city of Shanghai. Li's soldiers seem equally unprepared for the fire unleashed on them by the Westerners, and stand motionless at first, "like men of stone, immovable, without returning a single shot," while the bullets shred their ranks.
⁴⁰
In a letter ringing with bitterness and disappointment, on August 21, 1860, Li addresses the con­suls of Great Britain, the United States, and other countries:

I have, however, taken into consideration that you and we alike worship Jesus, and that after all, there exists between us the relationship of a common basis and common doctrines. Moreover I came to Shanghai to make a treaty in order to see us connected together by trade and commerce; I did not come for the purpose of fighting with you. Had I at once commenced to attack the city and kill the people, that would have been the same as the members of one family fighting among themselves, which would have caused the demons to ridicule us.

Further, amongst the people of foreign nations at Shanghai, there must be varieties in capacity and disposition: there must be men of sense, who know the principles of right, and are well aware of what is advantageous and what injurious. They cannot all covet the money of the demon's dynasty, and forget the general trading interests in this country.
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The setback before Shanghai marks the moment at which the 1860 eastern campaign, hitherto so brilliant in its execution, turns out to be disastrous in its consequences. By seeking to divert their demon enemies, the Taiping end up by fragmenting their own energies and fatally antago­nizing the foreign powers. Not only do the British and French command­ers now demand that the Taiping keep clear of Shanghai around a radius of thirty miles; they also forbid the foreign merchants to ship any more supplies or arms upriver to the Taiping garrisons. This decision in turn leads to the Taiping loss of their crucial inland river base at Anqing, for as soon as Qing patrol boats assisted by British ships prevent merchants or smugglers from unloading at the Anqing wharves, the ultimate fate of the city is sealed. The well-led and disciplined Xiang army forces, under the command of the former Hunan gentry leader Zeng Guofan and his brother Zeng Guoquan, are able to tighten the siege and starve the city into submission, killing almost every single member of the Taiping garri­son forces, more than sixteen thousand in all. With the fall of the river garrison of Anqing in September 1861, the Taiping lines of communica­tion with inland China to the west and north lose their crucial anchor.
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But in August 1860 the fate of Anqing is still more than a year away, and Hong Xiuquan himself makes no specific comment on the course of the eastern campaign. He neither praises Hong Rengan and Li Xiucheng for the raising of the Nanjing siege and the capture of Suzhou, nor upbraids them for the setback at Shanghai. Hong does still appear to harbor dreams for a great new "northern campaign," one that perhaps will at last bring down the pillars of the demon's kingdom, for the forces led by Lord Elgin have seized Peking in September 1860, burned the emperor's summer palace to the ground, and forced the emperor himself to flee beyond the wall. But when Li argues that such a northern campaign cannot be undertaken at this time, Hong Xiuquan, though "full of right­eous indignation," lets his general have his way.
⁴³

Neither the problems in Shanghai, the use of force against the Taiping by the Western troops, nor their steady patrolling of the Yangzi River causes the Heavenly King to waver in his absorption with the True Reli­gion. Indeed, Hong has found a new book now to supplement his rewrit­ten Bible, a book that according to the Shield King, Hong Rengan, becomes his favorite reading at just this time. The book is
Pilgrim's

Progress
(1678), by John Bunyan.
⁴⁴
One of Hong Rengan's missionary acquain­tances from his Hong Kong days, William Burns, has translated the book into Chinese, and published it in Amoy in 1853. Short summaries of
Pil­grim's Progress
have been printed in Chinese before, but now the Heavenly King can follow Christian's journey to the new Jerusalem in all its solem­nizing detail, aided by ten carefully rendered illustrations. Possibly Hong Rengan brings the book with him in 1858 and gives it to his sovereign, but Hong may have obtained a copy earlier, for the book has been circulat­ing widely, and besides the 1853 edition there have been others printed in the mid-1850s in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Fuzhou.
⁴⁵

The man called Christian in the
Pilgrim's Progress
is presented by Bun­yan as being the product of a dream, but a dream so vivid we can under­stand with all our souls how Christian staggers under the weight of his guilt and sin, till freed by faith and the words of the evangelist who watches over him. To make his way toward his New Jerusalem, he gives up all the comforts of home and wife and children, and risks suffering, torture, and death. Many of his closest companions die along the way, and others—feigned companions—turn out to be deceivers, lost in idleness or faithlessness. The illustrations heighten the emotion of various episodes: Christian's baby in his mother's arms, stretching out his hand toward his disappearing father; the burden falling off Christian's back as he prays before the cross of Jesus; and Christian, flanked by the guardian knight and shepherds, gazing through a telescope toward the New Jerusalem.
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Narrow is the gate through which Christian must pass before his adventures are well begun, and many are the distractions and false detours before he reaches it.
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"Earnestly exhort all the people of the world to enter the narrow door," Hong tells his family and his ministers in his proclamation of March 1861, for "this day is the heavenly day of great peace, prophesied long ago in the Gospel, and now proven. The narrow door lies in the Holy Edict of the Father and the Elder Brother."
⁴⁸
Though Hong Xiuquan now never leaves his palace and the shelter of its double row of yellow walls, every morning new edicts in his own hand, in vermilion ink on yellow silk, are posted at one of the gates of his Heavenly Palace, the gate called "Holy Heavenly Gate of the True God." These texts now deal mainly with religion, including the relationship and nature of God and His Son or Sons.
⁴⁹

As Hong explains in an edict he gives to yet another visiting Protestant missionary, asking him to take it back with him to the city of Shanghai and share it with all the foreigners there, it is Hong's son Tiangui, the Young Monarch, who henceforth will "regulate affairs appertaining to this world," while Hong Xiuquan himself will lead the peoples of the earth "to the Heavenly abode." The revelation of 1848 is clear at last: "The Father and the Elder Brother descended into the world in order, through me and the Young Monarch, to establish endless peace," and thus will "heaven, earth, and man, the past, the present, and the future" be as one.
⁵⁰
These broadenings of Hong's claims are reflected in the preambles to the proclamations of 1860 and 1861. First they are addressed to Hong's inner family and his court officials, but then he begins to address them to "all the western brothers and sisters" so that "Chinese and Westerners, in eternal harmony, shall observe the agreements, and peace and unity shall reign and our territories widen." The last ones are addressed to "all the officials and people of this world, one family."
⁵¹

Hong's comments on the eastern campaigns, and on the Taiping's pros­pects of eventual victory, are couched exclusively in celestial terms. When Hong goes to Heaven, he tells his people in other proclamations of June 1861, he confers on the progress of the war with the East King and the West King. Together they plan their strategies, together they lead their troops victoriously into battle.
⁵²
On some of these journeys the Young Monarch, Tiangui, now twelve years old, joins his father and the East King. Hong tells his son to fear nothing, for his Heavenly Grandfather will be always by his side. To reinforce this support, Hong changes his son's name to Tiangui Fu, "Heaven's Precious Happiness." The character "Fu" shall henceforth be tabooed for ordinary use, like the characters within the names Jehovah and Jesus, and when writing Fu all people will add an extra stroke at the center of the character.
⁵⁵

Though Tiangui is still so young, his dreams begin to intersect with his own father's. He has already predicted the second great relief of the Nan­jing siege by the Taiping troops in 1860, by dreaming that two huge serpents surrounded the city, but that with his own sword he was able to slay them. His proud father celebrates the fulfillment of this dream by establishing a full Taiping holiday in its anniversary commemoration.
⁵⁶
In poetry and prose Hong Xiuquan also celebrates his son's achievements, linking them to his own dream triumphs:

Father and son, Grandfather and grandson, sit in the Heavenly Court; Peace and unity consume the serpents and the tigers.

"God and Christ guided and directed me, and having decapitated the snake-tiger-dog devils, the Father and the Elder Brother guided me east­ward to rule the rivers and mountains. Being of the same family, and the same clan, I returned victoriously."
⁵⁶

God also calls to Hong through Hong's wife, the Second Chief Moon.

"Tell your husband," God tells her in a dream, "to ease his heart and breast. Great peace will flow across the world, and immediately it shall be seen that the road to the heavenly hall of great peace is open. One day the southern heavenly door will open. Close your ranks for the great battle and eternal glory."
⁵⁷

Sometimes, too, Hong's visions blend with his mother's, as well as with those of his son and wife. Before the great Taiping victory at Suzhou in 1860, Hong tells his followers, his own earthly mother saw all three dead kings, East, West, and South, "depart to exterminate the demons," and as they marched before the Golden Dragon Palace they cheered aloud, "Ten Thousand Years."
⁵⁸

At dawn, one day in October 1860, Hong Xiuquan records, he sees in a dream sent to him by his Holy Father "countless heavenly soldiers and generals faithfully placing before me their tributes of sacred articles and treasure, and I smiled happily and silently."
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Two days later, God comes to Hong again in another dream. Hong is walking with two women down a road. The road ahead is blocked by four yellow tigers. Seeking to save the women, Hong turns back. The tigers pursue him, and he fights them savagely with his bare hands; as they fight, the tigers change into human form, and Hong wakens abruptly, with a start. Between dreaming and waking he writes a poem:

Now the four tigers have been killed and cast away,

And, throughout the world, officials and people rejoice as I return in victory. The road to Heaven lies open with the demon tigers crushed. High Heaven arranges the unity of all existence.
⁶⁰

Hong sleeps again and returns to the scene of the battle. Now he sees the four tigers sprawled there, dead. But lying with them are new appari­tions, two black dogs. One of the dogs is clearly dead as well, but one still shows signs of life. When Hong strikes it with his hands, the dog cries out, in a human voice, "I'm afraid." Hong replies, "I have to kill you," and in his dream beats the dog to death. Hong wakes rejoicing. He knows now, he tells his followers, that he and his son will reign a myriad years.
⁶¹