God's Chinese Son (55 page)

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Authors: Jonathan Spence

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10.
 
Wakeman,
Strangers,
73;
CR,
10:527-528; Y
'apian zhanzheng,
3:15-16.

11.
 
Wakeman,
Strangers,
48—50;
CR,
10:292, for sticks in ears.

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 refine 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.

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