Review: God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan

Jonathan D. Spence. God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan.  New York, NY: W.W Norton & Company, Inc., December 17th 1996. 432 pp.

5 out of 5

Purchase: Amazon

Many people in the West (United States and Europe) are probably not aware of the Taiping Rebellion which would be up there among one of history’s most terrible events.  It took the lives of twenty to thirty million people and when one compare that to World War One which took seventeen million lives you get the magnitude of this horrific fourteen year war in China that center around a man name Hong Xiuquan who claim to be the “younger brother of Jesus.”  If you are interested in the history of Christianity, history of China, history of East meets West or military history or all the above this book is definitely for you.  In fact I believe the maxim “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” is relevant here.  In order for us in the West to understand certain aspects of the current relationship of the West with China and also why the Chinese government has concern for Christianity one can learn a lot from the Taiping Rebellion.

The author Jonathan Spence as a historian has done an excellent work in this book.  I was surprised at how much we can reconstruct of what happened and part of the credit goes to the Chinese scholars who did a good job archiving primary sources and made it accessible for even Western scholars.  I was blown away at how the book describe early Protestant efforts to evangelize Chinese in Southern China and also the early days of Hong Xiquan who would later claim to be the younger brother of Jesus and lead a rebellion to try to bring about the Kingdom of God.  Spence also did a good job of exploring Hong’s background such as Hong’s hometown history and happening in Hua that is a part of Guangdong province and also of Hong being part of a Chinese ethnic minority called the Hakka.  The book tells us of how he received a Gospel tract, his confusion and eventual attempt to propagate his version of Christianity after experiencing a strange dream and short duration with a Western missionary.  Hong travels from Guangdong province to Guangxi province where in an area known as Thistle Mountain the movement’s attempt to self-defend itself suddenly grow into a larger army fighting various secret societies, gangs, pirates, local militias and government forces.  The book’s discussion of historical contribution to the rise of the Taiping was also very informative including the British colonialism’s indirect contribution to the rise of pirates moving inland and also the upheaval of society during this time that led some to the cause of the Taiping.  The author is also to be commended for doing a good job reconstructing the theology of Hong and the Taiping whose early days were driven by visions and dreams.  Here is a cautionary tale even for today of what happen when there’s a “Christianity” that is driven more by visions and subjectivism than an understanding of what the Bible really means.  In the case of Hong he believed that he is Jesus’ younger brother who is called by God the Father to install a heavenly kingdom on earth in which all the world will eventually be under his earthly rule.  Hong manages to get some loyal followers and some who became very good generals in their fight against the Qing government.  Again the author’s knowledge of the background of what’s going on helps readers to understand the factors that contributed to the sudden surge of people joining Hong’s army and cause; the Emperor of China at the time were actually outsiders of the majority Han Chinese population; they were Manchus who were culturally distinct.  The hatred for the Manchu’s rule was what partly motivated some to join the Taiping forces in order to overthrow the much hated Qing dynasty.  This led to many surprising victories by the Taipings.  I was surprised at how much distances they traveled and how much land they were able to grab such as the city of Wuhan, Anhui Province and the Taipings even making Nanjing the capital.

This book is partly an exploration of the history of Western missionaries in China, Western imperialism as much as local and regional Chinese social forces at play during the mid-1800s.  I was struck at how the author at one moment could discuss the Bible, historical Chinese customary practices and then military history and movements.  The book’s exploration of the diplomatic and naval dimensions of Western powers such as the United States, England and France as observers and participants in the conflict is also very fascinating.  The amount of endnotes and bibliography is incredible; the author is to be commended for doing his research very well.  Most fascinating to me are the primary sources that the book cite concerning mercenaries who worked for the Taiping which gave us a window into the Taiping from outsiders’ perspective that weren’t overtly hostile in slanting biases against them.  Also fascinating are the book’s handling of primary sources from naval officers, diplomats and missionaries who had interactions with the Taipings at various levels and even interactions with Hong himself who enthrone himself as the emperor.

I took an unusually long time to finish this book.  This is partly due to the fact that I read every end note of the books I read and there are a lot of them in the book.  But it also is a heavy subject.  The theology of the Taipings are very disturbing for orthodox biblical Christians; Hong and other lower Taiping “kings” uses Christianity for their own purposes and perverts Christian doctrines and at times invents new doctrines altogether.  When Western Christians’ interactions with the Taiping resulted in errors of the Taipings being pointed out such as their wrongly held beliefs that God is physical, that Jesus is not God and the Holy Spirit is a man, we see Hong suddenly declare that the Bible is corrupted and in need of a new update.  Not only is the theological subject matter concerning but the account of warfare and punishments that the Taipings impose upon their followers and those they subjugated is not easy to read.  This is a blood thirsty cult that has no problem killing people in horrifying numbers and in horrifying matters, sometimes on unfounded accusations.  The military defeat of the Taipings are also horrifying to read as the book document how innocent civilians suffer, and the inhumane ordeal that Taiping troops faced such as being frozen to death because of unanticipated bad weather, starvation and brutal massacres of fighting and surrendering forces.  One can’t help but to draw parallel of the Taiping with ISIS.

I wished the book mentioned more of what does the legacy of the Taiping rebellion and what it means for China today.  I know other scholars have picked up on exploring these themes.  This book exceeded my expectation of how much I would learn as a result of reading this book.  Also this book also exceeded my expectation of how much primary sources the author interacted with and cited.