God's Chinese Son (24 page)

It is on December 10, 1851, that the Qing forces under General Ulantai launch their fiercest counterattack yet on Yongan. Wary, after more than a year of failed or inconclusive campaigning against the Taiping, they concentrate on one limited objective, the village of Shuidou, a Taiping supply depot and fortified outpost on the river, at the very southern tip of the Taiping's outer defensive perimeter, where Taiping land armies can keep contact with Luo Dagang's river fleet. At least five Qing columns take part in the assault, which is successful: the fort is overrun, and the supplies burned. The Taiping attempt to save the depot by rushing two relief columns from Yongan and the inner line of defenses, but the Qing troops beat them off. At this point, prudently content with their minor victory, the Qing forces pull back to their base camp.
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Xiao Chaogui, who for three years has served as the voice of Jesus, is wounded in this battle; the evidence for this is the voice of Jesus, as recorded in one of the Taiping's own confidential records:

In the first year of the Taiping, 10th month, 18th day [December 10, 1851, in the Western calendar] the Heavenly Elder Brother [Jesus] showed his compassion and came down to earth in Yongan. Because the West King [Xiao Chaogui] while killing the demons had received several minor wounds—none of them too serious—the Heavenly Elder Brother wished to reassure the Heavenly King and his followers, and therefore issued them this sacred instruction: "My little ones, console your Second Elder Brother [Hong Xiuquan], reassure him and give him solace, for [Xiao Chao] Gui, his brother-in-law, has received this pain. It is not serious."

When Yang Xiuqing, Feng Yunshan, and Shi Dakai hear of this, they cluster around the wounded Xiao Chaogui, who gives them the same reassurance. Their response shows the extent of their disquiet:

We obey Your instructions. We Your humble disciples have all been blessed by the fact that our Heavenly Elder Brother long ago manifested His great goodness by atoning for our sins. Now (Xiao) Chaogui, our brother-in-law, [Lord for] eight thousand years, has also on behalf of humankind endured this suffering. We Your humble disciples beseech God the Father and our Heavenly Elder Brother to cherish him with Your most especial care, so that he may recover soon, and show us all the extent of Your heavenly goodness.
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The response, given in the voice of Jesus, is that the army as a whole should be reassured that this is "nothing serious," and that all the Taiping troops should "advance with spritely steps and all their courage, uniting their minds and uniting their strength, to exterminate those demon devils.'"
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Two days later, on December 12, far from being reassuring, the news about Xiao seems worse: the "scars from his wounds have not yet healed." Jesus descends again, to talk to another leading Taiping general, Wei Changhui, who was not present on December 10. As the other senior commanders have done, Wei begs Jesus to make special allowances for Xiao, and to relieve Xiao of his "serious pain," and to grant him a swift recovery. Wei also calls Xiao by his new honorific name "eight thousand years." Jesus responds with an ambiguous speech: "Fulfillment as a man does not come from a life of ease; a life of ease does not lead to fulfillment as a man. The deeper your suffering, the more awe-inspiring your reputa­tion. Let your mind be at rest. Whether those demon devils fly or change their form, they will never escape the hands of the Heavenly Father and Heavenly Elder Brother."
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Thereafter, in the Taiping record, with the exception of a few murmured words of encouragement to the troops five months later—"Keep your courage up, be of good cheer"—Jesus comes no more to earth, and his voice falls silent.
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There is a mystery here. According to surviving Taiping sources, Xiao dies a full nine months after this, in September 1852, during the Taiping attack on Changsha city. In the intervening period, he is given military assignments, noble titles, and listed as directing campaigns. The Heavenly King, Hong Xiuquan, in one of his most sacred texts, "The Book of Heav­enly Decrees and Proclamations," issued to his subjects in 1852, quotes Jesus' comment that "the deeper your suffering, the more awe-inspiring your reputation," but he does not link it specifically to Xiao's wounds or death.
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Is Xiao in Yongan perhaps incapacitated in some way, so weak­ened that he is kept in seclusion, so as not to destroy his followers' morale or allow people to think that God and His son have abandoned the Tai­ping? Is that why Jesus issues no more reassuring or didactic statements, and passes no more judgments on Taiping policies, as he has so often in the past? Has Yang Xiuqing, Xiao's Thistle Mountain neighbor—and like Xiao among the very poorest and least educated of the senior Taiping leaders—who has been speaking so confidently with the voice of God since his own long illness, and exposing hidden traitors in the Taiping midst, won some kind of power play? Has Xiao been silenced by a Tai­ping coup rather than by Qing spear thrusts or bullets?

If there has been some kind of power struggle, it is Yang Xiuqing who is the winner. For on December 17, a week after Xiao is wounded, Hong Xiuquan, with no comment on Xiao's state of health, issues his full enfeoffment of the five kings, including Xiao as "West King." At the end of the proclamation, Hong grants to Yang, the East King, "supervisory power" over the other four kings, clearly promoting him above the rest in the earthly Taiping hierarchy.
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Military training and moral instruction continue side by side as the Taiping, their final destination still not announced by the Heavenly King, seek to strengthen their ranks. In a new summary of military conduct, rules for the behavior of troops, both male and female, in Yongan or the base camps as well as on the march, are spelled out in simple form. As the Taiping now have access to printing facilities, these are copied in large bold type, easy to read and easy to remember. Among the rules are the following:

Make yourselves thoroughly acquainted with the Heavenly Command­ments and with the regulations on praise, on morning and evening worship, and on thanksgiving, as well as with all the issued edicts.

Observe the separation of the men's camps from the women's, and let there be no exchanges of personal affection.

Do not speak falsely of the laws of the state or regulations of the Sover­eign, nor pass on rumors concerning military secrets or army orders.

Let every officer and soldier, regular or volunteer, from fifteen years old and upwards, carry with him the necessary military accoutrements, provis­ions, cooking utensils, oil and salt; let no spear be lacking its shaft.

Let no able-bodied officer or soldier, regular or volunteer, usurp position or title and ride in a sedan chair or on horseback; neither let anyone improp­erly impress the people into his service.

Let all officers and soldiers, regulars or volunteers, retreat to the side of the road and cry out, "Long live the Heavenly King and his son, the East King and his son, or the other princes" as the case may be; and let none stray out among the royal conveyances or the horses and sedan chairs of the royal ladies.

Let no officer or soldier, male or female, enter into the villages to cook rice or seize food; let no one destroy the dwellings of the people or loot their property; also let no one ransack the apothecaries' or other shops, or the offices of the various prefectural and district magistrates.

Let no one improperly coerce the people outside our ranks who sell tea or cooked rice to carry burdens for them; let no one fraudulently appropriate the baggage of any of his fellow soldiers throughout the army.

Let no one set fire to the dwellings of the people, or urinate in the middle of the road or in private houses.

Let no one unjustly put to death the old and the weak who don't have the strength to carry burdens.
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The Taiping leaders use the carved wood-block printing facilities of Yongan to publish this and several other moral and military texts.
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To simplify their religious message, and make the unfamiliar history from another world accessible, the Taiping leaders create their own version of the basic and venerable Confucian educational primer, the
Three Character Classic.
Both style and content suggest the author is Hong Xiuquan him­self. In its Confucian version, the simple rhythms of the verses, with only three characters per line, and the carefully selected roster of basic Chinese characters, encourages literacy and religious knowledge at the same time. In its Taiping form, in the same format, the primer fills the same func­tions, but with a new religious focus. Rather than the story of God's anger as shown in the examples of Noah and the flood, or the destruction of Sodom, this basic Taiping text dwells on the survival of Israel and the flight out of Egypt, as presented in Exodus. The parallels of this saga to the Taiping flight and survival must have struck all the true believers:

It is said that long ago

There was a foreign country

Which worshiped the True God— Israel.

Their twelve tribes

Traveled to Egypt.

God protected them,

And their descendants flourished.

After the Egyptians turn against the Israelites, God rains plagues on Egypt, and helps Moses lead His people to safety:

By day in a cloud,

By night in a pillar of fire,

The True God

In person saved them.

He caused the Red Sea

Water to part in two;

To stand like walls,

That they might pass between.

The people of Israel

Walked straight ahead,

As though on dry ground,

And thus saved their lives.

When their pursuers tried to pass,

The wheels fell from their axles;

The waters joined up again,

And they were all drowned.

Thus the Great God

Displayed his great powers,

And the people of Israel

Were all preserved.

When they came to the wilderness

And their food was all gone,

The Great God Bade them not be afraid.

He sent down manna,

In abundance for each of them;

It was sweet as honey,

And all ate their fill.
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The primer then echoes the version of religious history Hong first wrote on Thistle Mountain during 1845, telling how the Chinese themselves, once believers in the True God, fell away from God's law and His word, until first Jesus and then Hong were sent down to earth, to destroy the demon devils and save the world from evil.

To reinforce both the handbooks on military discipline and the moral injunctions, Hong issues his own extended version of the Ten Command­ments as God presented them to Moses at Mount Sinai. In line with the need for order in the city of Yongan, Hong emphasizes the problem of sexual impropriety and other antisocial acts, and presents his own para­phrase of the seventh commandment:

The Seventh Heavenly Commandment: Thou shalt not commit adultery or be licentious.

In the world there are many men, all brothers; in the world there are many women, all sisters. For the sons and daughters of Heaven, the men have men's areas and the women have women's areas; they are not allowed to intermix. Men or women who commit adultery or who are licentious are considered monsters; this is the greatest possible transgression of the Heav­enly Commandments. The casting of amorous glances, the harboring of lust­ful thoughts about others, the smoking of opium, and the singing of libidinous songs are all offenses against the Heavenly Commandment.

A poem reads:

Lust and lewdness most certainly constitute the worst of sins;

Those who become monsters or demons, are truly pitiable.

II you wish to enjoy true happiness in Heaven,

You must curb your desires and painfully reform.
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By the end of February 1852, Hong Xiuquan has ordered enforcement of this commandment to "all soldiers and officers throughout the army, high- ranked or low, male or female," and instructed the five kings and other senior commanders to carry out constant checks into their own units, to find any offenders against the seventh commandment. All those caught "as soon as discovered shall be immediately arrested, beheaded, and the head displayed to the public. There shall assuredly be no pardons."
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