God's Chinese Son (43 page)

After living for so long in Hong Kong, Hong Rengan has much to share with his Heavenly King. He presents his thoughts to his ruler in a long memorandum of May 1859. The Heavenly Kingdom needs a post office, so the mail will arrive on time. Tied up in bundles, paid for by the weight, the letters should move in vehicles driven by fire and steam that stop for no one till they reach their destination.
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New houses should be sturdy, tall, and built in rows, though old houses can all be left the way they are. Banks can be formed to issue notes at 3 percent, speeding transac­tions and protecting travelers from bandits, for no one seeing merchants pass without their piles of silver will dream they carry money. Roads will be wide and straight and transport swift, the rivers dredged. Five- to ten- year patents can be issued for ingenious manufactures, with the longer time spans for most useful items, but inventors of "useless items" will be strictly punished. The system of life and property insurance, now prac­ticed in foreign countries, can also be used in the Heavenly Kingdom. Houses, ships, merchandise, one's own existence, can each be guaranteed against loss from water or from fire, by payment of a simple premium.
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The Heavenly King's notations in the upper margins of his Shield King's memorandum show that he approves of all these things, even if the precise details of how or when they can be implemented are not yet firm. Hong Xiuquan also approves other plans of Rengan's, such as exami­nations for physicians, the abolition of slavery, the forbidding of infanti­cide, the banning of all plays and dramas, and an end to laziness.
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Only two of Hong Rengan's suggestions are rejected by the Heavenly King, on the grounds that they are not practical at present. One is for the establishment of a network of newspapers in different regions, and of special assistants to the Heavenly King, whose only role will be to make sure that all news from different places in China and beyond reaches him promptly and is free from tampering. In his marginal comment, Hong Xiuquan notes that such a procedure "can not be carried out now, lest the demon devils continue to set us against each other." After the devils are all killed, one can proceed with such a scheme.
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The other is the sugges­tion of the Shield King that capital punishment should be left to God's divine judgment, rather than to men, so that all can follow the sixth com­mandment, which stipulates, "Thou shalt not kill." The Heavenly King responds in a marginal note: "Our Holy Father's sacred edict instructs us to behead the evildoers and sustain those who are upright. Thus killing demons and those who have committed crimes is something that cannot be avoided."
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But despite the Heavenly King's apparent support for the other new reforms, nothing is undertaken at the time. There are armies on the march, most of the leading generals are away and, as Hong Rengan tells a visitor to Nanjing, nothing could be done till all were reassembled in the capital, "as it required the consent of the majority to any measure before it could be carried out."
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Caught between his pragmatic views and his deep and abiding admira­tion for Hong Xiuquan, Hong Rengan cannot but appear ambivalent to foreign missionaries who meet him. As he rises from his sofa to greet them, says "How do you do" in English, and shakes their hands, he is the affable host. Yet he is dressed in a long yellow damask robe, embroidered with dragons, wears a gilt crown set with precious stones upon his head, has crowds of boys to fan him, and rows of his subordinates before him, dressed in green or yellow robes with their flowing hair bound up in silken kerchiefs.
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Hong Rengan does not agree with every one of the Heavenly King's articles of faith, he tells the Western missionaries. The two central revelations of Hong Xiuquan, received in 1837 and 1848, most certainly are "real," says Hong Rengan, though it is not completely clear "how they should be understood."
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He does not, however, believe in the visions of the dead East King, Yang Xiuqing, though Hong Xiuquan "will not allow them to be questioned." As to the meaning of Hong's being the younger brother of Jesus, that is because Hong "regards Christ as the greatest of God's messengers, and himself as second only to him"; and it is in this light that he believes himself to be the brother of Christ and God's son.
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If offerings—whether of rice, or tea, or meat—are made to God when the Taiping offer up their prayers, they should be seen as "merely thank- offerings, not propriatory," Hong Rengan explains. Similarly, the burning of written prayers after they have been chanted aloud is the action of those still new to the faith, and will eventually be abandoned. The Lord's Supper is not observed in Taiping territory, and wine is never drunk during religious services; baptism—which may be administered by any of the faithful—consists of a sprinkling of water followed by a washing of the chest. When one speaks of the Heavenly King's birth in terms of his "descending to earth," that should be understood as meaning "nothing more than natural birth, with a divine commission." The Heavenly King does not accept that God is immaterial; to Hong Xiuquan, God
is
material and he "does not brook contradiction on this point." Nor will Hong Xiu­quan change any of the terms for God that he has been using in his works. When Hong Rengan protests that the term "True God" should not be used, since God cannot be called either true or false, the Heavenly King rebuffs him. The Heavenly King reserves the final word on all matters of state, "but on most affairs not connected with religion he looks with con­tempt, remarking that they are 'things of this world' and not 'heavenly things.' "
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Hong Rengan's own study in Nanjing, which he allows a visiting Englishman to enter, perfectly reflects the overlays of cultures between his former life in Hong Kong and his current life in the Heavenly Capital. Though the Englishman is sarcastic about the condition of the Shield King's possessions, he still manages to capture the mood and the variety:

Turning through a small door to the left you come into the Shield King's own Sanctum, which is quite a museum in its way. It is a large cheerful room facing a garden of flowers. The principal article of furniture is a large bed of Soochow manufacture, covered with jade and other ornaments, and hung with yellow curtains. The King takes a siesta in this now and again. Tables line the sides of the chamber, and support a most extraordinary con­glomeration of different articles. There is a telescope on a moving pedestal (broken), a gun box (gun gone), three Colt's revolvers (all useless from rust), a box of gun caps, ditto of Vestas, two solar lamps that can't be made to light, and a cake of brown Windsor soap; the Woolwich Manual of Fortification, a book on military tactics, and the Holy Bible; any amount of Chinese books, comprising all those valuable works published by foreign missionaries, quires of yellow paper, five or six clocks, an alarum, broken barometer, heaps of proclamations, ink stones, gold pencils, and dirty rags. On the other side, piles of books suffering from moth, a hat box with the dragon hat inside, fans mounted in silver, jade stone drinking cups and saucers, gold and silver cups, platters, chopsticks and forks, three English Port wine bot­tles, and one ditto of Coward's mixed pickles. At various places are sus­pended an English naval sword, some dragon caps, a couple of Japanese knives, two French plates, and an old engraving of the Holy Well in Flintshire. Lying on the bed is a mass of silver ingots tied up in cloth. Chairs and stools with marble seats are placed round a marble table, and an atten­dant dressed in spotless white crape, with blue jacket pulls a punkah |fan|, and so keeps you beautifully cool. Here the Shield King will give you a pretty dinner and lots of wine. He told me that when the Heavenly King prohibited wine, he applied for a dispensation asserting that unless he drank he could not eat, and that the dispensation was immediately granted.
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Surprising though the wine drinking may be in the atmosphere of the Heavenly Capital, the Shield King's openness to foreigners stands in stud­ied contrast to the aloofness or hostility showed to the
Hermes, Cassini,
and
Susquehanna
five years or so before both by the Heavenly King and by Yang Xiuqing. Trying to express his feelings on this matter, Hong Rengan writes in his memorandum to Hong Xiuquan of the most sensible way to handle foreigners:

Insulting expressions are used in verbal quarrels; they have no real meaning in high-level affairs and are apt to cause disasters. Even when we apply such expressions to nearby small countries, such as Siam, Annam, Japan, and the Ryukyu Islands, they are bound to be resented, because regardless of their low stations, human beings are not willing to be considered inferior; even if they admit their inferiority, they do so because of compulsion, not out of wholehearted submission. If wholehearted submission is to be won, it must be won not by power but by the perfection of government within and the demonstration of faith without, for that is the only way.'
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In his same memorandum, Hong Rengan seeks to widen the Heavenly King's knowledge of foreign countries through brief vignettes of their major attributes. The British tend to be intelligent, he writes, though "proud by nature," and have attained their reputation as "the most power­ful nation" through the stability of their institutions and ruling family. They respond well in conversation to such concepts as "equal status, friendship, harmony, and affection."
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The United States of America not only has righteousness, wealth, and power but refrains from encroaching upon her neighbors. Surprisingly, if gold or silver is discovered there, foreigners are allowed to come and dig for it. The country has no beggars, proof of its virtue. Men called "chiefs of the country" serve for five years then "retire to live in comfort" while the various component states choose a new leader by putting the names of their choices into large boxes. It is accepted by the American people that those they choose as rulers will be "worthy and capable," and that the "decisions reached by the majority are considered just."
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Germans are primitive—they "resemble people of ancient times"—but are devout and conscientious; Scandinavians, "serene" of countenance under their pale hair, are broad-minded and friendly; France, the source of the arts and technologies now adopted by the other foreigners, is itself too steeped in mystical religion to be truly praised; Russia has embarked on great reforms, and given its vast size will soon be a major force. Japan, recently opened to trade with America, has been speedily acquiring new techniques, and "will certainly become skillful in the future."
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In case the Heavenly King is worried that the foreigners will use the chance of entrance into China to cheat the Taiping out of their wealth, Hong Rengan suggests that the Taiping follow a self-conscious policy of preferential treatment for their own subjects:

With foreigners, one has to devise ways to hold one's own. For instance, if they and we each open a store, we should not be required to pay rent, whereas the foreigners should be made to pay rent; we should use few work­ers, while they employ many; we should sell our products at a lower price, while they have to sell at a higher price. Thus we shall be benefited, while they suffer losses. We can prosper indefinitely, whereas they will collapse. How long can they maintain themselves in such a situation?

Following this line of reasoning, Hong Rengan begins to develop the germ of a plan that the Taiping armies should try to make a bold march on the city of Shanghai to the southeast. Once in Shanghai, the Taiping should use one million ounces of the silver stored in their common trea­sury to buy a fleet of twenty modern steam vessels. With this fleet at their command, they could steam back up the Yangzi, raise the Qing siege around Nanjing, reopen the campaign to the west, and regain control of the key cities along the riverbank that they had been slowly losing to the Qing counterattacks.
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As the seeds of this plan develop, the Heavenly King assigns Li Xiu-cheng to direct the military side of operations. The choice is a shrewd one. A skimpily educated farm worker when he joined the Taiping troops on their 1851 march toward Yongan, Li has risen rapidly through the Tai­ping ranks because of his natural brilliance as a military commander in their campaigns in west and central China, till in December 1859 he is named Loyal King, equivalent in rank to Hong Rengan.
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Outspoken and generous—and apparently the only senior Taiping leader who wears spectacles—Li is trusted and admired by his troops and by the foreigners he meets.
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It is not clear whether it is he or Hong Rengan who formulates the exact details for the eastern campaign of 1860, but whoever plans it, it is Li who carries through the most dazzling part: a swift dash with several thousand troops across the Yangzi delta to seize the great city of Hangzhou, and create a diversion to relieve Nanjing. There follows a forced march back to Nanjing, where the great Qing encampments, fatally weak­ened by the transfer of the troops sent to relieve Hangzhou, fall into the Taiping hands. And that accomplished, Li leads a renewed push eastward to seize Suzhou, which falls to the Taiping forces on June 2. And finally, his troops are massed before Shanghai, with every expectation of a quick and easy capture of the Chinese section of the city.
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The Loyal King, Li Xiucheng, has an optimistic view of Westerners— which echoes those presented in the memorandum of Hong Rengan— and believes them susceptible to reason. Since the Westerners have expressed their interest in neutrality in the Taiping battles with the demons, and since the Taiping forces have expressed their willingness to trade in all the Western goods save opium, alcohol, and tobacco, there should be no reason for the Westerners to do anything but welcome the Taiping soldiers when they drive the demon Qing from the Chinese city of Shanghai. Li believes that the foreigners in Shanghai will actually wel­come him, and that the Chinese citizens will yield up their city with only minimal resistance, just as the citizens of Suzhou have done.
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