Chapter 18 a magical book

Hong Xiuquan, who failed the exam, did not think that the failure of the exam was due to his lack of strength, but attributed all the reasons for the failure of the exam to the Qing government: for example, the exam questions were too difficult, and the enrollment ratio was too small.So Hong Xiuquan was very angry. He hated the Qing government, hated it for giving him the hope of getting ahead by virtue of his studies, but it crushed his hope in front of him. Facing the reality of repeated failures, the only thing Hong Xiuquan can do is anger.Because the reality is so cruel, unless you have the strength to change the rules or even make the rules.

Time passed day by day. If there is no turning point, Hong Xiuquan's fate should be to continue to be a village teacher or a farmer honestly. Fate is magical, because Hong Xiuquan's turning point soon arrived. By chance, Hong Xiuquan picked up a dusty booklet in an obscure corner of his home. This booklet called "Good Words to Advise the World" was given to him for free by a Christian named Liang Fa when he went to Guangzhou to take the exam many years ago.Now it seems that due to the level of the author Liang Fa, this "Liang Fa Studying the Bible" has many fallacies, and it can be regarded as a copycat version of the Bible at best.Hong Xiuquan was not interested in the pamphlet at the time, but he took it home with a nonchalant attitude.

Disappointed and helpless, Hong Xiuquan began to study "Good Words to Advise the World" carefully.Because Hong Xiuquan noticed that his name Hong Huoxiu (Hong Xiuquan's nickname) appeared many times in the book, such as the "flood" that flooded the world, the burning "fire" flame, and the name of God "Yahweh" (now translated as Jehovah) Wait. In fact, it should come as no surprise to anyone who picks up a publication at random and finds some of the words in their name appearing in it.But Hong Xiuquan didn’t think so. He believed that he shouldered the mission of God, and he wanted to use God’s teachings to transform this society—of course, being a leader by the way is also a good choice.

July 1843, one day. This is an ordinary day and an extraordinary day. On this day, the worship of God was established. On this day, Hong Xiuquan himself was baptized and became the first person to worship God. In order to avoid the taboo of the Lord, to foreshadow that he will become the king among men (the word Xiuquan can be disassembled as I am the king of men), and to win a good fortune, he officially changed Hong Huoxiu's name to Hong Xiuquan. A few days later, Feng Yunshan, the most loyal comrade-in-arms and most capable assistant of Master Hong, a rural teacher, joined the Church of Worshiping God.

Next, in order to gain fame as a God-worshiping religion, and at the same time because of his resentment against Confucian classics due to repeated failures in the imperial examinations, Master Hong decided to use Confucius as a knife—smashing the tablet of Confucius in the private school he taught! Judging from the effect of this smash, this is definitely a stupid move. First of all, this caused him and Feng Yunshan to lose their jobs and become laid-off workers.With such a teacher, which parent can trust their children to him? Secondly, the move to challenge the status of Confucius is certainly sensational, but it is not wise. Confucius is the patriarch of all scholars. If you smash the patriarch of scholars, isn’t that the same as smashing the faces of all scholars?Therefore, from that moment on, Master Hong stood on the opposite side of all scholars in the world, which planted a great disaster for the future collapse of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

The first shot at the beginning of the establishment of the teaching went wrong, and the subsequent work of recruiting people to join the group did not go smoothly, which made Master Hong realize that he was not suitable for organizing work.So Hong Xiuquan said to himself: I'd better do some theoretical work honestly, being a theorist and spiritual leader is enough! In the next few years, Hong Xiuquan concentrated on providing theoretical support for the worship of God, or making theoretical creations to make the worship of God better serve himself.However, due to his poor background, Master Hong made a lot of mistakes, because he didn't even understand the most basic concept of "Trinity" in Christianity.

The so-called "Trinity" refers to the Trinity of the Father (God Jehovah), the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit. It is one God, not three separate gods. Master Hong explained the Trinity in this way: God the Father is his father, Jesus the Savior is his brother, and he himself is the second son of God.Fortunately, Master Hong was born in China. If he had been born in the West, he would have been burned as a heretic for his behavior of daring to allow God to reincarnate. Fortunately, Master Hong also knew that he was not good enough, so he specially went to the American pastor Luo Xiaoquan to learn the real "Bible" to improve his theoretical level. Perhaps it was because Pastor Luo felt that Master Hong was too ambitious, or maybe it was Master Hong. He accidentally offended Pastor Luo's assistant. In short, Pastor Luo refused to baptize Master Hong, which made Master Hong unable to become a true Christian until his death.