Chapter 80 1. New shell of old thinking

This Ah Fa has a surname "Liang" which is common among Cantonese people, so he was called "Liang Fa" or "Liang Ah Fa" in history.When he was a child, he went to a private school for four years. Although he had not even graduated from today's primary school, he was considered a small intellectual at that time.Because he has read some "Four Books", he understands the spirit of traditional Chinese culture and knows how to sell foreign religious teachings to Chinese people.It took him eleven years to persuade more than a dozen people to join the religion, while the Englishman Morrison developed only a few believers, so he was naturally ashamed.

Liang Afa’s pamphlet was circulated in Guangdong, but most people were confused after reading it. Only a few benefactors with profound magic power saw that it was a crooked way of Buddhism, and condemned it bitterly. Some learned scholars regarded it as a legend. Mingjiao in the middle, but I can't figure out why it is a demon and doesn't eat vegetables... It was an era of fierce conflict and integration between old and new thinking and Chinese and Western cultures. Changes that had not been seen for thousands of years suddenly appeared in front of people overnight.Although history has entered a new era (according to the traditional historiography, ancient history has entered modern history), the shadow of the old era still hangs over the empire.What guides the operation of this dynasty is still the state theory that existed more than two thousand years ago.The government used the imperial examinations as a means, and used the golden house and Yan Ruyu as bait to induce the heroes of the world to follow the rules.

Countless people struggled under the dim candlelight, some gained fame and realized their ideals of governing the country and bringing peace to the world, while others failed after repeated trials and angrily took the completely opposite path.The best of these two kinds of people have left their shadows in the long river of history. However, they do not fully understand that they have come to the eve of a great change, and that the theory they have learned and followed all their lives will soon be abandoned. Most of the failed scholars have some reverence for Huang Chao, a senior who has failed many trials.Hong Huoxiu, a native of Hua County in his twenties, is naturally unavoidable. He also envied Huang Chao's style of "covering the city with golden armor", and secretly wrote "holding the right to kill the universe, killing the evil and leaving the righteous to relieve the people's suspense", "Long Qian The cape is frightening, let’s take a break and jump in the abyss for the time being"—especially after he failed repeatedly in the Guangzhou government test, he felt more sympathetic.It is said that outside the examination room, he received a book from an old man with long hair and wearing Taoist robes. He said that "the word of merit and fame should be greatly appreciated. Don't worry about it, don't get sick."This story is a very traditional fairy tale, and what's worse-we know clearly today that the book giver is definitely not a fairy, but Hong Huoxiu's fellow Guangdong fellow Liang Afa.As for that book, it is not a heavenly book, but a 100,000-word free Christian promotional material "Good Words to Advise the World"...

This Mr. Hong Huoxiu, also known as Ren Kun, changed his name to Hong Xiuquan in order to avoid the taboo of the foreign god "Ye Huo Hua" (this is a typical Chinese characteristic).His hometown, Hua County, is now Guangzhou Huadu.No matter what earth-shattering methods he has in the future, in the days before and after the first Opium War, he was just a down-and-out child who was a bit arrogant and failed to succeed while teaching disciples and studying hard at the same time.However, according to Mr. Meng Xinshi's textual research, he and Feng Yunshan once joined the "Three Points Meeting" and studied under Zhu Jiutao - but Mr. Meng Xinshi also said that this "Three Points Meeting" is the "God's Meeting".This statement seems inappropriate, but the statement that the "Three Points Meeting" is a branch of "Hongmen" is more convincing.Meng Xinshi said that "Jiu Tao died, with Xiuquan as the leader", it seems that Hong Xiuquan once served as the small leader of the "Three Points Club".

It is said that after he failed in 1837, he was worried and sick, and he was ill for more than 40 days. He had auditory hallucinations in a trance, as if he had gone to heaven, so he talked nonsense after waking up.He said that a tall old man with a golden beard and black robe gave him a warning, and also gave him a sword and a seal. For this reason, he specially ordered a three-foot-long and nine-pound "demon-slaying sword".However, this "treasure of the town" of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom has never been killed in the hands of Hong Tianwang, but it was snatched by several strong men in Meizixun on the way to Zijing Mountain in the summer of 1847. Also robbed were travel expenses borrowed by Hong Tianwang, the scabbard with the word "Quan" engraved on it, and so on.These goddamn robbers finally had a good conscience, and they left Hong Tianwang with a set of ragged clothes so that he would not report the crime naked.The magistrate of Zhaoqing excused that Mei Zixun was not in his jurisdiction, so there was nothing he could do about it, but since everyone was from the same gentle line (Hong Tianwang had a child’s degree), he gave him a bunch of copper coins worth half a tael—according to the then The market price should be one thousand two or three hundred.

However, even though he had a relationship with the foreign gods, Hong Xiuquan still reluctantly took part in several government examinations, but the result was the same as before, and he still failed.From then on, he decided not to pursue an official career in the imperial examination. Inspired by "Good Words to Encourage the World", he and Feng Yunshan, who also failed the exam, started to establish the God Worship Association. However, there were only a few believers in the early days, only Feng Yunshan and his brother Hong Ren, and the conditions at that time were relatively poor. Difficult, even Hong Xiuquan's baptism was "water empowerment" by himself.

At that time, the doctrine of the Worship of God was still very simple. It just advised people to worship God and not to believe in other religions, and they could go to heaven after death.In order to show their devotion to the new religion, some of them also smashed the spiritual plaque of the Chinese sage Dacheng and the most holy teacher Kong Lao Er enshrined in the village-this behavior directly aroused the anger of the villagers, so Hong Xiuquan and Feng Yunshan had to leave their hometown. He went out to preach and traveled the border of Guangdong and Guangxi.In the fall of this year, Hong Xiuquan returned to Hua County to continue his theoretical research work, while Feng Yunshan came to the Zijing Mountain in Guiping, Guangxi, and began to develop the masses down-to-earth.

Two years later, Hong Xiuquan wrote works such as "The Original Dao Awakens the World Training" and "The Original Dao Jue the World Training" at home, referring to all kinds of gods and bodhisattvas in the traditional concept as "Yan Luo Yao". He actually counted the current emperor among the monsters... In addition, he sneaked in and contacted Luo Xiaoquan, a priest from Tennessee, USA, to see if he could give him a formal baptism.Hong Tianwang successfully passed the interview and passed the political review, but something went wrong before he could become a formal disciple.Some Chinese believers who worked under Luo Xiaoquan were afraid that Hong Xiuquan would take away their jobs after joining the religion, so they urged Hong Tianwang to ask Luo Xiaoquan for future financial guarantees. Perks for real guys.So the baptism was put on hold until Hong Tianwang sat in the Golden Luan Hall in Tianjing City, and he was still a private disciple.

At this time, Feng Yunshan's evangelism in Guiping Zijing Mountain has achieved quite good results.He worked as a part-time job there, worked as a private school teacher, and made many friends. In two or three years, he recruited more than 3,000 simple farmers and miners to join the God Worship Association.In 1847, Hong Xiuquan came to Zijing Mountain to meet Feng Yunshan. At the same time, he imitated the "Ten Commandments" of Christianity and formulated ten "articles of heaven", strictly prohibiting adultery, bloodthirsty, greed for money, gambling, smoking, drinking, etc. Requires strict moral life and organizational discipline.

Hong Xiuquan's sister-in-law, Xiao Chaogui, lives in Guiping, and is a neighbor of Yang Xiuqing, who grows mountains and burns charcoal, so Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing have some connections.Together with Wei Changhui, a local, and Shi Dakai, a native of Guixian County, this formed the original core group of the Worship of God. Hong Xiuquan's religious theory originated from Liang Afa's "Good Words to Exhort the World", but it has undergone major changes according to Chinese thinking.He attached the stories in "Good Words to Advise the World" that are not familiar to the Chinese to his phantoms in illness, and declared that God the Father is the only true God in all times and in all over the world, and that all people in the world are God's children, brothers and sisters .God Jehovah (Ye Huohua) sent his eldest son Jesus (Ye Su) to save the world and atone for the sins of mankind; he sent his second son, Jesus’ brother Hong Xiuquan to wear a golden jade seal sword, go down to the earth to kill the evil and keep the righteous, build the heaven on earth, and become the Son of Taiping; He sent his sons and sons-in-law Yang Xiuqing, Xiao Chaogui, Feng Yunshan, Wei Changhui, and Shi Dakai to assist Hong Xiuquan, and together lead the mortal brothers and sisters in the world to jump out of the ghost gate of evil spirits and follow the true way of God.

From these descriptions, we can see that although Hong Xiuquan worshiped the foreign god Yahweh, he was deeply rooted in traditional thinking.Apart from believing in different gods, the God Worship Society is not fundamentally different from Zhang Jiao's Taiping Taoism, Han Shantong's Cyclops Man, and Wang Cong'er's White Lotus Cult.