This person is Hong Xiuquan.
Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is called the highest peak of peasant uprising in China. It took Hong Xiuquan only eight years to go from being a scholar ranked fourth to establishing the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom with a population of 30 million in six provinces.
Unlike many pioneering emperors, Hong Xiuquan was neither a local armed force like Li Yuan, nor did he have any capital as capital, let alone the reputation that Cao Cao won by stabbing Dong. No money, no one, no fame, starting from scratch. The development speed of this venture is rocket-level, and Zhu Yuanzhang, who also started from scratch, spent 15 years.
How did he do this kind of life counterattack?
Hong Xiuquan, whose real name is Hong Huoxiu, is from Fuyuan Water Village, Hua County, Guangdong Province. This family is a real farmer who lives by farming. Hong Xiuquan is a scholar at home. The whole family expects him to shine in high school, but he can't afford to study full time. Hong Xiuquan also opened a small private school to earn some money to subsidize his family.
1836, Hong Xiuquan failed to take the Scholar's Examination, and failed the list. I took the exam again the next year and failed the list again. Falling out of the list for two consecutive years has dealt a great blow to Hong Xiuquan. He fell ill in bed and felt that he was dying. He also invited family and relatives to say goodbye one by one. In the meantime, he had a strange dream. I dreamed that someone took him to heaven and met the heavenly father in a dragon robe. The heavenly father said that Hong Xiuquan was his own son and asked him to complete his mission. So, Hong Xiuquan fought against Yan Luowang, got married and had children, and lived in the kingdom of heaven for many years-it was a bit like dreaming. The heavenly father told him that you still have to go back to earth to kill demons and save mankind.
He woke up. After waking up, he became very strange. Sometimes he dances with the air, sometimes he calls himself the emperor, and he often sings the poems he wrote in heaven. Everyone in the village thinks he is crazy.
After a period of time, he gradually returned to normal. Continue to prepare for the scholar exam. This exam is another six years. 1843, Hong Xiuquan failed the list for the fourth time. Desperate, he began to find another way out. So he recalled the bizarre dream and the booklet entitled "Advice to the World" that he accidentally got when he went to Guangzhou for the first exam. At this time, Hong Xiuquan felt that he had found the key to change his destiny.
This dream is a touching story. It has an insight into the general emotions and needs of some people: anger at the failed Qing court in the Opium War, desire to get rid of suffering and turbulent life, and confusion about no way out; This story is rich in details and has the power of confusion; The most important thing is to give people a dream of heaven and draw a big cake.
A good story is often the first step to start a business, such as Liu Xuande's "I am the Queen of Wang Jing in Zhongshan", making up a mat to sell shoes, such as "Great Chu Xing, Chen". Even the modern entrepreneurial story that started with PPT is still being staged today. This dream became the only and biggest capital for Hong Xiuquan to start his own business, and he embarked on the road of missionary work.
Hong Xiuquan began to preach. At that time, there was no mass media. It's all about the mouth and legs. At first, I was in my own village and attracted three or five relatives and friends, including Li and Feng Yunshan, to join me. Then they tried to go out of the village and look to Guiping County, Guangxi.
Guangxi has become the most important step for them to go out, and they have to say that their choice is very accurate-at that time, Guangxi was very poor, and the poor people had the strongest desire to change; Geographical remoteness, the control of the Qing court was relatively weak, and the resistance was relatively small; Guiping county also has relatives, so it is convenient to handle affairs.
In Guangxi, Hong Xiuquan quickly won the first group of believers. But the missionary speed was too slow, and Hong Xiuquan began to write books-books and words were almost the only "mass media" at that time. The famous way to save the world was born.
1845, worshipping God is established. With the spread of their brochures, there are more and more believers. In order to further enhance the influence, Hong Xiuquan also planned an "event marketing":
The local people were superstitious about King Gan and built a temple for King Gan. But this King Gan is an evil god. Legend has it that he is a monster who kills his mother. Hong Xiuquan took it as a target and took a group of people to smash the "Wang Gan Temple". Although this incident caused dissatisfaction among some local people, it made them famous.
Then a series of "apocalypse" events happened. A charcoal-burning worker named Yang was suddenly favored and became the spokesman of the father. A farmer named Xiao Chaogui became the spokesman of the heavenly brother Jesus, who was possessed by gods from time to time to convey his meaning.
In addition to these two super V's, Hong Xiuquan also hatched a group of "seed users": according to the records at that time, there were often believers who suddenly sweated like rain, and then saw the images of the heavenly father and heaven that Hong Xiuquan had seen in his dreams.
Whether it was inspired or not is unknown, but this hint soon spread among the people, and the influence of worshipping God and Hong Xiuquan was growing. During this period, Shi Dakai, Wei Changhui and other core entrepreneurs joined in one after another.
As the ranks grew bigger and bigger, Hong's thoughts became more and more distinct. He directly positioned the Qing court as a monster, which not only caused the poor people to cry, but also many local landlords and gentry who were not very popular joined the league with huge sums of money.
1850, Feng Yunshan established the Taiping Army. At this point, Hong Xiuquan saved the first pot of gold for starting a business.
The Taiping Army occupied Yong 'an in 185 1, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was initially formed after the establishment of Yong 'an. Later, the whole state was destroyed, Changsha fought and Wuchang fought ... all the way down the river until 1853 when Nanjing was the capital, and Hong Xiuquan had controlled the population of 30 million in six provinces of China.
Along the way, Hong Xiuquan's team not only demonstrated outstanding military capabilities, but also demonstrated the ideological infiltration ability beyond previous peasant uprisings.
The first is the calendar and words. This is the most basic tool that ordinary people use to guide their daily lives. From the calendar point of view, the traditional calendar of the Qing court was abolished, and the Taiping calendar came out, adding seven-day worship and abolishing the saying of auspicious day or auspicious day in the traditional calendar. At the same time, the text and various names have also been revised. For example, all kinds of kings at all times and all over the world are added to the anti-dog, which is called "madness" to show respect for God; Words containing the radicals of ghost characters such as soul and spirit cannot be used; Change Zhili to "criminal Li" and so on.
This reform has had a great and far-reaching impact. Until the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was eliminated by the Qing court and the traditional calendar and characters were restored, many people still used the characters and calendars of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
The second is cultural infiltration. In Nanjing, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom recruited a large number of printing craftsmen within its jurisdiction, with more than 400 people. A large number of revised versions of Hong Xiuquan's Bible and Matthew were published. In addition to books for adults, Hong Xiuquan personally revised a version of the Three-Character Classics published by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and wrote a poem to preach to young children. It can be said that compared with those foreign missionaries who preached in China before him, Hong Xiuquan was really grounded and started with dolls.
Behavioral infiltration is also carried out in daily life. For example, every Sunday, women, children, the old and the weak go to church to listen to the "holy book."
For competitors, it is a cruel suppression. Many centuries-old Buddhist and Taoist temples in Nanjing were set on fire, and Buddhist and Taoist monks were stripped naked and asked to change their beliefs or be killed. Even Catholicism was not spared. At least 30 Catholics were burned to death or found dead in the streets.
From writing and calendar to cultural infiltration and behavior control, the ideological infiltration system of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is powerful and pervasive. The British observed the Taiping Army, saying that although the Taiping Army was sallow and emaciated with hunger, it fought bravely and fearlessly, which probably benefited from it.
There are many reasons for the failure of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, including civil strife, poor diplomacy and military defeat. But one thing can't be ignored, that is, most of Hong Xiuquan's promises are just talk, not put into practice or fulfilled.
Hong Xiuquan has always regarded himself as a savior, promising to give everyone a paradise on earth-"Everyone is average everywhere, and everyone keeps warm." But in fact, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom committed many atrocities of killing cities and looting. For example, Quanzhou killed cities for two days and two nights, and looting was even more common.
What European envoys saw and heard during their visit to Nanjing silently satirized the nature of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's inconsistency in words and deeds: in the same city, there are magnificent palaces of heavenly kings on one side and dilapidated houses of ordinary people on the other.
As for the "celestial system" proposed by Hong Xiuquan, it has never been really implemented. On the contrary, because of poor management and constant wars, the people in the Yangtze River Delta have been devastated and displaced. Everywhere, "houses are destroyed, the ground is filthy, and bones are either abandoned in the wild or left to rot in the ravine".
Hong Xiuquan's life is a model of diaosi's counterattack. Born in a farmhouse in the first half of his life, he fell out of the list four times. I have no money, no one and no fame. In the second half of his life, he started from scratch, crisscrossed six provinces and founded the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
The legend began with a beautiful story and ended because the story didn't come true. It can be seen that a good story is magical, telling a story requires skill, and more importantly, bragging and painting cakes must always be returned.