The Deadliest Cult in History

The Taiping Rebellion

History of Yesterday/March 12, 2022

By Daniel Choi

We often hear about cults that coerce people into submitting their life savings or control a population for selfish gains. Cults like Scientology, Aum Shinrikyo, and People’s Temple are famous for not only being harmful to the followers but making a negative impact on society, often resulting in deaths. However, there was a cult in China in the 19th century that beat out all other cults to claim the title of the deadliest cult of all time: the Taiping Rebellion.

Origin

The Taiping Rebellion was a cultish movement founded by a man named Hong Xiuquan, who was a man from the early 19th century Guangdong, Qing Dynasty. The legend has it that after failing four consecutive times on the imperial examination, Hong fell ill and laid in his room for 40 days. During the 40 days, he had a strange dream of a blonde-haired man in a black robe handing him a sword, commanding him to fight the evil in his country, and receiving an ax that cast away evil spirits from a middle-aged man.

After recovering from his illness, Hong met a Baptist missionary in Guangzhou and received a gospel book. Upon reading the book that explained Christianity to him, he used the theology to make sense of his strange dream, deciding that the blonde hair man was Yahweh or Father God in Christianity, and the middle-aged man was Jesus Christ. He organized a cult behind his interpretation of the text and his dream, gaining a steady following in a short time.

Rebellion

In 1847, after a few years of amassing followers in his hometown and regions near it, Hong declared a cult named “The Emperor’s Followers”. The “Emperor” in this context is the God of his cult. The cult gained around 3,000 followers the same year. Qing Dynasty around this time was quickly declining as a nation, losing to Britain in two consecutive wars and the country being flooded with opium addicts. The cult consisted of poor peasants and miners in the region, who were promised material blessings through the cult. In 1850, amidst rapid growth, his cult was disrupted by local authorities arresting members for corrupting the local population. This friction with the local authorities gave Hong a reason to transform his cult into a political movement.

In 1851, Hong declared the formation of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and declared himself the heavenly king. Hong along with his followers created a system of the heavenly king being the highest commander and five kings under him being his key ministers. Hong declared his authority to be from Jesus Christ himself, even going as far as to claim that he was Jesus’s younger brother.

Although the size of the rebellion was small at first, the rebellion quickly militarized and recruited many peasants in the southeastern region of China. The movement was a mixture of religious militarism and Han nationalism. The ruling class of the Qing Dynasty was comprised of mostly Manchus and many Han Chinese in the south felt that they were discriminated against and exploited by them. This fueled their desire for a new country centered around Han Chinese leadership. The movement also guaranteed gender equality, gaining the support of women, distribution of land equally among its followers, gaining the support of poor peasants.

The rebellion first attacked Wuhan, capitalizing off of Qing’s weakened military strength. They amassed great wealth through this conquest and subsequently attacked Nanjing, which was also successful. During the attack on Nanjing, the rebellion’s army had grown to over 200,000 men. During this time, the Qing government increased taxes on southern coastal regions by multiple folds, causing many to join the rebellion as a result. The rebellion rapidly expanded and took over a large portion of the southern Chinese coastal provinces, effectively driving out Qing influence from the region. At its peak, the rebellion government-administered over 30 million people under them.

Downfall

The rebellion was met with resistance from Qing government force but the army of the quickly declining empire could not contain the rebellion. However, once the European powers joined forces with Qing, the situation became unfavorable for the rebellion. European powers were initially optimistic about the rebellion because it claimed to be a Christian movement. However, upon learning that Hong regarded himself as the brother of Jesus Christ and other cultish features of the rebellion, European powers quickly joined forces with Qing to protect their interests.

The rebellion had many internal issues as well. Hong and his men were not experienced in running a nation and a few years into the creation of the Heavenly Kingdom, the movement started to rot from inside with corruption. By 1860, the rebellion began to fall apart and dimish in size. When their attempt to capture Shanghai failed the same year, the Qing and European forces began to crack down on the rebellion. It took four years for the joint forces to completely defeat the rebellion and Hong ended his own life in June 1864.

Casualties

It is estimated that the rebellion, from 1851, to 1864, around 25-70 million people died of causes related to the rebellion, making it the most deadly cult in history. It is the 3rd deadliest event in history, only behind World War II and Mongol wars. It is almost estimated that over a million people lost their homes and were displaced due to the rebellion and battles caused by the rebellion.

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