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The Study on Xiao Chaogui

Author: LiuChen
Tutor: LiuPing
School: Shandong University
Course: Modern Chinese History
Keywords: Xiao Chaogui Heavenly Brother Shangdihui Changsha campaign Taiping Heavenly Kingdom
CLC: K254
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2012
Downloads: 148
Quote: 0
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Abstract

Without Shangdijiao and Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Xiao Chaogui may have lived on making charcoal by planting and burning trees in a mountain all his life till the grave.The times produce their heroes and that age was such an aesthetical heroic age.In the golden autumn of1850, Xiao Chaogui invited Jesus to earth to preach gospel. Since then, Xiao Chaogui was divorced from gods and mortals, made speeches in the name of gods, frequently punished the other leaders of the denomination, claimed credit, garnered power and managed to be quite powerful. By some compulsion, Hong Xiuquan and Feng Yunshan acquiesced and Yang Xiuqing cooperated. Among them, the relationship of Xiao Chaogui and Yang Xiuqing has been ignored for long.The relationship between Xiao and Yang was neither true friendship or alliance nor mere opponents or enemies. The two seemingly cooperate and unite but conceal rises and contradictions in private. In the last analysis, they contended with each other for profit and power. However, since their competition was an undercurrent which was for the moment under the earth and was successfully limited under the appearance of cooperation.With Heavenly Brother’s high-handed policy and Xiao Chaogui’s careful concealment, Xiao himself had taken a quite important effect on the Taiping’s temporal and church power structure by his particular ability. From this aspect, Xiao is the real maker of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.However, the power structure of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in the era of Xiao Chaogui was founded on the relative balance of Xiao’s and Yang’s objective strength and was a compromised result of different powers. The confliction and straggle of Xiao and Yang indicated bad running and abnormal development of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Later, with Wei Changhui dishing up, the confliction became the nest of sin which ruined ten thousand people’s hope of a paradise on earth. Therefore, the unstable dual structure system, political contest of various forces and conflictions caused by inharmonious elements settled the temporal existence of the power structure of Taiping in Xiao’s era. When the Taiping succeeded in uprising and marching and gained the splendid accomplishment of occupying Yong’an, it was heading for the abyss of collapsing at the same time.Yong’an is the beginning of the end of Xiao’s political life. In Shuidou Village Battle, Xiao had been badly hurt, almost been dead. Seven days later, Hong conferment in Yong’an and Yang monopolized big power, and then a coup happened quietly. After five months’ silence of Heavenly Brother, Xiao lost the opportunity to get a higher position. When Xiao wake up from serious injury, the situation of Heavenly Father’s dictatorship had formed. Since Heavenly Father appeared frequently, the appearance of Heavenly Brother had no meaning. Soon, another long silence of Heavenly Brother and Xiao indicated silent helplessness, dissatisfaction and protest.Falling down on politics incited Xiao to be devoted to battle. He went through hard battle in Changsha and successful battle in Shimapu with great desire to quickly occupy the provincial capital in order to expand land and render outstanding service for Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, but he never expected the grave has come to him. The crazy firefight on Miaogao Mountain ended Xiao’s life. However there were other reasons why Jesus went back to heaven. It was the combination of contingency and necessity. It is a painful lesson of the big mistake of chenzhou strategy. Yang had an unshakable responsibility for Xiao’s death.Xiao’s death was a big loss of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom which marked partly collapsing of divinity theories of Shangdijiao and it was also the biggest change in power structure after reform at Yong’an. However, even if Xiao hadn’t been dead, he still couldn’t help avoid the deplorable murder in Tianjing or the final collapse of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. As for Hong Xiuquan, he got profit from Xiao’s death, he at least got a chance to restructure the religious power structure of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom or we can say that he got a short rest from formal strict hierarchy. Maybe it’s lucky for Xiao to die before seeing the established capital Tianjing. His dying young made him have no chance jostle the highest position like Yang Xiuqing, which made Hong Xiuquan have a good impression of him and sometimes miss him sincerely.That also made Xiao get a lasting divinity position in Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.Shangdijiao had secularized Jesus and in the meanwhile deified Xiao Chaogui. In addition to his own self-secularizing and manipulating Heavenly Brother’s discourse power, Xiao had got divinity through his excellent witchcraft show as well. According to research, in fact Xiao’s spell was classical hypnosis which included a lot science and absolutely necessary deceit. Just as we cannot deny the positivity of the Taiping rebellion we can not deny the positive effect of Xiao’s spell on breeding the Taiping.It was after Yang’s death that Xiao Chaogui got his Godhead. Hong Xiuquan honored Xiao Chaogui with the position of the ultimate god for two reasons. One is that Yang and Xiao’s holy statics of preaching gospel in the name of God could manifest each other’s divinity and keep Hong Xiuquan’s divinity theories. The other is Hong Xiuquan’s political conspiracy of making infernal powers condition each other.As an element of society, the humans themselves are very complex. Either this or that is a historical rut, but it doesn’t work in perspecting a historical figure’s character. Judging by his strategy and command during Changsha campaign, Xiao Chaogui wasn’t a good strategist and we can find he had limited ability in strategy actions during his whole life. In fact, Xiao Chaogui’s bravery formed in the flatform where he fought against evil spirits--table. The false impression of him had misled thousands of historians and readers for a hundred years. When we take the mystery out of Xiao Chaogui, we can find that everything is variable;the flip-side of his divinity is the naked human selfish and greedy instincts. No matter how modest his words and manner were, he still couldn’t cover his ugly side of being despotic and arrogant.Xiao Chaogui’s26-year short life had seen the whole procedure of the whole mythical story of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, rise and decline, ups and downs, beginning and end and Xiao Chaogui’s short life also reflects the history of the Taiping from a particular aspect.

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