Providence, which works in many ways, gives Yang an opportunity to test the waters. It is the British who occasion the opportunity. Frustrated by their experiences with the Hermes in 1853, they have sent no more formal diplomatic visits. But in late June 1854 they can no longer contain their curiosity. Claiming the need for the British in Shanghai "to ascertain whether a supply of coals can be provided for the public service" from the Taiping, since coal is rumored to be stored in Wuhu, which has been intermittently under Taiping control, the British minister sends a small mission under Captain Mellersh of the Rattler to investigate the options. The two junior British diplomats assigned to the mission are further instructed to find out everything they can about the current state of Taiping life and belief—"their political views, their forms of government, their religious books, creeds and observances, their domestic and social habits, and all facts respecting them which seem entitled to notice."38
Reaching Nanjing on June 20, 1854, the British are denied permission to enter the city or its suburbs, and no Taiping come to their ship. Frustrated, they submit to Yang, the East King, thirty questions on a wide variety of topics—trade prospects, troop numbers, laws, tariffs, initiation rites, examinations, the common treasury, separation of males from females, opium prohibitions, ranks of nobility—and two intrusive ones on a matter of different import: what does it mean when Hong Xiuquan says he is Jesus' younger brother; and why, among his many titles, does the East King include those of "Comforter" and "Holy Ghost"? Yang's answer comes promptly, in a large yellow envelope, one foot wide and eighteen inches long. Though often evasive or elliptical, on the questions relating to Hong's identity and his own titles he is more direct, and the British interpreter at once translates Yang's answers:
To your enquiry (as to whether and why I received the appellation of "the Comforter," "the Holy Ghost" and as to the meaning of the titles "Honae Teacher" and "Redeemer from Disease") I reply, that the Heavenly Father appeared upon earth and declared it as his sacred will that the Eastern Prince should redeem the people of all nations upon earth from their diseases, and that the Holy Ghost should enlighten all their blindness. The Heavenly Father has now pointed out the Eastern Prince as the Holy Ghost, and therefore given him the title of "Comforter, Holy Ghost, Honae Teacher and the Lord who redeems from disease," so that all the nations of the earth may know the confidence placed in me by the Heavenly Father in his mercy....
To your enquiry (whether you are to infer by the designation given to Jesus of Celestial Elder Brother and that given to the Celestial King of Second Elder Brother, that the latter is actually the child of God, or that he is so only by allegory) I reply, that the Celestial King is the second son of God, truly declared to be by the Divine Will of God. The Celestial King likewise ascended up to Heaven in his own person and there again and again received the distinct commands of God to the effect that he was the Heavenly Father's second son and the true sovereign of the myriad nations of the globe. Of this we possess indubitable proof.39
In return, Yang poses fifty questions of his own to Captain Mellersh; in their range and nature, the first thirty of them show with great clarity the questions that are troubling the Taiping Celestial Court about their heavenly claims. The East King writes:
The questions I have to ask are these—
You nations having worshipped God for so long a time, does any one among you know,
1. How tall God is, or how broad?
2. What his appearance or colour is?
3. How large his abdomen is?
4. What kind of beard he grows?
5. What colour his beard is?
6. How long his beard is?
7. What cap he wears?
8. What kind of clothes he wears?
9. Whether his first wife was the Celestial Mother, the same that brought forth the Celestial Elder Brother Jesus?
10. Whether he has had any other son born to him since the birth of Jesus his first born?
11. Whether he has had but one son, or whether, like us mortals, a great many sons?
12. Whether he is able to compose verse?
13. How rapidly can he compose verse?
14. How fierce his disposition is?
15. How great his liberality is?
You nations having worshipped God and Jesus for so long a time, does any one among you know,
16. How tall Jesus is, or how broad?
17. What his appearance or colour is?
18. What kind of beard he grows?
19. Of what colour his beard is?
20. What kind of cap and clothes he wears?
21. Whether his first wife was our elder sister?
22. How many children he has had?
23. Of what age is his eldest son?
24. How many daughters has he had?
25. Of what age is his eldest daughter?
26. How many grandsons has God at this moment?
27. How many granddaughters has God at this moment?
28. How many heavens are there?
29. Whether all the Heavens are of equal height?
30. What the highest Heaven is like?40
The remaining twenty of Yang's questions refer to specific problems of interpretation of New Testament passages, to the role of the "Comforter," to the nature of the Taiping mandate from God to destroy the Manchus, and the significance of Britain's alleged stance of neutrality. With a sharper touch, in the fiftieth question Yang notes, "You have the audacity to presume to impose upon us in spite of ourselves, and without any sense of propriety to represent that your object in coming to the Celestial Kingdom is the desire to get coals.'"41
The small group of foreigners on the Rattler—none of whom has theological training either—form what they sardonically call "a synod" with Captain Mellersh for the purpose of answering Yang as well as they can, locating apposite passages to answer specific points, and moving thoroughly through all fifty of his questions. For questions one to eight, the answer is that God has neither height nor breadth. On nine to eleven, God as spirit does not "marry," and has no son but Jesus. For twelve to fifteen, God is always merciful, and nothing to Him is impossible. On sixteen to twenty, the New Testament gives no information. On twenty- one to twenty-seven, references to the "marriage of the Lamb" as found in Revelation can only be understood figuratively, as the "union of believers with Christ." Twenty-eight to thirty are unknowable.42 But though these answers to the specific questions are courteous and thorough, the British "synod" 's summary of their conclusions and reflections reads harshly indeed to Yang:
In reference to your closing declarations, such as that God has specially commissioned you and your people to exterminate the imps—that your sovereign is God's own son, and the uterine brother of the Celestial Elder Brother—that he is the true sovereign of all nations—that you, the Eastern King, are appointed by God to the office of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter—I think it right to state to you distinctly that we place no faith in any one of your dogmas to this effect, and can subscribe to none of them. We believe only what is revealed to us in the Old and New Testaments, namely, that God the Father is the creator and Lord of all things—that Jesus is his only begotten son—that he came down into the world and became flesh— that he died on the cross to redeem us from our sins—that after three days he rose again from the dead, and ascended into heaven, where he is ever one with God—-that he will appear once again hereafter to judge the world— that those who believe in him will be saved—and that those who do not believe in him will be lost—that the Holy Ghost is also one with God—that he has already been manifested among men, namely, shortly after the ascension of our Lord—that now those who pray for his influence will receive him in their hearts and be renewed thereby—and that these three, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, are the one and true God.43
And the Englishmen reiterate, in conclusion, that in all problems of doubtful interpretation Yang should follow Christ's simple injunction: "Se
arch the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they that testify of me."44
This letter is sent to the East King on June 29, 1854; next day the Rattler leaves Nanjing for Shanghai, where the vessel docks on July 7. The Taipings have not allowed them to ship a single lump of coal, but safely stowed on board are copies of the latest books to have left the Taiping presses, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and Joshua, which carry the story of the wandering tribes of Israel from the death of their leader Moses to their final entry into the Promised Land, which he was fated never to see. Also on the ship is Hong's revision of the text on the nature of God, with its painstaking attempt to argue for the propositions that the "synod" has just refuted.45 That same day of July 7, in Nanjing, God speaks again through the mouth of Yang. The message is brief and unprecedented in the history of the Taiping movement:
"Your God has come down to you today for one reason and one reason only: namely to inform you that both the Old Testament and the New Testament, which have been preserved in foreign lands, contain numerous falsehoods. You are to inform the North King and the Wing King, who in turn will tell the East King who can inform the Heavenly King, that it is no longer useful to propagate these books."46
When God, through Yang, asks the assembled Taiping officials to comment, there is little for them to say. One veteran Taiping general protests that he, being illiterate, can hardly consider the merits of such a decree; another, who has a scholar's training in the old society, and senses what answer Yang really seeks, replies that "there can be no mistakes in the sacred instructions of Our Father or Our Eldest Brother," clearly implying that the messages relayed to earth by Xiao and Yang are the pure revelation, while the written text itself can be seen as suspect. God replies through Yang: "Those books are neither polished in literary terms nor are they fully complete. You must all consult together, and correct them so that they become both polished and complete."47
16 The Killing
The challenge to Hong Xiuquan, and to his followers, is unmistakable: the biblical word of God, which has carried them all so far, is now to be altered by the hands and minds of men. But the words of God as revealed through Yang are correct in every detail, and none shall presume to alter them.
The Bible printing stops, while Taiping leaders start to probe for errors and produce a version that can reconcile their visions with the text. The northern expedition falters, dies. The western expedition, driven from Hunan, consolidates its forces nearer home. Qing forces oust the Triad rebels from Shanghai, and reclaim the Chinese portion of the city as their own. A large Qing army remains assembled near the eastern walls of Nanjing. The Taiping program continues to be preached in town and countryside, but it is hard to collect the tithes or unify the families in their squads as the fighting swirls around them. Harder still to maintain the separation of the sexes; in early 1855 the formal ban is dropped, and married couples begin to meet without restraint, though couples meeting clandestinely out of wedlock still face execution.1 Even some convicted opium smokers are spared the death penalty by God and Yang if they can show it was the demon devils who led them astray, though the Heavenly King still warns against the folly of addiction in a rhyming edict:
One smoke endlessly follows another; there is never satisfaction.
Why follow this stupid practice, transforming yourselves into living demons?
To sicken or die as you give up smoking is preferable to being executed—
To stop being a ghost and become human again must be the better way.2
Yang Xiuqing, East King and Comforter, is often ill in 1855. That does not stop his steady accretion of new powers. When he is too ill to move, he issues injunctions from his "golden bed." Sometimes, when God speaks to him, it is not in open revelation but safely in his dreams, and Yang reveals the contents of the dream the next day, treating it directly as the word of God, and expecting all to do the same.3 When God does come down to speak through Yang directly, the pomp of the occasion grows: now imperial relatives walk on each side of Yang's palanquin in their full court robes of state, for he has formalized the roles of family members, and brought new order to their ranks within his palaces. As well as "golden" gongs and drums, "sacred guns" salute him with their cannonades as he travels on his way. All kneel to greet him, and although in the harshest winter cold, in bitter wind or snow, all need not wait for hours outside the palace for his arrival, none may slight the basic rules of protocol. Terrible is God's anger, expressed through Yang, if on one of His nocturnal visits to earth the Heavenly King's women attendants dawdle in throwing open the mighty palace gates—these being so numerous and so heavy that they sometimes simply cannot open fast enough to please.4 Sometimes, now, it is Hong Xiuquan who must go to the entrance of his palace and greet the East King there, kneeling at his own threshold to receive the heavenly messages, while Yang stays seated in repose. On occasion Hong even goes himself to Yang's own palace when Yang is indisposed.5
Yang's interference in Hong Xiuquan's daily life is unremitting. Hong is blamed for lack of filial piety toward his mother by not allowing his palace women to serve her as they should.6 Yang takes the moral position that the older mothers and wives of loyal Taiping veterans are being neglected, and forced to do the hard work in their lodgings by themselves; he orders women from the royal palaces to be assigned to help them, whether by gathering fuel or tilling in their gardens.' Even the role of Hong Xiuquan's beloved son Tiangui, already named as his heir apparent, is undercut by Yang. For Yang's own young son is allowed to intervene when Yang talks to God the Father, showing conspicuous filial piety by crawling forward on hands and knees to plead his father's cause before his "Heavenly Grandpapa."8
As has been true for several years, Yang makes political decisions in arbitrary ways. When Hong Xiuquan tries to fill the depleted ranks of his attendant kings, by naming two of the most trusted veteran commanders from Guiping days, Qin Rigang and Hu Yihuang, to be kings in place of the dead Feng and Xiao, at first Yang acquiesces, but when the two are temporarily checked in battle in the west, Yang deprives them of their newly awarded titles.9 North King Wei is constantly summoned, at any hour of day or night, to hear the relaying of God's instructions, and threatened with public beatings for his laziness if he dares delay. Qin Rigang, one of the new kings so soon deposed, is accused by God of "failure in fulfilling his duties" and threatened with both prison and enslavement.10 Those decreed by Yang to be guilty of "grossly violating the law of Heaven" meet death as "lighted Heavenly lanterns," being soaked in oil and set afire.11
Senior military officers are flogged if they fail to pay proper homage to the officials from Yang's household they encounter on the Nanjing streets; and if they refuse to express regret for their behavior, but with "hearts filled with hatred reply in abusive words," they are executed.12 Members of Yang's palace staff, accused by him of neglecting their duties while he is ill, or of allowing improper conversations in the palace, are also publicly executed.13 God feels the need to return to earth through Yang, and give a brief explanation for these killings: "These rebels betrayed Heaven and deceived the East King. Didn't they realize that the East King, their older brother, fell ill to atone for their sins? They dared to act with disdain and play deaf in the palace. Now their treacherous hearts have been treated thus!'14
In military affairs the East King's role—even when he is ill—is also paramount. As senior chief of staff, perhaps in sporadic consultations with Hong Xiuquan, it is Yang who coordinates the far-flung campaigns. He sends massive reinforcements—futilely it turns out-—to try and save the beleaguered northern expedition. He approves the campaigns to recover Wuchang, and advance to Hunan, and in 1855 coordinates the armies sent to Anhui province and Jiangxi. He realizes too the crucial importance of the city of Zhenjiang, on the south bank of the Yangzi River, fifty miles downstream from Nanjing, to guard the approaches to the Heavenly Capital as well as access to the Grand Canal. Thus when the Qing forces launch an all-out camp
aign to retake Zhenjiang, Yang responds by sending massive reinforcements and all the ammunition that can be spared, as well as generals of outstanding experience and ability. The result, after savage fighting, is a great Taiping victory and the relief and reinforcement of the city.
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