Bloody Christians - 20-30 millions killed in 14 years

[Doubting_Thomas]

Hong Xiuquan is better seen as just 19th century manifestation of a vicious cycle which has plagued China since China was first unified into an Empire. Basically, every dynasties that started strong has seen high rate of initial economic growth, which led to large scale population growth that outstripped agriculture development, leading to misery, corruption, and end up being toppled by large scale bloody peasant rebellions after a few centuries. Hong Xiuquan is just one in a series of such malthusian reapers in Chinese history.

I agree on this part of the wider context, and of course Hong's was not the only rebellion at this time (the Muslims also rebelled for example). But this doesn't remove the Christian agenda from Hong's specific rebellion.

None of his predecessors were christian.

He was a convert, and sought to spread Christianity. In the end his kingdom was totally destroyed so that was the end of the road for that specific Christian stain strain.

His immediate successor, Mao, was communist and atheist. So the fact that he had something to do which christianity was incidental.

No. Mao was not really 'immediate' or a direct successor. There were other rebellions after (boxer rebellion probably most famous) and of course the Qings were pretty much finished by the Wuchang rebellion not Mao's subsequent communist one.

thanks for the thought-out view. I don't agree that Hong's attempt to create a Christian China can be breezed over so easily as coincidental to his motivations.