CHAPTER III
THE SUPPRESSED LEADER
Thus far we have gone on the assumption that the Taiping records were to be trusted and that the party of Hung Siu-ch'üan was the only one concerned in the uprising. Our account of the beginnings may he summarised somewhat as follows. For a year or two prior to 1848 the God-worshippers had been following the fashion set by their neighbors in organising and drilling military companies with the apparent purpose of helping to deal with wandering bandits. Through competition of the various units and careful training they had reached a high order of fighting power. Their enthusiasm was very great. In the critical year 1848 they had passed through an inner crisis, when the two men, Yang and Hsiao, by divine interposition seized the power and spoke thenceforth for God the Father and Jesus the Saviour. Resistance to the government had already begun. It is probable that some of the disaffected elements of society were joining the new movement with revolutionary aims, though on that point we must speak with reserve. The time was ripe for a leader, and the control of the situation by Yang and Hsiao pointed out the leader, Hung Siu-ch'üan, whose trances of 1837 furnished the background for the similar experiences and claims of the others. Fêng Yun-shan went to Kwangtung to bring Hung out of his retirement in Hwahsien and sent him forth as the head of the new
