Hong Xiuquan in the context of "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom"

The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War, Revolution, or Movement, was a civil war in China between the Qing dynasty and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The conflict lasted 14 years, from its outbreak in 1850 until the fall of Taiping-controlled Nanjing—which they had renamed Tianjing "heavenly capital"—in 1864. The last rebel forces were defeated in August 1871. Estimates of the conflict's death toll range between 20 million and 30 million people, representing 5–10% of China's population at that time. While the Qing ultimately defeated the rebellion, the victory came at a great cost to the state's economic and political viability.

The uprising was led by Hong Xiuquan, an ethnic Hakka who proclaimed himself to be the brother of Jesus Christ. Hong sought the religious conversion of the Han people to his syncretic version of Christianity, as well as the political overthrow of the Qing dynasty, and a general transformation of the mechanisms of state. Rather than supplanting China's ruling class, the Taiping rebels sought to entirely upend the country's social order. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in Nanjing seized control of significant portions of southern China. At its peak, the Heavenly Kingdom ruled over a population of nearly 30 million.

The God Worshipping Society (simplified Chinese: 拜上帝会; traditional Chinese: 拜上帝會; pinyin: Bài Shàngdì Huì) was a polytheistic religion formed in the 19th century under the influence of Protestant Christianity, incorporating elements of Chinese folk religion and Buddhist concepts. It denied the doctrine of the Trinity, honored God as the supreme deity, with Jesus as the crown prince and second in status, and Hong Xiuquan, the founder, as the second son of God. Yang Xiuqing and Xiao Chaogui, through spirit possession, claimed to be the "Heavenly Father Descending to Earth" and "Heavenly Brother Descending to Earth" respectively, acting as spokesmen for the Heavenly Father and Jesus. Hong's first contact with Christian pamphlets occurred in 1836 when he directly received American Congregationalist missionary Edwin Stevens' personal copy of the Good Words to Admonish the Age (by Liang Fa, 1832). He only briefly looked over and did not carefully examine it.

Subsequently, Hong claimed to have experienced mystical visions in the wake of his third failure of the imperial examinations in 1837 and after failing for a fourth time in 1843, he sat down to carefully examine the tracts with his distant cousin Feng Yunshan, believing that they were "the key to interpreting his visions" coming to the conclusion that he was "the son of God the Father, Shangdi, and was the younger brother of Jesus Christ who had been directed to rid the world of demon worship (Qing dynasty)."