ABSTRACT
In ‘Yuekou jilüe’ (Brief Record of the Rebels of Guangdong and Guangxi), in juan 1 of the Dunbi suiwen lu (Random Notes of a Defended Nose), we read as follows:
Hong Xiuquan was a man of Huaxian, Guangdong. When he was forty or more years of age, he had long hair, wasp-like eyes [sic.], a broad visage, and a fat body, and he was somewhat literate. His surname is unknown, though some say it was Zheng. In Daoguang 25 [1855] he went to Guangxi and joined a religious association. It so happened that when Hong Deyuan [mentioned earlier in the text as the leader of an association known as the Tiandinghui] passed away as a result of illness, he came to assume the surname Hong and replaced [Deyuan] as leader of the group. … In addition, he added Christianity and called himself the younger brother of Jesus and the younger, second son of the Heavenly Father Jehovah.
