Background
Bom in Huaxian, Guandong province, Feng Yunshan was a neighbor, a schoolmate, and remote relative of Hong Xiuquan, a self-baptized Christian who started the Taiping Rebellion.
Bom in Huaxian, Guandong province, Feng Yunshan was a neighbor, a schoolmate, and remote relative of Hong Xiuquan, a self-baptized Christian who started the Taiping Rebellion.
A frustrated Hakka scholar himself, Feng was an educated and aspiring young man when he first met Hong Xiuquan and soon became one of his earliest converts to Christianity in 1843. He shared Hong's religious conviction that their God-given mission was to rid China of all demons, including the deeply entrenched Confucianism and other existing evil social customs. Feng devoted himself to the study of the religious tracts, and joined Hong on his preaching missions to Guangxi province in 1844. Feng was the one who stayed behind and organized the God Worshipping Society (Bai Shangdi Hui) in the Thistle Mountain (Zijin Shan) in Guangxi, a place far removed from urban centers and Confucian influences.
The economic hardships in that area following the end of the first Opium War (1839-1842) fostered strong discontent and resentment among the local residents, who were thus receptive to Feng's message of redemption. He managed to enlist a significant number of converts, many of whom were poverty-stricken, to the God Worshipping Society with its promise of salvation. Feng also joined Hong, when the latter came to the Thistle Mountain in 1847, in smashing the idols in the villages in an effort to save the local people from the “demons,” because in their minds those idols were equated to demons. Feng was captured by the local militia, which was organized by several wealthy families that were disturbed by the God Worshippers' actions. Feng defended himself with the argument that he was simply preaching God’s words with no intention of causing havoc in the local community, and that freedom to worship had been decreed by the Manchu emperor after the Opium War.
Feng Yunshan was praised for his selflessness, for he devoted over three years to the God Worshippers, cause, away from his wife and children. Regarded as God’s third son,Feng received the title of “South King” from Hong Xiuquan,who proclaimed himself as the “Heavenly King.” After the Taiping Rebellion officially started in 1851, Feng became one of the primary generals of the Taiping army. He also helped devise the new Taiping calendar, which contained 366 days in a year, attributing 30 days to evennumbered months and 31 days to odd-numbered months. The new calendar, supposedly determined by God to ensure peace for the Taipings, also reserved Sundays for the Sabbath.
Feng Yunshan’s role in the Taiping Rebellion came to an unexpected early end when he was fatally wounded in May 1852 when the Taipings were hunted by the imperial torces on their northward march from Guangxi to Nanjing. He died a month later in Quanzhou, Guangxi province.