Xiao Chaogui was Gorn around 1820 to a peasant family in the Wuxuan district of Guangxi province. Sources differ as to his ethnicity, whether Hakka or Zhuang. The village in which he resided was close to the home village of Yang Xiuqing, a follower of Hong Xiuquan, the leader of the Taiping Revolutionary movement.
Despite his modest means, he became an influential leader in the region.
Xiao was baptized by Hong Xiuquan in the 1840s in the Guiping district of Guangxi. At about the same time he joined the God Worshippers，a Christian revolutionary society headed by Hong. Xiao rose quickly to a position of leadership in the society through his claim that, during a visit to earth，Christ had empowered him to speak the words of God. Hong and his deputy Feng Yunshan subsequently named Xiao and three others to positions in the highest echelon of the God Worshippers. In 1850 they placed Xiao in charge of field operations of the society's military forces and gave him personal command of a large army, a move seemingly designed to offset the mounting influence of Yang Xiuqing.
Military action by the God Worshippers began in early 1851 at Jintian in the Guiping district following heavy-handed measures by government forces against villages controlled by the God Worshippers. With a force of 500, Xiao vanquished a government army of 3,000 and personally decapitated the Manchu commander. Not long after this victory, on January 11, 1851, Hong disclosed his dynastic intentions by proclaiming the Taiping Tianguo (Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace). He placed Xiao in command of the Forward Taiping Army.
After the victory at Jintian, the Taiping forces advanced westward and then backtracked to the northeast occupying the walled city Yongan (the present-day Mengshan) in September. At Yongan, Hong Xiuquan organized the Taiping government and named the members of his court. Xiao was designated West King, one of the five kings directly subordinate to Hong. An imperial army of more than 30,000 besieged Yongan during the winter of 1951-1952. The Taipings finally broke through the encirclement on the night of April 5. As their forces advanced northward toward Guilin, rear elements came under attack by an imperial army commanded by the Man-chu General Wu-lan-tai. Several thousand Taiping followers, mostly women and children, perished. Flushed with victory, the imperial army followed closely as the Taiping forces disappeared into the Dadong Mountains. Taiping forces there under the direction of Xiao Chaogui ambushed the imperial army inflicting severe losses. Four general officers perished. Wu-lan-tai narrowly escaped with his life only to die a few days later from a bullet wound suffered in fighting on the outskirts of Guilin. The unsuccessful Taiping siege of Guilin lasted from April 17 until May 19, when they abandoned the city and continued northward occupying Xingan and Quanzhou in northern Guangxi. Crossing into Hunan they took the district city of Daozhou (present-day Daoxian) on June 12.
At Daozhou, East King Yang Xiuqing and West King Xiao issued three fiery proclamations appealing to the nationalist (i.e., anti-Manchu) sentiments of all Chinese, denouncing the crimes of the Manchus, and calling on all to worship God and create a kingdom of peace and prosperity. On August 17, the Taipings moved successfully against Chenzhou. From this base Xiao led a contingent of light infantry northward through eastern Hunan arriving at the provincial capital Changsha on September 11. After defeating the imperial forces in the suburbs, Xiao's troops found the city wall secured and defended by a force of 8,000 militia organized by Governor Lo Bingzhang. Xiao positioned his smaller force outside the city gates where they came under fire from towers within the city and were forced to take cover. The next day wearing the highly visible insignia of his rank, Xiao personally led his forces in an attack on the city. He was quickly defeated by enemy fire and died a few days later as a result of his wounds. He was survived by his widow and a son, Yuhe, who inherited his title Xiao was famed for his bravery and loyalty to the Taiping cause. His untimely death during a display of bravado seemed a pointless act of self-sacrifice. With Xiao no longer a divine spokesman, the upward path was clear for the personally ambitious East King Yang Xiing. The resulting leadership struggles would eventually undermine the Taiping's hopes to es-tablish a lasting kingdom.
Xiao married a relative of Yang's, Yang Yunqiao, a religious zealot and visionary. Yang Yunqiao had foretold Hong appearance as a divinely inspired Ghristian teacher and charismatic leader. Following Yang Yunqiao’s death Xiao married Hong’s younger sister Hong Xuanqiao.
