Stories
the narratives it tells itself
The vision of 1837.
After failing the imperial examinations a second time Hong collapsed and was ill for weeks, and saw an old man with a golden beard who gave him a sword, and a younger man who fought beside him. Six years later he re-read a Christian tract he had been handed in the street and understood what he had seen.
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A Bible printed by a state, and a land law written like scripture.
The Taiping printed their own edition of the Old and New Testaments with Hong's annotations, and set the Book of Heavenly Commandments and the Land System alongside them. Candidates for office were examined on these texts instead of the Confucian classics — the most complete replacement of a canon attempted in Chinese history.
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