The Physical Imprint Of Taiping Social Change

This paper will use the body as a breakthrough point to the social history. From the perspective of physical imprints and power regulatory of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, we will analyze the six physical changes involved during this period and show the regulating process of power that Taiping Heavenly Kingdom did to body. The whole text is divided into seven parts:The first part analyzes how the Heavenly Kingdom attracted people to join its religious church. Firstly, as the same as other religions, Hong Xiuquan used people's attention to the human body. He first declared that the leaders of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom body delegated God, god possession, cures and other special skills. Secondly they promoted that God made human beings and said that only believing in God could make the soul and the body be saved.The second part analyzes the Heavenly Kingdom of shearing braided hair long. Because braid has special meaning during the rule of Qing Dynasty, Hong Xiuquan and other leaders take the hair long as if joining the Heavenly Kingdom of physical signs. They demanded not only the soilders, but also for the people under their rule to make hair long. Those who want to call back traditional Chinese culture were very happy, but there are also a lot of people have accustomed to the Qing Danasty. Therefore, the Order has been objected to. Taiping also gave the people permit to "shave with" to encourage business development.The third part Analyzes the Heavenly Kingdom's "Feet Liberation". Because of the impact of Christian, Hong Xiuquan advocate people should make women's feet free. However, this policy was against by the feudal social order and women themselves. The main motivation of the Heavenly Kingdom's "Feet Liberation" is to make women as labors, so the method is simple and crude.Part four analyzes the Heavenly Kingdom's criminal law. Ancient Chinese criminal law is the political power's discipline and punishment to the body. "Peace criminal law," the criminal types and content are much more than that of the Qing Dynasty. The regime didn't only threaten to impose extreme punishment such as "lantern", "Wumafenshi", etc. The ruler also made public to watch these process in order to threaten the people. However, the judgement faces with a serious problem of inequality,when the law came to people from different classes. Thus did harm to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's internal contradictions, destroyed the unity.The fifth part analyzes the abstinence measures of Heavenly Kingdom. By using various ways, the leader of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom made men and women strongly isolated and put an end to all sexual intercourse occurred, hoping that by controlling the physical desire, the army could gather energy, so that they could go all out to fight. But Hong, Yang and other leaders lived luxury lives, or even caused serious bodily harm to themselves. The sexual repression and inequality in the army caused a lot of abnormal behaviors, such as sodomy and carnal abuse.The sixth part analyzes the Heavenly Kingdom's ban to coffin burial. The cultural and religious differences between the East and the West caused different views of life and death. Due to the impact of Christianity, Hong Xiuquan demand people use linen to wrap the corpse when people died. However, the traditional Chinese belief that solemn bury should be given when people died, the ban to coffin burial caused a strong opposition. But Hong Xiuquan didn't quite understand the Christian conception of death and he was strongly influenced by the feudal tradition. During the carrying out of the ban, Taiping army took the opportunity to a lot of extra money, which consequently lost the support of people.The seventh part gives an overall analysis to the reasons why physical imprint of the Heavenly Kingdom ultimately disappeared. This regime could not give the poor people their ideal life, while it also seems impossible to give real Christian salvation to the soul of the people. Under the cloak of religion, it just made some social changes as like as chalk and cheese. It is not representative of the advanced direction of social change. Some policies only relied on mandatory force to implement. Summing up this period of the history, the imprints to the body have already disappeared, but the regulatory of power towards body is always ongoing.