(1 January 1814 - 1 June 1864), born Hong Huoxiu and with the courtesy name Renkun, was a Chinese revolutionary who was the leader of the Taiping Rebellion against the Qing dynasty. It erupted when a deluded man by the name of Hong Xiuquan preached that he was the brother of Jesus Christ. Hong was a self-styled Christian with his own version of Christianity. He called his organization the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Hong had not only religious ideals but also very opinionated political views. However, he told his followers that they were fighting a "holy war." Hong's interest, however, was spurred by economic interests and power. That led him to command the lands in southern China below the Yangtze River. Despite the fact that Christianity doesn't promote violence, the Taiping Rebellion was one of the bloodiest in Chinese history. Boldly, Hong and his troops tried to annex Beijing but failed due to the efforts of Zeng Guofan.

Hong Xiuquan, was a quite simple man of Hakka blood, who gathered impoverished Hakka peasants round him as every peasant leader had done in the past. Very often the nucleus of these peasant movements had been a secret society with a particular religious tinge; this time the peasant revolutionaries came forward as at the same time the preachers of a new religion of their own. Hong had heard of Christianity from missionaries and he mixed up Christian ideas with those of ancient China and proclaimed to his followers a doctrine that promised the Kingdom of God on earth. He called himself "Christ's younger brother", and his kingdom was to be called Taiping ("Supreme Peace"). He made his first comrades, charcoal makers, local doctors, peddlers and farmers, into kings, and made himself emperor. At bottom the movement, like all similar ones before it, was not religious but social; and it produced a great response from the peasants.