Hong Rengan

Lindesay Brine, writing in 1862, calls him Hung-jin. He says that the narrative of Hong Xiuquan’s early life published by the missionary Theodore Hamberg was the translation of a paper that Hung-jin gave to Hamberg, with the substance of their conversations in 1852 (Brine, Taeping Rebellion p. 63), and, following Hamberg, he names him as one of the two converts Hong made on returning home in 1843 (Brine, Taeping Rebellion p. 73).

By Brine’s account he tried and failed to reach Hong in Guangxi after the rising began, came to Hong Kong in April 1852, was baptised, and from 1855 to 1858 served the London Missionary Society there as catechist and preacher. He reached Nanjing in the spring of 1859, and a few days later Hong gave him the rank of Kan-wang, the Shield King. Brine adds that missionaries hoped he would correct the errors of Taiping religion and that the hopes were disappointed (Brine, Taeping Rebellion pp. 239–242). Issachar Roberts accused him of killing Roberts’s servant with his own hand in January 1862; Brine, who prints the letter, reports a statement that the servant was under sentence of death for an earlier offence (Brine, Taeping Rebellion pp. 297–299). See the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.