In this episode of pplpod, we explore the astonishing life of Hong Xiuquan, the failed scholar who came to believe he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ and sparked the Taiping Rebellion, one of the deadliest conflicts in human history. Born Hong Huoxiu in 1814 to a poor Hakka farming family in southern China, Hong grew up inside a world where the imperial examination system was the only real path out of poverty. He showed early brilliance, memorizing Confucian texts and placing first in local exams, but repeatedly failed the higher provincial exams in Guangzhou. After his third failure in 1837, he suffered a severe breakdown and experienced a vivid vision of a heavenly father, a celestial older brother, and a mission to destroy demons. Years later, after failing the exams for a fourth time, he read a Christian pamphlet and reinterpreted tha ...