Episode 1.16 – Thistle Mountain

Not exactly Thistle mountain, but an example of what the area north/north-west of Guiping, Guangxi looks like.

In this episode, we look at the region where the Society of God Worshipers took root and grew, and what life was like there in the second half of the 1840’s. Pirates, bandits, secret societies, and everyday people trying to scratch out a living in a Qing “backwater”. This “internal frontier” was the place where Hong’s Christian beliefs took root & grew into the nucleus of what would become the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.