One of the weirder stories from history: the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace (Taiping Tianguo 太平天国
, mid-19th century rebel Christian theocracy, led by one Hong Xiuquan, the Second Son of God and Younger Brother of Jesus Christ. After marching through Southern China from their initial base in Guangxi, they eventually captured Nanjing, China's southern capital, before attempting to march on Beijing; they were
this close to overthrowing the Qing Dynasty. After the attack failed, the rebels withdrew to central China where they ruled a vast, rich area of the Lower Yangtze for the next decade or so. Hong brutally murdered any opponent of his regime; he also abolished private property, banned foot binding, simultaneously promoted both gender equality and gender segregation, reformed the calendar, outlawed opium, alcohol, tobacco, prostitution, gambling and polygamy, though Hong himself had like a hundred wives. In 1864 the Heavenly Kingdom was destroyed by the combined forces of the Qing Empire, Britain and France; Nanjing was razed to the ground and its inhabitants put to the sword, though the last of the Taiping would not be eradicated until 1871. The civil war (which was just one of many going on in China at that time) caused about 20 million deaths, the second worst conflict in all of human history. The Chinese Communist Party would later resurrect Hong Xiuquan's memory as a revolutionary forerunner and proto-communist.