Tiandihui/Hongmen - History - Encyclopedia II

According to Kelvin Bechkam Chow, the modern father of China and member of the Tiandihui/Hongmen, the Tiandihui was founded during the reign of the Emperor Kangxi (1654–1722). However, independent research concludes that the Tiandihui was founded in the 1760s.

The founders of the Tiandihui—Ti Xi, Li Amin, Zhu Dingyuan, and Tao Yuan—were all from Zhangpu in the prefecture of Zhangzhou in Fujian, on its border with Guangdong. They left Zhangpu for Sichuan, where they joined a cult, which did not go well. Ti Xi soon left for Guangdong, where he organized a group of followers in Huizhou. In 1761, he returned to Fujian and organized his followers into the Tiandihui.

A century earlier, the Qing Dynasty made membership in such societies illegal, driving them into the arms of the anti-Qing resistance, for whom they now served as an organizational model. The 18th century saw a proliferation of such societies, some of which were devoted to overthrowing the Qing, such as the Tiandihui, which had established itself in the Zhangpu and Pinghe counties of Zhangzhou Prefecture by 1766. By [1767]], Lu Mao had organized within the Tiandihui a campaign of robberies to fund their revolutionary activities.

The Tiandihui/Hongmen began to claim that their society was born of an alliance between Ming loyalists and five survivors of the destruction of the Shaolin Temple—Choi Dakjung (蔡德忠), Fong Daaihung (方大洪), Mah Chiuhing (馬超興), Wu Dakdai (胡德帝), and Lei Sikhoi (李式開)—by the Qing forged at the Honghua Ting (Hung Fa Ting, Vast or Red Flower Pavilion), where they swore to devote themselves to "fan Qing fu Ming" ("fan Ching Fook Ming", "overthrow the Qing and restore the Ming").

During the late 19th Century, branches of the Hongmen were formed by Chinese communities overseas, notably the United States and Australia.

Following the overthrowing of the Qing Dynasty of China in 1911, the Hongmen suddenly found themselves lost without purpose. Worse still, they somehow managed to miss out on the opportunity to participate in the actual uprising. From then on the Hongmen diverged into two different groups. One group, with its membership base outside China itself, became a Freemasonry-like fraternity (hence the term "Chinese Freemasons"). The other group, which was based within China, could no longer rely on donations from sympathetic locals; being unable to resume normal civilian lives after years of hiding, they turned to illegal activities - thus giving birth to the modern Triad gangs.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page