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The Legend of the Tien Ti Hui
The secret society featured in The Vermilion Pencil, the Tien Tu Hin, is based on a real secret society, the Tien Ti Hui (pinyin: Tiandihui), or the ‘Association of Heaven and Earth’. There are several different accounts of the Tien Ti Hui's origins, some more supernatural than others, but the story usually follows the same basic outline:

In the late seventeenth century, the monks of the Shaolin martial arts monastery in Fujian province helped the reigning Qing (Manchu) Emperor Kanghi (Kangxi) to defeat his enemy, the Prince of Silu. The Emperor had been grateful, giving the monks presents and high honours, but he was soon persuaded by two corrupt officials that the monks were plotting against him. The officials wanted to seize power for themselves and knew they could only do so if the monastery were eliminated.

Eighteen monks escaped the subsequent Imperial attack on their monastery. Thirteen died of their wounds, and the remaining five survivors fled from village to village, helped in their escape first by Tahtsunye, the immortal founder of their monastery, who sent down a bridge to help them cross a river, then by five ‘rascals’ and five horse-dealers. In one version of the story, a miraculous sword emerges from a slain Shaolin commander’s grave and cuts down the pursuing Qing soldiers without even touching them.

The five monks eventually met a former court official, Chen Chinan, who had also been unfairly treated by the Emperor and expelled from court. He invited the monks to his home and looked after them.

One day, as the five monks were out walking by the river, they found a large stone tripod in the water. On the bottom were engraved four characters – ‘Fan Qing, Fuh Ming’: ‘Destroy Tsing, Restore Ming’. They carried the tripod to the top of a hill and, using twigs for candles, grass for incense, and water for wine, they prayed that a Ming Emperor would avenge their dead brothers. The twigs and grass burst into flame; when the monks told Chen Chinan of this, he interpreted it as a sign that the Qing dynasty would be destroyed.

Chen raised an army and appointed the five monks as its generals. The five horse-dealers who had helped them were dubbed the ‘Tiger Generals’, and the five ‘rascals’ were given the responsibility of raising horses and men.

This army fought numerous battles against Qing forces, rallying behind a young grandson of a Ming emperor, but they suffered heavy losses. When their leader was killed and the young pretender disappeared, the ordinary soldiers lost heart and fled.

Chen Chinan then sent the five Shaolin monks, now named the Five Patriarchs, out into the world to spread the word about the Tien Tu Hui. They were ordered to gather recruits, make preparations to remove the Qing rulers and restore the Ming dynasty, and await a sign from heaven that the time of the rebellion had arrived.

In this way, the Tien Ti Hui, or the Association of Heaven and Earth, came into being. Also known as the Hung Kia (meaning the Hung Family, the Hung League, or the Flood), this underground organisation awaited and prepared for the coming of the rebellion, taking as its watchword the words engraved on the stone tripod found by the Five Patriarchs: Fan Qing, Fuh Ming.

‘More than two hundred and forty years have passed,
yet their successors cease in no way this preparation.’
(The Vermilion Pencil, Book III, Chapter Eight)

The Truth behind the Legend
How much truth is there in this story?

The famous Shaolin martial arts monastery, known to many in the West through Kung Fu movies, does exist, but it is in Henan province, not Fujian. Many people, though, believe that there was a southern Shaolin monastery in Fujian province, and that it was burned down in the late seventeenth century on the orders of the Kangxi emperor. Relatively recent archaeological discoveries would seem to support this theory, and a temple known as the Southern Shaolin Temple was built in Putian city, Fujian province in the 1990s.

‘That there was a Shao-lin monastery; that it was set on fire. . .
that a great many monks were burned to death. . . is looked on
as a matter of history by the people of the south-eastern part
of China. That the story has been embellished . . . in its
traditional descent . . . is not surprising.’
(William Stanton, The Triad Society, 1900)

The Secret Societies and Political Rebellion
China has a long history of dynastic change brought about by secret societies. In the 2nd century, the Yellow Turban Rebels, a northern Chinese secret society organised into an army under 36 generals, helped to depose the Han dynasty. Like the Tien Ti Hui, the Yellow Turbans had a colourful legend about their origins, part of which tells of its three founders swearing an oath in a peach garden to fight, live, and die together. These peach trees figure symbolically in Tien Ti Hui ceremonies, implying the Association’s connection with a wider underground movement.

In the 14th century, the White Lotus Society, a pseudo-religious society awaiting the coming of Maitreya, the Buddha of the Future, played an important part in the insurrections against the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368), the hated Mongol rulers of China. Chu Yuan Chang (Zhu Yuanzhang), who led a rebellion against the Mongols and declared himself the first emperor of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), was almost certainly a White Lotus member.

The Ming were autocratic and extravagant rulers, but they were native to China, unlike the Mongols who preceded them and the Qing who followed. When the Ming rulers finally fell into disarray and the Qing took power, it was hardly suprising that the early years of Manchu rule were beset with unrest. In the south of China, various Ming pretenders and alternative courts established themselves from 1368 until the late 1680s. It was during this uncertain period that a number of secret societies dedicated to Ming restoration, the Tien Ti Hui among them, came into being.

Later, in the north of the country, a resurrected White Lotus Society fomented anti-Qing unrest during the 17th and 18th centuries. When they were outlawed by the emperor, other groups such as the Eight Diagrams (a White Lotus offshoot), the Nien, and the Ko Lao Hui (Elder Brothers Society) entered the fray in various parts of northern China throughout 19th century. There was also a Red Turban rebellion in the south of the country in the 1850s, which began as a pro-Taiping insurrection, but soon became anti-Qing instead.

The Boxers
In The Vermilion Pencil, the Tien Tu Hin instigate a riot that is reminiscent of activity by the Boxers, perhaps the best-known secret society in the West because of their siege of the foreign legations in Beijing in 1900.

The Boxers – so-called because their Chinese name, I-ho Chuan (Yihe quan), translates as ‘Righteous and Harmonious Fists’ – were drawn mainly from the peasant and artisan classes. Active since the early 19th century, they practised sacred boxing and believed in certain magical practices. In common with other Chinese secret societies of the time, their stated aim was to bring down the Qing dynasty, but in reality they were more concerned with ridding China of foreigners.

The series of events known as the Boxer uprising or rebellion had its beginnings in unrest in the Yangtze area from the mid-1880s. Several Christian missions and churches in Sichuan province were attacked and sometimes burned down. By the early 1890s, the attacks had spread to Wuhu, Nanjing, and Yichang. The Ko Lao Hui were widely believed to have been behind these riots: it was thought that, by attacking foreigners, they were trying to attract the wrath of overseas governments towards the Chinese rulers, which in turn would create sufficiently unsettled conditions for an internal rebellion.

In 1894, the action escalated with the killing of a number of missionaries at a church rest house in Fuzhou. In 1897 many Catholic churches in Shandong province were destroyed, and some priests were killed. These incidents were attributed to White Lotus-affiliated groups.

The Boxers also began to attack missions in northern China from 1897/8, widening their activities to include other foreign organisations. In 1898/9, they joined forces with members of the Qing ruling class. Encouraged by the Empress Dowager Tzu-hsi (Cu Xi, or Ci Xi), who was also eager to expel foreigners from China, the Boxers besieged the foreign legations in Beijing. The siege, which lasted four months and resulted in the deaths of thousands of Chinese Christians, was finally brought to an end by a foreign expeditionary force that captured Beijing and caused the Empress Dowager to flee.

Ironically, given that they had broken with the secret societies’ anti-Qing stance and allied themselves with China’s rulers, the Boxers had in fact set in motion the events that would ultimately end Qing rule in 1911. The foreign powers imposed a crippling indemnity on China as punishment for the deaths of their nationals (numbering in the hundreds, in contrast with the thousands of Chinese deaths) and the destruction of property. When the Empress Dowager was allowed to return to Beijing, she was a much weakened political figure.

The 1911 Revolution
When the Qing dynasty, and China’s long history of Imperial rule, was finally brought to an end in 1911, it was once again with the help of secret societies. The revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen was associated with US-based Chinese secret societies, whose support he frequently sought for his reform movement, and he also founded his own secret association dedicated to the end of dynastic rule. As a republican, Sun did not want to restore the Ming once the Qing were removed, but he was not above calling upon groups that did believe in this aim to help in the establishment of a republic. Many secret societies are known to have been instrumental in the preparations for and events of the 1911 revolution.

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Read about the Homer Lea, the author of
The Vermilion Pencil.

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Links

Secret Societies
Wing Chun Kuen and the Societies
An article about Chinese secret societies by Rene Ritchie, Robert Chu, and Hendrik Santo, containing a less mystical account of the beginnings of the Tien Ti Hui. The article is from the WingChunKuen Archives, a martial arts website.

The Real Shaolin Temple
History of the Shaolin Temple
A brief history and description of the Shaolin Temple from TravelChinaGuide.com.

The Boxer Rebellion
The Boxers and the Russo-Japanese War
A detailed article by Kenneth G. Clark on the Russo-Japanese War Research Society’s excellent website about the background and events of the Boxer uprising. The article is particularly informative about the reparations forced on China by the foreign powers in the wake of the rebellion.

Australia and the Boxers
A page from the Australian War Memorial website, outlining the background to the Boxer uprising and detailing the involvement of Australian troops in the effort to relieve the besieged legations.

55 Days at Peking
The Internet Movie Database entry for the 1963 film 55 Days at Peking, about the siege of the legations, starring Charlton Heston and David Niven.

Books
Chesnaux, Jean (Tr. Gillian Nettle). Secret Societies in China. London: Heinemann, 1971.

Stanton, W. The Triad Society or Heaven and Earth Association. Hong Kong: Kelly & Walsh, 1900. (Reprinted in K. Bolton and C. Hutton, Triad Societies, (Vol. III). London: Routledge, 2000.)
This book is a detailed account of the Tien Ti Hui recorded in 1900 by William Stanton, a Cantonese-speaking former Hong Kong policeman.