It's January 11th, 1851, and it's dry and cloudy in this small riverside village.

Monsoon season is coming soon to southern China, but it's not what's on everybody's minds

this year.

Something far more destructive looms in their thoughts than a little rain, a far more

devastating storm is on the horizon.

In the eye of it, well, it's a 37-year-old former schoolteacher named Hong Xiu Chen.

And he has a war to start.

Sure, in 10 years, a civil war will break out halfway around the world in the United States

that will kill 600,000 Americans.

It will be discussed, analyzed, and studied ad nauseam by historians around the world for centuries,

but compared to the bloodshed, mayhem, and genocide that Hong Xiu Chen will instigate

that little American pickle, well, it'll look more like a pillow fight in contrast.

Hong stands on a small hill overlooking the village.

He looks at all the people who are ready to follow him, maybe to their deaths.

Most likely to their deaths, in fact.

In a few short years, at least 20 to 30 million of them will be dead because of Hong.

The people surrounding Hong are mostly poor, humble farmers.

In those days, it's a struggle just to grow enough rice and wheat to satisfy market demand

and also feed their families.

Still, Hong is asking a lot of them to abandon everything they'd ever known.

Most of the farmers are peasants, really.

They don't own any land.

...