In 1848, native unrest began in the province of Hunan, as a result of the constantly growing pressure of the Chinese settlers on the native population; in the same year there was unrest farther south, in the province of Kwangsi, this time in connection with the influence of the Europeans. The leader was a quite simple man of Hakka blood, Hung Hsiu-ch'üan (born 1814), who gathered impoverished Hakka peasants round him as every peasant leader had done in the past. Very often the nucleus of these peasant movements had been a secret society with a particular religious tinge; this time the peasant revolutionaries came forward as at the same time the preachers of a new religion of their own. Hung had heard of Christianity from missionaries (1837), and he mixed up Christian ideas with those of ancient China and proclaimed to his followers a doctrine that promised the Kingdom of God on earth. He called himself "Christ's younger brother", and his kingdom was to be called _T'ai P'ing_ ("Supreme Peace"). He made his first comrades, charcoal makers, local doctors, peddlers and farmers, into kings, and made himself emperor. At bottom the movement, like all similar ones before it, was not religious but social; and it produced a great response from the peasants. The programme of the T'ai P'ing, in some points influenced by Christian ideas but more so by traditional Chinese thought, was in many points revolutionary: (a) all property was communal property; (b) land was classified into categories according to its fertility and equally distributed among men and women. Every producer kept of the produce as much as he and his family needed and delivered the rest into the communal granary; (c) administration and tax systems were revised; (d) women were given equal rights: they fought together with men in the army and had access to official position. They had to marry, but monogamy was requested; (e) the use of opium, tobacco and alcohol was prohibited, prostitution was illegal; (f) foreigners were regarded as equals, capitulations as the Manchus had accepted were not recognized. A large part of the officials, and particularly of the soldiers sent against the revolutionaries, were Manchus, and consequently the movement very soon became a nationalist movement, much as the popular movement at the end of the Mongol epoch had done. Hung made rapid progress; in 1852 he captured Hankow, and in 1853 Nanking, the important centre in the east. With clear political insight he made Nanking his capital. In this he returned to the old traditions of the beginning of the Ming epoch, no doubt expecting in this way to attract support from the eastern Chinese gentry, who had no liking for a capital far away in the north. He made a parade of adhesion to the ancient Chinese tradition: his followers cut off their pigtails and allowed their hair to grow as in the past.