Republican-era scholars generally thought that the Tiandihui was founded by Ming loyalists in the early
Qing dynasty to resist the Manchu invasion of China. In 1964, scholar
Cai Shaoqing published the article
On the Origins of the Tiandihui () based on his research of Qing archives (now known as the
First Historical Archives) in Beijing. He concluded that the Tiandihui was founded in 1761 and its roots lay in mutual aid rather than national politics. His interpretation was further developed by his student Qin Baoqi and confirmed by independent research by the Taiwanese scholar Zhuang Jifa. The founders of the Tiandihui — Ti Xi, Li Amin, Zhu Dingyuan, and Tao Yuan — were all from
Zhangpu,
Zhangzhou,
Fujian, on the border with
Guangdong. They left Zhangpu for
Sichuan, where they joined a local cult and left disenchanted. Of the four, Ti Xi soon left for Guangdong, where he organised a group of followers in
Huizhou. In 1761, he returned to Fujian and organised his followers from both provinces to form 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 organisational 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 in 1766. By 1767, Lu Mao had organised within the Tiandihui a campaign of robberies to fund their revolutionary activities. The Tiandihui began to claim that their society was born of an alliance between
Ming dynasty loyalists and five survivors of the destruction of
Shaolin Monastery—Cai Dezhong (), Fang Dahong (), Ma Chaoxing (), Hu Dedi (), and Li Shikai ()—by the Qing forged at the
Honghua Ting ("Vast or Red Flower Pavilion"), where they swore to devote themselves to the mission of "Fan Qing Fu Ming" (). In 1768 anti-Qing Tiandihui rebel Zhao Liangming claimed to be a descendant of the
imperial house of the
Song dynasty. The merchant
Koh Lay Huan, who had been involved in these subversive activities, had to flee China, arriving in
Siam and the
Malay States, to eventually settle in
Penang as its first
Kapitan China before dying in 1826. During the late 19th century, branches of the Hongmen were formed by Chinese communities overseas, notably the United States, Canada, and Australia, where they are nowadays known as "Chinese Freemasons." Following the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty of China in 1911, the Hongmen suddenly found themselves without purpose. From then on, the Hongmen diverged into various groups. When some Hongmen groups 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
Triads. In modern times, Hongmen associations, particularly in Taiwan, have been associated with
united front activities. ==The Hongmen today==