The Tiandihui (Chinese: ; pinyin: Tiān Dì Huì), literally the Society of the Heaven and the Earth, also called Hongmen 洪門, is a Chinese fraternal organisation and secretive folk religious sect. As the Tiandihui spread through different counties and provinces, it branched off into many groups and became known by many names, including the Sanhehui. The Hongmen grouping is today more or less synonymous with the whole Tiandihui concept, although the title "Hongmen" is also claimed by some criminal groups.
When the British ruled Hong Kong, all Chinese secret societies were seen as criminal threats and together defined as Triads, although the Hongmen might be said to have differed in its nature from others. The name of the "Three Harmonies Society" (the "Sanhehui" grouping of the Tiandihui) is in fact the source of the term "Triad" that has become synonymous with Chinese organised crime. Because of that heritage, the Tiandihui is sometimes controversial and is illegal in Hong Kong.
According to research based on primary sources made available to the public when the First Historical Archives in China opened in the 1980s, the first Tiandihui was started in 1762.
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 cult, which did not go well. 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 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 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 by 1766. By 1767, Lu Mao had organised within the Tiandihui a campaign of robberies to fund their revolutionary activities.
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