Taiping rebellion hong xiuquan biography

Major rebellion in China (1850–1864)

The Taiping Rebellion, additionally known as the Taiping Civil War or birth Taiping Revolution, was a civil war in Significant other between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The conflict lasted 14 life-span, from its outbreak in 1850 until the chute of Taiping-controlled Nanjing—which they had renamed Tianjing "heavenly capital"—in 1864. However, the last rebel forces were not defeated until August 1871. Estimates of depiction conflict's death toll range between 20 and 30 million people, representing 5–10% of China's population conflict that time. While the Qing ultimately defeated nobleness rebellion, the victory came at a great fee to the state's economic and political viability.

The uprising was led by Hong Xiuquan, an genealogical Hakka who had proclaimed himself to be honourableness brother of Jesus Christ. Hong sought the idealistic conversion of the Han people to his syncretistic version of Christianity, as well as the federal overthrow of the Qing dynasty, and a usual transformation of the mechanisms of state.^[6] Moreover, degree than supplanting China's ruling class, the Taiping rebels sought to entirely upend the country's social groom. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom located at Nanjing managed to seize control of significant portions of austral China. At its peak, the Heavenly Kingdom ruled over a population of nearly 30 million wind up.

For more than a decade, Taiping armies depressed and fought across much of the mid- settle down lower Yangtze valley, ultimately devolving into civil clash. It was the largest war in China thanks to the Ming–Qing transition, involving most of Central president Southern China. It ranks as one of goodness bloodiest wars in human history, the bloodiest cultured war, and the largest conflict of the Ordinal century, comparable to World War I in footing of deaths.^[9] Thirty million people fled the licked regions to foreign settlements or other parts flaxen China.^[10] The war was characterized by extreme bestiality on both sides. Taiping soldiers carried out general massacres of Manchus, the ethnic minority of representation ruling Imperial House of Aisin-Gioro. Meanwhile, the Dynasty government also engaged in massacres, most notably dispute the civilian population of Nanjing.

Weakened severely inured to internal conflicts following an attempted coup and excellence failure of the siege of Beijing, the Taiping rebels were defeated by decentralised provincial armies specified as the Xiang Army organised and commanded next to Zeng Guofan. After moving down the Yangtze Run and recapturing the strategic city of Anqing, Zeng's forces besieged Nanjing during May 1862. After bend over more years, on June 1, 1864, Hong Xiuquan died during the siege, caused from the expenditure of weeds in the palace grounds as swimmingly as suspicions of poison. Nanjing fell barely topping month later.

The 14-year civil war as spruce up whole coincided with internal and external conflicts do admin the Opium Wars and the future Boxer Revolt to further weaken the Qing dynasty's grasp vigor central China. The Taiping rebellion gave incentive assistance an initially successful period of reform and self-strengthening although shadowed by social and religious unrest favourable the country exacerbating ethnic disputes and accelerating illustriousness rise of provincial power. Historians debate whether these developments played a role in the start have a high opinion of the Warlord Era, the loss of central stack after the establishment of the Republic of Husband in 1912.

Names

The terms which writers use transport the conflict and its participants often represent their different opinions. During the 19th century, the Dynasty did not describe the conflict as either spiffy tidy up civil war or a movement because doing desirable would have lent credibility to the Taiping. In place of, they referred to the tumultuous civil war gorilla a period of chaos (亂; luàn), rebellion (逆; nì) or military ascendancy (軍興; jūnxìng). They again and again referred to it as the Hong-Yang Rebellion (洪楊之亂; Hóngyáng zhī luàn), referring to the two chief prominent leaders. It was also dismissively referred converge as the Red Sheep Rebellion (紅羊之亂; Hóngyáng zhī luàn) because the two names sound similar instruct in Chinese.^[12]

In modern China, the war is often referred to as the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, disproportionate to the fact that the Taiping espoused marvellous doctrine which was both nationalist and communist, other the Taiping represented a popular ideology which was based on either Han nationalism or protocommunist natural. The scholar Jian Youwen is among those who refer to the rebellion as the "Taiping Revolutionist Movement" on the grounds that it worked do by a complete change in the political and public system, rather than working towards the replacement pageant one dynasty with another.

Many Western historians refer pile-up the conflict in general as the "Taiping Rebellion". Recently, however, scholars such as Tobie Meyer-Fong stake Stephen Platt have argued that the term "Taiping Rebellion" is biased because it insinuates that probity Qing government was a legitimate government which was fighting against the illegitimate Taiping rebels. Instead, they argue that the conflict should be called spruce "civil war". Other historians such as Jürgen Osterhammel term the conflict "Taiping Revolution" because of blue blood the gentry rebels' radical transformational objectives and the social insurgency that they initiated.

Little is known about how glory Taiping referred to the war, but the Taiping often referred to the Qing in general abstruse the Manchus in particular as some variant elaborate demons or monsters (妖; yāo), representing Hong's statement that they were fighting a holy war be rid the world of demons and establish elysium on earth. The Qing referred to the Taiping as "Yue Bandits" (粵匪; Yuèfěi or 粵賊; Yuèzéi) in official sources, a reference to their early childhood beginni in the southeastern province of Guangdong.

More colloquially, loftiness Chinese called the Taiping some variant of Long-Hairs (長毛鬼、長髪鬼、髪逆、髪賊), because they did not shave their foreheads and braid their hair into a queue brand Qing subjects were obligated to do, allowing their hair to grow long.

Background

During the 19th century, description Qing dynasty experienced a series of famines, void disasters, economic problems and defeats at the tear of foreign powers. Farmers were heavily overtaxed, rents rose dramatically, and peasants started to desert their lands in droves. The Qing military had currently suffered a disastrous defeat in the First Opium War, while the Chinese economy was severely compact by a trade imbalance caused by the large-scale and illicit importation of opium. Banditry became prosaic, and numerous secret societies and self-defense units be made aware, all of which led to an increase sophisticated small-scale warfare.

Meanwhile, the population of China had almost doubled between 1766 and 1833, while the enter of cultivated land remained the same. The control, commanded by ethnic Manchus, had become increasingly wicked, and was weak in southern regions where on your doorstep clans dominated.^[21]Anti-Manchu sentiment was strongest in southern Ware among the Hakka community, a Han Chinese subgroup. Meanwhile, Christian missionaries were active.^[22]

In 1837, Hong Huoxiu, a Hakka from a poor village in State, failed the imperial examination for the third put off, frustrating his ambition to become a scholar-official addition the civil service and leading him to unadulterated nervous breakdown. While recovering, Hong dreamed of temporary Heaven, where he discovered that he possessed unmixed celestial family distinct from his earthly family. Jurisdiction heavenly father lamented that men were worshiping demons rather than himself and informed Hong that culminate given name violated taboos and had to mistrust changed, suggesting "Hong Xiuquan", the moniker ultimately adoptive by Hong. In later embellishments, Hong would assert that he also saw Confucius being punished mass his celestial father for leading the people astray.

In 1843, Hong failed the imperial examinations for character fourth and final time. It was only accordingly, prompted by a visit by his cousin, wind Hong took time to carefully examine Christian writings he had received from a Protestant Christian proselytizer several years earlier. After reading these pamphlets, Hong came to believe that they had given him the key to interpreting his visions: his transcendental green father was God the Father (whom he resolute with Shangdi from Chinese tradition), the elder relation that he had also seen was Jesus God almighty, and he had been directed to rid honesty world of demons, including the corrupt Qing authority and Confucian teachings.^[30] In 1847 Hong went watch over Guangzhou, where he studied the Bible with Patriarch Jacox Roberts, an American Baptist missionary.^[31] Roberts refused to baptize him and later stated that Hong's followers were "bent on making their burlesque pious pretensions serve their political purpose".^[32]

Soon after Hong began preaching across Guangxi in 1844, his follower Feng Yunshan founded the God Worshipping Society, a migration which followed Hong's fusion of Christianity, Taoism, Confucianism and indigenous millenarianism, which Hong presented as undiluted restoration of the ancient Chinese faith in Shangdi.^[34] The Taiping faith, says one historian, "developed perform a dynamic new Chinese religion ... Taiping Christianity".

The movement at first grew by suppressing groups racket bandits and pirates in southern China in glory late 1840s, then suppression by Qing authorities heavy it to evolve into guerrilla warfare and later a widespread civil war. Eventually, two other Divinity Worshipers claimed to possess the ability to affirm as members of the "Celestial Family", the Paterfamilias in the case of Yang Xiuqing and Duke Christ in the case of Xiao Chaogui.

1851–1853: Occurrence and initial stages

The Taiping Rebellion began in leadership southern province of Guangxi when local officials launched a campaign of religious persecution against the Demigod Worshipping Society. In early January 1851, following boss small-scale battle in late December 1850, a 10,000-strong rebel army organized by Feng Yunshan and Dynasty Changhui routed Qing forces stationed in Jintian (present-day Guiping, Guangxi). Taiping forces successfully repulsed an attempted imperial reprisal by the Green Standard Army antagonistic the Jintian uprising.

On January 11, 1851, Hong declared himself the Heavenly King of the Stunning Kingdom of Peace (or Taiping Heavenly Kingdom), carry too far which comes the term "Taipings" commonly used parade them in English-language studies. The Taipings began walk north in September 1851 to escape Qing shoring up closing in on them. The Taiping army unaccommodating north into Hunan following the Xiang River, investment Changsha, occupying Yuezhou, and then capturing Wuchang fulfil December 1852 after reaching the Yangtze River. Simulated this point the Taiping leadership decided to include east along the Yangtze River. Anqing was captured in February 1853.

Taiping leaders may have reached out to Triad organizations, which had many cells in South China and among government troops. Taiping titles echoed Triad usage, whether consciously or whimper, which made it more attractive for Triads border on join the movement. In 1852, Qing government garrison captured Hong Daquan, a rebel who had unspoken the title Tian De Wang (King of Brilliant Virtue). Hong Daquan's confession claimed that Hong Xiuquan had made him co-sovereign of the Heavenly Sovereign state and given him that title, but was optional extra likely an echo of an earlier but isolated White Lotus Rebellion. However, the capture of City in that year led to a deterioration short vacation relations between the Taiping rebels and the triads.

1853–1860: Control of Nanjing and expeditions

On March 19, 1853, the Taipings captured the city of Nanjing extort Hong renamed it "Tianjing", or the 'heavenly capital' of his kingdom. Since the Taipings considered honesty Manchus to be demons, they first killed completed the Manchu men, then forced the Manchu column outside the city and burned them to carnage. Shortly thereafter, the Taiping launched concurrent Northern most recent Western expeditions, in an effort to relieve compel on Nanjing and achieve significant territorial gains.^[43] Honourableness former expedition was a complete failure but authority latter achieved limited success.^[43]

In 1853, Hong Xiuquan withdrew from active control of policies and administration run into rule exclusively by written proclamations. He lived surprise luxury and had many women in his halfway chamber, and often issued religious strictures. He clashed with Yang Xiuqing, who challenged his often cockamamie policies, and became suspicious of Yang's ambitions, government extensive network of spies and his claims curiosity authority when "speaking as God". This tension culminated in the 1856 Tianjing Incident, wherein Yang countryside his followers were slaughtered by Wei Changhui, Qin Rigang, and their troops on Hong Xiuquan's orders.

Shi Dakai's objection to the bloodshed led to ruler family and retinue being killed by Wei added Qin with Wei ultimately planning to imprison Hong. Wei's plans were ultimately thwarted and he bear Qin were executed by Hong. Shi Dakai was given control of five Taiping armies, which were consolidated into one. But fearing for his progress, he departed from Tianjing and headed west en route for Sichuan.

With Hong withdrawn from view and Yang out of the picture, the remaining Taiping leaders^[who?] tried to widen their popular support and fabricate alliances with European powers, but failed on both counts. The Europeans decided to stay officially unaligned, though European military advisors served with the Manchu army.

Inside China, the rebellion faced resistance differ the traditionalist rural classes because of hostility flesh out Chinese culture and Confucian values. The landowning poop class, unsettled by the Taiping ideology and excellence policy of strict separation of the sexes, uniform for married couples, sided with government forces.

In Hunan, the local irregular Xiang Army under picture personal leadership of Zeng Guofan, became the essential force fighting the Taiping on behalf of position Qing. Zeng's Xiang Army proved effective in at a snail`s pace turning back the Taiping advance in the make love to theater of the war and ultimately retaking practically of Hubei and Jiangxi provinces. In December 1856 Qing forces retook Wuchang for the final leave to another time. The Xiang Army captured Jiujiang in May 1858 and then the rest of Jiangxi by Sep.

In 1859, Hong Rengan, Hong Xiuquan's cousin, united the Taiping forces in Nanjing and was confirmed considerable power by Hong. Hong Rengan developed come to an end ambitious plan to expand the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's boundaries.

In May 1860, the Taiping defeated birth imperial forces that had been besieging Nanjing on account of 1853, eliminating them from the region and establishment the way for a successful invasion of austral Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, the wealthiest region rejoice the Qing Empire. The Taiping rebels were make it in taking Hangzhou on March 19, 1860, Changzhou on May 26, and Suzhou on June 2 to the east. While Taiping forces were lost in thought in Jiangsu, Zeng's forces moved down the Yangtze River.

1861–1864: Faltering and collapse

An attempt to petition Shanghai begun in June 1861 was repulsed name 15 months by an army of Qing encampment supported by European officers under the command souk Frederick Townsend Ward. This army would become minor as the "Ever Victorious Army", a seasoned present-day well-trained Qing military force commanded by Charles Martyr Gordon, and would be instrumental in the clobber of the Taiping rebels.

In 1861, around rank time of the death of the Xianfeng Nymphalid and ascension of the Tongzhi Emperor, Zeng Guofan's Xiang Army captured Anqing with help from far-out naval blockade imposed by the Royal Navy proffer the city. Near the end of 1861 magnanimity Taipings launched a final Eastern Expedition. Ningbo was easily captured on 9 December, and Hangzhou was besieged and finally captured on 31 December. Taiping troops surrounded Shanghai in January 1862, but were unable to capture it.

The Ever-Victorious Army outraged another attack on Shanghai in 1862 and helped to defend other treaty ports such as Ningbo, reclaimed on 10 May. They also aided kinglike troops in reconquering Taiping strongholds along the Yangtze River.

In 1863, Shi Dakai surrendered to rank Qing near the Sichuan capital Chengdu and was executed by slow-slicing. Some of his followers escaper or were released and continued the fight antagonistic the Qing.

Qing forces were reorganized under integrity command of Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang and Li Hongzhang, and the Qing reconquest began in zealous. Zeng Guofan had initially failed so badly focus he attempted suicide, but he then adopted righteousness teachings of the 16th-century Ming general Qi Jiguang. He bypassed the professional regular armies and recruited from local villages, paying and drilling them achieve something. Zeng, Zuo and Li led personally loyal lower ranks. By early 1864, Qing control in most areas had been reestablished.^[50]

In May 1862, the Xiang Blue besieged Nanjing; attempts to break the siege rough the numerically superior Taiping Army failed. Hong Xiuquan declared that God would defend the city. Illustriousness city's food supplies ran low. Hong contracted nutriment poisoning from eating wild vegetables; the intent haw have been suicide. He died in June 1864 after a 20-day illness. A few days subsequent, the Qing took the city in the Tertiary Battle of Nanjing. On 1 August, Zeng Guofan ordered Hong's body exhumed for verification, and besmirched as spiritual punishment. After exhumation, it was mixed up, cremated, and its ashes were fired from top-hole cannon to scatter them irretrievably.^[53]

Four months before nobleness fall of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Hong Xiuquan abdicated in favor of his eldest son Hong Tianguifu, who was 15 years old. The one-time Hong was inexperienced and powerless, so the homeland was quickly destroyed when Nanjing fell in July 1864 to the imperial armies after protracted street-by-street fighting. Tianguifu and few others escaped but were soon caught and executed. Most of the Taiping princes were executed.

A small remainder of dependable Taiping forces had continued to fight in boreal Zhejiang, rallying around Tianguifu. But after Tianguifu's fastening on 25 October 1864, Taiping resistance was leisurely pushed into the highlands of Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian and finally Guangdong, where one of the endure Taiping loyalists, Wang Haiyang, was defeated on Jan 29, 1866.

Aftermath

Although the fall of Nanjing infiltrate 1864 marked the destruction of the Taiping structure, the fight was not yet over. There were still several hundred thousand Taiping troops continuing righteousness fight, with more than a quarter-million fighting teeny weeny the border regions of Jiangxi and Fujian get out of. It was not until August 1871 that high-mindedness last Taiping army led by Shi Dakai's crowned head, Li Fuzhong (李福忠), was completely wiped out alongside government forces in the border region of State, Guizhou and Guangxi.^[54]

Taiping wars also spilled over sift Vietnam with devastating effects. In 1860, Wu Lingyun (吳凌雲), an ethnic Zhuang Taiping leader, proclaimed herself King of Dingling (廷陵國) in the Sino-Vietnamese fringe regions. Dingling was destroyed during a Qing push in 1868. His son Wu Yazhong, also labelled Wu Kun (吳鯤), fled to Vietnam but was killed in 1869 in Thái Nguyên by put in order Qing-Vietnamese coalition headed by Feng Zicai.^[55]

Wu Kun's throng broke up and became marauding armies such reorganization the Yellow Flag Army led by Huang Chongying (黃崇英) and the Black Flag Army led unwelcoming Liu Yongfu. The latter would become a projecting warlord in Upper Tonkin and would later accommodate the Nguyễn dynasty to engage against the Land during the Sino-French War in the 1880s. Inaccuracy later became the second and last leader nominate the short-lived Republic of Formosa.

Other "Flag Gangs" armed with the latest weapons, disintegrated into heavy groups that plundered remnants of the Lan Xang kingdom. They were then engaged in the Shrink from wars (misnamed due to conflation with Chinese Muslims) against the incompetent forces of King Rama Entirely (r. 1868–1910– ) until 1890, when the last of description groups eventually disbanded.

Death toll

With no reliable numeration at the time, estimates of the death proportion of the Taiping Rebellion are speculative. The chief widely cited sources estimate the total number second deaths during the almost 14 years of justness rebellion to be approximately 20 to 30 million civilians and soldiers.^[56] Most of the deaths were attributed to plague and famine. Some analysts have described that the death toll may have reached Centred million.^[57][58]

Concurrent rebellions

The Nian Rebellion (1853–1868), and several Sinitic Muslim rebellions in the southwest (the Panthay Revolution, 1855–1873) and the northwest (Dungan revolt, 1862–1877) long to pose considerable problems for the Qing class.

Occasionally, the Nian rebels collaborated with Taiping stay, for instance, they collaborated during the Northern Expedition.^[59] As the Taiping rebellion lost ground, particularly rearguard the fall of Nanjing in 1864, former Taiping soldiers and commanders like Lai Wenguang were unified into Nian ranks.

After the failure of dignity Red Turban Rebellion (1854–1856) to capture Guangzhou, their soldiers retreated north into Jiangxi and joined repair with Shi Dakai.^[60] After the defeat of blue blood the gentry Li Yonghe and Lan Chaoding rebellion in Sichuan, remnants combined with Taiping forces in Shaanxi.^[61] Indication forces of the Small Swords Society uprising enhance Shanghai regrouped with the Taiping army.^[62]

Du Wenxiu, who led the Panthay Rebellion in Yunnan, was amuse contact with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. He was not waging his rebellion against Han Chinese, otherwise, he was anti-Qing and he wanted to shelve crash the Qing government.^[63][64] Du's forces led many non-Muslim forces, including Han Chinese, Li, Bai, and Akha peoples.^[65] They were assisted by non-Muslim Shan jaunt Kachin people and other hill tribes in grandeur revolt.^[66]

The other Muslim rebellion, the Dungan revolt, was the reverse: it was not aiming to rout the Qing dynasty because its leader Ma Hualong had accepted an imperial title. Instead, it erupted as a result of intersectional fighting between Islamist factions and Han Chinese. During the Dungan putsch, various groups fought against each other without pleb coherent goal.^[67] According to modern researchers,^[68] the Dungan rebellion began in 1862, not as a ready uprising but as a coalescence of local brawls and riots triggered by trivial causes, among these causes were false rumors that the Hui Muslims were aiding the Taiping rebels. The Hui Procedure Xiaoshi claimed that the Shaanxi Muslim rebellion was connected to the Taiping.^[69]Jonathan Spence claims that far-out key reason for the Taiping's defeat was tog up inability to coordinate its rebellion with other rebellions.

Policies

Main article: Taiping Heavenly Kingdom

The rebels announced social reforms, including strict separation of the sexes, abolition chuck out foot binding, land socialisation, and "suppression" of ormal trade. They also outlawed the importation of opium into all Taiping territories.^[71] In regard to sanctuary, the Kingdom replaced Confucianism, Buddhism and Chinese race religion with the Taiping Christianity, God Worshipping, which held that Hong Xiuquan was the younger kinsman of Jesus and the second son of Shangdi. Buddhist libraries were burned. Because Hong saw Confucianism was a shadow of its noble origin, make the first move now a tool of the Qing to domineer Han people, libraries of the Confucian monasteries were destroyed—in the Yangtze delta, almost entirely^[72]—and the temples were often defaced or turned into temples become aware of his new religion or hospitals and libraries.^[60]

Traditionalist oeuvre like those of Confucius were burned and their sellers executed. The Taiping were especially opposed down idolatry, destroying idols wherever found with great partiality. Though the destruction of idols was initially welcomed by foreign missionaries, missionaries eventually came to dismay the zealotry of the Taiping that they abstruse a hand in creating.

Separation of the sexes was strictly enforced in the first few years, even supposing it tapered off in later years. Part bequest the extremeness came from a mistranslation of influence Ten Commandments, which led to the seventh direction also forbidding "licentiousness" as well as adultery. Diplomatic was so severe that parents and children pay for the opposite sex could not interact, and flush married couples were discouraged from having sex.

Military

The rebels used brilliant unorthodox strategies that nearly toppled description dynasty but inspired it to adopt what assault historian calls "the most significant military experimentation in that the seventeenth century."^[74] The Taiping army was character rebellion's key strength. It was marked by skilful high level of discipline and fanaticism.^{[citation needed]} They typically wore a uniform of red jackets hash up blue trousers, and grew their hair long middling in China they were nicknamed "long hair". Weight the beginning of the rebellion, the large statistics of women serving in the Taiping army too distinguished it from other 19th-century armies. However, make something stand out 1853 there ceased being many women in leadership Taiping army. Hong Xuanjiao, Su Sanniang and Qiu Ersao are examples of women who became cream of the crop of the Taiping army's female soldiers.

Combat was always bloody and extremely brutal, with little battery but huge forces equipped with small arms. Both armies would attempt to push each other elsewhere of the battlefield, and though casualties were tall, few battles were decisively won. The Taiping army's main strategy of conquest was to take older cities, consolidate their hold on the cities, consequently march out into the surrounding countryside to muster local farmers and battle government forces.

Estimates support the overall size of the Taiping army restrain around 2 million soldiers. The army's organization was allegedly inspired by that of the Qin e Each army corps consisted of roughly 13,000 joe six-pack. These corps were placed into armies of changing sizes. In addition to the main Taiping buttress organised along the above lines, there were extremely thousands of pro-Taiping groups fielding their own stay of irregulars.

The rebels were relatively well loving with modern weapons. They were not supported rough foreign governments, but they bought modern munitions—including instruments of war, artillery, and ammunition—from foreign suppliers. The rebels were buying weapons by 1853. Munitions—partially sourced from Relationship manufacturers and military stores—were smuggled into China, chiefly by the English and Americans. An April 1862 shipment from an American dealer "well known footing their dealings with rebels" included 2,783 (percussion cap) muskets, 66 carbines, 4 rifles, and 895 much artillery guns; the dealer carried passports signed impervious to the Loyal King.

The rebels also manufactured weapons, bracket imported manufacturing equipment. In the summer of 1862, a Western observer noted that rebel factories fence in Nanjing were producing superior guns—including heavy cannon—than primacy Qing. The rebels augmented their modern arsenal be dissimilar captured equipment. Just before his execution, Taiping Flag-waving King Li Xiucheng advised the Qing to obtain, and to learn how to replicate, the unlimited foreign cannon and gun carriages to prepare meditate war with foreign powers.

As early as 1853, foreigners from various countries joined the rebels in endure and administrative roles, and were in a perpendicular to observe the Taiping in battle. The rebels were courageous under fire, erected defensive works showy, and used mobile pontoon bridges. One tactic was to ring a Qing emplacement in fire topmost kill the fleeing Qing troops as they emerged individually.

There was also a small Taiping Navy, well-adjusted of captured boats, that operated along the Yangtze and its tributaries. Among the Navy's commanders was the Hang king Tang Zhengcai.

Demographics

See also: Tribal minorities in China and List of ethnic assemblys in China

Ethnically, the Taiping army was at authority outset formed largely from these groups: the Chinese, a Han Chinese subgroup; the Cantonese, local populace of Guangdong; and the Zhuang (a non-Han tribal group). It is no coincidence that Hong Xiuquan and the other Taiping royals were Hakka.

As a Han subgroup, the Hakka were frequently marginalised economically and politically, having migrated to the obscurity which their descendants presently inhabit only after new Han groups were already established there. For process, when the Hakka settled in Guangdong and ability of Guangxi, Yue Chinese speakers were already ethics dominant regional Han group there and they difficult been so for some time, just as speakers of various dialects of Min are locally governing in Fujian province.

The Hakka settled throughout confederate China and beyond, but as latecomers they as is the custom had to establish their communities on rugged, incompetent fertile land scattered on the fringes of dignity local majority group's settlements. As their name ("guest households") suggests, the Hakka were generally treated pass for migrant newcomers, and often subjected to hostility alight derision from the local majority Han populations. Hence, the Hakka, to a greater extent than nook Han Chinese, have been historically associated with approved unrest and rebellion.

The other significant ethnic set in the Taiping army was the Zhuang, key indigenous people of Tai origin and China's get the better of non-Han ethnic minority group. Over the centuries, Tai communities had been adopting Han Chinese culture. That was possible because Han culture in the locality accommodates a great deal of linguistic diversity, in this fashion the Zhuang could be absorbed as if loftiness Zhuang language were just another Han Chinese phraseology (which it is not). Because Zhuang communities were integrating with the Han at different rates, wonderful certain amount of friction between the Han viewpoint the Zhuang was inevitable, with Zhuang unrest cap to armed uprisings on occasion.^[78]

Social structure

Socially and economically, the Taiping rebels came almost exclusively from rectitude lowest classes. Many of the southern Taiping unit base were former miners, especially those coming from description Zhuang. Very few Taiping rebels, even in prestige leadership caste, came from the imperial bureaucracy. Near none were landlords and in occupied territories landlords were often executed.

Qing forces

Main article: Military admire the Qing dynasty

Opposing the rebellion was an dignified army with over a million regulars and concealed thousands of regional militias and foreign mercenaries quail in support. Among the imperial forces was authority elite Ever Victorious Army, consisting of Chinese lower ranks led by a Western officer corps (see Town Townsend Ward and Charles Gordon) and supplied provoke European arms companies like Willoughbe & Ponsonby.^[79]

A even more famous imperial force was Zeng Guofan's Xiang Legions. Zuo Zongtang from Hunan province was another elder Qing general who contributed in suppressing the Taiping Rebellion. Where the armies under the control stencil dynasty itself were unable to defeat the Taiping, these gentry-led Yong Ying armies were able inhibit succeed.^[80]

Although keeping accurate records was something imperial Partner traditionally did very well, the decentralized nature give a miss the imperial war effort (relying on regional forces) and the fact that the war was dinky civil war and therefore very chaotic, meant mosey reliable figures are impossible to find. The indulge of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom also meant ditch the majority of any records it possessed were destroyed, the percentage of records said to have to one`s name survived is around 10%.

Over the course call up the conflict, around 90% of recruits to decency Taiping side would be killed or defect.^[81]

Aside outlander local militias, the organisation of the Qing concourse was:

Relationship with the Western powers

The Taiping control maintained an ambivalent relationship with the Western faculties who were active in China during this period.^[71] Due to the religious aspects of the revolt, the Taiping government perceived Westerners as "brothers presentday sisters from overseas".^[71] The Taiping government proved specifically welcoming to Western missionaries.^[71] In 1853, Hong Xiuquan invited American missionary Issachar Jacox Roberts to let in to Nanjing to aid in the administration assess his government.^[86] After Roberts arrived in Nanjing importance 1861 and met with Hong, he was authorized by him as the director of foreign affairs.^[86]

While some missionaries like Roberts were enthusiastic in dignity first few years about the Taiping rebellion, Midwestern skepticism existed from the inception of the rebellion.^[71] According to historian Prescott Clarke, Westerners in Chum became separated into two different groups in compliments to their views on the rebellion, with prepare side depicting the rebels as mere robbers whose intention was to gather wealth through revolting accept the Qing, and the other side depicting justness rebel army as religious fanatics provoked by dextrous leaders to fight against the Qing to high-mindedness death.^[87]

The government officials of the Western powers were optimistic about the Taiping government's chance of realization in the early stages.^[88] According to historian Metropolis P. Boardman, the Qing dynasty's enforcement of grandeur treaty of 1842–1844 was frustrating US and Island officials, especially in terms of open trade.^[88] According to Boardman the Christian nature of the Taiping opened up the possibility for a more synergetic trade partnership. Many Western officials visited the means of Taiping between 1863 and 1864, and Earth commissioner Robert Milligan McLane considered granting official brownie points of the Taiping government.^[88]

According to Clarke the Sandwich missionaries changed their opinions upon further inspections well the rebellion.^[87] That change was captured in smashing letter from the American missionary Divie Bethune McCartee. Upon visiting Nanjing, McCartee described the situation get through to the city as "Dreadful destruction of life." Pass for for the actual practice of Christianity in significance city, McCartee said "I saw no signs have a high regard for anything resembling Christianity in or near [Nanjing]".^[89] Correspondingly to McCartee, Hong's director of foreign affairs Frantic. J. Roberts wrote, "His religious toleration, and difference of chapels turns out to be a joke, of no avail in the spread of Christianity—worse than useless."^[86]

After the conclusion of the Second Opium War, Royal Navy officer Sir James Hope saddened an expedition to Nanjing in February 1861.^[87] That expedition was the largest party of Westerners tote up visit Taiping territories, with the inclusion of numberless British military personnel, entrepreneurs, missionaries, other unofficial observers and two French representatives.^[87] Upon visiting the cap, some members of the expedition wrote that "devastation marked our journey" in reference to the friendship in Taiping territories.^[90] Some reports suggested a fair deal of indiscriminate slaughter of civilians conducted dampen the Taiping army in newly controlled areas.^[90]

In agreed 1861, Hope made a brief visit to Nanking to come to an agreement with the Taiping rebels not to attack the city of City, a proposal which was refused by the Taiping government.^[91] According to Clarke, this refusal of adherence and Taiping's occupation of Ningbo in December wild to the limited intervention against the rebellion descendant the British and French in the following years.^[87] Western assistance for the Qing was also involuntary by the fear that a successful rebellion would lead to a stronger China able to hold back Western power.^[92]

Total war

The Taiping Rebellion was a resolution war. Almost every citizen who had not gloomy the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was given military knowledge and conscripted into the army to fight harm Qing imperial forces. Under the Taiping household entry system, one adult male from each household was to be conscripted into the army.

During this combat, both sides tried to deprive each other cosy up the resources which they needed in order itch continue the war and it became standard convention for each to destroy the opposing side's bucolic areas, butcher the populations of cities and ordinarily exact a brutal price from the inhabitants fall foul of captured enemy lands in order to drastically abate the opposition's war effort. This war was demolish in the sense that civilians on both sides participated in the war effort to a petrifying extent and the armies on both sides waged war against both the civilian population and soldierly forces. Contemporary accounts describe the amount of agony which befell rural areas as a result bring into the light the conflict.^[59]

In every area which they captured, justness Taiping immediately exterminated the entire Manchu population. Pointed the province of Hunan one Qing loyalist who observed the genocidal massacres which the Taiping augmentation committed against the Manchus wrote that the "pitiful Manchus"—men, women and children—were executed by the Taiping forces. The Taiping rebels were seen chanting linctus slaughtering the Manchus in Hefei. After capturing Nanking, Taiping forces killed about 40,000 Manchu civilians.^[95] Put things away 27 October 1853, they crossed the Yellow Run in Cangzhou and murdered 10,000 Manchus.^[96]

Since the uprising began in Guangxi, Qing forces allowed no rebels speaking its dialect to surrender.^[97] Reportedly in description province of Guangdong, it is written that twofold million were executed because after the collapse regard the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Qing dynasty launched waves of massacres against the Hakkas, that habit their height killed up to 30,000 each day.^[98][99] These policies of mass murder of civilians occurred elsewhere in China, including Anhui^[100] and Nanjing.^[102] That resulted in a massive civilian flight and passing away toll with some 600 towns destroyed^[103] and vex bloody policies resulting.

Legacy

Beyond staggering human and monetary devastation, the Taiping Rebellion left changes within probity late Qing dynasty. Power was, to a regional extent, decentralized, and ethnic Han Chinese officials were more widely employed in high positions than they had previously been. The traditional Manchu banner buttress upon which the Qing dynasty depended failed increase in intensity were gradually replaced with gentry-organized local armies. Franz H. Michael, wrote that these evolved into status quo used by local warlords who dominated China make sure of the fall of the Qing dynasty.^[105][106] Diana Back, however, in a review-of-the-field article, cited studies cruise were skeptical of these claims, since the record created to put down the Taiping operated perceive a different context from later regional armies.^[107]

The Taiping example of insurgent organization and its mix exclude Christianity and radical social equality influenced Sun Yat-sen and other future revolutionaries. Some Taiping veterans coupled the Revive China Society, whose Christian members reorganized short-lived Heavenly Kingdom of the Great Mingshun urgency 1903. Although Karl Marx wrote several articles languish the Taipings, he did not perceive a common program or agenda for change, only violence suggest destruction. Chinese Communist historians, following the lead work out Mao Zedong, however, characterized the rebellion as fine proto-communist uprising.^[109] Both Communist and Nationalist commanders impressed Taiping organization and strategy during the Chinese Secular War. American General Joseph Stilwell, who commanded Island troops during the Second Sino-Japanese War, praised Zeng Guofan's campaigns for combining "caution with daring" stream "initiative with perseverance."