Taiping Rebellion

Conflict	Taiping Rebellion
Nickname	Long hair
Caption	Battle of the Yangtze
Date	December 1850 – August 1864
Place	Southern China
Result	Qing Dynasty victory;Fall of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom;Weakening of the Qing Dynasty
Combatant1	Later stages: France
Combatant2	Taiping Heavenly Kingdom
Commander1	Xianfeng Emperor; Tongzhi Emperor; Empress Dowager Cixi; Zeng Guofan; Sengge Rinchen; Guam Wing; Zuo Zongtang; Charles George Gordon;Frederick Townsend Ward;Henry Andres Burgevine
Commander2	Hong Xiuquan;Yang Xiuqing;Xiao Chaogui;Feng Yunshan;Wei Changhui;Shi Dakai;Li Xiucheng;
Strength1	2,000,000–5,000,000 regulars;~340,000 militia
Strength2	1,000,000–3,000,000 regulars;100,000 female regulars
Casualties1	Over 50,000 soldiers killed
Casualties2	Around 75,000 soldiers killed
Casualties3	Total dead~20,000,000 including civilians and soldiers (best estimate)

The Taiping Rebellion was a widespread civil war in southern China from 1850 to 1864, led by heterodox Christian convert Hong Xiuquan, who having received visions, maintained that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ against the ruling Manchu-led Qing Dynasty. About 20 million people died, mainly civilians, in one of the deadliest military conflicts in history.

Hong established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (), officially the "Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace", with its capital at Nanjing. The Kingdom's army controlled large parts of southern China, at its height containing about 30 million people. The rebels attempted social reforms believing in shared "property in common" and the replacement of Confucianism, Buddhism and Chinese folk religion with a form of Christianity. The Taiping troops were nicknamed "Long Hair" () by the Qing government. The Taiping areas were besieged by Qing forces throughout most of the rebellion. The Qing government crushed the rebellion with the eventual aid of French and British forces.

In the 20th century, Chinese paramount leader Mao Zedong glorified the Taiping rebels as early heroic revolutionaries against a corrupt feudal system. More recently, a total rethinking has occurred in China on the destruction that the rebellion caused to the Chinese nation, plus the dangers of radical religiosity.

History of the rebellion

Origins

China, under the Qing Dynasty in the mid-19th century, suffered a series of natural disasters, economic problems and defeats at the hands of the Western powers; in particular, the humiliating defeat in 1842 by the United Kingdom in the First Opium War. The Qing government, ethnically Manchu, were seen by much of the Chinese population, who were mainly Han Chinese, as ineffective and corrupt foreign rulers. Anti-Manchu sentiment was strongest in the south among the laboring classes and it was these disaffected who flocked to join the charismatic visionary Hong Xiuquan. Among these serious problems were the prevalence of female infanticide, creating massive imbalances with shortages of women being worst in the primary Taiping centers.

At the age of thirty-seven, Hong failed on multiple occasions to pass the imperial examinations (about 5 percent of those who attempted the examinations passed them), which would have allowed access to the ranks of the ruling scholarly elite, he experienced a lengthy illness. After spending many days in bed, he recovered with a changed personality. He had received a pamphlet from a Protestant Christian missionary in 1836 after his last failed attempt at the imperial examination, and his cousin Li Ching-fang noticed the pamphlet on a bookshelf inside Hong's house. After reading it Li suggested that Hong should read the material. After studying the material, Hong Xiuquan claimed that the illness he had following his imperial examinations was in fact a vision to the effect that he was the younger brother of Jesus, who was sent to rid China of the corrupt Manchu rulers. After this alleged vision, he felt it was his duty to spread Christianity (in the form that he developed) and overthrow the foreign rule of the Qing government. Hong's associate Yang Xiuqing was a former firewood merchant from Guangxi, who claimed to be able to act as a voice of God, in order to direct the people and gain political power.

The sect's power grew in the late 1840s, initially by suppressing groups of bandits and pirates; persecution by Qing authorities spurred the movement into a guerrilla rebellion and then into widespread, bloody civil war.

Early years

The revolt began in Guangxi province. After a previous small-scale battle resulting in a rebel victory in late December 1850, in early January 1851, a ten thousand-strong rebel army organized by Feng Yunshan and Wei Changhui routed government troops stationed in the town of Jintian (present-day Guiping, Guangxi). Taiping forces successfully drove back the imperial reprisal against the Jintian Uprising.

Middle years

In 1853 Hong Xiuquan withdrew from active control of policies and administration, ruling exclusively by written proclamations that often had religious content. Hong disagreed with Yang Xiuqing in certain matters of policy and became increasingly suspicious of Yang's ambitions, his extensive network and spies, and his declarations when "speaking as God". Yang and his family were put to death by Hong's followers in 1856, followed by the killing of troops loyal to Yang.

With their leader largely out of the picture, Taiping delegates tried to widen their popular support with the Chinese middle classes and forge alliances with European powers, but failed on both counts. The Europeans decided to stay neutral. Inside China the rebellion faced resistance from the traditionalist middle class because of their hostility to Chinese customs and Confucian values. The land-owning upper class, unsettled by the Taipings' peasant mannerisms and their policy of strict separation of the sexes, even for married couples, sided with government forces and their Western allies.

In 1859 Hong Rengan, a cousin of Hong Xiuquan, joined the Taiping forces in Nanjing and was given considerable power by Hong Xiuquan. He developed an ambitious plan to expand the Kingdom's boundaries. In 1860 the Taiping rebels were successful in taking Hangzhou and Suzhou to the east (see The Taiping army's second rout of the Jiangnan Army Group), but failed to take Shanghai (Battle of Shanghai (1861)), which marked the beginning of the decline of the Kingdom.

Fall of the Kingdom

An attempt to take Shanghai in August 1860 was repulsed by a force of Qing imperial troops and western officers under the command of Frederick Townsend Ward. This army would later become the "Ever Victorious Army", led by "Chinese" Gordon, and would be instrumental in the defeat of the Taiping rebels. Imperial forces were reorganized under the command of Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang, and the imperial reconquest began in earnest. By early 1864 imperial control in most areas was well established.

city by Qing troops.]] Hong Xiuquan declared that God would defend Nanjing, but in June 1864, with Qing imperial forces approaching, he died of food poisoning as a consequence of eating wild vegetables when the city ran low on food supplies. He was sick for 20 days before imperial forces could take the city. Only a few days after his death did Qing forces take the city. His body was buried in the former Ming Imperial Palace where it was later exhumed by Zeng Guofan to verify his death, and then cremated. Hong's ashes were later blasted out of a cannon in order to ensure that his remains have no resting place as eternal punishment for the uprising.

Four months before the fall of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Hong Xiuquan abdicated in favour of Hong Tianguifu, his eldest son who was 15 years old. Hong Tianguifu was unable to do anything to restore the Kingdom, so the Kingdom was quickly destroyed when Nanjing fell in July 1864 to the imperial armies after vicious street-by-street fighting. Most of the princes were executed by Qing forces in Jinling Town (金陵城), Nanjing.

Aftermath

Although the fall of Nanjing in 1864 marked the destruction of the Taiping regime, the fight was not yet over. There were still several hundred thousand Taiping rebel troops continuing the fight, with more than a quarter-million Taiping rebels fighting in the border regions of Jiangxi and Fujian alone. It would take more than half a decade to finally put down all remnants of the Taiping Rebellion: it was not until August 1871 that the last Taiping rebel army led by Shi Dakai's commander, General Li Fuzhong (李福忠) was completely wiped out by the governmental forces in the border region of Hunan, Guizhou and Guangxi.

Death toll

Most accurate sources put the total deaths during the 15 years of the rebellion at about 20 million civilians and soldiers. Most of the deaths were attributed to plague and famine. At the Third Battle of Nanking in 1864, more than 100,000 were killed in three days.

The rebellion happened at roughly the same time as the American Civil War. Though almost certainly the largest civil war of the 19th century (in terms of numbers under arms), it is debatable whether the Taiping Rebellion involved more soldiers than the Napoleonic Wars earlier in the century, and so it is uncertain whether it should be considered the largest war of the 19th century.

Other rebellions

The Nien Rebellion (1853–1868), and several Muslim rebellions in the southwest (Panthay Rebellion, 1855–1873) and the northwest (Dungan revolt, 1862–1877) continued to pose considerable problems for the Qing Dynasty.

The Panthay Rebellion's leader Du Wenxiu was in contact with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. He was not aiming his rebellion at the Han Chinese, but was anti-Qing and wanted to destroy the Manchu government. Du's forces led multiple non-Muslim forces, including Han Chinese, Li, Bai, and Hani peoples. They were assisted by non-Muslim Shan and Kakhyen and other hill tribes in the revolt.

The other Muslim rebellion, the Dungan revolt was the reverse: It was not aimed at overthrowing the Qing Dynasty since its leader Ma Hualong accepted an imperial title. Rather, it erupted due to inter-sect fighting between Muslim factions and Han Chinese. Various groups during the Dungan revolt fought each other without any coherent goal. According to modern researchers, the Dungan rebellion began in 1862 not as a planned uprising, but as a coalescence of many local brawls and riots triggered by trivial causes. Among these were false rumours spread that the Hui Muslims were aiding the Taiping rebels. However, the Hui Ma Hsiao-shih claimed that the Shaanxi Muslim rebellion was connected to the Taiping.

The Heavenly Kingdom's policies

The rebels announced social reforms, including strict separation of the sexes, abolition of foot binding, land socialization and "suppression" of private trade. In religion, the Kingdom tried to replace Confucianism, Buddhism and Chinese folk religion with a form of Christianity, holding that Hong Xiuquan was the younger brother of Jesus. Troops were nicknamed "Long Hair" (), as they sported a traditional Confucian hairstyle different from the Qing queue hairstyle. Qing government papers refer to them as "hair rebels" ().

Within the land it controlled, the Taiping Heavenly Army established a theocratic and highly militarized rule. However, the rule was remarkably ineffective, haphazard and brutal; all efforts were concentrated on the army, and civil administration was non-existent. Rule was established in the major cities and the land outside the urban areas was little regarded. Even though polygamy was banned, Hong Xiuquan had numerous concubines. Many high-ranking Taiping officials kept concubines as a matter of prerogative, and lived as de facto kings.

The military

Taiping Heavenly Army

The army was the rebellion's key strength. It was marked by a high level of discipline and fanaticism. They typically wore a uniform of red jackets with blue trousers, and grew their hair long so in China they were nicknamed "Long Hair". The large numbers of women serving in the Taiping Heavenly Army also distinguished it from other 19th-century armies.

Combat was always bloody and extremely brutal, with little artillery but huge forces equipped with small arms. The Taiping Army's main strategy of conquest was to take major cities, consolidate their hold on the cities, then march out into the surrounding countryside to recruit local farmers and battle government forces. Estimates of the overall size of the Taiping Heavenly Army varied from 1,000,000 to 3,000,000.

The organization of a Taiping army corps was thus:

1 general

5 colonels

25 captains

125 lieutenants

500 sergeants

2,500 corporals

20,000 infantry

These corps were placed into armies of varying sizes. In addition to the main Taiping forces organized along the above lines, there were also thousands of pro-Taiping groups fielding their own forces of irregulars.

Ethnic structure of the army

Ethnically, the Taiping Heavenly Army was formed at the outset largely from these groups: the Hakka (客家; literally means "guest households"), a Han Chinese subgroup, the Cantonese, another Han Chinese subgroup that were the local residents of Guangdong province and the Zhuang (a non-Han ethnic group), which were minority groups as compared to the Han Chinese subgroups that form dominant regional majorities across south China. It is no coincidence that Hong Xiuquan and the other Taiping royals were Hakka.

As a Han sub-group, the Hakka were frequently marginalized economically and politically, having migrated to the regions they inhabit only after other Han groups were already established there. For example, when the Hakka settled in Guangdong and parts of Guangxi, speakers of Yue Chinese (Cantonese) were already the dominant regional Han group there and had been for some time, just as speakers of various dialects of Min are locally dominant in Fujian province. The Hakka settled throughout southern China and beyond, but as latecomers they generally had to establish their communities on rugged, less fertile land scattered on the fringe of the local majority group’s settlements. As their name ("guest households") suggests, the Hakka were generally treated as migrant newcomers, often subject to hostility and derision from local majority Han populations. Consequently, the Hakka, to a greater extent than other Han Chinese, have been historically associated with popular unrest and rebellion.

The other significant ethnic group in the Taiping army were the Zhuang, an indigenous people of Tai origin and China's largest non-Han ethnic minority group. Over the centuries Zhuang communities had been adopting Han Chinese culture. This was possible because Han culture in the region accommodates a great deal of linguistic diversity, so the Zhuang could be absorbed as if the Zhuang language were just another Han Chinese dialect (which it is not). As Zhuang communities were integrating with the Han at different rates, a certain amount of friction between Han and Zhuang was inevitable, with Zhuang unrest on occasion leading to armed uprisings. The second tier of the Taiping army was an ethnic mix that included many Zhuang. Prominent at this level was Shi Dakai, who was half-Hakka, half-Zhuang and spoke both languages fluently, making him quite a rare asset to the Taiping leadership.

In the later stages of the Taiping Rebellion, the number of Han Chinese in the army from Han groups other than the Hakka increased substantially. However, the Hakka and the Zhuang (who constituted as much as 25% of the Taiping Army), as well as other non-Han ethnic minority groups (many of them of Tai origin related to the Zhuang), continued to feature prominently in the rebellion throughout its duration, with virtually no leaders emerging from any Han Chinese group other than the Hakka.

Social structure of the Taiping Army

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

Generals

In fact, the military ability of the generals of the Taiping Rebellion was higher than that of the Qing government's generals, for example:

Early (1851–1854): Xiao Chaogui, Wei Changhui, Shi Dakai, Qin Rigang, Lin Qirong (林啟榮), Lai Hanying (賴漢英), Zeng Tianyang (曾天養), Li Kaifang, Luo Dagang (羅大綱), Tang Zhengzai

Middle (1855–1859): Li Xiucheng, Chen Yucheng, Yang Fuqing, Wei Jun, Li Shixian, Ye Yunlai, Huang Chengzhong, Liu Chunlin (劉瑲琳)

Late (1860–1864): Li Rongfa, Lai Wenguang, Chen Kunshu

Imperial Army

Opposing the rebellion was an imperial army with a size of two to five million regulars along with hundreds of thousands of regional militias and foreign mercenaries operating in support. Among the imperial forces was the elite Ever Victorious Army, consisting of Chinese soldiers led by a European officer corps (see Frederick Townsend Ward and Charles Gordon), backed by British arms companies like Willoughbe, Willoughbe & Ponsonby. A particularly famous imperial force was Zeng Guofan's Xiang Army.

Although keeping accurate records was something imperial China traditionally did very well, the decentralized nature of the imperial war effort (relying on regional forces) and the fact that the war was a civil war and therefore very chaotic meant that reliable figures are impossible to find. The destruction of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom also meant that any records it possessed were destroyed.

Zuo Zongtang from Hunan province, who was also known as General Tso, was another important Qing general who contributed in suppressing the Taiping Rebellion.

Total war

The Taiping Rebellion was the first instance of total war in modern China. Almost every citizen of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was given military training and conscripted into the army to fight against Qing imperial forces.

During this conflict both sides tried to deprive each other of resources to continue the war and it became standard practice to destroy agricultural areas, butcher the population of cities and in general exact a brutal price from captured enemy lands in order to drastically weaken the opposition's war effort. This war was total in that civilians on both sides participated to a significant extent in the war effort and in that armies on both sides waged war on the civilian population as well as military forces.

In art and popular culture

In art

The rebellion is featured on the Tiananmen Square's Monument to the People's Heroes and many other public places in Beijing and Nanjing.

In popular culture

In 1988, Hong Kong's TVB produced Twilight of a Nation, a 45 episodes television drama about the Taiping Rebellion.

In 2000, China's CCTV produced Taiping Tianguo, a 46 episodes television series about the Taiping Rebellion.

The Hong Kong TVB television drama, Rosy Business made references to the Taiping Rebellion.

A strategy computer game based on the Taiping Rebellion has been made in China, and is primarily available in mainland China and Taiwan. The player can play as either the Qing government or the Taiping rebels.

Robert Carter's historical novel Barbarians (Orion, 1998, ISBN 0-75281-339-0), deals in detail with the rebellion and the politics surrounding it.

Taiping society, in some sources the Heavenly King himself, is given credit for developing the popular Chinese game of Mahjong.

Flashman and the Dragon (1986) — A portion of the memoirs of the fictional Harry Paget Flashman recount his adventures during the Second Opium War and the Taiping Rebellion.

The Consumer Goods' song "Taiping Riverboat" from their 2006 album "Pop Goes the Pigdog!" tells of the construction of Nanjing and the subsequent defense of the Heavenly Kingdom through a first-person narrative.

The Warlords is a 2007 historical film set in the time of the Taiping Rebellion.

Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom by Katherine Paterson is a young adult novel set during the Taiping Rebellion (Puffin, 1995, ISBN 0140376100).

Lisa See's novel Snow Flower and the Secret Fan takes place in China during the reign of Emperor Xianfeng; the title character is married to a man who lives in Jintian and the characters get caught up in the revolution.

Christopher West's novel The Third Messiah (2000) features a cult whose leader believes himself to be a reincarnation of Hong Xiuquan, leader of the Taiping rebels.

Amy Tan's novel The Hundred Secret Senses takes place in part during the time of the Taiping Rebellion.

Richard Berg's boardgame, Manchu, covers the entire rebellion.

Li Bo's Tienkuo The Heavenly Kingdom, an historical novel set during the Taiping period and written by a professional historian of China.

Dean Barrett's novel, Mistress of the East, (Blue Moon Books, NY) in which one of Frederick Ward's lieutenants is captured by an all-female unit of Taipings and eventually falls in love with a Taiping woman warrior and joins them in their doomed struggle against the Manchus.

Robert Elegant's 1983 novel Mandarin depicts the time of the Taiping Rebellion from the unusual point of view of a Jewish family living in Shanghai at the time.

See also

Taiping Heavenly Kingdom

Black Flag Army

Chinese history

Chinese sovereign

Qing Dynasty

Dungan revolt

Boxer Rebellion

Nien Rebellion

Du Wenxiu Rebellion

Shimabara Rebellion

Haw wars in Laos, Thailand and Vietnam

List of wars and disasters by death toll

List of revolutions and rebellions

Notes

Further reading

Contemporaneous foreign accounts

Thomas H. Reilly, The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom: Rebellion and the Blasphemy of Empire (2004) ISBN 0-295-98430-9

Lindley, Augustus, Ti-ping Tien-Kwoh: The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution (1866, reprinted 1970) Google books access

Hsiu-ch°êng Li, translator, The Autobiography of the Chung-Wang (Confession of the Loyal Prince) (reprinted 1970) ISBN 9780275027230

Thomas Taylor Meadows, The Chinese and Their Rebellions, Viewed in Connection with Their National Philosophy, Ethics, Legislation, and Administration. To Which Is Added, an Essay on Civilization and Its Present State in the East and West. (London: Smith, Elder; Bombay: Smith, Taylor, 1856). American Libraries eBook text

Documents

Franz H. Michael, ed.The Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents (Seattle,: University of Washington Press, 1966). 3 vols. Volumes two and three select and translate basic documents.

Modern monographs and surveys

Jonathan Spence, God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan (1996) ISBN 0-393-03844-0

Jonathan D. Spence The Search for Modern China. New York: Norton (1999).

Jack Gray, Rebellions and Revolutions: China from the 1800s to the 1980s (1990), ISBN 0-19-821576-2

Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern China (1999), ISBN 0-19-512504-5

Youwen Jian, The Taiping Revolutionary Movement (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973). Translated and condensed from the author's publications in Chinese; especially strong on the military campaigns, based on the author's wide travels in China in the 1920s and 1930s.

Philip A. Kuhn, Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China; Militarization and Social Structure, 1796-1864 (Cambridge, Mass.,: Harvard University Press, 1970). Influential analysis of the rise of rebellion and the organization of its suppression.

Fiction

Caleb Carr, , The Devil Soldier: The American Soldier of Fortune Who Became a God in China (1994) ISBN 0-679-76128-4

Hosea Ballou Morse, In the Days of the Taipings, Being the Recollections of Ting Kienchang, Otherwise Meisun, Sometime Scoutmaster and Captain in the Ever-Victorious Army and Interpreter-in-Chief to General Ward and General Gordon (Salem, MA: The Essex institute, 1927; Reprinted: San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center, 1974).

Additional sources

In Chinese: 余杰：读潘旭澜著《太平雜说》

*Google translation

In Chinese: 撕下历史的“面膜”——读潘旭澜教授《太平杂说》

*Google translation

TaipingRebellion.com Detailed information on the Taiping Rebellion

Category:19th century in China Category:19th-century rebellions Category:Rebellions in the Qing Dynasty Category:Religion in China Category:Christianity in China Category:Peasant revolts Category:Wars involving France Category:Wars involving Qing Dynasty Category:Wars involving the United Kingdom Category:Religion-based civil wars Category:Christianity and violence