Taiping Rebellion

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Taiping Rebellion
Part of the Century of Humiliation
An 1884 painting of the Battle of Anqing (1861)
Date December 1850 – August 1864 Location China Result Qing victory
Belligerents
Qing dynasty Later stages:  France  United Kingdom	Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Co-belligerents: Nian rebels Red Turban rebels (Tiandihui) Small Swords Society Miao rebels Black Flag Army
Commanders and leaders
Xianfeng Emperor Empress Dowager Cixi Zeng Guofan Sengge Rinchen Guanwen Li Hongzhang Luo Bingzhang Jirhangga † Zuo Zongtang Zhang Guoliang † He Chun † Xiang Rong † Frederick Townsend Ward † Auguste Protet † Charles George Gordon	Hong Xiuquan # Hong Tianguifu  Hong Xuanjiao Yang Xiuqing † Feng Yunshan † Xiao Chaogui † Wei Changhui † Hong Rengan  Shi Dakai  Li Xiucheng  Chen Yucheng  Li Shixian X Qin Rigang  Co-commanders: Zhang Lexing † (Nian rebels) Su Sanniang (Nian rebels) Qiu Ersao † (Red Turban rebels) Liu Yongfu (Black Flag Army)
Strength
3.4 million+[1]	2 million[2]
10 million (all combatants)[3]
Casualties and losses
Total dead: 20–30 million[4]

The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a civil war in China between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The conflict lasted for 14 years, from its outbreak in 1850 until the fall of Nanjing—which they had renamed "Tianjing"—in 1864. However, the last rebel forces were not defeated until August 1871. Estimates of the conflict's death toll range between 20 and 30 million people, representing 5–10% of China's population.^[4] While the Qing ultimately defeated the rebellion, the victory came at a great cost to the state's economic and political viability.

The uprising was led by Hong Xiuquan, an ethnic Hakka (a Han subgroup) who had proclaimed himself to be the brother of Jesus Christ. Hong sought the religious conversion of the Han people to the Taiping's syncretic version of Christianity, as well as the political overthrow of the Qing dynasty, and a general transformation of the mechanisms of state.^[5][6] Moreover, rather than supplanting China's ruling class, the Taiping rebels sought to entirely upend the country's social order.^[7] Their Heavenly Kingdom centered in Nanjing ultimately managed to seize control of significant parts of southern China. At its peak, the Heavenly Kingdom ruled over a population of nearly 30 million people.

For more than a decade, Taiping armies occupied and fought across much of the mid- and lower Yangtze valley, ultimately devolving into total civil war. It was the largest war in China since the Ming–Qing transition, involving most of Central and Southern China. It ranks as one of the bloodiest wars in human history, the bloodiest civil war, and the largest conflict of the 19th century. In terms of deaths, it is comparable to World War I.^[4][8] Thirty million people fled the conquered regions to foreign settlements or other parts of China.^[9] The war was characterized by extreme brutality on both sides. Taiping soldiers carried out widespread massacres of Manchus, the ethnic minority of the ruling Imperial House of Aisin-Gioro. Meanwhile, the Qing government also engaged in massacres, most notably against the civilian population of Nanjing.

Weakened severely by internal conflict, an attempted coup, and the failure of the siege of Beijing, the Taiping rebels were defeated by decentralized, provincial armies such as the Xiang Army organized and commanded by Zeng Guofan. After moving down the Yangtze River and recapturing the strategic city of Anqing, Zeng's forces besieged Nanjing during May, 1862. After two more years, on June 1, 1864, Hong Xiuquan died and Nanjing fell barely a month later. The 14-year civil war, combined with other partially linked internal and external wars, weakened the dynasty but provided incentive for an initially successful period of reform and self-strengthening. It exacerbated ethnic disputes and accelerated the rise of provincial power. Historians debate whether these developments foreshadowed the Warlord Era, the loss of central control after the establishment of Republic of China in 1912.