30 Facts About Taiping Rebellion

1.

Taiping Rebellion, known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a massive rebellion and civil war that was waged in China between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Han, Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

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2.

Taiping Rebellion soldiers carried out widespread massacres of Manchus, the ethnic minority of the ruling Imperial House of Aisin-Gioro.

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3.

Recently scholars such as Tobie Meyer-Fong and Stephen Platt have argued that the term "Taiping Rebellion" is biased because it insinuates that the Qing government was a legitimate government which was fighting against the illegitimate Taiping rebels.

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4.

Little is known about how the Taiping Rebellion referred to the war, but the Taiping Rebellion often referred to the Qing in general and the Manchus in particular as some variant of demons or monsters, representing Hong's proclamation that they were fighting a holy war to rid the world of demons and establish paradise on earth.

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5.

Taiping Rebellion began in the southern province of Guangxi when local officials launched a campaign of religious persecution against the God Worshipping Society.

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6.

The Taiping Rebellion army pressed north into Hunan following the Xiang River, besieging Changsha, occupying Yuezhou, and then capturing Wuchang in December 1852 after reaching the Yangtze River.

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7.

At this point the Taiping Rebellion leadership decided to move east along the Yangtze River.

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8.

Taiping Rebellion titles echoed Triad usage, whether consciously or not, which made it more attractive for Triads to join the movement.

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9.

Shortly thereafter, the Taiping Rebellion launched concurrent Northern and Western expeditions, in an effort to relieve pressure on Nanjing and achieve significant territorial gains.

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10.

Taiping Rebellion lived in luxury and had many women in his inner chamber, and often issued religious strictures.

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11.

Taiping Rebellion clashed with Yang Xiuqing, who challenged his often impractical policies, and became suspicious of Yang's ambitions, his extensive network of spies and his claims of authority when "speaking as God".

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12.

In May 1860 the Taiping Rebellion defeated the imperial forces that had been besieging Nanjing since 1853, eliminating them from the region and opening the way for a successful invasion of southern Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, the wealthiest region of the Qing Empire.

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13.

Taiping Rebellion troops surrounded Shanghai in January 1862, but were unable to capture it.

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14.

Taiping Rebellion bypassed the professional regular armies and recruited from local villages, paying and drilling them well.

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15.

Taiping Rebellion was sick for 20 days before succumbing and a few days after his death, Qing forces took the city.

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16.

Taiping Rebellion's body was buried in the former Ming Imperial Palace, and was later exhumed on orders of Zeng Guofan to verify his death, and then cremated.

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17.

Small remainder of loyal Taiping Rebellion forces had continued to fight in northern Zhejiang, rallying around Tianguifu.

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18.

In 1860, Wu Lingyun, an ethnic Zhuang Taiping Rebellion leader, proclaimed himself King of Dingling in the Sino-Vietnamese border regions.

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19.

Taiping Rebellion later became the second and last leader of the short-lived Republic of Formosa .

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20.

Taiping Rebellion was not waging his rebellion against Han Chinese, instead, he was anti-Qing and he wanted to destroy the Qing government.

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21.

The Taiping Rebellion were especially opposed to idolatry, destroying idols wherever found with great prejudice.

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22.

Ethnically, the Taiping Rebellion army was at the outset formed largely from these groups: the Hakka, a Han Chinese subgroup; the Cantonese, local residents of Guangdong province; and the Zhuang .

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23.

Socially and economically, the Taiping Rebellion rebels came almost exclusively from the lowest classes.

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24.

Many of the southern Taiping Rebellion troops were former miners, especially those coming from the Zhuang.

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25.

The Taiping Rebellion rebels were seen chanting while slaughtering the Manchus in Hefei.

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26.

Diana Lary in a review-of-the-field article, cited studies that were skeptical of these claims, since the armies created to put down the Taiping Rebellion operated in a different context from later regional armies.

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27.

Some Taiping Rebellion veterans joined the Revive China Society, whose Christian members organized short-lived Heavenly Kingdom of the Great Mingshun in 1903.

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28.

The Hunanese gentry, based on their experience with the Taiping Rebellion, were more guarded against the influence of Westerners than other provinces.

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29.

Only a tenth of Taiping Rebellion-published records survive to this day because they were mostly destroyed by the Qing in an attempt to rewrite the history of the conflict.

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30.

Taiping Rebellion government maintained an ambivalent relationship with the Western powers who were active in China during this period.

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