What when was the taiping rebellion who led it

Revolt against the Chinese Qing dynasty. Led and inspired by Hong Xiuquan —64 , who claimed to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ, the Taiping Rebellion began in Guangxi province.

It developed into the most serious challenge to the Qing, bringing most of the central and lower Yangtze region under rebel control, and costing 20 million lives. The rebels captured Nanjing in and established their capital there before launching an unsuccessful attack on Beijing. Taiping resistance was crushed with the capture of Nanjing in , Hong Xiuquan having died in the siege, but the Qing regime never really recovered from the long civil war.

View all reference entries ». View all related items in Oxford Reference ». The Qing used foreign power to crush the rebels. The Qing government could attain the support of foreign governments , Great Britain and France , to fight the rebels. Such support allowed the Qing forces to outmatch their opponents using foreign weaponry and warships.

Casualties were astronomical. It is estimated that some 20 million people died during the war, around three million more deaths than during World War I, some 64 years later. In many cases, the entire population of cities was massacred. The fatal battle was in Nanjing. Nanjing would be the site of the fatal battle of the war. Here, Hong Xiuquan would die of disease, according to his son, or suicide, according to one of his generals.

Qing forces and the God Worshippers clashed at the end of Later that year Hong and his forces, now numbering 60,, abandoned Thistle Mountain and seized the city of Yongan, again defeating Qing troops. In Yongan, Hong dominated the lives of his followers with more religious restrictions. He also created royal titles for his family. In , Taiping soldiers snuck out of Yongan and began a trail of bloodshed that resulted in their control of a significant portion of the land bordering the Yangzi River and the city of Tianjin, from which the Qing emperor was forced to flee.

After an attempt to seize Beijing was repelled, Hong chose to cease conquest and concentrate on building an administration in Nanjing. The Taiping held Nanjing for 11 years. Hong stepped back from most secular matters of governance, leaving that work to others who soon slipped into decadence that conflicted with Taiping religious ideals. One of these, the channeler Yang Xiuqing, claimed that God wanted Hong dead.

The plot was thwarted, Yang was beheaded and his family members slaughtered. Hong believed Western governments sympathized with his movement and he tried to make overtures to them, but European forces eventually aided the Qing government in seizing back what the Taiping had conquered.

Nanjing was put under siege and fell several months later. The Taiping occupiers were massacred, with some gathering in crowds and immolating themselves. Estimates vary, but the Taiping Rebellion is believed to have claimed between 20 million and 70 million lives, making it one of the deadliest conflicts in human history.

Jonathan D. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Thomas H. Matthew White. Cambridge Illustrated History of China. The Taipings took their beliefs from many different sources. Some of these beliefs reflected traditional Confucianism and some were from ancient writings that described ideal systems that had never been practiced. Other ideas were Western in origin. Clearly this blend of ideas was very powerful. Because they introduced ideas never discussed before, the Taipings could promise their followers a totally new system.

Their revolutionary program was very wide-ranging. It introduced notions of common property, land reform, equal position of women, abstinence from opium, tobacco and alcohol, calendar reform, literary reform, and above all, a new political-military organization of society. Acknowledgment: The consultant for this unit was Dr. Sue Gronewold, a specialist in modern history.