Taiping Rebellion
The Taiping Rebellion? What the hell is that? In school I learned about the Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion. But I’m quite certain I’d never heard of the Taiping Rebellion. Would you believe it was the bloodiest conflict of the 19th century and the bloodiest civil war in history at likely well over 20 million dead? Battle deaths were actually less than half a million. The remainder died from famine and plague directly related to the war. (Plus there was the matter of thousands of civilians executed by the victors for suspicion of loyalty to the rebels.)
The Taiping Rebellion was also the most unlikely of bloodiest conflict. It was fought between the forces of the Qing Dynasty and a radical Christian group. The unorthodox Christians were led by a convert to Christianity who believed he was the son of God and brother of Jesus. I bet you didn’t see that coming! It’s sort of like if the American Civil War was fought between the Union and forces led by David Koresh and Jim Jones.
So how did this come about? As the middle of the 19th century approached, China had suffered the humiliating defeat of the First Opium War. It had also suffered a number of natural disasters. As a result, China’s economy was hurting, and the populace was beginning to resent the ruling Manchus of the Qing Dynasty. (The rallying cry was “Oppose Qing and restore Ming!”) This was particularly true in the urban and agricultural centers of southern China, far from the ruling elite up north in Beijing. In this environment, Jesus’ self-declared brother Hong Xiuqing and his disciples started a radical Christian movement named the God Worshiping Society. The Society was highly nationalistic. They believed that China should be ruled by Han Chinese, not Manchus, who were considered barbarians. They also had such radical beliefs as shared ownership of property and a classless society. (Hmmm…) Vices such as opium and prostitution were considered capital offenses. By 1850, Hong had a huge following in southern China. The Qing began to crack down. In 1851, the Society declared the independent Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (Taiping meaning “Great Peace”, perhaps somewhat ironically), with Hong as Heavenly King. The Taiping Rebellion was on.
In 1853, the Kingdom captured Nanjing and made it its capital. It took the Qing almost 14 years to quash the Rebellion. Fortunes changed for the Kingdom when it attempted and failed to take Shanghai in 1860. When the Kingdom was finally defeated in 1864, southern China was left devastated. It didn’t fully recover for decades. Hangzhou and Nanjing both suffered significant damage. But the Rebellion planted the seeds of the tumult of the first half of the 20th century. The nationalism of the God Worshipping Society found its fullest expression in the KMT (Chinese Nationalist Party), co-founded by Sun Yat-sen. And the elimination of private property and societal classes are of course basic concepts of Communism. Not coincidentally, Sun Yat-sen and Mao Zedong, father of Communist China, were both sons of southern China. Oh, and if you think the Taiping Rebellion was rough for China, consider that right in the middle of the Rebellion, China also fought and lost the Second Opium War.
[Historical information is primarily gathered from Wikipedia, so you know it must be true.]
Funny how the God Worshiping Society and Chinese Communists both held similar beliefs. Yet one group has occult like practices and the other bans religious practice outright altogether.