The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a massive rebellion or civil war that was waged in China between the Manchu Qing dynasty and the Han, Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It lasted from 1850 to 1864, although following the fall of Nanjing the last rebel army was not wiped out until 1871. After fighting the bloodiest civil war in world history, with 20 to 30 million dead, the established Qing government won decisively, although at a great price to its fiscal and political structure.
Hong Xiuquan, born Hong Huoxiu and with the courtesy name Renkun, was a Hakka Chinese revolutionary who was the leader of the Taiping Rebellion against the Qing dynasty. He established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom over varying portions of southern China, with himself as the "Heavenly King" and self-proclaimed younger brother of Jesus Christ.
Tianjing (天京), romanized at the time as Tienking, was the name given to Nanjing when it served as the capital of Hong Xiuquan's Heavenly Kingdom from 1853 to 1864, amid the Qing Empire's Taiping Rebellion.
Jonathan Dermot Spence was an English-born American historian, sinologist, and writer specialising in Chinese history. He was Sterling Professor of History at Yale University from 1993 to 2008. His most widely read book is The Search for Modern China, a survey of the last several hundred years of Chinese history based on his popular course at Yale. A prolific author, reviewer, and essayist, he published more than a dozen books on China. Spence's major interest was modern China, especially the Qing dynasty, and relations between China and the West. Spence frequently used biographies to examine cultural and political history. Another common theme is the efforts of both Westerners and Chinese "to change China", and how such efforts were frustrated.
Heavenly King or Tian Wang is a Chinese title for various religious deities and divine leaders throughout history, as well as an alternate form of the term Son of Heaven, referring to the emperor. The Chinese term for Heavenly King consists of two Chinese characters meaning "heaven/sky" and "king". The term was most notably used in its most recent sense as the title of the kings of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, but is also used in religious contexts as well.
The Taiping Kingdom History Museum is a museum dedicated to artifacts from the Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864). It is located on the grounds of the Zhan Yuan Garden, a historical garden in Nanjing, China.
Luo Ergang, also known as Elgan Lo and Lo Erh-kang, was a historian and researcher at the Institute of Modern History of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (中国社会科学院近代史研究所). He was an authority on the Taiping Rebellion from a left-wing perspective.
The First rout of the Jiangnan Battalion took place between 1853 and 1856 when the Qing government raised the Green Standard Army to fight against the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The action involved Qing forces surrounding the city of Nanking, the capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom developed a complicated peerage system for noble ranks.
Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom is a 1983 children's book written by American novelist Katherine Paterson. Set during the Taiping Rebellion in China, it focuses on Wang Lee, a 15-year-old peasant boy who is abducted into a secret rebel organization. Mei Lin, a female soldier, teaches Wang Lee to read and instructs him in the movement’s dogma. Wang Lee’s transition into being a soldier is marked with acts of violence and betrayal, and he is forced through difficult circumstance to learn humility as part of his training.
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, later shortened to Heavenly Kingdom or Heavenly Dynasty, was an unrecognized rebel state in China and Chinese Christian theocratic absolute monarchy from 1851 to 1864, supporting the overthrow of the Qing dynasty by Hong Xiuquan and his followers. The unsuccessful war it waged against the Qing is known as the Taiping Rebellion. Its capital was at Tianjing.
Zhan Garden is a Chinese garden located on No. 128 Zhan Yuan Road, beside Fuzimiao, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China.
The Red Turban Rebellion of 1854–1856 was a rebellion by members of the Tiandihui in the Guangdong province of South China.
Fu Shanxiang was a Chinese scholar from Nanjing who became Chancellor under the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which was nearly successful in its attempts to overthrow the Qing dynasty in the 1850s. Fu is known as the first female Zhuangyuan in Chinese history.
The Battle of Anqing (安慶之戰) was a prolonged siege of the prefecture-level city of Anqing in Anhui, China, initiated by Hunan Army forces loyal to the Qing Dynasty against the armies of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The siege began in September 1860 and ended on September 5, 1861, when imperial forces under the command of Zeng Guoquan breached the walls of the city and occupied it.
Hong Xuanjiao, was a Chinese female general and rebel leader during the Taiping Rebellion. She was the sister of the leader of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Hong Xiuquan. She acted as co-commander of the Taiping forces during the civil war against the Imperial forces of the Qing dynasty. Xuanjiao and her brother, Xiuquan, established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom over varying portions of southern China with himself as the "Heavenly King" and self-proclaimed younger brother of Jesus Christ
Events from the year 1860 in China.
Stephen R. Platt is an American historian and writer. He is currently a professor of Chinese history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
The Thistle Mountains are a mountain range in Guangxi, China that is part of the Dayao Mountains. They are mostly concentrated in Guiping County. In the 1840s the area was the primary base of the God Worshipping Society, which eventually launched the Taiping Rebellion against the Qing dynasty.
The currency of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom consisted of Chinese cash coins and paper money, although the rarity of surviving Taiping paper money suggests that not much was produced. The first cash coins of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom were issued in the year 1853 in the capital of Tianjing. The cash coins of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom should not be confused with the Taiping Tongbao (太平通寳) which was issued during the Northern Song dynasty between the years 976 and 997, or with any other contemporary rebel coinage that also bear this inscription.
