The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, or the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace (1851–1864), was a theocratic monarchy that sought to overthrow the Qing dynasty. The Heavenly Kingdom, or Heavenly Dynasty, was led by Hong Xiuquan, a Hakka man from Guangzhou. The kingdom's capital was established in Tianjing, present-day Nanjing. The unsuccessful 14-year war the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom waged against the Qing is known as the Taiping Rebellion.
The self-proclaimed younger brother of Jesus Christ and convert to Protestant Christianity, Hong Xiuquan, led an army that controlled a significant part of southern China during the middle of the 19th century. Under his leadership, the Taiping movement expanded to an area populated by nearly 30 million people. The rebel kingdom announced social reforms and the replacement of traditional cults for his own Bài Shàngdì Huì (Supreme Emperor Worshipping Society), holding that he was the second son of Heavenly Father and the Heavenly Mother; however, it is uncertain whether he meant this literally or metaphorically. The Taiping areas were besieged by Qing forces throughout most of the rebellion. The Qing government defeated the rebellion with the eventual aid of French and British forces.
Background
History of the ideal of "Great Peace"
As a utopian idea, the concept of Great Peace (taiping) dates to Han dynasty Confucian scholars who framed the concept in relation to wise rulers, the satisfaction of the people, the natural order, and cosmic harmony. The concept was further developed in the second century Scripture of the Great Peace which inspired a rebellious Daoist movement. It was also used to designate reigns of prominent emperors and imperial commission-compiled literary collections.
Crisis during Qing dynasty
During the 19th century, the Qing territories experienced a series of famines, natural disasters, economic problems and defeats at the hands of foreign powers; these events have come to be collectively known as China's century of humiliation. Farmers were heavily overtaxed, rents rose dramatically, and peasants started to desert their lands in droves. The Qing military had recently suffered a disastrous defeat in the First Opium War, while the Chinese economy was severely impacted by a trade imbalance caused by the large-scale and illicit importation of opium. Banditry became more common, and numerous secret societies and self-defence units formed, all of which led to an increase in small-scale warfare.
Protestant missions in China began working from Portuguese Macau, Pazhou, and Guangzhou. Their household staff and the printers they employed corrected and adapted the missionaries' message to reach the Chinese and they began to particularly frequent the prefectural and provincial examinations, where local scholars competed for the chance to rise to power in the imperial civil service. One of the native tracts, Liang Fa's nine-part, 500-page tome called Good Words to Admonish the Age, found its way into the hands of Hong Xiuquan in the mid-1830s. Hong initially leafed through it without interest. After several failures during the examinations and a nervous breakdown, however, Hong told friends and family of a dream in which he was greeted by a golden-haired, bearded man and a younger man whom he addressed as "Elder Brother". He would also declare that he saw Confucius being punished by Hong's celestial father for leading the people astray. Hong worked another six years as a tutor before his brother convinced him that Liang's tract was worth examination. When he read the tract he saw his long-past dream in terms of Christian symbolism: he was the younger brother of Jesus and had met God the Father. He now felt it was his duty to restore the faith in the native Han religion and overthrow the Qing. He was joined by Yang Xiuqing, a former charcoal and firewood salesman of Guangxi, who claimed to act as a voice of the Supreme Emperor.
Feng Yunshan formed the God Worshipping Society in Guangxi after a missionary journey there in 1844 to spread Hong's ideas. In 1847, Hong became the leader of the secret society. The Taiping faith, inspired by missionary Christianity, says one historian, "developed into a dynamic new Chinese religion... Taiping Christianity". Hong presented this religion as a revival and a restoration of the ancient classical faith in Shangdi. The sect's power grew in the late 1840s, initially suppressing groups of bandits and pirates, but persecution by Qing authorities spurred the movement into guerrilla activity, and then into civil war.
In some Marxist historiography, the Taiping Rebellion is viewed as a proto-communist uprising.
History
Early establishments
The Jintian Uprising began in 1850 in Guangxi. On 11 January 1851 (the 11th day of the first lunar month), incidentally Hong Xiuquan's birthday, Hong declared himself "Heavenly King" of a new dynasty, the "Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace". After minor clashes, the violence escalated into the uprising in February 1851, in which a 10,000-strong rebel army routed and defeated a smaller Qing force. Feng Yushan was to be the strategist of the rebellion and the administrator of the kingdom during its early days, until his death in 1852.
In 1853, the Taiping forces captured Nanjing, making it their capital and renaming it Tianjing ('heavenly capital'). Hong converted the office of the Viceroy of Liangjiang into his Palace of Heavenly King. Since Hong claimed he had been instructed in his dream to exterminate all Manchu "demons", the rebels set out to kill the entire Manchu population. When Nanjing was occupied, the Taiping rebels went on a rampage, burning 40,000 Manchus to death within the city. They first killed all the Manchu men, and then the Manchu women and Manchu children were burned to ashes.
At its height, the Heavenly Kingdom controlled southern China, centred on the fertile Yangtze River Valley. Control of the river meant that the Taiping could easily supply their capital. From there, the Taiping rebels sent armies west into the upper reaches of the Yangtze, and north to capture Beijing, the capital of the Qing dynasty. The attempt to take Beijing failed.
Internal conflict
In 1853, Hong withdrew from active control of policies and administration, ruling exclusively by written proclamations often in religious language. Hong disagreed with Yang in certain matters of policy and became increasingly suspicious of Yang's ambitions, his extensive network of spies, and his declarations when "speaking as God". Yang and his family were put to death by Hong's followers in 1856, in an event known as the Tianjing incident. The internal schism significantly weakened Taiping forces.
With their leader largely out of the picture, Taiping delegates tried to widen their popular support with the Chinese middle classes and forge alliances with European powers, but failed on both counts. The Europeans decided to stay neutral. Inside China, the rebellion faced resistance from the traditionalist middle class because of their hostility to Chinese customs and Confucian values. The land-owning upper class, unsettled by the Taiping rebels' peasant mannerisms and their policy of strict separation of the sexes, even for married couples, sided with the Qing forces and their Western allies. Many within the Kingdom who resisted were subjected to torture.
In 1859, Hong Rengan, a cousin of Hong, joined the Taiping Rebellion in Nanjing, and was given considerable power by Hong. He developed an ambitious plan to expand the kingdom's boundaries. In 1860, the Taiping rebels were successful in taking Hangzhou and Suzhou to the east, but failed to take Shanghai, which marked the beginning of the decline of the Kingdom.
Fall
An attempt to take Shanghai in August 1860 was initially successful but finally repulsed by a force of Chinese troops and European officers under the command of Frederick Townsend Ward. This army would later become the "Ever Victorious Army", led by Charles "Chinese" Gordon, and would be instrumental in the defeat of the Taiping rebels. Imperial forces were reorganised under the command of Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang, and the Qing government's re-conquest began in earnest. By early 1864, Qing control in most areas was well established.
With Qing forces beginning an attack on Nanjing, Hong declared that God would defend the city, but in June 1864, with Qing forces approaching, he died of food poisoning as the result of eating wild vegetables as the city began to run out of food. He was sick for twenty days before the Qing forces could take the city. Although Hong likely died of his illness, suicide by poison has also been suggested. Only a few days after his death Qing forces took control of Nanjing. His body was buried and was later exhumed by Zeng to verify his death, and cremated. Hong's ashes were later blasted out of a cannon in order to ensure that his remains have no resting place as eternal punishment for the uprising.
Four months before the fall of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Hong Xiuquan abdicated in favour of Hong Tianguifu, his eldest son, who was 14 years old then. Hong Tianguifu was unable to do anything to restore the kingdom, so the kingdom was quickly destroyed when Nanjing fell in July 1864 to Qing forces after vicious fighting in the streets. Most of the so-called princes were executed by Qing officials in Jinling Town (金陵城), Nanjing.
Although the fall of Nanjing in 1864 marked the destruction of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, there were still several thousands of Taiping rebels continuing to resist Qing forces. It took seven years to finally put down all remnants of the Taiping Rebellion. In August 1871, the last Taiping rebel army, led by Shi Dakai's commander Li Fuzhong (李福忠), was completely wiped out by the Qing forces in the border region of Hunan, Guizhou, and Guangxi.
Administrative divisions
In the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, there were three levels of local government: province (省), commandery (郡), and county (縣).
According to a regulation promulgated in 1861 (the eleventh year of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, 太平天囯辛酉十一年), the country were divided into 21 provinces, each with 11 commanderies, except for Jiangnan Province, which had 12 commanderies. However, this was planned for the establishment after the unification of the country, and the establishment during the revolution was not planned in this way. According to existing documents, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom established five new provinces: Tianjing Province (天京省), Jiangnan Province (江南省), Tianpu Province (天浦省), Sufu Province (蘇福省), and Guifu Province (貴福省). The boundaries of its territory are unknown. The location of Guifu Province is unclear. Tianpu Province, Jiangnan Province, and Sufu Province are all within present-day Jiangsu Province. Tianjing Province included the Taiping Prefecture, which borders Nanjing.
Other provinces mentioned in Taiping Heavenly Kingdom sources are: Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Zhejiang, Hunan, Fujian, Henan, Shandong (珊東), Guangxi, Guangdong, Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou, Shaanxi, Gansu, Zuili (罪隸), etc. However, most of them were under the control of the Qing dynasty.
Kings, princes, and noble ranks
The Heavenly King was the highest position in the Heavenly Kingdom. The sole people to hold this position were Hong Xiuquan and his son Hong Tianguifu:
Ranked below the "King of Heaven" Hong Xiuquan, the territory was divided among provincial rulers called kings or princes; initially there were five – the Kings of the Four Cardinal Directions and the Flank King). Of the original rulers, the West King and South King were killed in combat in 1852. The East King was murdered by the North King during a coup in 1856, and the North King himself was subsequently killed. The Kings' names were:
- South King (南王), Feng Yunshan (died 1852)
- East King (東王), Yang Xiuqing (died 1856)
- West King (西王), Xiao Chaogui (died 1852)
- North King (北王), Wei Changhui (died 1856)
- Flank King (翼王), Shi Dakai (captured and executed by Qing forces in 1863)
The later leaders of the movement were 'Princes':
- Zhong Prince (忠王), Li Xiucheng (1823–1864, captured and executed by Qing forces)
- Ying Prince (英王), Chen Yucheng (1837–1862)
- Gan Prince (干王), Hong Rengan (1822–1864; cousin of Hong Xiuquan, executed)
- Jun Prince (遵王), Lai Wenkwok (1827–1868)
- Fu Prince (福王), Hong Renda (洪仁達; Hong Xiuquan's second-eldest brother; executed by Qing forces in 1864)
- Tian Gui (田貴; executed in 1864)
Other princes include:
- An Prince (安王), Hong Renfa (洪仁發), Hong Xiuquan's eldest brother
- Yong Prince (勇王), Hong Rengui (洪仁貴)
- Fu Prince (福王), Hong Renfu (洪仁富)
Leaders of concurrent rebellions were similarly granted the title of King, such Lan Chaozhu, a leader in the Li Yonghe rebellion in Sichuan.
In the later years of the Taiping Rebellion, the territory was divided among many, for a time into the dozens, of provincial rulers called princes, depending on the whims of Hong.