This is an archive of past discussions about Taiping Rebellion. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
'Climax': "Control of the river meant that the Taipings could easily supply their capital at Nanjing (which they renamed Tianjing)."
The part in brackets is redundant - the renaming of Nanjing was mentioned earlier in the article.
'Climax': "Control of the river meant that the Taipings could easily supply their capital at Nanjing (which they renamed Tianjing)."
The part in brackets is redundant - the renaming of Nanjing was mentioned earlier in the article.
Why are the titles of the later Taiping leaders translated as "prince" rather then "king"? They use the same character 王 (Wang). None of the literature I have read supports this difference and translates both cases as "king".
Zotlan10:29, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
It's several years later, but in case you or any subsequent reader was still wondering, I think it's just a question of style. Prince Gong, the famous Westernizer who assisted Ci-xi in defeating Sushun and getting the regency over Tongzhi Emperor, was titled 恭亲王 -- gung1chan1 wang2, roughly "Filial King". Real sovereignty, of course, rested not with a 'king' but with the 皇帝 (huang2di4), a title conventionally translated as 'Emperor' but actually an artifact of Chinese mythic history and sort of meaning "Highest God." So anyhow, 王 is primarily 'king' but also covers 'prince' territory -- a rough counterpart is Ethiopian "negus."
I was going to mention Xiang Yu here, too, but his title 西楚霸王 xi1chu3 ba2wang4, "Western Chu Conqueror King," uses 王 in the compound 霸王 (ba2wang4), approximately "king by conquest," which I'd guess he meant as a secular substitute for the religious (and, more importantly, Qin-tainted) 皇帝: he was quite unequivocally the emperor, but he wanted to be a feudal emperor rather than a centralized tyrant like Ying Zheng / Qin Shi Huang.
This article has nothing to do with Catholics in China as the Taiping were Protestants. I'm removing the link.--Gary12304:06, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
At least 30 million people are believed to have died.
The article only accounts for 130,000 of these deaths. What happened to the other 29,870,000 people who (presumably) died in the violence?
And in what way may this rebellion, or the deaths connected to it, be considered genocide?
Jonathan D. Spence in God's Chinese Son mentions that he specifically targeted some groups for destruction. Interestingly Catholics were an example as his, somewhat inconsistent, Christian influences were strongly Old Testament and intent on smashing "idols." He learned Christianity from a Southern Baptist minister named Issachar J. Roberts. One of his first acts of controversy was to destroy Confucian tablets he deemed idolatrous. He also had racial overtones deeming the Manchu people to be "devils." The death toll in the rebellion is a tad confusing because the majority, possibly vast majority, of the deaths were caused by the resultant famines and plagues caused by mismanagement rather than by active purgings or battles. However he did practice summary executions for many infractions of his religious movement/law.--T. Anthony12:52, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
Why was this removed?
Hong Xiuquan had been a minor bureaucrat, but he came under the influence of Christian missionaries and then after falling into a trance he emerged believing that he was the younger son of God, thus brother of Jesus Christ, on earth to found a new kingdom. He preached a mix of Christianity, Confucianism and communal utopianism. He did little for some years, until after study under Issachar Roberts he began a new iconoclastic sect called the God Worshippers.
It's not removed, it's just relocated to where it's more relevant: the biography of Hong Xiuquan, where it is an integral description of his early life. --Menchi 04:13 24 May 2003 (UTC)
(Note: I have no idea about the procedures for changing this page so excuse if interjecting here is inappropriate. The previous paragraph is entirely wrong on the chronological account of Hung's visions. According to Spence's God's Chinese Son and Vincent Shih's The Taiping Ideology, Hung had a vivid vision where he met a number of people including a fatherly figure and a wise individual whom he referred to as 'elder brother'. It was only after his third failure in the imperial examination did he read a pamplet/tract summarizing Christian ideas and parts of the Bible did he realize that the vision he had earlier included Christ and the Heavenly Father.)
All of the numbers in this section are high by an order of magnitude. This looks like either vandalism or political posturing. Can someone who knows the correct numbers please fix this?
High? We're talking about a nutty christian fundamentalist terrorist crossing China and attacking city after city. It's indeed shocking but not unrealistic. That's like saying "3000 dead in 9/11? It can't be that many." Another even better comparison is saying on the holocaust's talk page "11 million dead? Can't be." Source after source indicates that somewhere between 20 million and 40 million people died because of the insurrection. Hell even my AP World history book WAY back in grade 9 indicated a deathtoll of around 40 million. None of you better edit this page to say "3000 dead." That is true vandalism.99.108.198.222 (talk) 18:24, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
The article now reads about the death toll: (as many as 40 or 50 million according to some sources).
What are those sources? Shanes 09:08, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
That would be great, this article begs for improvement. I suggest you create a username. Colipon+(T) 22:24, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The last figure listed from some travel website is "as many as 200 million lives lost...", this seems like a typo. 200 million is unbelievably high, isn't that close to half the population of China at that time?--70.189.32.21522:59, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
According to Columbia University China had over 400 million people by 1851. Most things I've read confirm that more or less. I believe they had in least 200 million when the US became a nation. Still the idea half the population died in the Taiping Rebellion would be an absurd exaggeration. Generally the figures are between 20 and 50 million. Is the 200 million figure still up?--T. Anthony12:27, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
Please remove the death toll assessment of 200 million lives. The source is invalid as it stems from this shaky assertion from a traveler's memoir: " Some historians have estimated that the combination of natural disasters combined with the political insurrections may have cost on the order of 200 million Chinese lives between 1850-1865. It was a nightmare."
These historians, if they exist, are not properly cited and therefore not worth relying on to make a sound factual statement. If China did possess around 400 million inhabitants at or around the time of the Taiping Rebellion it certainly is absurd to believe that the war and subsequent famine and disease could have such a profound effect on the rest of the population. The geographic proximity to the misfortunes could not possibly reach so many provinces as to wipe out half of the country's population. The vast majority of Chinese have traditionally resided along the Eastern coastal region, not the hinterland (with the exception of Nanjing) which was most ravaged. Again, please remove this invalid source. --Jmnage07:26, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Removed the following propaganda from the Death Toll section:
AFTERMATH OF THE STRUGGLE: By the 1860s, the Qing Dynasty had put down the rebellions at enormous cost and loss of life. This undermined the credibility of the Qing regime and, spearheaded by local initiatives by provincial leaders and gentry, contributed to the rise of warlordism in China. This great loss of life, resources, and the resulting incompetence by the Dowager Empress in late 19th century lead to the end of dynastic rule. <Wikipedia: Chinese History> The successor democratic government was also corrupt and incompetent. True to the form of many previous rulers, it lead from the self-interest of the new ruling class that didn't care about its population. It could not contain the growth of the growing communist movement. <Wikipedia: Joe Stilwell) The government (and its army) was so incompetent and corrupt during WW2, that General "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell suggested that the U.S. support the communists instead. <"Stilwell and the American Experience in China", Barbara Tuchman> To what was left after the war succumbed to the communists by 1949.
The first paragraph of the article says there were 50 million deaths, but the Death Toll section says 20 million. Since the talk page says 20–50 million, how about explaining that in both places instead of confusing the reader with two numbers and no explanation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Iain.dalton (talk • contribs) 21:12, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Taiping Social Organization Information
The article mentions that the Taipings promoted monogamy. While this is true, it is lacking key information. Perhaps there should be a theology section. The Taiping administration forbade any of their core members that led the million army that took Nanking from marrying. They attempted to seperate families entirely, and they would shuffle soldiers from one army to the next to keep people from garnering any loyalty to individuals. The promise was given that the people would be able to marry and restore the utmost theme of the Taiping rebellion, the heavenly family, once the Heavenly Kingdom was fully established on earth. It was not until the last two years, when defeat had become apparent to the sane leaders, that they allowed any Taiping members to marry.
European involvement
Could someone add more information about European and American involvement in the rebellion? Perhaps they played only a minor role, but I think it would be good to have a section on their motivations and actions during it. I really don't know enough about the subject to even attempt this. TastyCakes07:00, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, I think I'm mixing this up with the Boxer Rebellions to some extent. Don't know if European involvement is noteworthy here... TastyCakes07:14, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
According to Chinese source [1]: In 1853, ambassadors of UK, the US, and France visited Nanjing, the capital of Taiping. In the later period, June 2, 1860, a group of westerners were orginized by an American named Warl (sorry, not sure how to spell) in Shanghai, called "rifle team". They cooperated with Qing government to fight Taiping. On Jan 1, 1862, a king of Taiping refused some requirement of right by a British warship captain named Robin. On Feb 21, 1862, an Anglo-French joint army attached Taiping army in Shanghai. Sept 21, 1862, Taiping army killed Warl during a battle. May 10, 1863, the Anglo-French joint army bombarded Ningbo city, and caused Taiping army retreated.--Mongol06:50, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
Poor quality entry
Could someone with relevant information about this conflict please rewrite and reorganise it - it looks more like an essay by a 9th grader school student than an encyclopedia entry
I find that section of the article weird as well. Great emphasize is placed on "Hakka", which seems to suggest "Hakka" and "Han" are different. =/ Hanfresco04:31, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
This is my first Wiki edit. Wouldn’t have bothered, ‘cause the article as a whole needs a lot of professional attention – but this point is so wrong I had to fix it. The paragraph I edited dealt with the fact that the Taipings came mainly from two minority populations - Hakka & Zhuang – fine – that’s a valid point worth mentioning. But it went to develop its ideas based on the assumption that the Hakka are a non-Hàn ethnic minority group. Wow!. No. No. No. The Hakka are most certainly Hàn Chinese. And that is something a Wikipedia entry should NOT get wrong (and not just because who gets classsified as belonging to which minority [or majority] ethic group in China according to what criteria is an issue that everyone there takes very very seriously). Yeah, someone observant had made a quick fix to one line, but the rest of the paragraph was still factually way way out there. So I’ve replaced the parts that were wrong with real facts (as required by the context) that ARE correct. It’s still not pretty – not sure why the spacing in the 2nd para is messed up. And I didn’t touch the idea that Shí Dákāi’ was a rare asset for the Taiping owing in part to his being bilingually proficient in Zhuàng & Hakka – researching that one is beyond my scope (though I have seen sources stating MOST of the MILLIONS of Zhuàng living in China back then - and now - were equally fluent in Zhuàng and their local Hàn dialect, often several Hàn dialects – just as the Hàn in regions of South China where multiple dialects overlap were then (and are now) ShootingStarTP19:11, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Climax
"At its height, the Heavenly Kingdom encompassed much of south and central China, including Nanjing, with the northwards extent reaching Tianjing."
In this article it's stated that Tianjing was a name given to Nanjing itself; perhaps it would be more appropiate to express this as "At its height, the Heavenly Kingdom encompassed much of south and central China, including Nanjing at its most northern point". Or here Tianjing is Tianjin misspelled?
There are problems with the writing style of this article. For instance, in the section "Beginning", I don't understand this phrase: "..economic him quite a rare asset to the Taipings."
For that matter, feel free to fix an article if you see vandalism. That is, after all, one of the big features of Wikipedia. --KNHaw05:34, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
Also, if anything is changed, make sure the original information is valid. I wish the people without usernames would join before writing anything history-related.
Yang Xiuqing
All historians unanimously agree that Yang was the leader with the most power in the Taiping rebellion, so i feel it is important to include him in the introduction.
It is commonplace for people to think that Hong was the most powerful and influential leader. Franz Michael in his work "the taiping rebellion" questions Hong's involvement stating it was even less then we originally think.
However the importance of Hong is definitely worth putting him in the introduction, however same goes with Yang.
Franz Michael's The Taiping Rebellion contains most of the extant documents of the Taipings.
Serious Factual Errors
This article contains serious factual errors, and extremely poor citation of sources, which allows errors to masquerade as supported facts. For example the Nian or Muslim rebellions were in no way led by the Taiping remnants. Rather they were concurrent rebellions which were not affiliated with the Taiping. I would recommend more thorough research to be done by the author and proper substantiation with citations.
NPOV?
The introductory paragraph has some NPOV problems here:
Yang Xiuqing was a former salesman of firewood in Guangxi, who frequently claimed to be able to act as a mouthpiece of God to direct the people and gain himself a large amount of political power.
Is there evidence that Yang Xiuqing did not believe himself to be the mouthpiece of God? If not, this should be reworded.
--Dylan Thurston13:57, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
He did believe himself to be the mouthpiece of god and he did gain a lot of political power by doing so... read any book on the history of the taipings -_- Olir14:57, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Troop numbers
In the Osprey Men-at-Arms Series the book dealing with the Taiping Rebellion states that in excess of ten million soldiers fought - the maximum possible for the figures given here is 8,300,000. I also find the the assertion that Qing militia amounted to just 300,000 as opposed to as many as 5 million regulars somewhat unlikely. Keep in mind that famous forces such as the Xiang Army were essentially militia armies and certainly were not constituted of regular imperial troops, which certainly would not have numbered nearly as high as five million. I personally can't give more precise figures, but I suspect those found here are inaccurate. If someone (perhaps someone fluent in Chinese) has access to better figures, I'd encourage them to investigate this.
.. they were executed
The last sentence of the Background section reads "Then as time went on they were executed." This make no sense to me. Who were executed? Does "as time went on" just mean "later"? I would assume that this sentence was a fragment, left over by incompetent editing - but I see that it has been there right from the start. Maproom17:36, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Merge request
The redirect page for Taiping Christianity was set to this page. I have removed the redirect and begun this discussion. Please contribute to the discussion below.
Oppose - The Taipings practiced their own variant - called by some to be "Taiping Christianity". I do not think that this is the same as the rebellion.Brian0324 (talk) 22:09, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
It would be interesting to add a section on foreign influence and views, notably among protestant missionaries who, at one time, were quite supportive of the Taipings, despite the instructions of their respective governments. Missionaries such as WAP Martin and MS Culbertson were quite outspoken about the Taipings. I'll try to add some text when I have time.--Scotchorama (talk) 12:56, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
Lots of bad references
Just deleted three references from this page, one to a unsigned blog entry, another to a river-rafting travelogue by a 20th century paleontologist, and a third to a paper written by an eighth-grader (seriously, it was from a middle school). A few of the other references look dubious too. Does anyone know how to attach one of those "needs better references" signs?
--Otterfan (talk) 08:55, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Maps
A couple of maps would be illuminating especially one of the greatest extent of the Taiping rebellion.KTo288 (talk) 22:23, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Said Rebellion is wrong, should said movement or reform
I think it not real Rebellion; they took another method to reform better for China(because China too poor in 1840s, especially after loss the First Opium War ), but this reform invade some Han officials benefit and made officials against them at last, I said honestly and emotion.Hans yulun lai
(talk) 01:12, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
that sounds like communist propaganda to me, it was a rebellion because they were defeated by the central government; the CCP would have been declared rebellion had it not won the civil war against KMT. you being Chinese should be familiar with the Chinese proverb "the winner proclaimed as king and the looser denounced as bandits". realistically, this isn't any different from other Chinese peasant rebellions in the past; group of poor people decided they were fed up with the corrupt central government and started armed rebellion flying the reform banner, but as soon as they consolidated enough powers, the leaders began to power grab for themselves and acted just as corrupted as the previous government, and each time leaving the country severely weakened as the result whether the rebellion was successful or not. the Taiping rebellion seriously weakened China, the chinese communist party under Mao even more so. 15:58, 14 September 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.104.78.230 (talk)
relevant or youtube promo?
The last line in the Art section seems out of place:
MV Long hair1 memory for these great heros and time!
but as this page is far from my ken I'll leave it for someone more suitable to address.
I noticed that the war template for this conflict has a red cross on a white field as the Taiping flag. Google Image Search turned up one picture of a Taiping flag on an English website, at http://flickr.com/photos/gordsellar/359265415/. I don't read Chinese, but this is in the context of a museum visit together with Taiping coins. That's not quite a reliable enough source to put into the article, though, and this may be a battle flag rather than their civil flag. Could a Chinese-speaker do some more research on this point? ExOttoyuhr (talk) 17:32, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. That's probably not the best image to go off of. I don't know Chinese, so I don't really know what characters to try to look for; are there any Chinese resources on vexillology? (Now that I think about it, I'm checking zh.wikipedia.org. I can't read Chinese, but I _can_ copy and paste...) 38.113.0.254 (talk) 22:07, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
No luck (although now I know where the picture of the Taiping imperial seal comes from, at least). There were surprisingly many dead links over there, but somehow, I doubt that a Taiping flag was hiding behind any of them...
I think the red cross on white field as a Taiping flag is wrong:
# Never been seen in any Chinese literature.
Chinese never ever used WHITE color in any flag, because White when used in public, is always associated with death and funeral.
The cross looks like the Chinese word 十, which is Ten. In chinese number, Nine is associated with King, or emperor, not Ten.In my opinion, that flag should be removed.Arilang talk23:21, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Where is the red cross?I can't see it?About flat of Taiping Tianguo,you can seethis article,there are many kinds of Taiping flags,they did use WHITE colour in there flags--冰热海风 (talk) 04:14, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
No national flag, but each 王 (King) would have their own triangular flag(not square flag, all ancient Chinese only had triangular flag), most of them bright red or bright yellow, because bright yellow was the color of the emperor. White color was never a popular color for a Chinese flag.
The Flickr photo can be expanded so the wall tag in English is legible: "Triangle Flag of Hung(?)... of the Heaven and Earth Society". A more definitive picture of the same flag is provided by Prof. Gary L. Todd, see also his gallery of photos of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Museum. His caption is "flag of Heaven and Earth Society." The Heaven and Earth Society (Tiandihui) groups are not even mentioned in this Taiping Rebellion article, but they were anti-Qing and started in the late 1700s, lasting through 1911 to today in various forms. They liked to carry flags, triangular ones of about five different colors and borders, covered in arcane designs and characters.
On the other hand the great paintings in Life, Sept. 23, 1966, show an army with red triangle flags defeating a group with yellow triangle flags. The caption says the painting was commissioned by the empire to show its victory over the rebels. Maybe the caption is wrong and the yellow flag is the standard Qing flag, but the red flag troops seem better armed and the caption is specific.
I uploaded this flag derived from the provisional one above and will be using it, in icon form, to replace the red cross. -Colfer2 (talk) 22:07, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
Update. I changed the flag from the red triangle to unknown. To ease future edits, I set up a country template where the flag can be set across all articles: Template:Country data Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and even put the red flag there as a variant.
The red flag is based on a museum's flag of the Heaven and Earth Society. Further research shows the Heaven and Earth Society was active in the era just before the Taiping Rebellion, and shared some features with Hong and Feng's "God Worshipers Society", which became the Taiping movement, but they were quite different. The Heaven and Earth Society was a much older and more widespread. The God Worshipers opposed its banditry, which was a big part of their appeal. See: God's Chinese Son, by J. Spence, page 88. The Qing officials however tried to paint both groups as arising from the same, dangerous Christian movement, the Heavenly Lord sect. Both were secret societies opposed to the Qing, but the rest seems to be a fabrication or over-eager intelligence report. See: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, by T. Reilly, page 153. -Colfer2 (talk) 14:42, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
We probably shouldn't use the unknown flag icon as that is generally used as a placeholder for a flag which doesn't have an image on Wikipedia, and that kind of implies that the kingdom actually had a national flag. From what I can see, it only had a variety of army flags. Orange Tuesday (talk) 16:50, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, I agree, it looks like the placeholder flag is not used in these battle templates. It is used however in articles like this:
So the country template will come in handy there if a flag is ever found. I guess the seat of the kingdom probably did have a flag. This group loved flags. But better references have yet to be found... -Colfer2 (talk) 17:23, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
Don't use the red flag
Since someone restored it, it bears reminding: that red triangular thing above is not a Taiping flag. The Heaven & Earth Societies were completely unrelated and there was never any such thing as a Taiping Heaven & Earth Society.
Worse, it shouldn't even be used for Triad pages. The poor editing makes it a red and white square flag instead of a red triangular one. There are actual Taiping flags at the links above. I'll see if I can't edit one into shape. — LlywelynII15:09, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
Princes?
The later leaders of the movement were 'Princes':
Were the later leaders really called "princes"? What is the source for this? The character "王" means king. The Chinese names (as listed) of the leaders describes them as "kings". Also, according to the book The Rise of Modern China, by Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, the later leaders were also called "kings". -Cowrider (talk) 12:13, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
Wang meant king in certain contexts, prince in others. Here, I'd imagine "prince" is more fitting for the high rank but limited autonomy they were intended to have relative to the one King of Heaven, but if we're going to change it, should probably find some scholarly sources or contemporary records that translate their ranks that way. There should be plenty of scholarship on this. — LlywelynII14:45, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
囯
The Taipings did not use the characters 國 or 国; instead the used 囯, which is an uncommon variant which subtly omits a dot stroke from the variant 国. The actual name is 太平天囯. -- 李博杰 | —Talkcontribsemail03:47, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
Now if I could only figure out how to force the computer to display Japanese ten instead of Chinese tian without resorting to image files... — LlywelynII14:52, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
Like... the entirety of the actual rebellion? There's info on the French and Chinese pages for those who can translate them, but right now this article goes from 1851 in Guangxi to 1864 in Nanjing without so much as a howdy-do to any freakin' thing in the decade between. Which, y'know, was when the actual rebellion was going on.
Why is there one article for the Taiping Rebellion and one for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom?
I wonder if I'm reopening an old debate, I can't imagine this hasn't been said before, but why is there one article on the 'Taiping Rebellion' and one on the 'Taiping Heavenly Kingdom'? They're two different names for the same thing the 太平天国 (yes I know they didn't use that form of guo but I can't get my computer to write the other one). Shouldn't the two articles be merged? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.76.7.215 (talk) 18:48, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
I'm wondering the same thing. One article seems to have lifted major sections from the other as well. What is the intent of having these two differently labeled articles that appear to repeat content? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.22.167.252 (talk) 14:53, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
Although there is much similarity, the two articles deal with different things. One is a former country, the other is a war involving that country. Since the Taiping constantly at war with the Qing, the history section of the country article deals with much of the war. However below the history section, there is information about religion, currency, and administration. The rebellion article only deals with the war and should really contain some additional information about the Qing response to the rebellion and strategies engaged by both sides. Rincewind42 (talk) 13:53, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
Shanghai
The article reads in part: "... failed to take Shanghai (Battle of Shanghai (1861)), which marked the beginning of the decline of the Kingdom ..." and then a couple of lines further down "... An attempt to take Shanghai in August 1860 ...". That seems both anachronistic and confusing. Can anyone clarify? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 09:59, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
Combatants v, troops.
Agree to change in terminology, but not for the reason given: "accurate for the irregular rebels of the revolt." They were not irregulars: "[w]ithout standard military unit organization, [where] various more general names are used; such [other] organizations may also be called a 'troop,' 'group,' 'unit,' 'column,' 'band," or 'force.'" These rebels were highly organized into military units with recognized chains of command, and trained to a higher level of competence than the "regular military soldiers employed by" China. As the rebel government was never recognized, "combatants" will do, as the term also covers the mercenaries who combated the rebel forces. "Band" is appropriate for the forces that continue to fight after the breakup of the rebel kingdom. —Pawyilee (talk) 14:10, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
location of the rebellion
I'm not sure where this sentence came from (there's no source): "The war was mostly fought in the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi and Hubei, but over 14 years of war the Taiping Army had marched through every province of China proper except Gansu."
Here are some of the problems with that sentence: Did they really march through every major province of China except Gansu???? Xinjiang? Heilongjiang and jilin? Qinghai? Hainan or is that not a province of China that counts because at the time it was part of other provinces? I've not seen any sources to support those places. Also, like are we counting current provinces or provinces at the time? Does that claim include provinces that were part of Qing China, but are now modern day Mongolia, Russia, Central Asia and Taiwan? Also what qualifies as a "major" province? Is that why Ningxia isn't listed along with Gansu as places the taipings didn't go? Or did they actually go there? Not clear.
And while we are talking about Gansu, the Chinese language version of the taiping heavenly kingdom page says that the Taiping actually did go to Gansu, so where's not no Gansu source?
Finally, and more to the point even if a few random taiping people wandered to ningxia or sailed to Taiwan or Xinjiang or wherever, who cares? The majority of the war happened along the yangtze river. For the intro it makes sense to stay focused on the locations where most of the action happened. I've changed the sentence to the following: The war was mostly fought along the Yangtze River in the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hunnan and Hubei, but over the course of 14 years of war the Taiping army marched through other provinces farther away from the Yangtze river valley including several northward pushes towards the Qing dynasty capital in Beijing.
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I had captured a version of the lead for my own notes circa 8 March 2015, and just now noticed how much the lead had changed since then, almost entirely for the better, in fine strokes.
But then I noticed that the new version was managing to bury the lead for people coming to this page with little prior knowledge of Chinese history, so I basically shuffled some existing content (and bulked out exposition with supplementary text lifted from directly related articles, to obtain a new mini-lead, in four broad strokes:
The Taiping Rebellion or the Taiping Civil War was a large-scale rebellion or civil war in China waged from 1850 and 1864 between the established Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom under Hong Xiuquan.
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was an oppositional state based in Tianjing (present-day Nanjing) with a Christian millenarian agenda to initiate a major transformation of society. A self-proclaimed convert to Christianity, Hong Xiuquan led an army that controlled a significant part of southern China during the middle of the 19th century, eventually expanding to command a population base of nearly 30 million people.
Devolving into total war—with any and all civilian-associated resources and infrastructure as legitimate military targets—the conflict was the largest in China since the Qing conquest in 1644, and it also ranks as one of the bloodiest wars in human history, the bloodiest civil war, and the largest conflict of the 19th century, with estimates of the war dead ranging from 20–70 million to as high as 100 million, with millions more displaced.
The war was mostly fought in the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi and Hubei, but over 14 years of war the Taiping Army had marched through every province of China proper except Gansu.
I feel this does a better job of addressing the larger who, what, where, why issues in synopsis before descending into more precise, narrow strokes amenable to scrutiny by the Eastern eye.
I've bolded the added paragraph cobbled together from related sources.
Personally, I now like the structure of the lead, beginning with the large camera long enough for my to get my (clueless) bearings, then retracing the same with a more precise feather, though I'm sure there are other opinions.
Most of the article says 1864 shortly after the fall of Tianjing, but do we consider pro-Taiping holdouts some of whom lasted until 1866 - 1871?--Prisencolin (talk) 01:46, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom describes the war as ending in 1864. God's Chinese Son, citing Revolutionary Movement, states that the last remnants of various Taiping field armies were destroyed in Feb. 1866. The Taiping Rebellion: History notes that Luo Ergang thinks the end date should be 1868 when Lai Wen-kuang's combined Taiping/Nian force was eliminated but ultimately rejects it, stating that the Taipings died with Rengan and the Young Monarch. Modern Chinese Warfare gives an end date of 1864. Cambridge History of China ends it in 1864, as does Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Overall, I think consensus ends it at 1864. Dbrote (talk) 22:53, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 25 January 2021 and 3 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ylichen.
Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 4 October 2021 and 9 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Herry3999.
This is an archive of past discussions about Taiping Rebellion. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
The article seems to imply this is not the case, but are there any modern practitioners of Taiping/Heavenly Kingdom Christianity today? Forgive the POV, but there are stranger movements that do still exist... -BaronGrackle (talk) 15:40, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Relations with other christian denominations and with other religions
Should this be added as a section? I know they referenced some missionaries who knew Hong, but what were the official positions various denominations took on the rebellion and what did other monotheistic western faiths think of them? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.108.198.222 (talk) 18:32, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
Digitised primary sources
We've just digitised and put online three important primary sources for the Taiping Rebellion
"Most of the deaths were attributed to plague and famine." - Source? are there any estimates? article says its one of the bloodiest wars, however, no approx death count range, due to weapon is mentioned either. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.20.110.57 (talk) 07:08, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
Guangxi / Guangdong / Yue / Taiping ??
I have been attempting to improve the language and clarify some minor issues in this article, starting with the section "Names". In the process, I got involved with a question that I do not fully understand (I have limited knowledge of China and Chinese history), and my edit may as a result be misleading. The problem is to be found in a sentence in the last paragraph of the "Names" section, which, before I started editing it, read as follows:
"The Qing referred to the Taiping as Yue Bandits (粤匪 or 粤贼) in official sources, a reference was made to their origins in the southeastern province of Guangdong."
Apart from the unclear language, there are two factual issues in this sentence:
For a non-specialist like myself, it is not at all obvious how "Yue Bandits" can make or contain a reference to "Guangdong".
The sentence contradicts the map in the same section, which states that the Taiping Rebellion had its origin not in Guangdong, but in neighboring Guangxi.
After some digging around in related Wikipedia articles, I discovered the following:
that Yue is an abbreviated form of Guangdong (cf. article "Guangdong", introductory info-box),
that "a Yao revolt in 1831 was followed [by] the Jintian Uprising, the beginning of the Taiping Rebellion, in January 1851 and the Da Cheng Rebellion in April 1854," all of which seemingly took place in Guangxi (cf. article "Guangxi#History"),
and that "in 1843 Hong Xiuquan, Feng Yunshan and Hong Rengan founded the God Worshipping Society (拜上帝教), a heterodox Christian sect, in Hua County (花縣; present-day Huadu District, Guangdong). The following year they traveled to Guangxi to spread their teachings to the peasant population. After that, Hong Xiuquan returned to Guangdong to write about his beliefs, while Feng Yunshan remained in the Mount Zijing (紫荊山) area to rally people like Yang Xiuqing and Xiao Chaogui to join their sect," (cf. article "Jintian Uprising#Background").
After considering these (I hope!) facts, I have revised the bolded sentence above as follows:
"The Qing referred to the Taiping as Yue Bandits (粤匪 or 粤贼) in official sources, reflecting the movement's origins in the southeastern provinces of Guangxi and Guangdong ("Yue" being an abbreviated form of "Guangdong")."
I hope this is satisfactory and factually correct, but would greatly appreciate the opinion of a specialist on the subject. Also, please see my next comment here in Talk.
After reading this and several related articles on Chinese history, I have a general point to make: For a non-specialist it is often very hard to follow the argument being made, in part due to poor English (which is fairly easy to remedy), but also in part because of the prolific, often unexplained and inconsistent, use of Chinese personal and place names. For a reader with good knowledge of Chinese history and culture, who perhaps even reads Chinese, this is no doubt a minor problem, but for the average user of English Wikipedia it is not. To some extent, of course, the problem is unavoidable, since we are dealing with a foreign language, but the situation can be improved a lot by:
Avoiding names that are not strictly necessary,
Taking care to explain who or what the names refer to (linking to relevant Wikipedia pages is fine, but often not enough, particularly if the page/section linked to is long and/or itself full of unexplained words),
Explaining important names again, when some time has passed since the last time they were mentioned,
Alerting the reader explictly to names that sound or look alike, and to other potential sources of misunderstanding,
Using the same form of names consistently throughout the text (e.g. avoiding nicknames),
etc.
In my previous comment here in Talk ("Guangxi / Guangdong / Yue / Taiping ??"), I have described the problems I encountered with one sentence in this article in some detail. It may serve as a specific illustration of the general problem I am referring to here.
Partial overview of problems in Taiping-related articles
I have (see above) tried to do some language-editing in this article but have discovered that there are so many content-related problems (particularly in the relationship between this article and other Taiping-related articles) that I have given up the project. In my view, the entire complex of articles needs a thorough review, which I am not competent to conduct. As an initial contribution to this work, however, I have put together a list of (some of) the articles in question, with some information on problems I have noticed. I hope this will be of use to a future editor who has the competence to perform a revision of the material as a whole. I myself will retire from this project and try to find something less confusing to work on...
Regarding the three "main articles" listed below: There is considerable overlap - and a number of inconsitencies - between them. Ideally, a major conflict of this kind would deserve a major article, on the level e.g. of one of the big European wars. In that case it would make sense to have separate articles e.g. on ideology, military affairs, etc. Such an expansion, however, does not seem to be realistic in the present case (perhaps there are insuffient data?). I therefore support the above suggestion (Talk: 18) that the articles Taiping Rebellion and Taiping Heavenly Kingdom be merged (perhaps also God Worshipping Society). This would make it easier to avoid overlap and inconsistencies.
Article name
Comments
Main articles
Taiping Rebellion
Definitions of Taiping: (1) "a massive rebellion or civil war"; (2) "syncretic version of Christianity"; (3) "fusion of Christianity, Daoism, Confucianism and indigenous millenarianism, which Hong presented as a restoration of the ancient Chinese faith in Shangdi"
Taiping Heavenly Kingdom
Elsewhere in same article called: (1) "Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace"; (2) "Heavenly Dynasty" (this links to the article: Celestial Empire, which contains no relevant information)
Definitions of Taiping: (1) "Christian theocratic absolute monarchy"; (2) "a totalitarian, theocratic, and highly militarized rule"; (3) "The rebel kingdom announced social reforms and the replacement of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Chinese folk religion by his form of Christianity"
God Worshipping Society
Elsewhere in same article called: Society of God Worshippers
Definitions of Taiping: "unique interpretation of Christianity [...] combined [...] with Chinese folk religion, faith in Shangdi, and other religious traditions"
Related conflicts
Jintian Uprising
No date in name
Definition of Taiping: "a heterodox Christian sect"
Punti-Hakka Clan Wars
No date in name
Red Turban Rebellion (1854–1856)
Nian Rebellion
No date in name
Da Cheng Rebellion
No date in name
Small Swords Society
No date in name
Battles & campaigns
Several of these articles contain significant overlap with main articles
Northern Expedition (Taiping Rebellion)
No date in name
Western Expedition
Inconsistent naming. No date in name
Eastern Expedition
Inconsistent naming. No date in name
Battle of Changsha (1852)
Battle of Wuchang
No date in name
Battle of Nanjing (1853)
Short article
Battle of Wuhan (1855)
Non-existant article
Battle of Jiangnan (1856)
Short article
Battle of Sanhe
No date in name
Battle of Jiangnan (1860)
Short article with multiple issues
Battle of Shanghai (1861)
Battle of Guanzhong (1861)
Short article with multiple issues
Battle of Anqing
No date in name
Occupation of Ningbo
No date in name
Battle of Cixi
No date in name
Battle of Changzhou
Stub. No date in name
Third Battle of Nanking
No date in name
Battle of Hubei
Stub. No date in name
Battle of Fujian
Stub. No date in name
Determined battle of Northern Jiangsu
Non-existant article
Other
Tianjing incident
No date in name. Needs to be correllated with main articles.
Green Standard Army
This article makes no reference to Taiping, although there are several links to it in other articles on this list
People
The different roles played by these figures emerge mostly from the individual articles about them, but rarely from the main articles. Perhaps there should be a section in one of the main articles that discusses the interplay between all or most of these persons?
Hong Xiuquan
The section "Rebellion and the Heavenly Kingdom" contains significant overlap with main articles. The section "The God Worshippers" contains significant overlap with main articles, but includes no no link to the article: God Worshipping Society
Hong Tianguifu
Yang Xiuqing
The section "Taiping Rebellion" contains important info on the relationship between Hong X. and Yang X. which that is absent from the main articles
Feng Yunshan
Xiao Chaogui
Wei Changhui
Hong Rengan
Shi Dakai
"Kingdom of Heavenly Peace" links to article: Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (inconsistent naming)
Li Xiucheng
Short article with multiple issues
Chen Yucheng
Short article
Li Shixian
Short article. "Battle of Suzhou (1863)" links to Battle of Jiangnan (1860)
I strongly disagree that the Taiping Rebellion and Taiping Heavenly Kingdom should be merged. The latter covers the oppositional state itself while the other covers the conflict with the Qing Dynasty that led to its creation and eventual fall. Although there is obviously overlap, the articles have different focuses (e.g., Taiping Rebellion covers the military affairs more thoroughly while Taiping Heavenly Kingdom covers other governmental policies more in-depth. I also don't think that the various definitions of Taiping are really at odds. Any confusion would seem to arise from the religion, the kingdom, and the rebellion being conflated. Dbrote (talk) 17:24, 18 November 2019 (UTC)
This war was partly responsible for the spread of the third plague.
Taiping Rebellion & Panthay Rebellion were both responsible for the spread of what to be known as the third plague. Which ended up claiming over 15 million lives. Does anyone want to add this on this article? TaipingRebellion1850 (talk) 01:34, 31 August 2021 (UTC)
Strange emphasis on 'Ever Victorious Army'
Do you guys think saying the 'Ever Victorious Army' was 'instrumental' in the defeat of the Taiping is over-egging it, or at least, deserves a source?
It was just a few thousand people (in a war where armies often reached 100,000), they rarely (never?) left a 30-mile radius around Shanghai, and they (as far as I can gather) achieved no particularly notable victories. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.4.251.147 (talk) 17:07, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
Inaccurate map
Firstly, I want to say that I don't have any knowledge on the Taiping Rebellion other than a basic knowledge.
So, there was this map on the article:
Alleged map of the territory of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in 1854
This is actually a really old map, the original being File:Taiping2.PNG, made in 2008. It makes me even feel a little less confident about this complaint because it's a really old map no one ever questioned.
So, as you can see on the bottom left of the image, the uploader used the book "The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom" by "Thomas A. Reilly". The first problem is that his name is actually Thomas H. Reilly, but it's just a small typo, so let's continue.
As you can see, on this map there is two different territories: early 1854 and early 1862. The first thing I noticed is that the two territories don't overlap with each other, which was weird for me, but I only have a shallow knowledge on the subject, as I said. And I think that's close to how the uploader got confused and made this map. My theory is that the uploader saw that map and assumed the total territory of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in 1854 was both the territory of 1854 AND the territory of 1862, with the territory marked as 1862 being the fall of the kingdom and what was only left of the territory in that year.
But it doesn't make sense, and you can check it with the timeline of this article.
"In May 1860 the Taiping 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 Taiping rebels were successful in taking Hangzhou on March 19, 1860, Changzhou on May 26, and Suzhou on June 2 to the east. (...). Near the end of 1861 the Taipings launched a final Eastern Expedition. Ningbo was easily captured on December 9, and Hangzhou was besieged and finally captured on December 31, 1861. Taiping troops surrounded Shanghai in January 1862, but were unable to capture it."
All these areas are claimed to be taken by the Taiping since 1854 on that user-made map, which is not true. On the map on the book used as source, all these areas are on the "early 1862" area but not on the "early 1854" area, proving that the user just misinterpreted the map.
What if it's the inverse then? Maybe the total 1862 area is the territory of 1854 + the territory of 1862, with the area marked as early 1862 being more annexations? Then it would only be a matter of changing the date on the user-made map, right? But it also doesn't make sense.
"In December 1856 Qing forces retook Wuchang for the final time. The Xiang Army captured Jiujiang in May 1858 and then the rest of Jiangxi province by September. (...) In 1861 (...) Zeng Guofan's Xiang Army captured Anqing."
So, by 1862, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had lost a lot of its 1854 territory.
In conclusion, it's a bit confusing map where it's two totally different areas with zero overlap between them. The important thing is that the map which was shown for years on Wikipedia (since 2011 on the English Wikipedia, apparently) is just wrong on a big level. And even if it was right, there is a lot of wrongly drawn areas anyways. AnAkemie (talk) 16:47, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
"Incompetent forces of Rama V"
And "armed with the latest weapons" - this seems oddly biased here. Not saying it's wrong, but we'd need a little background to make the case. Huanohk (talk) 14:12, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
Banner accuracy
Even though the alleged banner of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is not explicitly shown in the article but only in the infobox, I think the discussion I started related to the use of this file on Taiping-related articles might be relevant here too. Yakutia2023 (talk) 19:10, 16 May 2023 (UTC)
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 25 January 2021 and 3 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ylichen.
Alleged map of the territory of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in 1854.png)
