THE WORLD ATLAS

War · December 1850 – July 1864

Taiping Rebellion

In the 1840s Hong Xiuquan, a Hakka who had failed the imperial examinations and believed himself the younger brother of Jesus, gathered the God Worshipping Society in Guangxi. Famine, overtaxation and the Qing defeat in the First Opium War fed its growth, and in January 1851 Hong proclaimed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom at Jintian.

His armies marched north to the Yangtze, took Wuchang and in March 1853 captured Nanjing, which became their capital, Tianjing. An expedition against Beijing failed, and in 1856 a bloody power struggle killed several Taiping leaders. Provincial armies raised by gentry officials, above all Zeng Guofan's Xiang Army, slowly drove the Taiping back, while Western-officered forces helped defend Shanghai. In 1860 the Taiping broke out east into Jiangsu and Zhejiang, but the Qing took Anqing in 1861, besieged Nanjing from 1862 and stormed it in July 1864, shortly after Hong's death. It was the deadliest civil war in history and left the Qing dependent on regional armies.

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Dates
December 1850 – July 1864
Casualties
An estimated 20–30 million people died, most of them from famine and disease; some estimates run far higher.

The sides

Qing dynasty (with Western-officered units from 1860)

Taiping Heavenly Kingdom

Timeline of the Taiping Rebellion

  1. Hong Xiuquan proclaims the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom at Jintian

    In 1850 local officials in Guangxi moved against the God Worshipping Society, and its followers gathered at Jintian, near Guiping, organised into military units. After routing a Qing attack at the turn of the year, the God Worshippers formally rose on 11 January 1851, Hong Xiuquan's birthday, and declared the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The rebels grew their hair long instead of wearing the Qing queue, a visible act of defiance that earned them the name 'Long-Hairs'.

  2. Taiping break out of the Jintian area and take Yong'an

    Hemmed in by Green Standard troops that far outnumbered them, the rebels fought their way north and captured the walled town of Yong'an (modern Mengshan) on 25 September 1851. They held it for months while Qing forces regrouped and closed in, and in 1851 Hong gave his chief followers the title of king, under himself as Heavenly King. In 1852 the Taiping cut their way out and marched on Guilin, the provincial capital, but its walls proved too strong.

  3. Ambush at Suoyi ford on the Xiang River halts the march into Hunan

    Leaving Guilin, the Taiping headed north towards Hunan along the Xiang River. On 10 June 1852 a gentry-led militia ambushed them at Suoyi ford, near Quanzhou on the Guangxi–Hunan border, and the rebels lost about a fifth of their force. The South King Feng Yunshan, one of the movement's founders, had been mortally wounded by a Qing gunner at nearby Quanzhou weeks earlier and died that June. The survivors pressed on into Hunan, recruiting as they went.

  4. Taiping besiege Changsha; the West King is killed

    The Taiping laid siege to Changsha, the capital of Hunan, which Qing reinforcements reached in time. Miners dug tunnels under the walls, but few reached them. In September the West King Xiao Chaogui, showing himself in royal robes to rally the troops, was killed by a Qing gunner. By November Hong called off the siege and the army moved north down the Xiang River towards Dongting Lake and the Yangtze, seizing thousands of boats at Yuezhou.

  5. Taiping capture Wuchang on the Yangtze

    Reaching the Yangtze in December 1852, the Taiping first took the commercial towns of Hanyang and Hankou on the north bank, then bridged the river with boats to attack Wuchang, the capital of Hubei. After a siege of about twenty days the city fell on 12 January 1853. Warned of a large Qing army to the north, the leaders decided not to march on Beijing but to sail east down the Yangtze towards Nanjing, a choice later criticised as a strategic error.

  6. Taiping take Nanjing and make it their Heavenly Capital

    Sailing down the Yangtze, the Taiping took Jiujiang and Anqing almost unopposed and reached Nanjing, the old southern capital, on 6 March 1853. Tunnels packed with explosives breached the walls and the city fell on 19 March. The Taiping killed tens of thousands of Manchu bannermen and their families in the garrison quarter. Hong renamed the city Tianjing, the Heavenly Capital, and ruled from there for eleven years, while Qing armies camped outside it.

  7. Northern Expedition sets out to capture Beijing

    To strike at the Qing capital, the commander Yang Xiuqing sent an army under Lin Fengxiang and Li Kaifang north from Yangzhou on 8 May 1853. Moving fast through Anhui and Henan without leaving garrisons, it crossed the Yellow River in late June but then lost two months besieging Huaiqing. Turning through Shanxi into Zhili, it alarmed the court in Beijing, which called in Manchu and Mongol cavalry to defend the city.

  8. Western Expedition retakes Anqing and pushes up the Yangtze

    A second army left Nanjing on 19 May 1853 to secure the Yangtze upstream. It recaptured Anqing on 10 June, then split: one force conquered much of Anhui and took Luzhou (Hefei) in January 1854, another went into Jiangxi, where it failed to take Nanchang, and a third moved on Hubei and Hunan. These campaigns gave the Taiping a belt of territory along the middle Yangtze that fed and recruited for the capital.

  9. Northern Expedition turns towards Tianjin instead of Beijing

    Close to the capital by late October, the expedition did not attack Beijing but moved on Tianjin, where it waited for reinforcements through the north China winter. Its southern soldiers suffered badly from the cold and lack of supplies. On 5 February 1854 Li ordered a retreat south, and Qing generals broke dykes to flood the rebels. Historians often see the failure to strike at Beijing at once as one of the war's decisive mistakes.

  10. Zeng Guofan's Xiang Army defeats the Taiping at Xiangtan

    Zeng Guofan, a senior official at home in Hunan, had turned local militia into a new provincial force, the Xiang (Hunan) Army, with its own river fleet and officers loyal to him personally. When Taiping forces of the Western Expedition took Xiangtan, upriver from Changsha, his troops beat them there on 1 May 1854. It was the first major victory of the new regional armies that would eventually win the war for the Qing.

  11. Xiang Army retakes Wuchang and Hanyang

    Following up its victory at Xiangtan, the Xiang Army and its fleet pushed down the Xiang River and the Yangtze and recaptured Wuchang and Hanyang on 14 October 1854. The Taiping struck back: in 1855 Shi Dakai badly defeated Zeng's river fleet at Hukou, and Taiping forces took Wuchang again on 3 April 1855. The middle Yangtze changed hands repeatedly over the next two years.

  12. The last of the Northern Expedition is destroyed in Shandong

    After retreating from Tianjin, the expedition's two halves were trapped in fortified villages. Lin Fengxiang was captured in Zhili in March 1855, and Li Kaifang held out at Fengguantun in Shandong until Qing forces took him in spring 1855 (sources give 31 March or 31 May). Almost the whole army was lost. A relief force sent north from Anqing in 1854 had never reached it, and the Taiping did not threaten Beijing again.

  13. Taiping break the Qing siege camp outside Nanjing

    Since 1853 a Qing army, the Jiangnan Battalion under Xiang Rong, had camped outside Nanjing. In June 1856 Taiping forces recalled from the west defeated it and lifted the three-year siege on 20 June; Xiang Rong died in August. The victory marked the height of Taiping power, holding the capital, much of Anhui and Jiangxi and the river between, but it also left the East King Yang Xiuqing feeling secure enough to claim equality with Hong.

  14. Tianjing Incident: Taiping leaders kill each other in the capital

    When Yang Xiuqing demanded a title equal to Hong's, Hong summoned his generals. On 2 September 1856 Wei Changhui and Qin Rigang stormed Yang's palace and killed him, his family and thousands of his followers. Wei then turned on Shi Dakai, who escaped, and Hong had Wei and Qin killed in turn. More than 27,000 people died, and in 1857 Shi left Nanjing with a large army. The movement never recovered its unity or leadership.

  15. Qing forces retake Wuchang for good

    While the Taiping leaders fought in Nanjing, Qing and Xiang Army forces besieging Wuchang took advantage. The city, which had changed hands several times since 1853, fell to the Qing on 19 December 1856 and stayed in their hands for the rest of the war. With Hubei secure, Zeng Guofan's armies could turn down the Yangtze towards Jiangxi and Anhui, the provinces that protected the Taiping capital.

  16. Xiang Army captures Jiujiang

    Jiujiang, at the mouth of Poyang Lake, had been a Taiping stronghold since 1853. In May 1858 the Xiang Army captured the city, and by September it had cleared the rest of Jiangxi. The fall of Jiujiang opened the Yangtze below Wuchang to Zeng's fleet and brought his armies to the borders of Anhui, the next province on the way to Nanjing.

  17. Battle of Sanhe: Taiping destroy an elite Xiang Army force

    A Xiang Army column of about 6,000 under Li Xubin pushed into central Anhui in autumn 1858 and attacked the Taiping-held town of Sanhe, a supply hub west of Lake Chao. The Taiping generals Chen Yucheng and Li Xiucheng, two of the new commanders who rose after 1856, brought over 100,000 men and ambushed it on 16 November. Li Xubin and Zeng Guofan's brother were killed and the Qing siege of Anqing had to be abandoned.

  18. Taiping rout the Jiangnan Battalion and break out east

    A rebuilt Qing army again besieged Nanjing. To draw it off, Li Xiucheng raided Hangzhou in March 1860, then doubled back, and in May the Taiping routed the Jiangnan Battalion and lifted the siege. Hong Rengan, Hong's cousin and new chief minister, sent the armies east into southern Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the richest region of the empire. The Qing commanders Zhang Guoliang and He Chun died, and command passed to Zeng Guofan.

  19. Taiping capture Suzhou

    Advancing down the Grand Canal, the Taiping took Changzhou on 26 May and Suzhou, one of China's wealthiest cities, on 2 June 1860. Li Xiucheng made Suzhou the seat of his own administration. In August a Taiping attack on Shanghai was repulsed by Chinese troops with European officers under the American Frederick Townsend Ward. The eastern campaign gave the Taiping a new heartland, but drew their best troops away from the middle Yangtze.

  20. Xiang Army takes Anqing after a year-long siege

    Zeng Guofan saw Anqing, the Taiping base upstream of Nanjing, as the key to the river. His brother Zeng Guoquan besieged it from September 1860, while a British blockade stopped foreign merchants supplying the city. Chen Yucheng's attempts at relief failed, and on 5 September 1861 the besiegers breached the walls of the starving city. Zeng moved his headquarters to Anqing and prepared the advance on Nanjing.

  21. Taiping capture Hangzhou and Ningbo in Zhejiang

    In late 1861 the Taiping launched a final eastern offensive. They took the treaty port of Ningbo on 9 December and, after a siege, Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang, on 31 December 1861. In January 1862 they surrounded Shanghai. The foreign powers, until then officially neutral, now joined the Qing in its defence, and Western naval forces and the Ever Victorious Army helped retake Ningbo on 10 May 1862.

  22. Xiang Army begins the siege of Nanjing

    Advancing down the Yangtze from Anqing, Zeng Guoquan's Xiang Army reached the walls of Nanjing in May 1862 and entrenched south of the city. Larger Taiping armies brought back from the east tried to break the siege but failed. Hong Xiuquan refused to leave, declaring that God would defend the Heavenly Capital, while Qing forces gradually took the river forts and the hills around the city.

  23. Ward is mortally wounded at Cixi as Shanghai is held

    Around Shanghai, the Huai Army of Li Hongzhang, British and French troops and the Ever Victorious Army, a Western-officered Chinese force founded by the American Frederick Townsend Ward, drove Taiping forces back from the city in 1862. Ward was shot leading an attack on Cixi, near Ningbo, on 21 September 1862 and died the next day. In March 1863 command passed to the British officer Charles Gordon.

  24. Suzhou surrenders to Li Hongzhang and Gordon

    Through 1863 the Huai Army and Gordon's Ever Victorious Army took the towns between Shanghai and Suzhou, using armed steamers on the canals. In early December 1863 Taiping officers inside Suzhou killed their commander Tan Shaoguang and opened the gates. Li Hongzhang then had the surrendered Taiping leaders executed despite Gordon's guarantee of their safety, and Gordon briefly refused to fight on. The loss of Suzhou cost the Taiping their eastern capital.

  25. Changzhou falls, completing the Qing reconquest of southern Jiangsu

    After Suzhou, the Huai Army and the Ever Victorious Army attacked Changzhou, the main Taiping base left on the Grand Canal. The decisive assault came between 25 April and 11 May 1864, when the city fell and its commander Chen Kunshu was captured and executed. In Zhejiang, Zuo Zongtang retook Hangzhou the same year. Gordon disbanded his army soon afterwards, and only Nanjing and scattered forces remained to the Taiping.

  26. Hong Xiuquan dies in besieged Nanjing

    By March 1864 the Xiang Army had completed the encirclement of Nanjing, and food ran out inside. Hong Xiuquan fell ill after eating wild plants, possibly intending suicide, and died on 1 June 1864 after about twenty days. His fifteen-year-old son Hong Tianguifu succeeded him, and Li Xiucheng took charge of the defence, but during the siege more than 200,000 Taiping troops left the city to surrender.

  27. Nanjing falls to the Xiang Army

    On 19 July 1864 the Xiang Army exploded a mine under the wall near the Taiping Gate and stormed into Nanjing; by evening every gate was taken. The unpaid troops looted, raped and killed, and the city burned for a week; Zeng Guofan's own reports put the dead at 100,000 or more. Li Xiucheng was captured and executed, and Hong's son was caught in October. Taiping remnants fought on in the south until 1866, but the Heavenly Kingdom was finished.

Related

Other wars of the time

Sources