Taiping Tianguo (Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace), 1853-64

["Dixie" <Dixie@singnet.com.sg>]

Taiping Tianguo (Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace), 1853-64   

In December 1850, there was a peasant uprising in the Hakka village of
Jintian in Guiping County, Guangxi Province. It was called the Taiping
Rebellion and the leader was Hong Xiuquan. Hong, a rural intellectual, was
born into a family of Hakka peasants in Hua County in Guangdong Province in
1814. The Taiping Rebellion's leaders were Hakkas: Hong Xiuquan, Yang
Xiuqing, Feng Yunshan, Shi Dakai, Li Xiucheng, Chen Yucheng, Hong Rengan
and many others. Their aim was to overthrow the Qing (Manchu) Dynasty and
restore Chinese rule in China. The Manchus, a minority tribe, has ruled
China for more than 200 years then.  
  
In January 11, 1851, Hong declared himself as the Heavenly King and the
Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace (Taiping Tianguo) was established. By March
1853, the Taiping army, had captured stoutly-defended towns and cities,
including the great Yangtze River city of Nanjing, the old Ming Dynasty
capital. Nanjing was renamed the Heavenly City, capital of the Heavenly
Kingdom. The army's logistic feat in moving hundreds of thousands of men,
women and children safely through enemy territories was greatly impressive.
     
In May 1853, Hong sent a 70 000-strong expedition force northward to
capture the Qing capital, Beijing. The Taiping northern expedition forces
fought through the provinces of Anhui, Jiangsu, Henan, Shanxi and Hebei to
Tianjin City. Although the rebellion was started by the Hakkas and most of
the Taiping commanders and soldiers were Hakkas, the non-Hakka Chinese did
join the revolution at a later stage.   
Many Chinese joined the the Taipings' ranks during their military advances
and campaign marches. The army grew to a fanatical but highly disciplined
force of a million. The Qing soldiers called the Hakka women "Big foot
hillbilly witch" because they fought side by side with the men and they
never bind their feet to make them small like other Chinese women. 
    
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom occupied one-third of China and lasted eleven
years. In the lands where the Taipings rule, a new form of government was
introduced. The Taiping leaders adopted many new policies which were later
essential to the modernization of China: the prohibition of opium smoking,
gambling, prostitution, polygamy, the sale of slaves, and the use of
torturous and cruel punishment for offences. They promoted the equality of
the sexes: foot-binding among the women was abolished, women were appointed
as administrators and army officers and have the right to take examinations
for higher offices. Besides these reforms, the semi-solar calendar was
adopted and railways, hospitals and banks were built. Foreign dignitaries
were received in Nanjing. Some Western-educated Taiping leaders even
proposed the development of industry and the building of a Taiping
democracy. 
  
In July 19, 1864, the heroic Taipings were defeated by the Qing army, which
was assisted by British and French gunboats, cannons and men. One of the
reasons the British helped the Qing court was that the Taiping government
has banned the use of opium in Taiping lands. Ironically, the Qing general
who defeated the Taipings, Zeng Guofan, a Confucian scholar-bureaucrat, is
a Hakka himself. Hong had died and his followers were massacred, together
with the inhabitants of Nanjing, Hangzhou and other great Taiping cities.
Remnants of the Taiping army continued fighting till 1866 in other parts of
the country. One of the Taiping generals, Liu Yongfu, also a Hakka,
retreated to Vietnam and helped the Vietnamese defeated the invading French
army at Hanoi. At least 20 million people died during the period of the
Taiping Rebellion.
  
The Taiping Rebellion nearly overthrow the Qing Dynasty and is the largest
uprising in the modern history of China. Most importantly, it lay the
foundation for the modernization of China. Both the Chinese Nationalists
and the Chinese Communists trace their origin to the Taipings. In fact,
both groups of revolutionaries were dominated by the Hakkas. Today, the
Taiping Rebellion is honored by the communist government in China, which
view it as a prototype revolution of peasants in the modern world.
 
Although the rebellion failed, the Chinese, led by another Hakka, Dr Sun
Yatsen, were successful in overthrowing the Qing Dynasty 47 years after the
collapse of Taiping Tianguo.