How to start a rebellion : The Chinese way (Part- II)

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, Karl Marx had said this once and perhaps it actually makes sense, because it is quite clear that at any point in history, practice of religion had never been considered a leisure activity, instead it had always stood on the plinth of fear and dissatisfaction among the others and similar was the case in Qing China where the Taiping Christianity acted as a catharsis for the disenchanted peasants and the ultimate result was obviously a rebellion. 

The Taiping Story

 The moment Hong was banished from his village marked the beginning of a new faith in modern China, the Taiping Christianity, Taiping roughly translates to Great peace in English, but ironically it was everything but peace, in fact at a certain point of time the situations were such that it would definitely not be wrong to consider it a great massacre (Back to topic).

 As mentioned before Hong had now taken preaching as his new full time job, he would now go from village to village exhorting his own version of Christianity, converting 

People, gaining followers and devoting the  mean time in compiling his very own Bible. It was a very crucial period for Hong as well as for the entire Taiping faith, for in the coming years it had to determine the destiny of a large mass of Chinese population. During this time his most important convert was Feng Yungshah, one of his earlier schoolmates, who later established The God worshipper society, which was the cardinal institution that formally initiated the Taiping Rebellion. Only after three years of being ostracized by his village, in 1847 Hong had gained a very significant amount of followers and the reason for such mass following was simple, faith. 

 They say belief is brainwashing and faith is washing the brain but perhaps hong has dry cleaned the mind of his followers because the poor exasperated peasants were now even unable to differentiate between belief, faith and utter insanity. It was no doubt that hong's anti government rhetoric was alluring and his words particularly touched the marginal sections of Chinese society but the customs that he derived was kind of strict and foolish, to such an extent that physical relations were strictly prohibited even among husband and wife, infact they were forced to live in different huts to prevent any of such situations(just imagine that ;)).

 

But if we put these follies aside, Hong was undoubtedly a steardy and worthy leader who created and led the history's most harrowing rebellion (and believe me it's not an easy task) 

The open rebellion started in the outskirts of the Guangxi province located in southern China, which apparently was a famine striken area and as mentioned before the movement led by Hong was gaining momentum particularly in such areas, peasents were converting in high numbers due to hong's rhetorics, and their population had reached a point which forced the Qing emperor to confront and subdue this problem. As a result, in 1850 the imperial army was sent to control the situation and neutralize(kill) anyone who was converted into hong's Taiping Christianity. 

 ( image: taipingrebellion.com)

             

As a response to this military display, Hong used the most traditional and convenient method often used by many rebel leaders even now and that is accumulation of his followers into an army to directly confront the imperial forces and emperor. And declared his own dynasty or kingdom called the taiping heavenly kingdom of which, he obviously was the heavenly king. 

By this time the clouds of second opium war was starting to form and a storm of foreign supremacy was threatening the sovereignty of Qing empire (not that it had any left but still).

The military craftsmanship of Hong was truly impressive, he gathered an army of around 30-40 thousand, which mainly constituted deprived and poor countryside peasants , then he launched an attack against the imperial troops in January c.1851. Initially it was not going very well and Hong was almost losing the battle against the 7 thousand imperial soldiers, however the structure of Taiping army proved to be very effective, Hong had arranged the whole army into several bands with a hierarchy of command which reduced the burden of war on a specific band, facilitated the management of army and strategically benefited the entire organization of army. Hence, as a result Hong emerged victorious in this battle.

His victory was a crucial point in modern Chinese history as it is now going to determine the future of million and millions of Chinese people. This victory increased the morale of Taiping soldiers and they have now started to believe that this is the future that the heaven desires. With this vision in their eyes they were marching from city to city, recruiting soldiers, gathering support and with all this in hand, Hong's army soon reached a mark of one million in c.1853 and became an imperial rival of imperial Qing forces. 

Siege of Nanking

 With this much power in hand, Hong had now planned to land a big blow on Qing empire by capturing the most important city of 19th century China, Nanking or Nanjing. It was an important trade city which generated most of the revenue for the Qing empire and thus was an important element needed for the smooth functioning of the Qing state. In c.1853 around 7,50,000 soldiers laid siege to the city of Nanking, blocking all the pathways and entrances of the city creating an environment of total adversity for its residents. The siege lasted for 13 days, and in between these 13 days several tactics were adopted to neutralize the defences of the city. Tunnels were dung below the city walls, Taiping agents in form of monks were sent inside the city to identify the internal weak points of the defence and bombs were planted. On the 13th day the bombs were detonated and the defences of the city collapsed, Taiping army immediately took hold of this opportunity and captured the city. Nanjing has now fallen into the heavenly kingdom. And Hong declared it as the capital of the heavenly kingdom. 

    ( image: Armors and Clothing)

         

The heavenly reforms and ambitions 

  After capturing Nanjing and declaring it the capital of the heavenly kingdom, Hong introduced some interesting reforms and the most important among them was giving equal rights to women, you see in 19th century China women were generally considered as subordinate to men in every aspect of life and were expected to fulfill their traditional role of wives, mothers and caregivers, additionally they had very little access to education, So it was nearly impossible for women to even dream about being anything other then home makers but Hong not only gave them equal rights but even commissioned some of them as officers to perform Civil and military duties. And one more thing, a distinct feature of the heavenly administration was that there was no demarcation between Civil officers and military officers, an officer of heavenly kingdom was expected to perform both the duties.

  Another important reform that he made was the abolishion of private property, and believe me it was a great deal, some scholars even interpret it as the first attempt of establishing a communist mode of production in modern world. It was a policy that shall be influencing the upcoming leaders of modern china like Mao Zadong to a great extent.

 But perhaps there were some contradictions in these reforms also. While it was not generally  allowed to keep private property, the officers of heavenly kingdom did keep large farms and property, Physical relations were prohibited and they still kept a harem consisting many women and Hong also was no exception, this created a sense of dissatisfaction among the public(again) and internal conspiracies started to emerge, but Hong easily subdued all these as he was the heavenly king and brother of Jesus Christ so who do you think can conspire against him ;) (also he killed everyone along with their family and servants who dared to conspire against him) .

The heavenly failure 

  While the reforms that hong introduced were quite exceptional and his political counter attacks were almost flawless. Same can also be said about his luck and unfortunately it has started to run out in c.1860 when the second opium war ended and Qing emperor was able to gather the support of foreign powers. Ultimately with the support of French, USA, and the English the Qing emperor formed an army that was so powerful that it crushed everything that came across its path. 

In c.1863 the imperial army reclaimed all the land that the Taiping rebels had captured and laid a siege in Nanjing disrupting all the incoming food and other necessary resources. But surprisingly Hong was unbothered by all this and said "GOD WILL PROVIDE" And how exactly he himself was not sure of that, as a result he just plucked some wild plants and started to eat them until one of them turned out to be poisonous and he ultimately died. shortly after that in c.1864 Nanjing was reclaimed and heavenly kingdom was erased from the map of Qing China. 

 

 This rebellion had resulted in an estimate casualty of around 20-30 million civilians and the indirect number of casualties can go up to 100 million who died of diseases, famine and starvation. 

And all this because Hong failed those damn imperial exams. So, in essence if you ever fail some formidable exam, you can always start a rebellion along with a cult.

 Also what happened to Hong's body you ask, well he was cremated and his ashes were blowen out of a canon. So you better be prepared for that if you are planning to start your own rebellion.