Taiping Rebellion | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Image of the Battle of Anqing (1861) |
|||||||
|
|||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
Later stages: |
Taiping Heavenly Kingdom | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Strength | |||||||
1,100,000+ | 500,000 | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
145,000 killed | 243,000 killed | ||||||
Total dead: 20–30 million dead (best estimate). Highest estimate: 100,000,000 |
Qing victory
Later stages:
France
United Kingdom
The Taiping Rebellion or Taiping Civil War (simplified Chinese: 太平天国运动; traditional Chinese: 太平天國運動; pinyin: Taìpíng Tīanguó Yùndòng, literally "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement") was a massive rebellion or civil war in China that lasted from 1850 to 1864 fought between the established Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the millenarian movement of the Heavenly Kingdom of Peace. The Taiping Rebellion began in the southwestern province of Guangxi when local officials launched a campaign of persecution against a millenarian sect known as the God Worshipping Society led by Hong Xiuquan, who believed himself to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ. 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 regularized province of China proper except Gansu. The war was the largest in China since the Qing conquest in 1644, and ranks as one of the bloodiest wars in human history, the bloodiest civil war, and the largest conflict of the nineteenth century with estimates of war dead ranging from 20 to 70 million, to as much as 100 million, as well as millions more displaced.