Talk:Taiping Rebellion

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'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.

Poop.

Poop is right, the 3rd reference in this article is absurd. It is an internet article that is poorly written and clearly not within academic standard. Please remove. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.145.152.212 (talk) 10:29, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

'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". Zotlan 10:29, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

This article has nothing to do with Catholics in China as the Taiping were Protestants. I'm removing the link.--Gary123 04:06, 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. Anthony 12:52, 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.

I find it interesting. -- Error

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)

Contents

[edit] YES

That point is valid!


[edit] Hey

what about Zuo Zongtang?

Was it a Rebellion or a Revolution? The Chinese Government refer to it as a Revolution.

[edit] Death toll

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?

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.31.179.102 (talk) 09:49, 15 December 2007 (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)

Hey guys, I've made a page on Hong Rengan. I will try to expand all the pages on the Taiping rebellion over the next few months. 24.124.61.165 04:48, 29 May 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?--70.189.32.215 22:59, 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. Anthony 12:27, 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. --Jmnage 07:26, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 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.


[edit] 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. TastyCakes 07:00, 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... TastyCakes 07:14, 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.--Mongol 06:50, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 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

[edit] Hakka

The Hakka article describes them as a subgroup of Han Chinese. So wouldn't the Hakka members of the Taiping Army be Han Chinese? DHN 17:38, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

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. =/ Hanfresco 04:31, 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) ShootingStarTP 19:11, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 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?

It is indeed a misspelling. Corrected it and added some more information.Zotlan 11:45, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Poor Quality Entry addendum

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."

That was vandalism. If you find something like that again, see earlier versions of the article for the original text. Wikipeditor 00:38, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
For that matter, feel free to fix an article if you see vandalism. That is, after all, one of the big features of Wikipedia. --KNHaw 05:34, 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.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Additional Biblical books

Where can I found the additional Biblical books he added to the Bible in addition to the Old and New Testaments? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.224.54.249 (talk) 07:51, 23 February 2007 (UTC).

Franz Michael's The Taiping Rebellion contains most of the extant documents of the Taipings.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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 Thurston 13:57, 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 -_- Olir 14:57, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 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.

[edit] .. 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. Maproom 17:36, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 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)

There's nothing to merge. If you would like the redirect to be deleted, see WP:RFD. –Pomte 10:08, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] <Tian Gui (Tien Kuei) (田貴?) (–1864, executed)>

Tian Gui was the son and heir of Hong XiuQuan. Chinese is 天貴 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.225.176.174 (talk) 22:15, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Modern practitioners

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)

[edit] Foreign Views

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)

[edit] 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)