hello there welcome to the pacific war channel the channel where we cover the complete history of the asia-pacific war from 1937-1945 we are currently looking at the major historical events that led up to the pacific war today's episode is going to be on the taiping rebellion of 1850 to 1864. if you didn't already watch my previous episode on the second opium war of 1856 to 1860 you should probably click here now as it gives a lot of the background information as to what's going on in china during this entire period and as we mentioned in our last episode china after the first opium war was in a terrible situation the imperial court positions which were only obtainable by rigorous examination guaranteeing the competency of the ruling class in china had changed as a result of social upheaval now by the 1850s anyone with 800 dollars could buy their way into the official positions and as a result the imperial court began to decay the inefficient imperial court overly taxed the population was rampantly corrupt and it officially discriminated against minority groups within china there was also an overflow of the hang he river in 1856 which destroyed thousands of acres of rice paddies china had recently had a population boom from 125 million in 1736 to a whopping 432 million by 1852 and the flood created a mass famine however the treaty of nanjing after the first opium war of 1839-1842 completely humiliated the chinese and all of this created a perfect catalyst for rebellion the taiping rebellion began in the southeastern province of gangji in 1851 and it lasted until its final suppression in 1864. the leader of the rebellion was a man named hong shuo chuan the third son of a hard-working rural family in guangdong hong's family were hakka a minority people in southern china his family made many sacrifices to get him educated enough to try for a place in the scholarly gentry by taking the civil service exam hong failed the civil service examinations twice humiliating him and leading him to go to canton to continue studying in hopes of passing for the third time around it was also around this time he came into contact with protestant missionaries and briefly read loose translations of the christian bible in chinese after filling the exam for the third time hong suffered a nervous breakdown which was accompanied by delirium and a series of hallucinations in these visions hong found himself talking to an older bearded man with golden hair who wore a black dragon robe and was called elder brother the man gave him a sword and taught him how to slay demons whom were infesting heaven hong went on like this until in 1843 he tried to pass the exam for a fourth time and failed this resulted in another nervous breakdown and hong began to interpret these visions where he was talking with his elder brother he then came to the conclusion that elder brother was actually jesus christ and hong was the younger brother of jesus christ hong began burning all confusion of buddhist statues and books in his house and then started to preach to the community of his divine mission which was to kill demons who were chinese gods and the current emperor of china chiang fang hung's charismatic preaching in 1847 in gran chi began to create a large following many of which were fellow hakkas after a while more minority groups converted and even members of the triad organization joined you see the triads have begun a secret movement to oppose the current manchu red qing dynasty in the hopes of restoring the old hand-run ming dynasty back to the dragon throne as more and more converted hong's teaching began to target the qing dynasty in particular stating it was righteous to destroy it and create a heavenly kingdom this kingdom was called the champion kingdom literally meaning the heavenly kingdom of great peace pong declared himself the heavenly king of the new dynasty and his followers were called pau shanti in english would be god worshipers by 1851 hong had recruited over 20 000 god worshipers a note of importance hong's philosophy was of opium abstinence and many joined his cause as a way to kick off the drug the taping rebellion was a political and military force with a proto 12-step program for recovering addicts a sort of theology that liberated its adherents from substance abuse this is not limited to just opium it included alcohol gambling tobacco prostitution the pig trade and any other form of slavery this is all very important because the qing's dynasties military may have been suffering rates of up to 90 addiction to opium during this period while hong had banned the substance from his military completely it has been argued by scholars that this accounted for a large part of the early military successes of the rebellion hong's most prominent disciple a charismatic ex-opium smuggler and coal salesman yang zhikwing was to be the early movement's military genius in january 1851 in the southern province of gangji local ching officials launched a campaign of religious persecution targeting the god worshippers the qing military quickly encircled and attempted to attack the god worshipers this led to 20 000 taping rebels to route a ching force of over 30 000 stationed in nearby giancian many comprised of the green standard army i will get into the specifics of both forces later on as it is extremely complicated so please bear with me the qing forces led by joao feng chi tried to launch an offensive in chiantian but the rebels anticipated the attack and ambushed them near siwang daik kejing village and near thistle mountain many of the qing forces were repulsed from thistle mountain by 10 000 rebels armed only with pikes and halberds taipan women also fought alongside the men in what is known as the gensian uprising a large reason for his his success it should be noted is that ching forces were also busy suppressing the tianziu rebellion nearby after this victory on january the 11th hong officially declared himself the heavenly king of the heavenly kingdom of peace and began to march he adapted the ten commandments for chinese sensibilities to his doctrine naming the emperor as a false god in the first commandment and adding obedience to hong and his officials as the fourth he then ordered the god worshipers to cut off their cues as a universal symbol of cutting their servitude to the alien manchu qing dynasty now before i speak about the battles that raged until 1864 i will try to explain what the militaries look like and how they worked please note that both the taiping rebels and the qing military changed dramatically over the course of 1850 to 1864 and i am merely giving a general overview the taiping rebels as already mentioned did not wear their hair in the manchu q style they often kept it long and loose or tied up in a knot they got the nickname chiang mei tsiya long haired bandits from this their usual uniform was red jackets with blue trousers and some wore red turbans or a headscarf but many simply wore whatever they could get their hands on they were rebels after all their two flags can be seen here the stinh army corps consisted of thirteen thousand one hundred fifty six men divided into five c regiments two thousand five hundred men with officers each seat was divided into five blue battalions of five hundred men and each had five two companies of one hundred each two had five yang platoons of 25 men with a sergeant iran was made up of four wu squads of privates with a corporal now the structure of the taiping heavenly kingdom had hong as king of heaven underneath him was the south king the east king west king north king and flank king each with their respective control of over 100 000 people including one army most of the kings died early into the rebellion in the mid 1850s and were replaced by princes who took up their respective regions it is estimated that at their height the taping rebels numbered over two million soldiers initially women took up the frontline fighting as i mentioned with the battle of ginsean but there is zero evidence of women fighting after 1853 men and women were rigidly segregated on active service and the women served in the field mostly to dig trenches and construct earthworks interestingly as late as 1858 10 000 women were specifically garrisoned in the capital of nianjin and drilled although they don't seem to have been fighting in any battles the majority of the military was armed with an 8 to 18 foot long spear and a knife for sword such as the li ya dao sorry that was very hard to pronounce some had bows though archery was less common in southern china and firearms were initially uncommon comprised of match locks and xinjiaos the jinjal could be as long as 10 feet and was crewed by 2-5 men fired usually upon a tripod or even a man's shoulder ouch it really probably hurt the shot weighed between four ounces to two pounds and had a range of one thousand yards by the 1860s the taipings acquired some western firearms such as muskets and rifles in the battle of chingpu in 1863 nearly one third of the taiping army held muskets or an einfield 1853 rifle all sorts of other weapons were usually like stinkpot's handmade powder bags or fireworks whatever they could get their hands on now the qing dynasties military is a complex nightmare to explain for such a short episode i'm going to try my best to summarize it the qing military consisted of approximately 3.4 million soldiers which was fighting not only the typing rebellion but countless other rebellions all at the same time there was also the second opium war going on so let's not forget that the army can be broken down into the eight banners army consisting of mostly manchus mongolians roughly around 250 000 this was more of an imperial guard force that was stationed mostly near the peking area there was also the green standard army consisting almost entirely of had chinese around six hundred and ten thousand strong they were the real military that was created because the eight banner army was extremely inefficient at war now we have the young and yin yang armies volunteers known as young braves were organized because of the poor performance of the green standard army in the 1850s the emperor commissioned numerous provincial officials to raise such units these units ended up being more successful than the eight banner or green standard army in the end the main jung yings consisted of ziang militia organized in hunan by tseng kulfan in 1853 it's around 130 000 strong the hue military organized in anyway which was about 70 000 people strong and the chu militia organized in sichuan was around 40 000 strong there was also village militias known in chinese as tuan yan usually comprised of 200 to 500 men per small village and 2 000 per large village ranged to be in the countless thousands and fought for either the imperials or the taipings depending on who is in the region now there was a specific force called the ever victorious army which would be called eva for short there were five thousand strong the eva was originally a foreign mercenary force formed under the command of an american filibuster frederick townsend ward in 1860 it soon became an army of chinese soldiers trained and led by western officers it began as a local strategic support group to repull typing rebels from shanghai which the western forces of britain and france were occupying as a result of the ongoing second opium war this eventually led the eva to help the qing military within the shanghai region because the westerners really did not want the taiping government to ruin their trade deals as you can imagine the ava soldiers were armed with 44 american cult dragoon revolvers or 38 colt navy revolvers .577 sharp percussion carbines 0.702 british tower muskets or the 0.577 einfield rifle artillery was the 8-inch howitzer motors rocket tubes and riverboat flotillas they also had artillery mountain on them the imperial forces aside from the ava were equipped with various weapons regulations apparently required that each man had a shield a bow match lock spear and two swords but in reality the majority were equipped with no more than a sword pole armor spear northern chinese forces were skilled archers particularly the mongolian bannermen who used bows the bow was considered a more effective weapon than the match lock for those skilled in archery remember southern china where the majority of the taiping rebels came from were not known for archery as much so the northerners had a decisive advantage jingles were used on tripods or mounted on cavalry and the qing military had a large amount of cavalry which the taipings dramatically lacked western fire firearms such as the ones ava were using were used in small numbers for example it is estimated that the way armies had at least 1 000 muskets and rifles in 1862 this increased to about 15 000 by 1864. less conventional weapons included magazine fitted crossbows capable of firing 10 bolts rapidly or rocket propelled barbed arrows fitted with fireworks which sounds absolutely awesome i really hope to edit something and to show these off those must be cool the artillery included long dragon cannons made from brass iron and copper wood and usually constructed to look like dragons these were entrenched or mounted on carriages by the 1860s some small caliber field artillery began to be used on mule drawn carriages both taipings and the imperials tried to copy western exploding shells with limited success there is so much more to say about all of this but i would have to dedicate an entire episode just to go into the weaponry alone all right so now that you have somewhat of an understanding of what the armies look like let's get to the actual rebellion again after the jinxian uprising the god worshippers abandoned their stronghold in the thistle mountain and began to march on gang now they were around sixty thousand strong september the twenty fourth eighteen fifty one the taipings took young gang fairly easily because of the numbers and the lack of coordination by the qing forces they established the north south west east and flank king system a tangpang calendar and other social reforms at this time by 1852 the taipings were driven out of yangan by the qing military encirclement in which they lost around 20 percent of their forces they regroup and begin to march north towards the heavenly fortified city of chiang cha there they are ambushed along the way by qing forces losing over ten thousand men but soon begin a siege on the city and dig tunnels to breach the walls the west king jiao zhonggui leading some of the forces was trying to boost morale by waving a typing banner during the siege and was shot by a qing soldier defending the wall hong eventually calls off the siege in november 1852 and then continues to march north as his forces were already taking the surrounding region you see the typing strategy was to take city after city but quickly abandon them this was because the qing military was constantly behind them trying desperately to encircle them to halt their advances by 1852 the south and west king both die in battle but the taiping army has now grown to possibly half a million strong next they take yao zhuo and seize over 5 000 boats which they use to sail up the yangtze river they came up to the strongly walled and massively guarded city of wuchang which is the modern day wuhan for your information which is quite a present issue as this is coveted they send troops north to seize the two wealthy towns of hangyang and hanco in december once these are captured they construct an enormous floating bridge with boats to cross the yangtze so that they can attack wu-chang on the other side where it has weaker walls again the taipings dig tunnels into the city but the defenders create sunken listening posts to pinpoint where they are digging and counter tunnel to attack them eventually the civilian population in wu chang joined the taiping cause as their homes were already being destroyed and they have little little to lose at this point on january the 12th 1853 hong's forces blow open the gates and massacre every manchu soldier they find on the grounds that they are demons hong imposes the death penalty on the moneylenders and corrupt officials and thus wins the peasants over to his cause it was common in all of these major city battles for the taipans to to spare the civilians and kill the proclaimed demons in order to secure more peasants to recruit for the army the siege of ancieng was next and it fell in a similar fashion to wukang the major city of nanjing was now open to attack with a force of 750 000 men now the taipings reached nanjing on march the 6th 1853 the city is guarded by 20 000 eight banner forces and forty thousand green standard army forces for over two weeks the taipings tunneled beneath the city walls in order to plant explosives and managed to blow up a large hole in the wall the taipings flood into the imperial city on march the 20th reaching the home of the manchu garrison the eight bannermen defend against the taiping human wave attack this is an infantry tactic where the attacker makes a frontal assault unprotected with a dense formation trying to overrun and overwhelm the defender in melee combat the idea is to sweep the enemy with sheer weight and momentum the battle is extremely bloody with over ten thousand taiping casualties the eight bannermen and green standard forces of 30 000 members of their manchu families are butchered when the city is captured hong is merciless to the people of nanjing who he considers all demons besides killing the usual you know the usual suspects like money lenders manchus corrupt officials and the rich this time there was a lot of women and children that were killed now while the god worshipers prayed for their victims the demon prisoners were herded all mass into buildings which were lit on fire unfortunately for many mentors they were easily identifiable because of the way their deformed skulls looked during um infancy they would bind their skulls that's uh something i should have maybe said at the beginning the yangtze river was literally overflowing with corpses at this point the seizure of nanjing allowed hong to effectively block the yang sea and thus pking itself from the southern lands which fed it at this point the taipings could march on p king and almost certainly have overthrown emperor's yang fang and with him the qing dynasty however this is not what ends up happening hong entered nanjing on march 30th 1853 apparently carried on a golden litter and accompanied by over 36 women of great beauty riding horses and carrying yellow parasols this would have been quite a very shocking scene in china where women were supposedly only there to maintain a dimmer demeanor ten days later hong began wearing a yellow robe and the shoes of an emperor retiring in the nanjing's viceroy's palace where he never left for over 10 years hong declares nanjing to be the heavenly capital and it seems it he then went into a sex-crazed period of depression and decadence he stopped shaving and was attended by over 800 female servants some french observers reported that hong kidnapped and raped french virgins whom he forced into the palace harem needless to say he allowed matters of governance to be done by subordinates while he lived it up the subordinates devised a land distribution system created public granaries where food could be stored and implemented military training programs for the civilians hong made many social reforms such as segregating the sexes abolishing foot binding abolishing private property when possible and redistributing land in many ways the taiping ideology can be seen as a precursor to marxism it seems that the wealth and comfort of nanjiang did not just soften hong it also affected his generals who were spared his laws like the prohibition of sex hong continued to pay lip service to the revolution's original goal of capturing p king and ousting the demon emperor jiang fang while him and his generals enjoyed the high life in nanjing in may 1853 hong sent a measly army of only twenty thousand soldiers to march in p king the troops were ill-prepared for the severe winter conditions and many fell victim to the weather also there was no supply lines kept from nanjing and extreme foraging hindered the troops the force made it around 100 miles before p king when emperor's young fang unleashed his secret weapon a mercenary force of mongolian cavalry led by her old friend prince sang link who we will call sang from now on to encircle the taiping rebels who had no cavalry the rebel infantry were no match for the faster moving mongol cavalry archers who dispersed the army quickly before it could even threaten peking the qing forces also diverted water from the grand canal to flood nearby taiping camps the rubbles you know they clung to makeshifts trying to escape with remnant survivors driven to lianjian where they were completely annihilated by the mongol cavalry the failure to send sufficient forces to pee kang or support them let the taipings to focus on defending their new capital in nanjing thereafter their field armies had to be recalled to nanjing constantly to frustrate the qing forces attempting to encircle the nanjing region this led the qing to set up two imperialist headquarters on the north and south of the yangtze from then on the ching military constantly attempted to retake cities around nanjing in order to encircle and strangle them in december 1856 yang zu ching the east kang began to speak as the voice of god stating that hong was too harsh on those around him and too indulgent of his four-year-old son tengwei fu yang strengthened his position by claiming visions similar to hong's and by the summer of 1856 it seemed apparent that preparations were being made to transfer power to nyanjing to him surprisingly yang's rival the northern king wei changhui suddenly attacks his forces and kills yang along with 20 000 of his supporters in a bloody two-week purge where it is estimated that between ten thousand to a hundred thousand people die fighting please note that in 1856 the second opium war has just kicked off it's in the background disturbed by the purge the flank king shi dakay returns to nanjing in october 1857 speaking out against wei changhui for his actions we commands his force to kill shi's family members and then she flees the city and prepares his troops to attack the city hong then has way killed and sends his head to she to prove he has avenged his family's deaths so that she returns to the city hong then names two of his elder brothers as new kings hong men fa as peace king and hong ronde as blessings king this led to hard feelings a resentment for sri who saw a competition with the family members of the hongs let's remember shui was the last remaining king before these two were promoted so hard feelings in 1858 a qing army attempts a siege on nanjing with over two hundred thousand troops but they are routed by lee zhu chang's forces by may 1860 and the qing lose a devastating sixty thousand men inside the palace hong has become more and more reclusive and surrounding himself with his harem and immediate family members hong is beginning to only trust his immediate family now and proclaims hong king gang as shield king to increase his family king structure she is unable to get along with the hongs and strikes out on his own into the western province in 1857 taking about 70 000 troops with him he has minor successes campaigning in the eight provinces but is eventually captured and executed by ching forces by 1863. the purge and shi's departure mark the beginnings of the taiping's fall basically effectively eliminating capable military leaders and many of the experienced officers there was some hope though with the promotion of li zhu chang to eastern king who was given the orders to capture shanghai in early eighteen sixty one li zhu chang took five hundred thousand troops with them into marching on shanghai taking zusho on the way very easily encouraged by the easy conquest of zuzo lee believes the western foreigners of shanghai will welcome the taipans with open arms this is because the western foreigners had previously contacted nanjing and stated that they would remain neutral during the entire conflict lee hopes to trade for western firearms and steamships from the anglo-french traders there who are currently at war with the qing dynasty you know the enemy of my enemy is my friend take note emperor jiang fang dies in 1861 and is succeeded by emperor tongjie also a ching force led by zheng guogang managed to recapture ang ching from the taiping now this is where i would argue the taiping rebellion met its match on august 18 1861 the taipings reached the shanghai region forcing the qing military to flee and regroup behind the walls of shanghai city the taiping forces advanced to the wall city expecting the western foreigners to embrace them but instead are met with gunfire from the walls frederick townsend's wards 3 000 ava troops who initially were formed to fight piracy now had orders to defend the shanghai region from the taiping rebels officially withdrawing the western's promise of neutrality the taipings had orders not to fire on any westerners and the result was about 300 taipings dead and with it the hopes of ever trading with them the taiping forces then broke into five major army groups led by tan joao gang li rongfei ji ching yang chen kenshu and chen bing wang i am sorry if i mispronounced these names who begin to attack and occupy local city suburbs of the shanghai region such as pudong zyatang all in preparation for a large assault on the city of shanghai the defenders consisted of forty thousand green standard army members led by huang yi twenty thousand hui yang militia led by lee hong zhang and ward's 33 000 ava troops what occurs in this region from then on is a series of absolutely terrible defeats for the taipans march 1st 20 000 taiping rebels leave xiaotang and attack puudong where they run into wards ava force the ava routes the rebels using sharp repeating rifles inflicting high casualties and expelling them not just from budong but also from xiaotang on april 15th 5 000 green standard army members encircle the taipings who occupy tian kang li zhu chang orders a relief force of 100 000 men on april 19th to help which forces the green standards to flee but they are caught in between and are completely wiped out on april the 29th major general chen bin wen takes his forces from jiandian to attack song jiang where he faces hui ying militia who effectively defend the city binguan is forced to make a retreat west as a result of this may the first li rongfiz taiping forces in naihue are encircled by the hui ying militia and are forced to surrender by the end of may with all these setbacks the typings were effectively expelled from a 30 mile radius of the shanghai proper region in september 1862 tan xiao quang with a typing force of 80 000 mounts a second attack on the shanghai proper being defended by a force of twenty thousand hui ying militia commanded by major general song the taipings move in rapidly reaching qingpu five kilometers from shanghai city just before they can launching the attack the qing navy led by huang isen bombards them from the river then the ava forces show up devastating the taiping rebels with sharp repeating rifles and cult revolvers completely haltering haltering their attack the taipings are stuck and use the time to build floating bridges to retreat by going around the defender the qing navy combined with 6 000 hoy militia make eight successful attacks on the trap taipings cutting off their retreat the huey militia break through the line of taipei and massacre over thirty thousand of them the remaining taiping forces under general gua yang guang and general tan flee to sushua where they try to fortify and defend it yang militia along with the eva forces successfully attacked them over four times and the taipings lose well warden as eva forces attacked the taipings in zishi on september the 20th 1862 ward leads a frontal assault and is shot by a taiping musketeer ward manages to win the battle but die soon after because of his injury he is replaced by charles george gordon known as chinese gordon by 1863 shi dakai fights a battle in chengdu trying to stop the ching forces from reaching nanjing he ends up encircled and surrenders which results in his execution now the path to nanjing is laid open to the qing forces this led hong to retreat more and more to his harem and depression until he officially announced that his son tiangui would now deal with all worldly affairs so hong could concentrate on leading his followers to their heavenly place hong changed his son's name to chiang wai fu heaven's precious happiness it was also at this point when hong stopped seeing anyone but his closest friends and family members completely secluding himself as a result of their major victories the qing military reorganizes their command to zheng gualfan zoa juan tang and li hong zhang who are ordered to retake nanjing the eva are restricted to their shanghai territory but also defend port cities such as ningbo where on may the 10th they eradicate tapping forces attempting to occupy it popular opinion of the taipings begin to turn as the chinese peasants begin to join the wei ying militia and drive taiping rebels out of their villages the peasants as a result of the shanghai expedition had their farms depleted and the constant marches and counter marches were hindering harvests at this time the taiping forces were now underfed ridden with disease and left stranded without proper winter garments during a particularly rough winter nanjing region became a battleground and the ching forces were encircling them 1863 zhang guanfang zheng guo and zhu hong zhang lead a combined xiang militia force of over 500 000 men to march in nanjing these forces similar to the way militia are a standing army group created by zheng guanfan originating in hunan province they consist of villager militia groups and many ex-type paying rebels it is during this upcoming battle the third battle of nanjing where this is a clear-cut battle of modern arms versus primitive the jing militia forces had many western arms and reportedly the first chinese-made bolt-action rifle i'll bite just a few the taipings were disease ridden starving and relying on melee weapons with fewer firearms at this point the zhang militia take the suburbs of nianjin battle after battle as the qing navy under admiral peng yulin takes gua chun and other key river areas by the late 1863 nanjing was effectively under siege and they began to starve on december the 20th 1863 li urges hong to abandon nanjing and flee hong rejects this plea and takes command again after such a long period of seclusion hong declares that anyone who disobeys him is thus disobeying with god and would be executed the effect is disastrous and the taping arming results in a massive discontent the soldiers are not happy this leads over 200 000 soldiers to surrender before the siege phase and before a major battle could even take place in february the tian bao castle sitting on the purple mountain surrenders to xi'an forces which allows zheng guo chan to deploy troops on the vulnerable gates of nanjing march the 24th zheng guo orders his men to make an attack on nanjing using wall climbing ladders but the taipings managed to beat them down the xi'an then take a page out of the taiping siege book and begin to dig tunnels at chuao yang shantz and jinshuan gates the taiping's counter-tunnel but the zian are able to use mines to explode portions of the wall at this point now on june the 1st 1864 hong dies as a result of mass starvation of nanjing hong told the people that god was protecting them by scattering mana weeds around the grounds as he had once done for the children of israel according to his son chiang guifu hong ate mana weeds growing outside the palace that made him ill and he died according to li zhu chang hong committed suicide by poisoning himself hong's body was wrapped in the emperor's yellow shroud and buried without a coffin which was the typing's method it was announced to the people that hong the heavenly king had gone to heaven to request from god to send an army to help the taipings defend nanjing his son is pronounced heavenly king and li chang is now in full command of the military and political affairs unfortunately this is far too late to even matter on july the 3rd 1864 jibao castle on the purple mountain falls to the xi'an forces which allows them to set up an artillery to bombard the city the effect was heavy casualties on the taipings who tried desperately to fight in the tunnels and above while being bombarded gets desperate he orders a small force to break out of nanjing at night in a in an attempt to sabotage the tunnels the tunnelers realizing they were being attacked detonated the mines under the taiping gate which breaks the wall killing hundreds of people within the city sixty thousands young soldiers then rush into the city from the opening while the typing defenders struggle to hold them back they fight street to street in a bloody melee while yang forces at shenz and xiao zhang gate use ladders to climb up the wall to link up with the forces with the fall of the remaining gates of nanjing lee runs to the viceroy palace to rescue tianghue faye lee's force is attacked by general chen si's yang force and lee is forced to flee to the ching yang mountain lee holds only one thousand men left and makes an attempt at the taiping gate at night disguised as young soldiers but only manages to escape to ming zhaoling mausoleum the only reason lee and his men were able to get to the mausoleum was because the xiang army at this point was full-scale looting of nanjiang and too busy to pay attention the massive looting lasted until july the 26th when the city was literally lit on fire on july 30th the xiang forces find the body of hong they exhume it behead it and cremate it they then take the ashes and blast them out of a cannon to ensure his remains have no resting place this is the eternal punishment for his rebellion lee tries to find chiang wai faye again but his small force of a thousand men is attacked by a cavalry force of 700. this results in a large-scale carnage and many taiping commanders are taken prisoner lee himself is captured near the square mountain on july 28th when his horse collapses on him he is forced to write down his confessions and then he is executed and hong rigan managed to escape with around 1 000 followers and get as far as xi jiang jiang ki many taiping forces attempt to rally together in northern zhuaijiang to find tianguy fei and continue his rebellion unfortunately chonghue faye is captured by zhang guofan his california units chiang kui fei was executed on november the 18th 1864. the remnants of taiping forces attempt to hold out but were eradicated by 1871 in regions such as zhangjii and fujian estimates are unreliable but it is said that a total of 10 million troops have been involved in the taiping rebellion over 600 cities change hands time and time again during 15 years of combat over 20 to 30 million people are believed to have died with some districts losing 40 to 80 percent of their population the taiping rebellion was thus the bloodiest conflict in world history until the second world war let that sink in a little bit if you're a western audience member you're most likely never even heard of this event and it is only overshadowed by world war ii's death toll so let us just summarize everything that we have just learned what caused the taiping's defeat in a military sense it was the failure to take advantage of the qing's preoccupation with the second opium war and marching p king with a substantial force after taking nanjing if hong had sent a real force in p king instead of 20 000 men and left nanjing like he did so many other cities he could have taken p king as his heavenly kingdom the qing would have been forced further north and the taipings would have had most likely toppled their entire government instead he continuously sent piecemeal armies out of nanjing while secluding himself within the city it was a real possibility that the taipings overthrew the qing dynasty the typing rebellion was one rebellion amongst many others going on at the time there was the nyan rebellion of 1853 to 1868 the panthei rebellion of 1855 to 1873 the dungan revolt of 1862 to 1877 all alongside the second opium war of 1856 to 1860. it goes without saying the qing dynasty was really vulnerable in this time so after all this what does this have to do with the pacific war of 1937 to 1945 you might be asking the typing rebellion was a major inspiration for sun yat-sin and mao jaedong who will go on to perform their own rebellions sun yat-sin overthrew the qing dynasty during the xinhai revolution of 1911 leading the way for china's first republic mao zedong also took inspiration from the taiping rebellion when he fought chiang kai-shek's nationalist party during the chinese civil war of 1927-1950 the taiping rebellion among many other rebellions in the 19th century china opened the door to revolution and this is a major reason for the fracture china we see during the pacific war i hope you really like this episode of the pacific war please don't forget to subscribe and leave a like and or comment as you can see i have a very hungry bird who's been quite patient this entire video join us next time where we are finally going to talk about something outside of china and that will be the mega restoration of japan beginning with its grand opening to the world this has been the pacific war channel over and out you