WI: successful Taiping Rebellion?
- Thread starter oshron
- Start date
Having a fanatical not-exactly-Christian ruling class over Buddhist/Daoist/whatever nation is not a recipe for success in the long run.
But they were fervent nationalists who wanted to drive out American and European influence. Would they be see as the better choice? The lesser of two evils?
Snake Featherston
Banned
Getting this to work requires even more work than it takes to get the CSA to win the ACW. A LOT more work. Starting with the problem that the Taiping only actually controlled parts of a small area, that they faced ultimately the Qing *and* Europe and the first modern great Chinese general Zheng Guofan.
It would be kind of like when the Communists took over China except in the 1860's. There would be a Cultural Revolution when the Taiping try to fundamentally change Chinese society into something more acceptable to their ideological views. Over time the first generation dies off and their successors give up and things pretty much go back to the status quo.
It would probably be a bigger deal internationally simply because the Taiping would likely begin to modernize China in their attempts at destroying the old Confucian order, if that is successful then the European powers are in for interesting times (in the chinese sense).