Ok. I want some feedback for a draft map. This is really far away from where we left off but I just got sucked in making this, and want your opinion if it's realistic enough. Sorry if the word size and placement is weird, it was the only way for the text to be readable after shrinking the map down to postable size. The final product will be better in that regard.
While the idea of a successful Taiping rebellion was genuinely mine, I afterward stumbled upon and took heavy inspiration from this map (which you should all upvote because it's gorgeous and on a time period not nearly talked about enough).
What I got so far:
Chinese History largely goes the same way from the POD of 1810 to about 1850. The First Opium war still happens as does mass disillusionment with the Qing as a result. Just like IRL the 1850s sees the Qing deal with multiple enormous revolts including but not limited to the Taiping, Nian, Dungan, Miao, and Hui, the Taiping alone accounting for the bloodiest civil war in history while the second Opium war breaks out. IRL they manage to survive (if permanently crippled). In this timeline, it breaks them.
The main change is that the French, under Napoleon III (yes, that one), wanting to break British monopoly in China, actively supply the Taiping Rebels with French commanders and state of the art equipment (as opposed to IRL when the Great Powers all give these to the Qing). With this additional straw, the Qing Dynasty breaks into many pieces.
Taiping Rebels seized control of Southern China, overrunning Shanghai, Macau, and Hong-Kong and granting them as “holy concessions” to France for their help. By far the largest state, they are plagued with incompetent leadership, debauchery, and semi-sucsessful attempts to integrate Confucian beliefs into Taiping Christianity. France enjoys extreme trade privileges and the opium ban is a scapegoat for crushing anything the Taiping don’t like.
The Nian Rebellion slowly fills the power vacuum they helped create in the north. They turned from Banditry into protection rings to protect against other bandits into basically neo-feudalism, with Zhang Lexing claiming the mandate of a new Han Dynasty. Each local warlord is nominally under the restored Han Emperor based in Beijing, and the entire state held-together through the British backed opium trade.
The British turned the newly independent Tibet and Pignan Guo (Panthan Rebels) into buffer states to protect the British Raj from French and Russian influenced states in the region.
The Dungan Revolt succeeded and the Yetteshir Khanate conquered southern Xinjiang as well as Gansu and Nixia. Independence Celebrations were badly dampened when the Russians forced them into their sphere of Influence.
Qin is basically a hodgepodge of refugees seeking asylum from the Yettishir Khanate raids, Bai Han Feudalism, or Taiping purges. They are held together by the Great Powers to be a buffer state and their economy revolves around being the halfway point between the Opium fields of Calcutta and the buyers in Beijing (and smuggled to Nanjing, of course).
The Manchus fled to Manchuria and watched their empire shatter. The Russians generously offered their protection for the the low price of Outer Manchuria and a lease on the Dalian Peninsula (as well as rights to move troops in between).
Mongolia is de-jure under Qing Rule but in reality is just a mess former provincial officials kowtowing to Russia.
What do you think?
