How do you create such a conflict after the crushing of the Taiping Rebellion, though?Have some kind of internal conflict (preferably in China proper) that ties the Qing government's hands, preventing them from reconquering Xinjiang/East Turkestan. The Qing lose this conflict, leading to their collapse or at least severe weakening. The Qing/whoever replaces them are too weak to try to conquer anywhere, and by the time they are strong again,Yakub Beg or his successors have got some powerful foreign ally (Preferably Britain or Russia)
The Qing were resented due to their Manchu heritage, so maybe have some sort of nationalist movement aiming for Ming restoration appear.How do you create such a conflict after the crushing of the Taiping Rebellion, though?
Did nationalism reach China on a large scale yet by the 1870s, though?The Qing were resented due to their Manchu heritage, so maybe have some sort of nationalist movement aiming for Ming restoration appear.
How do you create such a conflict after the crushing of the Taiping Rebellion, though?
You'll have to ask a Chinese history expert this question; unfortunately I myself don't meet this criteria.There were other contemporaneous rebellions weren't there, some of which outlasted the Taiping? Nian and Miao? Any way to make them more virulent/a greater drain on Qing resources?
Did nationalism reach China on a large scale yet by the 1870s, though?
OK; understood.There were some vaguely nationalistic, anti-Manchu sentiments to the Taiping and other 19th century rebellions (many of which also had strong ethnic identities, the Taiping drawing much of the support from the Hakka to which Jesus' Chinese Brother belonged), though that's arguably more "hatred of the Manchu as a ruling political class" rather than "hatred of the Manchu as an ethnic group".