Chapter 95 The Taiping Revolution Part 2 Rise of the Warring States
"You Europeans may call us warmongers and profiteers, yet by doing so you become hypocrites for denying your own crimes. For the past century Asia has been continuously raped by the European Imperialists who sought to reap the treasures of the East. We survived the Chinese dogs and the Nipponese butchers, we shall never submit a single inch of Asia to you."-Prime Minister Kim Il-Sung 1963
"China is a nation that has suffered for far too long from outside influence. Since the dawn of the 19th century, the Europeans and then the Japanese have done naught but bring ruin to the land in their quest of greed and power. Many of our own citizens fled to Texas in order to find better lives and escape from the hellish misery brought upon the land. It is not simply enough to defeat Japan, we must bring peace and order to China in order to ensure that it never endures that this century of humiliation doesn't become a millennia."- President Wang Zhaoming 1940
"The heathenish Qing cannot defeat me, for a demon shall not strike down God's servant."- Hong Xiuqan 1871
For Millennia the Chinese Empire had stood as an independent entity that no foreign power could directly control. The one main exception to this were the Mongols of the Yuan dynasty, yet even then the Khublai Khan would throw away his allegiance to the other Khanates and slowly assimilate into Chinese culture and society, turning the Yuan dynasty native. In the 19th century this age of independence would be at an end, China's pride coming to death when the fate of the Empire would be decided by two European nations who were seeking to divide and conquer in order to add to their own glorious empires. On one side were the Qing, a two century old dynasty whose existence marked the pinnacle of corruption and decadence in China, a dying regime who was trying so hard to keep to the status quo. On the other side were the Taiping, a radical Christian sect on a seeming mission from God with the divine goal of unifying China under their banner and driving the godless Qing back out into the sea and to their foreign masters. No matter who fought in the Taiping Rebellion or what role observing powers would play, everyone thought that a total victory would come in the aftermath of this bloody war. One Chinese dynasty to rule them all. What the West, and much of East Asia for that matter, did not expect, would that One China would not survive this war, but several would emerge from the conflict. With it began the beginning of China's century of Humiliation, an era that some would say is still going on today after the Great Asian-Pacific War.
The Tongzhi Emperor whose reign saw an effective collapse of Qing prestige and rule throughout most of China
At the time of the Taiping Revolution, the God-Worshipers were not the only rebels who were fighting against the tyranny of the regime. Rather, they were the first of many who would heed the call of revolution against the Qing dragon, many being inspired by the efforts of the Taiping Revolutionaries, even if they did not agree or hated the Taiping rebels immensely. Just as the American Revolution would launch waves of revolts in Latin America and the French Revolution in 1789, so too would the Taiping Revolution give rise to several new movements. These were the Hui Revolts, the Panthay Revolution, and the Nian Rebellion. Each group had radically different goals and ideologies to each other, but all of them wanted the same thing, to either be free of the Qing or cause their downfall.
The first of these rebel movements to arise were the Nian rebels, a group of peasant gangs in northern China who at first arose mainly to criticize the Qing, having no common goal or unified command structure. After the Yellow River floods of 1851 which devastated the Chinese countryside, the Nian rebels arose in conflict in order to bring retribution to the Qing for failing to give proper aid to the hundreds of thousands of peasants who either died or were left homeless from the floods. Under their overall leader Zheng Lexing, the Nian began raiding most of Northern China and captured several cities in order to create citadels from where they would launch their attacks. In 1860 the Qing sent their best general Sengge Rinchen in order to drive out the Nian and restore order to Central and Northern China. Over the course over the next five years, Rinchen would use his overwhelming numerical advantage, along with the arrival of British artillery and firearms, to drive the Nian out of their cities and into the countryside, where their effective shock cavalry would harass Qing armies and disrupt trade. The Nian would begin a downward trek in 1864 when Lexing was captured by Rinchen and executed in Beijing. With the loss of their charismatic leader and the heavy failure of the Nian to make effective alliances with the other rebel groups or the outside powers, the Nian gradually disbanded into the countryside with most either becoming bandits or returning to their villages. The Qing would declare victory over the rebels on March 12th of 1865, sending Rinchen east to deal with the ever continuing threat of the Taiping.
The Panthay Revolution, or the Du Wenxiu Rebellion as it is known within China, was a movement by Chinese Hui Muslims and other ethnic minorities in the province of Yunnan to seek a state for themselves. Contrary to popular belief outside of China, the revolt itself was not an entirely pro-Muslim revolt against the Confucian Chinese, rather it was a revolt of the peoples of the Yunnan province against Qing rule. The rebellion's leader Du Wenxiu, stressed for tolerance and called for all Han Chinese people to unite and drive the Qing out of China and end their reign of tyranny. Some racial discrimination did play a role however as much of the movement's anger was directed to Chinese Manchus, this was due to them being seen as the cause of all of China's problems with the Qing dynasty being ethnically Manchu. Conflict began in 1856 with the massacre of 3,000 Hui Muslims in the Yunnan capitol of Kunnming in 1856 under the authority of a Qing Manchu official. Outraged at the massacre of their religious and ethnic brethren, hundreds of thousands of Hui along with sympathetic Han rose up under the leadership of Wenxiu to carve out a new Sultanate in Yunnan. With Qing focus mainly in the East and Northern China, the loyalist Qing forces were largely left to their own devices, leaving them helpless against the waves of rebels who rose against them. The turning point of the war came in 1863 when Hui rebels under the leadership of Ma Rulong, widely regarded as one of the greatest generals of the age, managed to capture the city of Kunnming, causing most of the province to fall within the next year. In order to retain his hold on Yunnan, Wenxiu reached out to French aid for the independence of Yunnan, hoping that Napoleon would grant to him the same courtesies as the Taiping. The French Emperor who was ever eager to gain more client states in China, complied and signed an alliance with the Yunnan in 1865, giving the Yunnan French material assistance in exchange for free trade and the allowance of Catholic missionaries into the Sultanate. While most French troops were kept under Mobutan's command in Taiping, 5,000 French advisers came with a plethora of equipment that would help to modernize the Yunnan army. The Yunnan would be successful in keeping the Qing out until the end of the Taiping Revolution in 1871, marking the start of the Sultanate's first years of independence.
Yunnan and Qing troops fight in Kunnming.
The Hui Revolts were a series of revolts in the provinces of Shaanxi, Niangxi, and Gansu, with the ongoing secession movement in Xianjing sometimes included as well. The Hui Revolts were one of the latter Chinese peasant revolts, not rebelling until 1862, well into the middle of the Taiping Revolution. Much like their Yunnan cousins, the Hui revolts were started by Hui Muslims in response to racial discrimination by the Qing, the notable exception to Yunnan being that the Hui revolts featured Manchu against Hui violence. With the Qing failing to find any breakthroughs against the Taiping, Central China was filled with Qing troops in order to stop any potential unrest that may arise and punish dissent towards the Manchu. The arrival of hundreds of thousands of Han produced disputes with the Hui as racial discrimination occurred on both sides. The hatred came to a headway in 1862 when a trade dispute between a Han merchant and a Hui buyer over bamboo prices lead to racial riots that caused the deaths of thousands of Hui Chinese. Tired of being discriminated against, along with oppression from Qing authorities against radical teachings by Sufi orders within China, the Hui rose up in order to protect themselves from their Qing masters. Much like the Nian Rebellion, the Hui Revolts were troubled by immense confusion and infighting over what the common goal of the movement would be. Many disagreements arose over what the Hui were fighting for, some wanting autonomy, others independence, and some independents wanting to establish an Islamic state. While many of the rebels centered around the leadership of Ma Hualong, most of the movement was highly disorganized with frequent fights between rival tribal bands. The infighting between the rebels lead to the Qing successfully containing the revolts in the three central provinces; joined by Han and sometimes Hui loyalists. After Zuo Zangtang, a Qing General who was often considered second to only Rinchen, was sent to the area in 1865, the Qing were slowly able to rollback against the rebels until the final surrender of Hualong in 1873. The defeat of the Hui would cause intense discrimination against their presence in Central China, Hundreds of thousands fleeing to Russia, Xinjang, or Yunnan.
At the same time as these bloody rebellions which would cause the deaths of millions, three new states arose in the fringes of China that would effectively cut themselves off from Qing rule; Tibet, Mongolia, and Xinjang. The former two's secession was relatively bloodless as the Qing were unable to enforce their rule in these two nations, which led to a gradual separation of ties with the Qing where Tibet and Mongolia were independent in all but name, swearing feint allegiance to Beijing much in the same manner as Mohammed Ali's Egypt did to the Ottoman Empire. In Tibet the Qing authority was almost nonexistent during the time of the Taiping Revolution and the other conflicts going on in China, with the Qing's armies centered in the East the Tibetan people looked towards the Dalai Lama for spiritual and political governance, The Qing turning the other way so long as the Dalai Lama payed his respects to Beijing and never formally declaring independence. The situation in Mongolia while under heavy rule of the Qing was one where the tight regulations were gradually lessened in favor of greater autonomy so that the Mongols would not rise in revolt. The Manchu governors of both Inner and Outer Mongolia were given greater freedoms while more patronage was centered around the Mongol Buddhists under the leadership of the Panchen Lama who acted as a spiritual guide for most of the Mongols. In 1870 the Tongzhi Emperor made a radical move to unite both Inner and Outer Mongolia into one province under the direction of Outer Mongolia. This move was done in order to make sure that Outer Mongolia would become a proper part of China and that the Han Chinese, who had begun migrating into Inner Mongolia in droves, would colonize Outer Mongolia and keep it loyal to Beijing. In reality however a the two divisions would remain so with Inner and Outer Mongolia merely becoming two autonomous parts of a greater region, both headed by a Manchu governor in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia. With the victory of the Taiping in 1871, Mongolia would be given more gradual oversight as the Qing became unable to directly rule the land, leading to the birth of Mongolian Nationalism which would erupt during the Great War and the fall of the Qing.
Unlike the former two, the state of Xinjang was one that did not secede quietly, rather going through a violent guerrilla war which saw the rise of the second Chinese Sultanate. Unlike the Yunnan and Hui Revolts which were Muslim-led, though cooperative with the Han and other ethnic minorities, Xinjiang was a conflict driven by Islamic Nationalism, with the founder of the Xinjiang state Yaqub Beg calling for a Jihad against Beijing. In 1864 revolt broke out in Xinjiang with the near entirety of the province rising against the Han garrisons, killing or driving them out due to the lack of resources and aid in the West from the central government. In 1865 and onward, the Hui people of Xinjiang began to fight among themselves for who would eventually become the ruler of the province. Among the many fighters for Xinjiang independence, existed a Tajik adventurer named Yaqub Beg. Yaqub was a Tajik man who was a leading general within the Khanate of Kokand, a land which would eventually become Russian Turkestan during the rule of the Tsar. Fleeing from the Russian conquest of Central Asia, Beg arrived in Xinjiang in 1864 and joined in on the revolutions to kick out the Qing. In 1865 Beg would lead a band of Hui rebels to capture the Qing citadel of Khasgar, setting himself as the ruler of the city and setting his sights on the rest of Xianjing. For the next decade onward Beg would begin a war of conquest against the rest of Xianjing in an effort to create his own personal empire out of the province, the highly disorganized rebel movement either falling to him in battle or surrendering to become loyal vassals. During this time Beg would gain outside support, not from France as the Yunnan and Taiping had done, but from Russia. During this time the Russians were busy solidifying their conquests in Central Asia while also beginning the building of the Siberian Railroad. Russian Tsar Alexander II also made great inroads into China with the Amur Acquisition in 1858, an exchange of land from the Qing Empire in Eastern Outer Manchuria to Russia in exchange for the Russians keeping out of the Taiping conflict along with a payment of 2 million Russian rubles. This would not satisfy Russian greed however as they continued to want expansion into Northern and Western China. Russian diplomats in St. Petersburg saw an opportunity in Xianjing to create a buffer state that would keep China and the British out of Central Asia, while also expanding ties to Northern China. Diplomatic talks would go back and forward between St. Petersburg and Khasgar, until a settlement eventually arrived where Beg would allow the building of the Siberian Railroad into Xianjing and recognize Russian conquests in exchange for military aid in the form of modern weaponry. With Russian arms Beg would solidify control over Xianjing and modernize his army to the teeth, preventing a Qing counterattack after the end of the Taiping Revolution.
Yaqub Beg (Left). Several Hui and Han Chinese troops under Beg take part in shooting exercises with Russian rifles (Right).
A/N: The next update shall see the official end of the Taiping arc with the end of the Taiping Revolution, and the splintering of China into multiple states with the slow decay and downfall of Qing rule. I at first wanted this to be a full update to include the Taiping just as the last chapter, however the multiple rebellions that occur at the same time were too complex for them to be shoved in together with the main Taiping conflict, so I made them separate as you see here. Next chapter will focus solely on the Taiping, France and Britain, and the main Qing in Eastern China. This chapter and the previous are the beginning of major ripples for China that shall lead to a different 20th century from OTL in many significant divergences. I sincerely hope that you guys like this chapter since finding research on China at this time is severely hard as most history books here in the U.S and the rest of the West barely cover it. Stay tuned as Chapter 97 shall see a return to Texas and the beginning of the end of slavery and the Southern Exodus. I'll be sure to have my updates be more frequent after this long hiatus. Long live the Lone Star Republic!
