Thing is, the Taiping Rebellion didn't become so widespread because they were Christians, it was because they were Han rebelling against the hated foreign Manchu. Introducing European Christianity as the basis of a rebellion is a very hard sell; the Manchu publicly conformed to and cultivated Chinese traditions (save the hair thing), while imposing European Christianity would be both foreign and in conflict with Chinese traditions.Considering we had an event like the Taiping Rebellion in our timeline why not use a variation on that? Rather than someone like Hong Xiquan it's a European missionary, with a previous career in the military, who gets knocked on the head or has a psychological incident and starts preaching a revised gospel and founds a new sect. Things start to spiral out of control from there, he puts his former military training to good use so that the rebels are even more effective, and eventually he's sitting on the throne having claimed the, new, Mandate of Heaven.
Yes, well, they're French so it's not as though anyone has really heard of them.Nobody saw fit to mention that it already was done by Offenbach and Halévy in Ba-ta-clan? For shame!
Can European nations even supply a full scale invasion on the other side of the planet at this point in history? Invading Japan is a chore (islands, 75% mountains, etc.) and, past that, Japan tried conquering China and Korea OTL in this period. It couldn't even manage conquering Korea, even with arquebuses and an century-of-war-tested army numbering over 100,000 strong and the Joseon's absolute lack of preparation (because they saw Japan as uncivilized. They'll pay mind to a foreign barbarian from the other side of the world who's managed to conquer the entirety of Japan with a massive force from across the world). European ships and supply systems don't do too well in uncharted territory in a land far away, especially considering the Korean navy did do well due to skillful use of Korea's coastline and traps.
Really, I'd have expected ALEXANDER INKOREACHINA to make an appearance in this thread by now....