Hóng Xiùquán (Chinese: 洪秀全; pinyin: Hóng Xiùquán; Wade-Giles: Hung Hsiu-ch'üan; Hakka Chinese: Fùng Siu-chhiòn; 1 January 1814 – 1 June 1864) ‘s rebellion failed for several reasons – Hong himself, ideological confect and inconsistencies of Taiping life, strategic blunders , failure in leadership, and poor diplomacy.
Firstly, diplomacy. In internal Chinese diplomacy, Hong failed to make in-roads with the Qing government – a marriage between him or his son with one of the Qing princesses would legitimize his rule. Though seen as a partial betrayal of the Taiping cause, a political marriage would help the rest of the Qing leadership to peacefully enter monasteries and be never seen outside their walls ever again.
Hong failed to work in consort with the Nien Rebellion (Chinese: 捻軍起義; pinyin: niǎn jūn qǐ yì; Wade-Giles: nien-chün ch'i-yi (1851-1868) and the other Muslim rebellions of the same period. The Nien only accepted Hong’s appointments but refused to follow any orders – if a coordinated effort or alliance was created between the Taiping and guerilla leaders the fragile Western-Qing Dynasty alliance would easily collapse and with it the Qing Dynasty.
In external Chinese diplomacy, Hong was no diplomat nor could he see that the Western Imperialist governments would be very sympathetic to a Chinese rebellion – they expected the new government to recognize Western rights in the Colonies already held. With his dealings with western nations, Hong often treated the ambassadors as inferior dependencies in the same manner as the Manchu government tried to deal with the British before the Opium Wars. If say Hong was willing to part with the whole of Guangdong and Fujian provinces, which technically were not under his direct control, the British and Americans and others would be all too helpful to aid in his victory – not only recognizing the Heavenly Kingdom as the new Chinese government, send money and supplies, but would see the quick defection of Charles George Gordon, Frederick Townsend Ward, and Henry Andres Burgevine to support the rebellion militarily. Unfortunately, due to the Heavenly King treatment of Britain and the British, Sir George Bongham, the British plenipotentiary in China, left in disgust threatening that if British lives or property were violated that his government would retaliate with acts worse than they did back in the Opium Wars.
Secondly, leadership. In military matters, Hong was inspired by Romance of the Three Kingdoms (sānguó yǎnyì), the Water Margin or Outlaws of the Marsh (simplified Chinese: 水浒传; traditional Chinese: 水滸傳; pinyin: Shuǐhǔ Zhuàn), and Fengshen Yanyi or The Investiture of the Gods (simplified Chinese: 封神演义; traditional Chinese: 封神演義; pinyin: fēngshén yǎnyì) however, he did not learn much from these books forgetting military strategy and to watch one’s underlings. He failed to deal with Zeng Guofan (simplified Chinese: 曾国藩; traditional Chinese: 曾國藩; Pinyin: Zēng Guófān, Wade-Giles: Tseng Kuo-fan, (November 21, 1811 – March 12, 1872), founder of the Xiang Army (Chinese: 湘軍; pinyin: Xiāng Jūn) and father of future warlordism in China. In comparison in military matters, Hong was a high school dropout and Zeng Guofan was a Harvard professor.
Hong failed to restrain internal dissent –the Eastern King, Yang, was too ambitious. He as prime minister and General of the Army basically exiled the North King and Assistant King to fight on losing fronts of the war. The East King entertained hopes on replacing Hong, the North King in the dark of night snuck back broke into the palace slaughtered Yang and all those loyal to Yang. After this, Hong retreated into esotericism and further inside the pleasures of his personal harem. This strife depleted the Taiping leadership of moral, a good part of the officer corps, and the movement of the Taiping Army. All hope for the Taiping laid on the shoulders of the Shield King, but “A house cannot stand with just one pillar,” eventually the Shield King would betray the rebellion and abandon Hong to his fate of “food poisoning.”
There were many Strategic blunders. The Taipings failed to take Wuhan, a major center on the Yangtze its survival would help Hunan forces to use it to rally against the rebellion. They failed to take Changsha, capital of Hunan, and center of Zeng Guofan’s military support network. Failure to take the rest of Kiangsu province and establish firm and friendly contact with foreign representatives – worse still the Taipings ignored the pea of assistance from the Small Sword Society, a branch of the Triads that had besieged Shanghai for a year and a half– in doing so this left a important point of contact with the west and a base of operations in the hands of the Qing.
The Taiping failed to destroy or cripple the imperial Great Camps on either side of the Yangtze. There is only few ways to deal with an enemy army in the field of battle– destroy it, cripple it, assassinate its leadership, bribe its leadership to join you or have their superiors know about their bribery so that some incompetent leader replaces the competent one, or all of the above. Leaving an enemy army intact, on the field of battle is not a stupid thing it is ludicrous and suicidal!
Failure to capture Peking, after capturing Nanking, the Taipings should have not settled down to enjoy the life of the harem and the soft life, but go for the jugular – the northern expedition was a thin column of soldiers that overextended itself and courted its natural doom – this left the Qing court saved to continue as the legitimate center of resistance and political power. Hong should have remembered from his Romance of the Three Kingdoms that it is best to remove the other “kings” and “emperors” on the field either by defeating and killing the enemy monarch, capturing his capital and source of power, exiling him to some hinterland or monastery, assassinating him, marriage, or all of the above – only after the other monarch is removed can a king settle into his harem.
The anti-Manchu Ideology was compromised by Christianity and his own ideology. The idea of rising from the dead to inspire martyrs is a good way of getting soldiers but a terrible way to run an army. As momentum built, he became so engrossed in religion that the revolution suffered to the point of what happened after most of the rebellions claiming to be Maitrya Buddha – degeneration, military defeat, and setting the stage for future warlordism. The revolutionaries preached that all men were brothers, forbade the works of Confucius and Mencius, separation of the sexes and monogamy as the only form of marriage, and abolished private property – but it was not so for the leaders of the revolution.
Most of these blames could be placed on the shoulders of Hong due to his questionable sanity and belief in his own propaganda – which the angels of God would somehow save him in the end. Retreating into the palace reading holy books, enjoying a harem, and letting God solve all his problems is no way to run a rebellion – in fact it is a good way to find oneself a corpse.
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Now that is off my chest - I suspect that Hong's nation would be much like ISIS / ISIL / Al-Qaeda state. There would be a lot of buildings, statues, and books destroyed.
In IRL == Hong’s abolition of private ownership of land and property based on the number of people was based on the Chinese work The Rites of Chou – unfortunately the idealistic primitive socialist project was inconsistent with contemporary Confucian ideals and true land reform would not be available until Doctor Sun Yat-sen (pinyin: Sūn Yixiān; 12 November 1866 – 12 March 1925), born merely two years after the fall of the Heavenly Kingdom.
But say it is done under Hong - it might turn out as disastrous as what happened under the post-Yatsen land reforms.