- Hong Xiuquan is somehow either never born or is prevented from becoming important
- The Taiping rebellion (as a specific event/movement) does not occur, the Qing government can afford more aid to those affected by the Yellow River flooding, and are better able to suppress the much smaller unrest that does follow. Thus, the resentment against the Qing among the Chinese in general is at least somewhat more bottled between the 1820s and the Opium Wars
- After the Second Opium War (which is still lost, and in some ways even worse since the resistence of the Qing was greater and the Europeans imposed harsher peace terms, and the breaking of the Qing Army was more shocking and dramatic), a group of noble but impoverished Han Chinese in Shandong, versed in the Confucian Classics and the histories, and led by an older scholar named Zhao Jinshu (趙 金書) meet and determine that the Qing have lost the mandate of heaven, which is proven by the loss of the wars. They form a secret organization, disguised as a philosophical club, called the Lapis Lazuli Society, inspired by the White Lotus Society which was disbanded earlier, and resolve to drive out the Manchu and restore a Han Chinese Empire.
- The society spreads rapidly among Han noble families, and soon to the common people as well. The social forces that would have driven the Taiping and Nien rebellions, and would have eventually driven the self-strengthening movement, converge here, unified, behind the Lapis Society. Soon, the Qing authorities decide to arrest the main members when news leaks out of their possible intentions, but during their trial in the city of Jinan, the magistrate is overrun by an armed mob, who release Zhao and the other leaders and proceed to kill many of the Qing officials in the city. Han working for the Qing begin to defect.
- The mob declare Zhao their king. Zhao, following his Confucian principles, decrees that the army leave peasants unmolested. After an Imperial Army ruthlessly crushes disobedient peasants in the area, they flock to the rebel side. Soon other cities in Shandong revolt, and Han generals and officials defect.
- Zhao and defected Han generals organize and equip the mob into an army and drive Qing forces from Shandong in a succesful campaign. Zhao proclaims himself Jianhui (建輝) Emperor of the Great Yong (雍) Dynasty. The people cut off their queues and resume Ming-era customs.
- Zhao's rebellion is wildly popular among virtually all Chinese people, and it keeps defeating the Qing armies, who are badly weakened and demoralized in the immediate aftermath of the war.
- The British and French side with the Qing, and supply weapons and instructors. The Americans never take much interest.
The Russians, still reeling from the defeat in Crimea, and seeing an opportunity for gain in a Russian-friendly China, supply the rebels with weapons and instructors.
- The rebels gain the upper hand when the Qing army in Shanghai is defeated and the Yangtze River captured, and Sengge Rinchen is captured and killed in the north by a joint Yong-Russian force. The rebel army enters Beijing in 1863, the emperor and court flee to Qiqihar and remaining Qing resistence collapses.
- The Qing, now reduced to their original homeland, offer peace to the Yong. Zhao accepts, on the condition that the Qing renounce the imperial title and become Yong vassals, and open their borders to Russia.
- The Yong Dynasty now rules all of China from the capital at Jinan, renamed Mujing. (睦京)