WI: Qing China collapsed mid-19th century

[Tyler96]

Given the Taiping leadership was something of a basket case (see the Tianjing incident, a fiasco where 3 of the Taiping kings and tens of thousands of their followers ended up dead, and contributed to Shi Dakai's eventual decision to go his own way; later on there were fractions between Hong Rengan and Li Xiucheng), I personally doubt it'll hold together in any meaningful sense after the death of Hong Xiuquan (yes, he spent his time in seclusion writing poetry and beating his wives, but he at least provided notional leadership). You'd have Taiping leaders doing their own thing (warlordism, basically) with the more loyal ones competing for the regency of or influence with Hong Tianguifu (who was noted to be useless IOTL, though to be fair he was only 14 when he died).

At best you'd have Hong Rengan governing Nanjing on behalf of Tianguifu whilst more peripheral leaders pay lip service to the capital but do as they please.

And given the highly unstable edifice the Taiping regime was built on, Hong Rengan will need to pull off a miracle to give it any permanence- they'd alienated the gentry with their proposed land reforms, the peasants with their hostility to traditional Chinese religion, and the West with their unorthodox interpretation of Christianity. All they had were a core of true believers and a mass of freebooters along for the ride.

As for the rest, I'd imagine an increased sphere of western influence on the coast, centred on the treaty ports. European powers would then probably scheme to prop up friendly warlords in the hinterland ("friendly" both as in amenable to western influence generally, and as in favouring interests of X European nation over Y). I'm not sure any of them have the appetite or the troops necessary for imposing more direct control over the inland areas, though Russia might continue nibbling away at the periphery.

Can't really say much about the others. The Panthay Rebellion obviously established the Pingnan Guo ('Pacified Southern State') under Sultan Suleyman/Du Wenxiu in the 1860s. Any chance Yaqub Beg can consolidate Kashgaria with no Qing to push back?

I'd imagine both are in for some major turbulence after their founders die.

 

[123456789blaaa]

The Ottoman Emperor at the start of the 19th century pretty much had direct control over Istanbul and its surrounding environs. From this base, and in terrible geographic conditions, the government managed to subdue the warlords and institute a centralized, modern state. The only reason they couldn't become a true Great Power was the interference of various Western countries. Hong is in a much better geographic position to consolidate once the Manchu are kicked out. The gentry,peasants, and Western countries will have to reconcile themselves with the new regime, and Hong was a modernizer OTL. They will come to a modus vivendi.

 

[darthfanta]

The Ottoman Emperor at the start of the 19th century pretty much had direct control over Istanbul and its surrounding environs. From this base, and in terrible geographic conditions, the government managed to subdue the warlords and institute a centralized, modern state. The only reason they couldn't become a true Great Power was the interference of various Western countries. Hong is in a much better geographic position to consolidate once the Manchu are kicked out. The gentry,peasants, and Western countries will have to reconcile themselves with the new regime, and Hong was a modernizer OTL. They will come to a modus vivendi.

Hong Xiuchang was nuts.It's better that someone more sane was leading the revolt.The religious overtones of the movement was what made and broke it eventually.

 

[123456789blaaa]

Hong Xiuchang was nuts.It's better that someone more sane was leading the revolt.The religious overtones of the movement was what made and broke it eventually.

I was talking about Rengan.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

Hong Rengan did that. For example, he added Confucius back into the exams and Protestantized some aspects of Taiping worship. Whenever the Taiping gets brought up, people forget that plenty of rebellions across all world history had really crazy parts. ...

Indeed. The breakaway British colonies in North America had a lot of crazy stuff. Eliminating monarchs and a privileged aristocracy, no state religion, a federation of quasai independant states, a extremely weak army. How the hell was that supposed to work?

 

[Tyler96]

The Ottoman Emperor at the start of the 19th century pretty much had direct control over Istanbul and its surrounding environs. From this base, and in terrible geographic conditions, the government managed to subdue the warlords and institute a centralized, modern state. The only reason they couldn't become a true Great Power was the interference of various Western countries. Hong is in a much better geographic position to consolidate once the Manchu are kicked out. The gentry,peasants, and Western countries will have to reconcile themselves with the new regime, and Hong was a modernizer OTL. They will come to a modus vivendi.

Possibly. Though a lot of opposition to the Taiping IOTL came from local groups, so they won't necessarily fall over if the Qing are disposed of. But, the Qing's defeat obviously provides a morale and legitimacy boost for the Taiping, and allows them to focus on clean-up operations.

How successful these would be is questionable- if the Taiping have moderated that helps (a puritanical Taiping that's smashing idols and desecrating temples, enforcing stringent restrictions on gambling/prostitution/alcohol/opium and threatening land redistribution will have a harder time winning over the local population and establishing control over the countryside).

Hong Rengan might be able to lead them in this direction, but there's no guarantee he'll be the one guiding the Taiping state- he could fall out of influence with his cousin, or lose out in coups/regency struggles/whatever after Xiuquan's death. There's no shortage of competition- Li Xiucheng, Xiuquan's two incompetent over-promoted brothers (when did they die?), Xiuquan's brother-in-law Lai Wenguang, numerous other ''kings'' and ''princes'' etc.

If the Qing have been knocked out because the Taiping have seized Beijing/Peking, then the Taiping forces might also be more stretched and less able to assert cohesive control.

But, if the Taiping are able to establish some aura of permanence, and moderate some of their more puritanical impulses, then people will eventually resign themselves to the new regime.

With regard to Westerners, getting the Taiping to abandon the opium prohibition will be really important- they've fought two wars against the Qing to ensure the continuance of the opium trade, they're not just going to abandon it. Practicality (pissed off Europeans=bad) or some kind of quid pro quo in return for something from the West (likely engineered by Rengan) could potentially bring this about.

The religious chasm will be difficult to overcome- some Chinese dude claiming to be God's Son and Jesus' younger brother will in and of itself would always cause some Christians to splutter, regardless of the policies he promoted. Rengan, with his experience in Hong Kong, can likely smooth over some things and spin stuff so it's more amenable to westerners, but there'll always be friction there. But so long as both sides are willing to overlook religious doctrine in favour of more earthly matters, then some kind of working relationship can be established (and Rengan forking over loads of cash for western tech would encourage this).

Though, if the Taiping are 'victorious', in some sense or other, wouldn't the fact that China has fractured (with Yaqub Beg's kingdom, the Pingnan Guo, other Muslim revolts, the Miao, possible unrest from ethnic Manchus etc.) undermine their legitimacy and claim to possess the Mandate of Heaven?

 

[dandan_noodles]

With regard to Westerners, getting the Taiping to abandon the opium prohibition will be really important- they've fought two wars against the Qing to ensure the continuance of the opium trade, they're not just going to abandon it. Practicality (pissed off Europeans=bad) or some kind of quid pro quo in return for something from the West (likely engineered by Rengan) could potentially bring this about.

Nobody really cared about Opium; the Taiping were buying just as much as the Imperials, to the point where I think Harry Parks noted that the only things the Taiping were interested in buying were 'guns and opium, guns and opium!' What Hong Rengan offered, though, was unrestricted western access to Chinese markets, which is really the most important Western demand.

 

[mianfei]

The Europeans will probably move in and establish protectorates and stuff, but I don't see them actually colonizing it since China is as populous as Europe itself.

I disagree – Britain did after all colonize India, and if we exclude Tibet, Xinjiang and Qinghai, China was not that much larger or more populous than was India. So it would have been quite feasible for the British or Russians or French to step in and rule China through puppet princes or their own rulers.

We can imagine Russia ruling the north of China, Britain the centre, and France the south adjacent to French Indo-China, with possible concessions for other powers. It might be at first similar to British rule over India, but unlike with India there is always the threat of Meiji Japan emerging around the time a Qing collapse and a colonised China would have evolved. Japan would have sought to take control of Taiwan as its first step to gaining resources, but with China in European hands there could have been a very early (circa 1900) war between Japan and the European Powers. Alternatively, if Japan saw itself as too weak to begin challenging for Taiwan, it might have turned its ambitions north and tried to conquer Alaska and its resources rather than tropical southeast Asia. In that case we might have seen an early war between the US and Japan over Alaska and even Canada, which might threaten Russian alliances with the West if it felt it could regain the lost Alaskan territory from the US.

 

[Historyman 14]

What all this talk about the Taiping and a successful Heavenly Kingdom?

Any Taiping dynasty probably collapse as Hong would be busy destroying the Confucianism and related institutions there, attempting to force his heretical Christianity on the people. (Which won't take very well at all as the Manchu won't like getting mass murder.) Hong and his successors probably wouldn't have any allies, and rule a much poorer China. Corrupted everywhere to the beyond. Super insane in eveyrway.

All and all, you turn China into a totalitarian religious cult (AKA: Mao-communism 0.1) and an 19th century version of ISIS that would collapsed within a couple of years, and easy prey for the rest of Europe and later Japan.

 

[dandan_noodles]

What all this talk about the Taiping and a successful Heavenly Kingdom?

Any Taiping dynasty probably collapse as Hong would be busy destroying the Confucianism and related institutions there, attempting to force his heretical Christianity on the people. (Which won't take very well at all as the Manchu won't like getting mass murder.) Hong and his successors probably wouldn't have any allies, and rule a much poorer China. Corrupted everywhere to the beyond. Super insane in eveyrway.

All and all, you turn China into a totalitarian religious cult (AKA: Mao-communism 0.1) and an 19th century version of ISIS that would collapsed within a couple of years, and easy prey for the rest of Europe and later Japan.

That's overly simplistic; Hong Rengan actually led the Taiping into putting Confucius back on the Taiping exams, and the British actually showed initial enthusiasm for being able to trade with a Taiping state that was freely offering them trade concessions they had to twist the Qing's arms to get. Hong Rengan wanted to see China industrialize and modernize, adopting Western technology and institutions -railroads, steamships, banks, insurance companies. He was the most powerful civil official in the Taiping state, so you can't just ignore his opinion.

also holy thread necromancy batman