Asian 212 Lecture 21: Taiping Rebellion by Asia Blog

Asian 212 Lecture 21: Taiping Rebellion

Posted in Asian 212 by Elliott Back on April 27th, 2006. [Del.icio.us]

Please note that these notes are courtesy of Julie Geng.

Terms:

Lecture Notes:

When Marxist historians look back at China, they must look for the moment when capitalism occurred (because it must go through capitalism before it gets to communism)
Imagining the ideal agrarian society; low emphasis placed on commercial activities

Commerce thrived in the beginning of the Song, and continued to grow, but the government didn’t tax it very well so they did not benefit from the growth

Capitalism existed, but other notions like Confucianism stopped capitalism from maturing — this is the theory some Marxist historians have claimed
But do sprouts necessarily grow into cabbages? There’s no indication that capitalism truly existed in China as the Marxist historians claim.
There is a surplus in the economy (people are getting more land and such) but they tend to bear another son instead of doing anything else (like doing something capitalistic and open an enterprise)
Surplus does exist but no one thinks to invest them into enterprises. Instead, people use the money for memorials, or other more culturally important things

Begins in the southern region of China (near Hong Kong); led by Hong Xiuquan (who was “probably mentally ill”)

Hong was a member of the Hakka minority, with distinct cultural differences from the Chinese
Hong is very promising in his village, so he spends all his time and his village spends money on him to pass the exams

1833 – Hong passes the county exam which qualifies him for the next exam
1836 – Hong travels to provincial seat at Canton, but he fails the exam
1837 – Hong fails again; but the pressure was apparently too much and fell into a period of mental illness

Hong had a dream during this time of illness and apparently had some small basis in fact

In 1836, Hong had received a pamphlet about Christianity which he apparently briefly read before his second exam
When he returned from his second failed exam, he fell into a coma; he dreamed he ascended to Heaven

In the dream, a woman washes him and brings him to a great hall with an old bearded man who introduces him to his brother
The man chides him for listening to Confucius because he doesn’t tell the truth

Hong decides that he is the second son of God
Could only get ahold of some old testament passages which contain very firy brimstony descriptions of God’s wrath
Begins to preach Christianity and doesn’t want Manchus to be ruling China

A nearby army decides to attack them, so his converts run away to other villages, threaten non-Christians to convert by violence, acquiring about 60,000 more

The Empire of Heavenly Peace is established, with hundreds of thousands of people in Nanjing

All members must renounce family ties; wealth is shared; men’s and a women’s armies
They begin to extract taxes after settling in Nanjing

White Lotus Society – popularized Buddhism

They believe that society is coming to a major epoch or the end of the world. Only those who know that this event is occurring ahead of time will be taken to the next world
Example of a society that seems to run completely independently of the government
An individual from this society decides that this end of the world is happening, and that they must kill everyone in order to institute their heavenly government but the Qing army crushes them pretty quickly
There are particularly violent outbursts during this time; their purpose is to get rid of the corrupted government
Many people are susceptible to this rhetoric because the government isn’t doing anything for them; they’re getting poorer and poorer, even if they didn’t originally have a religion

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bAsian 212 Lecture 21/b: bTaiping Rebellion/b
bTaiping Rebellion/b. Hong Xiuquan; Hakka; 1833 — County/Prefect level exam; 1836-7 — Fails Provincial exam. Zeng Guofan Xiang army. Li Hangzheng Zuo Zongtang. White Lotus Society. bLecture/b Notes:. Late Imperial Economy b.../b