Taiping movement and its results. Taiping movement

Taiping Rebellion 1850-1864, peasant war in China against the feudal oppression of the Manchu dynasty and foreigners. colonialists. The reasons for the uprising were the strengthening of feudal exploitation, the tax burden and capitalist aggression. powers that caused the extreme aggravation of the Chinese crisis. feud, society. T.v. broke out in Guangxi province in the summer of 1850. The ideological leader of the rebels was the rural teacher Hong Xiuquan, who organized the religion. “The Society for the Worship of God” (Baishandikhoi), which preached the idea of creating a “heavenly state of great prosperity” - Taiping Tianguo (hence the name of the uprising). By Nov. 1850 Hong Xiuquan and his associates Yang Xiuqing, Shi Dakai and others collected 20 thousand. army and began the war. actions against governments, troops under the slogan of the fight for equality. Aug 27 In 1851, the rebels stormed the large city of Guangxi province, Yun'an, and announced the creation of their “heavenly state,” designed to serve the interests of the oppressed strata of the feudal society. In April 1852 Taishes defeated 13 thousand. army of the Cantonese general At Lan-tai, they moved to the north and entered the Yangtze Valley, where they assembled a huge flotilla of several. thousand junks. The Taiping army, replenished by working people (from 20 thousand it grew to 300-500 thousand people), was distinguished by high combat effectiveness and strict discipline. The Taipings developed their own strategy and tactics and successfully waged a war of maneuver. They studied the experience of ancient Chinese commanders and published books on strategy and warfare. statutes. However, Ch. the source of their army's strength was the revolutionaries. the ideas for which they fought, the support of the army by the working people. In Jan. In 1853, the Taipings captured the Wuhan tricity (the cities of Hanyang, Hankou and Wuchang), and in March they occupied Nanjing. To complete the overthrow of the Qing dynasty, the Taipings needed to defeat the Manchus and troops in the north of the country and take Beijing. However, the leaders of TV. They delayed the march to S. and allocated a small amount for him. strength, as a result the campaign ended unsuccessfully. Having settled in Nanjing and declaring it its capital, the Taining leadership unveiled its program, called the “Land System of the Heavenly Dynasty,” which was to become a kind of paradise. the constitution of the Taininsky state. In accordance with the principles of utopianism. “peasant communism” it proclaimed the complete equation of all members of China. society in the sphere of production and consumption. The “land system” determined the order of land distribution, the organization of the army, the management system and other aspects of life. The basis of the state The device was laid down by the monarch. a principle with its traditional hierarchy of ranks and ranks. In the period 1853-56, the Taiping state expanded to include lands along the Yangtze River. However, from 1856, the power of the Taipings began to weaken due to the fact that a split occurred among the Taiping leadership, which developed into an internecine war, as a result of which the swarm was actually treacherously killed. the Taiping leader Yang Xiuqing, and Shi Dakai and a number of others broke with Nanjing and began to act independently. The Manchus took advantage of this and took active action in 1857. England, France and the USA did not openly oppose the Taipings at first. Taking advantage of the citizen. war in China, they started the 2nd “Opium” War and achieved the conclusion of new, enslaving treaties for China. When it became obvious that the Taipings were defending the sovereignty and independence of China, they began an open intervention against them, which accelerated the internal. the decomposition of their state. authorities. A period of war began for the Taipings. failures that ended in 1864 with the occupation of Nanjing by the Manchus. T.v. was suppressed by capitalist forces. reactions and Chinese feudal lords.

The Taiping movement, their social and political program, the reasons for the death of the Taiping state

The history of the "Taiping Movement" belongs to the pages Chinese history mid 19th century The movement was generated by the aggravation of contradictions between the ruling and dependent sections of the population, as well as between the bulk of the Chinese people and the Manchu aristocracy. Played a major role as an accelerator I Opium War (1840-1842).

Consequence opium. wars are a sharp deterioration in the life of the people. Increasing deficit foreign trade China led to the outflow of silver abroad. The rise in the rate of silver liang, the rise in taxes in copper wen. The authority of the Qings was undermined by defeat in the war of 1840. During 1841-1849 - 110 uprisings (Chinese, Tibetans, Miao). Communities: “Triads” (Sanhehui), “Earth and Heaven” (Tiandihui), “Three Points” (Sandianhui).

1843 . - rural teacher Hong Xiuquan created the “Society for Worshiping the Heavenly Lord” (Baishandihui) in Guangxi. “On the true way of knowing the world” - popularization of Christianity from Guangzhou. A just society of great unity. Everyone is equal.

1848 . - clashes between premises. troops and supporters of Hong Xiuquan.

1850 g . - open uprising in Guangxi province (detachments of Yang Xiuqing, Wei Changhui, Shi Dakai) [miners, charcoal burners, coolies, artisans, traders; discipline, red bandage, dissolution. hair]. Attempts to suppress failed. Created a disciplined army

January 11, 1851, Jintian - an uprising against Qin and the establishment of the “Heavenly State of Great Prosperity” (Taiping Tianguo) was publicly announced. Hong Xiuquan - Heavenly Sovereign

1st period: from the first battles to the occupation of Nanjing and its creation. there is the center of the Taiping state (1850-1853)

2nd period: the struggle for the expansion of the territory. T. state - from the occupation of Nanjing to the split in the Taiping camp (1853-56)

3rd period: decline of the movement (1856-60)

4th period: the struggle of the Taipings with the bloc of Manchu-Chinese feudal lords and foreigners. aggressors (1860-64).

Autumn 1851 - the Taipings occupied the city of Yunan and formed the Taiping government. 5 Companions of Xiuquan - Van titles. Organized the production of weapons. Warriors are obliged to obey, not drink wine, not appropriate what they have captured, and observe military secrets.

January 1853 - moved east.

March 1853 - they took Nanking, but did not gain a foothold there. common feature movement - they took the city and moved on.

Domestic and foreign policy of the Taipings

1853 . - the Taiping government published the “Land System of the Heavenly Dynasty” - a program for the creation of the state of Taiping Tianguo [eq. distribution among consumers. Age limit. Under 16 - half of an adult's allotment. All lands were divided into 9 categories, so 1 mu (115 hectares) of the first category = 3 mu of the 9th. Equal division of the harvest. Those who lack land in one place move to another; jointly processed land, joint ate and clothed, money was spent together]. The dispensation regulated the structure of life in the Taiping state on basis of the military community.

Every. 25 families image. lower admin., household, military, religious. unit - liang, i.e. platoon. Liang had a public pantry where surplus food and money were donated. From each family there is one fighter. 25 families - a platoon under the command of a lansym (4 platoons - 100, 500 - battalion, 2,500 - regiment, 5 regiments - corps). Duality of the document. Equal rights of women with men. The Taipings failed to redistribute the land. The implementation of such a program could clear the way for capitalism.

State The Taiping system is monarchical. A new hierarchical top emerged from the Vanir-princes, followed by officials of 11 ranks. Most of the Taiping elite are from the common people, but they surrounded themselves with luxury and servants.

Religion sanctified the monarchical system.

In foreign policy - for mutually beneficial trade and equality. In Taiping Tianguo, only opium trade is prohibited.

1853 . - Northern Expedition. Having captured Nanjing, the Taipings decided to overthrow the entire Qing dynasty. For natives of the south, it is unusual and cold here.

1854 . - unsuccessful attempt to capture Beijing.

At the same time - the Western campaign of the Taiping army.

1855 . - Western regions are captured.

At the same time, the “Small Knives” and “Red Coins” communities became more active in southeast China. They also wanted to overthrow the Qing.

Small knives started an uprising in Fujian. Next - in Shanghai.

The leader of the uprising sent a letter to the Taipings, proposing that his troops be considered part of the general army. The situation in Shanghai greatly concerned the Qing. These provinces were considered the country's storehousesÞ Large forces have been sent to Shanghai.

The small knives resisted for 17 months, but in February 1855 they surrendered.

The head of MN, Liu Lichuan, died. The Qing entered Shanghai and carried out massacres.

At the same time, there were internal strife throughout the Taiping camp. The peasantry is unable to maintain unity and discipline for long. The uprising at this time had two leaders - Wei Changhui and Yang Xiuqing. With Hong Xiuquan's consent, Wei killed Yang and several thousand supporters. Wei seized power in Nanjing, but he was soon killed.

1857 . – Hong Xiuquan’s relatives came to power.

1859 - Hong Rengan "New Essay to Help the Board" - a program of bourgeois reforms (helping private entrepreneurs, supporting technical innovations and trading companies, strengthening centralization and banning public organizations). The program is not feasible under those conditions.

The period of decline of the war. Disagreements between the masses and the leadership of the uprising - the demands for universal equality are not recognized.

1860 . - Taiping troops began the Eastern Campaign. In June 1860 they could not take Beijing (Qing + UK, FR, US).

February 1862 - meeting of foreign commanders and consuls in Shanghai. UK, FR, US provided new batches of weapons.

There are growing disagreements among the Taiping people.

1864 . - almost all the territory previously conquered by the Taipings went back to the Qings.

June 19, 1864 - Qing troops stormed Nanjing. Massacre. 100,000 killed. The defeat of the uprising. But for a long time Taiping detachments operated in the south of China.

1864 - defeat of the Taiping uprising.

Causes of defeat:

1) support from Western powers

2) Chinese society is forcibly involved in global economic ties, which has strengthened traditional contradictions

3) state religion of the Taiping people = Christianity, which has no traditional roots; the Taiping people's struggle with Confucianism and traditional beliefs

4) agrarian program = expropriation of landowners in favor of the state, which in those conditions would only lead to despotism

5) Shenshi are dissatisfied with Taiping democratization (expansion of exam rights, etc.)

Chapter XXIX. Taiping Christianity

“Three paths to one goal” - this is how in China they explain the fact, incomprehensible to Europeans, of performing rituals and venerating the saints of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism at the same time. Moreover, the Chinese are little concerned about the fact that these teachings are often opposite to each other. A sophisticated Westerner, raised in a culture that recognizes only one true religion, finds this unimaginable. The Chinese seem to him either as hypocrites who do not believe in anything, or as people who are completely devoid of the essence of “faith,” which excludes (for the European mind) the possibility of considering two religions to be equivalent. It is difficult to deny that a Confucian scholar who condemns Buddhism and Taoism as “superstitions” in his writings, but invites a Buddhist cleric to officiate at a marriage, funeral, or in case of illness, is suffering from inconsistency, or at least yielding to the prejudices and conventions of society. But it must be remembered that in China there has never been a belief in a God who would deny the existence of his “rivals.” Buddhists recognized the major Hindu deities, although they considered them inferior to the Buddha and the great bodhisattvas. Taoists, in the same way, were always ready to recognize any popular deity and place it in their pantheon. Confucius never spoke out for or against any deity, if only because in his era there were no religious conflicts, and traditional rituals were not in doubt. Therefore, the thesis “three paths to one goal” - and the goal is a righteous life - seemed very reasonable to the Chinese. The scientist followed Confucius, the hermit searched for Buddha in contemplation in a monastery lost among the mountains, and simple ignorant people worshiped the Taoist Heavenly Queen and many other deities in the hope of averting trouble. One contemporary Chinese scholar summed up the situation this way: “In China, educated people believe in nothing, and uneducated people believe in everything.” By the 19th century, the educated class had indeed lost faith in both Buddhism and Taoism. The clergy of both religions were considered charlatans and ridiculed in plays and novels. However, the government, taking into account the mood of the people, considered it necessary to protect and even patronize the declining teachings. The Manchu emperors - true Confucians - restored and decorated Buddhist and Taoist temples. Conservative in everything, the Manchus did not want to destroy what could help win the support of the people. They also understood perfectly well that Confucianism, which was not a religion in the strict sense, appealed only to a narrow circle of people. The bulk of the people, being illiterate, could never read the canons or even comprehend the ancient language in which they were written. Confucian rituals were the lot of officials and scholars. The common people respected them, but could not separate them. And yet, two folk religions - Buddhism and Taoism - were quickly losing their position. Buddhism in the 19th century was represented by Amidism, which professed the worship of Buddha-Amitabha (Amito-fo) and the hope of entering his Western paradise after death. To achieve this goal, all that was required was to believe in Amitabha and chant his name. Invocation of the sacred name was considered sufficient for rebirth in paradise. The more often you repeat the name, the more likely salvation is. The consequence of this simplification was the decline of basic Buddhist values. Ordinary Chinese "Buddhists" ate meat, drank wine, killed animals and, if necessary - in military service or in clashes between clans - people, without fear that such extreme violations of Buddhist precepts would close the doors to heaven in front of them. Perhaps a consequence of Buddhism was a disdainful attitude towards military affairs and a low social status butchers, but, with the exception of this, the “Eightfold Path” no longer had a tangible impact on morals and morals. Of course, genuine Buddhists continued to exist. In the large mountain monasteries, in Jiuhuashan (southern Anhui), Putuoshan (Zhusan Islands) and other Buddhist sanctuaries, far from the bustle of the world and the corrupt world, ancient foundations and pure doctrine continued to reign. The remoteness of these citadels of faith, the contemplative nature of the monks who lived in them and their detachment from human life also contributed to the loss of faith among the vast majority of the Chinese. Buddhism was not able to displace the teachings of Confucius from schools and examination halls, and it did not greatly influence the lives of the rulers of the empire’s destinies. Taoism with its countless deities from peasant villages could not survive, and therefore it could not lay claim to the role of the moral guide of the people. It remained a refuge for world-weary and contemplative souls who found the pressure of family in the Chinese social system unbearable. Taoism, which still remains one of the “three ways,” has lost all semblance of purpose. All levels of society disliked and despised the Taoist clergyman, but the peasants still feared him. Considered a "superstition" by the educated class, suitable only for "stupid people", Taoism became a magical doctrine, and the clergy still found a market for their spells and amulets to bring rain or ward off illness. The close connection of Taoism with astrology, witchcraft, fortune-telling and alchemy was one of the main reasons why scientists treated all unorthodox and non-classical branches of knowledge with disdain. Chemistry, physics and other sciences dealing with the material world were suspect. After all, it was in them that the Taoist, the ignorant and the deceiver, flourished. For a scientist to show interest in such things was considered a gross violation of “decency.” An important role in the general disdain and aversion to medicine and chemical experiments was played by the fact that many popular uprisings took place under the leadership of Taoist sects, which promised those who participated in them the acquisition of magical rituals invulnerability in battle. The so-called "three religions" were in decline, but in reality they were all based on the fundamental religion of the Chinese, which arose long before them and which, no doubt, would survive even if they disappeared. The worship of ancestors, the cult of the dead - all the Chinese paid tribute to this faith. It was so firmly established that it was accepted by all classes of society without questions or doubts and did not need the support of the state and the clergy. The fact that Buddhist doctrine said nothing about the cult of the dead, but essentially denied it, but at the same time it always continued to remain the moral basis of Chinese society, confirms that the Indian religion was not able to convert the consciousness of the Chinese to its faith. The Republicans overthrew the teachings of Confucius (it was too closely associated with the Manchu dynasty and the imperial system), Taoism decayed, Buddhism was in a frozen state. The cult of ancestors was preserved and, although not openly, was recognized. The first act of the new government that came to power in Nanjing in 1927 was the creation of a mausoleum for the founder of the Kuomintang party, Sun Yat-sen. Ceremonies in his honor were the only religious rituals obligatory for officials and schoolchildren. Although certain forms of ritual associated with the cult of ancestors changed over time, its continuity at its core remained unbreakable. The ceremonies performed in the family temple of the ancestors, the care of graves, the sacred duty of giving birth and raising sons who can fulfill their duty to their ancestors in the future, subordination to the family - all these are the basis in the 19th century, as in the 1st century BC. e., remained generally accepted. The ancient cult of grain and fertility, the worship of Heaven by the emperor - the Son of Heaven - have not changed. At the official level, this cult became inseparable from neo-Confucianism - after all, the Teacher prescribed the performance of ancient rituals - but at the mass popular level, local cults of the earth deity had nothing in common with either Confucius or the imperial rituals. For the peasants, who depended on the harvest from their small fields and the mercy of nature, they were a traditional natural religion. After the fall of the Manchu dynasty, official ceremonies in the temples of the Earth and Sky deities in Beijing ceased, and the areas where they were performed became parks. But in countless villages throughout China, the "tudi-shen" (local deity) still received offerings from the peasants. The decline of the "organized" religions - Buddhism and Taoism - and the identification of the Confucian cult with the hated Manchu dynasty cleared the way for a real religious revolution that promised to sweep away the empire and sow the seeds new faith. The Taiping Movement, whose religious aspects are usually ignored, was first and foremost a religious revival, and only then a rebellion against the Manchus. It is surprising that the missionaries themselves simply did not pay attention to this movement, which was the result of contacts with European civilization and the most positive consequence of missionary activity, and the armies of Christian states also contributed to its suppression. IN European stories In China, only the political nature of the Taiping uprising is emphasized, and its religious meaning is hushed up or downplayed. And this despite the fact that for the Taiping leaders, their faith mattered even more than the victory over the Manchus. If they had renounced their religious beliefs and devoted all their efforts to raising a national uprising, success would have been guaranteed to them. The Taiping uprising was the most significant in the entire history of the Manchu dynasty, because even the victory of the republic in 1911 was largely due to the internal collapse of the dynasty than to the strength of the rebels. The dynasty fell because no one wanted to fight on its side. The Taiping uprising plunged the empire into a thirteen-year war, which devastated the central provinces and undermined the strength of the dynasty. His defeat was largely due to foreign intervention at the request of the Manchus, intervention in the interests of European traders and with the aim of dividing China into spheres

influence of Western powers. The Manchus were helped because they were weak and defenseless. The victory of the Taipings could make China strong and independent. The Taiping movement was founded by Hong Hsiu-quan, a native of Canton who belonged to the educated class. He failed his exams and believed, not without reason, that the reason for this was his southern origins and his family's active participation in the resistance to the Manchus 150 years earlier. The fate of Hong Hsiu-quan was typical of many out-of-work scientists who suffered from injustice and harbored hatred for the Manchus. In 1837, he became seriously ill, and during his illness he was visited by visions (doctors said they were hallucinations), which, as he was later convinced, were a divine revelation. A few years later, he came across a small treatise containing a translation into Chinese of part of the Gospel, made at the Protestant Mission opened shortly before in Canton. Having read it, Hong Xiu-quan realized that the teachings set forth in it coincided with the revelation he received during his illness, the meaning of which seemed incomprehensible to him for a long time. He immediately accepted the teachings that he believed were confirmed by his visions, and devoted his life to preaching the new faith. This religion can only be called a form of Christianity, for, due to the “incompleteness” of the treatise that inspired Hung Hsiu-quan, some important doctrines of Protestant theology were misunderstood by the Taiping teaching or even remained unknown to it. The new prophet was Chinese, although his teaching had foreign roots. This determined both the success of the movement among his compatriots and the implacable hostility and curses on the part of the majority of Christian missionaries. The success of the Taiping leader was extraordinary. A few years after preaching the teachings in his clan and among the Hakka, to which Hong Hsiu-quan belonged, he came under the close attention of the provincial authorities. An order was given for his arrest and the liquidation of the “Society of God Worshippers,” as the Taipings were then called. Up to this point the movement had remained purely religious, but since it rejected all existing religions and considered Buddhism to be idolatry, the Manchu authorities considered it a destructive agitation that undermined order. The followers of Hong Xiu-quan resisted the ban and took up arms. They immediately defeated the provincial forces and took the small city of Yong'an in Guangxi, which became the center of the movement. Here, in 1851, Hong Xiu-quan proclaimed Taiping Tianguo (Heavenly Kingdom of Great Prosperity) and took the title “Tian Wang” - “King of Heaven”. He deliberately abandoned the title "emperor" (huang di), because the hieroglyph "di", usually translated as "emperor", was part of the word "shang di" (high emperor), which the Taipings, like all Christian Chinese, called God. It is worth noting that here Hong Hsiu-quan returned to the ancient Chinese rule, for the term "di" denoted a deity before Qin Shi Huangdi first took the divine title to consolidate his supreme kingship. After the capture of Yong'an, the Taiping army, replenished with recruits, set out through Hunan north to the Yangtze, capturing all the cities along the way. Only Changsha was able to fight back. Having reached the river near Yuezhou and taken it, Hong Hsiu-quan went east along the Yangtze River and on March 8, 1853, captured Nanjing, the southern capital of the empire. The provincial Manchu armies proved unable to withstand such an impressive army. If Hong Hsiu-quan had gone north after the fall of Nanjing, he would almost certainly have driven the Manchus out of China in less than a year. Unfortunately for China, it did not do so. Stopping in Nanjing, which he renamed Tianjin (Heavenly Capital), he set about creating a theocratic state, sending small troops to spread the teachings and expel the Manchus. One of these detachments, numbering only 7 thousand people, passed through the whole of Northern China to the borders of Shaanxi, and then turned east and reached Jinghai, which is 20 miles south of Tianjin. Here the detachment commander, Li Hsin-cheng, the brightest and strongest personality among the Taipings, was forced to stop and, having no reinforcements, soon returned to the Yangtze Valley. If help had come, it would not have been difficult to take Beijing amid the panic that paralyzed the Manchurian court. Hong Xiu-quan expected a rise in the north, or at least a great growth of his companions, but he was deceived. The northern expedition was not replenished with new recruits, and the Taiping leader did not pay attention to the reasons for such indifference. His army consisted of southerners, for the most part Guangxi Hakka, whose dialect the northerners did not understand. The Taiping army, small and almost alien, did not inspire confidence among the northern Chinese, who were closer to the central government and more afraid of it. A large-scale invasion would have shown determination to overthrow the Manchus, but a raid by several thousand southern Hakkas seemed to the north like the campaign of a desperate band of bandits. Secondly, the Taiping creed, essentially Christian, was strange and not so warmly welcomed by the people. Having taken the city, the Taipings first considered it their duty to destroy Buddhist and Taoist temples. The replacement of the time-honored Confucian canons with the unknown Christian Gospels immediately alienated educated people from the movement. At first, the north was not hostile, it remained neutral, almost indifferent. Likewise, sixty years later, the northern provinces did not respond to the republican revolution that began in the south. In a short chapter it is impossible to describe in detail the vicissitudes of the Taiping wars that followed the failure of the campaign to the north. The Manchus, who had gathered forces in the north, tried many times to drive the Taipings out of the Yangtze Valley, which they had previously so stubbornly conquered, but until the Western powers came to the rescue, these attempts led to nothing. During this period, the Taiping armies established their power throughout the lower reaches of the Yangtze, penetrating into Sichuan, Hubei, Hunan and Henan. It seemed that the Taiping dynasty was firmly entrenched in the south and had every chance of achieving complete victory, but foreign help allowed the Manchus to re-conquer the south. The alliance of the British and French governments with the Manchus against the Taipings is one of the most remarkable and most shameful episodes of Sino-European relations. It would seem that reason and even selfish interests (in the long term) should have contributed to the opposite. The Taipings were Christians, although not orthodox, but the most friendly towards foreigners and eager to gain their support. All foreigners who visited Nanjing and other Taiping cities testify that the former considered the latter their coreligionists and allies (for foreign powers fought the Manchus in 1841, and in 1859 - during the uprising itself - they began a new one). The Taiping leaders not only wanted to spread Christianity and help missionaries do so, but also proposed opening the entire Chinese empire to trade with foreigners who could travel and live wherever they wished. According to a force-wrested treaty with the Manchu government, trade was limited to a few ports, where only foreigners had the right to live, and opportunities for missionary activity and travel were limited by the bureaucracy at all possible ways . Whatever may be said about Taiping Christianity and their destruction of temples and persecution of Buddhists, those who lived among the Taipings or visited their cities say that the movement contributed enormously to the revival of national character and self-respect. “The Taipings are a different nation compared to imperial China,” missionaries, naval officers, and traders who sympathized with them said so. It was noted that the Taiping soldiers did not rob or steal. The devastation of the war-torn provinces was associated with brutal reprisals by the regular troops. The social reforms of the Taipings are also noteworthy. Footbinding and opium smoking were banned, the status of women improved, and some were even accepted into the service. Taxes in the Taiping state were much lighter than in the empire, and they were established more fairly. In the early years of the Taiping movement, foreigners fully sympathized with it. The Anglican Bishop of Victoria (Hong Kong) often said that it was a crusade, albeit unorthodox and not supported by some doctrines. However, the attitude changed when in 1860 the British and French governments entered into an agreement with the emperor, which they considered very beneficial for themselves. Although some missionaries and many foreigners in China did not agree with the policies of their government, their opinions were not taken into account, and now this can only be learned from long-forgotten books and newspapers of the time. It became generally accepted that the Taiping creed was a blasphemous perversion of Christian doctrine. Only in this case could one come to terms with the fact that English troops participated in the suppression of the national Christian movement on the side of the corrupt and dishonest pagan Manchus. At that time, China was far away, and such propaganda was successful. At its core, the teaching of the Taipings was Protestant. They had a complete translation of the Bible made by the missionary Gutzlaff. The book was printed in Nanjing and distributed to sympathizers and converts. In matters of dogma, although not orthodox in some parts, the Taiping generally adhered to Christian theology. They recognized one God (shan di). Jesus occupied the same place in Taiping theology as among European Protestants, but the doctrine of the Trinity was not understood by them, primarily due to imperfect translation. They also recognized the existence of the Holy Spirit, although they believed that one day it descended and inhabited one of their leaders, “dong wang” Yang Sui-chuan. The Ten Commandments were the pillar of their creed and the first thing taught to children and converts. However, the Taipings also acquired another feature of Christianity (as well as other biblical religions) - intolerance. They recognized only Christian

God and no one else. Buddhism and Taoism were considered superstitions that needed to be uprooted, monasteries destroyed, and monks returned to secular life. If the Taipings had been victorious in China, they would almost certainly have destroyed these ancient religions, just as Islam destroyed Buddhism in northwest India and the East Indies. This could have been a disaster for the art and architecture of the past, but it would hardly have shocked the missionaries preaching in China at that time. In 1860, the famous Yuanmingyuan Palace near Beijing, with all its priceless treasures, was destroyed. This was considered a reasonable and honorable response to the mistreatment of English envoys at court. Chinese art and culture remained an unsolved mystery for Europeans. The missionaries were particularly dissatisfied with the personality of the leader of the Taiping movement - the “King of Heaven” Hong Hsiu-quan. It was he who was and his ideological inspirer , and the leader. The activities of the missionaries had only an indirect impact on the movement. Hong Xiuquan did not receive blessings from them. From a Protestant point of view, his theology was vulnerable in some points, but to his followers he was not just a ruler, but a prophet directly inspired by the Lord, who revealed the truth in a vision to Hong Hsiu-quan. This doctrine was the basis of the Taiping movement. The Taipings considered him, if not a deity, then inspired by him. And if his teaching differed from what the missionaries preached, their prophet was right, for he received divine revelation. Hong Hsiu-quan himself remained a religious fanatic, convinced of his chosenness. Without receiving any support from the missionaries, he was a huge success. It seemed unreasonable to the Taipings to even suggest that their prophet and ruler should seek advice from missionaries. Authors who criticized the Taiping movement poured out a lot of sarcasm about the title “Little Brother of Jesus” adopted by Hong Hsiu-quan. They invariably presented this as a claim to divinity. It is possible that some missionaries who considered this title "offensive" simply did not understand the sense in which the Taiping used the words "xiong di" ("little brother"). Others, no doubt, deliberately distorted the meaning for propaganda purposes. The Taipings called their co-religionists that way. They considered foreign Christians “wai xiong di” - “foreign brothers,” which should not have seemed strange to the Protestant evangelists, for they themselves often called Christian blacks “black brothers.” For the Taipings, the title of Hong Xiu-quan meant no more than the imperial title "Son of Heaven" for all other Chinese. And it should in no way be understood as a literal claim to divine origin. In conversations, the Taiping leaders quite clearly denied the “divinity” of their leader. “A man like others, only greater,” they said. That this title is merely an example of oriental pomposity and has no literal religious meaning is confirmed by one of the foreigners who visited Nanjing and published a description of his trip in a Shanghai newspaper: “Whatever Hong Xiuquan meant by calling himself the brother of Jesus, "nothing suggests that this is what determines the faith of his followers in him. When the commanders who visited the ship were asked about this, they could not say anything. They were so openly dumbfounded that it became obvious that they had simply not been interested in this before." It can also be noted that on the portrait of the “Heavenly King” that circulated among the Taipings, only the motto of the reign was indicated - “Tian-de” (“Heavenly Virtue”), and the title “brother of Jesus” was absent. The nature of the Taiping creed, its similarities with orthodox Christianity, and the claims made in the name of the "King of Heaven" are contained in a long work called "The Canon of the Three Characters" because each phrase consisted of three characters. It was used to teach converts and children, and the three-step meter made memorization easy. It began with the Old Testament description of creation: "The Great God Created the heavens and the earth, And the land and the sea, And all things here. In six days He created everything entirely." It then describes the Egyptian captivity of the Jews, their deliverance, the pestilence in Egypt, and the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai. Since subsequent generations did not fulfill the Law, "The Great God took pity on people and sent his firstborn son to descend into the world. His name is Jesus. He is the savior of people, who atones for their sins with the patience of extreme poverty. On the cross they pierced his body with nails, and he shed his precious blood to save people." Then there is a description of the resurrection, and then the history of China is traced up to the receipt of the revelation by Hong Hsiu-quan. In this review, the sage rulers extolled by the Confucians are characterized as “God-worshipers,” and responsibility for the decline of true religion is placed on Qin Shi Huang Di, the Han Wu and Ming Di, who introduced Buddhism, and the Song Hui Tsung, who patronized Taoism. Such an interpretation betrays Confucian views, but from the point of view of Christianity is not so inconsistent. Confucian Heaven may be easily identified with God, but Buddhist and Taoist deities clearly do not fit into Christian theology. It must be remembered that Hong Hsiu-quan studied the canons as every educated Chinese should have done at that time. Therefore, the revelation is described as follows: "In the year of Ding-yu (1837) He was received by Heaven, Where heavenly affairs Were clearly conveyed to him. The Great God Himself instructed him, Handed over laws and books to him, And conveyed the true teaching." The following revelations are recorded, and the “covenant” ends with instructions on how to keep the Ten Commandments and worship the true God. For missionaries, who were more concerned about the orthodoxy of sectarians than about the struggle in one form or another between paganism and Christianity, such statements were absolutely unacceptable. Christian theology has already developed and established itself. There was no place in it for a new prophet, especially if he was an unbaptized Chinese. If the "King of Heaven" had renounced his claims to divine revelation and inspiration, and had instead humbly asked for instruction and baptism from some English missionary, Western Christendom would have accepted him, but then the Taiping movement would have been deprived of its meaning and motive. It can be assumed that such a grandiose coup, which promised, if successful, the wholesale conversion of the Chinese to Taiping Christianity, would allow the Taiping leader to be considered a prophet, and the most outstanding one in Christian history. But the English missionaries did not want this. Christianity, if it came to China, had to come only from them. The Chinese could not count on direct revelation, because God's providence was carried out in Asia only with the help of Europeans. The opposition of the English and French governments was not due to disagreement with the claims of the “King of Heaven” of the Taipings, but to considerations of profit and trade. In 1859–1860, the war between the powers and China began again, the cause of which was the continued obstacles to trade imposed by the Manchu authorities and their interference in the affairs of European traders. It ended in their complete victory. Beijing was taken, the emperor fled, and the signed treaty satisfied all their demands. New ports were opened for trade, including on the Yangtze River, into which foreign ships were allowed to enter. In addition, China was ordered to pay a huge indemnity. It was provided by customs revenues, control of which was now entrusted to foreigners. They also received the right to set the level of duties, naturally, beneficial for their traders. The Manchu Empire found itself in a position where its very continued existence depended on the Western powers. Having obtained by the treaty all the privileges that could be had without annexing the provinces, the foreign powers concluded that they had secured the future of their trade with China, and had reached a position in which any further demands of theirs would be satisfied. That's why they treated the Taipings' proposals with such disdain. If they can monopolize the ports and collect customs duties, why do they need free trade throughout the empire? They prevented the Taiping advance on Shanghai, sold weapons, ships and equipment to the Manchus and denied it to the Taipings. Finally, from Shanghai, prepared for the Manchus (for until their nominal power was established, it was impossible to collect customs duties to pay indemnities), they sent an army to the Taiping flank and provided the Manchu government with officers - among them General Gordon - to organize regular troops and their command in battle. Having received such help, the Manchus, after several years of devastating war, finally took Nanjing and put an end to the Taiping movement. Along with it, hopes for reform and modernization in China disappeared for another half century. The Manchus again strengthened their position and, despite the fact that they owed this to foreigners, continued to maintain the same hostile and reactionary views of the Western world as in the 18th century. The Taiping teaching died along with its founder when Nanjing fell. It left no traces behind itself and no longer came to life. When the Chinese borrowed Western ideas fifty years later, they were not looking for religious ideas, but political doctrines. Under the republic, the influence of Western ideas was great, but not Christianity. The missionaries, having rejected millions of Hong Hsiu-quan's followers, were forced to be content with a few thousand parishioners, and it seems that they will no longer have such an opportunity. Nowadays, even if the Chinese accept Western ideology, it is in the person of Marx and Lenin, and not Martin Luther. The defeat of the Taiping movement was a turning point in Chinese cultural history. The success of the national-religious revolution could lead to the fall of the Manchus and the proclamation of a new dynasty and a new worldview, ready to accept Western ones in addition to the creed.

ideas. It is quite possible that replacing Buddhism and Taoism with Taiping Christianity would give a new impetus to literature and art, which the old teachings could no longer provide. Under a new political system, the Chinese at the end of the 19th century would have been prepared for the great changes that modern industry had brought upon the world. However, they continued to live under decaying despotism, and after its fall they found themselves thrown simultaneously into a political, economic and cultural revolution, further complicated by external aggression. The cynical policies of the Western powers in the second half of the 19th century also bear responsibility for such a tragic outcome. NOTES 1 In the Qing era, Chinese girls had their feet bandaged in a special way, pulling the toe to the heel and preventing the growth of the leg; a small, crippled foot was considered a sign of beauty. - Approx. ed. 2 It was created on the model of the Confucian “Three Words” (San Tzu Jing), according to which children began to learn in schools. - Approx. ed.

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In the history of China, a certain cyclical nature inherent in most world civilizations is especially clearly visible. Epochs of prosperity here alternated with periods of chaos and devastation. By the middle of the 19th century, growing tension in the country led to another social explosion, which this time was caused not only by traditional internal Chinese problems, but also by fundamentally new phenomena.

Causes of the uprising

Since 1644, the imperial throne in China was occupied by representatives of the Manchu Qing dynasty, who established themselves here as a result of conquests. Despite the fact that the Manchus quickly assimilated, the local population continued to perceive them as outsiders. Therefore, all subsequent social unrest took place under calls for the overthrow of the hated Qing emperors.

The situation in the village also became tense. However, social tensions were nothing new in China. Since ancient times, the interests of rich landlords and the poorest lower classes have clashed here, and the latter have always been a source of anti-government sentiment. However, the social protest of the mid-19th century was associated not only with internal phenomena, but also with the consequences of the First Opium War. The purchase of opium from Britain caused a drain of silver from the Chinese economy and inflation. At the same time, payments to the population were issued in cheap copper coins, and duties were collected exclusively in silver. This imbalance caused a significant increase in the tax burden and growing discontent.

The opening of new ports to trade with foreigners relieved congestion on overland trade routes in the southern part of the country - in the Guangdong region. Transportation began to be carried out along the Yangtze River, which required less financial costs and saved a lot of time. As a result, many peasants who lived in the south and were engaged in transporting goods were left without work and livelihood.

Another circumstance that led to peasant uprisings was the natural disasters that struck China in the 1840s: two severe floods that killed 1 million people and a crop failure in 1849.

The protest of the poorest strata could result in a short series of disparate and unsystematic uprisings, which the government would suppress in a matter of months, or even weeks. But at this historically important moment, a very ambitious man appeared among the peasantry, who not only offered a clear ideological justification for further actions, but also turned the amorphous mass of dissatisfied people into a strict, paramilitary organization. His name was Hong Xiucuan. Based on his own ideas about the structure of the world and the ideal state, he managed to create a real religion that found many adherents throughout the country.

Teachings and activities of Hong Xiucuan

Hong Xiuquan's ideas combined both traditional Chinese ideological elements and fundamentally new ones. In essence, it was a synthesis of Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism, on the one hand, and Christianity, understood in a special manner, on the other.

Hong Xiuquan saw the main goal of his activities as the creation of a “great welfare state” based on the principles of equality and fraternity. The cause of the crisis, in his opinion, was the power of the Manchus - the “devils”. In order to return harmony to the world, it is necessary to eliminate the oppression of the landowners, begin to cooperate with Western countries and drive out the “devils.” Hong Xiuquan called himself “the ruler and savior of people,” sent down to earth from above, as well as the younger brother of Christ.

In 1843, Hong Xiuquan founded the “Society for the Worship of the Heavenly Lord” and began to conduct active propaganda activities, moving from one province to another. Quite quickly, a wide circle of adherents forms around him. These were mainly representatives of the poorest strata of the population: peasants, workers and marginalized people, attracted by the idea of enriching the poor at the expense of the rich. However, wealthy people who were dissatisfied with Qing rule also stood under the banner of Hun Xiucuan. As a result, he managed to assemble a real 30,000-strong army.

The center of the revolutionary movement was the secluded village of Jin-Tian in the southern province of Guangxi. A real military camp was set up here, in which the strictest discipline reigned: opiate and tobacco smoking, alcohol, sexual relations and gambling. Members of the “Society for the Worship of the Heavenly Lord” called for universal equality, community of property, asceticism, the elimination of commodity-money relations, observance of the ten Christian commandments and the fight against the Manchus.

Course of events

The initial stage of the revolution (1850-53)

Guangxi officials only took notice of the growing revolutionary movement in their province in the summer of 1850. To eliminate it, they created armed peasant detachments, which either could not provide worthy resistance to the Taiping army, or joined the rebels. In January 1851, when Hong Xiucuan's army finally strengthened, the beginning of armed struggle for the sake of overthrowing the old system and establishing a new one. At the same time, the formation of the Heavenly State of Great Prosperity (Taiping Tango) was proclaimed. A full-fledged state apparatus was formed, relying on the army. Hong Xiutsuan himself was declared the supreme ruler of Taiping Tanguo - the Heavenly Wang.

The rebels destroyed landowners' estates, killed officials and their families, and destroyed everything related to traditional Chinese religions: temples, figurines, literature. The ideas of Hong Xiuquan were declared to be the only correct teaching, despite the fact that the leader of the movement himself drew most of his views from ancient Chinese religious treatises.

In the fall of 1851, the Taipings occupied the city of Yong'an, where government troops tried to block them. However, the siege was broken, the Qing army suffered considerable damage, and the rebels fought their way north. Along the way, they managed to capture Wuchang, a strategically important city with rich weapons arsenals. Since part of the river fleet stationed on the Yangtze also fell into the hands of the Taipings, the rebels were able to quickly and without losses reach Nanjing, the ancient capital of China. After a difficult, long blockade, the resistance of the city’s defenders was broken. Nanjing became the capital of Taiping Tango. From this moment on, we can talk about the establishment of dual power in China: the revolutionary government in Nanjing and the Manchu government in Beijing.

Peak of the revolutionary movement (1853-1856)

The next goal of the Taipings was the conquest of Northern China and the heart of the empire - Beijing. However, expeditions sent to the capital were destroyed by Qing troops, and the leadership of Taiping Tango began to resolve internal issues.

The population of Nanjing was divided into male and female communities, relations between which were suppressed. These communities, in turn, were divided into professional guilds, which created everything necessary for the life support of the new state. Money was abolished. The Taiping Tango leaders disposed of the surplus production and war booty, who quickly abandoned the principles of asceticism and abstinence. They took the lion's share of the wealth for themselves, and sent the rest to public storerooms, from where any citizen could take something necessary.

Hong Xiuquan announced the reform of agrarian relations in accordance with the program he developed - the “Land System of the Heavenly Dynasty”. According to it, private law was eliminated, the country's population was divided into agricultural communities, which were also military units. Communities had to provide for themselves, and hand over everything produced in excess of the norm to the state. However, in practice this program was never implemented.

Meanwhile, a split is brewing in the Taiping elite. In 1856, a former associate of Hun Xiucuan, Yang Xiuqing, who attempted to become the sole leader of the Taiping Tango, was killed. This massacre was followed by a whole series of bloody events, the result of which was the destruction of not only the majority of Taiping leaders who once supported the Heavenly Wang, but also 20 thousand ordinary citizens.

While the Taiping leaders threw sumptuous feasts, created harems and dealt with each other, the Qing government was preparing for decisive action. Firstly, well-armed self-defense units were organized locally, led by ethnic Chinese, and secondly, European mercenaries began to be used for military service. The British provide active assistance to the Beijing government in suppressing the uprising, having decided in this situation to rely on the Qing dynasty. The Taipings, despite their sympathies for the Europeans, refused to recognize the terms of the Nanjing Peace Treaty, and, therefore, could refuse to cooperate with the colonialists in the future.

Crisis of the revolutionary movement and defeat of the Taipings (1856-1864)

The leadership of the Heavenly State was torn apart by contradictions. Representatives of the younger generation of revolutionaries who understood the essence of the processes taking place in the world, for example Hong Rengan, proposed a set of reforms aimed at formalizing capitalist relations in China: the creation of a banking system, the development of industry and the transport network. However, all these projects remained unrealized. At this time, a mass exodus began from the Taiping camp, the repressions regularly resorted to by the rebel leaders, and the radical approach to resolving issues relating to private property and religion scared away all segments of the population.

The modernized Qing army begins to win one victory after another. In 1862, Shi Dakai, one of the oldest associates of Hong Xiutsuan, was captured along with his army. And at the beginning of 1864, Nanjing was besieged. Famine began in the city. In this situation, it was revealed that the Heavenly Wang, who had previously relied on his associates in tactical matters, had a complete lack of any military talents. After 1856, there was not a single living person left who could influence his decisions. He rejected all possible options for breaking the blockade, expecting that the surviving parts of the once huge Taiping army would come to his aid. These hopes were not justified, and in the early summer of 1864 the leader of the uprising committed suicide. The defenders of Nanjing were able to hold out for another two months. At the end of July, the blockade was broken, desperate street fighting continued for several days, during which all the Taipings were destroyed. Despite the victory of the Qing government, the fight against individual rebel groups scattered throughout China continued until 1868.

Reasons for the defeat of the uprising

Despite the Taiping's success in the early stages of the revolution, the uprising was doomed to failure from the start. In the 1840s-60s, in addition to the Taiping outbreak, several more outbreaks flared up in China. peasant movements, whose participants wanted to restore the previous dynasty - the Ming, while the Taipings wanted to put Hong Xiutsuan himself at the head of the state. This caused disagreement and prevented the rebels from presenting a united front against the Manchus. At the same time, the Taiping elite itself began to decompose.

During the uprising, the rebels managed to occupy most of the country, but they did not care about retaining these territories. In the provinces that the Taipings declared as their own, the pre-revolutionary way of things remained: the owners retained their land, the landowners continued to exploit the peasants, and the amount of taxes was practically not reduced.

The Taiping ideology never attracted enough of the population. She carried ideas alien to the Chinese. If the radical redistribution of property alienated the rich strata from the Taipings, then religious fanaticism and an attempt to destroy the traditional system of Chinese beliefs scared the common people away from participating in the revolution. In addition, the leaders of the movement themselves did not understand the nature of the changes that were taking place in the world and in their country. The government system they proposed was a combination of utopian communism and oriental despotism, while all progressive powers were entering the era of capitalism. At the same time, the Taipings did not understand that the main reason for the tense socio-economic situation was not the Manchus, who by that time had finally accepted Chinese culture, but the Western colonialists. Even when the latter began to openly side with the Qing government, the Taiping continued to consider the Europeans their “younger brothers.”

The Taiping uprising, which lasted 15 years, bled the country dry. During civil war, according to some historians, up to 20 million people died. The economy was in decline, and the intervention of British troops in the internal affairs of China strengthened the colonial dependence of the state. The Taiping movement exposed all the problems of the Qing empire that arose after the collapse of Chinese self-isolation, and raised the question of the continued existence of the state in new conditions.

In the villages near Canton, which was shocked by the “overseas barbarians,” another sect or secret society arose. Since ancient times, there have been a great many such secret unions and societies - religious, political, mafia, and often all of these together at once - in China. During the Qing Empire, they opposed Manchu rule and for the restoration of the old, already legendary national Ming dynasty: “Fan Qing, Fu Ming!” ( Down with the Qing Dynasty, let's restore the Ming Dynasty! ).

At the end of the 18th century, one of them - best known by its "mafia" name "Triad" - rebelled against the Manchus in Taiwan and the southern coastal provinces. Thus ended an almost century-long period of relative social world within the empire. At the turn of the 19th century in northern China, the Buddhist secret society "Bailianjiao" ( White Lotus) led a large peasant uprising that lasted almost nine years. It is characteristic that after the suppression of the uprising, in 1805, those who suppressed it rebelled - the rural militia "Xiangyong" and the shock units of the volunteers "Yongbin", who demanded rewards after demobilization. They were joined by recruits from the “green banner” troops, who protested against poor supplies. The Manchus could no longer slaughter experienced soldiers and, in order to calm down the military rebellion, they distributed land from the state fund to the rebels.

The entire first half of the 19th century passed in China under the sign of incessant provincial unrest, scattered riots and rebellions of secret societies and national minorities. In 1813, followers of the Heavenly Mind sect even stormed the imperial palace in Beijing. Eight dozen attackers managed to break into the emperor's chambers, but they were killed by Manchu guards from the Jin-jun-ying, the palace guard.

But the new sect or new secret society differed from the previous ones in that it was based on Christianity, refracted in the Chinese consciousness.

Chinese Brother of Jesus Christ

The son of a wealthy rural family, Hong Xiuquan traveled to Canton three times, devoting the first 30 years of his life to unsuccessful attempts to pass the notorious exams for bureaucratic positions. It was there that he became acquainted with Chinese translations of Christian books and sermons, and his brain, overloaded with Confucian scholasticism and severe disappointment in the traditional world order (failure in exams meant the end of dreams of a career) first gave rise to spiritual crisis, and then insight, illumination and religious-political exaltation, which became the beginning of a new teaching and state.

State examinations for bureaucratic rank, medieval Chinese drawing.
The national examination system existed in China for over a millennium until 1905

Like the Christian saints, Hong, after the third failed exam, which became the end of his former life, was dying for 40 days and nights, raving about poetry in which he mixed Christian elements with traditional Chinese ones. Having recovered, he no longer thought about passing exams, but intended to change the world. After all, he was already the brother of Jesus Christ...

Fortunately for the new messiah, he had very practical followers, as it would turn out in the near future, endowed with remarkable organizational and military talents. Such was Yang Xiuqing, the son of poor peasants from the neighboring province of Guangxi, who changed many occupations and found himself unemployed after the Opium War resulted in the center of foreign trade moving from Canton to Shanghai. Yang hardly fully believed that the teacher Hong, whom he respected, was the natural son of Jehovah and the brother of Jesus, but this did not stop him from declaring himself the second younger brother of God the Son. And even more so, like all passionate individuals, he sincerely considered himself no worse than Christ or the Manchu emperor.

In total, there were six founders of the new teaching and the new state (really new - it’s not for nothing that the New History of China begins with this uprising) - a teacher, a beggar, a money lender, a landowner, a peasant, a miner. They came from very different social backgrounds, education and professions, all of them were “Hakka” - children of poor clans. “Hakka” literally means “guests”, descendants of ancient settlers who have long been despised and oppressed by the indigenous clans. And centuries of living together did not smooth out, but deepened this enmity. Here the age-old struggle for the main means of survival intervened - for land, very similar in social nature to the one that, half a century later, would give rise to a great bloodshed civil war in the South of Russia between the Cossacks and the “non-residents”. This great blood - made even greater by the huge masses of the population - will also flood the rebellious China.

Chinese drawing on a biblical theme. Christianity, refracted in the medieval Chinese consciousness, turned out to be capable of giving rise to not such stories...

The Hakka children created the Baishandihui society - the society of the Heavenly Father, in which the Christian teaching about justice and ancient Chinese utopias about universal harmony, calls for social equality and a national uprising against the foreign Manchu dynasty were intertwined. In essence, this was the first version of “national liberation theology” in modern history. In addition to the Old and New Testaments, they wrote their own “third part” of the Bible - the Last Testament.

In 1847, Hong Xiuquan came to Canton to visit Protestant missionaries from the United States to receive baptism. But these were not the same Christians of the first centuries who crushed the slave-owning empire of Rome - frightened by the strange Chinese, the American priest refused to baptize him.

The God-seekers did not immediately turn into rebels. Local authorities persecuted strange preachers, then began to put them in prison and release them for bribes. Seven years later, the new teaching covered significant masses, and the sect turned into an extensive underground organization, which in the summer of 1850 began preparations for an open uprising.

"Kingdom of Heaven" and its militias

On January 11, 1851, in the village of Jintian, Guiping County, Xinzhoufu County, Guangxi Province, coal workers rebelled against the arbitrariness of a local Manchu official. The riot was the signal for a major uprising. On September 25, the rebels captured the first Big city- the county center of Yong'an, where they create their own government and proclaim a new state. It was called the Kingdom of Heaven of Greatest Happiness - “Tai-Ping Tian-Guo” - and the rebels began to be called “Taiping”.

The rebel Taipings, the “huntou”-red-heads. Modern Chinese drawing. The rebel in the center most likely carries a primitive bamboo flamethrower on his shoulder - there will be a story about him later

Since the 19th century, “Taiping Tianguo” has traditionally been translated as “Heavenly State of Great Prosperity.” But since the Taiping leaders used biblical terminology, the closest Russian analogue of “Tian-Guo” will be “The Kingdom of Heaven,” which is now well known to all Christians. Naturally, in the 19th century in Russia they could not call the state of the Chinese insurgents that way. As for the term “Prosperity,” it was appropriate in the century before last (for example, “The Union of Prosperity” was the name of one of the first secret societies of the Decembrists), but in the 21st century it is not at all necessary to translate the terminology of Chinese revolutionaries using linguistic anachronism. “The Kingdom of Heaven of Greatest Happiness” reflects the style of the Taiping people much more accurately.

The leader of the rebel sectarians, Hong Xiuquan, received the title “Tian-wan” - Heavenly Sovereign (the closest Russian religious analogue is “Heavenly King”). In fact, he became an emperor, the antipode of the Manchu god Xianfeng, who had just ascended the “dragon throne” in Beijing.

The self-proclaimed “King of Heaven,” Tian-wang, laid claim to supreme power throughout the world—this is the Taiping version of the world revolution. Therefore, his associates received auxiliary titles for the cardinal directions - Eastern, Western, Southern and Northern sovereigns, respectively: “Dong-wan”, “Si-wan”, “Nan-wan” and “Bei-wan”. There was also an Auxiliary (or Flank) sovereign, “I-van”.

Having proclaimed the “Kingdom of Heaven of Greatest Happiness,” in fact, the Taipings bluntly declared the creation of paradise on Earth... They wore red bands on their heads, and as a sign of disobedience to the Manchus they stopped shaving their hair above the forehead and braiding the obligatory braids, for which they received the nickname “ Hongtou" and "Changmao" are red-headed and long-haired.

The obligatory men's hairstyle in the Qing Empire is clearly visible - a shaved forehead in front and a long braid in the back. Photo XIX century

Later, during the protracted civil war, when individual cities and regions changed hands more than once, especially cunning and conformist inhabitants managed to grow their hair and keep their braids, hiding it under headdresses from the Taipings, so that in the event of the return of the Manchus, quickly shaving off the excess, present this sign of loyalty to the Manchu dynasty.

In addition to braids, the Taipings also abolished the custom of binding women's feet, traditional in Confucian China. In general, Taiping women received equal social status, and at the first stage of the movement, there were even special women’s units in their army.

The same custom of bandaged female feet is the “lotus feet” of medieval China. This was the practical application of the slogan “beauty requires sacrifice” brought to its apotheosis. Chinese girls had their feet tightly bandaged from the age of 7 throughout their lives to keep them miniature. As the child grew, the foot and toes became deformed, acquiring the desired shape. It was difficult for medieval Chinese beauties to walk on their mutilated legs. Their miniature legs in small embroidered shoes and a swaying gait with tense buttocks - all this was the main object of erotic experiences and admiration for the gentlemen of medieval China. However, there was not only an aesthetic reason here - they claim that the displacement of the female genital organs resulting from the peculiarities of gait also gave men special pleasure during sexual intercourse. By the way, the Manchus, trying to differ from the Chinese, forbade their women to bind their feet, which made the Manchu beauties suffer greatly and feel inferior. The Chinese did not bandage their feet only among women of the lower classes, because they would not be able to work on mutilated feet.

The Taiping movement - one might even talk about the Taiping Revolution - was a very complex phenomenon. This was both a traditional peasant war against the ruling bureaucracy (a social explosion that included a war of clans), and a traditional national liberation movement against a foreign dynasty. It was a religious war of the new “Christian” worldview against the traditional Chinese (especially against Confucianism in its most skeletal forms) - and at the same time a war for the revival of the most ancient Chinese ideals, dating back to the Zhou era, which ended three centuries before Christ. The Taipings combined traditional Chinese nationalism, with its sense of superiority over surrounding peoples, and a sincere interest in Western Christendom - the “barbarian brothers,” as they said.

These features of the movement turned the Taiping uprising into a complex and long civil war - the degenerate Qing dynasty with its decayed military-bureaucratic apparatus was saved from the Chinese revolutionaries by the Chinese traditionalists, convinced Confucians, who entered into a shaky alliance with the last Manchu-Mongol passionaries.

It is no coincidence that the main enemy of the Taiping “Wangs” on the battlefield was the leader of the classical poetic school of China, the master of “Song style poetry” Zeng Guofan. He was doing well with his exams and his bureaucratic career. Perhaps he would also have adopted the slogan “Fan Qing, Fu Ming!” - but the “Christian communism” of the Taipings was deeply disgusting to him. An inspired traditionalist and at the same time a convinced innovator (he reformed everything from the army and court etiquette to Confucian philosophy), he played a decisive role in the defeat of the Taipings.

It was Zeng Guofan and his student and comrade-in-arms in the civil war, Li Hongzhang, who, during the fight against the Taipings, would lay the foundation for a new, no longer medieval Chinese army, which will save the Qing dynasty in order to throw it off the throne at the beginning of the 20th century, and by the middle of the century to disappear under the blows of the heirs of the Taipings - the Chinese communists, who in turn will create new army, one of the largest in our 21st century.

But let’s leave historical dialectics and return to the Taipings.

The first losses and failures of the “Kingdom of Heaven”

The rebel sectarians held the city of Yong'an for six months. Forty thousand provincial troops of the “green banner” blocked the area captured by the Taipings, but were never able to begin an assault on the city walls, encountering active defenses - rebel units constantly maneuvered and counterattacked the enemy in the vicinity of Yong’an, skillfully combining these actions with guerrilla warfare. In April 1852, when food supplies dried up in the area they controlled, the Taipings broke through the blockade line and moved north. During the breakthrough, four Manchu generals were killed in stubborn battles, and the Taipings lost their first military leader, the head of the allied “triads” Hong Daquan, captured.

During the breakthrough, the rebels attacked the capital of Guangxi province, the city of Guilin, but matchlock guns and cannons on the city walls repelled all attacks. In one of them, “Nan-wang,” the Southern Emperor of the Taipings, died under the fire of Manchu cannons - he, by the way, was the first whom the authorities arrested several years ago for his strange sermon and denial of Confucius.

Without being drawn into a long siege, the Taiping moved further northeast into the neighboring province of Hunan. Along the way, they were joined by 50–60 thousand people, including several thousand coal mine workers. A separate sapper detachment was created from them, intended for digging under the city walls. For two months the Taipings besieged and stormed the city of Changsha, the capital of Hunan. It was here that the main enemy of the Taipings in the near future first appeared - the 40-year-old retired high-ranking official and Confucian poet Zeng Guofan, and the united local self-defense units - "mintuan", along with guns, played main role in defense of the city. Under the fire of cannons at the walls of Changsha, the Western sovereign of the Taipings, “Si-wan”, one of the poor peasants, a former guard of merchant caravans, died.

Having retreated from Changsha, the Taipings moved to the great Chinese Yangtze River, joining more and more crowds of rebels along the way. 80 years later, the Chinese communists will have to act in exactly the same way - having failed in the assault on large urban centers, their “Soviet regions” will wander for many years throughout the spaces of rural China, breaking through the blockades of government troops, constantly losing old ones in battles and with the same constancy collecting the paths of new rebels, who were born in droves from the impoverished Chinese village.

Submission to authority, traditional for all secret societies, helped the Taipings at the very beginning of the movement to form an excellent military core with iron discipline, courage and devotion, based on religious (and essentially political) fanaticism. Among the Taiping leaders there were many educated people familiar with ancient Chinese military treatises, but at the same time they were not constrained by the inertia and stereotypes inherent in Qing military officials.

This is how the seventh founding father of the movement, Hong Daquan, the leader of one of the branches of the more traditional “Triad”, who did not believe in Christ, but from the very beginning became an ally of the Taipings and died in the first battles, described his “universities”:

“From an early age I read books and wrote essays, took exams for an academic degree several times, but the official examiners, without delving into my writings, did not recognize my talents, and then I became a monk. Returning to the world, I took the exams again, but again did not receive a degree, then I was terribly angry, but then I became interested in books on military affairs, wanting to accomplish great things. All military laws and strategy have attracted my attention since ancient times. The whole map of China was in my head, in full view..."

A detailed presentation of the history of the Taipings, the essence of their teachings and the course of the 15-year civil war is very difficult due to the abundance of Chinese names, terms and geographical names that are difficult for the Russian-speaking reader. Therefore, the further narrative will be only a general and fragmentary description of the war of the Taiping “Kingdom of Heaven” against the Celestial Empire.

To be continued

Literature:

Pozdneev D. Taiping uprising in China. St. Petersburg, 1898.
Shpilman D. Peasant revolution in China. Taiping Rebellion. 1850–1864. M, 1925
Kharnsky K. China from ancient times to the present day. Vladivostok, 1927
Skorpilev A. Report on the Taiping Revolution. Magazine "Problems of China", No. 1, 1929
Skorpilev A. Army of the Taiping Revolution. Magazine "Problems of China", No. 4–5, 1930
Kara-Murza G. Taipings. The Great Peasant War and the Taiping State in China 1850–1864. M., 1941
Efimov G. Essays on the new and recent history of China. M., 1951
Hua Gan. History of the revolutionary war of the Taiping state. M., 1952
Fan Wen-Lan. New history of China. Volume I, 1840–1901 M., 1955
Skachkov K. Beijing in the days of the Taiping uprising: From the notes of an eyewitness. M., 1958
Taiping Rebellion 1850–1864. Collection of documents. M., 1960
Ilyushechkin V. Taiping Peasant War. M., 1967

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