He kept it at home and after his third examination failure, he had a dream in which there was a bearded and golden-haired man who gave him a sword, and a younger man who instructed him on slaying the evil spirits. Dowling, Mike. If you need this or any other sample, we can send it to you via email. As they advanced, they never held any of the cities they captured. 26th March 2009. the prefectures in which the rebellion took place). However, the Taiping rebellion instilled the much needed spirit of patriotism that set off the course for the Chinese people to liberate themselves from the grip of foreign rule. At the same time the main reason that may have led to the western forces opting to support the Qing’s government is because they considered the Taiping a threat to their opium trade and business investment since at that time western nations had hugely invested a lot of resources through the establishment of factories, banks and other manufacturing companies. This however, later changed and commanding officers were now being appointed in terms of qualifications (“TaipingRebellion.com 1850-71,” par. Compared to the control groups, the Early Taiping areas are now similar except that they have lower GDP per capita by 22 log points. And what are the underlying mechanisms? Xiuquan dropped from school at the age due to lack of funds but due to his diligence and eminent desire to study, his relatives assisted him to resume studies with a local master. He claimed to be the younger brother of Jesus and part of his quest was to convert many to the Christian faith and establish a kingdom of peace. In his vision, he saw a very large procession coming with music and banners, he was ushered into a palace and in the palace, an ancient surgeon Chin- Kwei removed his heart and after this, Xiuquan was allowed to appear before the lord of the palace who appeared as an old man venerable in years. Karl Marx, “Revolution in China and in Europe,” The New York Daily Tribune, June 14, 1853. Christianity which was part of the western culture began therefore to take root in China. What was the Taiping Rebellion? Jonathan D. Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York: W.W Norton & Company, 1990), 172. He married after the first test and in1833, he went back to try the test but again, he also failed. Preaching became a costly exercise but starvation and lack of money did not deter him. The Taiping Rebellion led by a Christian convert named Hong Xiuquan (1814–1864) was a widespread civil war that started in southern China from 1850 to 1864. Statcounter. 56). The modern history of China has been drastically changed by those tumultuous years – to fight the rebellion, the Qing government was forced to decentralise, putting regional armies and public finance under the control of local leaders and fundamentally altering China’s evolution (Fairbank 1992). After his fourth examination failure, he opened the Christian tracts and studied them carefully. They were only seen as a religious group by the Qing government at first, but not a rebellious group that needed military suppression. Li Xiucheng being aware of this is recorded to have told them that Taiping Christian faith unlike that in western Christianity was still young requiring time to mature but both shared the same faith (“TaipingRebellion.com 1850-71,” par. This supports the war-induced state-capacity hypothesis. Figure 2 Population growth over time for Taiping Regime areas, Figure 3 Population growth and population share of Taiping versus all sample Chinese prefectures. Qing’s armies later tried to recapture the town but they were strongly repulsed by the rebels (McGuigan, “What was the Taiping Rebellion,” par 4). The Taiping Rebellion is one of the bloodiest civil war in the world history with over 30 million lives being lost. He however, seemed to misinterpret the old testament assuming that God chosen race meant China and he therefore made two sword with inscription “demon exterminating swords” wanting to play the role of Joshua (“TaipingRebellion.com 1850-71,” par.