The Taiping Rebellion's Northern and Western Expeditions

The Taiping Rebellion Part III

The Taiping took Nanjing and made it their capital. They renamed it the Heavenly Capital. This was in early 1853.

The Taiping had advanced down the Yangtze River with lightning speed. Their treasury and granaries were full. At this point, they were estimated to have six times more silver than the Emperor controlled. Nanjing’s granaries had more than enough rice to feed their own population, plus the Taiping forces. The Taiping also controlled the river, which facilitated trade and supplies.

A year later, a missionary visited and noticed that the city’s inhabitants looked well clothed and fed.

The Taiping’s two main leaders had different visions.

The founder and Heavenly King was busy establishing the Heavenly Capital, publishing religious texts and enjoying a sedentary and increasingly luxurious life. Confucian books were prohibited and burned. New texts were published and affixed with the official seal and distributed. The old and new testaments of the Bible were published as stand-alone books with Hong’s religious experiences as a third book. This came to be called the True Testament.

Yang, the East King and military and administrative leader, organized two new military campaigns: a Northern Expedition and a Western Expedition.

Yang also gained influence over Hong’s increasingly confused and rambling writings. The Heavenly King would describe the East King as the Holy Spirit to fit this increasingly important leader into religious doctrine. Yang continued to use his spies and trance states to assert God given powers and even humiliate the Taiping founder with heavenly criticism of Hong’s mistreatment of his many women. “God was upset that he kicked pregnant women and instructed the Heavenly King to be beaten” but was then satisfied with Hong’s acceptance of that he could be punished. Hong also agreed that it would be for Yang to decide who could be put to death. Yang was now the military leader, administrative superintendent, and increasingly religious head.

With a new capital established, the separation of the sexes was more difficult to maintain. Religious and political texts from this time talked up the necessary hardships of the early years and promised relief upon final victory. There were documented cases of punishment for licentiousness, which suggests that the policy was breaking down. The separation of the sexes and the prohibitions on cohabitating were finally dropped the next year.

Other revolutionary changes were proceeding. New examinations were set up in Nanjing and the other major cities controlled by the Taiping. The curriculum was not based on Confucius, but on the new ideology of the Taiping. At least for some time, there were examinations for women too.

A new calendar was introduced and for probably the first time in China, a 7-day week was instituted.

Yang also conceived and documented a plan for a Rites of Zhou system of administration for the whole country, which was never implemented. It would have divided the entire territory into groups of 25 households. Each would be led by one person who would lead religious ceremonies and be in charge for that group. Then each such leader would be combined with 24 others under a further rung in the ladder. Thus, the capital could control every household through a series of group leaders from the lowest to the highest levels.

Yang also conceived of a new land system where land would be ranked and distributed to families with variations based on their family size and land quality. Families would keep enough for their own needs and inventory for next year and remit the surplus to the common treasury. While never implemented, such a system would have been almost as transformative as the Soviet style collectives of the 20thcentury. In this version, families would have been able to feed themselves and keep some animals and seeds for next year. But otherwise, all surplus would belong to the state.

One could see why the gentry would oppose such a regime. It undermined their land holdings and power base, as well as autonomy.

When the Northern Expedition started, it began well enough. It was fast and mobile. It gained strength, especially in Anhui and Hunan provinces where the Nian rebellion was underway. The Taiping would bypass a city if it seemed heavily fortified.

But at Huaiqing, the Taiping surrounded it with 70,000 or 80,000 attackers. They believed it was rich in military supplies. But after two months of struggle, they gave up. Many believe this siege was a fatal mistake. They lost good soldiers in the unsuccessful effort and gave the Manchu extra time to fortify the path to the capital.

The furthest the Northern Expedition reached were the suburbs of Tianjin. They were defeated there, and a relief effort never even made it that far. The Taiping never did reach the Manchu capital.

You can find a map of northern expedition on our website and in the show notes. https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1nhpqyaG4VAEEogHIiK5ORZ5QJrWn3hs&usp=sharing

The Western Expedition started 11 days after the start of the Northern Expedition.

Within a month, it had recaptured Anqing, which the government had retaken. Then one army was on the north side of the Yangtze River and another army on the south side of the river. A third mobile force was also on the south side capturing cities independently.

The army on the north side of the river went due north and successfully defeated government forces at the city now called Hefei. They were led by the same Jiang Zhongyuan who had defeated the Taiping back at Hunan province and who had forced them away from the river valley and up into the hills on their march to Nanjing. That was when he was leading a local corps.

He had since been rewarded by the Emperor and was governor of Anhui province. In this defeat, he was wounded and then committed suicide.

The Army on the south side of the Yangtze struggled more. It went south to Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi province and besieged it unsuccessfully for about 4 months to September 1853. Its commander was relieved and the replacements went west into Hunan and Hubei provinces where they had some successes but eventually were spent.

The Taiping still controlled the Yangtze River and were able to recruit in their zone of control. They had gained some minor victories, but not been able to achieve their goals with the Northern and Western expeditions. The Qing forces were able to regroup.

And so were the gentry. Already discussed was Jiang, who had defeated the Taiping on their march to Nanjing and forced them to abandon the river valley and to move up into the mountains. He was then defeated at Hefei as Governor of Anhui province as part of the Western expedition.

But now a new gentry leader, Zeng Guofan, was organizing. He was also from Hunan province. He was a Qing official and had served at Beijing. But in 1852, he went home for his mother’s funeral. Then he was ordered by the Emperor to organize the local corps in his home province.

This is a telling order. Generally, an Emperor never had his officials work in their home district. The dynasties never wanted an official to gain too much power and having one work in his home province risked allowing him to use his own connections and resources to build a power base.

But with the Taiping rebellion threatening the Empire, that rule was relaxed. Zeng was one of 43 supervisors of local corps appointed in a one-year period. He initially wanted to refuse the appointment. But it was local gentry who convinced him to take it once the part of Wuhan on the south side of the Yangtze River fell. Zeng agreed, but immediately went beyond his orders. Instead of supervising local corps only defending their own town or village, he consolidated local corps into a Hunan provincial army with himself as the head. His was the first such provincial army. They were bound through personal loyalty to him. Each level was loyal to its commander, who were in turn, loyal to him. The supply and logistics and administration of the area they controlled were similarly organized. Zeng was delicate in his reporting to the capital about what he was doing. He talked about central training and local financing, since villages could not shoulder the burden. He eventually admitted to organizing militiamen rather than local corps. This was a highly sensitive matter since a provincial army loyal to its commander was a long-term risk to the Empire. In time, it will be a major issue for China. But for the moment, this provincial army operating under the tolerance of Beijing, but autonomously, was necessary for the counterattacks against the Taiping.

Zeng also motivated his troops and the locals with political attacks against the Taiping. He criticized their anti-Confucianism, their religion and their aggression. His agenda was conservative and he pursued it with zeal and creativity. His army was not just strengthened by a love of country and Confucius, but also paid double the usual soldiers’ rate. He managed this by keeping revenues from the areas he controlled, particularly an internal customs tax that his force completely controlled. With the blessing of Beijing, he also sold certificates of academic degrees, official titles and government offices.

Although Zeng’s forces were well organized and well paid, they did not match the Taiping numerically. So, they generally avoided major battles. Instead, he prepared for a long, drawn-out campaign. The initial encounters resulted in victories by the Taiping. But by October 1854, the provincial army had success along the Yangtze, including by Wuhan and destroyed half of the Taiping fleet. The Taiping thus lost their major advantage in river navigation.

Over the next two years, there were back and forth battles along the Yangtze with each side having wins and losses. But the net outcome was the end of the Taiping Western Expedition and eventually the end of the Taiping initiative. The Taiping then took on a more and more defensive position.

The high-water mark of the Taiping had been reached. While they still controlled Nanjing and much of the central Yangtze River valley, they had failed to defeat the Manchu and were now increasingly on the defensive to the new provincial army structure.