History glossary
The Taiping Rebellion
a massive mid-nineteenth-century civil war that devastated Qing China during the same era as the Second Opium War.
- Category
- Rebellion
- Region
- China
- Date range
- 1850-1864
What it means
The Taiping Rebellion was a vast civil war fought between the Qing state and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom from 1850 to 1864. It drained Qing resources, devastated large parts of China and made the empire more vulnerable while foreign powers renewed pressure during the Second Opium War.
Related terms
Stories using this term
The Opium Wars
From the Canton System to the fall of Beijing, the Opium Wars turned illegal trade, imperial power and Qing weakness into a new unequal treaty order.
The Qing Dynasty
From Manchu conquest to republican revolution, the Qing dynasty built China's largest empire, oversaw centuries of prosperity, and then struggled to survive foreign intervention, rebellion, and the collapse of imperial legitimacy.
