>Taiping Rebellion >Christian millenarian movement (Taiping

Anything was possible in pre-industrial China.

Originally the Taiping were a religious sect strongly influenced by Protestant missionaries.

While the Europeans sat on the fence and the Taiping pushed victoriously further towards Shanghai, the city filled up with hundreds of thousands of refugees

Every day countless dead bodies were carried with the ebb through the channels of the delta towards the sea, only to return the next day with the tide. These were unmistakable signs of the approaching fighting. At times the stench was so terrible that most residents of Shanghai wore perfumed gauze masks. When the rich Chinese merchants and bankers saw their lands being ravaged in the countryside and watched as trade collapsed in the isolated towns, they decided to do something about it and looked around for foreign professionals. They found Frederick Townsend Ward.

Ward was born in 1831 in Salem, Massachusetts. He was very restless as a child and applied unsuccessfully to the Military Academy at West Point. At 15 he ran away from home to take part in the war against Mexico

At first Ward served as first mate on a gunboat on the Yangtze. The boat belonged to a small fleet financed by Chinese merchants to curb piracy, which had increased dramatically during the war. Once he had become acquainted with the political situation and had seen what a few Europeans equipped with modern arms could achieve, he started to make his own plans. In May 1860 he made on offer to the rich banker Taki, who was the spokesman for the Chinese businessmen in Shanghai. With appropriate funding, he would set up a mercenary force of Europeans and with it expel the Taiping from the Delta around Shanghai. Taki agreed after a short consultation, and Ward received $100 a month for privates and up to $600 for the officers. This was a lot of money in a time when a skilled worker in the U.S. earned $30-40 per month.

>>1675532
But we don't.

>>1675573
Please go on

It's a shame it failed. We could have had a beautiful Christian China.

The Taiping Emperor should have been canonized a saint.

>>1677240
>Christianity is the religion of peace
When will your crusading stop - isnt yurope enough

>>1677240
It failed because practically no one believed the Taiping Emperor's autism. The overwhelmingly vast majority of his soldiers and administrators followed traditional Chinese religions and were only on the rebellion to fuck over the Qing. Once the Qing started caving on various issues his supporters deserted him.

>>1677240
Nope. Chances are it would fail since majority of Chinkdom isn't Christian and most of the fighters of the Taiping itself just wanted to capitalize on the opportunity to fuck up the Qing rather than create a crypto-Christian kingdom. Liu Yongfu's "Black Flag Army" who were some of the Taiping's most effective soldiers were testament.

A successful Taiping Rebellion would mean an early breakup of Qing China and the traditional "let's decide who gets to be emperor" civil war.