The Taiping Rebellion was a widespread civil war in southern China from 1850 to 1864, against the ruling Manchu-led Qing Dynasty. It was led by heterodox Christian convert Hong Xiuquan, who, having claimed to have received visions, maintained that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ. About 20 million people died, mainly civilians, in one of the deadliest military conflicts in history.
Hong established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom with its capital at Nanjing. The Kingdom's army controlled large parts of southern China, at its height containing about 30 million people. The rebels attempted social reforms believing in shared "property in common" and the replacement of Confucianism, Buddhism and Chinese folk religion with a form of Christianity. Because of their refusal to wear the queue, Taiping troops were nicknamed "Longhairs" (simplified Chinese: 长毛; traditional Chinese: 長毛; pinyin: Chángmáo) by the Qing government. The Taiping areas were besieged by Qing forces throughout most of the rebellion. The Qing government crushed the rebellion with the eventual aid of French and British forces.
In the 20th century, Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Chinese Nationalist Party, looked on the rebellion as an inspiration, and Chinese leader Mao Zedong glorified the Taiping rebels as early heroic revolutionaries against a corrupt feudal system.
Read more about Taiping Rebellion: The Heavenly Kingdom's Policies, Total War
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“Men must be capable of imagining and executing and insisting on social change if they are to reform or even maintain civilization, and capable too of furnishing the rebellion which is sometimes necessary if society is not to perish of immobility.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)