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Christian Influence upon the Ideology of the Taiping Rebellion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Eugene P. Boardman
Eugene P. Boardman
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin
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Extract

During the years 1851 to 1864 a central feature of the Chinese political scene was the Taiping rebellion. This was a peasant movement led by disappointed candidates in the official examinations and unlettered men of native military and organizational genius who capitalized upon the economic distress of the time and the declining ability of the Manchu rulers to take the principal cities of the Yangtze valley and at one point to threaten Peking itself. The rebels maintained their capital in Nanking from 1853 until 1864. From this point they waged intermittent campaigns in the provinces from Hunan and Hupeh east to the sea and thus denied the ruling dynasty the rich lower-Yangtze revenue for more than a decade. The rebellion was active at one time or another in fourteen of the eighteen provinces of the empire. Antidynastic societies not part of the Taiping movement used the embarrassment of the dynasty to disrupt areas which the Taipings did not reach. From the military point of view the Ch'ing dynasty was probably threatened most seriously in 1853 when the rebels got to within thirty miles of Tientsin. But if the Taiping troops were never again able to invade Chihli, neither were the imperial soldiers capable of regaining the Yangtze basin. After 1853 it required eleven years of punitive expeditions, the training of a new type of provincial militia, and incidental foreign aid to put down the rebellion.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , February 1951 , pp. 115 - 124
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1951

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References

1 The simpler spelling Taiping is used for T‘ai-p’ing except in the transliteration of the titles of documents and books. General contemporary accounts of the rebellion either center attention on the first years of the movement or upon the period after 1860 when Ward and Gordon were active. As general surveys in English the following are recommended: Meadows, Thomas Taylor, The Chinese and their rebellions (London, 1856)Google Scholar and Hail, William James, Tseng Kuo-fan and the Taiping rebellion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1927).Google Scholar These should be supplemented by biographical articles on Taiping and imperialist leaders in Arthur Hummel, W., ed., Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing period (Washington: U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1943–1944).Google Scholar The rebellion has attracted much attention among Chinese workers over the last fifteen years. Recent general books that have been particularly helpful are Yu-wen, Chien, T'ai-p'ing chūn Kuang-hsi shou i shih (History of the original revolution in Kwangsi of the Taiping army)a (Chungking: Commercial Press, 1944)Google Scholar and Kuo T'ing-i, T'ai-p'ing t'ien-kuo shih-shih jih-chih (Daily records of the historical events of the Taiping heavenly kingdom)b (2d ed., Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1947).Google Scholar See characters at the end of the article. Hereafter characters for T'ai-p'ing t'ien-kuo are omitted.

2 For the report of the first British mission in May 1853 see Papers respecting the civil war in China, Sessional papers printed by order of the House of Lords, 1852-3, 21:431.Google Scholar These contain the official correspondence and reports relating to the voyage of the Hermes to Nanking. A full supplementary account by the commander of the Hermes is Fishbourne, E. G, Impressions of China and the present revolution, its progress and prospects (London, 1853).Google Scholar The French mission of Dec. 1853 is reported in Merrier, R. P, Campagne du “Cassini” dans les mers de Chine 1851-1854 (Paris, 1889).Google Scholar A record of the visit of the American ship Susquehannah to Nanking is contained in Senate executive documents, no. 22, part 1, Commissioners to China (35th Cong., 2d sess.), 1: 47–92.Google ScholarMarcy's instructions to McLane, to recognize the rebels if he saw fit are in Senate executive documents (36th Cong., 1st sess.), no. 39:3.Google ScholarA report of the visit to Nanking in 1854 of the British ships Rattler and Styx is in the North-China herald, 206. July 8. 1854.Google Scholar

3 During 1853 and 1854 the North-China herald, the leading English language newspaper in Shanghai, published in translation a number of official Taiping documents as they found their way into the hands of foreigners along the China coast. Most of the translations were made by Walter Henry Medhurst, an experienced missionary Sinologue; the rest were supplied by Dr. MacGowan, a missionary at Ningpo. These translations became the subject of general comment and were copied widely.

4 See Littell, John B, “Missionaries and politics in China – the T'ai-p'ing rebellion,” Political science quarterly, 43 (Dec. 1928), 566–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar A thorough study of missionary attitudes, drawn from letters and contemporary reports, principally of Americans.

5 The official publications of the rebellion that deal with religion can be conveniently divided into (1) reprints of the Bible and (2) instructional material and tracts. Reprints of parts of the Old Testament are known under two titles, both dated 1853. The titles of theise and the books of the Bible included in each are as follows: Chiu-i chao-sheng-shu (Genesis and Exodus only)c and Ch'in-ting chiu-i chao-sheng-shu (Genesis through Joshua).d Reprints of parts of the New Testament are likewise known under two titles, both dated 1853. The titles of these and the books of the Bible included in each are as follows: Hsin-i chao-sheng-shu (Matthew only)e and Ch'in-ting ch'ien-i chao-sheng-shu (The entire New Testament).f Though they bear the date 1853, the titles beginning ch'in-ting were actually printed in 1860. This is in accord with the peculiar rebel custom of affixing the date of the first printing to subsequent reprints. Genesis and most of the books of the New Testament of the 1860 edition contain illuminating rebel annotations. See I-shan, Hsiao, T'ai-p'ing t'ien-kuo ts'ung-shu (Collectanea of the Taiping heavenly kingdom)g (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1936),Google Scholar vol. 1; Rev. Barber, W. T. A, “The rebel Bible,” The Chinese recorder and missionary journal, 22 (July, 1891), no. 7.Google Scholar

The instructional materials and tracts used are as follows:

(1) T'ien-fu hsia-fan chao-shu (Book of declarations made during the Heavenly Father's descent to earth),h part 1, 1852, part 2, 1853.

(2) T'ien-ming chao-chih shu (Book of Heavenly decrees and imperial edicts),i 1852.

(3) T'ien t'iao shu (Book of the laws of Heaven),j 1852. The principal repository of the Taiping faith, containing the Taiping Ten Commandments.

(4) T'ai-p'ing chao-shu (T'ai-p'ing imperial proclamations).k 1852. Contains four separate compositions of Hung Hsiu-ch'uan, composed during the years 1845 and 1846 before the author had met Roberts.

(5) San tzu ching (Three character classic),l 1853. Rebel equivalent of the well-known Chinese school book, in religious imporance second only to the T'ien t'iao shu.

(6) Yu hsūeh shih (Poems for the instruction of youth),m 1851, 1852.

(7) T'ai-p'ing chiu-shih ko (Taiping songs of salvation),n 1853.

(8) T'ien li yao-lun The essentials of God's principles),o 1854.

All except the last composition are printed in one or more of the following collections: Ch'eng Yen-sheng, T'ai-p'ing t'ien-kuo shih-liao ti-i chi (Historical materials of the Taiping kingdom, 1st collection)p (Peking: Peking University Press, 1926), 3 vols.;Google ScholarI-shan, Hsiao, T'ai-p'ing t'ien-kuo ts'ung-shu (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1936),Google Scholar 10 ts'e; Yung, Lo and Tsu-chi, Shen, T'ai-p'ing t'ien-kuo shih wen ch'ao (Poems and prose of the Taiping kingdom)q (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1936), 2 vols.;Google Scholar Ling Shan-ch'ing, T'ai-p'ing t'ien-kuo yeh shih (Nonofficial history of the Taiping kingdom)r (Shanghai, 1927).Google Scholar The New York Public Library has originals of all the religious publications listed, including the T'ien li yao-lun.

6 The author is indebted to the library of the Harvard-Yenching Institute, Cambridge, Mass., for the loan of an 1832 edition of the Ch'ūan-shih liang yen.Google Scholar

7 Schlyter, Herman, Karl Gūtzlaff als missionar in China (Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1946), 122, 129–30, 151, 211.Google Scholar A very thorough work, based on letters, archives of mission societies, and a wide range of printed matter. In his study Gutzlaff emerges as the prototype of the independent missionary in China and the “grandfather of the China Inland Mission.”

8 8 The author is under obligation to the following institutions for the loan of materials essential to this comparison: American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Boston (Translation of the Bible by Morrison, Robert, printed 1823 and “Delegates” version of the Bible, Shanghai, 1852);Google Scholar Division of Orientalia, Library of Congress (1847 edition of the Medhurst-Gūtzlaff translation); Library of the Yale University Divinity School (1855 printing of the Bible, Medhurst-Gūtzlaff, edited and revised by Wm. Lobschied); Library of the American Bible Society, New York (Microfilm of the Taiping Exodus, 1853).Google Scholar

9 Hamberg, Theodore, The visions of Hung-Siu-Tshuen and origin of the Kwang-si insurrection (Hongkong, 1854), 43.Google Scholar Written from recollections told to Hamberg by Hung Jen-kan, the cousin of Hung Hsiu-ch'ūan, and the closest to a firsthand source for the beginnings of the rebellion. This was translated into Chinese by Chien Yu-wen under the title T'ai-p'ing t'ien-kuo ch'i-i chiah and printed with the English original by the Yenching university library in 1935.