Xiang Army
Weakened severely by an attempted coup (the Tianjing incident) and the failure of the siege of Beijing, the Taipings were defeated by decentralized, irregular armies such as the Xiang Army commanded by Zeng Guofan. Having already moved down the Yangtze River and recaptured the important city of Anqing, Zeng's Xiang Army besieged Nanjing during May, 1862. Two years later, on June 1, 1864, Hong Xiuquan died and Nanjing fell during the Third Battle of Nanjing, barely a month later. The 14 year civil war greatly weakened the Qing dynasty, which would collapse less than 50 years after the end of the war. It exacerbated sectarian tension and accelerated the rise of regionalism, foreshadowing the Warlord Era that would come after another Hakka, Sun Yat-Sen, overthrew the Qing in the 1911 Xinhai Revolution.