Green Gang
During the upheavals of the 19th century, including the Taiping Rebellion and the change in course of the Yellow River around 1855, the shipment of grain along the Grand Canal was severely disrupted and finally ended. This again scattered the boatmen, who either joined local rebellions like the Taiping and Nian rebellions, or shifted to the coast to join the salt smuggling trade. In northern Jiangsu Province in the 1870s, boatmen and salt smugglers began to organize into what was called the Anqing Daoyou (安清道友, literally "Friends of the Way of Tranquility and Purity"), which was the direct precursor to the Green Gang in the early 20th century.