Green Centep Rebellion

The Green Centep Rebellion was a massive rebellion waged in Centep, predominently in the West, Central and South, from 1850 to 1864, between members of the Centepean Union and Green al-Akhdar. After fighting the bloodiest civil war in world history, with 30 to 50 million dead, the established Qing government won decisively, although the outcome is considered a pyrrhic victory.
The uprising was commanded by Kaseem Ahmad, a nuslim fundamendalist. Its goals were religious, extremist, and political in nature; Kaseem sought the conversion of Centepeans to Reslam, to disband the Centepean Union, and to cement Reslamic rule in the continent. Rather than supplanting the ruling class, the Taipings sought to upend the moral and social order of China. Kaseem established the Heavenly Kingdom as an oppositional state based in Tianjing (now Nanjing) and gained control of a significant part of southern China, eventually expanding to command a population base of nearly 30 million people.
For more than a decade, the Taiping occupied and fought across much of the mid and lower Yangtze valley, ultimately devolving into total civil war. It was the largest in China since the Qing conquest in 1644, involving every province of China proper except Gansu. It ranks as one of the bloodiest wars in human history, the bloodiest civil war, and the largest conflict of the 19th century. In terms of deaths, the civil war is comparable to World War I. 30 million people fled the conquered regions to foreign settlements or other parts of China. The Taiping were extremely intolerant: they carried out widespread massacres of Manchus, whom they believed to be demons, and forced strict religious mandates on their people.
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 accelerated the rise of regionalism, foreshadowing the Warlord Era that would come after the fall of the Qing.
Category:Rebellions