Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
soon recaptured it. A stalemate between Zeng and the Taipings then
developed and endured until 1860. In 1862 Zeng finally launched a
massive attack on the Taiping stronghold at Nanjing. Li Hongzhang
and his Anhui Army (Huai Army) also helped out with the final
attack, as did forces under General Zuo Zongtang. In 1864, after the
Taipings had fought valiantly to the very last man, Nanjing was finally
recaptured.
TheQingdynastywasneverthesameaftertheTaipingRebellion.
Even though Zeng Guofan surrendered power over his army shortly
after the defeat of the Taipings, the power of the Qing central
government had drastically declined during the rebellion and never
recovered. Regionalism in China began to develop as provinces far
from Beijing more or less began to pursue their separate destinies
and were less and less influenced by Qing directives. During the next
decade, the weakened Qing government was unable to resist foreign
attacks on its territory: a brief Japanese occupation of Taiwan in 1874,
a Russian invasion and occupation of part of Xinjiang from 1871 to
1881, and a French invasion of Vietnam, a Qing tributary state, in
1885. Weakness and regionalism endured beyond the fall of the
dynasty in 1912 and reached its tragic culmination in the warlord
period, which lasted from around 1917 to 1927.
The Taiping Rebellion inspired future revolutionaries in China. Sun
Yat-sen, the founder of the Republic of China, admired the Taipings
and grew up hearing heroic tales about Hong Xiuquan's exploits.
The Chinese Communists today regard the Taipings as protorevolu-
tionaries who did the best they could against the Qing government
and foreign imperialism without the guiding ideology of Marxism-
Leninism-Mao Zedong thought.
SELF-STRENGTHENING: HALFHEARTED REFORMS
The Qing dynasty, having narrowly escaped ruin during the Taiping
Rebellion, attempted to recover some prestige for itself and restore
order and confidence in China. It launched a fairly superficial program
of institutional and technological modernization, often known as the
Self-Strengthening Movement, which lasted from 1861 to 1895. During
this time the Qing government instituted something roughly equiva-
lent to a foreign diplomacy office, established schools for foreign lan-
guage instruction, reformed and expanded its customs service
(which was, much to the humiliation and consternation of later gener-
ations of Chinese patriots, run directly by the British), and learned the
rudiments of international law.
