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The Long March.

The long march was a series of strategic retreats by the Red Army to escape the national army led by Kei-Shek. The retreats were used to link up the separated communist forces into a stronghold at Jiangxi. The Red Army was then surrounded, but ultimately escaped thanks to the leadership of Mao Zedong. They then finally stopped their retreats with the consolidation of all the communist forces in Shaanxi. Due to his role in escaping from Jiangxi, Mao Zedong garnered support from other communist leaders, which would lead to his eventual rise to power.

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The Kōdōha was a fascist faction of Japanese politics. The faction consisted of Japanese imperial officers who wanted to promote militarism, expansionism and totalitarianism. The group had two main leaders, Sadao Araki and Jinzaburo Masaki. They were in conflict with another faction, the Tosheia. They took part in assassinations against the Government and the Tosheia faction in support of the 1932 Japanese invasion of Manchuria. In the February 26 Incident in 1936, they launched a failed coup. The government would respond with a purge and the end of a "government by assassination" period.

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created to oppose the Imperial way faction, the control faction represented a more conservative/moderate army that thought that there was a system of checks and balances to go through to accomplish their goals. Ugaki Kazushige had leadership of the control faction

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ugaki-Kazushige#ref57792

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The Manchurian Incident also known as the Mukden Incident would take place on September 18, 1931. This incident would involve both Japan and China where the Japanese troops used the pretext of an explosion along the Japanese-controlled south Manchurian railway, blaming the Chinese for the "attack". The explosion however caused no real damage or harm to anyone and the train would continue to use the same route. Japan would still use this excuse to retaliate and invade Manchuria anyway, where Japan would then take control over China.  The Japanese troops would be too powerful for the Chinese troops causing 500 Chinese lives to be taken and only 2 Japanese lives taken.

sources: https://www.britannica.com/event/Mukden-Incident

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukden_Incident

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Tokyo, Japan - Kōdōha- Imperial Way Faction

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Tokyo, Japan - Kōdōha- Imperial Way Faction

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-The Kōdōha or Imperial Way Faction was a political faction in the Imperial Japanese Army active in the 1920s and 1930s.

-The Kōdōha sought to establish a military government that promoted totalitarian, militaristic and aggressive expansionistic ideals, and was largely supported by junior officers.

-The radical Kōdōha rivaled the moderate Tōseiha (Control Faction) for influence in the army until the February 26 Incident in 1936, when it was de facto dissolved, and many supporters were disciplined or executed.

-Baron Sadao Araki was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army before and during World War II.

-He was regarded as the leader of the radical faction within the politicized Imperial Japanese Army and served as Minister of War under Prime Minister Inukai.

Imperial Way Faction - Wikipedia
Sadao Araki - Wikipedia

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The Long March was a military retreat undertaken by the Red Army of the Chinese Communist Party, the forerunner of the People's Liberation Army, to evade the pursuit of the National Army of the Chinese Nationalist Party. The CCP, under the eventual command of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, escaped in a circling retreat to the west and north, which reportedly traversed over 5,600 miles over 370 days. The route passed through some of the most difficult terrain of western China by traveling west, then north, to Shaanxi. The Long March began the ascent to power of Mao Zedong, whose leadership during the retreat gained him the support of the members of the party. The bitter struggles of the Long March, which was completed by only about one-tenth of the force that left Jiangxi (about eight thousand of some hundred thousand), would come to represent a significant episode in the history of the CCP

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The Manchurian incident also known as the Mukden incident, was a "false flag" incident. This can be staging an event or pinning the blame for a motive. This incident was created by the Japanese military. They laid a small bomb close to a railway line owned by Japan near Manchuria and declared it was China's fault. This led to the full invasion of Manchuria and Japan's occupation there.

Works Cited:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukden_Incident

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The Mukden Incident was a false flag event staged by Japanese military personnel as a pretext for the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria.

On September 18, 1931, Lieutenant Suemori Kawamoto of the Independent Garrison Unit of the 29th Japanese Infantry Regiment () detonated a small quantity of dynamite close to a railway line owned by Japan's South Manchuria Railway near Mukden (now Shenyang). The explosion was so weak that it failed to destroy the track, and a train passed over it minutes later. The Imperial Japanese Army accused Chinese dissidents of the act and responded with a full invasion that led to the occupation of Manchuria, in which Japan established its puppet state of Manchukuo six months later. The deception was exposed by the Lytton Report of 1932, leading Japan to diplomatic isolation and its March 1933 withdrawal from the League of Nations.

In English, the Mukden Incident is also known as the Manchurian Incident. In Japanese, "Manchurian Incident" ( Kyūjitai: , Shinjitai: , Manshū-jihen) usually refers to the entire sequence of events (including the invasion), rather than just the initial attack on the railway line. In Chinese, the attack on the railway line is known as the Liutiao Lake Incident ( traditional Chinese: 柳條湖事變; simplified Chinese: 柳条湖事变; pinyin: Liǔtiáohú Shìbiàn ) and the "9.18/September 18 Incident" (九・一八事变; Jiǔyībā Shìbiàn ) refers to the entire sequence of events.

Renault FT tanks captured by the Japanese after the September 18th Incident, September 19, 1931.

Japanese economic presence and political interest in Manchuria had been growing ever since the end of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). The Treaty of Portsmouth that ended the war had granted Japan the lease of the South Manchuria Railway branch (from Changchun to Lüshun) of the China Far East Railway. The Japanese government, however, claimed that this control included all the rights and privileges that China granted to Russia in the 1896 Li-Lobanov Treaty, as enlarged by the Kwantung Lease Agreement of 1898. This included absolute and exclusive administration within the South Manchuria Railway Zone. Japanese railway guards were stationed within the zone to provide security for the trains and tracks; however, these were regular Japanese soldiers, and they frequently carried out maneuvers outside the railway areas.[citation needed ]

On the 91st anniversary of the September 18 Incident, the Museum of the Imperial Palace of Manchukuo in Changchun, Jilin Province, and the Museum of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army in Harbin, Heilongjiang, has released new findings.

Meanwhile, the newly formed Chinese government was trying to reassert its authority over the country after over a decade of fragmented warlord dominance. They started to claim that treaties between China and Japan were invalid. China also announced new acts, so the Japanese people (including Koreans and Taiwanese as both regions were under Japanese rule at this time) who had settled frontier lands, opened stores or built their own houses in China were expelled without any compensation. Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin tried to deprive Japanese concessions too, but he was assassinated by the Japanese Kwantung Army. Chang Hsueh-liang, Zhang's son and successor, joined the Nanjing Government led by Chiang Kai-shek from anti-Japanese sentiment. Official Japanese objections to the oppression against Japanese nationals within China were rejected by the Chinese authorities.

The 1929 Sino-Soviet conflict (July-November) over the Chinese Eastern Railroad (CER) further increased the tensions in the Northeast that would lead to the Mukden Incident. The Soviet Red Army victory over Chang Hsueh-liang's forces not only reasserted Soviet control over the CER in Manchuria but revealed Chinese military weaknesses that Japanese Kwantung Army officers were quick to note.

The Soviet Red Army performance also stunned Japanese officials. Manchuria was central to Japan's East Asia policy. Both the 1921 and 1927 Imperial Eastern Region Conferences reconfirmed Japan's commitment to be the dominant power in Manchuria. The 1929 Red Army victory shook that policy to the core and reopened the Manchurian problem. By 1930, the Kwantung Army realized they faced a Red Army that was only growing stronger. The time to act was drawing near and Japanese plans to conquer the Northeast were accelerated.

In April 1931, a national leadership conference of China was held between Chiang Kai-shek and Chang Hsueh-liang in Nanjing. They agreed to put aside their differences and assert China's sovereignty in Manchuria strongly. On the other hand, some officers of the Kwantung Army began to plot to invade Manchuria secretly. There were other officers who wanted to support plotters in Tokyo.[citation needed ]

Japanese soldiers of 29th Regiment on the Mukden West Gate

Believing that a conflict in Manchuria would be in the best interests of Japan, Kwantung Army Colonel Seishirō Itagaki and Lieutenant Colonel Kanji Ishiwara independently devised a plan to prompt Japan to invade Manchuria by provoking an incident from Chinese forces stationed nearby. However, after the Japanese Minister of War Jirō Minami dispatched Major General Yoshitsugu Tatekawa to Manchuria for the specific purpose of curbing the insubordination and militarist behavior of the Kwantung Army, Itagaki and Ishiwara knew that they no longer had the luxury of waiting for the Chinese to respond to provocations but had to stage their own.

Itagaki and Ishiwara chose to sabotage the rail section in an area near Liutiao Lake (; liǔtiáohú). The area had no official name and was not militarily important, but it was only eight hundred meters away from the Chinese garrison of Beidaying (; běidàyíng), where troops under the command of the "Young Marshal" Chang Hsueh-liang were stationed. The Japanese plan was to attract Chinese troops by an explosion and then blame them for having caused the disturbance in order to provide a pretext for a formal Japanese invasion. In addition, they intended to make the sabotage appear more convincing as a calculated Chinese attack on an essential target, thereby making the expected Japanese reaction appear as a legitimate measure to protect a vital railway of industrial and economic importance. The Japanese press labeled the site "Liǔtiáo Ditch" (; liǔtiáogōu) or "Liǔtiáo Bridge" (; liǔtiáoqiáo), when in reality, the site was a small railway section laid on an area of flat land. The choice to place the explosives at this site was to preclude the extensive rebuilding that would have been necessitated had the site actually been a railway bridge.

Japanese experts inspect the "sabotaged" South Manchurian Railway.

Colonel Seishirō Itagaki, Lieutenant Colonel Kanji Ishiwara, Colonel Kenji Doihara, and Major Takayoshi Tanaka had completed plans for the incident by May 31, 1931.

A section of the Liǔtiáo Railway. The caption reads "railway fragment".

The plan was executed when 1st Lieutenant Suemori Kawamoto of the Independent Garrison Unit (獨立守備隊) of the 29th Infantry Regiment, which guarded the South Manchuria Railway, placed explosives near the tracks, but far enough away to do no real damage. At around 10:20 pm (22:20), September 18, the explosives were detonated. However, the explosion was minor and only a 1.5-meter section on one side of the rail was damaged. In fact, a train from Changchun passed by the site on this damaged track without difficulty and arrived in Shenyang at 10:30 pm (22:30).

On the morning of September 19, two artillery pieces installed at the Mukden officers' club opened fire on the Chinese garrison nearby, in response to the alleged Chinese attack on the railway. Chang Hsueh-liang's small air force was destroyed, and his soldiers fled their destroyed Beidaying barracks, as five hundred Japanese troops attacked the Chinese garrison of around seven thousand. The Chinese troops were no match for the experienced Japanese troops. By the evening, the fighting was over, and the Japanese had occupied Mukden at the cost of five hundred Chinese lives and only two Japanese lives.

At Dalian in the Kwantung Leased Territory, Commander-in-Chief of the Kwantung Army General Shigeru Honjō was at first appalled that the invasion plan was enacted without his permission, but he was eventually convinced by Ishiwara to give his approval after the act. Honjō moved the Kwantung Army headquarters to Mukden and ordered General Senjuro Hayashi of the Chosen Army of Japan in Korea to send in reinforcements. At 04:00 on 19 September, Mukden was declared secure.

Chang Hsueh-liang personally ordered his men not to put up a fight and to store away any weapons when the Japanese invaded. Therefore, the Japanese soldiers proceeded to occupy and garrison the major cities of Changchun and Antung and their surrounding areas with minimal difficulty. However, in November, General Ma Zhanshan, the acting governor of Heilongjiang, began resistance with his provincial army, followed in January by Generals Ting Chao and Li Du with their local Jilin provincial forces. Despite this resistance, within five months of the Mukden Incident, the Imperial Japanese Army had overrun all major towns and cities in the provinces of Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang.

Chinese public opinion strongly criticized Chang Hsueh-liang for his non-resistance to the Japanese invasion. While the Japanese presented a real threat, the Kuomintang directed most of their efforts towards eradication of the communist party. Many charged that Chang's Northeastern Army of nearly a quarter million could have withstood the Kwantung Army of only 11,000 men. In addition, his arsenal in Manchuria was considered the most modern in China, and his troops had possession of tanks, around 60 combat aircraft, 4000 machine guns, and four artillery battalions.

Chang Hsueh-liang's seemingly superior force was undermined by several factors. The first was that the Kwantung Army had a strong reserve force that could be transported by railway from Korea, which was a Japanese colony, directly adjacent to Manchuria. Secondly, more than half of Chang's troops were stationed south of the Great Wall in Hebei Province, while the troops north of the wall were scattered throughout Manchuria. Therefore, deploying Chang's troops north of the Great Wall meant that they lacked the concentration needed to fight the Japanese effectively. Most of Chang's troops were under-trained, poorly led, poorly fed, and had poor morale and questionable loyalty compared to their Japanese counterparts. Japanese secret agents had permeated Chang's command because of his and his father Zhang Zuolin's past reliance on Japanese military advisers. The Japanese knew the Northeastern Army very well and were able to conduct operations with ease.

The Chinese government was preoccupied with numerous internal problems, including the issue of the newly independent Guangzhou government of Hu Hanmin, Chinese Communist Party insurrections, and 1931 China floods of the Yangtze River that created tens of thousands of refugees. Moreover, Chang himself was not in Manchuria at the time, but was in a hospital in Beijing to raise money for the flood victims. However, in the Chinese newspapers, Chang was ridiculed as "General Nonresistance" ( Chinese: 不抵抗將軍; pinyin: Bù Dǐkàng Jiāngjūn ).

Chinese delegate addresses the League of Nations after the Mukden Incident in 1932.

Because of these circumstances, the central government turned to the international community for a peaceful resolution. The Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a strong protest to the Japanese government and called for the immediate stop to Japanese military operations in Manchuria, and appealed to the League of Nations, on September 19. On October 24, the League of Nations passed a resolution mandating the withdrawal of Japanese troops, to be completed by 16 November. However, Japan rejected the League of Nations resolution and insisted on direct negotiations with the Chinese government. Negotiations went on intermittently without much result.

On November 20, a conference in the Chinese government was convened, but the Guangzhou faction of the Kuomintang insisted that Chiang Kai-shek step down to take responsibility for the Manchurian debacle. On December 15, Chiang resigned as the Chairman of the Nationalist government and was replaced as Premier of the Republic of China (head of the Executive Yuan) by Sun Fo, son of Sun Yat-sen. Jinzhou, another city in Liaoning, was lost to the Japanese in early January 1932. As a result, Wang Jingwei replaced Sun Fo as the Premier.

On January 7, 1932, United States Secretary of State Henry Stimson issued his Stimson Doctrine, that the United States would not recognize any government that was established as the result of Japanese actions in Manchuria. On January 14, a League of Nations commission, headed by Victor Bulwer-Lytton, 2nd Earl of Lytton, disembarked at Shanghai to examine the situation. In March, the puppet state of Manchukuo was established, with the former emperor of China, Puyi, installed as head of state.

On October 2, the Lytton Report was published and rejected the Japanese claim that the Manchurian invasion and occupation was an act of self-defense, although it did not assert that the Japanese had perpetrated the initial bombing of the railroad. The report ascertained that Manchukuo was the product of Japanese military aggression in China, while recognizing that Japan had legitimate concerns in Manchuria because of its economic ties there. The League of Nations refused to acknowledge Manchukuo as an independent nation. Japan resigned from the League of Nations in March 1933.

Colonel Kenji Doihara used the Mukden Incident to continue his campaign of disinformation. Since the Chinese troops at Mukden had put up such poor resistance, he told Manchukuo Emperor Puyi that this was proof that the Chinese remained loyal to him. Japanese intelligence used the incident to continue the campaign to discredit the murdered Zhang Zuolin and his son Chang Hsueh-liang for "misgovernment" of Manchuria. In fact, drug trafficking and corruption had largely been suppressed under Zhang Zuolin.

The September 18th History Museum in Shenyang

Different opinions still exist as to who caused the explosion on the Japanese railroad at Mukden. Strong evidence points to young officers of the Japanese Kwantung Army having conspired to cause the blast, with or without direct orders from Tokyo. Post-war investigations confirmed that the original bomb planted by the Japanese failed to explode, and a replacement had to be planted. The resulting explosion enabled the Japanese Kwantung Army to accomplish their goal of triggering a conflict with Chinese troops stationed in Manchuria and the subsequent establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo.

The 9.18 Incident Exhibition Museum (九・一八歷史博物館) at Shenyang, opened by the People's Republic of China on September 18, 1991, takes the position that the explosives were planted by Japan. The Yūshūkan museum, located within Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, also places the blame on members of the Kwantung Army.

David Bergamini's book Japan's Imperial Conspiracy (1971) has a detailed chronology of events in both Manchuria and Tokyo surrounding the Mukden Incident. Bergamini concludes that the greatest deception was that the Mukden Incident and Japanese invasion were planned by junior or hot-headed officers, without formal approval by the Japanese government. However, historian James Weland has concluded that senior commanders had tacitly allowed field operatives to proceed on their own initiative, then endorsed the result after a positive outcome was assured.

In August 2006, the Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's top-selling newspaper, published the results of a year-long research project into the general question of who was responsible for the " Shōwa war". With respect to the Manchurian Incident, the newspaper blamed ambitious Japanese militarists, as well as politicians who were impotent to rein them in or prevent their insubordination.

Debate has also focused on how the incident was handled by the League of Nations and the subsequent Lytton Report. A. J. P. Taylor wrote that "In the face of its first serious challenge", the League buckled and capitulated. The Washington Naval Conference (1921) guaranteed a certain degree of Japanese hegemony in East Asia. Any intervention on the part of America would be a breach of the already mentioned agreement. Furthermore, Britain was in crisis, having been recently forced off the gold standard. Although a power in East Asia at the time, Britain was incapable of decisive action. The only response from these powers was "moral condemnation".

In 2017, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officially recognized the Mukden Incident as the start of its "War of Resistance" against the Empire of Japan as opposed to the 1937 Marco Polo Bridge Incident. Historian Emily Matson stated that this shift in the official timeline is part of a domestic "legitimizing narrative" that aims to enhance the CCP's prestige and discredit the Nationalist government's "nonresistance policy" at the time.

Each year at 10:00 am on 18 September, air-raid sirens sound for several minutes in numerous major cities across China. Provinces include Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Hainan, and others.

Ferrell, Robert H. (March 1955). "The Mukden Incident: September 18-19, 1931". Journal of Modern History. 27 (1): 66-72. doi:10.1086/237763. JSTOR 1877701. S2CID 144691966.

Jowett, Philip (2005). Rays of the Rising Sun, Volume 1: Japan's Asian Allies 1931-45, China and Manchukuo. Helion and Company Ltd. ISBN 978-1-874622-21-5.

Lensen, George Alexander (1974). The Damned Inheritance: The Soviet Union and the Manchurian Crises 1924-1935. The Diplomatic Press.

Long-hsuen, Hsu; Chang Ming-kai (1971). History of The Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) (2nd ed.). 33, 140th Lane, Tung-hwa Street, Taipei, Taiwan: Chung Wu Publishing.

Lucas, David G. Strategic Disharmony: Japan, Manchuria, and Foreign Policy (Air War College, 1995) online.

Matsusaka, Yoshihisa Tak (2003). The Making of Japanese Manchuria, 1904-1932. Harvard U Asia Center. ISBN 978-0-674-01206-6.

Ogata, Sadako N. Defiance in Manchuria: the making of Japanese foreign policy, 1931-1932 (U of California Press, 1964).

Yoshihashi, Takehiko. Conspiracy at Mukden: the rise of the Japanese military (Yale UP, 1963) online

Wright, Quincy (1932-02). "The Manchurian Crisis". American Political Science Review. 26 (1): 45-76.

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The Mukden Incident was a false flag event staged by Japanese military personnel as a pretext for the 1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria. On September 18, 1931, Lieutenant Suemori Kawamoto of the Independent Garrison Unit of the 29th Japanese Infantry Regiment () detonated a small quantity of dynamite close to a railway line owned by Japan's South Manchuria Railway near Mukden (now Shenyang).

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Shenyang was the approximate location of the Mukden Incident, which was used by the Imperial Japanese Army as a pretense to invade China from their staging point in Manchuria.

The Mukden Incident resulted in the Japanese taking virtually total control of mainland China, with the Toesiha wrestling political control from the Kodoha.

https://www.britannica.com/event/Mukden-Incident

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Mukden Incident, (September 18, 1931), also called Manchurian Incident, seizure of the Manchurian city of Mukden (now Shenyang, Liaoning province, China) by Japanese troops in 1931, which was followed by the Japanese invasion of all of Manchuria (now Northeast China) and the establishment of the Japanese-dominated state of Manchukuo (Manzhouguo) in the area. Most observers believe the incident was contrived by the Japanese army, without authorization of the Japanese government, to justify the Japanese invasion and occupation that followed. It contributed to the international isolation of Japan and is seen as a crucial event on the path to the outbreak of World War II.

Throughout the early 20th century the Japanese had maintained special rights in Manchuria, and they had felt that the neutrality of the area was necessary for the defense of their colony in Korea. They were thus alarmed when their position in Manchuria was threatened by the increasingly successful unification of China in the late 1920s by the Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi), at the same time that Soviet pressures on Manchuria increased from the north. Responding to this pressure, officers of the Japanese Kwantung (Guandong) Army, which was stationed in Manchuria, initiated an incident in Mukden without the approval of the civil government of Japan.

On the night of September 18, 1931, Japanese troops used the pretext of an explosion along the Japanese-controlled South Manchurian Railway to occupy Mukden; the explosives did little damage to their railway, and trains continued to use the route. Nevertheless, in retaliation for this "Chinese attack," the Japanese army began artillery attacks on a nearby Chinese garrison the next day. On September 21, Japanese reinforcements arrived from Korea, and the army began to expand throughout northern Manchuria. In Tokyo neither the high command of the Japanese army nor Prime Minister Wakatsuki Reijirō proved able to restrain the Kwangtung Army in the field, and within three months Japanese troops had spread throughout Manchuria. Wakatsuki's cabinet fell in December, and its successor reacted to a growing tide of public opinion by sanctioning the invasion.

The Kwantung Army met little resistance in its conquests because Chiang Kai-shek, who was intent on establishing his control over the rest of China, ordered the commander of the Chinese forces in Manchuria, Zhang Xueliang, to pursue a policy of nonresistance and withdrawal. The League of Nations, Chiang announced, would determine the outcome of the case. The Lytton Commission appointed by the League to investigate the situation labeled Japan as the aggressor, but Japan withdrew from the League and continued to occupy Manchuria until 1945. Few countries recognized the new puppet state of Manchukuo.

Losses: China, perhaps some 500; Japan, 2.

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A summary of the Mukden Incident on September 18, 1931.

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From 1927-1931, Korean Nationalists and Communist supporters united (with the help of Soviet Comintern advisers) in the Sin'ganhoe movement. They advocated "political and economic awakening, education in hangul, and the unequivocal overthrow of Japanese colonial rule. The group grew to over 37,000 members and 100+ chapters in just 3 years. Internal disunity, and Japan's bloody crack down on the group, forced it to disband in 1931. The group is significant though as it suggests the emergence of nationalist thought in Korea as well as the growing support Korean's had for communism prior to the post-WWII era when the nation would be divided into north and south.

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The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Edit History

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Singanhoe, united national independence front formed by the Korean nationalists and the Korean communists that was organized in 1927 to seek more concerted efforts toward winning Korea’s independence from Japan. The group attempted to encourage a national consciousness and promote anti-Japanese fe…

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Nanjing, Jiangsu, China: Rape of Nanjing

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Nanjing, Jiangsu, China: Rape of Nanjing

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Chiang Kaishek moved the ROC's capitol from Beijing to Nanjing in 1937 after Japanese forces defeated the ROC at Shanghai. In November, Japanese Imperial troops pressed into Nanjing and the ROC government fled across the Yangzi River, leaving the city unprotected. Over the next 13 weeks, Japanese troops looted and burned the city, murdered over 300,000 Chinese civilians, and raped more than 20,000 women and girls. The event is evidence of Japan's mission "total war" strategies employed across the Pacific War.

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The Nanking Massacre Archival Project: Documents | Yale University Library

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This project was sponsored by the Japan ICU Foundation. All materials were scanned from holdings at the Yale Divinity Library Special Collections. Contact the Yale Divinity Library for more information about these documents: divinity.library@yale.edu The materials are divided into the following sect…

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In "Northeastern China", the puppet government of Manchukuo was created by Japan. It was started in 1932 and Manchukuo was also used by Japan as a means to "base (their) expansion into Asia." This may have also lead to the later idea of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere which began in 1940 and was a number of various countries and cities that were controlled by Japan.

https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501735547/the-greater-east-asia-co-prosperity-sphere/#bookTabs=1

https://www.britannica.com/place/Manchukuo

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The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere by Jeremy A. Yellen | Hardcover | Cornell University Press

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In The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, Jeremy A. Yellen exposes the history, politics, and intrigue that characterized the era when Japan's...

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The Yan'an Soviet (Chinese Communist Party)

The Yan’an period included significant events like the 1936 Xian Incident, the Second Sin o-Japanese War the Reflection Movement, contact with foreign visitors and the Civil War with the Nationalists.

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At the same time that Pearl Harbor was being invaded in Hawaii, the Japanese military landed on Thailand's coastline and launched a bloody invasion. For 12 hours, the Thai military defended their country against the invasion until the Prime Minister and his cabinet surrendered. The Japanese then officially made Thailand a part of it's "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere", a term it used to describe the land the empire controlled.

One of the most infamous atrocities committed by the Japanese occupiers of Thailand was the construction of the "Death Railway" in western Thailand. This railway was built by roughly 60,000 prisoners of war alongside 300,000 Southeast Asian people (known as "romushas" by the Japanese) who had been enslaved by the empire. Over 100,000 people died during the brutal conditions, and countless romushas were never able to return to their original homelands.

The conditions of construction were horrific. Men were forced to work 18-hour days, often having to work through the night. Much of the railway was to go through mountainous terrain, resulting in workers being forced to carve paths through the solid rock by hand.

Today, close to eighty years later, parts of the "Death Railway" are still in use today. However, they are now being used by the people of the now-independent Thailand for their own benefit, not to serve occupiers.

Main Source: https://www.pacificatrocities.org/blog/the-building-of-thailand-burma-railroad-aka-death-railroad

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The Building of Thailand-Burma Railroad aka “Death Railroad”

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Thailand-Burma Railroad was one of the military strategy of Thailand during WW2. It was also called “death railroad”, since it took the lives of over 100,000 allied soldiers and civilians.

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-January 27, 1869, the independent "Republic of Ezo" was proclaimed

- Separatist state established on the island of Ezo, now Hokkaido, by a part of the former military of the Tokugawa Shogunate at the end of the Bakumatsu period in Japan.

-The first government to attempt to institute democracy in Japan, though voting was allowed only to the samurai caste. The Republic of Ezo existed for five months before being annexed by the newly established Empire of Japan.

- The Naval Battle of Hakodate was fought from 4 to 10 May 1869, between the remnants of the Tokugawa shogunate navy, consolidated into the armed forces of the rebel Ezo Republic.

-The Imperial Japanese Navy won the engagement, ultimately leading to the surrender of the Republic of Ezo at the end of May 1869

Republic of Ezo - Wikipedia
Naval Battle of Hakodate - Wikipedia

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Imperial Palace, 1-1 Chiyoda, Chiyoda City, Tokyo, Japan

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Emperor Meiji reined from 1867- 1912. He was also called Meiji The Great and Meiji the Holy Emperor. He was known as the figurehead of the Meiji restoration and was known to have created Japan into an industrial power. He transformed Japan politically and economically during his time as the emperor and his reign was named the "Meiji Era". This was viewed as a more "Western way " of thinking which is why we see some western influence during his time as the Emperor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Meiji

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(明治天皇, Emperor Meiji Meiji-tennō, 3 November 1852 - 30 July 1912), also called Meiji the Great, or Meiji the Good, was the 122nd Emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, reigning from 3 February 1867 until his death on 30 July 1912. He presided over the Meiji era, a time of rapid change that witnessed the Empire of Japan's transformation from an isolationist, feudal state to an industrialized world power.

At the time of Emperor Meiji's birth in 1852, Japan was a feudal, pre-industrial country dominated by the isolationist Tokugawa shogunate and the subject to it, who ruled over the country's more than 250 decentralized domains. By the time of his death in 1912, Japan had undergone an extensive political, economic and social revolution, and emerged as one of the great powers on the world stage. The New York Times summarized this transformation at the Emperor's funeral in 1912 with the words: "the contrast between that which preceded the funeral car and that which followed it was striking indeed. Before it went old Japan; after it came new Japan."

Since the modern era, when an Emperor of Japan dies he is given a posthumous name. Such a name is a combination of the era during which he reigned and coincides with the Emperor's contribution to the throne whilst he was alive. Therefore, while publicly known during his life merely as "The Emperor", he is historically known as "Emperor Meiji" after his death. He obtained this current title in reference to the Meiji era, which spanned almost the entirety of his reign. His personal name (which is not used in any formal or official context, except for his signature) was Mutsuhito.

The Tokugawa shogunate had established itself in the early 17th century. Under its rule, the governed Japan. About 180 lords, known as , ruled autonomous realms under the shōgun, and occasionally the shōgun called upon the daimyōs for gifts but did not tax them. The shōgun controlled the daimyōs in other ways too; only the shōgun could approve daimyōs marriages, and the shōgun could divest a daimyō of his lands.

Tokugawa Ieyasu, who had officially retired from his position by 1605, was the first Tokugawa Upon retirement, Tokugawa Ieyasu and his son Tokugawa Hidetada, the titular shōgun, issued a code of behavior for the nobility in 1605. Under the code, the Emperor was required to devote his time to scholarship and the arts. The Emperors under the shogunate appear to have adhered closely to this code by studying Confucian classics and devoting time to poetry and calligraphy. Emperors were taught only the rudiments of Japanese and Chinese history and geography. The shōgun did not seek the consent or advice of the Emperor for his actions.

Emperors almost never left their palace compound, or in Kyoto, except after an Emperor retired or to take shelter in a temple if the palace caught on fire. Few Emperors lived long enough to retire; of the Meiji Emperor's five predecessors, only his grandfather lived into his forties, dying aged forty-six. The Imperial Family suffered very high rates of infant mortality; all five of the Emperor's brothers and sisters died as infants, and only five of his own 15 children reached adulthood.

Soon after taking control in the early seventeenth century, shogunate officials (known generically as bakufu) ended almost all Western trade with Japan, and barred Christian missionaries from the islands under the Sakoku Edict of 1635. In addition to the substantial Chinese trade, only the Dutch continued trade with Japan, maintaining a post on the island of Dejima by Nagasaki. However, by the early 19th century, European and American vessels appeared in the waters around Japan with increasing frequency.

Consanguineous marriages are common in the early history of Japanese upper class as a way to protect the ideal or royal bloodline; however, this came with unexpected consequences. Unknown to him at the time, Meiji also had hereditary diseases that were the result of inbreeding. These genetic defects included but were not limited to mandibular prognathism and spinal deformation, which could also be found in his children.

Apart from the congenital diseases, Meiji also suffered from beriberi caused by malnutrition, particularly a deficiency of thiamine (vitamin B ₁). The imperial family had a poorer diet than that of average people due to religious reasons. Due to beriberi, he could barely walk.

He had fifteen children with his concubines. Ten of them died prematurely. Prince Yoshihito (later Emperor Taishō) was the only male heir who reached adulthood, but his body and mind were weak, and suffered from meningitis, diabetes, cerebral thrombosis and mental illness.

Prince Mutsuhito was born on 3 November 1852 in a small house on his maternal grandfather's property at the north end of the Gosho. At the time, birth was culturally believed to be a source of pollution, so the imperial prince was not born in the Palace. Instead, it was common for members of the Imperial Family to be born in a structure, often temporary, near the pregnant woman's father's house. The Prince Mutsuhito's mother, Nakayama Yoshiko, was a concubine ( Japanese: 権の典侍, gon no tenji) to his father Emperor Kōmei, and she was the daughter of the acting major counselor, Nakayama Tadayasu. The young prince was given the name Sachinomiya, or Prince Sachi.

The young prince was born into an era of great change in Japan. This change was symbolised dramatically in July 1853 when Commodore Matthew Perry and his American Naval squadron (what the Japanese dubbed "the Black Ships"), sailed into the harbour at Edo (known since 1868 as Tokyo). Perry sought to open Japan up to international trade and warned the Japanese of military consequences if they did not agree. For the first time in at least 250 years, the shogunate took the highly unusual step of consulting with the Imperial Court because of the crisis brought on by Perry's arrival. Emperor Kōmei's officials advised that they felt they should agree to trade with the Americans and asked that they be informed in advance of any steps to be taken upon Perry's return. The Japanese government decided that their military was no match for the American military and thus allowed trade and submitted to what it dubbed the " Unequal Treaties." "Unequal Treaties" meant giving up tariff authority and the right to try foreigners in its own courts. The shogunate's willingness to consult with the Court was short-lived: in 1858, word of a treaty arrived with a letter stating that due to shortness of time, it had not been possible to consult. Emperor Kōmei was so incensed that he threatened to abdicate-though even this action would have required the consent of the shōgun.

Much of the Emperor's boyhood is known only through later accounts, which his biographer Donald Keene points out are often contradictory. One contemporary described Mutsuhito as healthy and strong, somewhat of a bully, and exceptionally talented at sumo. Another states that the prince was delicate and often ill. Some biographers state that he fainted when he first heard gunfire, while others deny this account. On 16 August 1860, Sachinomiya was proclaimed prince of the blood and heir to the throne and was formally adopted by his father's consort. Later that year on 11 November, he was proclaimed as the crown prince and given an adult name, Mutsuhito. The prince began his education at the age of seven. He proved an indifferent student, and later in life wrote poems regretting that he had not applied himself more in writing practice.

By the early 1860s, the shogunate was under several threats. Representatives of foreign powers sought to increase their influence in Japan. Many daimyōs were increasingly dissatisfied with bakufu handling foreign affairs. Large numbers of young samurai, known as or "men of high purpose", began to meet and speak against the shogunate. The shishi revered Emperor Kōmei and favoured direct violent action to cure societal ills. While they initially desired the death or expulsion of all foreigners, the shishi would later begin to advocate the modernisation of the country. The bakufu enacted several measures to appease the various groups in an effort to drive a wedge between the shishi and daimyōs.

Kyoto was a major centre for the shishi and the shishi had influence over the Emperor Kōmei. In 1863, the shishi persuaded him to issue an " Order to expel barbarians". The Order placed the shogunate in a difficult position since they had no intention of enforcing the order because they did not have the power to carry it out. Several attacks were made on foreigners or their ships, and foreign forces retaliated. Bakufu forces were able to drive most of the shishi out of Kyoto, and an attempt by them to return in 1864 was driven back. Nevertheless, unrest continued throughout Japan.

The prince's awareness of the political turmoil is uncertain. During this time, he studied poetry, first with his father, then with the court poets. In 1866, a new shōgun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, took office as the prince continued his classical education. Tokugawa Yoshinobu was a reformer who desired to transform Japan into a Western-style state. Yoshinobu was the final shōgun and met with resistance from among the bakufu, even as unrest and military actions continued. In mid-1866, a bakufu army set forth to punish rebels in southern Japan. The army was defeated.

Emperor Kōmei fell seriously ill at his age of 36 and died on 30 January 1867. British diplomat Sir Ernest Satow wrote, "it is impossible to deny that [Emperor Kōmei's] disappearance from the political scene, leaving as his successor a boy of fifteen or sixteen [actually fourteen], was most opportune".

In a brief ceremony in Kyoto, the crown prince formally ascended to the throne on 3 February 1867. The new Emperor continued his classical education, which did not include matters of politics. In the meantime, the shōgun, Yoshinobu, struggled to maintain power. He repeatedly asked for the Emperor's confirmation of his actions, which he eventually received, but there is no indication that the young Emperor was himself involved in the decisions. The shishi and other rebels continued to shape their vision of the new Japan, and although they revered the Emperor, they had no thought of having him play an active part in the political process.

The political struggle reached its climax in late 1867. An agreement was reached by which Yoshinobu would maintain his title and some of his power, but the lawmaking power would be vested in a bicameral legislature based on the British model. The agreement fell apart and on 9 November 1867, Yoshinobu officially tendered his resignation to the Emperor and formally stepped down ten days later. The following month, the rebels marched on Kyoto, taking control of the Imperial Palace. On 4 January 1868, the Emperor ceremoniously read out a document before the court proclaiming the "restoration" of Imperial rule, and the following month, documents were sent to foreign powers:

The Emperor of Japan announces to the sovereigns of all foreign countries and to their subjects that permission has been granted to the shōgun Tokugawa Yoshinobu to return the governing power in accordance with his own request. We shall henceforward exercise supreme authority in all the internal and external affairs of the country. Consequently, the title of Emperor must be substituted for that of Tycoon, in which the treaties have been made. Officers are being appointed by us to the conduct of foreign affairs. It is desirable that the representatives of the treaty powers recognize this announcement.
Mutsuhito

Yoshinobu resisted only briefly, but it was not until late 1869 that the final bakufu holdouts were finally defeated. In the ninth month of the following year, the era was changed to Meiji, or "enlightened rule", which was later used for the Emperor's posthumous name. This marked the beginning of the custom of posthumously naming the Emperor after the era during which he ruled.

Despite the ouster of the bakufu, no effective central government had been put in place by the rebels. On 23 March, foreign envoys were first permitted to visit Kyoto and pay formal calls on the Emperor. On 7 April 1868, the Emperor was presented with the Charter Oath, a five-point statement of the nature of the new government. The statement was designed to win over those who had not yet committed themselves to the new regime. This document, which the Emperor then formally promoted, abolished feudalism and proclaimed a modern democratic government for Japan. The Charter Oath would later be cited by Emperor Hirohito in the Humanity Declaration as support for the imposed changes in Japanese government following World War II. For the first time since early childhood, he left the Imperial precincts in Kyoto in mid-May to take command of the forces pursuing the remnants of the bakufu armies. Traveling in slow stages due to through roads being lined with crowds, he took three days to travel from Kyoto to Osaka. There was no conflict in Osaka; the new leaders wanted the Emperor to be more visible to his people and to foreign envoys. At the end of May, after two weeks in Osaka (in a much less formal atmosphere than in Kyoto), the Emperor returned to his home. Shortly after his return, it was announced that the Emperor would begin to preside over all state business, reserving further literary study for his leisure time. Only from 1871 onward did the Emperor's studies include materials on contemporary affairs.

On 19 September 1868, the Emperor announced the name of the city of Edo was to be changed to Tokyo, meaning "eastern capital". He was formally crowned in Kyoto on 15 October (a ceremony which had been postponed from the previous year due to the civil unrest). Shortly before the coronation, he announced that the new era, or , would be called Meiji or "enlightened rule". Heretofore the nengō had often been changed multiple times in an Emperor's reign; from now on, it was announced, there would only be one nengō per reign.

Soon after his coronation, the Emperor journeyed to Tokyo by road, visiting it for the first time. He arrived in late November and began an extended stay by distributing sake among the population. The population of Tokyo was eager for an Imperial visit. Tokyo had been the site of the shōgun's court and the city's population feared that with the abolition of the shogunate, the city might fall into decline. It would not be until 1889 that a final decision was made to move the capital to Tokyo. While in Tokyo, the Emperor boarded a Japanese naval vessel for the first time, and the following day gave instructions for studies to see how Japan's navy could be strengthened. Soon after his return to Kyoto, a rescript was issued in the Emperor's name (but most likely written by court officials). It indicated his intent to be involved in government affairs. And indeed he attended cabinet meetings and innumerable other government functions, though rarely speaking, almost until the day of his death.

The successful revolutionaries organized themselves into a Council of State, and subsequently into a system where three main ministers led the government. This structure would last until the establishment of a prime minister, who would lead a cabinet in a western fashion, in 1885. Initially, not even the retention of the Emperor was certain; revolutionary leader Gotō Shōjirō later stated that some officials "were afraid the extremists might go further and abolish the Mikado". Japan's new leaders sought to reform the patchwork system of domains governed by the daimyōs. In 1869, several of the daimyōs who had supported the revolution gave their land property to the Emperor and were reappointed as governors, with considerable salaries. By the following year, all other daimyōs had followed suit.

In 1871, as Japan was organized into 72 prefectures the Emperor announced that domains were entirely abolished. The daimyōs were compensated with annual salaries equal to ten percent of their former revenues (from which they now did not have to deduct the cost of governing), but were required to move to the new capital, Tokyo. Most daimyōs retired from politics.

The new administration gradually abolished most privileges of the samurai, including their right to a stipend from the government. However, unlike the daimyōs, many samurai suffered financially from this change. Most other class-based distinctions were abolished. Legalized discrimination against the ended. However, these classes continue to suffer discrimination in Japan to the present time.

The 1889 constitution created a new parliament, although it had no real power. Power had passed from the Tokugawa into the hands of those daimyōs and other samurai who had led the Restoration. Japan was thus controlled by the , an oligarchy which comprised the most powerful men of the military, political and economic spheres. The Emperor showed greater political longevity than his recent predecessors, as he was the first Japanese monarch to remain on the throne past the age of 50 since the abdication of Emperor Ōgimachi in 1586.

The Japanese take pride in the Meiji Restoration, as it and the accompanying industrialization allowed Japan to become the preeminent power in the Pacific and a major player in the world within a generation. Yet, Emperor Meiji's role in the Restoration, as well as the amount of personal authority and influence he wielded during his reign, remains debatable. He kept no diary, wrote almost no letters (unlike his father) and left "no more than three or four" photographs. The accounts of people who had met or were close to him usually contain little substantial information or are mutually contradictory.

Due to the lack of reliable sources of the period, mysteries surrounding Emperor Meiji's personality and role in the Restoration remain a matter of historical dispute. James C. Baxter argues that the Emperor was a figurehead without real power who rarely interfered with what had been agreed upon in advance by the Meiji oligarchy. Conversely, Herbert Bix describes Meiji as a powerful autocrat whom the Genrō struggled to restrain while simultaneously accommodating his anti-democratic prejudices. R.Starr characterizes Meiji as a highly individualistic and forthright person who was no puppet to any group in his government, and although progressive, not 'liberal' or 'democratic'. Yet another group of historians contend he was never a full dictator, but remain divided on whether his personal power was "far closer to the absolutist end" or whether he played a mediator role in the Genrō's collective leadership.

He composed the following poem in waka form:

This poem was later recited by his grandson, Emperor Shōwa ( Hirohito), in an Imperial Conference in September 1941, before the Attack on Pearl Harbor.

The Illustrated London News published an article with a cover illustration of Emperor Meiji in the New-York Tribune on 19 March 1905. The description text said:

The victorious Emperor of Japan - beloved ruler of a new world power. The Emperor, who was born on 3 November 1852, succeeded to the throne on 3 February 1867, on the suppression of the Shogun dynasty, which had for generations wielded the power which the imperial family held only in name. Mutsuhito has proved the most practical of modern monarchs, for in less than forty years he has brought his country from semi-barbarism to the status of a first class power.

Near the end of his life several anarchists, including Shūsui Kōtoku, were executed (1911) on charges of having conspired to murder the sovereign. This conspiracy was known as the High Treason Incident (1910).

Emperor Meiji, suffering from diabetes, nephritis, and gastroenteritis, died of uremia. Although the official announcement said he died at 00:42 on 30 July 1912, the actual death was at 22:40 on 29 July.

By 1912, Japan had gone through a political, economic, and social revolution and emerged as one of the great powers in the world. The New York Times summed up this transformation at the Emperor's funeral in 1912 as: "the contrast between that which preceded the funeral car and that which followed it was striking indeed. Before it went old Japan; after it came new Japan."

After the Emperor's death in 1912, the Japanese Diet passed a resolution to commemorate his role in the Meiji Restoration. An iris garden in an area of Tokyo where Emperor Meiji and the Empress had been known to visit was chosen as the building's location for the Shinto shrine Meiji Jingū. The shrine does not contain the Emperor's grave, which is at Fushimi-momoyama south of Kyoto.

Soon after Meiji's ascension, the Emperor's officials presented Ichijō Haruko to him as a possible bride. The future Empress was the daughter of an Imperial official, and was three years older than the groom, who would have to wait to wed until after his (manhood ceremony). The two married on 11 January 1869. Known posthumously as Empress Shōken, she was the first Imperial Consort to receive the title of (literally, the Emperor's wife, translated as Empress Consort), in several hundred years. Although she was the first Japanese Empress Consort to play a public role, she bore no children. However, the Meiji Emperor had fifteen children by five official ladies-in-waiting. Only five of his children, a prince born to Lady Naruko (1855-1943), the daughter of Yanagiwara Mitsunaru, and four princesses born to Lady Sachiko (1867-1947), the eldest daughter of Count Sono Motosachi, lived to adulthood. Although Meiji was the last Emperor to have concubines, this function was not officially abolished until 1924.

Image

Position

Name

Birth

Death

Father

Issue

Empress

Masako Ichijō (一条勝子)
later Empress Shōken (昭憲皇后)

9 May 1849

9 April 1914

Tadaka Ichijō

None

Image

Name

Birth

Death

Father

Issue

N/A

Hamuro Mitsuko (葉室光子)

3 February 1853

22 September 1873

Gon-Dainagon: Hamuro Nagamasa

* First Prince: Wakamitsuteru-hiko no Mikoto

N/A

Hashimoto Natsuko (橋本夏子)

19 March 1856

14 November 1873

* Shōnagon: Higashibojo Natsunaga
* Dainagon: Hashimoto Saneakira
(Foster father)

* First Princess: Wakatakayori-hime no Mikoto

Yanagihara Naruko (柳原愛子)

26 June 1859

16 October 1943

Gon-Chunagon: Yanagihara Mitsunaru

* Second Princess: Imperial Princess Ume-no-Miya Shigeko
* Second Prince: Imperial Prince Take-no-Miya Yukihito
* Third Prince: Imperial Prince Haru-no-Miya Yoshihito (later Emperor Taisho)

N/A

Chigusa Kotoko (千種任子)

1855

1944

Sakon'e gon no shōshō : Chigusa Aritō

* Third Princess: Imperial Princess Shige-no-Miya Akiko
* Fourth Princess: Imperial Princess Masu-no-Miya Fumiko

Sachiko Sono (園祥子)

23 December 1867

7 July 1947

Ukon'e no gon no chūjō: Sono Motosachi

* Fifth Princess: Imperial Princess Hisa-no-Miya Shizuko
* Fourth Prince: Imperial Prince Aki-no-Miya Michihito
* Sixth Princess: Imperial Princess Tsune-no-miya Masako
* Seventh Princess: Imperial Princess Kane-no-miya Fusako
* Eighth Princess: Imperial Princess Fumi-no-miya Nobuko
* Fifth Prince: Imperial Prince Mitsu-no-miya Teruhito
* Ninth Princess: Imperial Princess Yasu-no-miya Toshiko
* Tenth Princess: Imperial Princess Sada-no-miya Tokiko

Titles, styles, honours and arms

3 November 1852 - 11 November 1860: His Imperial Highness The Prince Sachi

11 November 1860 - 3 February 1867: His Imperial Highness The Crown Prince

3 February 1867 - 30 July 1912: His Imperial Majesty The Emperor

Posthumous title: His Imperial Majesty Emperor Meiji

He received the following orders and decorations:

Denmark: Knight of the Order of the Elephant, 18 May 1887[68]

France: Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, 20 March 1883

German Empire: Knight of the Order of the Black Eagle, 29 May 1879; with Collar, 10 June 1895

Kingdom of Greece: Grand Cross of the Order of the Redeemer, 13 May 1891

Kingdom of Hawaii: Grand Cross of the Order of Kamehameha I, with Collar, 15 March 1881[71]

Kingdom of Italy:

Spain: Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, 14 November 1883[73]

Siam: Knight of the Order of the Royal House of Chakri, 22 December 1887[74]

Sweden-Norway: Knight of the Order of the Seraphim, 11 December 1881[75]

United Kingdom: Stranger Knight of the Order of the Garter, 15 May 1906[76]

The Meiji era ushered in many far-reaching changes to the ancient feudal society of Japan. A timeline of major events might include:

3 November 1852: Emperor Meiji (then known as the Prince Mutsuhito Sachinomiya) is born to the imperial concubine Nakayama Yoshiko and Emperor Kōmei.

1853: A fleet of ships headed by Commodore Matthew Perry arrives in Japan on 8 July. Death of the shōgun Tokugawa Ieyoshi; appointment of Tokugawa Iesada as .

1854-55: Treaties are signed with the United States by the shogunate.

Late 1850s-1860s: The "Sonnō jōi" movement is in full force.

1858: The shogunate signs treaties with the Netherlands, Imperial Russia, and Great Britain. Death of the shōgun Tokugawa Iesada; appointment of Tokugawa Iemochi as shōgun.

March 1860: The Tairō, Ii Naosuke, is assassinated in the Sakuradamon incident.

11 November: Sachinomiya is formally proclaimed Crown Prince and given the personal name Mutsuhito.

1862: Namamugi Incident.

1864-65: Bombardment of Shimonoseki by British, American, French, and Dutch ships; fighting ensues between the shogunate and Chōshū.

1866: Death of the shōgun Tokugawa Iemochi; appointment of Tokugawa Yoshinobu as shōgun.

31 January 1867: Death of Emperor Kōmei from hemorrhagic smallpox, unofficial accession of Mutsuhito to the throne.

4 January 1868: Formal restoration of imperial rule; end of 265 years of rule by the Tokugawa shogunate.

12 September: Formal enthronement of the Emperor.

23 October: The era name is changed to Meiji.

6 November: The capital is moved from Kyoto Prefecture to Edo, renamed Tokyo.

5 November 1872: The Emperor receives the Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia.

Late 1860s-1881: Period of rebellion and assassination in Japan.

11 January 1869: Marriage of the Emperor to Ichijo Haruko, thenceforth the Empress Shōken.

4 September: The Emperor receives The Duke of Edinburgh.

1871: The abolition of the han system is proclaimed.

1873: Edo Castle is destroyed in a conflagration; the Emperor moves to the Akasaka Palace. His first children are born, but die at birth.

1877: The Satsuma Rebellion.

1878: Assassination of Ōkubo Toshimichi.

31 August 1879: Prince Yoshihito, the future Emperor Taishō and the Emperor's only surviving son, is born.

1881: Receives the first state visit of a foreign monarch, King Kalākaua of Hawaii.

1889: Meiji Constitution promulgated; Itō Hirobumi becomes first Prime Minister of Japan.

1894: Sino-Japanese War; Japanese victory establishes Japan as a regional power.

29 April 1901: Became grandfather when Emperor Taishō's first son, the Prince Hirohito Michi-no-miya, future Emperor Shōwa was born.

1904-1905: Russo-Japanese War; Japanese victory earns Japan the status of a great power.

1910: The Annexation of Korea by the Empire of Japan: Korea under Japanese rule (-1945).

30 July 1912: The Emperor dies (aged 59).

Emperor Meiji is portrayed by Toshirō Mifune in the 1980 Japanese war drama film The Battle of Port Arthur (sometimes referred as 203 Kochi). Directed by Toshio Masuda, the film depicted the Siege of Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War, and also starred Tatsuya Nakadai (as General Nogi Maresuke), and Tetsurō Tamba (as General Kodama Gentarō).

Emperor Meiji also appears in the 2003 film The Last Samurai, portrayed by Nakamura Shichinosuke II. In the film The Last Samurai the Emperor is represented as a weak, easy to handle man without hinting at the risk of coup d'état, having the pressure of the rebel shogunates that had economic interests with the United States. The Emperor's determination is only shown at the end of the movie when he enforces his ideas by breaking the treaty with the Americans, after consolidating his power after the battle.

Gordon, Andrew (2009), A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present (2nd ed.), Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-533922-2

Jansen, Marius (1994), Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration, Columbia University Press, ISBN 978-0-231-10173-8

- (1995), The Emergence of Meiji Japan, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-48405-3

Keene, Donald (2002), Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852-1912, Columbia University Press ISBN 023112340X/ISBN 9780231123402; OCLC 46731178

Wilson, George M. (1992), Patriots and Redeemers: Motives in the Meiji Restoration, University of Chicago Press ISBN 0226900916/ISBN 9780226900919; ISBN 0226900924/ISBN 9780226900926; OCLC 23869701

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(明治天皇, Emperor Meiji Meiji-tennō, 3 November 1852 - 30 July 1912), also called Meiji the Great, or Meiji the Good, was the 122nd Emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, reigning from 3 February 1867 until his death on 30 July 1912.

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Boshin War - 1868-1869

After the abdication of the last shogun, the Tokugawa clan was infuriated at being stripped of their land and titles. The Tokugawa clan's army marched to Kyoto, where they expected to peacefully be let through, to the point where they didn't even load their rifles. Instead, they were fired on by the Satsuma Clan's forces, and quickly forced to retreat. This was the start of a year-long war between loyalists to the shogunate and imperial forces. The war would kill over 3500, and ended in a victory for the Emperor. The final shogun's life was spared, and he retired to a quiet life outside of government service until his death in 1913 at age 73.

Main Source: https://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/last-shogun-first-shots-boshin-war.html

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On the 27th of January, 1868, the army of the Shogunate was marching toward Kyoto. For more than a quarter of a century, the Tokugawa Shoguns had ruled Japan in peace, but now the country was once again in turmoil. Foreigners had come to Japan, Dutch, British and French, and modern European weaponry and training had for the first time become influential in the land of the rising sun. It was a turbulent time.

Japan's politics had split the country. The young Emperor and the Shogunate were at odds, and the Emperor had caused the last Shogun to resign his post. However, the Shogun's abdication was not enough to satisfy the clan leaders under whose influence the Emperor was acting.

They called a meeting and declared that the very title of 'Shogun' was to be abolished. Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the recently abdicated Shogun, was to be stripped of all lands and titles. Yoshinobu was understandably distraught at this, and moved in force toward Kyoto, ostensibly to deliver a letter of protest to the Emperor.

His army was made up of troops from four different allied clans, and their gear reflected the rapid changes Japan was undergoing at the time. There were soldiers of the old style, colourfully dressed, elaborately armoured Samurai with pikes and spears, bows and curved swords, but also there were units of line infantry armed with rifles in the western style. Yoshinobu was not expecting a battle, but as his army approached the seat of power, the city of Kyoto, they found their advance opposed by entrenched troops of the Satsuma clan.

The Shogun's forces were spread out, marching along two roads separated by a range of hills and woods. Both sections of his army had bridges to cross, and both bridges were held against them. The first encounter, at the bridge nearest the city, was rapidly concluded.

Two units of riflemen and one unit armed with spears and swords found themselves opposed by nine hundred Satsuma clansmen, armed with rifles and swords and supported by four cannons. The advancing soldiers halted, and envoys were sent forward to demand that the army be allowed to pass peacefully on to Kyoto. The Shogunate rifles were empty, as the troops were not expecting a battle, but the Satsuma men refused to let them pass.

Suddenly, a burst of rifle fire came from the flank of the troops defending the bridge. These were the first shots of a conflict which would rage on for just over a year, a power struggle between the forces loyal to the Emperor, and those loyal to the last Shogun, Tokugawa Yoshinobu. The conflict became known as the Boshin War, the War of the year of the Yang Earth Dragon.

The Shogunate forces could not return fire from their empty rifles, and now the cannon at the bridge began to thunder. A shell exploded near the horse of the commander in charge of one of the units of infantry. His horse threw him and bolted. The beast charged, wild-eyed, riderless and frothing at the mouth, through the ranks of the waiting soldiers.

Confusion spread and the Shogun's forces began to panic, but the commander of the spearmen at the front ordered them to charge the bridge. They surged forward, but the cannon and rifles of the defenders tore through their ranks as they approached. One group gained the bridge and engaged the enemy in melee, but they were killed and the survivors were driven back by the well-equipped defence.

At the second bridge, a similar Imperial force was engaged in tense negotiations with the second section of the Shogunate vanguard. When the thunder of cannon was heard at a distance, the defenders opened fire, driving this second section of Shogun's forces into retreat

The news of the battle reached the Imperial court swiftly, and by the time the shaken Shogunate forces had regrouped some miles off, orders had been drawn up and dispatched. The Emperor, so important culturally and spiritually to Japanese people, had declared open war on Tokugawa Yoshinobu and branded him a rebel and a traitor.

The Emperor authorised the troops who fought the rebel forces to carry the golden banner which represented his authority. The was a bitter blow to the morale of the Shogunate army; anyone who attacked troops under that banner would now be a traitor to the Emperor.

The Shogun's forces retreated to the intersection of the roads and set up a command post, where they had a day to regroup. In the clear light of the next morning, a strong force attacked from the direction of Kyoto.

As they advanced, the golden banner of the Emperor came into view over the crest of the hill. The defenders were confused, not recognising the banner, and sent messages to the enemy, inquiring what the meaning of it was.

When the answer came, that not only was this the banner of the Emperor but that the army was under the command of an Imperial Prince, doubt and fear flowed through the ranks of the Shogunate troops like fire through dry grass. The Imperial family was - and is - an incredibly powerful symbol in Japan. For a man to fire on forces under the Imperial banner was no small matter for his conscience.

The campaign did not progress well for the last Tokugawa Shogun and his allies. Despite the awe inflicted upon them by the banner of the Emperor, they resisted, but confusion had permeated the ranks, and they could not effectively challenge their attackers. Over the next few days, they fell back, again and again, passing north toward the fortress-city of Osaka.

The Boshin war had begun, and by the end of the next year, it would have claimed more than three and a half thousand lives. Yoshinobu of the ancient house of Tokugawa was the last to hold the title of Shogun in Japan. After this early battle, clan after clan joined the Emperor's cause, and the Shogun's opposition was quashed by early the next year.

Change continued apace in Japan, and the last days of the old way had passed forever. The Tokugawa Shogun was spared along with many of his officers, but while many of them took positions in government, he retired into a life of quiet retreat. The last Shogun died in 1913, at the age of 73.

Jack Beckett has been editor of War History Online since 2012. Huge fan of war history and rural history and a motorbike rider.
facebook.com/jack.beckett.73 instagram.com/history_bloke_on_a_bike/ linkedin.com/in/jack-beckett-56a76520/

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The Last Shogun - First Shots of the Boshin War

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On the 27th of January, 1868, the army of the Shogunate was marching toward Kyoto. For more than a quarter of a century, the Tokugawa Shoguns had ruled Japan in peace, but now the country was once again in turmoil.

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Hong Kong was the sight of a temporary truce negotiated between Chinese Admiral Kuan Ti, after he suffered a devastating defeat at the hands of British Major J L Pratt at Fort Chuenpi. After the truce, Hong Kong officially became a British territory in 1841.

Bibliography:
-https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/opium-war-1839-1842

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Hong Kong was the sight of a temporary truce negotiated between Chinese Admiral Kuan Ti, after he suffered a devastating defeat at the hands of British Major J L Pratt at Fort Chuenpi. After the truce, Hong Kong officially became a British territory in 1841.

Bibliography:
-https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/opium-war-1839-1842

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Opium and tea

The roots of the Opium War (or First China War) lay in a trade dispute between the British and the Chinese Qing Dynasty. By the start of the 19th century, the trade in Chinese goods such as tea, silks and porcelain was extremely lucrative for British merchants. The problem was that the Chinese would not buy British products in return. They would only sell their goods in exchange for silver, and as a result large amounts of silver were leaving Britain.

In order to stop this, the East India Company and other British merchants began to smuggle Indian opium into China illegally, for which they demanded payment in silver. This was then used to buy tea and other goods. By 1839, opium sales to China paid for the entire tea trade.

Chinese resistance

The Chinese wanted to stop the trade. Although opium was valued as a medicine that could ease pain, assist sleep and reduce stress, by 1840 there were millions of addicts in the country. Illegal opium imports were also eroding what had once been a favourable balance of trade.

Chinese efforts to end the trade were initially successful. In May 1839 they forced the British Chief Superintendent of Trade in China, Charles Elliott, to hand over the stocks of opium at Canton for destruction. This outraged the British, and was the incident that sparked conflict.

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The roots of the Opium War (or First China War) lay in a trade dispute between the British and the Chinese Qing Dynasty. By the start of the 19th century, the trade in Chinese goods such as tea, silks and porcelain was extremely lucrative for British merchants.

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The Treaty of Shimonoseki was a treaty which ended the Sino-Japanese war. The treaty is identified as another of the "unequal" treaties conceded by China. With this treaty China paid Japan and conceded some key trade ports. One of the most significant outcomes of this treaty was the Qing Dynasty turning over the island of Taiwan to Japan following a successful invasion.

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The opium wars would be the biggest war China would have to face. The first wars would be between China and Britain (1839-42). Britain wanted to continue the spreading of opium but china wanted to put an end to it, this would cause trading to decrease and the Britains did not want that to happen. Peace negotiations proceeded quickly, resulting in the Treaty of Nanjing, signed on August 29. By its provisions, China was required to pay Britain a large indemnity, cede Hong Kong Island to the British, and increase the number of treaty ports ,where the British could trade and reside from one (Canton) to five.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Opium-Wars

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In early July of 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry “sailed into the Tokyo harbor.” “Perry, on behalf of the U.S. government, forced Japan to enter into trade with the United States and (also) demanded a treaty permitting trade and opening Japanese ports to U.S. merchant ships.” I believe it was these demands that led to Japan opening their ports to the U.S. and eventually the merchant ships of other Western countries. “Russia, Britain, France, and Holland all followed Perry's example and used their fleets to force Japan to sign treaties that promised regular relations and trade.”

Source: http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/special/japan_1750_perry.htm

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The satsuma rebellion was an uprising of samurai that went against the new empire. It was led by Saigo Takamori. He was a senior leader of the Meiji government until he left and stared an academy in Satsuma. In 1876, the Samuri that followed Saigo learned that there was an assassination attempt on Saigo and they started to push for a rebellion to protect him. In order to put down a possible rebellion, the Government sent a warship to remove weapons from Kagoshima, which provoked conflict. After students from Saigos academy successfully raided naval yards and stockpiles, Siago decided to lead the rebellion against the government. After having greatly destructive battles in Kumamoto, the rebellion was put to an end in Kagoshima in 1877 after Saigo died.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satsuma_Rebellion

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“Further, the Yi Ho Tuan Movement exposed the treasonous character of the Qing government. It both weakened the feudal ruling power and precipitated the subsequent growth of the revolutionary movement.

These great and historic merits of the Yi Ho Tuan can never be obliterated. Yet the Yi Ho Tuan Movement has long been abused and slandered by the imperialists and all reactionary forces. In its own day, the imperialists labelled it a manifestation of the ‘hostility of the yellow race towards the white race’ and of ‘Chinese hatred for European culture and civilisation’. Imperialist lackeys dubbed it ‘irrational’.”

Source: https://alphahistory.com/chineserevolution/chinese-view-boxer-rebellion-1976/

Although this source was from 1976 and appears to be a response by China explaining their view and opinions of the Boxer Rebellion, I thought it was important because it shows how China wished to rewrite history to fit their own beliefs. China's quotes towards the end about how “the imperialists labelled it a manifestation of the ‘hostility of the yellow race towards the white race’” show that China did not like how they were referred to in prejudiced terms by the West. Furthermore, the quote of how the Boxer Rebellion showed ‘Chinese hatred for European culture and civilization’ proves the point of how the West did not view China favorably at the turn of the century.

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In 1838, The emperor sent Lin Zexu to Guangzhou to end or at least lower the trade of opium. When Lin arrived in Guangzhou, he got foreign merchants to turn over about 2.6 million pounds of opium and he put pressure on them to not import opium again. He also took 70,000 opium pipes and arrested 1,700 Chinese dealers. Once the British started to retaliate by laying waste to parts of the south, the emperor called Lin Zexu back to the North.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lin-Zexu

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Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901)

Towards the end of the 19th century, unrest was brewing in China's remote Shandong province. Because many bandits were converting to Christianity to gain protection from Western powers, lots of Chinese citizens were becoming enraged at foreigners and Christians. To fight the westerners, many Chinese were learning martial arts, called "Chinese Boxing" by westerners. In 1899, a religious society of "Chinese Boxers" called the Yihequan led a violent rebellion against the westerners, calling for the death of all foreigners and the restoration of Qing supremacy. They gained support from some in the Qing government, notably the Emperor's mother. The western powers allied with Japan in order to crush the rebellion, leading to a horrific sacking of Beijing.

Main Source: https://www.history.com/topics/china/boxer-rebellion

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In the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, a Chinese secret organization called the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists led an uprising in northern China against the spread of Western and Japanese influence there. The rebels, referred to by Westerners as Boxers because they performed physical exercises they believed would make them able to withstand bullets, killed foreigners and Chinese Christians and destroyed foreign property.

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The Treaty of Nanjing (1842) was a treaty between China and Great Britain which effectively ended the first Opium War. The Treaty is regarded as the first of many “unequal treaties” signed by China, which were entirely one sided and China conceded many of territorial and sovereignty rights.

In Nanjing, China conceded the colony of Hong Kong, which would remain under British rule until 1997. British citizens would also be guaranteed immunity from prosecution under Chinese Law. China also conceded other ports and Shanghai became an international zone. The treaty represented a development in British imperial policy.

Hong Kong is a modest sized colony, but it’s strategic and economic importance was significant. It was treasured as a jewel in the East of the British Empire. For many, its transfer to Chinese control in 1997 represented a symbolic end of empire and of a colonial way of life. Hong Kong was, and remains, significant as a place where cultures meet, mingle and fuse. The return of Hong Kong to China can be said to have put an end to the last continuing provisions of the Treaty of Nanking, most of which had already been consigned to history.

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Shanghai was one of the first port cities established as one of the five depots authorized for trade between China and the west, particularly the United States. Shanghai's status as a western trading post was established during a treaty signed at Wangxia in 1844.

Bibliography:
-https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/china-1

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NOTE TO READERS
"Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations" has been retired and is no longer maintained. For more information, please see the full notice.

The Treaty of Wangxia (Wang-hsia) was the first formal treaty signed between the United States and China in 1844. It served as an American counterpart to the Anglo-Chinese Treaty of Nanjing that ended the First Opium War in 1842.

The Signing of the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842

The Opium War and these treaties were emblematic of an era in which Western powers tried to gain unfettered access to Chinese products and markets for European and U.S. trade.

Western traders, including those from the United States, had long sought a variety of Chinese products (including furniture, silk and tea), but found there were few products that China wanted from the West. American trade with China began as early as 1784, relying on North American exports such as furs, sandalwood, and ginseng, but American interest in Chinese products soon outstripped the Chinese appetite for these American exports. The British had already discovered a great market in southern China for smuggled opium, and American traders soon also turned to opium to supplement their exports to China. Beyond the health problems related to opium addiction, the increasing opium trade with the Western powers meant that for the first time, China imported more goods than it exported. Settling this financial problem eventually led to the First Opium War between Great Britain and China, from 1839 to 1842. After defeating the Chinese in a series of naval conflicts, the British were in a position to make a large number of demands from the weaker Qing Government of China, in the Anglo-Chinese Treaty of Nanjing. Not to be outdone, U.S. negotiators sought to conclude a similar treaty with the Chinese, to guarantee the United States many of the favorable terms awarded the British. The Chinese readily agreed in an effort to keep all foreigners on the same footing.

U.S. President John Tyler chose Massachusetts Congressman Caleb Cushing as his representative in treaty negotiations with the Chinese. Cushing and his counterparts reached the terms of the treaty quickly and signed it at Wangxia, a suburb of the Portuguese port city of Macau, in 1844. The Treaty of Wangxia replicated many of the key terms of the Treaty of Nanjing. Most importantly, it established five treaty ports as open for Chinese-Western trade (Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai). These treaty ports became key crossroads for Western and Chinese culture, as they were the first locations where foreigners and foreign trading operations could own land in China.

Massachusetts Congressman Caleb Cushing

The U.S. treaty was somewhat longer than the British version, as it included major points from the Treaty of Nanjing, but also added some issues of particular interest to the United States. Article 17 protected the interests of American missionaries in China (several had acted as translators during the negotiation process). Article 18 allowed Americans living or working in China to employ tutors to help them learn Chinese, a practice formerly forbidden by the Chinese Government. Unlike Great Britain, the United States agreed that anyone involved in the opium trade or the smuggling of contraband would be prosecuted under Chinese law, but, with that exception, the treaty allowed for other Americans in China to be afforded the benefits of extraterritoriality. This meant that any American accused of committing a crime in China would not be subject to the jurisdiction of the local law, but would instead be tried and, if necessary, punished by American officials in China. Due to the most-favored-nation clause in all of the western powers' treaties with the Chinese Government, any special consideration given one power could ultimately be claimed by them all.

In the 1850s, the United States and the European powers grew increasingly dissatisfied with both the terms of their treaties with China, and the Qing Government's failure to adhere to them. The British forced the issue by attacking the Chinese port cities of Guangzhou and Tianjin in the Second Opium War (1857-1858). Under the most-favored-nation clause, all of the foreign powers operating in China were permitted to seek the same concessions of China that Great Britain achieved by force. As a result, France, Russia, and the United States all signed treaties with China at Tianjin in quick succession in 1858.

The agreements reached between the Western powers and China following the Opium Wars came to be known as the "unequal treaties" because in practice they gave foreigners privileged status and extracted concessions from the Chinese. Ironically, the Qing Government had fully supported the clauses on extraterritoriality and most-favored nation status in the first treaties in order to keep the foreigners in line. This treaty system also marked a new direction for Chinese contact with the outside world. For years, the Chinese had conducted their foreign policy through the tribute system, in which foreign powers wishing to trade with China were required first to bring a tribute to the emperor, acknowledging the superiority of Chinese culture and the ultimate authority of the Chinese ruler. Unlike China's neighbors, the European powers ultimately refused to make these acknowledgements in order to trade, and they demanded instead that China adhere to Western diplomatic practices, such as the creation of treaties. Although the unequal treaties and the use of the most-favored-nation clause were effective in creating and maintaining open trade with China, both were also important factors in building animosity and resentment toward Western imperialism.

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Milestones: 1830-1860 - Office of the Historian

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NOTE TO READERS "Milestones in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations" has been retired and is no longer maintained. For more information, please see the full notice. The Treaty of Wangxia (Wang-hsia) was the first formal treaty signed between the United States and China in 1844.

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Pearl River Delta World Trade Center Tower, Haizhu District, Canton China

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The Battle of The Bogue  (February 23 - 26, 1841)

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Pearl River Delta, Haizhu District, Canton China

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Pearl River Delta, Haizhu District, Canton China

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-British and Chinese forces at the Bocca Tigris, China, on 23–26 February 1841 during the First Opium War.

-The British launched an amphibious attack at the Humen strait known as Bogue, capturing the forts on the islands of Anunghoy and North Wangtong. This allowed the fleet to proceed further up the Pearl River towards the city of Canton (Guangzhou), which they captured the following month.

Battle of the Bogue - Wikipedia
Battle of the Bogue | Military Wiki | Fandom

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The Taiping Rebellion (1850 - 1864)

This was known as a massive civil war that was waged between the Han and the Qing empire. Since the Qing empire was run by the Manchu who were known as nomadic warriors, this civil war was the bloodiest civil war to occur having 20 million fatalities. While this occurred between 1850-1864, the last rebel army known as the Tianjing was not defeated until 1871. The Qing government ended up winning, but it cost them their political structure, strong economy, and many men.

Bibliography:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion#cite_note-FOOTNOTEPlatt2012[httpsarchiveorgdetailsautumninheavenly00plat_p._xxiii]-5

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The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a massive rebellion and civil war that was waged in China between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Han, Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It lasted from 1850 to 1864, although following the fall of Tianjing (now Nanjing) the last rebel army was not wiped out until August 1871. After fighting the bloodiest civil war in world history, with over 20 million dead, the established Qing government won decisively, although at a great price to its fiscal and political structure.

The uprising was commanded by Hong Xiuquan, an ethnic Hakka (a Han subgroup) and the self-proclaimed brother of Jesus Christ. Its goals were religious, nationalist, and political in nature; Hong sought the conversion of the Han people to the Taiping's syncretic version of Christianity, to overthrow the Qing dynasty, and a state transformation. Rather than supplanting the ruling class, the Taipings sought to upend the moral and social order of China. The Taipings established the Heavenly Kingdom as an oppositional state based in Tianjing 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, Taiping armies occupied and fought across much of the mid and lower Yangtze valley, ultimately devolving into total civil war. It was the largest war in China since the Ming-Qing Transition, involving most of Central and Southern China. 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 war was characterized by extreme brutality on both sides. Taiping soldiers carried out widespread massacres of Manchus, the ethnic minority of the ruling Imperial House of Aisin-Gioro. Meanwhile, the Qing government also engaged in massacres, most notably against the civilian population of the Taiping capital, Nanjing.

Weakened severely by internal conflict, an attempted coup, and the failure of the siege of Beijing, the Taipings were defeated by decentralized, provincial armies such as the Xiang Army organized and commanded by Zeng Guofan. After moving down the Yangtze River and recapturing the strategic city of Anqing, Zeng's forces besieged Nanjing during May, 1862. After two more years, on June 1, 1864, Hong Xiuquan died and Nanjing fell barely a month later. The 14-year civil war combined with other internal and external wars weakened the dynasty but provided incentive for an initially successful period of reform and self-strengthening. It exacerbated ethnic disputes and accelerated the rise of provincial power. Historians debate whether these developments foreshadowed the Warlord Era, the loss of central control after the establishment of Republic of China in 1912.

The terms which writers use for the conflict and its participants often represent their different opinions. During the 19th century, the Qing did not describe the conflict as either a civil war or a movement because doing so would have lent credibility to the Taiping. Instead, they referred to the tumultuous civil war as a period of chaos (), rebellion () or military ascendancy (). They often referred to it as the Hong-Yang Rebellion (), referring to the two most prominent leaders. It was also dismissively referred to as the Red Sheep Rebellion () because "Hong-Yang" sounds like "Red Sheep" in Chinese.

In modern China, the war is often referred to as the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, due to the fact that the Taiping espoused a doctrine which was both nationalist and communist, and the Taiping represented a popular ideology which was based on either Han nationalism or protocommunist values. The scholar Jian Youwen is among those who refer to the rebellion as the "Taiping Revolutionary Movement" on the grounds that it worked towards a complete change in the political and social system, rather than working towards the replacement of one dynasty with another.

Many Western historians refer to the conflict in general as the "Taiping Rebellion". Recently, however, scholars such as Tobie Meyer-Fong and Stephen Platt have argued that the term "Taiping Rebellion" is biased because it insinuates that the Qing government was a legitimate government which was fighting against the illegitimate Taiping rebels. Instead, they argue that the conflict should be called a "civil war". Other historians such as Jürgen Osterhammel term the conflict "Taiping Revolution" because of the rebels' radical transformational objectives and the social revolution that they initiated.

Little is known about how the Taiping referred to the war, but the Taiping often referred to the Qing in general and the Manchus in particular as some variant of demons or monsters (), representing Hong's proclamation that they were fighting a holy war to rid the world of demons and establish paradise on earth. The Qing referred to the Taiping as Yue Bandits ( or ) in official sources, a reference to their origins in the southeastern province of Guangdong.

More colloquially, the Chinese called the Taiping some variant of Long-Hairs (長毛鬼、長髪鬼、髪逆、髪賊 ), because they did not shave their foreheads and braid their hair into a queue as Qing subjects were obligated to do, allowing their hair to grow long. In the 19th century, Western observers, depending on their ideology, referred to the Taiping as the "revolutionaries", "insurgents" or "rebels". In English, the Heavenly Kingdom of Peace has often been shortened to simply the Taipings, from the word "Peace" in the Heavenly Kingdom of Peace, but it was never a term that either the Taipings or their enemies used to refer to them.[citation needed ]

During the 19th century, the Qing dynasty experienced a series of famines, natural disasters, economic problems and defeats at the hands of foreign powers. Farmers were heavily overtaxed, rents rose dramatically, and peasants started to desert their lands in droves. The Qing military had recently suffered a disastrous defeat in the First Opium War, while the Chinese economy was severely impacted by a trade imbalance caused by the large-scale and illicit importation of opium. Banditry became common, and numerous secret societies and self-defense units formed, all of which led to an increase in small-scale warfare.

Meanwhile, the population of China had increased rapidly, nearly doubling between 1766 and 1833, while the amount of cultivated land was stable. The government, commanded by ethnic Manchus, had become increasingly corrupt. It was weak in the southern regions where local clans dominated. Anti-Manchu sentiments were strongest in southern China among the Hakka community, a Han Chinese subgroup. Meanwhile, Christian missionaries were active.

In 1837 Hong Huoxiu, a Hakka from a poor village in Guangdong, failed the imperial examination for the third time, frustrating his ambition to become a scholar-official in the civil service, leading him to a nervous breakdown. While convalescing, Hong dreamed of visiting Heaven, where he discovered that he possessed a celestial family distinct from his earthly family, which included a heavenly father, mother, elder brother, sister-in-law, wife, and son. His heavenly father, wearing a black dragon robe and high-brimmed hat with a long golden beard, lamented that men were worshiping demons rather than he himself, and presented Hong with a sword and golden seal with which to slay the demons infesting Heaven. Furthermore, he did so with the help of his celestial older-brother and a heavenly army. The father figure later informed Hong that his given name violated taboos and had to be changed, suggesting as one option the " Hong Xiuquan" moniker ultimately adopted by Hong. In later embellishments, Hong would declare that he also saw Confucius being punished by Hong's celestial father for leading the people astray. In 1843, Hong failed the imperial examinations for the fourth and final time. It was only then, prompted by a visit by his cousin, that Hong took time to carefully examine Christian pamphlets he had received from a Protestant Christian missionary several years earlier. After reading these pamphlets, Hong came to believe that they had given him the key to interpreting his visions: his celestial father was God the Father (whom he identified with Shangdi from Chinese tradition), the elder brother that he had seen was Jesus Christ, and he had been directed to rid the world of demons, including the corrupt Qing government and Confucian teachings. In 1847 Hong went to Guangzhou, where he studied the Bible with Issachar Jacox Roberts, an American Baptist missionary. Roberts refused to baptize him and later stated that Hong's followers were "bent on making their burlesque religious pretensions serve their political purpose".

Soon after Hong began preaching across Guangxi in 1844, his follower Feng Yunshan founded the God Worshipping Society, a movement which followed Hong's fusion of Christianity, Daoism, Confucianism and indigenous millenarianism, which Hong presented as a restoration of the ancient Chinese faith in Shangdi. The Taiping faith, says one historian, "developed into a dynamic new Chinese religion ... Taiping Christianity".

The movement at first grew by suppressing groups of bandits and pirates in southern China in the late 1840s, then suppression by Qing authorities led it to evolve into guerrilla warfare and subsequently a widespread civil war. Eventually, two other God Worshippers claimed to possess the ability to speak as members of the "Celestial Family", the Father in the case of Yang Xiuqing and Jesus Christ in the case of Xiao Chaogui.

On January 11, 1851, Hong declared himself the Heavenly King of the Heavenly Kingdom of Peace (or Taiping Heavenly Kingdom), from which comes the term "Taipings" commonly used for them in English language studies. The Taipings began marching north in September 1851 to escape Qing forces closing in on them. The Taiping army pressed north into Hunan following the Xiang River, besieging Changsha, occupying Yuezhou, and then capturing Wuchang in December 1852 after reaching the Yangtze River. At this point the Taiping leadership decided to move east along the Yangtze River. Anqing was captured in February 1853.

Taiping leaders may have reached out to Triad organizations, which had many cells in South China and among government troops. Taiping titles echoed Triad usage, whether consciously or not, which made it more attractive for Triads to join the movement. In 1852, Qing government troops captured Hong Daquan, a rebel who had assumed the title Tian De Wang (King of Heavenly Virtue). Hong Daquan's confession claimed that Hong Xiuquan had made him co-sovereign of the Heavenly Kingdom and given him that title, but was more likely an echo of an earlier but unconnected White Lotus Rebellion. However, the capture of Nanjing in that year led to a deterioration of relations between the Taiping rebels and the triads.

On March 19, 1853, the Taipings captured the city of Nanjing and Hong declared it the Heavenly Capital of his kingdom. Since the Taipings considered the Manchus to be demons, they first killed all the Manchu men, then forced the Manchu women outside the city and burned them to death. Shortly thereafter, the Taiping launched concurrent Northern and Western expeditions, in an effort to relieve pressure on Nanjing and achieve significant territorial gains. The former expedition was a complete failure but the latter achieved limited success.

In 1853 Hong Xiuquan withdrew from active control of policies and administration to rule exclusively by written proclamations. He lived in luxury and had many women in his inner chamber, and often issued religious strictures. He clashed with Yang Xiuqing, who challenged his often impractical policies, and became suspicious of Yang's ambitions, his extensive network of spies and his claims of authority when "speaking as God". This tension culminated in the 1856 Tianjing Incident, wherein Yang and his followers were slaughtered by Wei Changhui, Qin Rigang, and their troops on Hong Xiuquan's orders.

Shi Dakai's objection to the bloodshed led to his family and retinue being killed by Wei and Qin with Wei ultimately planning to imprison Hong. Wei's plans were ultimately thwarted and he and Qin were executed by Hong. Shi Dakai was given control of five Taiping armies, which were consolidated into one. But fearing for his life, he departed from Tianjing and headed west towards Sichuan.

With Hong withdrawn from view and Yang out of the picture, the remaining Taiping leaders[who? ] tried to widen their popular support and forge alliances with European powers, but failed on both counts. The Europeans decided to stay officially neutral, though European military advisors served with the Qing army.

Inside China, the rebellion faced resistance from the traditionalist rural classes because of hostility to Chinese customs and Confucian values. The landowning upper class, unsettled by the Taiping ideology and the policy of strict separation of the sexes, even for married couples, sided with government forces.

In Hunan, a local irregular army called the Xiang Army or Hunan Army, under the personal leadership of Zeng Guofan, became the main armed force fighting for the Qing against the Taiping. Zeng's Xiang Army proved effective in gradually turning back the Taiping advance in the western theater of the war and ultimately retaking much of Hubei and Jiangxi provinces. In December 1856 Qing forces retook Wuchang for the final time. The Xiang Army captured Jiujiang in May 1858 and then the rest of Jiangxi province by September.

In 1859 Hong Rengan, Hong Xiuquan's cousin, joined the Taiping forces in Nanjing and was given considerable power by Hong. Hong Rengan developed an ambitious plan to expand the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's boundaries.

In May 1860 the Taiping defeated the imperial forces that had been besieging Nanjing since 1853, eliminating them from the region and opening the way for a successful invasion of southern Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, the wealthiest region of the Qing Empire. The Taiping rebels were successful in taking Hangzhou on March 19, 1860, Changzhou on May 26, and Suzhou on June 2 to the east. While Taiping forces were preoccupied in Jiangsu, Zeng's forces moved down the Yangtze River.

In 1861, around the time of the death of the Xianfeng Emperor and ascension of the Tongzhi Emperor, Zeng Guofan's Xiang Army captured Anqing with help from a naval blockade imposed by the Royal Navy on the city. Near the end of 1861 the Taipings launched a final Eastern Expedition. Ningbo was easily captured on December 9, and Hangzhou was besieged and finally captured on December 31, 1861. Taiping troops surrounded Shanghai in January 1862, but were unable to capture it.

The Ever-Victorious Army repulsed another attack on Shanghai in 1862 and helped to defend other treaty ports such as Ningbo, reclaimed on May 10. They also aided imperial troops in reconquering Taiping strongholds along the Yangtze River.

In 1863, Shi Dakai surrendered to the Qing near the Sichuan capital Chengdu and was executed by slow-slicing. Some of his followers escaped or were released and continued the fight against the Qing.

Qing forces were reorganised under the command of Zeng Guofan, Zuo Zongtang and Li Hongzhang, and the Qing reconquest began in earnest. Zeng Guofan had initially failed so badly that he attempted suicide, but he then adopted the teachings of the 16th century Ming-dynasty general Qi Jiguang. He bypassed the professional regular armies and recruited from local villages, paying and drilling them well. Zeng, Zuo, and Li led personally loyal soldiers By early 1864, Qing control in most areas had been reestablished.

In May 1862, the Xiang Army began directly besieging Nanjing and managed to hold firm despite numerous attempts by the numerically superior Taiping Army to dislodge them. Hong Xiuquan declared that God would defend Nanjing, but in June 1864, with Qing forces approaching, he died of food poisoning as a consequence of eating wild vegetables when the city ran low on food supplies. He was sick for 20 days before succumbing and a few days after his death, Qing forces took the city. Although Hong likely died of his illness, suicide by poison has also been suggested. His body was buried in the former Ming Imperial Palace, and was later exhumed on orders of Zeng Guofan to verify his death, and then cremated. Hong's ashes were later blasted out of a cannon in order to ensure that his remains have no resting place as eternal punishment for the uprising.

Four months before the fall of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Hong Xiuquan abdicated in favor of his eldest son, Hong Tianguifu, who was 15 years old. The younger Hong was inexperienced and powerless, so the kingdom was quickly destroyed when Nanjing fell in July 1864 to the imperial armies after protracted street-by-street fighting. Tianguifu and few others escaped but were soon caught and executed. Most of the Taiping princes were executed.

A small remainder of loyal Taiping forces had continued to fight in northern Zhejiang, rallying around Tianguifu. But after Tianguifu's capture on October 25, 1864, Taiping resistance was gradually pushed into the highlands of Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian and finally Guangdong, where one of the last Taiping loyalists, Wang Haiyang, was defeated on January 29, 1866.

Although the fall of Nanjing in 1864 marked the destruction of the Taiping regime, the fight was not yet over. There were still several hundred thousand Taiping troops continuing the fight, with more than a quarter-million fighting in the border regions of Jiangxi and Fujian alone. It was not until August 1871 that the last Taiping army led by Shi Dakai's commander, Li Fuzhong (), was completely wiped out by government forces in the border region of Hunan, Guizhou and Guangxi.

Taiping wars also spilled over into Vietnam with devastating effects. In 1860, Wu Lingyun (), an ethnic Zhuang Taiping leader, proclaimed himself King of Dingling () in the Sino-Vietnamese border regions. Dingling was destroyed during a Qing campaign in 1868. His son Wu Yazhong, also called Wu Kun (), fled to Vietnam but was killed in 1869 in Bắc Ninh by a Qing-Vietnamese coalition.

Wu Kun's troops broke up and became marauding armies such as the Yellow Flag Army led by Huang Chongying () and the Black Flag Army ( Chinese: ; pinyin: ; Vietnamese: ) led by Liu Yongfu. The latter would become a prominent warlord in Upper Tonkin and would later help the Nguyễn dynasty to engage against the French during the Sino-French War in the 1880s. He later became the second and last leader of the short-lived Republic of Formosa (5 June-21 October 1895).

Other "Flag Gangs" armed with the latest weapons, disintegrated into bandit groups that plundered remnants of the Lan Xang kingdom. They were then engaged in combat against the incompetent forces of King Rama V (r. 1868-1910) until 1890, when the last of the groups eventually disbanded. Their victims did not know where the bandits had come from and, when they plundered Buddhist temples, they were mistaken for Chinese Muslims from Yunnan called Hui in Mandarin and Haw in the Lao language ( Thai: ฮ่อ.) This resulted in the protracted series of conflicts being misnamed the Haw wars.

With no reliable census at the time, estimates of the death toll of the Taiping Rebellion are necessarily based on projections. The most widely cited sources estimate the total number of deaths during the almost 14 years of the rebellion to be approximately 20-30 million civilians and soldiers. Most of the deaths were attributed to plague and famine. Some analysts have claimed the death toll may have reached 100 million.

The Nian Rebellion (1853-1868), and several Chinese Muslim rebellions in the southwest ( Panthay Rebellion, 1855-1873) and the northwest ( Dungan revolt, 1862-1877) continued to pose considerable problems for the Qing dynasty.

Occasionally the Nian rebels would collaborate with Taiping forces, for instance during the Northern Expedition. As the Taiping rebellion lost ground, particularly after the fall of Nanjing in 1864, former Taiping soldiers and commanders like Lai Wenguang were incorporated into Nian ranks.

After the failure of the Red Turban Rebellion (1854-1856) to capture Guangzhou, their soldiers retreated north into Jiangxi and combined forces with Shi Dakai. After the defeat of the Li Yonghe and Lan Chaoding rebellion in Sichuan, remnants combined with Taiping forces in Shaanxi. Remnant forces of the Small Swords Society uprising in Shanghai regrouped with the Taiping army.

Du Wenxiu, who led the Panthay Rebellion in Yunnan, was in contact with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. He was not aiming his rebellion at Han Chinese, but was anti-Qing and wanted to destroy the Qing government. Du's forces led multiple non-Muslim forces, including Han Chinese, Li, Bai, and Hani peoples. They were assisted by non-Muslim Shan and Kakhyen and other hill tribes in the revolt.

The other Muslim rebellion, the Dungan revolt, was the reverse: it was not aimed at overthrowing the Qing dynasty since its leader Ma Hualong accepted an imperial title. Rather, it erupted due to intersectional fighting between Muslim factions and Han Chinese. Various groups fought each other during the Dungan revolt without any coherent goal. According to modern researchers, the Dungan rebellion began in 1862 not as a planned uprising but as a coalescence of many local brawls and riots triggered by trivial causes, among these were false rumours that the Hui Muslims were aiding the Taiping rebels. However, the Hui Ma Xiaoshi claimed that the Shaanxi Muslim rebellion was connected to the Taiping.

Jonathan Spence says that a key reason for the Taiping's defeat was its overall inability to coordinate with other rebellions.

Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's policies

The rebels announced social reforms, including strict separation of the sexes, abolition of foot binding, land socialisation, and "suppression" of private trade. They also outlawed the importation of opium into all Taiping territories. In regards to religion, the Kingdom established as official religion Hong's Shenism, which held that Hong Xiuquan was the younger brother of Jesus and second son of the Emperor. Hong saw Confucianism was a shadow of its noble origin, being now a tool of the Qing to tyrannize Han people, libraries of the Confucian monasteries were destroyed (almost completely in the case of the Yangtze Delta area), and the temples were often defaced or turned into temples of his new religion or hospitals and libraries.

Traditionalist works like those of Confucius were burned and their sellers executed. The Taiping were especially opposed to idolatry, destroying idols wherever found with great prejudice. Though the destruction of idols was initially welcomed by foreign missionaries, missionaries eventually came to fear the zealotry of the Taiping that they had a hand in creating.

Separation of the sexes was strictly enforced in the first few years, although it tapered off in later years. Part of the extremeness came from a mistranslation of the Ten Commandments, which led to the seventh commandment also forbidding "licentiousness" as well as adultery. It was so severe that parents and children of the opposite sex could not interact, and even married couples were discouraged from having sex.

The rebels used brilliant unorthodox strategies that nearly toppled the dynasty but inspired it to adopt what one historian calls "the most significant military experimentation since the seventeenth century."

The Taiping army was the rebellion's key strength. It was marked by a high level of discipline and fanaticism.[citation needed ] They typically wore a uniform of red jackets with blue trousers, and grew their hair long so in China they were nicknamed "long hair". In the beginning of the rebellion, the large numbers of women serving in the Taiping army also distinguished it from other 19th-century armies. However, after 1853 there ceased being many women in the Taiping army. Hong Xuanjiao, Su Sanniang and Qiu Ersao are examples of women who became leaders of the Taiping army's female soldiers.

Combat was always bloody and extremely brutal, with little artillery but huge forces equipped with small arms. Both armies would attempt to push each other off of the battlefield, and though casualties were high, few battles were decisively won. The Taiping army's main strategy of conquest was to take major cities, consolidate their hold on the cities, then march out into the surrounding countryside to recruit local farmers and battle government forces.

Estimates of the overall size of the Taiping army are around 2,000,000 soldiers. The army's organization was allegedly inspired by that of the Qin dynasty. Each army corps consisted of roughly 13,000 men. These corps were placed into armies of varying sizes. In addition to the main Taiping forces organised along the above lines, there were also thousands of pro-Taiping groups fielding their own forces of irregulars.

The rebels were relatively well-equipped with modern weapons. They were not supported by foreign governments, but they bought modern munitions - including firearms, artillery, and ammunition - from foreign suppliers. The rebels were buying weapons by 1853. Munitions - partially sourced from Western manufacturers and military stores - were smuggled into China, mainly by English and Americans. An April 1862 shipment from an American dealer "well known for their dealings with rebels" included 2,783 (percussion cap) muskets, 66 carbines, 4 rifles, and 895 field artillery guns; the dealer carried passports signed by the Loyal King.

The rebels also manufactured weapons, and imported manufacturing equipment. In the summer of 1862, a Western observer noted that rebel factories in Nanjing were producing superior guns - including heavy cannon - than the Qing. The rebels augmented their modern arsenal with captured equipment. Just before his execution, Taiping Loyal King Li Xiucheng advised the Qing to buy, and to learn how to replicate, the best foreign cannon and gun carriages to prepare for war with foreign powers.

As early as 1853, foreigners from various countries joined the rebels in combat and administrative roles, and were in a position to observe the Taiping in battle. The rebels were courageous under fire, erected defensive works quickly, and used mobile pontoon bridges. One tactic was to ring a Qing emplacement in fire and kill the fleeing Qing troops as they emerged individually.

There was also a small Taiping Navy, composed of captured boats, that operated along the Yangtze and its tributaries. Among the Navy's commanders was the Hang King Tang Zhengcai.

Ethnic structure of the Taiping army

The Hakka settled throughout southern China and beyond, but as latecomers they generally had to establish their communities on rugged, less fertile land scattered on the fringes of the local majority group's settlements. As their name ("guest households") suggests, the Hakka were generally treated as migrant newcomers, and often subjected to hostility and derision from the local majority Han populations. Consequently, the Hakka, to a greater extent than other Han Chinese, have been historically associated with popular unrest and rebellion.

The other significant ethnic group in the Taiping army was the Zhuang, an indigenous people of Tai origin and China's largest non-Han ethnic minority group. Over the centuries, Zhuang communities had been adopting Han Chinese culture. This was possible because Han culture in the region accommodates a great deal of linguistic diversity, so the Zhuang could be absorbed as if the Zhuang language were just another Han Chinese dialect (which it is not). Because Zhuang communities were integrating with the Han at different rates, a certain amount of friction between the Han and the Zhuang was inevitable, with Zhuang unrest leading to armed uprisings on occasion.

Social structure of the Taiping Army

Socially and economically, the Taiping rebels came almost exclusively from the lowest classes. Many of the southern Taiping troops were former miners, especially those coming from the Zhuang. Very few Taiping rebels, even in the leadership caste, came from the imperial bureaucracy. Almost none were landlords and in occupied territories landlords were often executed.

Opposing the rebellion was an imperial army with over a million regulars and unknown thousands of regional militias and foreign mercenaries operating in support. Among the imperial forces was the elite Ever Victorious Army, consisting of Chinese soldiers led by a Western officer corps (see Frederick Townsend Ward and Charles Gordon) and supplied by European arms companies like Willoughbe & Ponsonby.

A particularly famous imperial force was Zeng Guofan's Xiang Army. Zuo Zongtang from Hunan province was another important Qing general who contributed in suppressing the Taiping Rebellion. Where the armies under the control of dynasty itself were unable to defeat the Taiping, these gentry-led Yong Ying armies were able to succeed.

Although keeping accurate records was something imperial China traditionally did very well, the decentralized nature of the imperial war effort (relying on regional forces) and the fact that the war was a civil war and therefore very chaotic, meant that reliable figures are impossible to find. The destruction of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom also meant that the majority of any records it possessed were destroyed, the percentage of records said to have survived is around 10%.

Over the course of the conflict, around 90% of recruits to the Taiping side would be killed or defect.

The organisation of the Qing Imperial Army was thus:

The Taiping Rebellion was a total war. Almost every citizen who had not fled the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was given military training and conscripted into the army to fight against Qing imperial forces. Under the Taiping household registration system, one adult male from each household was to be conscripted into the Army.

During this conflict, both sides tried to deprive each other of the resources which they needed in order to continue the war and it became standard practice for each to destroy the opposing side's agricultural areas, butcher the populations of cities and generally exact a brutal price from the inhabitants of captured enemy lands in order to drastically weaken the opposition's war effort. This war was total in the sense that civilians on both sides participated in the war effort to a significant extent and the armies on both sides waged war against both the civilian population and military forces. Contemporary accounts describe the amount of desolation which befell rural areas as a result of the conflict.

In every area which they captured, the Taiping immediately exterminated the entire Manchu population. In the province of Hunan one Qing loyalist who observed the genocidal massacres which the Taiping forces committed against the Manchus wrote that the "pitiful Manchus", the Manchu men, women and children were executed by the Taiping forces. The Taiping rebels were seen chanting while slaughtering the Manchus in Hefei. After capturing Nanjing, Taiping forces killed about 40,000 Manchu civilians. On 27 October 1853 they crossed the Yellow River in T'sang-chou and murdered 10,000 Manchus.

Since the rebellion began in Guangxi, Qing forces allowed no rebels speaking its dialect to surrender. Reportedly in the province of Guangdong, it is written that 1,000,000 were executed because after the collapse of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Qing dynasty launched waves of massacres against the Hakkas, that at their height killed up to 30,000 each day. These policies of mass murder of civilians occurred elsewhere in China, including Anhui, and Nanjing. This resulted in a massive civilian flight and death toll with some 600 towns destroyed and other bloody policies resulting.

Beyond staggering human and economic devastation, the Taiping Rebellion left changes within the late Qing dynasty. Power was, to a limited extent, decentralized, and ethnic Han Chinese officials were more widely employed in high positions than they had previously been. The traditional Manchu banner forces upon which the Qing dynasty depended failed and were gradually replaced with gentry-organized local armies. Franz H. Michael, wrote that these armies evolved into armies used by local warlords who dominated China after the fall of the Qing dynasty. Diana Lary, however, in a review-of-the-field article, cited studies that were skeptical of these claims, since the armies created to put down the Taiping operated in a different context from later regional armies.

The Taiping example of insurgent organization and its mix of Christianity and radical social equality influenced Sun Yat-sen and other future revolutionaries. Some Taiping veterans joined the Revive China Society, whose Christian members organized short-lived Heavenly Kingdom of the Great Mingshun in 1903. Although Karl Marx wrote several articles about the Taipings, he did not perceive a social program or agenda for change, only violence and destruction. The Chinese Communist, historians, following the lead of Mao Zedong, however, characterised the rebellion as a proto-communist uprising. Both Communist and Chinese Nationalist commanders studied Taiping organization and strategy during the Chinese Civil War. American General Joseph Stilwell, who commanded Chinese troops during World War Two in China, praised Zeng Guofan's campaigns for combining "caution with daring' and "initiative with perseverance."

Famine, disease, massacres, and social disruption led to a sharp decline in population, especially in the Yangtze delta region. The result was a shortage in labor supply for the first time in centuries, making labor relatively more valuable than land. The Xiang Army used scorched earth tactics, refusing to take prisoners; Anhui, Southern Jiangsu, Northern Zhejiang and Northern Jiangxi were severely depopulated and had to be repopulated with migrants from Henan. The landed gentry of the Lower Yangtze region were reduced in numbers and concentration of land ownership was reduced.

The defeat of the Taiping Rebellion by military forces from Hunan led to the dramatic increase of Hunanese representation in the government, who played a role in reform efforts. By 1865, five of the eight viceroys were Hunanese. The Hunanese gentry, based on their experience with the Taiping, were more guarded against the influence of Westerners than other provinces.

Merchants in Shanxi and the Huizhou region of Anhui became less prominent because the rebellion disrupted trade in much of the country. However, trade in coastal regions, especially in Guangzhou (Canton) and Ningbo was less affected by violence than trade in inland areas was. Streams of refugees who entered Shanghai contributed to the economic development of the city, which was previously less commercially relevant than other cities in the area were. Only a tenth of Taiping-published records survive to this day because they were mostly destroyed by the Qing in an attempt to rewrite the history of the conflict.

Historian John King Fairbank compares the Taiping rebels with the communists under Mao Zedong who came to power a century later:

In addition to the zeal, vigor, and puritanical discipline so often found in new political movements, they shared certain traditional Chinese interests, such as propagating and maintaining doctrinal orthodoxy, recruiting an elite of talent, realizing a utopian social order, and developing military power based on farmer-soldiers. Furthermore, both made use of foreign ideologies which required translation into Chinese with inevitable modifications in the process.

The Taiping Rebellion has been treated in historical novels. Robert Elegant's 1983 depicts the time from the point of view of a Jewish family living in Shanghai. In Flashman and the Dragon, the fictional Harry Paget Flashman recounts his adventures during the Second Opium War and the Taiping Rebellion. In Lisa See's novel Snow Flower and the Secret Fan the title character is married to a man who lives in Jintian and the characters get caught up in the action.

Amy Tan's The Hundred Secret Senses takes place in part during the time of the Taiping Rebellion. Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom by Katherine Paterson is a young adult novel set during the Taiping Rebellion. Li Bo's Tienkuo: The Heavenly Kingdom takes place within the Taiping capital at Nanjing.

The war has also been depicted in television shows and films. In 2000 CCTV produced The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, a 46-episode series about the Taiping Rebellion. In 1988 Hong Kong's TVB produced Twilight of a Nation, a 45-episode drama about the Taiping Rebellion. The Warlords is a 2007 historical film set in the 1860s showing Gen. Pang Qinyun, leader of the Shan Regiment, as responsible for the capture of Suzhou and Nanjing.

The Taiping government maintained an ambivalent relationship with the Western powers who were active in China during this period. Due to the religious aspects of the rebellion, the Taiping government perceived Westerners as "brothers and sisters from overseas". The Taiping government proved especially welcoming to Western missionaries. In 1853, Hong Xiuquan invited American missionary Issachar Jacox Roberts to come to Nanking to aid in the administration of his government. After Roberts arrived in Nanking in 1861 and met with Hong, he was commissioned by him as the director of foreign affairs.

While some missionaries like Roberts were enthusiastic in the first few years about the Taiping rebellion, Western skepticism existed from the inception of the rebellion. According to historian Prescott Clarke, Westerners in China became separated into two different groups in regards to their views on the rebellion, with one side depicting the rebels as mere robbers whose intention was to gather wealth through revolting against the Qing, and the other side depicting the rebel army as religious fanatics provoked by skillful leaders to fight against the Qing to the death.

The government officials of the Western powers were optimistic about the Taiping government's chance of victory in the early stages. According to historian Eugene P. Boardman, the Qing dynasty's enforcement of the treaty of 1842-1844 was frustrating US and British officials, especially in terms of open trade. According to Boardman the Christian nature of the Taiping opened up the possibility for a more cooperative trade partnership. Many Western officials visited the capital of Taiping between 1863 and 1864, and American commissioner Robert Milligan McLane considered granting official recognition of the Taiping government.

According to Clarke the Western missionaries changed their opinions upon further inspections of the rebellion. That change was captured in a letter from the American missionary Divie Bethune McCartee. Upon visiting Nanking, McCartee described the situation in the city as "Dreadful destruction of life." As for the actual practice of Christianity in the city, McCartee said "I saw no signs of anything resembling Christianity in or near Nanking". Similarly to McCartee, Hong's director of foreign affairs I. J. Roberts wrote, "His religious toleration, and multiplicity of chapels turns out to be a farce, of no avail in the spread of Christianity - worse than useless."

After the conclusion of the Second Opium War, Royal Navy officer Sir James Hope led a expedition to Nanking in February 1861. This expedition was the largest party of Westerners to visit Taiping territories, with the inclusion of many British military personnel, entrepreneurs, missionaries, other unofficial observers and two French representatives. Upon visiting the capital, some members of the expedition wrote that "devastation marked our journey" in reference to the conditions in Taiping territories.

Some reports suggested a great deal of indiscriminate slaughter of civilians conducted by the Taiping army in newly controlled areas. In late 1861, Hope made a brief visit to Nanking to come to an agreement with the Taiping rebels not to attack the city of Shanghai, a proposal which was refused by the Taiping government. According to Clarke, this refusal of cooperation and Taiping's occupation of Ningpo in December led to the limited intervention against the rebellion by the British and French in the following years.

Jian Youwen (1973). The Taiping Revolutionary Movement. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-01542-9. Translated and condensed from the author's publications in Chinese; especially strong on the military campaigns, based on the author's wide travels in China in the 1920s and 1930s.

A study of the victims, their experience of the war, and the memorialization of the war.

Osterhammel, Jürgen (2015). The Transformation of the World: A Global History of the Nineteenth Century. Translated by Patrick Camiller. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-16980-4.

Platt, Stephen R. (2012). Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War. New York: Knopf. ISBN 978-0-307-27173-0. Detailed narrative analysis.

Spence, Jonathan D. (1996). God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-03844-0.

Spence, Jonathan D. (1999). The Search for Modern China. New York: Norton. ISBN 9780393973518. Standard textbook.

Michael, Franz H.; Chang, Chung-li (1966). The Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents. Vol. I: History. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Publications on Asia.

Michael, Franz H. (1966), The Taiping Rebellion: History and Documents, Seattle: University of Washington Press. 3 vols. Volumes two and three select and translate basic documents.

Caleb Carr, The Devil Soldier: The Story of Frederick Townsend Ward (1994) ISBN 0-679-41114-3.

Carl J. Danko, Foreign Devils and God-Worshipers: Western Mercenaries and Cross-Cultural Realism During the Taiping Rebellion (Army Command And General Staff College, 2017) online

John King Fairbank, et al. East Asia: The modern transformation (1965) 2:155-178. online

Jack Gray, Rebellions and Revolutions: China from the 1800s to the 1980s (1990), ISBN 0-19-821576-2

Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, The Rise of Modern China (1999), ISBN 0-19-512504-5. Standard textbook; online

Philip A. Kuhn, Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China; Militarization and Social Structure, 1796-1864 (Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press, 1970). Influential analysis of the rise of rebellion and the organization of its suppression. online

Philip A. Kuhn, "The Taiping Rebellion," in John K. Fairbank, ed., Cambridge History of China Vol Ten Pt One (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ Press, 1970): 264-317.

Rudolf G. Wagner. Reenacting the Heavenly Vision: The Role of Religion in the Taiping Rebellion. (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, China Research Monograph 25, 1982). ISBN 0-912966-60-2.

Mary Clabaugh Wright. The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism: The T'ung-Chih Restoration, 1862-1874. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1957; rpr. 1974 ISBN 0-8047-0476-7. Account of the Han Chinese/ Manchu coalition which revived the dynasty and defeated the Taipings.

Chin, Shunshin (2001). The Taiping Rebellion. Translated by Joshua A. Fogel. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 0-7656-0100-1.

Hosea Ballou Morse, In the Days of the Taipings, Being the Recollections of Ting Kienchang, Otherwise Meisun, Sometime Scoutmaster and Captain in the Ever-Victorious Army and Interpreter-in-Chief to General Ward and General Gordon (Salem, MA: The Essex institute, 1927; Reprinted: San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center, 1974).

George MacDonald Fraser. Flashman and the Dragon. New York: Knopf, 1986. ISBN 0-394-55357-8. A volume in The Flashman Papers series.

Lindley, Augustus (1970) [1866]. Ti-ping Tien-Kwoh: The History of the Ti-Ping Revolution. Day & son (limited). OCLC 3467844.

Thomas Taylor Meadows, The Chinese and Their Rebellions, Viewed in Connection with Their National Philosophy, Ethics, Legislation, and Administration. To Which Is Added, an Essay on Civilization and Its Present State in the East and West. (London: Smith, Elder; Bombay: Smith, Taylor, 1856). American Libraries eBook text

Brine, Lindesay, The Taeping rebellion in China (London: J. Murray, 1862)

Ven. Archdeacon Moule, Personal Recollections of the T'ai-p'ing Rebellion 1861-63 (Shanghai: Printed at the "Celestial Empire" Office 1884).

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The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a massive rebellion and civil war that was waged in China between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Han, Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

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The Treaty of Nanjing (August 29, 1842) was a document between Great Britain and China that was signed to end the first Opium War. In the document there were provisions that increased the number of treaty ports in China where the British can trade and reside from. This treaty began the era of unequal treaties between the two countries.

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The passage of merchants through this natural corridor from the earliest days of the Silk Roads brought languages, beliefs and traditions together here, and con

The Kushans made themselves the unavoidable middlemen between China, India and Rome, and prospered on the revenues of the Silk Road.

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The Alcaicería of Granada is a typical neighborhood from the Arab heritage in Spain located in the vicinity of the cathedral. It has been the market of manufactured and sold silk. In the Arab era, Granada was the center of the last Moorish kingdom historically dedicated to marketing and custody of rich merchandise, particularly silk. After the conquest of Granada by the Catholic Kings, the silk activity continued and even increased with the control of the Republic of Genoa. In 1526, some ordinances used the Granada silk as a model to establish and implement this industry in the Spanish America. The city still has important documentary collections at the Archive of the Alhambra and the Archives of the House of Granada.

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Beijing, China has a history stretching back 3 millennia. The city is renowned for its opulent palaces, temples, parks, gardens, tombs, walls and gates. Prior to the unification of China by the First Emperor in 221 BC, Beijing had been for centuries the capital of the ancient states of Ji and Yan. It was a provincial center in the earliest unified empires of China, Qin and Han.

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Valencia was founded by the Romans on the banks of the River Turia roughly 138 BC - making it one of Spain's oldest cities. Valencia is part of the Maritime Silk Road route. It's position on the silk road allowed for trade with Arab, Persian and Asian cultures. Ideas and beliefs such as Islam travelled along the route and found it's way to Valencia. The trade of items such as leather, silk, and ceramics brought a prosperous era to Valencia as it became a commercial hub.

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Despite its small size, Karakoram was one of the most important cities during the the time of the Silk Road. The city was a big ceramics depot and with recent excavations have unveiled pieces of art and ceramics ranging from the roman empire to the most eastern parts of Asia. With large deposits of sought after minerals and metals, Karakoram was a major debot of iron cauldrons, axel tire for carts, and arrowheads. As well as precious minerals, jewelry and precious gems from Karakoram were traded and sold all over the silk road.

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Zanzibar is located on the East Coast of Africa. It became a hub along the silk road in which many different cultures mixed. East Africa, Persian, Arab, Asian and Western Cultures all had a influence here through the travel of language, culture and cuisine. The legacy of this can be seen today with a mixture of cuisine, diverse population and unique architecture. Zanzibar connected Africa with Asia as a trade route.

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Muscat, current day capital of Oman, has been a trade post on the Silk trade since before 2nd century AD. The maritime Silk road relied on Muscat as a major post for trade and shipping spices to south east Asia, textiles from China, timber from India, and other far eastern.  With its small size, the city was very sufficient in protecting itself from intruders or marauders trying to raid or over take the city.

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This city rose to prominence in the 1st century CE as a base for merchants crossing the harsh Tadmorean desert. Although it was controlled by both Greece and Rome at various points in its history, Palmyra always remained somewhat independent and multicultural. The city intersected many major caravan routes, resulting in it becoming rich in silks and spices. Greek was Palmyra’s main spoken language, alongside its native Semitic language of Aramaic. Palmyra was home to many beautiful temples, as well as a massive cemetery that once housed many expertly-crafted statues. During the 3rd century CE, the area’s caravan routes broke down due, resulting in Palmyra becoming abandoned until the 1600s.

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Derbent, Republic of Dagestan, Russia (aka Caspian Gate)

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Derbent, Republic of Dagestan, Russia (aka Caspian Gate)

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Derbent is one of the oldest cities in the world, with archaeological evidence showing it has been inhabited for roughly 5,000 years. During medieval times, it was one of the largest port cities on Earth, and was visited by traders from both Europe and Asia. This resulted in many faiths becoming established in Derbent, especially the three Abrahamic faiths, who even today have strong presences there. Derbent was also important due to its militarily strategic location, resulting in many empires conquering the city during its long history. One of these empires, the Persian Sassanids, built the still-standing fortress of Naryn-Kala in the 6th century CE.

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Karakorum is located in central Mongolia and served as the capital of the Mongol empire from 1236 to 1263. Here, archeologists found technology from china, like ceramic kilns. Also, they imported silk and grain from china.

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Ganja is located in the western part of Azerbaijan and is the second largest city in Azerbaijan. Ganja served as a place for traders to stop while traveling along the Silk Road. Ganja also spread silk products as well as art and ideas.

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Palmyra was a city in Syria that was a “caravan city.” Palmyra traded in “silks and spices” and also “wanted the goods of the west.” There was a sort of middle ground in which Palmyra had many profits from trade. Palmyra also had “trading stations.”

Source: https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/content/palmyra

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Kashgar was a trade route of the Silk Road and also an oasis. It was a crossing area for both “the northern and southern Silk Routes.”

Source: https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/content/kashghar

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Alexandria was a city in Egypt founded by Alexander the Great and was “a major center of civilization in the ancient world.” Grain and “Egyptian cotton” were “valuable exports” most likely traded along the Silk Road. There were also “textiles and luxury goods” that were traded.

Source: https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/content/alexandria

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-Founded roughly 2,000 years ago.
-Major city of the Persian Empire.
-One of the oldest urban centers in the world.

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-Previously known as Constantinople before its conquest by the Ottoman Empire in 1453.
-Constantinople was the capital of the Byzantine Empire.
-Key port city between the Black and Mediterranean seas.

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-Capital of modern day Syria.
-Founded roughly 3,000 years before the birth of Christ, Damascus is one of the oldest urban centers in the Middle East.
-Was famous for its industrial capabilities of mass production of weapons and tools.

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- Capital of Azerbaijan. It lies on an ancient trade route from the Central Asian steppe towards Europe.

- Located by the Caspian Sea. West of this place, merchandise would either be transported north through the Caucasus Mountains to the Black Sea and to Istanbul, or would travel due east, into Turkey.

- Oil was a very valuable commodity and was traded both west to Europe and east across the Sea to Asia. Baku has been an important and multicultural hub in the Caucasus region throughout history.

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The origins of Bam can be traced back to Achaemenid, the purpose of the fortified citadel was to guard against eastern approaches into the plateau. Though the city was used as a point of control over the region, it was also used to house and shelter merchants and traders where they can sell their goods. Cotton was manufactured here to export as far as the Mesopotamia empire.

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Bukhara is an ancient city in the central Asian country of Uzbekistan. The city served as a major center of islamic culture for many centuries and became a major cultural center of the Caliphate in the 8th century.

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It is a major trading hub as it is a port city on the Caspian Sea. Luxury items like gold and oil would either be sent north over the Caucuses, or west into what is now Turkey. The Caspian Sea was important for trade since before the Roman times as it allowed ease of transport into the steppes and other eastern regions.

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Gyeongju, known for its archaeological sites and culture, was established by King Taejo. Gyeongju was the capital of Silla during three kingdoms and became more advanced by each kingdom. After three kingdoms united with Gyeongju as its capital, “Gyeongju became the centre of economic life of the peninsula”. Gyeongju was known for producing precious metals and “artisanal” goods making it luxurious and prosperous.

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Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great, one of the most influential Kings to exist. Known for his military strategies, Alexander was successful at making sure things were accomplished which is what he did with Alexandria as a Silk Road city. Since Alexandria is already the second largest city in Egypt, it is well known for having one of the largest trading ports on the Mediterranean. Alexandria was pivotal for trade moving from Egypt to the Eastern Mediterranean and was known to have, “Continued throughout its long history to act as a vital crossing point for merchants and their trade on the maritime routes between Asia and Europe”.

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Valéncia is one of Spain's oldest cities known for its beauty and amazing architecture. While it is known for these things, it is also known for its success from the Silk Road. This city acted as a "hub" for markets that are still visible today in Valencia's monuments about Silk Road heritage. Valencia’s main influence was islamic culture since they mainly used their hub for, “ A myriad of trading  activities related to paper, silk, leather and ceramics and placed Valencia as a commercial hub”. Since the Silk Road had such a big impact on Valencia and its economic development, there is a museum dedicated to the “wealth” it brought the region.

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Istanbul is located in northwest Turkey. Istanbul mainly moved Christian relics. In a book by Francesco Pegolotti, he describes other valuable goods that come from Istanbul. Because of the size and wealth of Istanbul, it became a center for trading on the Silk Road.

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Nara served as Japan's capital between 710 and 784 CE. As a result, the city became a very important location for Chinese traders, who left a major cultural impact. Chinese methods of architecture, as well as Chinese forms of Buddhist worship became widespread in Nara. For example, both the Emperor of Japan and the High Priest of China commissioned Buddhist temples in the city. One of the city's most famous temples from this period is also one of the world's largest wooden buildings, Tōdai-ji Daibutsuden. This building was built in a Chinese style, highlighting the strong cultural and religious connections between the two nations. Even today, Nara remains and important place for Buddhists throughout Asia.

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Dunhuang is a city located in north-west China, it is at a very important point of the Silk Road network. There is a cool place called the Mogao caves that has nearly 500 caves. It is a sight of Buddhist religious activity.

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Kashgar is a city in far west China, and is located at the western end of the Tarim Basin. It is a very fertile place. They grow corn, rice, wheat and cotton, as well as melons, grapes, apricots and more. It was known as a major hub along the Silk Road.

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One of the Seven Wonders of The World.

-Alexandria is the second-largest city in Egypt and a major economic center.

-A major producer of grain in the ancient and medieval world, and this was one of the most important products to leave the city’s harbor's.

-Conquered by Muslim Arab armies in 642 AD, the city benefited from this new exposure to the trade networks of the early Islamic Caliphate, which were expanding into Central Asia and across northern Africa.

-Textiles and luxury goods were the principal wares traded through Alexandria in this period, although by the late Middle Ages, the city also profited from the emergence of the lucrative trade of spices, which travelled through the Indian Ocean and were channeled through this port on their way to Europe.

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Xian is located in Shaanxi province. It was the eastern most terminus of the Silk Road. Marco Polo described Xian as a bustling metropolis in the 14th c. Today, it is a key center of activity for China's "Belt and Road" program which is focused on monopolizing energy resources in countries once located on the historic Silk Road.

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Silk Road intl expo pushes for deeper Belt and Road cooperation

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The Sixth Silk Road International Exposition opened on Aug 14 in Xi’an, capital of Northwest China’s Shaanxi province, with deeper Belt and Road cooperation high on the agenda.