>be Hong Xiuquan
>fail imperial examination twice
>get visions in dream of being the cousin of jesus christ
>create a giant rebellion
>20-30 millions die as a result
what are some other very chinese rebellions like this?
>be Hong Xiuquan. >fail imperial examination twice. >get visions in dream of being the cousin of jesus christ
The other exam failure who led a large uprising was Huang Chao, but it wasnt as big as the deluge Hong started.
Huang Chao completely circled through southern and northern China and sacked both capitals and major ports. He butchered Arabs in Guangzhou.
>butchered arabs
I didn’t know he was this based.
Isn't '30 million died' just another Tuesday in Chinese history?
>Miao rebellion of 1854–1873
>Possibly as many as 5 million out of a total population of 7 million die
I don't get it. How do they die en masse like this? Are they just stupidly prone to death? How do they function?
Hong Xiuquan himself ultimately died eating mildly poisonous wild plants because they ran out of food to give you an idea. they couldn't even give proper food to their quasi-divine prophet/king.
A lot of factors.
>Many people were angry with the late Qing for the Opium War & mismanagement & famines of the 1840s-50s.
>China has a militia-culture coz Emperors since time immemorial couldn't police all weapons in the big empire and relied on armed civilians to police themselves (like fight bandits, local gangs, etc) since the army can't babysit everyone.
>In periods of peace peasant militias were even better fighters than the army.
>Hong's cult started chimping out first. the Qing try to arrest him. His cult rebels.
>Other Southern Chinese bandit groups, cults, neighborhood militias, revolutionary organizations, and aspiring warlords saw what happened and chimped out as well.
>Rebels beat the frick out of the Government Troops, so provincial governors had no choice but to build their own local armies by rallying/cajoling/bribing/conscripting peasant militias in promises of looting rebel food/money/women
>Neutral peasants who have not taken a side were assumed by rebels to be pro-Qing and get either forcibly subjugated or slaughtered.
>Peasants found by Qing armies in Rebel territory are assumed to be rebels & get either punished, looted, or massacred.
>Every Chinese Peasant Is forced to take a side or flee to Northern China.
>Hundreds & thousands of scratch built armies are now fighting each other.
>From 1851-64 all of Southern China is fighting each other.
>Place happens to be China's breadbasket.
>Hundreds & thousands starve & die of starvation, disease, as food becomes hard to come by.
>Bureaucracy breaks down as well.
>But Officials still have to work & make censuses & assessments for the throne.
>Bureaucrats visit villages or towns & find them empty/wiped out
>They assume everyone there died. Doesnt take into account that residents fled.
>Casualty lists inflate further to the millions.
>How do they die en masse like this? Are they just stupidly prone to death?
Chinesse agriculture is based on rice, 1 hectare of rice field provides 4-5 more calories than 1 hectare of wheat, which allows to feed much larger population. But rice fields requires development of maintaining irrigation system. Irrigation system requires guard and materials via trade. So in the end Chinesse society since the antiquity and medieval times was a very complicated system of production and logistic networks. And every time when some huge rebellion was emerging collapse of the few elements (farmers/peasants are conscripted or simply raided for example) led to the sturggles of the whole system.
The chinese take the decline in state authority to start killing each other to settle scores, deal with conflicts, make a play for power themselves etc
>How do they die en masse like this?
How do you start two world wars and employ chemical weapons, nuclear weapons, firebombs and literal extermination camps?
When you have a brutal civil war in a big country that's what happens anon, per capita it was far from being the worst ever but China has tons of people
Extremely inflated death counts from household censuses based on which "historians" treat potential refugees as fatal casualties.
>You're awful, Wenzong
god these threads are my faworites
Hong was a GREAT man. A man of POWER and CONVICTION.
Reminder that Family Guy made a joke about this
Daily reminder that Hong is a Martyr of both the PRC and ROC and that the Qings were indeed manchu demons that came from hell (Russia) to take China to damnation
Long live the heavenly kingdom!