Tiny Insect

Painting of a wealthy Qing family. Integrating tens of thousands of new adherents, while planning and launching an insurrection against the Qing, put strain on Taiping society and pushed them to reorganize their society in novel ways. In this episode we’ll look at how the Taiping navigated these challenges in the lead up to their first battles with the Qing government and declaration of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The shape into which Taiping society formed was mediated by their cultural expectations and mores, by what they read in the Bible, and by the idiosyncrasies of Hong Xiuquan himself.

The Xianfeng Emperor, showing off a set of his yellow imperial robes. The Daoguang Emperor died in 1850. He has been the Qing Emperor for the past dozen episodes and his actions (or lack thereof) helped set the stage for the cataclysmic decade that will be the 1850s. But he didn’t live to see it. Instead, the Qing Empire was left to his teenage son. In this episode, we’ll take a look at the state of the Qing Empire and see how global forces combined with poor imperial policies to create the massive financial crisis and economic depression that beset China during the 1840’s.

(Painting of the missionary Robert Morrison, who was successful and popular enough to have his portrait painted. The same can not be said for Issachar Roberts). On the surface, Hong Xiuquan’s life in 1845 and 1846 was unremarkable. He was in his early thirties, married with young children. His job as a school teacher had been secured through a mix of qualifications & family connections. And then 1847 happened. By the beginning of 1848 Hong was a wanted man, actively leading a growing & radical religious community and writing about his intentions to assume imperial power over the largest empire on earth. So what the hell happened in 1847? That’s the question this episode attempts to answer.

This is a statue of a deity in Fujian province, with offerings placed in front of it. Feng Yunshan preached and spread Shangdi’s good word. For nearly 3 years, he worked tirelessly to grow the movement that worshiped God and recognized Hong Xiuquan as Jesus’ younger brother. In this episode we’re going to learn what worshipping Shangdi meant, how it related to other practices in the area, and see increasingly violent iconoclasm that will help lead to full scale insurrection and the establishment of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

Posthumous portrait of Liang Fa, author of “Good Words for Exhorting the Age” Hong Xiuquan finally lost his faith in ever becoming a Confucian scholar in the aftermath of the Opium War. After reading a set of Christian pamphlets composed by the Chinese writer Liang Fa, he discovered the meaning of his heavenly vision and his life’s new mission: To save his brothers and sisters from the demonic influences of the old gods & spirits.

The idea of the Opium War carries a great deal of meaning in modern memory. For many flavors of Chinese nationalist, it is the beginning of their century of humiliation at the hands of exploitive foreigners. For the British, it is another milestone on the road to the heights of Empire. But that is how it all looks in retrospect. For those who directed the armies of the war, and those who fought in it, the engagement was a confusing mess, where neither side seemed to have much understanding of what the other side wanted or why it was fighting the way it did. In this episode, we’ll go through the main war, the classic leaders & battles, to understand as best we can what those who directed the war’s engagements thought they were doing and why.

“Canton Factories” in Guangzhou, c1830 Qing dynasty “foreign policy” operated quite differently than it is commonly understood today, or as it was understood by contemporary states in Europe and West Asia. Going all the way back to the Han, Chinese dynasties tried to fit what we think of as foreign policy into the principles of Confucian hierarchy and submission. When British traders began arriving in large numbers in 18th century, the Qing tried to accommodate them in a way the British would tolerate as a price of doing business. In the wake of Napoleon’s defeat and a rising “free trade” ideology in the 1830’s, the balance of power and mutual toleration started to shift decisively.

In the second episode of the “mini season” on the Opium War, we’ll look at how the highest officials of the Qing Empire debated the problem of opium in the 1820’s and 1830’s. Specifically, what was the best way to prevent trading of Chinese silver for foreign opium? Some advocated harsh crackdowns, while others wondered why not just legalize it?

In this episode, a young Hong Xiuquan fails the provincial exam in Guangzhou for the third time. The experience breaks him, and his family fears for his life. It’s then, as his family fears he might be dying, that a group of small children in golden robes, a host of angels, and a giant rooster come to whisk him away on a journey that will change his life forever.

The White Lotus Rebellion at the end of the 18th century foreshadows the later crisis of the mid-19th century.

At the beginning of the 17th century the Ming empire was the largest and most powerful on earth. But in a newly global world they soon found themselves tied to the whims of global trade and a silver mountain half way around the world.

Popular conceptions of Chinese history usually follow the lead of Confucian ideology that held that China was the eternal “Middle Kingdom”, always existing in its essential essence at the center of the world. Dynasties may rise and fall, but China remains China, a country that has been around for more than two thousand years. Well, that’s wrong. It’s what they wanted you to believe. But it’s wrong. Since we’re going to be spending most of season 1 in the Chinese Qing empire, it’s important to understand how this myth is wrong and learn a more about China. In this episode we’ll learn about China’s geography, languages, and take a lightning tour of China’s early dynastic history. Maps! “Core” Chinese Provinces, circa 1800 Skinner’s Eight Regions of China. These made up the core centers of economic activity and population density, bisected by “interior hinterlands”. Modern provinces of the People’s Republic of China + Taiwan. At it’s greatest extent toward the end of the Qianlong era in 1790, the Qing Empire was about 25% larger.