Self-Strengthening Movement, movement (1861–95) in which the Qing dynasty (1644–1911/12) of China introduced Western methods and technology in an attempt to renovate Chinese military, diplomatic, fiscal, and educational policy.
The Self-Strengthening Movement was launched by three governors-general —Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, and Zuo Zongtang—who sought to consolidate Qing power by introducing Western technology. The movement was stimulated by the military training and techniques exhibited during the Westerners’ cooperation with the Qing in ending the Taiping Rebellion (1850–64) and was supported by Prince Gong in Beijing. The ideological champion of the movement was Feng Guifen, who urged China to “use the barbarians’ superior techniques to control the barbarians” and proposed to give the gentry stronger leadership than before in local administration. The advocates of the Self-Strengthening Movement had regarded any institutional or ideological change as needless. But after 1885 some lower officials and compradorintellectuals began to emphasize institutional reforms and the opening of a parliament and to stress economic rather than military affairs for self-strengthening purposes.
Although there were some notable gains made, particularly in the military sector, the overall success of the Self-Strengthening Movement was limited. This was in part because of administrative failings and financial constraints and because of incompatibilities between Chinese tradition and Western methods and technology.
Taiping Rebellion, radical political and religious upheaval that was probably the most important event in China in the 19th century. It lasted for some 14 years (1850–64), ravaged 17 provinces, took an estimated 20 million lives, and irrevocably altered the Qing dynasty (1644–1911/12).
The rebellion began under the leadership of Hong Xiuquan (1814–64), a disappointed civil service examination candidate who, influenced by Christian teachings, had a series of visions and believed himself to be the son of God, the younger brother of Jesus Christ, sent to reform China. A friend of Hong’s, Feng Yunshan, utilized Hong’s ideas to organize a new religious group, the God Worshippers’ Society (Bai Shangdi Hui), which he formed among the impoverished peasants of Guangxi province. In 1847 Hong joined Feng and the God Worshippers, and three years later he led them in rebellion. On January 1, 1851, he proclaimed his new dynasty, the Taiping Tianguo (“Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace”), and assumed the title of Tianwang, or “Heavenly King.”
Their credo—to share property in common—attracted many famine-stricken peasants, workers, and miners, as did their propaganda against the foreign Manchu rulers of China. Taiping ranks swelled, and they increased from a ragged band of several thousand to more than one million totally disciplined and fanatically zealous soldiers, organized into separate men’s and women’s divisions. Sweeping north through the fertile valley of the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang), they reached the great eastern city of Nanjing. After capturing the city on March 10, 1853, the Taipings halted. They renamed the city Tianjing (“Heavenly Capital”) and dispatched a northern expedition to capture the Qing capital at Beijing. That failed, but another expedition into the upper Yangtze valley scored many victories.
Meanwhile, Yang Xiuqing, the Taiping minister of state, attempted to usurp much of the Tianwang’s power, and, as a result, Yang and thousands of his followers were slain. Wei Changhui, the general who had killed Yang, then began to grow haughty, and Hong had him murdered as well. Another Taiping general, Shi Dakai, began to fear for his life, and he abandoned Hong, taking with him many of the Taiping followers.
Charles George GordonCharles George Gordon, who acquired the byname “Chinese Gordon” for his actions in China during the Taiping Rebellion.
In 1860 an attempt by the Taipings to regain their strength by taking Shanghai was stopped by the Western-trained “Ever-Victorious Army” commanded by the American adventurer Frederick Townsend Ward and later by the British officer Charles George (“Chinese”) Gordon. The gentry, who usually rallied to support a successful rebellion, had been alienated by the radical anti-Confucianism of the Taipings, and they organized under the leadership of Zeng Guofan, a Chinese official of the Qing government. By 1862 Zeng had managed to surround Nanjing, and the city fell in July 1864. Hong, ailing and refusing all requests to flee the city, had committed suicide in June, though before that he had installed his 15-year-old son as the Tianwang. Those events effectively marked the end of the rebellion, although sporadic Taiping resistance continued in other parts of the country until 1868.
Taiping Christianity placed little emphasis on New Testament ideas of kindness, forgiveness, and redemption. Rather, it emphasized the wrathful Old Testament God who demanded worship and obedience. Prostitution, foot-binding, and slavery were prohibited, as well as opium smoking, adultery, gambling, and use of tobacco and alcohol. Organization of the army was elaborate, with strict rules governing soldiers in camp and on the march. For those who followed these rules, an ultimate reward was promised. Zeng Guofan was astonished when, after the capture of Nanjing, almost 100,000 of the Taiping followers preferred death to capture.
Under the Taipings, the Chinese language was simplified, and equality between men and women was decreed. All property was to be held in common, and equal distribution of the land according to a primitive form of communism was planned. Some Western-educated Taiping leaders even proposed the development of industry and the building of a Taiping democracy. The Qing dynasty was so weakened by the rebellion that it never again was able to establish an effective hold over the country. Both the Chinese communists and the Chinese Nationalists trace their origin to the Taipings.
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