Millienarian and Revolutionary Movements

Taiping 大平 Rebellion (1850-1864)
Hong Xiuquan 洪秀全 (1814-1864)
Opium Wars (1839-1842, 1856-1860)
Ōshio Heihachirō 大塩平八郎 (1793–1837)

Background Causes of Rebellions

Qing China

Qing failure to expand state capacity

Few positions available for each exam-takers

Many highly educated, ambitious, frustrated young men

Very few salaried officials per capita

This grows worse because of growing population — from 250 million in 1644 to around 450 million by the 1850s
State increasingly struggles with famine relief, flood control, river management (Huang He 黄河 Yellow River in 1887 - 50K sq mi)

Many state functions are out-sourced to "runners"

Highly conducive to corruption
Exacerbated by opium trade
Growth of extensive secret societies/lineage groups/private militias/crime networks - e.g., Triads

Inertia and vested interests blunt reforms

Example: How to move grain (esp. rice) from fertile south to north?
Solution: Use coastal shipping to supplement or supplant Grand Canal (connects Yellow, Huai, and Yangtze - 1000+ miles)
Problem: Works great, but opposed by vested interest in Grand Canal

Opium

In order to balance imports of tea, Britain established monopoly on opium exports from India in 1773

Initially consumers are elites — boredom and stress?
Spreads to wage laborers

Silver flows reverse -- silver shortages in China make taxes seem more expensive
Qing bans opium (1800 and 1813) but does not have capacity to suppress opium AND does not tax it as a revenue stream

Qing Military Failures

First Opium War (1839–1842)

March 1839 — Lin Zexu (special Qing commissioner for stopping opium trade) stops trade in Canton until opium is surrendered
May 1839 — Destroys 3 million pounds of raw opium China seizes and destroys British opium supplies in Canton
Summer 1839 — Merchants who will not sign bonds pledging not to sell opium are expelled to Hong Kong, then Macao
Summer 1839 — opium merchants (e.g. Jardine Matheson) buy British newspaper coverage — insist that "violent outrages" had been committed, squash moral objections to opium trade. Petition to parliament: "“unless measures of the government are followed up with firmness and energy, the trade with China can no longer be conducted with security to life and property, or with credit or advantage to the British nation"
Textbook: "When British merchants in Canton resisted, war broke out."
Summer 1840 — British fleet with state-of-art weapons (heavily-armed steamships) arrives -- do NOT challenge Canton defenses -- blockade Canton and Ningbo
Jan 1841 — China agrees to reopen Canton and pay indemnity, but Britain insists on payment for destroyed opium, sends larger force
Summer 1842 — Britain seizes Ningbo, Shanghai and surrounds Nanking (Nanjing)
Qing sue for peace — agree to 1842 Treaty of Nanjing

Mex $6M as compensation of opium
Mex $12M for British cost of war
Mex $3M misc for total of Mex $21M
Hong Kong ceded in perpetuity to Britain
Five treaty ports opened to Britain: Shanghai, Canton, Fuzhou, Ximaon, Ningbo

1843 Treaty of Bogue -- adds MFM and extraterritoriality
US and other Western Powers demand similar treaties
US insists on extraterritoriality EXCEPT for opium, freedom for missionaries

Second Opium War - "Arrow War" (1856–60)

Fabricate pretext: Union Jack on Arrow
Attack and capture Canton (1856)
Attack and plunder Beijing (1860)
Treaty of Tianjin (1858) and Beijing Convention (1860)

Legalization of opium
Ambassadors in Beijing
Full foreign access (including missionary) access to interior
Extraterritoriality
6M silver tael indemnity -- 3 tons
More treaty ports

Tokugawa Japan

Natural forces

heavy rain and cold in 1833 and 1837
harvests fall 30% to 70%
grain prices soar

Urbanzation and rise of wage-labor

Unitended consequence of sankin kōtai
Wages rise but so does expose to market forces
Labor mobility breaks place-based social controls and relief
Market economy and Pax Tokugawa transform role
Lived experience no longer corresponds to philosophical norms

Challenges to intellectual orthodoxy

Ōshio is Wang Yangming
"Nativist" learning

Motoori Norinaga

Hirata Atsutane

Military failures

Shogunate is humiliated in 1853-54 by US squadron
Satsuma in 1863
Chōshū in 1864

Leaders:

Hong Xiuquan 洪秀全 (1814-1864)

Youngest son of Hakka family in Guangdong
Could recite "Four Books" by age 10
Excelled at local level of imperial exams, but failed at the next level in Guangzhou
After failing third time in (1837) he falls ill and has vision — bearded man gives him sword, tells him to slay demons
Details of Hong's vision
After failing fourth time (1843) he connects vision to missionary tract received years earlier in Canton — God and Jesus

Hong's new gospel

King from his vision/dream is G-d

Elder brother was Jesus

Hong himself, like Moses, has received divine instruction

Hong himself, like Jesus, was sent down from Heaven to say mankind from Hell

Studies Bible in Canton with missionaries (1847) — then founds his own "Society of God Worshippers"
New religion is profoundly Confucian but opposed idols and demons
By 1850 cult has 20K members -- river privates, militia leaders, bandit gangs (male and female), pawn brokers, miners
Emerging regulations

Ban on queues
Ban on opium, drinking, dancing
Commmon property redestibuted by leaders
Strict gender segregations, with female leaders
Increasingly anti-Manchu -- are Manchus demons?

1851 - Hong declares himself King of Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace
Taiping rule over Yongan

Four kings

South King (南王), Feng Yunshan (馮雲山) (-1852)
East King (東王), Yang Xiuqing (楊秀清) (-1856) – spokesman for God
West King (西王), Xiao Chaogui (蕭朝貴) (-1852) -- spokesman for Jesus
North King (北王), Wei Changhui (韋昌輝) (-1856)

Hong begins rewriting scripture, including new Ten Commandments

The Seventh Heavenly Commandment: Thou shalt not commit adultery or be licentious
In the world there are many men, all brothers; in the world there are many women, all sisters. For the sons and daughters of Heaven, the men have men's areas and the women have women's areas; they are not allowed to intermix. Men or women who commit adultery or wo are licentious are conisdered monsters; this is the greatest possible trangression of the Heavenly Commandments. The casting of amorous glances, the harboring of lustful thoughts about others, the smoking of opium, and the singing of libidinous songs are all offenses agains the Heavenly Commandments

1852-1853 — Taipings seize series of major cities, culminating in Nanking (March 1853) — massacre Manchu defenders

Policies:

Utopian, egalitarian divisions of property
Segregation by gender and trade
New examination system (based on Hong's teachings), special exams for women

Weaknesses:

Rival generals begin conspiring and purging each other
Hong retreats into religious visions - rewrites Bible, fixes Noah, Jacob and Esau

Many Nanjing residents think Taipings are bizarre Hakka cult
Missionaries, despite initial enthusiasm, are alarmed by Taiping
Western powers, fearing Taiping seizure of Shanghai, support Qing counter-offensive

Defeat of Taiping in 1864 by coalition

Zeng Guofan - Hunanese official who raises own army
Charles "Chinese" Gordon - British-led hybrid mercenary force
Qing regular army and bannermen

Simultaneous challenges

Nian Rebels 1851-1868
Muslim Rebels 1862-1873

Ōshio Heihachirō 大塩平八郎 (1793–1837)

Born into lower-middle samurai household
Rises through ranks of Ōsaka police force — resigns in 1830 — why?

Dismayed by corruption?
Reached limits within hierarchy?

Founds private academy - Seishindō 洗心洞

First students are children of colleagues
Then expands to townsmen

Response to Tempō Crisis

Dismayed by failure of shogunate to find and distributed relief grain
Plans uprising to overthrow government and redestribute wealth
Skirmish with government — quickly suppressed — but fires destroy much of Ōsaka
Ōshio flees — commits suicide rather than be captured
Ōshio's manifesto