The Fall of Tianjing and the Defeat of the Taiping

After the Tianjing Incident, through the efforts of Hong Rengan, Chen Yucheng, Li Xiucheng and others, the Taiping briefly won victories such as the second destruction of the Jiangnan Camp and set up bases in southern Jiangsu and Zhejiang, but could not turn the tide. The main force against it was the Hunan Army raised by Zeng Guofan. Zeng (1811–1872), from Xiangxiang, Hunan, in 1853 recruited peasants at home into the Hunan Army on the basis of local militia and fought the Taiping repeatedly. Li Hongzhang later raised the Huai Army on its model and Zuo Zongtang led the Chu Army, together suppressing the Taiping. After the Second Opium War, foreign aggressors and the Qing colluded; the American Frederick Townsend Ward led a “Foreign Arms Corps” (later the “Ever-Victorious Army”) to help attack the Taiping. In 1861 the Hunan Army took Anqing, gateway to Tianjing. In 1862 Heroic King Chen Yucheng was betrayed, captured and killed. From 1863 the Hunan Army besieged Tianjing, while the Huai Army and Ever-Victorious Army took Suzhou and other cities and Zuo’s Chu Army took Hangzhou. With Tianjing besieged, Li Xiucheng proposed “giving up the city and going elsewhere,” but Hong Xiuquan refused. Hong died of illness in June 1864. In July the Hunan Army blew up the city wall with explosives laid in tunnels and entered Tianjing, which fell. Li Xiucheng was captured after breaking out and was killed. Taiping remnants allied with the Nian army fought on until 1868. The movement lasted fourteen years and dealt heavy blows to Qing rule and foreign aggressors. Its failure showed that in a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society a peasant war alone could not accomplish the historic tasks of anti-imperialism and anti-feudalism.