Talk:Taiping Rebellion

WikiProject Military history

(Rated Start-Class)

This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions. Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale. Additional information... This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-Class status: Referencing and citation: not checked Coverage and accuracy: not checked Structure: not checked Grammar: not checked Supporting materials: not checked To fill out this checklist, please the following to the template call: | B1 <!-- Referencing and citations --> = y/n | B2 <!-- Coverage and accuracy --> = y/n | B3 <!-- Structure --> = y/n | B4 <!-- Grammar and style --> = y/n | B5 <!-- Supporting materials --> = y/n Associated task forces (nations and regions): Chinese military history task force

Old discussions

'Climax': "Control of the river meant that the Taipings could easily supply their capital at Nanjing (which they renamed Tianjing)." The part in brackets is redundant - the renaming of Nanjing was mentioned earlier in the article.

'Climax': "Control of the river meant that the Taipings could easily supply their capital at Nanjing (which they renamed Tianjing)." The part in brackets is redundant - the renaming of Nanjing was mentioned earlier in the article.

---

Why are the titles of the later Taiping leaders translated as "prince" rather then "king"? They use the same character 王 (Wang). None of the literature I have read supports this difference and translates both cases as "king". Zotlan 10:29, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

It's several years later, but in case you or any subsequent reader was still wondering, I think it's just a question of style. Prince Gong, the famous Westernizer who assisted Ci-xi in defeating Sushun and getting the regency over Tongzhi Emperor, was titled 恭亲王 -- gung1chan1 wang2, roughly "Filial King". Real sovereignty, of course, rested not with a 'king' but with the 皇帝 (huang2di4), a title conventionally translated as 'Emperor' but actually an artifact of Chinese mythic history and sort of meaning "Highest God." So anyhow, 王 is primarily 'king' but also covers 'prince' territory -- a rough counterpart is Ethiopian "negus."

I was going to mention Xiang Yu here, too, but his title 西楚霸王 xi1chu3 ba2wang4, "Western Chu Conqueror King," uses 王 in the compound 霸王 (ba2wang4), approximately "king by conquest," which I'd guess he meant as a secular substitute for the religious (and, more importantly, Qin-tainted) 皇帝: he was quite unequivocally the emperor, but he wanted to be a feudal emperor rather than a centralized tyrant like Ying Zheng / Qin Shi Huang.

I hope that helps a little... ExOttoyuhr (talk) 22:29, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

This article has nothing to do with Catholics in China as the Taiping were Protestants. I'm removing the link.--Gary123 04:06, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

At least 30 million people are believed to have died.

The article only accounts for 130,000 of these deaths. What happened to the other 29,870,000 people who (presumably) died in the violence?

And in what way may this rebellion, or the deaths connected to it, be considered genocide?

Jonathan D. Spence in God's Chinese Son mentions that he specifically targeted some groups for destruction. Interestingly Catholics were an example as his, somewhat inconsistent, Christian influences were strongly Old Testament and intent on smashing "idols." He learned Christianity from a Southern Baptist minister named Issachar J. Roberts. One of his first acts of controversy was to destroy Confucian tablets he deemed idolatrous. He also had racial overtones deeming the Manchu people to be "devils." The death toll in the rebellion is a tad confusing because the majority, possibly vast majority, of the deaths were caused by the resultant famines and plagues caused by mismanagement rather than by active purgings or battles. However he did practice summary executions for many infractions of his religious movement/law.--T. Anthony 12:52, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

---

Why was this removed?

Hong Xiu­quan had been a minor bureaucrat, but he came under the influence of Christian missionaries and then after falling into a trance he emerged believing that he was the younger son of God, thus brother of Jesus Christ, on earth to found a new kingdom. He preached a mix of Christianity, Confucianism and communal utopianism. He did little for some years, until after study under Issachar Roberts he began a new iconoclastic sect called the God Worshippers.

I find it interesting. -- Error

It's not removed, it's just relocated to where it's more relevant: the biography of Hong Xiuquan, where it is an integral description of his early life. --Menchi 04:13 24 May 2003 (UTC)

Vision

Commentary by 128.135.200.251 moved from page to here CjDMaX (talk) 17:21, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

(Note: I have no idea about the procedures for changing this page so excuse if interjecting here is inappropriate. The previous paragraph is entirely wrong on the chronological account of Hung's visions. According to Spence's God's Chinese Son and Vincent Shih's The Taiping Ideology, Hung had a vivid vision where he met a number of people including a fatherly figure and a wise individual whom he referred to as 'elder brother'. It was only after his third failure in the imperial examination did he read a pamplet/tract summarizing Christian ideas and parts of the Bible did he realize that the vision he had earlier included Christ and the Heavenly Father.)

Changed that part to better reflect the true course of events. Gerb0131 (talk) 01:47, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

YES

That point is valid!

Death toll

All of the numbers in this section are high by an order of magnitude. This looks like either vandalism or political posturing. Can someone who knows the correct numbers please fix this?

---

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.31.179.102 (talk) 09:49, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

The article now reads about the death toll: (as many as 40 or 50 million according to some sources). What are those sources? Shanes 09:08, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

---

Hey guys, I've made a page on Hong Rengan. I will try to expand all the pages on the Taiping rebellion over the next few months. 24.124.61.165 04:48, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

That would be great, this article begs for improvement. I suggest you create a username. Colipon+(T) 22:24, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The last figure listed from some travel website is "as many as 200 million lives lost...", this seems like a typo. 200 million is unbelievably high, isn't that close to half the population of China at that time?--70.189.32.215 22:59, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

According to Columbia University China had over 400 million people by 1851. Most things I've read confirm that more or less. I believe they had in least 200 million when the US became a nation. Still the idea half the population died in the Taiping Rebellion would be an absurd exaggeration. Generally the figures are between 20 and 50 million. Is the 200 million figure still up?--T. Anthony 12:27, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Please remove the death toll assessment of 200 million lives. The source is invalid as it stems from this shaky assertion from a traveler's memoir: " Some historians have estimated that the combination of natural disasters combined with the political insurrections may have cost on the order of 200 million Chinese lives between 1850-1865. It was a nightmare."

These historians, if they exist, are not properly cited and therefore not worth relying on to make a sound factual statement. If China did possess around 400 million inhabitants at or around the time of the Taiping Rebellion it certainly is absurd to believe that the war and subsequent famine and disease could have such a profound effect on the rest of the population. The geographic proximity to the misfortunes could not possibly reach so many provinces as to wipe out half of the country's population. The vast majority of Chinese have traditionally resided along the Eastern coastal region, not the hinterland (with the exception of Nanjing) which was most ravaged. Again, please remove this invalid source. --Jmnage 07:26, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

---

Removed the following propaganda from the Death Toll section:

AFTERMATH OF THE STRUGGLE: By the 1860s, the Qing Dynasty had put down the rebellions at enormous cost and loss of life. This undermined the credibility of the Qing regime and, spearheaded by local initiatives by provincial leaders and gentry, contributed to the rise of warlordism in China. This great loss of life, resources, and the resulting incompetence by the Dowager Empress in late 19th century lead to the end of dynastic rule. <Wikipedia: Chinese History> The successor democratic government was also corrupt and incompetent. True to the form of many previous rulers, it lead from the self-interest of the new ruling class that didn't care about its population. It could not contain the growth of the growing communist movement. <Wikipedia: Joe Stilwell) The government (and its army) was so incompetent and corrupt during WW2, that General "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell suggested that the U.S. support the communists instead. <"Stilwell and the American Experience in China", Barbara Tuchman> To what was left after the war succumbed to the communists by 1949.

I was just surprised to read how this contributor extended the Taiping Rebellion till 1949...88.121.18.227 (talk) 19:52, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

---

The first paragraph of the article says there were 50 million deaths, but the Death Toll section says 20 million. Since the talk page says 20–50 million, how about explaining that in both places instead of confusing the reader with two numbers and no explanation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Iain.dalton (talk • contribs) 21:12, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Taiping Social Organization Information

The article mentions that the Taipings promoted monogamy. While this is true, it is lacking key information. Perhaps there should be a theology section. The Taiping administration forbade any of their core members that led the million army that took Nanking from marrying. They attempted to seperate families entirely, and they would shuffle soldiers from one army to the next to keep people from garnering any loyalty to individuals. The promise was given that the people would be able to marry and restore the utmost theme of the Taiping rebellion, the heavenly family, once the Heavenly Kingdom was fully established on earth. It was not until the last two years, when defeat had become apparent to the sane leaders, that they allowed any Taiping members to marry.

European involvement

Could someone add more information about European and American involvement in the rebellion? Perhaps they played only a minor role, but I think it would be good to have a section on their motivations and actions during it. I really don't know enough about the subject to even attempt this. TastyCakes 07:00, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I think I'm mixing this up with the Boxer Rebellions to some extent. Don't know if European involvement is noteworthy here... TastyCakes 07:14, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

• According to Chinese source [1]: In 1853, ambassadors of UK, the US, and France visited Nanjing, the capital of Taiping. In the later period, June 2, 1860, a group of westerners were orginized by an American named Warl (sorry, not sure how to spell) in Shanghai, called "rifle team". They cooperated with Qing government to fight Taiping. On Jan 1, 1862, a king of Taiping refused some requirement of right by a British warship captain named Robin. On Feb 21, 1862, an Anglo-French joint army attached Taiping army in Shanghai. Sept 21, 1862, Taiping army killed Warl during a battle. May 10, 1863, the Anglo-French joint army bombarded Ningbo city, and caused Taiping army retreated.--Mongol 06:50, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Poor quality entry

Could someone with relevant information about this conflict please rewrite and reorganise it - it looks more like an essay by a 9th grader school student than an encyclopedia entry

Hakka

The Hakka article describes them as a subgroup of Han Chinese. So wouldn't the Hakka members of the Taiping Army be Han Chinese? DHN 17:38, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I find that section of the article weird as well. Great emphasize is placed on "Hakka", which seems to suggest "Hakka" and "Han" are different. =/ Hanfresco 04:31, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

This is my first Wiki edit. Wouldn’t have bothered, ‘cause the article as a whole needs a lot of professional attention – but this point is so wrong I had to fix it. The paragraph I edited dealt with the fact that the Taipings came mainly from two minority populations - Hakka & Zhuang – fine – that’s a valid point worth mentioning. But it went to develop its ideas based on the assumption that the Hakka are a non-Hàn ethnic minority group. Wow!. No. No. No. The Hakka are most certainly Hàn Chinese. And that is something a Wikipedia entry should NOT get wrong (and not just because who gets classsified as belonging to which minority [or majority] ethic group in China according to what criteria is an issue that everyone there takes very very seriously). Yeah, someone observant had made a quick fix to one line, but the rest of the paragraph was still factually way way out there. So I’ve replaced the parts that were wrong with real facts (as required by the context) that ARE correct. It’s still not pretty – not sure why the spacing in the 2nd para is messed up. And I didn’t touch the idea that Shí Dákāi’ was a rare asset for the Taiping owing in part to his being bilingually proficient in Zhuàng & Hakka – researching that one is beyond my scope (though I have seen sources stating MOST of the MILLIONS of Zhuàng living in China back then - and now - were equally fluent in Zhuàng and their local Hàn dialect, often several Hàn dialects – just as the Hàn in regions of South China where multiple dialects overlap were then (and are now) ShootingStarTP 19:11, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Climax

"At its height, the Heavenly Kingdom encompassed much of south and central China, including Nanjing, with the northwards extent reaching Tianjing."

In this article it's stated that Tianjing was a name given to Nanjing itself; perhaps it would be more appropiate to express this as "At its height, the Heavenly Kingdom encompassed much of south and central China, including Nanjing at its most northern point". Or here Tianjing is Tianjin misspelled?

It is indeed a misspelling. Corrected it and added some more information.Zotlan 11:45, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Poor Quality Entry addendum

There are problems with the writing style of this article. For instance, in the section "Beginning", I don't understand this phrase: "..economic him quite a rare asset to the Taipings."

That was vandalism. If you find something like that again, see earlier versions of the article for the original text. Wikipeditor 00:38, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

For that matter, feel free to fix an article if you see vandalism. That is, after all, one of the big features of Wikipedia. --KNHaw 05:34, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Also, if anything is changed, make sure the original information is valid. I wish the people without usernames would join before writing anything history-related.

Yang Xiuqing

All historians unanimously agree that Yang was the leader with the most power in the Taiping rebellion, so i feel it is important to include him in the introduction.

It is commonplace for people to think that Hong was the most powerful and influential leader. Franz Michael in his work "the taiping rebellion" questions Hong's involvement stating it was even less then we originally think.

However the importance of Hong is definitely worth putting him in the introduction, however same goes with Yang.

Additional Biblical books

Where can I found the additional Biblical books he added to the Bible in addition to the Old and New Testaments? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.224.54.249 (talk) 07:51, 23 February 2007 (UTC).

Franz Michael's The Taiping Rebellion contains most of the extant documents of the Taipings.

Serious Factual Errors

This article contains serious factual errors, and extremely poor citation of sources, which allows errors to masquerade as supported facts. For example the Nian or Muslim rebellions were in no way led by the Taiping remnants. Rather they were concurrent rebellions which were not affiliated with the Taiping. I would recommend more thorough research to be done by the author and proper substantiation with citations.

NPOV?

The introductory paragraph has some NPOV problems here:

Yang Xiuqing was a former salesman of firewood in Guangxi, who frequently claimed to be able to act as a mouthpiece of God to direct the people and gain himself a large amount of political power.

Is there evidence that Yang Xiuqing did not believe himself to be the mouthpiece of God? If not, this should be reworded. --Dylan Thurston 13:57, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

• He did believe himself to be the mouthpiece of god and he did gain a lot of political power by doing so... read any book on the history of the taipings -_- Olir 14:57, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Troop numbers

In the Osprey Men-at-Arms Series the book dealing with the Taiping Rebellion states that in excess of ten million soldiers fought - the maximum possible for the figures given here is 8,300,000. I also find the the assertion that Qing militia amounted to just 300,000 as opposed to as many as 5 million regulars somewhat unlikely. Keep in mind that famous forces such as the Xiang Army were essentially militia armies and certainly were not constituted of regular imperial troops, which certainly would not have numbered nearly as high as five million. I personally can't give more precise figures, but I suspect those found here are inaccurate. If someone (perhaps someone fluent in Chinese) has access to better figures, I'd encourage them to investigate this.

.. they were executed

The last sentence of the Background section reads "Then as time went on they were executed." This make no sense to me. Who were executed? Does "as time went on" just mean "later"? I would assume that this sentence was a fragment, left over by incompetent editing - but I see that it has been there right from the start. Maproom 17:36, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Merge request

The redirect page for Taiping Christianity was set to this page. I have removed the redirect and begun this discussion. Please contribute to the discussion below.

• Oppose - The Taipings practiced their own variant - called by some to be "Taiping Christianity". I do not think that this is the same as the rebellion.Brian0324 (talk) 22:09, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

There's nothing to merge. If you would like the redirect to be deleted, see WP:RFD. –Pomte 10:08, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

<Tian Gui (Tien Kuei) (田貴?) (–1864, executed)>

Tian Gui was the son and heir of Hong XiuQuan. Chinese is 天貴 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.225.176.174 (talk) 22:15, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Modern practitioners

The article seems to imply this is not the case, but are there any modern practitioners of Taiping/Heavenly Kingdom Christianity today? Forgive the POV, but there are stranger movements that do still exist... -BaronGrackle (talk) 15:40, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Foreign Views

It would be interesting to add a section on foreign influence and views, notably among protestant missionaries who, at one time, were quite supportive of the Taipings, despite the instructions of their respective governments. Missionaries such as WAP Martin and MS Culbertson were quite outspoken about the Taipings. I'll try to add some text when I have time.--Scotchorama (talk) 12:56, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Lots of bad references

Just deleted three references from this page, one to a unsigned blog entry, another to a river-rafting travelogue by a 20th century paleontologist, and a third to a paper written by an eighth-grader (seriously, it was from a middle school). A few of the other references look dubious too. Does anyone know how to attach one of those "needs better references" signs? --Otterfan (talk) 08:55, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Maps

A couple of maps would be illuminating especially one of the greatest extent of the Taiping rebellion.KTo288 (talk) 22:23, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Said Rebellion is wrong, should said movement or reform

I think it not real Rebellion; they took another method to reform better for China(because China too poor in 1840s, especially after loss the First Opium War ), but this reform invade some Han officials benefit and made officials against them at last, I said honestly and emotion.Hans yulun lai (talk) 01:12, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

that sounds like communist propaganda to me, it was a rebellion because they were defeated by the central government; the CCP would have been declared rebellion had it not won the civil war against KMT. you being Chinese should be familiar with the Chinese proverb "the winner proclaimed as king and the looser denounced as bandits". realistically, this isn't any different from other Chinese peasant rebellions in the past; group of poor people decided they were fed up with the corrupt central government and started armed rebellion flying the reform banner, but as soon as they consolidated enough powers, the leaders began to power grab for themselves and acted just as corrupted as the previous government, and each time leaving the country severely weakened as the result whether the rebellion was successful or not. the Taiping rebellion seriously weakened China, the chinese communist party under Mao even more so. 15:58, 14 September 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.104.78.230 (talk)

relevant or youtube promo?

The last line in the Art section seems out of place:

      MV Long hair1 memory for these great heros and time!

but as this page is far from my ken I'll leave it for someone more suitable to address.

St3veh (talk) 08:43, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Taiping flag?

I noticed that the war template for this conflict has a red cross on a white field as the Taiping flag. Google Image Search turned up one picture of a Taiping flag on an English website, at http://flickr.com/photos/gordsellar/359265415/. I don't read Chinese, but this is in the context of a museum visit together with Taiping coins. That's not quite a reliable enough source to put into the article, though, and this may be a battle flag rather than their civil flag. Could a Chinese-speaker do some more research on this point? ExOttoyuhr (talk) 17:32, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I did have a look at the fliker flag image, I think it is a Taiping flag, but very difficult to work out the content. Arilang ^talk 20:15, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. That's probably not the best image to go off of. I don't know Chinese, so I don't really know what characters to try to look for; are there any Chinese resources on vexillology? (Now that I think about it, I'm checking zh.wikipedia.org. I can't read Chinese, but I _can_ copy and paste...) 38.113.0.254 (talk) 22:07, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

No luck (although now I know where the picture of the Taiping imperial seal comes from, at least). There were surprisingly many dead links over there, but somehow, I doubt that a Taiping flag was hiding behind any of them...

By the way, the above comment was me, too. ExOttoyuhr (talk) 22:12, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

I think the red cross on white field as a Taiping flag is wrong:

# Never been seen in any Chinese literature.

1. Chinese never ever used WHITE color in any flag, because White when used in public, is always associated with death and funeral.
2. The cross looks like the Chinese word 十, which is Ten. In chinese number, Nine is associated with King, or emperor, not Ten.In my opinion, that flag should be removed.Arilang ^talk 23:21, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Where is the red cross?I can't see it?About flat of Taiping Tianguo,you can seethis article,there are many kinds of Taiping flags,they did use WHITE colour in there flags--冰热海风 (talk) 04:14, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

But its was an army falg of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom .--69.157.68.144 (talk) 17:07, 12 August 2009 (UTC)Unknown

The Red cross was an army flag ? If not, do you think the image on the right could be used as a "provisional" flag in the infobox ? Jean-Jacques Georges (talk) 14:41, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

@JJ Georges, this Red Cross is a joke, whoever put it there must have a sense of humor. Arilang ^talk 21:25, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Either a joke or a gross mistake. Any idea if they actually had a "national" flag ? Jean-Jacques Georges (talk) 08:25, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

No national flag, but each 王 (King) would have their own triangular flag(not square flag, all ancient Chinese only had triangular flag), most of them bright red or bright yellow, because bright yellow was the color of the emperor. White color was never a popular color for a Chinese flag.

On the subject of Time/life images, is it possible for them to consider issuing OTRS on one by one case? Arilang ^talk 19:31, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

The Flickr photo can be expanded so the wall tag in English is legible: "Triangle Flag of Hung(?)... of the Heaven and Earth Society". A more definitive picture of the same flag is provided by Prof. Gary L. Todd, see also his gallery of photos of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Museum. His caption is "flag of Heaven and Earth Society." The Heaven and Earth Society (Tiandihui) groups are not even mentioned in this Taiping Rebellion article, but they were anti-Qing and started in the late 1700s, lasting through 1911 to today in various forms. They liked to carry flags, triangular ones of about five different colors and borders, covered in arcane designs and characters.

On the other hand the great paintings in Life, Sept. 23, 1966, show an army with red triangle flags defeating a group with yellow triangle flags. The caption says the painting was commissioned by the empire to show its victory over the rebels. Maybe the caption is wrong and the yellow flag is the standard Qing flag, but the red flag troops seem better armed and the caption is specific.

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘I plan to replace the red cross with the red triangle if no one objects. -Colfer2 (talk) 20:54, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Here is a Google translation of the museum article linked above. Yes, many colors of flags. -Colfer2 (talk) 21:18, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

More images from Googling "太平天国的旗帜" ("The banner of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom").

• Three Taiping Heavenly Kingdom flags
• Movie recreation
• Painting of battle

- Colfer2 (talk) 21:46, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

One more: Battle scene -Colfer2 (talk) 21:52, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I uploaded this flag derived from the provisional one above and will be using it, in icon form, to replace the red cross. -Colfer2 (talk) 22:07, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Update. I changed the flag from the red triangle to unknown. To ease future edits, I set up a country template where the flag can be set across all articles: Template:Country data Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and even put the red flag there as a variant.

The red flag is based on a museum's flag of the Heaven and Earth Society. Further research shows the Heaven and Earth Society was active in the era just before the Taiping Rebellion, and shared some features with Hong and Feng's "God Worshipers Society", which became the Taiping movement, but they were quite different. The Heaven and Earth Society was a much older and more widespread. The God Worshipers opposed its banditry, which was a big part of their appeal. See: God's Chinese Son, by J. Spence, page 88. The Qing officials however tried to paint both groups as arising from the same, dangerous Christian movement, the Heavenly Lord sect. Both were secret societies opposed to the Qing, but the rest seems to be a fabrication or over-eager intelligence report. See: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, by T. Reilly, page 153. -Colfer2 (talk) 14:42, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

We probably shouldn't use the unknown flag icon as that is generally used as a placeholder for a flag which doesn't have an image on Wikipedia, and that kind of implies that the kingdom actually had a national flag. From what I can see, it only had a variety of army flags. Orange Tuesday (talk) 16:50, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree, it looks like the placeholder flag is not used in these battle templates. It is used however in articles like this:

• List of sovereign states in 1854#States Claiming Sovereignty
• List of sovereign states in 1855#States Claiming Sovereignty

So the country template will come in handy there if a flag is ever found. I guess the seat of the kingdom probably did have a flag. This group loved flags. But better references have yet to be found... -Colfer2 (talk) 17:23, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Don't use the red flag

Since someone restored it, it bears reminding: that red triangular thing above is not a Taiping flag. The Heaven & Earth Societies were completely unrelated and there was never any such thing as a Taiping Heaven & Earth Society.

Worse, it shouldn't even be used for Triad pages. The poor editing makes it a red and white square flag instead of a red triangular one. There are actual Taiping flags at the links above. I'll see if I can't edit one into shape. — LlywelynII 15:09, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Princes?

The later leaders of the movement were 'Princes':

Were the later leaders really called "princes"? What is the source for this? The character "王" means king. The Chinese names (as listed) of the leaders describes them as "kings". Also, according to the book The Rise of Modern China, by Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, the later leaders were also called "kings". -Cowrider (talk) 12:13, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Wang meant king in certain contexts, prince in others. Here, I'd imagine "prince" is more fitting for the high rank but limited autonomy they were intended to have relative to the one King of Heaven, but if we're going to change it, should probably find some scholarly sources or contemporary records that translate their ranks that way. There should be plenty of scholarship on this. — LlywelynII 14:45, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

囯

The Taipings did not use the characters 國 or 国; instead the used 囯, which is an uncommon variant which subtly omits a dot stroke from the variant 国. The actual name is 太平天囯. -- 李博杰  | —Talk contribs email 03:47, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Now if I could only figure out how to force the computer to display Japanese ten instead of Chinese tian without resorting to image files... — LlywelynII 14:52, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Britain and France

Why are they listed as beligerants?Slatersteven (talk) 11:38, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Because they shot people? — LlywelynII 14:42, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Anyone else notice we're missing something?

Like... the entirety of the actual rebellion? There's info on the French and Chinese pages for those who can translate them, but right now this article goes from 1851 in Guangxi to 1864 in Nanjing without so much as a howdy-do to any freakin' thing in the decade between. Which, y'know, was when the actual rebellion was going on.

The theology is interesting and all, but it's a rebellion page. Priorities, people. — LlywelynII 15:17, 3 October 2011 (UTC)