Tai Ping Tian Guo 太平天囯

The Taiping Rebellion referred to as the Tai Ping Tian Guo in Chinese 太平天囯 ( 太 Tai-'Great' ,平 Ping - 'Peace', 天 Tian-"Heaven', 囯 Guo-'Country or Kingdom' ) the 'Kingdom of Heavenly Peace', was one of the bloodiest civil wars in history between the Qing Dynasty and the Chinese 'Christian' rebels led by Hong Xiuquan (old spelling Hung Hsiu-ch'uan).

Taiping soldiers, male and female, outside Shanghai

The rebels were led by Hong Xiuquan ( old spelling Hung Hsiu-ch'uan ) who believed he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ, chosen by God to establish a heavenly kingdom upon earth and replace the corrupt Manchu Qing dynasty.The conflict, which took place mostly in south China , the Yangtze valley and in the Shanghai and Nanjing area, killed an estimated from 20,000,000 to 30,000,000 people killed (largely due to famine and wholesale slaughter of captured armies and cities which resisted ) . According to the census of 1851 there were 432 million in China. The next census of 1911 shows 375 to 400 million, which shows the staggering impact of the rebellions and natural disasters that beset China . There were other rebellions against the Qing such as the Nian and Muslim rebellions,but the Taiping rebellion was the largest in scale and came closest to toppling the Qing Dynasty.