Last modified: 2024-11-02 by ian macdonald
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The Taiping Rebellion was a widespread civil war in China from 1850 to 1864, led
by heterodox Christian convert Hong Xiuquan, against the ruling Qing Dynasty.
About 25 million people were killed, mainly civilians, in one of the deadliest
military conflicts in history.
Hong established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (Chinese: 太平天囯 pinyin: Tàipíng
Tiānguó), officially the "Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace", with its capital at
Nanjing. The Kingdom's army controlled large parts of southern China, at its
height containing about 30 million people. The rebels attempted social reforms
and the replacement of Confucianism, Buddhism and Chinese folk religion by a
form of Christianity. Troops were nicknamed the Long hair (長毛, pinyin: cháng máo).
The Taiping areas were besieged by Qing forces throughout most of the rebellion.
The Qing government defeated the rebellion with the eventual aid of French and
British forces.
In the twentieth century, China's communist leader Mao Zedong glorified the
Taipings as early heroic revolutionaries against a corrupt feudal system..
Nozomi Kariyasu, 02 December 2009
![[Lay Osborne Flotilla ensign]](../images/c/cn-1851.gif)
image by Jaume Ollé, 02 December 2009
The yellow triangle flag charged with commender's name in red with white
fringe.
Nozomi Kariyasu, 02 December 2009
![[Lay Osborne Flotilla ensign]](../images/c/cn-tparod.gif)
image by Jaume Ollé, 09 March 2014
A flag of the Taiping Rebellion 1851-1864. The wiki caption reads "Taiping
Heaven and Earth Society Flag schematic, simplified from a flag in the Taiping
Heavenly Kingdom Museum in Nanjing, China"
Source:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Taiping_heaven_and_earth_society_flag.png
Ben Cahoon, 06 June 2013
Basically a sketch. Going through the references, eventually gets you to
overview
and original.
This shows the flag, if it is one, to be of a more traditional shape, with wavy
edges. (I hope we document that somewhere. If not, do we have anyone
knowledgeable about Chinese flag shapes?) In the detailed photograph, we can
also see that the red is filled with writing and shapes.
Taiping, and the black edges around a red field, suggest a connection with the
Black Flag army flag we show at Black Flag Army
page.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 15 June 2013
The detailed image
here. There is also a cravat above the flag, white with black inscriptions.
Tomislav Todorović, 16 June 2013
In 1851 Taiping Rebellion broke and the leader and a King of Taiping Heavenly
Kingdom Hong Xiuquan used Order Flag of the Army which is red flag charged with
天朝 = King in black upper part and 令= Order in black in yellow tetragon in the
center.
Source: Atlas of Flags in China 2003
Nozomi Kariyasu, 09 March 2014
In the 2nd chapter of his novel "Les Tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine" Jules Verne writes:
The Tai Ping had their rebellion well organised in order to replace the dynasty of the Tsing by that one of the Wang. They raised four different gangs: the 1st used a black flag and had to kill, the 2nd a red flag and had to pillage and threaten to burn, the 3rd one a yellow flag and had to maraud, finally the 4th (gang) had to supply the others and used a white flag.There are no further details given by Mr. Verne, neither about shape nor about any charges.
Most likely, a combination of both: Jules
Verne seems to have gained some knowledge about the joint use of plain flags,
although there should have been five of them, not four (green/blue one is
missing from his set). Such use of the flags in China has been known for
centuries. The
attribution of the flag he mentioned, though, seems to be completely
invented.
Tomislav Todorovic, 7 October 2024
The five colors of Chinese blue (or green), red, white, yellow, and black are
based on the Wuxing ideology (Five Elements philosophy) that originated in
ancient China around 200 BC, and have been used as five-color flags or
five-color striped flag for military flags and other flags in various periods
since then.
Wuxing ideology is a popular Chinese philosophy as well as
yin-yang ideology. This philosophy also influenced the Japanese daimyo banner.
The five striped war banner of Ujiyasu Houjo is an
example.
Nozomi Kariyasu, 7 October 2024
The 'Tsing' is now usually Romanized as the Qing Dynasty. As for the 'Wang',
it was not the name of the Taiping dynasty: it officially called itself Taiping
Tianguo ('Taiping Heavenly Kingdom'), and its monarch Tianwang ('Heavenly
King').
They raised four different gangs: the 1st used a black flag and
had to kill, the 2nd a red flag and had to pillage and threaten to burn, the 3rd
one a yellow flag and had to maraud, finally the 4th (gang) had to supply the
others and used a white flag.
It was true that early Chinese military flags usually came in five colours,
representing the five cardinal directions. However the Manchus originally had
banners in four colours, in the order of precedence: yellow, white, red and blue
(representing black); and later banners in the four colours with borders,
thereby creating the Eight Banners. After the Manchus conquered China to become
the Qing Dynasty in 1644, it also founded the Green Standard Army, thereby
conforming more closely with the five colours traditionally used on
Chinese military flags.
Miles Li, 8
October 2024
