The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement was a massive peasant uprising led by Hong Xiuquan during the late Qing Dynasty. Hong Xiuquan was born into a peasant family in Guangdong, at the tail end of the Jiaqing Emperor's reign. From a young age, he studied diligently in a private school, hoping to rise in society by passing the imperial examinations. As an adult, Hong Xiuquan took the provincial exams four times, but failed each time. At the age of twenty-nine, he finally abandoned his ambition of becoming an official through the examination system. That same year, he founded the God Worshipping Society.
It turned out that during Hong Xiuquan's trip to Guangzhou to take the provincial civil service exam, he obtained a Christian doctrine pamphlet called "Good Words to Admonish the Age" from a Western missionary, which explained Christian concepts such as creation, original sin, redemption, heaven, hell, and the Last Judgment, and fiercely attacked traditional Chinese culture, folk religions, feng shui, and witchcraft.
Hong Xiuquan studied this manual seriously, and in 1843, he founded the "Society of God Worshippers," composing texts such as "The Hundred Righteous Songs," "Turning from Evil to Righteousness," "The Original Way to Save the World," and "The Original Way to Awaken the World" as its doctrines. Hong Xiuquan declared, "A great calamity will befall the world, and only those who believe in God and join the faith can escape it. Members, regardless of gender or status, are all equal; men are called brothers, and women sisters." Claiming to be the second son of God, he began vigorously promoting the Society of God Worshippers across the Guangdong and Guangxi regions, recruiting many followers.
During his missionary work, Hong Xiuquan gained a capable assistant named Feng Yunshan. While spreading the faith in Guangxi, Feng Yunshan encountered years of natural disasters that left the region filled with starving refugees and intensified class conflicts to an unprecedented degree. Among these refugees, he recruited over two thousand followers. As the "God Worshipping Society" grew stronger, Hong Xiuquan's thinking underwent a qualitative leap, gradually transforming the society from a religious group into a political and military organization aimed at overthrowing Qing Dynasty rule.
During consecutive years of famine in Guangxi, peasant uprisings frequently erupted. Starting in July 1850, Hong Xiuquan and Feng Yunshan began secretly organizing a rebellion. They instructed their followers to sell all their family property and gather at Jintian in Guangxi, where approximately 20,000 people assembled in Jintian Village. Hong Xiuquan concentrated these people and began drilling them, preparing for the upcoming uprising.
After receiving the news, the local government sent troops twice to suppress the uprising, but both attempts ended in failure. On January 11, 1851, coinciding with Hong Xiuquan's 37th birthday, over ten thousand followers gathered to launch an uprising, formally declaring war against the Qing government. Since this uprising took place in Jintian, Guangxi, later generations called it the Jintian Uprising. Soon after, the rebel forces named themselves the Taiping Army and established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Thus began the grand and tumultuous Taiping Rebellion.
In March 1851, Hong Xiuquan proclaimed himself the Heavenly King in Dongxiang, Wuxuan, Guangxi. In August, the Taiping Army routed the Qing forces sent to suppress them at Guancun, Pingnan, Guangxi, marking their most brilliant victory since the Jintian Uprising. In September, the Taiping Army captured Yong'an, Guangxi, and began reorganizing within the city, a period historically known as the "Yong'an System," which included: revising the calendar to create the Heavenly Calendar; ordering the populace to grow their hair; establishing the Sacred Treasury system to centralize and manage property; defining official ranks; and enfeoffing five kings—the Eastern King Yang Xiuqing, the Western King Xiao Chaogui, the Southern King Feng Yunshan, the Northern King Wei Changhui, and the Wing King Shi Dakai—while decreeing that the other four kings were subordinate to the Eastern King, a rule that sowed the seeds for the future Tianjing Incident. The "Yong'an System" laid a solid foundation for the establishment of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
In April of the following year, the Taiping Army set out from Yong'an and marched toward Hunan. During the march, the Southern King Feng Yunshan was struck by a cannonball from Qing forces and later died from his severe injuries. In August, Xiao Chaogui and Shi Dakai led a three-month-long assault on Changsha, during which the Western King Xiao Chaogui was killed in battle. Unable to capture Changsha, the Taiping Army had no choice but to continue northward. Early the next year, they successfully occupied Wuchang, entering a phase of rapid expansion, with their total numbers surging to over 500,000.
After that, the Taiping Army advanced triumphantly, capturing Nanjing in March of that year and renaming it "Tianjing" (Heavenly Capital), which became the capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Subsequently, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom issued the "Land System of the Heavenly Dynasty," which, based on the principle that "all land under heaven should be cultivated by all people under heaven," divided land into three grades and nine levels according to annual yield, then distributed it equally among the population—meaning "land is allocated per person, regardless of gender, counting the number of family members, with larger families receiving more and smaller families receiving less." The "Land System of the Heavenly Dynasty" was a revolutionary struggle program and social reform plan centered on solving the peasant land issue, covering politics, economy, military, culture, and other aspects. It was a foundational document of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom that institutionalized the peasant egalitarian ideology, playing a significant role in striking against feudal rule and promoting the development of productive forces.
After establishing their capital in Tianjing (present-day Nanjing), the Taiping Army quickly launched both a Northern Expedition and a Western Expedition. Over 20,000 troops of the Northern Expedition, led by Lin Fengxiang and Li Kaifang, advanced northward all the way to the Tianjin area, approaching Beijing. This caused great panic within the Qing government, and large numbers of Qing troops were dispatched to suppress the Northern Expedition. However, the isolated and deep-penetrating force was ultimately annihilated. Simultaneously with the Northern Expedition, Lai Hanying and others led the Western Expedition. The Western Expedition forces first captured Anqing, then took Jiujiang and Wuchang, and entered Hunan. In Hunan, they repeatedly clashed head-on with the Xiang Army led by Zeng Guofan. Thanks to the skilled command of the Wing King, Shi Dakai, the Western Expedition forces achieved repeated victories in their battles against the Xiang Army.
While the Taiping army was conducting its Northern and Western Expeditions, Tianjing (the Taiping capital, present-day Nanjing) remained under siege by Qing forces. In May 1856, Shi Dakai led his troops back to Tianjing, joined forces with Prime Minister Qin Rigang, and decisively broke through the Qing army's Jiangnan Camp. This victory lifted the siege of Tianjing, and the military power of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom reached its peak at this time.