Nanjing pt. 2 Taiping Rebellion

The Taiping Rebellion

I am currently finishing up God's Chinese Son by Jonathan Spense. It is a fascinating book about the largest uprising in History. This book chronicles the rise of the Heavenly Kingdom where Hong Xiuquan started a following saying he was the younger brother of Jesus. The tale is fascinating and unbelievable. While the US had its own internal struggle between the North and the South. China's last dynasty was struggling to keep power against Hong and his "heavenly forces." Hong's armies were so successful that they captured the former Capital city Nanjing (South Capital) which he renamed Tianjing (Heavenly capital). I was curious what this looked like in the historic city of Nanjing so Ant and I went explored

This included two sites. The first site was the actual museum of the rebellion. This included lots of maps, weapons, drawings, coins and various documents from the movement. It was a little run down and hard but still very fascinating. I was left wanting more but it still was a very interesting museum.

The next stop was the Presidential Palace. This was the former capitol of the KMT and the Ming Dynasty. The Presidential Palace was the house of so many different ruling parties of China.

What fascinated me more was how both museums showed the Taiping Rebellion in a favorable light. It was the beginning of the movement that changed China from dynastic rule to a republic. Yet as more wise people than I also noted, it gave China proof of why they should be careful of religious influence on their citizens. It is not that the original intention of the religious teachings was revolutionary, but that the revolutionaries could use those teachings as a revolutionary tool.

History is still alive today. Sometimes it hinders...yet, other times hopefully we can learn from it and be enabled.