Painting of a wealthy Qing family.

Integrating tens of thousands of new adherents, while planning and launching an insurrection against the Qing, put strain on Taiping society and pushed them to reorganize their society in novel ways. In this episode we’ll look at how the Taiping navigated these challenges in the lead up to their first battles with the Qing government and declaration of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The shape into which Taiping society formed was mediated by their cultural expectations and mores, by what they read in the Bible, and by the idiosyncrasies of Hong Xiuquan himself.

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