China

The Nian Rebellion

Often in the first half of the 19th century, plundering gangs called nian ravaged northern Anhui, southern Shandong, and southern Henan. In mid-century, however, their activities were suddenly intensified, partly by the addition to their numbers of a great many starving people who had lost their livelihood from repeated floods of the Huang He in the early 1850s and partly because they had become emboldened by the Taiping advance north of the Yangtze. From 1856 to 1859 the Nian leaders consolidated their bases north of the Huai River by winning over the masters of the earth-wall communities, consolidated villages that had been fortified for self-defense against the Taiping. The Nian strategy was to use their powerful cavalry to plunder the outlying areas and carry the loot to their home bases.

Many influential clans, with all their members, joined the Nian cause, and the clan chiefs played an important role among the Nian leaders. Gentry of lower strata also joined the Nian. The greater part of the Nian force consisted of poor peasants, although deserters from the government-recruited militias and salt smugglers were important as military experts. The real cause of their strength was supposed to be the people’s support and sympathy for their leaders, but creating a power centre proved to be difficult because the Nian’s basic social unit was the earth-wall community, where a powerful master exercised autonomy. In 1856 Zhang Luoxing received the title “lord of the alliance” of the Nian, but he was far too weak to form a centre. Imperial pacification was launched by General Senggelinqin, who led a powerful cavalry into the affected area in 1862, but his pursuit was ineffective, and the general himself was killed in Shandong in May 1865. Thus, the last imperial crack unit disappeared. Zeng Guofan succeeded Senggelinqin as general and enforced a policy of detaching the earth-wall masters from their men and of employing the latter as his troops. Finally, Li Hongzhang succeeded Zeng in 1866 and set up encirclement lines along the Huang He and the Grand Canal, using that strategy to destroy the revolts in 1868.