Catching up on 
Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom (I have to get to chapter 11 in the next few days). To say that this is a hard book to follow on occasion is understating difficulties. The narrative jumps across years, across China, and between protagonists, extensively. There are obviously three factions. The Taiping. The Qing regime. And foreigners. But the last class is heterogeneous in nationality and interests. While the Taiping and Qing obviously oppose each other, there are cases where the Europeans fight both the Taiping and Qing and other cases where Europeans lean toward supporting the regimes of the Taiping and Qing. Additionally, in the case of the French and British forces, many of the “Europeans” are non-white colonials. Algerian Arabs and Indian Sikhs, to name two instances.
Geographically the core of the action is still in the lower Yangzi valley. The Taiping, whose origins are in the South are now firmly established for years as a dominant regime. Internal faction and infighting hobble their effectiveness, and Hong Rengan, the cousin of the Taiping king, is the de facto leader. Local levies in Hunan around the loyalist official Zeng Guoquan are described as the real factor in stopping the Taiping advance. The sections about Zeng are interesting to me because he illustrates the banality and normalcy of Chinese scholar officialdom for thousands of years. Knowing about the Taiping Rebellion only superficially I have long wondered how the Qing managed to not be overthrown. And Europeans and Americans of the time also took it for granted quite often than the Qing would be toppled.
Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom so far depicts the Qing, and the Manchu and Mongol core of the ruling caste, as ineffectual and incompetent. Rather, Taiping infighting, European ambivalence, and perhaps more importantly the inertia and robustness of the Chinese imperial system maintain a metastable equilibrium of three parties engaging in battles with each other. Zeng in particular seems like a force of nature, somewhat independent of his notional fealty to the Qing. The Chinese elite accepts Qing rule, but by this point, they ran much of the show.
I was not aware before this book that the Europeans engaged in joint expeditions against the Qing during the Taiping Rebellion, but this is described in detail in these chapters. Additionally, the French in particular come off as rather brutal and fixated on looting. The religious difference between the Catholic French and Protestant British and Americans also seems to color their views of the Taiping, as the latter was influenced by Protestant iconoclasm. Overall, many of the more enthusiastic Europeans and Americans remind me somewhat of pro-Iraq pundits in the early 2000’s. They thought that the Taiping victory would produce general realignment, and bring China into the Anglo-Protestant orbit.
The only “good guy” that I see so far is Zeng. His militia seems to be fighting for the people. For Hunan. In contrast, the Taiping as a whole have lost the plot, while most of the Europeans and Qing elites are focused on their own power and status.
I have read the book a few months back. I might misremember.
About the French, keep in mind that the author did check the British sources for his book, but not the French ones. Among frenchmen, only Victor Hugo, then a political dissident who had taken refuge in Jersey, is quoted in the book. It has long been a national pastime across the Channel to badmouth the French. (A tradition still alive in the popular English press, but not reciprocated.) However I have no idea of what you could find in the French archives.
Visitors of the Summer Palace in Beijing are invited to read plaques that recall the sack by the French and British forces.
Even if no account is given of the views of French leaders and general public, the Americans and English differed though. The Americans were much more favorable to the Taiping than the British were. Obvious affinities. Your comparison with the Iraq war is spot on and thought provoking.
Oh, Zeng won’t keep seeming like a good guy if you keep reading.
I learned a lot from this book. Before reading it I
knew next to nothing about the Taiping.
But a depressing book about humanity.
Three main groups:
Taiping — ruled by a religious nutcase and brutal.
Qing — a decaying autocracy, incompetent and brutal,
European colonialists — just out for money, and valuing Chinese lives at about zero.
One takeaway was that Hong Kong, already under British control, was a refuge for Taiping rebels.
Does this have modern resonances?
Zeng Guoquan, who I am ashamed to say I had not heard of, was a very interesting person. A classic
Chinese mandarin who rose from an ordinary background by his intellectual skills and by passing the
traditional exams. [The USA may be about to abandon selective exams, but the Chinese won’t]
I’ve read the whole book and Zeng still comes across to me as a good guy. He was a scholar
learning how to be a general, and with some success, and you don’t win a vicious civil war playing
hackysack.
Zeng Guoquan, who I am ashamed to say I had not heard of, was a very interesting person.
this is my thought. why do i not know? and i’m not a historically ignorant
After the defeat of the Taiping, Zeng could have become the ruler of China quite easily
but did not, as it would be contrary to his Confucian principles. He has had an interesting
posthumous life, being variously reviled as a traitor, for supporting the Qing,
or admired as a far-sighted statesman.
Zeng Guofan or Zen Guoqan? Guoqan, brother of Guofan, is a lesser character. It is noted in the book that one can easily find biographies of Guofan in chinese bookstores at airports etc.
One of the fascinating aspects of this book resides in the visions for the future of Zeng Guofan and Hong Renan. Both realize that China must modernize. For Zeng, it should be within the framework of Chinese civilization. For Hong, a break from the past and inspiration from foreigners (preferably the British and Americans) is in order.
“Zeng Guofan or Zen Guoqan?”
I had this same question as well. That said, it’s hard to separate the one from the other since they are similar and both leaders of the same operation. I agree that the narrative of this war is enough to make you lose your faith in humanity. William Tecumseh Sherman, the best symbol of total war in the U.S. Civil War going on concurrently, comes across as a real boy scout compared to most of the stuff you could pick a chapter at random and read about here. I wonder what caused differences in violence levels, especially towards civilians and prisoners.
“The Chinese elite accepts Qing rule, but by this point, they ran much of the show.”
It struck me reading the descriptions of the late Qing dynasty here, and also while reading F.W. Mote this summer, that Chinese civilization has always been ‘too big to fail’. While most civilizations become subsumed in another one when they are conquered, in China’s case the conquering civilization gets subsumed instead, becomes the new rulers of China, and life goes on like before. Even Kublai Khan was more just the founding Yuan emperor than he was the Mongol ruler in any true sense.
My Bad — and probably Razib also.
Zeng Guofan is the central character here.
my bad. suck at chinese names!
@Nick: “Does this have modern resonances?” Yes, some; at least a couple. I won’t elaborate unless the Boss requests it because they are really tangential and off the topic.
> To say that this is a hard book to follow on occasion is understating difficulties. The narrative jumps across years, across China, and between protagonists, extensively.
This has frustrated me and was one reason I paused reading while you paused posting (I finished chapter 6, will restart shortly). My idea for remedying this is to print out some maps of Qing China and start sketching out dated movements of troops and key players, with cross-references to chapter numbers, but I haven’t gotten around to trying that unfortunately.
Google Books does say Colin McEvedy’s Pacific atlas has some coverage of the rebellion. I don’t have a copy on-hand at the moment.
> The only “good guy” that I see so far is Zeng.
So far I still quite like Hong Rengan. They seem comparable in terms of personal character, but I’d still probably support Hong over Zeng just for reasons of religious prejudice. The only real mark against Hong Rengan that I’ve seen is his deference to Hong Xiuquan.
Though, seems chapter 7 may change my opinion, just going off the title.
In reading the biography of Zeng, it was interesting to see his exasperation with the emperor and the urban mandarins grow as he got experience in the field. Kind of reminded me own dissatisfaction with the Confucian worldview; just seems too seems too willing to subordinate objective truth to the merely social.
“So far I still quite like Hong Rengan. They seem comparable in terms of personal character, but I’d still probably support Hong over Zeng just for reasons of religious prejudice.”
I felt the same way in the early chapters, but I went ahead and read the whole thing because I got impatient. I hope it’s not too much of a spoiler to say that Hong is presented as a textbook case of wasted potential. You keep waiting for him to accomplish something big but he is already past his peak by the first third of the book.