Nanjing
City on the lower Yangtze. The Taiping took it in March 1853 and made it their capital, and Qing armies retook it in July 1864.
Lindesay Brine, writing in 1862, says that the Taiping stormed Nanjing on 19 March 1853 through a breach made by a mine (Brine, Taeping Rebellion p. 157), and that Hong Xiuquan, following the early Ming emperors, treated it as the capital of all China; his proclamations call it the “heavenly capital, and residence of the Heavenly King” (Brine, Taeping Rebellion p. 166). The Qing commander Zeng Guofan reported that on 19 July 1864 his troops blew down part of the wall and took the city (Li Xiucheng, Deposition appendix, memorial no. 1 (pp. 74–75)). See the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
What happened here
- 1851 to 1864, firm dateThe Taiping Heavenly Kingdom
Hong Xiuquan, a village teacher who read Christian tracts in the light of his own visions, is proclaimed ruler of a new dynasty in 1851 and holds Nanjing from 1853. The missionary who once taught him later denounces his religion; Qing armies take the city in 1864.