Editing Taiping Rebellion (section)

=== Demographics ===
{{See also|Ethnic minorities in China|List of ethnic groups in China}}
{{More citations needed section|date=March 2013}}
[[File:Regaining the Provincial City Anqing2.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|Retaking the provincial city of [[Anqing]]]]

Ethnically, the Taiping army was at the outset formed largely from these groups: the [[Hakka]], a [[Han Chinese]] subgroup; the [[Cantonese people|Cantonese]], local residents of [[Guangdong]]; and the [[Zhuang people|Zhuang]] (a non-Han ethnic group). It is no coincidence that Hong Xiuquan and the other Taiping royals were Hakka.

As a Han subgroup, the Hakka were frequently marginalised economically and politically, having migrated to the regions which their descendants presently inhabit only after other Han groups were already established there. For example, when the Hakka settled in Guangdong and parts of [[Guangxi]], [[Yue Chinese]] speakers were already the dominant regional Han group there and they had been so for some time, just as speakers of various dialects of [[Min Chinese|Min]] are locally dominant in [[Fujian]] province.

The Hakka settled throughout southern China and beyond, but as latecomers they generally had to establish their communities on rugged, less fertile land scattered on the fringes of the local majority group's settlements. As their name ("guest households") suggests, the Hakka were generally treated as migrant newcomers, and often subjected to hostility and derision from the local majority Han populations. Consequently, the Hakka, to a greater extent than other Han Chinese, have been historically associated with popular unrest and rebellion.

[[File:Regaining Jinling.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|The retaking of [[Nanjing]] by Qing troops]]

The other significant ethnic group in the Taiping army was the [[Zhuang people|Zhuang]], an indigenous people of [[Tai peoples|Tai]] origin and China's largest non-Han ethnic minority group. Over the centuries, Zhuang communities had been adopting Han Chinese culture. This was possible because Han culture in the region accommodates a great deal of linguistic diversity, so the Zhuang could be absorbed as if the [[Zhuang language]] were just another Han Chinese dialect, which it is not. Because Zhuang communities were integrating with the Han at different rates, a certain amount of friction between the Han and the Zhuang was inevitable, with Zhuang unrest leading to armed uprisings on occasion.<ref name="Ramsey">{{Cite book |last=Ramsey |first=Robert S. |title=The Languages of China |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=1987 |isbn=0-691-06694-9 |pages=167, 232–236}}</ref>