Editing Taiping Rebellion (section)

== Total war ==
[[File:Taiping Rebellion map.jpg|A map of the Taiping Rebellion, 1866|thumb]]
The Taiping Rebellion was a [[total war]]. Almost every citizen who had not fled the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was given military training and conscripted into the army to fight against Qing imperial forces. Under the Taiping household registration system, one adult male from each household was to be [[conscripted]] into the army.{{sfnp|Spence|1996|loc=chapter 13}}

During this conflict, both sides tried to deprive each other of the resources which they needed in order to continue the war and it became standard practice for each to destroy the opposing side's agricultural areas, butcher the populations of cities and generally exact a brutal price from the inhabitants of captured enemy lands in order to drastically weaken the opposition's war effort. This war was total in the sense that civilians on both sides participated in the war effort to a significant extent and the armies on both sides waged war against both the civilian population and military forces. Contemporary accounts describe the amount of desolation which befell rural areas as a result of the conflict.{{sfnp|Spence|1996|p={{page needed|date=April 2021}}}}

In every area which they captured, the Taiping immediately exterminated the entire Manchu population. In the province of [[Hunan]] one Qing loyalist who observed the [[genocidal massacre]]s which the Taiping forces committed against the Manchus wrote that the "pitiful Manchus"—men, women and children—were executed by the Taiping forces. The Taiping rebels were seen chanting while slaughtering the Manchus in Hefei.{{sfnp|Reilly|2011|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=wm4CuSvIYiEC&pg=PA139 139]}} After capturing Nanjing, Taiping forces killed about 40,000 Manchu civilians.<ref>{{Cite book |last=White |first=Matthew |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0-fQHlaIpR4C&pg=PA289 |title=Atrocities: The 100 Deadliest Episodes in Human History |publisher=W. W. Norton |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-393-08192-3 |page=289}}</ref> On 27 October 1853, they crossed the [[Yellow River]] in [[Cang Prefecture|Cangzhou]] and murdered 10,000 Manchus.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Clodfelter |first=Micheal |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TCZpAAAAMAAJ |title=Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Reference to Casualty and Other Figures |publisher=McFarland |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-7864-1204-4 |page=256}}</ref>

Since the rebellion began in [[Guangxi]], Qing forces allowed no rebels speaking its dialect to surrender.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ping-ti |first=Ho |title=Studies on the Population of China, 1368–1953 |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1959 |location=Cambridge, MA |page=237}}</ref> Reportedly in the province of [[Guangdong]], it is written that one million were executed, because after the collapse of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Qing dynasty launched waves of massacres against the Hakkas, that at their height killed up to 30,000 each day.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kiang |first=Clyde |title=The Hakka Odyssey & their Taiwan homeland |publisher=Allegheny |year=1992 |page=120}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Purcell |first=Victor |title=China |publisher=Ernest Benn |year=1962 |location=London |page=167}}</ref> These policies of mass murder of civilians occurred elsewhere in China, including [[Anhui]]<ref>Quoted in {{harvnb|Purcell|1962|p=239}}</ref>{{sfnp|Chesneaux|1973|p=40}} and [[Nanjing]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Pelissier |first=Roger |title=The Awakening of China: 1793–1949 |publisher=Putnam |year=1967 |location=New York |page=109 |translator-last=Kieffer |translator-first=Martin}}</ref> This resulted in a massive civilian flight and death toll with some 600 towns destroyed<ref>{{harvnb|Purcell|1962|p=168}}</ref> and other bloody policies resulting.