emily’s Reviews > Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War > Status Update

‘—railroads—steamships—telegraphs—The press itself (originally built in Canton) was—printers—technology—The members were some of the most highly educated—who, one visitor noted, were among the least religiously zealous—he didn’t believe in those visions—there was more than one moral lens—one man’s national liberation was another man’s humanitarian disaster. He quoted—Nanjing was coming back to life—through the rain—’

‘The “hundred birds formation,” in which a large division would disintegrate into small clusters—each roaming freely like birds in a flock or stars in a galaxy so that it was impossible to tell the size of their force or where to attack them. Though the Taiping visions—may have motivated some—the appeal also rested heavily on more earthly issues of—stability and taxation—by Chinese rather than by Manchus—in Nanjing.’

‘—practically emptied of all its wealthiest inhabitants—all those with the means to leave Beijing hired carriers to take them north—out of the range of the coming assault. The gates of the city were then shut and barred—the price of food skyrocketed. A Pekingese dog was discovered—a British officer took him back to England as a present for Queen Victoria. She was a great lover of dogs—“Looty,” as he would be named—’

‘Li—joined the Taiping not for religious reasons—grown up in mountainous Guangxi—dirt poor, scrabbling out a bare existence with hillside farming—a charcoal maker—a tactical genius in the raw. The cause of Chinese liberation from the Manchus resonated not just with the followers of the Taiping but also with those who watched from outside—the port of Shanghai was—a thread connecting—history—the weather finally broke—’

‘The shogun’s—diplomacy had its desired effect—Elgin remembered—as “the nicest people possible. None of the stiffness and bigotry of the Chinese.” The return to China, however, filled him with “a sort of terror.” Once the Taiping commanders figured out what his small fleet represented, they began sending communications—speaking the dialect of Canton—a stirring of ghosts—Nanjing was the grandest—cities in its heyday—’

‘—Baiyun Mountains—mostly relatives from their clan—mountainous regions of the neighbouring province of Guangxi—the movement grew—spread. ‘How is Confucius able to teach, after being dead so long? Why do you force me to worship him?’ The—natives burned down the homes of—Hakkas who rose up from the heart of the country to overthrow the Manchus. The executions in Canton—major turning point in the fortunes of Hong Kong’