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tae-pings

The name given to the Chinese rebels who made their appearance in 1850, and desolated some of the best provinces of China. Peking was taken by the English and French on October 12, 1860. Its capture was followed by the ratification of the treaty of Tien-tsin, which, granting important privileges to European merchants, made it the direct interest of the English, French, and American governments to re-establish order in China. The repulse of the rebels at Shanghai in August, 1860, had been followed by several engagements between them and the imperialists, in which they were defeated. Ward, an American, who had taken service under the emperor, and who showed a remarkable talent for organizing irregular troops, had wrought a wonderful improvement in the imperialist army, and he was the chief means of their success. In the beginning of 1862, the Tae-pings again advanced on Shanghai, and were twice defeated. In the autumn of the same year, Ward was killed; Ward’s force was handed over to an English officer, and took the name of Gordon’s brigade. Gordon’s brigade rendered essential service to the imperial government. The rebels were defeated in upwards of sixteen engagements; and in 1864, almost every important city was taken from them. The conduct of the imperial authorities at Su-chow, where a horrible massacre took place, led to the withdrawal of the English military force; but the rebellion had been effectually checked. Toward the end of 1864, the Tae-pings, however, still offered an opposition to the imperialists in Kiang-tsu, all the more formidable in consequence of the prevalence of brigandage and insurrectionary movements in parts of the empire not affected by the Tae-ping rebellion. In January, 1865, the Mohammedan Tartars of Songaria, on the Siberian frontier, assisted by the free Kirghis tribes, took the town of Tarbagatai, and afterwards Kouldja. In the following June, a still more serious insurrection broke out in China proper, that of the Nien-fei, or rebels of the north, whose special object was to overturn the reigning dynasty. One body of them, in the beginning of 1866, caused serious alarm in Hankow, and would have attacked the European settlement but for the arrival of some English gunboats. It is believed that the last embers of the Tae-ping rebellion were trodden out in February, 1866, when from 30,000 to 50,000 rebels were routed by the imperial army at Kia-ying-chou in Kwan-tung. The victorious general then set out to attack the Nien-fei, or northern rebels, at Hankow, and the imperial troops were several times defeated by them in 1867; but late in 1868, their operations became unimportant.

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