January 11, 1851 · Guangxi Province Theater

In the village of Jintian in Guangxi Province on the fortieth birthday of Hong Xiuquan, approximately 10,000 followers of the God Worshippers Society formally declared the establishment of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and raised the standard of revolt against the Qing Dynasty. Hong had spent years building his movement among the Hakka minority and dispossessed peasants of Guangxi — people who had suffered from natural disasters, economic dislocation from the Opium War's disruption of the Canton trade, and the brutal inter-ethnic conflicts between Hakka and Punti communities. The uprising began with a military clash with local Qing forces and the proclamation of a new divine order, with Hong as Heavenly King and his chief followers as Kings of the four directions.

March 19, 1853 · Jiangsu Province Theater

After sweeping northward through Hunan and Hubei provinces and capturing Wuhan in January 1853, the Taiping Heavenly Army descended the Yangtze River in an enormous armada of captured boats, carrying hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians. Nanjing — the former Ming Dynasty capital and China's second city — fell after a siege of just eleven days. The Taiping captured the city by tunneling under the city walls and detonating mines that blew breaches in the fortifications. Approximately 30,000 Manchu garrison troops and their families were slaughtered in the aftermath — the Taiping made no distinction between soldiers and Manchu civilians, whom their ideology condemned as alien occupiers to be exterminated.

May 1853 · Henan / Zhili Province Theater

The Taiping leadership's most ambitious strategic gamble was a northern expedition to capture Beijing and overthrow the Qing government directly. Two commanders, Lin Fengxiang and Li Kaifang, led approximately 70,000 troops northward through Henan and into Zhili Province, reaching to within 100 miles of Beijing before stalling in the winter of 1853. Isolated from Nanjing by thousands of miles, unable to receive reinforcements due to logistical failures, and fighting in northern terrain very different from their southern experience, the expedition bogged down. A relief force sent in 1854 was unable to break through. The Qing commander Senggelinqin eventually surrounded and annihilated both forces — the northern expedition's army was destroyed over three years, with Lin Fengxiang captured and executed in 1855.

July 19, 1864 · Jiangsu Province Theater

After two years of siege, Nanjing — the Taiping Heavenly Capital — fell on July 19, 1864. Hong Xiuquan had died on June 1, possibly of illness, possibly by suicide with poison, leaving his teenage son as nominal Heavenly King. Li Xiucheng organized the final defense with increasingly scarce supplies and a garrison weakened by disease and starvation. Zeng Guoquan's forces detonated mines beneath the city walls and breached the fortifications on July 19. What followed was one of the largest mass killings in Chinese history: Zeng Guofan reported to the Qing court that not a single Taiping surrendered — 'those who have surrendered belong to another category' — meaning the Hunan Army massacred virtually every defender and large portions of the civilian population. Estimates of those killed in the fall and immediate aftermath range from 30,000 to 100,000.

September 5, 1861 · Anhui Province Theater

The fall of Anqing — a major Taiping garrison city on the Yangtze River west of Nanjing — marked the turning point of the war. Zeng Guofan's Hunan Army had invested the city for over a year, constructing a double ring of earthwork fortifications isolating it from both river resupply and land relief. Multiple Taiping relief attempts under the brilliant general Chen Yucheng failed to break through. When the city finally fell on September 5, 1861, Zeng's forces massacred virtually the entire garrison and civilian population — approximately 16,000 people. The fall cut the Taiping capital off from the upper Yangtze and gave the Hunan Army control of the strategic approaches to Nanjing itself.

March 1862 · Jiangsu Province Theater

The Taiping Loyal King Li Xiucheng launched a massive offensive in early 1862, sweeping through Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces with forces estimated at over 100,000 men in an attempt to seize Shanghai and its foreign-trade revenues. Li's forces came within miles of the city's walls on multiple occasions. The defense was mounted by a combination of Li Hongzhang's newly organized Huai Army, the small Western-officered Ever Victorious Army under American mercenary Frederick Townsend Ward, and British and French forces protecting the foreign settlements. Ward's EVA, equipped with modern artillery and drilled in Western tactics, proved highly effective in combination with the larger Chinese forces. The Taiping advance was eventually halted, and the foreign powers effectively committed themselves to Qing survival.

March 1863 · Jiangsu Province Theater

After Frederick Townsend Ward was killed at the Battle of Cixi in September 1862, the Ever Victorious Army — approximately 4,000 Chinese soldiers trained and equipped in Western style — passed under the command of British Royal Engineers officer Charles Gordon. Gordon proved an extraordinary combat commander, leading from the front in a characteristic style — strolling into battle with only a cane, relying on personal presence to steady his troops. Under his command, the EVA captured a series of walled cities around Shanghai in 1863, using coordinated artillery and infantry assaults that the Taiping defenders, fighting with traditional weapons and tactics, could not match. Gordon captured over thirty towns and cities in just over a year.