#315 - Qing 46: Tripping Toward Taiping - Tribes, Triads, & Theology

Great Qing begins to buckle under early 19th c. internal pressures. Unrest first erupts not at the imperial core but along its social and geographic margins. This time, we look at three of the early warning shocks: the Miao frontier rebellions, the rise of Triad networks across the southern coastal cities, & the formation of the apocalyptic White Lotus uprising.
Time Period Covered:
~1790s-1840s CE
Major Historical Figures:
Qing Empire:
Fu Nai, Qing magistrate
Heshen, grand councilor under the Qianlong Emperor, (1750-1799)

Miao People:
Shi Sanbao, Miao rebel leader, (d. ~1796)
Shi Liudeng, Miao rebel leader, (d. 1797)
White Lotus Sect:
Lin Shuangwen, Leader of the Tiandihui (Heaven and Earth Society), (1756–1788)
Liu Song, White Lotus sect figure/leader, (banished~1775; active 1770s–1790s)
Liu Zhishi, Disciple of Liu Song; charismatic White Lotus preacher, (active 1790s)
Major Works Cited:
Mann, Susan and Philip A. Kuhn. “Dynastic decline and the roots of rebellion” in The Cambridge History of China, Volume 10: Late Ch’ing, 1800–1911, Part 1.Naquin, Susan. "Millenarian Rebellion in China: The Eight Trigrams Uprising of 1813."
Ownby, David. Brotherhoods and Secret Societies in Early and Mid-Qing China.Rowe, William. China's Last Empire: The Great Qing.

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