all private property should be abolished and replaced by the public treasury. They also strictly prohibited people from smoking opium, drinking alcohol and visiting prostitutes. While many social vices were eliminated as a result, urban life grew increasingly less vibrant. The Taiping administration in the rural areas did not recognize private ownership of land, yet they were not able to exert the strict control that they did in urban centers. The previous top-down taxation system was replaced with a bottom-up tribute. When going westward, the Taiping Army specifically told local residents that they would not cause any harm to their lives nor would they tax them. The peasants enthusiastically welcomed this news and some landlords and scholar-officials said that very many rural residents paid tribute to the Taiping Army.
Gradually a systematic program of social reform was created. In December, 1853 The Land Law of the Heavenly Dynasty (天朝田亩制度, hereinafter referred to as the Law) came into effect,9 the law that laid the blueprint for a completely new world, one giving full expression to the Chinese peasants, denying feudal rule and creating their dream of an ideal society.
Compared to other proposals and plans formulated by other peasant revolts in the past two thousand years, the Law was the most scientific and the most complete. According to the Law, the whole of society should be reorganized in accordance with the military system. The xiangguan (sub-county official) played the leading role in governance at the grass-roots level. The xiangguan would take care of civil affairs as well as local residents’ economico-cultural life. In most cases the xiangguan was from a poor family and was always considered totally trustworthy. The xiangguan system was very similar to that of a military organization. Taiping society was comprised of twenty-five families, all of whom shared one public treasury and one church. The head of this group was the xiangguan and additionally held the title of liangsima (literally, the dual administrator of horses). Under the instruction of the liangsima, the families of this group took part in various economic, political, cultural and educational activities. At least one member of each family joined the armed forces or the police. The men and women enlisted took up farming during peacetime and joined battle in times of war. There were more superior posts in addition to the xiangguan. The Law also included some rules regarding the judicial system.
The core of the Law lay in the regulation of land. One of the basic principles regarding land was that land must be equally shared by the people on a per capita basis, in contradiction to the feudal system of land ownership and the traditional Chinese desire to own land.
Apart from the free and equal allotment of land, the Law tried to create an egalitarian society by abolishing private property. The goal of the Law was to ensure that the poverty, exploitation and the feudal system that dominated Chinese peasants would be eliminated and that the small-peasant economy was well maintained. Not only did the Law epitomize a rural egalitarian utopia, it also showed that the Chinese peasants, who had suffered the shackles of feudalism generation after generation, wanted to try and free themselves and did so as soon as they realized their own worth and value. However, due to the long war, it was difficult to fully put the Law into effect. The Law did, however, play a great role in satisfying the peasants’ spiritual cravings and arousing the peasants’ revolutionary enthusiasm.
As time went by, the negative effects of the Heavenly Dynasty’s socio-economic policies became increasingly obvious. Many urban residents, particularly those who lived in Nanjing, were unhappy with the abolition of private property and those who remained loyal to Qing used this to their advantage. In the spring of 1854, those unhappy with the new regime attempted to secretly coordinate with the Qing army of the Southern Barracks, to the great astonishment of the leadership of the Taiping Army. Despite this, the Taiping-style public treasury did not cease operation until it could no longer survive. As regards the public treasury itself, it worked in the early stages of the rebellion, when the Taiping Army obtained a huge amount of money and grain in Nanjing. But, in the long term, the public treasury was unable to meet the needs of more than one million residents and soldiers. Take the free distribution of food, for example. When capturing Nanjing in March, 1853, all residents regardless of age and sex receive free and equal allotments of rice. Four months later, the distribution had to be based on a more accurate calculation. At the beginning of 1854, Nanjing’s grain reserves could only meet the public need for another four months and, by summer, only rice porridge was available for residents. Finally, in the fall, Nanjing, or the Heavenly Capital, ran out of grain. As a consequence, many had to go out of the city to look for food and some fled altogether.
The Taiping Army’s food supply mostly depended on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. The primary goal of the western expedition was precisely the collection of grain. The program of abolishing the traditional tax caused great inconvenience to both the Heavenly Dynasty and the peasants. By 1854, the number of residents loyal to the Taiping Army decreased significantly. In some cases, the army was forced to coercively collect grain. This exacerbated the tensions between the Taiping authorities and the local residents. Even the Taiping Army’s sympathizers objected to the army’s behavior to the people. To maintain basic governance, every government in a class society must try to limit social conflicts by establishing a certain order. In the case of the Heavenly Dynasty, the abolition of tax was not sustainable. The Taiping authorities finally decided to restore the traditional taxation system in the early summer of 1854. This dramatic policy change implied that the Taiping leadership recognized the legitimacy of private ownership as a means of production (land, for example). As a result, the Heavenly Dynasty’s economy improved and the people’s trust in the Taiping authorities was restored. In addition to the tax reform, Yang, who, again, was second only to Hong, declared that traditional marriage and family structures would be restored. Life returned to normal. It was at this time that the Taiping Army wiped out Qing’s Southern and Northern Barracks, posing a serious threat to Nanjing.
The Aggressive Anglo-French Expedition Against China
After China was left bruised and battered by the Taiping Rebellion, Britain and France began the Second Opium War (1856–1860). Although the imperialist powers had already gained many privileges after signing the Nanjing Treaty, their appetite for wealth and power still seemed unquenchable. Britain wanted to legalize the opium trade through war, in the hope that their economic interests in China could be protected, and they would stop at nothing.
As early as the 1850s, the British government headed by Lord Palmerston (1784–1865) was planning a war against China. On September 29, 1850, Palmerston wrote that his government would soon launch new strikes and would occupy strategic positions in the lower parts of the Yangtze River, sealing off the Grand Canal. He said, “They [the Chinese] care little for words and they must not only see the Stick but actually feel it on their Shoulders before they yield to that only argument which to them brings conviction the argumentum Baculinum.”10 The following September, Palmerston inquired about the best time to cut off Beijing’s grain supply by disrupting transportation on the Grand Canal and the Yangtze River.
The foreign powers made unreasonable demands to revise existing treaties, which led to war. Britain, the United States and others wanted to grab more privileges by amending the relevant treaties. As early as May, 1853, the British ambassador to China suggested that both sides revise the Nanjing Treaty. Britain demanded that all Chinese cities and ports must be opened to the British. At this time, the Taiping Army was advancing toward Tianjin, a city very close to the imperial capital. In these pressing circumstances, the revision of the treaties was laid aside. In July, the United States said that if Qing would revise the treaties, the foreign powers would in exchange cooperate to suppress the rebellion. The Qing government was suspicious about America’s motives and rejected their proposal. It should be pointed out that Britain’s demand for revising the Nanjing Treaty was totally unfounded, because this treaty was not commercial but political; the most-favored-nation clause could not be included in a revision of the signed
