Third Battle of Nanking (1864): The Fall of the Taiping Capital

The Third Battle of Nanking was the final assault on Nanjing, capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which Qing forces captured on 19 July 1864 after a siege of more than two years. The Xiang Army of Zeng Guoquan breached the walls with a huge mine, and the fall of the city was followed by mass killing and plunder. It ended the Taiping state, the main force in one of the deadliest civil wars in history.

Background: the Heavenly Capital

The Taiping Rebellion was led by Hong Xiuquan, who believed he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ, sent to rid China of the Manchu Qing dynasty. His followers took Nanjing in March 1853 and renamed it Tianjing, the Heavenly Capital. For eleven years it was the seat of a rival state that at its height controlled much of the lower Yangtze valley.

Nanjing had been besieged before. Qing armies camped outside the city in the 1850s, but Taiping offensives broke their siege lines in 1856 and again in 1860. The decisive opponent proved to be the Xiang Army, a regional force raised in Hunan by the scholar-official Zeng Guofan, whose officers were bound to him by personal loyalty.

The siege, 1862-1864

After capturing the river city of Anqing in September 1861, Zeng Guofan sent his younger brother Zeng Guoquan down the Yangtze. On 30 May 1862 Zeng Guoquan’s troops established a fortified camp at Yuhuatai, just south of Nanjing’s walls. Between October and November 1862 the Taiping general Li Xiucheng, the Loyal King, attacked the camp with a large relief army for about six weeks but failed to dislodge it, while an epidemic swept through the Qing lines.

Over the following eighteen months the Xiang Army tightened its grip. It took the outer forts and stockades one by one and, by early 1864, after capturing a fortress on Purple Mountain (Zijinshan) east of the city, cut Nanjing’s last links with the countryside. Inside, food ran out, and Li Xiucheng’s advice to abandon the city was rejected by Hong Xiuquan, who insisted that God would protect it.

Hong Xiuquan died on 1 June 1864. His teenage son Hong Tianguifu was proclaimed Heavenly King, but real leadership fell to Li Xiucheng.

The fall of the city

Zeng Guoquan’s troops dug tunnels under the walls. On 19 July 1864 they exploded a mine packed with gunpowder near the Taiping Gate in the eastern wall, bringing down a long section of wall. Qing troops poured through the breach and fought their way into the city, where many Taiping defenders fought to the end or set fire to their palaces.

Li Xiucheng escaped through the breach with Hong Tianguifu, giving the young king his own horse. He was captured within days in the hills nearby. In captivity he wrote a long deposition describing the history of the movement, which Zeng Guofan edited before sending it to Beijing. Li was executed on 7 August 1864. Hong Tianguifu fled south but was captured in Jiangxi and executed on 18 November 1864.

The massacre

The capture of Nanjing was followed by days of killing, looting and burning. Zeng Guofan reported that more than 100,000 rebels had died in the city, and claimed that few had escaped. Modern historians regard such figures as uncertain, but contemporary accounts, including those of Zeng’s own adviser Zhao Liewen, describe soldiers killing old people and children, seizing women and carrying off property, while fires burned for days. Hong Xiuquan’s body was exhumed and burned.

The destruction left Nanjing devastated and depopulated; it took decades to recover. The Zeng brothers were rewarded with noble titles, but rumours that Zeng Guoquan’s troops had hidden away the Taiping treasury followed them for years.

Key people

• Zeng Guoquan: younger brother of Zeng Guofan and commander of the siege army, made an earl after the victory.
• Zeng Guofan: founder and overall commander of the Xiang Army, made a marquis for the capture of Nanjing.
• Hong Xiuquan: founder and Heavenly King of the Taiping, who died during the siege.
• Li Xiucheng: the Loyal King, the most able Taiping commander in the final years.
• Hong Tianguifu: Hong Xiuquan’s son, briefly the last Heavenly King.

Myths and facts

Myth: Western forces captured Nanjing. Foreign-officered units such as Charles Gordon’s Ever Victorious Army helped the Qing around Shanghai and Suzhou, but the capture of Nanjing was carried out by Chinese troops of the Xiang Army. Gordon’s force was disbanded in May 1864.

Myth: the fall of Nanjing ended the war at once. Taiping armies fought on in the south and southwest until 1866, and the Nian rebels in the north continued until 1868.

Timeline

• 1853, March: The Taiping capture Nanjing and make it their capital.
• 1861, September: The Xiang Army captures Anqing.
• 1862, 30 May: Zeng Guoquan establishes his siege camp at Yuhuatai.
• 1862, October-November: Li Xiucheng’s relief offensive fails.
• 1864, early: Qing forces take the fort on Purple Mountain and complete the encirclement.
• 1864, 1 June: Hong Xiuquan dies inside the city.
• 1864, 19 July: A mine breaches the wall and Nanjing falls.
• 1864, 7 August: Li Xiucheng is executed.

Why it matters

The fall of Nanjing broke the Taiping Rebellion, a war in which an estimated 20 to 30 million people died. It saved the Qing dynasty, but at the price of a shift in power to Han Chinese provincial leaders such as Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang, whose regional armies and modernising projects shaped the Self-Strengthening Movement and the late Qing state. The rebellion in the north continued in the Nian Rebellion until 1868.