Kung Fu in Taiping rebellion

Due to the heavy influence of Hong Kong action movies and Wuxia novels on one side and lack of knowledge of Chinese history on the other there is a specific view of Chinese warfare and the significance of Kung Fu in ancient China. Chinese are seen as a fanatically brave people who would storm the enemy through the rain of bullets and artillery fire armed with nothing than a spear or sword. Even movies about modern wars like WWII or Korean war use same stereotype simply because it looks attractive for the audience, there is nothing more heroic than facing the enemy who is so much more powerful that it is impossible to win over him, and there is no greater difference in power then between machine gun and a spear.

It is widely believed that Chinese army used only cold weapons until modern times, which is complete nonsense. Kung Fu practitioners stubbornly holding on to this image believe and preach about the crucial importance of martial arts in warfare in China.  In reality Chinese army use firearms since early 1300’s and during the Ming dynasty period fire arms technology in China was somewhat better than on the west. Ming arms engineers were able to make larger cannons and higher quality matchlock rifles than anyone in Europe at the time. Ratio of firearms and cold weapons in China and Europe up to the fall of Ming dynasty was pretty much the same.

Ching dynasty inherited Ming firearms technology and having no real challenges didn’t invest in further development of firearms being satisfied with what they already had. On the other hand, technology development was not very fast in other parts of the world and up to

18 centry Chinese matchlock rifle

cavalry matchlock rifles

Chinese navy flintlock rifle 1800

 the beginning of the 19^th century Ching army was not far behind the western counterparts.

For decades, Kung Fu culture was based on a story about Shaolin Monastery and the rebellion against Manchus where martial arts were actually the central theme of the story. Today, that story was proven false and kung fu lost its historical significance. To restore the previous believe and “place” of Kung Fu in Chinese history, people turned to the real historical events and as a focal point of Kung Fu history and development they chose Taiping rebellion. It is believed and preached that Taiping rebels used their unmatched Kung Fu skills to fight against Manchu oppressors.

Qing soldier from the early stage of Taiping rebellion armed with matchlock rifle

In realty Kung Fu had no influence nor part in Taiping rebellion what so ever. "Taiping Rebellion" as it is called wasn't merely another uprising against  Manchus, but probably the bloodiest war that had afflicted humanity in its history before the 20th Century. It's estimated that the Taiping Rebellion cost the lives between 15 and 30 million people and left more than half of the country's one thousand prospering cities in charred ruins.

Taiping  weapons from the beginning of the rebellion

Taiping weapons 

Originally Taiping uprising started as a religious movement influenced by Protestant missionaries. Over time however the Taiping become more and more of a social revolutionary movement. Only after initial successes against the government troops, the uprising turned against the foreign Manchus and became a serious threat to the ruling Qing dynasty, but originally didn’t started as such. As always happens when religion, nationalism and social protest are mixed, this victory gave the movement a tremendous momentum, but also had devastating impact on the conduct of warfare. The war was waged on both sides with unimaginable cruelty and lack of mercy, with the imperial troops taking a leading role in slaughtering civilians. When the Taiping conquered a city, they normally killed all inhabitants they believed to be Manchu supporters without pity. If imperial troops retook the city they massacred the rest of the population, since they had fraternized with the enemy.

Green Army weapons and equipment 

 Initial military success of the rebels happened due to several reasons. The corrupt and incompetent imperial generals were no match for the fanaticism of the Taiping. Corruption, incompetence, poor military organization, low moral of the tropes, local political and financial interests led to the defeat of the imperial army and almost unarmed rebels  finally conquered 17 provinces, in 1853 they even managed to take Nanjing. Second, or maybe the first and the most important reason why Taiping rebellion lasted for such a long time is the fact that rebellion overlapped with Second Opium War (1856-1860)  which was China’s second anti-foreign trade war. Third reason was The Nian Rebellion or Nianfei, an armed uprising that took place in northern China from 1851 to 1868, contemporaneously with Taiping Rebellion. The rebellion failed to topple the Qing dynasty, but caused the immense economic devastation and loss of life that became one of the major long-term factors in the collapse of the Qing regime in the early 20th century.

Qing infantry man

Improvised hand grenades used by both sides in conflict

Qing soldiers with a large rifles known in Europe as "Bird Guns"

In terms of organization and commanding structure Taiping armies mirrored Qing Green army form the smallest units up to the entire force.

In terms of the weapons and equipment at the beginning the difference between two sides was significant. While rebels had tremendous amount of people, due to obligatory service of all the people from the territory under rebels control they were very poorly equipped. Almost half of the rebel army was made of conscripted peasants armed with nothing else than bamboo spears. These tropes proved worthless in battle, they had no training and the only thing they did was making more chaos on the battlefield. More elite Taiping tropes were armed pretty much the same as the imperial tropes, they had more firearms but the ratio of cold weapons was still significant.

Qing dynasty cannons used by both sides

Qing Tropes at the beginning of the conflict, depending of the army, had different equipment. Green Camp was the Han army of the Qing, at the start of the war it was considered the main stay of the army, it was of a reasonably high mix of fire arms and earlier cannons and also a good deal of cold weapons.

The 8 banners were different from the Green Camp, they were Manchurian and Mongolian. They were almost completely cavalierly units and they used bows and arrows as main weapons combined with old matchlock rifles.

Banner man

After the initial period of the conflict weapons and equipment situation on both sides is rapidly changing. After rebels took Nanjing they were buying a lot of weapons from the Westerners. Of course westerners were selling the weapons to both sides.

At the beginning of the conflict European forces didn’t take sides staying satisfied with just selling weapons to both sides with enormous profit. Also both sides used foreign mercenaries.

Faced with international and domestic foes, the Manchus adopted a policy of playing the western nations against the Taipings by making major trade concessions—including legalizing opium in 1858. This was in marked contrast to the Han Chinese leaders of the Taipings, who, for religious reasons, adamantly opposed the importation and sale of opium. In return for trade concessions foreign powers sided with the Manchus .However, the Europeans were unwilling to finance a costly war against the Taiping and did not engage the rebels directly keeping their troops purely for defending their concessions in Shanghai. Of course they sold the imperial army weapons and gunboats for good profit, and sometimes supported them here and there with naval gunfire. While officially sided with Manchus many European merchants saw an excellent opportunity for profit and smuggled large amount of weapons to Taiping armies.

Enfield 1853 rifle , used by bith side in conflict

Needls gun used in a conflict.

Although imperial army got modern weapons they were unable to fight off the rebellion because they stuck to the outdated social structure and were simply unable to organize their tropes to fight with any significant success.  Taiping pushed victoriously further towards Shanghai and city filled up with hundreds of thousands of refugees, and supply became increasingly difficult, while hunger and crime grew alarmingly. Every day countless dead bodies were carried with the ebb through the channels of the delta towards the sea. These were unmistakable signs of the approaching fighting. When the rich Chinese merchants and bankers saw their lands being ravaged in the countryside and watched as trade collapsed in the isolated towns, they decided to do something about it and looked around for foreign professionals.

Colt 44 , popular on both sides of the conflict

Colt navy popular on both sides of the conflict

The Ever Victorious Army consisted of Chinese soldiers trained and led by an American and European officer corps. Though the Army was only active for a few years, from 1860 to 1864, it was instrumental in putting down the Taiping Rebellion. It was the first Chinese army which was trained in European techniques, tactics, and strategy. As such, it became a model for later Chinese armies.

Ever Victorious Army

Ever Victorious Army

Ever Victorious Army

Ever Victorious Army

The Ever Victorious Army had its beginnings as a force formed under the command of Frederick Townsend Ward in 1860, assisted by the local strategic support of the French diplomat Albert-Édouard Levieux de Caligny called "le breton" by the Chinese in the Shanghai French Concession. In 1860, when the force numbered only several hundred, the Foreign Rifles were armed with revolvers and breech-loading rifles. The revolvers mostly were American Colts, with perhaps a few other makes familiar on the American frontier. The Colt percussion revolvers .44 Dragoon, and .38 Navy, were quite common.The rifles were Sharps .577 percussion carbines. As the Foreign Rifles grew into the larger Ever Victorious Army between late 1861 and the end of 1862, there were not enough breech-loading rifles available to arm a force of 2000 to 4000, and rifled percussion muzzle-loaders became the norm. The 1851 and 1853 British Tower musket was a .702 rifled percussion model that was increasingly available after the Crimean War when, during the late 1850s, the 1853 Enfield .577 percussion rifle gradually replaced the Tower as standard issue to British troops.

Following Ward's death in September 1862 after the Battle of Cixi, command of the Ever Victorious Army passed, to Charles George Gordon, known as "Chinese" Gordon. Under Gordon the Ever Victorious Army, in collaboration with the Chinese Imperial forces, would fight some of the final and decisive battles that ended the Taiping Rebellion.

When in 1862 Admiral Sir James Hope began to provide the Ever Victorious Army with materiel support from the British surplus store of Tower and Enfield rifles in India, the army  had access to a sufficient number of weapons to arm the force through its days under Gordon to its final muster in May of 1864. Andrew Wilson, in his history of the Ever Victorious Army under Gordon, says “a thousand of the men [Ward’s men in early 1862] were armed with Prussian rifles of the old pattern.” These may have been the 1848 Dreyse .61 percussion rifle, also called a Needle Gun. 

Contrary to the prevailing expectations, the training of the Chinese progressed quickly. They developed rapidly into good marksmen and were also trained as artillerymen. Soon the best were promoted to sergeants. The Chinese were not only more disciplined than the permanently rebellious sailors, they were above all much cheaper and less demanding regarding sustenance. The pay ranged from $8 a month for a common soldier up to $20 for a sergeant. That was not much compared to the $150 which the lowest white officer received, but still several times what a Chinese could expect to earn normally. Already by the end of 1861 Ward had a small army of about 3,000 men at his disposal, and except for 100 Europeans and 200 Manilamen all were Chinese. Additionally there were some artillery batteries and a small fleet of steam-powered gunboats.

 

Qing Tropes  training Europan military tactics

The Taiping got their arms from a mixture of sources. Henry Burgevine defected to the Taiping in 1863, taking over 100 officers and an Ever Victorious Army steamship with him. Meanwhile, smugglers supplied various supplies to the Taiping, with Edward Forester attempting to capture a French arms smuggler in 1862 but ending up captured and tortured by the Taiping, whilst Lindley joined the Taiping having started out smuggling coins to the Taiping at Nanjing. Taiping use of modern arms was generally inconsistent in terms of proportion: according to Heath a quarter of the Suzhou garrison in 1863 had Western firearms, as did a third of the force attacking Songjiang and Qingbu in 1862, but only 10% of those initially approaching Shanghai in 1861 had modern weapons. These included long arms, usually rifles, and pistols – large-calibre double-barrelled pistols were apparently particularly popular amongst cavalry, but revolvers were also generally popular. Of course this doesn’t mean that the rest of the Taipings were armed with cold weapons, most still used outdated matchlock rifles and cannons. No matter how outdated these weapons were, still they were fire arms. Large number of people still used cold weapons for close combat but nor even close to what people usually think.

It is clear that in this conditions there was no place for Kung Fu of any kind. Simply, Kung Fu skills were useless for warfare at this time as well as any other time in history of China.Did some Taipings practiced Kung Fu? They certainly did, maybe even more than few. Did this fact influenced what was going on at any rate? As much as a spoon of sugar can change the taste of the ocean.