太平天囯
Tàipíng Tiānguó
Heavenly Kingdom of Transcendent Peace
Full Nation Name : Heavenly Kingdom of Transcendent Peace | Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (太平天囯, Tàipíng Tiānguó)
| Celestial Empire (天朝, Tiāncháo)
Majority/Official Culture : Hakka, Wu, Han Chinese
Territorial Core : Mainland China, Manchuria, Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia, North Vietnam, Taiwan
Territorial Claim : Assam, Indochina, Burma, Korean Manchuria (Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning)
Capital City : Heavenly Capital | Tianjing (天京) | Nanjing (南京市) circa modern day
Population : ~430,000,000
Government Type : Heterodox Christian theocratic absolute monarchy
Government Ideology/Policies : Christian Imperialism, Evangelism, Militarism, Expansionism, Totalitarianism | Paternalism, Egalitarianism
Government Focus : "To rid the world of demon worship" circa Jen Yu-wen, The Taiping Revolutionary Movement (1973)
- Convert Asia to Christianity, peacefully if possible, through force if necessary
- Destroy all trace of pagan and demonic symbols and records, particularly Buddhist and Confucian maleficarum outside of China that survived the cleansing flames of the Great Taiping Crusade (太平天國運動)
Head of State : Heavenly King (太平天王)
Head of Government : Empress Dowager & Regent, Hong Xuanzhi
Government Description : Celestial Empire where the faithful worship and obey their Heavenly King and his Divine Heirs, whose reign is administered between provincial governors comprising of four kings and seven princes.
Majority/State Religion : God Worshipping Society (拜上帝教)
Religious Description : As a religious movement, the God-Worshipping Society centered its worship around the views of its founder, Hong Xiuquan, whose unique interpretation of Christianity combined Chinese folk religion and other religious traditions with faith in Shangdi (上帝, Supreme Deity | God). They believe in central tenets and scriptural concepts shared in the established Christian canon such as Divine filiation, which is the redemption of all Christians (and only Christians in their view), Trinitarianism, and Canonization of Saints, but differ widely when it comes to the belief that their founder Hong Xiuquan was "the son of God the Father and the younger brother of Jesus Christ who had been directed to rid the world of demon worship."
Economic Ideologies : State capitalism mixed with aristocratic corporatism and largely protectionist policies with relaxed restrictions for preferred trading partners.
Major Production : Luxury goods such as silk, tea, salt, sugar, porcelain, and spices (traditional) | Manufacturing goods such as steel, motors, railways, textiles, synthetic dyes, photographic films, and agricultural chemicals | Mass assembly of rifles, ammunition, artillery, bayonets, rockets, and newly christened ships (recent)
Economic Description : A war time economy during a time of relative peace, where profitable civilian industries fall behind a booming military industrial complex comprised of established arms, munitions, and shipbuilding corporations such as Hanyang Arsenal, Taiyun Arsenal, Foochow Arsenal, Great Hsi-Ku Arsenal, and Jiangnan Shipyard (JSY) that benefit from government efforts to produce, mobilize, and allocate resources to sustain the violence against its many enemies within and without the country.
Currency : Holy Treasure (聖寶, Shèngbao)
Development: Modern/Semi-industrialized
Development Description : Heaven and earth when compared to the ailing Qing standards of the past. As one of the largest economies in the Orient, if not the foremost in terms of population, resources, and industrial capacity, the major urban centers of the Heavenly Kingdom are highly industrialized and developed on par with its Western counterparts, though developed is somewhat staggered across rural environs, a gap religious authorities are keen to bridge in the near future.
Army Description : As an institution of revolutionary origins, the Sacred Blue Army of Christ and the Holy Trinity (上帝軍, Shàngdìjūn) or Blue Army is home to many peculiar elements as the vanguard and modernized land force of Chinese Christendom, departing greatly from the martial tradition of the Orient with its distinctly Westernized professionalism and command structure, while also deviating from those selfsame traditions through its radical gender politics of fully integrated units of men and women at arms, reflecting the precedents set by warrior women such as Su Sanniang, Qiu Ersao, and most notably, Hong Xuanjiao, the sister of Hong Xiuqan himself, as both soldiers and commanders during the revolution. Though quite removed from its Qing predecessor, the Blue Army takes inspiration from the Eight Banners ( 八旗, Bāqí) through its own system of Twelve Banners (十二旗, Shíèrqí), which organizes the ranks into several field armies, each assigned a color corresponding to one of the original Apostles of Christ (基督, Jīdū), adding up to twelve in total and further divided into three army groups. Effectively however, only eleven are active at any given time due to the twelfth existing in name only, its empty ranks a reflection of the black deeds of the betrayer. With three million regulars in active service across myriad regiments of foot, horse, and artillery, the Blue Army is the largest, if not the largest standing army and peace-keeping force in the world.
Army Weakness : Quantity over quality. Unsophisticated military doctrine of mass human waves and total war on civilian populations. While the equipment is made of steel, the men are made of wood by comparison. Faith and zealotry make up the shortcomings in discipline and restraint.
Naval Description : Comprised of the remainder of the Qing's four regional Beiyang, Fujian, Guangdong, Nanyang fleets, the Heavenly Fleet (太平舰队, Tian Jiànduì) is the product of reorganization efforts to consolidate the former Qing navy into a proper, modernized blue water navy. While few of these original ships remain, newer models comprising of hulking vessels of iron and steel ranging from destroyers, cruisers, and battleships produced from the Jiangnan Shipyards (JSY) have since bolstered its ranks to replace previously decommissioned vessels and meet the bare minimum required to defend its shores by achieving numerical parity with their Qing predecessor. In terms of greater force projection at sea beyond their immediate waters however, the bulk of active vessels are comprised primarily of underwater (湮,Yān) Y-boats and submarines, with the remaining offensive surface craft serving the role of commerce raiders, reflecting a shift in doctrine away from earlier ambitions of achieving surface naval parity with the established Korean navy - which was deemed impossible after a considerably poor performance by the Heavenly Fleet during the Sino-Korean Bush War - to instead bridging the gap with Wolfpacks of assembled submarines that would ambush convoys and harass enemy shipping lanes over direct naval combat.
Naval Weakness : Few capital surface warships. Lack of high seas force projection. Mindset of quantity is its own quality much like with the army.
Further Military Description : [[OPTIONAL]]
National Goals : Wipe out remaining dissent. Reclaim lands lost by the Qing. Acquire new trade partners.
National Issues : Antagonistic relationship with (most) of the Orient.
National Figures of Interest : Hong Xiuquan | Zonsius Christ | Siuzon Christ (Romanization)
National Ambition/Aspirations : Christian hegemony in Asia under Tianjing.
History :
- 1836
- Orthodox missionary Edwin Stephanos preaches to a young Hong Xiuquan about Christianity.
- 1843
- Hong Xiuquan converts to Christianity after failing the civil service exam for the fourth time and in the process, declares himself the second son of God the Father and the younger brother of Jesus Christ based a series of visions.
- Two giant swords known as the demon-slaying swords (斬妖劍) are forged to aid Hong Xiuquan in his quest to rid China of idols.
- 1847
- Hong Xiuquan is baptized in Guangzhou by French Reformed missionary Isaac Jaceaux Roberts, whopreaches of fire and brimstone, judgement and eternal damnation - vivid descriptions leave a lasting impression on Hong, further radicalizing him in the process. Roberts is unaware of Hong's unique interpretation of the faith.
- The Society of God Worshippers is founded by Hong's cousin, Feng Yunshan, comprised of a growing number of converts to Hong's brand of Christianity. Hong assumes leadership shortly after.
- Hong begins his translation and adaption of Gospel into what would become the Taiping Bible.
- 1850
- The God Worshippers have grown to a size of 30,000 converts. Alarmed Qing officials send imperial troops to disperse the growing sect, but are instead routed in a battle, where a Qing deputy magistrate is slain.
- A full scale attack is launched by the Qing Green Standard Army (綠營兵, Lǜyíngbīng) against the sect's headquarters in Jintian, but once again are repelled. The victorious zealots behead the Manchu commander, sparking the Jintian Uprising, evolving into what later became known as the Great Taiping Crusade.
- 1851
- Hong Xiuquan declares the founding of the Heavenly Kingdom of Transcendent Peace or Taiping.
- The rebels capture Yongan. Hong's army swells with new converts and receives support from large portions of the Han Chinese population, who are resentful against Manchu rule.
- A navy for the fledgling Taiping state is formed, comprised of captured Qing vessels that operate along the Yangtze and its tributaries.
- 1853
- Tianjing falls to the increasingly powerful zealots. Hong declares the city the capital of his revolution, a movement which now controls a population base of 30 million people, heralding the beginning of the Great Taiping Crusade.
- Authorized Taiping Version of the Bible | Taiping Bible is printed and spread far and wide across China, exposing the greater public not only to the religious aims of the crusade involving the conversion of the Chinese people to Hong's syncretic version of Christianity, but also the radical nationalist and political components of the movement, which called for the overthrow of the Manchu ruling class in addition to a wholesale transformation and reformation of the state, where instead of merely replacing the ruling dynasty with another, the Taiping promised to usher in a new era that would permanently upend the moral and social order of the continent.
- An ambitious program of reforms framed as mandatory religious law are implemented by Hong Xiuquan which reinvented the civil bureaucracy, adopted the Gregorian calendar, banned opium, and enforced gender equality.
- 1860
- With the aid of Yang Xiuqing, a veteran Taiping commander known as the "East King," the Taiping zealots sack Shanghai after a bloody siege.
- The Norther Expedition (太平天國北伐) is undertaken in the same year to capture the Qing capital of Beijing and end the war.
- 1864
- Hong Xiuquan dies of heart complications. He is succeeded by his son, Hong Tianguifu (洪天贵福, Hóng Tiānguìfú) as the next King of Heaven (天王).
- Beijing falls to the Taiping. Qing loyalists scatter across China vowing revenge.
- 1866
- Two years after the fall of Beijing, the Heavenly Kingdom controls much of the former Qing Dynasty. In the immediate reorganization of government, the Manchu ruling class is replaced by a new aristocracy of former revolutionary leaders, largely comprised of both commoners and foreign missionaries, with many intermarrying and establishing new great houses such as the Yang, Feng, and Wei, many of whom also claim descent from celestial parents among the Trinity much like Hong Xiuquan before them.
- The following decade is spent reasserting central control and mopping up the remaining Qing holdouts across the country.
- 1867
- Twenty million are dead left in the wake of the Crusade, many of which are the new government's fallen enemies. With armed revolutionaries roaming the country, and the newly christened Heavenly Church ascendant, few remain to oppose the will of the Celestial Palace (天宫, Tiāngōng) in the year following the revolution's end. In what became known as the Heavenly Restoration (太平恢复), in reference to Hong Xiuquan's teachings about an ancient Chinese past that was both notably prosperous and more importantly - Christian - that predate the lies of Confucius and Buddha, they move quickly in reversing much of Qing policy and implementing sweeping reforms in line with Hong's teachings, leading to a tumultuous period of radical social change involving forced equality between the genders, the banning of polygamy (save for those with divine lineage) alongside the rapid revival of industries the Qing had suppressed. Much of the established corporate sector are also brought back into the fold, particularly various arms manufacturers that would later comprise a ballooning military industrial complex. Mandatory indoctrination, propaganda and reeducation programs are also launched that also proved quite effective with the youth, much more so than the old, comprising the Heavenly Kingdom's most zealous base of support.
- Countless precious texts are burned and rampant vandalism of Buddhist and Confucian icons is encouraged. Mobs of angry zealots in particular flush the cities clear of demonic influence and maleficarum with such hate and ferocity that centuries of ancient Chinese cultural icons and scripture considered "demonic" in origin is destroyed in less than a decade.
- Sporadic fighting with Qing remnants and malcontents continues intermittently for the next twenty years.
- 1869
- A delegation is sent to Fulin (拂菻, Fúlin) after Orthodox missionaries convince Hong Tianguifu to establish relations with Constantinople, citing the similarities in governing models found in Caesaropapism, which Taiping could study and possibly emulate, along with theological and economic motives in securing pilgrimage rights to the Holy Land, and by extension, restoring the flow of trade through the Silk Road once more. Subsequent talks with a receptive Emperor Ioannes prove mutually beneficial, resulting in the normalization of relations and an open invitation to Tianjing to send additional delegations to the Queen of Cities.
- 1871
- The White Lotus break with official Taiping policy and make a public stand against the persecution of religious minorities. They are subsequently excommunicated from the Taiping faith and declared anathema, granting official sanction for the faithful masses to hunt down and destroy members the dissident sect, leading a series of mass killings and pogroms by both the army and armed mobs alike, driving the survivors into hiding.
Hong Tianguifu decreeds all mentions of the White Lotus stricken from the record in retaliation for their betrayal, resulting in widespread historical revisionism that names only the Taiping, Nian, and Red Turbans as the founding members of the revolution.- A second delegation, comprised primarily of young clergymen and scholars, arrives at Constantinople to research and collaborate with the Orthodox Church. They bring back several teachings and rituals of the Eastern Rite when they return, diffusing Orthodox dogma into Heavenly Church doctrine in the process.
- 1874
- Plan Supreme | Plan Z (最高, Zuìgāo) is put into effect, calling for surface naval parity with the neighboring Imperial Korean Navy by 1884.
- A third delegation is sent to Constantinople to foster better relations, during which an agreement is struck to provide referential treatment to Orthodox missionaries in China, allowing them to outnumber their counterparts from other Christian denominations by a margin of three to one, a ratio that will only increase in their favor in the coming years. An embassy is granted to the Taiping in Constantinople, a move that is reciprocated by Tianjing.
- 1877
- Council of Guangzhou is held by the Ecclesiarchy for purposes of clarifying Heavenly Church doctrine. Various foreign missionaries are present, but most prominent are the Orthodox. A mix of elements are borrowed from Latin and Protestant dogma, but the bulk of doctrinal differences are hashed out between the Heavenly and Orthodox Churches wherever possible, with exceptions made for central tenets to Taiping such as the divinity of the Heavenly King and the Great Houses beneath him, gradually aligning the faith of Hong Xiuquan with the Eastern Rite.
- After considerable debate and jostling from Latin and Orthodox representatives, Greek is chosen as the lingua franca of the Heavenly Church by a narrow margin.
- 1879
- Manchuria is pacified when the last rebel cell in the region is wiped out by the Metal (金, Jīn) Banner of the Holy Nian Alliance, who trace the arms used by their fallen enemies back to a Manchu merchant living across the new demarcation line with Korean-Manchuria. While they stop their advance just short of the new border, a serious consideration is made to launch a punitive expedition to capture the merchant before cooler heads prevailed, citing the belief that a war with Korea was premature while the new navy was not fully ready. Despite the general halt order however, frequent violations of the border quickly become the norm in the following year.
- 1882
- Shots are fired in isolated incidents across the Manchurian border, but no blood is yet spilled. Tensions mount when Tianjing dismisses accusations of 153 border violations reportedly committed by the Holy Nian Alliance in the past three years, pointedly ignoring the existence of the Kingdom of Balhae by citing the old demarcation boundary between Korea and the Qing as the border of Taiping Manchuria, and even going so far as to accuse Hanyang of aiding what they consider to be Manchu rebels and bandits. Only through the intervention of a visiting Roman diplomat is war averted, though border incidents continue with increasing frequency not long afterwards.
- 1884
- A fourth Taiping delegation is sent to Constantinople, this time including a prominent contingent of female priests, much to the chagrin of their Orthodox counterparts. Unfortunately for their Roman hosts, they run into departing Korean diplomats in the halls of the Great Palace, leading to an exchange of words that devolves into a minor brawl when the niece of Hierarch Feng Yunshan gets into a scuffle with a Korean gentleman twice her age, who gets a few good hits in with his cane as she tries to strangle him with her priestly stola. By the time the two groups are separated, the much larger Taiping delegation storm out in a huff and head back home to minimize fallout from what amounted to a small international incident. Tianjing does not sent another diplomatic mission for some time afterwards.
- Despite the awkward episode back West, open talks are held in Tianjing to integrate, if not more closely bind the Heavenly Church with the Eastern Rite.
- 1885
- Border tensions erupt into open conflict as several dozen cavalrymen from the Holy Nian Alliance cross the demarcation line and raid a Buddhist temple near Sanjiangkouzhen, drawing first blood when they ambush a local patrol sent to investigate. More raids follow throughout the month, forcing the Kingdom of Balhae to respond with a punitive expedition that is checked by the Metal (Jīn) Banner, which aggressively crossed the border in force right afterwards, sparking what is later known as the Sino-Korean War or Manchurian Bush War.
- No declaration of war is issued by Tianjing.
- 1886
- After gaining ground in early victories and forcing the local Manchu forces on the defensive, the arrival of Korean troops blunt the progress and momentum of the Jīn Banner, leading to a three year period defined by fluid and swift exchanges of territory that test the far more numerous and heavily armed professional regulars of Taiping with the fearsome killing power of Korean rocketry.
- A squadron of eight battleships of the newly retrofitted and modernized Heavenly Fleet engages a much smaller Korean fleet in the Gulf of Bohai, where it is dealt a bloody nose by its Korean counterpart in the only naval engagement of the war. Over a decade of naval emphasis is undone when half of the Taiping capital ships are sunk by five Korean Turtle Ships without a single loss for the latter, with remainder sailing back to Tanggu the worse for wear.
- A private ceremony is held in the Celestial Palace to mourn the passing of Emperor Ioannes.
- 1889
- A series of skirmishes during late fall culminate into the decisive Battle of Ssupingkai (四平街; Sìpíngjiē), where the legions of Hong Xiuquan are led into a clever trap by the Koreans, who lure the advancing Taiping into the ideal killing zone for their rockets using their Manchu allies as bait. While most of the local troops are either slain or driven from the field by the Jīn Banner, the latter suffer three times the losses and are ultimately expelled back to the Chinese side of the border.
- Tianjing and Hanyang agree to a ceasefire of the undeclared war the following month, when the first winter snows fall.
- 1890
- Plan Z is scrapped entirely in favor of focusing production on submarines and Y-boats instead of surface capital ships.
- 1891
- Sino-Korean Neutrality Pact (中韓中立條約, Zhōnghán Zhōnglì Tiáoyuē) is signed between Taiping and Korea, officially ending the Manchurian Bush War. Borders return to status quo ante bellum.
- 1895
- A Treaty of Non-Aggression between the Heavenly Kingdom and the Japanese Empire, known more simply as the Yuan-Shimizu Pact is signed behind closed doors. Named after the signatories Yuan Dakai and Shimizu Ieyasu respectively, the agreement included mutual guarantees of peace and a declared commitment that neither party would ally with an enemy of either. Unknown to most but those in the highest levels of government however, the clandestine Pact included a secret provision of a military alliance in event of war against their shared Korean rival, with an additional protocol defining the agreed upon borders of Taiping and Japanese spheres of influence across the Orient, with Tianjing carving out all Korean territories in the mainland such as Manchuria, Indochina, and Korea proper for itself, while in turn acknowledging Japan's claims to all Korean colonial possessions in the Pacific.
- A trade agreement known as the East Orient Co-Prosperity Sphere (東方共榮圈) or EOCPS is signed concurrently with the Pact between Taiping and Japan, relaxing trade restrictions between the two powers. In reality however, the treaty is used as a front for Tianjing to prop up their new ally by funneling unprecedented amounts of much needed fuel, raw material, and supplies to Japanese arsenals and shipyards across the Pacific.
- 1903
- A Heavenly Procession (天堂游行, Tiāntáng Yóuxíng) is sent to Constantinople with a number of imperial princes and princesses in tow as wards to Emperor Andronikos for a period of four years, marking the largest diplomatic mission sent to the City of the World's Desire to date. Accompanying them are a sizable contingent of leading clergy invited by the Ecumenical Patriarch to discuss preliminary plans to unify the Orthodox and Heavenly Churches under the Eastern Rite.
- 1904
- Korean merchant ship KMS Angenent is sunk in the Gulf of Aden by a torpedo attack from the Taiping Y-boat Y-20. Tianjing denies all involvement, citing the location of the attack and the still binding Sino-Korean Neutrality Pact.
- 1905
- Hong Tianguifu passes away due to unknown causes, leaving his youngest son Hong Huoxiu (洪火秀) to ascend the throne, though true powers lies in the hands of Empress Dowager Hong Xuanzhi (洪宣教), who is named regent until her son comes of age.
- Despite fervent protests from the Orthodox Church, the Heavenly Procession is banished from Constantinople by Emperor Andronikos in a fit of rage after the latter discovers the peculiar and heretical tenets of Taiping's brand of Christianity, destroying decades of good will and all hope of the Heavenly Church joining the Eastern Rite overnight. In retaliation, the Roman embassy in Tianjing is shuttered and its staff is sent home as all contact is immediately cut off.
- 1906
- On the eve of the 55th anniversary of the Great Taiping Crusade (太平天國運動), rumors swirl of a potential holy war on the horizon as the army swells to a size larger than all that came before with numbers surpassed only by a buildup of arms and equipment that has alarmed international observers. Whether such movements indicate another episode of saber rattling from the Celestial Palace against its neighbors or the heralding of something much more ominous, it remains to be seen.
RP Sample: susan christ the god emperor
#AltDiv (do not delete this, it's for keeping track of the apps)
