The advance of the Taiping Army was halted by the Ever Victorious Army, an Imperial army led by European officers, including American Frederick Townsend Ward and British Army officer Charles “Chinese” Gordon, who would later be killed at the Siege of Khartoun. As the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom marched north, enjoying victory after victory over Qing forces, a capital was set up in Nanjing. Hong’s rebellion started in southern China, with many of its recruits coming from Guangxi and Guangzhou provinces. The civil war, which lasted from 1850 to 1864, was possibly the most lethal conflict ever. Hong founded the Tai Ping Heavenly Kingdom, and led an army to overthrow the Qing. Hong Xiuquan, a Chinese Christian mystic who believed he was a brother to Jesus, led a revolt against the ruling Qing dynasty. Both ROC and CCP forces fought the Japanese, even temporarily suspending fighting one another during the famous Second United Front. The Japanese were usually more than a match for Chinese forces, but China had a seemingly inexhaustible amount of manpower. Within five years the ROC had been swept from China into Taiwan and pockets of Southeast Asia.Īn exacerbating factor in the civil war was the presence of Japanese forces engaged in a brutal campaign to pacify occupied China. At the end of World War II the Soviet Army provided captured Japanese weapons to the CCP’s military forces, dramatically increasing their effectiveness in the field.

Military casualties in the beginning of the civil war were relatively light, as the CCP primarily fought a guerrilla war.

Second age total war