Talk:Taiping Rebellion

Strength

I decided to take a look at the source (Heath, Ian (1994). The Taiping Rebellion, 1851–1866. Osprey Military Men-at-Arms Series. Osprey. ISBN 1-85532-346-X.) used to claim the strength of the Taiping and Qing armies in the infobox and the numbers were different from the article, so I dug the edit history and I found the edit that introduced these numbers to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Taiping_Rebellion&diff=prev&oldid=908779908. I reverted to the numbers claimed before this edit but I'm also not sure if they should be there. The source for the number of 500,000 combatants for the Taiping Army is this excerpt:

• "the Taiping army had grown from some 10,000 to perhaps half a million by the time it arrived at Lake Tung-t'ing on the Yangtze." (page 4)

The number of 1,100,000 combatants for the Qing Army is a sum of all the numbers of combatants in the armies listed in "The Imperialists" section from pages 11 to 16 and "The Ever-Victorious Army" section from page 33. I don't know if the "1,100,000 vs 500,000" strength should stay on the article because:

1) I don't know if the 500,000 number is the peak of Taiping forces;

2) The Taiping numbers seem to be from 1852, but there's not much information about the date of the claimed numbers for the Qing armies. Here are the excerpts:

• "Their strength appears to have been about a quarter of a million men" (The Eight Banners, page 11);
• "T.F. Wade, writing in 1851, gives totals for the three categories (excluding over 7,400 officers) as some 321,900 garri-son infantry, 194,800 infantry and 87,100 cavalry." (The Army of the Green Standard, page 14);
• "Hunan Army -which ultimately grew to over 130,000 men - but also for Li Hung-chang's celebrated Huai Army (60-70,000 men) and Tso Tsung-t'ang's Chu Army (40,000 men by mid 1864)." (Yung and Yung-ying, page 16);
• "A consular despatch dated a week after Ward's death reports that the EVA totalled some 5,000 men, but letters by Li Hung-chang between July and October 1862 generally refer to only 4,000. Another Chinese source states that in September the EVA comprised a 1st Battalion of over 1,100 men, a 2nd Battalion of under 500, a 3rd Battalion of just two companies, a Rifle Battalion of nearly 1,000, Light Artillery of 300, and Heavy Artillery of over 600 -well under 4,000 in total. After Burgevine's dismissal (which resulted from his assault on a banker who had withheld the army's pay) Li Hung-chang agreed with the British that the force should be cut to 3,000 men, but it never actually dropped below 3,500 men and often exceeded 4,000." (The Ever-Victorious Army, page 33);

So the number for the Green Standard Army is from 1851, the number for the Chu Army is from 1864, the numbers for the Ever-Victorious Army are from 1862, and the rest of the numbers could very well be from different dates, so I don't think it's fair to just add these numbers together to get the strength of the Qing army;

3) Not all of these combatants were active. Only ten per cent of the Green Standard Army was kept regularly on active service (page 14), and 50 or 60 per cent of the Eight Banners Army was stationed within the province of Chihli (page 11).

Anyway, I recommend checking the source "The Taiping Rebellion, 1851–1866" by Ian Heath and decide how the numbers should be presented. Kerokero262 (talk) 17:42, 23 February 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for noticing that! I don't have the time to check the mentioned sources, so I'd leave it to your judgement. Gawaon (talk) 08:27, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

This is still important, by the way. I haven't checked the source thoroughly and it's hard for me to do that job because my English knowledge is limited. So either someone checks this source and verifies the numbers I added in the infobox, or someone finds a better source with clearer numbers. Kerokero262 (talk) 21:47, 2 April 2025 (UTC)