The White Lotus War

Few include the White Lotus War in their discussion of nineteenth-century rebellions. Yet, in many ways, it provides the perfect starting point. Lasting over eight years, plowing a path of destruction across five central Chinese provinces, and emphatically marking the end to nearly a century of peace and commercial prosperity, the White Lotus War is an ominous harbinger of what was to follow. Chinese historian Yingcong Dai highlights the many disparate factors – from bureaucratic negligence and administrative apathy to the rise of secret societies and charismatic religious leaders – that transformed otherwise weakly connected local protests into a massive… show more.

This book details why the Qing dynasty had such great difficulty in suppressing a religious rebellion in Shaanxi from 1796 to 1804. Dai shows that in addition to corruption and failed reform efforts following previous fighting, disastrously bad mistakes of command were made at every level, from top to bottom. The structure of the Qing military proved difficult to mobilize in Shaanxi, and hired local militias were used instead, resulting in a singularly expensive and ineffective response to the rebellion.