"The Empire, long united, must divide..."

It is a very grim picture indeed.

For the British, the French and the Americans, the First Opium War was a small colonial war, with not many dead, resulting in the normal victory for the Forces of Enlightenment, Christianity, Free Enterprise and drug dealing.

It was very different for the Chinese.

The defeat of the Qing Empire by the British in the First Opium War was a tremendous shock. It can best be compared to Martians landing in the United States and destroying California. For three thousand years, China had been the centre of civilisation; respected by all the other nations in the world, from Japan to Vietnam to Central Asia, collecting tribute from them whilst supplying them with high culture and wise guidance. Furthermore, under the sixty year long reign of the Qianloong Emperor, within living memory, the Central Kingdom had advanced to its greatest extent .

A bunch of barbarians from a distant island had been graciously allowed to buy articles of value from the Celestial Empire, but, when they had been ordered to cease distributing foreign mud, instead of complying with an Order from the Throne, they had struck back, viciously, defeating Imperial troops, spreading ruin and disorder, seizing land and demanding payment of a huge indemnity in silver.

Chinese people were forced to ask themselves whether these events presaged the withdrawal of the Mandate of Heaven from the Qing Dynasty. The Qing, being Manchurians, had never been popular in Southern China, where support for the Ming had lasted longest.

In northern China, which had been less affected by the Opium War, the Huang He, the Yellow River, twice overflowed its banks in the 1850’s, killing tens of thousands by drowning and more by starvation. In this part of China, female infanticide had led to an extreme population imbalance, with perhaps 25% more young men than young women.

China was like a volcano with the vent blocked by centuries of congealed custom, and it erupted.

At this point we need a short summary of the racial position in China. Contrary to what many people have been told, but in accordance with the evidence of one’s own eyes, the Chinese are not all alike. The Han are the majority, but there are minority races who are more or less assimilated and within the Han majority some are more equal than others. In South China, the Hakka (“guest people”) are Han, but there are those who consider them "less Han than others".

A Protestant missionary (a Southern Baptist, be it noted...) taught a young Hakka man the elements of Christianity. The young man had a dream, in which God revealed to him that he was in fact the brother of Jesus...

...and he plunged China into the bloodiest war of any in the nineteenth century, Napoleon and the American Civil War included, by setting up the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace.