White Lotus Rebellion

Common card · No. 251075

The White Lotus Rebellion (Chinese: 川楚白蓮教起義; pinyin: Chuān chǔ bái lián jiào qǐ yì, 1794–1804) was a rebellion initiated by followers of the White Lotus movement during the Qing dynasty of China. Motivated by millenarian Buddhists who promised the immediate return of the Buddha, it erupted out of social and economic discontent in the impoverished provinces of Hubei, Shaanxi, and Sichuan (including modern Sichuan and Chongqing). The rebellion began in 1794, when large groups of rebels claiming White Lotus affiliations rose up within the mountainous region that separated Sichuan province from Hubei and Shaanxi provinces. A smaller precursor to the main rebellion broke out in 1774, under the leadership of the martial-arts and herbal-healing expert Wang Lun in Shandong province of northern China. Although the rebellion was finally crushed by the Qing government after eight years of fighting, it marked a sharp decline in the strength and prosperity of the Qing dynasty. The government had to...

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