The Taiping Rebellion led by Hong Xiuquan lasted 13 years and swept through most of China, reaching the peak of the old-style peasant war, claiming to be the largest and most far-reaching peasant uprising in Chinese history.
So, when the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was at its peak, how much area did it govern?
One
We know that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom began with the Jintian Uprising in Guangxi on January 11, 1851. On March 19, 1853, Hong Xiuquan led the Taiping Army to capture Jiangning (江宁, in present-day Nanjing, Jiangsu Province), renamed Tianjing, as the capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, until it was captured 11 years later by the Xiang army led by Zeng Guofan and Zeng Guoquan. That is to say, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom existed for a total of 13 years.
During these 13 years, the area under the jurisdiction of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom ranged from small to large, from large to small, and even to the final elimination. The Taiping Army marched south to the north and developed its power to 18 provinces of Guangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Anhui, Jiangsu, Henan, Shanxi, Zhili, Shandong, Fujian, Zhejiang, Guizhou, Sichuan, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Gansu and Guangdong.
As we all know, the Qing Dynasty set up a total of 18 provinces in the interior, the so-called "Eighteen Provinces of Han China". The footprints of the Taiping Army covered 18 provinces, which was equivalent to traveling to all areas except the five generals' jurisdictions of Shengjing, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Ili, and Ulyasutai. In addition, the Taiping Army has also captured more than 600 cities, including many large cities or important military locations such as Wuchang, Anqing, Suzhou, Nanjing, Hangzhou, and Jiujiang.
However, the Taiping Army adopted a mobile operation, did not care about the gains and losses of one city and one pool along the way, only paid attention to the speed of advancement, and did not establish a solid base area in the places it passed, so when the Taiping Army left, those occupied prefectures and cities were almost all reoccupied by the Qing army, which could not be regarded as the areas under the jurisdiction of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
This kind of mobile combat did bring great advantages in the beginning, making the Qing army exhausted. However, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom wanted to use this tactic of "dragonfly and water" to overthrow the Qing court and establish a national political power, which was an unrealistic idea. And this tactic eventually hurt the Taiping Army.
After the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom established the capital of Tianjing, whether it was the Northern Expedition or the Eastern Expedition, including the later Shi Dakai's departure from the southwest, because there was no stable base area established (even the base for replenishing logistics materials could not be built), it soon lost contact with the rear area, resulting in being surrounded by the Qing army, and there was no way to withdraw to the base camp, nor to get reinforcements, and the entire army was unfortunately destroyed.
Two
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom really had the consciousness of establishing a base area after the capital was set in Tianjing.
At that time, Hong Renxuan, one of the leaders of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, once put forward the program "New Chapters of Senior Administration" with the idea of developing capitalism, and promoted the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to issue a programmatic document" "The Tianchao Tianmu System". Hong Renxuan also spearheaded the concept of establishing a national government and divided the country into 21 provinces. These 21 provinces include the aforementioned "Eighteen Provinces of Handi" and the three northeastern provinces. In addition, other documents of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom mention sufu provinces, Tianpu provinces, Guifu provinces, and Ili provinces. That is to say, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom should have 24 provinces on paper.
Of course, considering that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom did not actually administer so many provinces, this unrealistic idea was not implemented.
Examining various historical documents, it can be seen that during the heyday of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, jiangnan provinces (the capital was Tianjing), Anhui province (the capital was Anqing), Jiangxi Province (the capital was Jiujiang), Hubei province (the capital was Wuchang), Sufu province (the capital was Suzhou), Zhejiang Tianfu province (the capital was Hangzhou), in addition to Tianpu Province, which only included Tianpu County, roughly equivalent to today's Anhui Province, Jiangxi Province, Hubei Province, Jiangsu Province, Hunan Province, and parts of Zhejiang Province, with a total area of at least 1 million square kilometers. Up to 1.5 million square kilometers.
What is the concept of 1.5 million square kilometers? Let's compare it to the territory of the Qing Dynasty. In 1760, after the Qianlong Emperor sent troops to pacify Dzungar, the entire Qing Dynasty entered its heyday, with a total territory of 13.16 million square kilometers. The area of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was about 11% of the territory of the Qing Dynasty.
However, compared with the historical regimes in the south, the area under the jurisdiction of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was not small. After all, the southern song dynasty, which had been running for more than 100 years, had an area of more than 1.7 million square kilometers at its peak.
It was precisely because the area under the jurisdiction of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was far less than that of the Qing Dynasty, resulting in the very limited human, material, and financial resources that Hong Xiuquan could mobilize, so that the troops fought less and less, and the financial battles became more and more difficult, and they were eventually destroyed by the troops led by Zeng Guofan and Zeng Guoquan.