Tianjing (京), romanized at the time as Tienking, was the name given to

Nanjing Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), Postal Map Romanization, alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu Provinces of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and t ...

when it served as the capital of

Hong Xiuquan Hong Xiuquan (1 January 1814 – 1 June 1864), born Hong Huoxiu and with the courtesy name Renkun, was a Chinese revolutionary who was the leader of the Taiping Rebellion against the Qing dynasty. He established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdo ...

's Heavenly Kingdom from 1853 to 1864, amid the

Qing Empire The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu people, Manchu-led Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin (1616–1636), La ...

Taiping Rebellion The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a massive rebellion and civil war that was waged in China between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the Han, Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. It last ...

History

Nanjing, was taken by the Taiping rebels on March 19, 1853. The Taiping government had set up an egalitarian organization, with a strict separation between men and women; in such major towns as

Wuchang Wuchang forms part of the urban core of and is one of 13 urban districts of the prefecture-level city of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province, China. It is the oldest of the three cities that merged into modern-day Wuhan, and stood on the ri ...

and

(a.k.a. Tianjing), this rule was strictly enforced : men were living in their own quarters, and women and children were in others. Men and women were regrouped in these quarters by groups of 25 (called ''guan''), depending on their trades. There were ''guans'' regrouping bricklayers, carpenters, tailors, and even sauce cooks. There also were "public services" ''guans'' for such trades as physicians, firemen, or undertakers.. Small shops selling meat, fish, or tea, were kept separate depending on their customers: there was one shop for male customers, another shop for female customers, and the Taiping police was making sure this was indeed enforced. In Tianjing, people reacted in different ways: while a number of people did accept the new way, others went into hiding, or fled, leading to a shortage of doctors, as many fled the town. Tianjing finally fell to the imperial Qing army (the Xiang Army) on July 19, 1864, leading to bloody street fighting, during which some 156,000 rebels were killed.

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* {{citation , last=Spence , first=Jonathan D. , date=1996 , title=God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan , publisher=W.W. Norton & Co. , location=New York . History of Nanjing Taiping Heavenly Kingdom