Su Sanniang (蘇三娘; 1830–1854), was a Chinese rebel during the

Taiping Rebellion The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War or the Taiping Revolution, was a civil war in China between the Qing dynasty and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The conflict lasted 14 years, from its outbreak in 1850 until the fall of ...

. The leader of a band of outlaws, she joined the rebellion with a band of 2000 soldiers.

Biography

Su Sanniang was born around the 1830s in the south Guandong Province, where the

Hakka The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka-speaking Chinese, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas, are a southern Han Chinese subgroup whose principal settlements and ancestral homes are dispersed widely across the provinces of southern China ...

are the majority. Unlike the

northern Han The Northern Han ( zh, t=北漢, s=北汉, p=Běi Hàn) was a dynastic state of China and one of the Ten Kingdoms during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. It was founded by Liu Min (Emperor Shizu) as a continuation of the Later Ha ...

, where the farm work was masculine and the women only took care of the housework, the Hakka women also collaborated in the collection of tea, in the cultivation of rice and plowed with water buffaloes, they didn't followed the Confucian codes as strictly and their feet were not bound. According to ''The Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women'', Su Sanniang learned martial arts and swordplay from her family. She was said to have powerful arms and “the air of a hero”. Su Sanniang moved with her husband to

Guangxi Guangxi,; officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People's Republic of China, located in South China and bordering Vietnam (Hà Giang Province, Hà Giang, Cao Bằn ...

, where he was killed by bandits. The authorities barely paid attention due to him being a simple peasant, so she swore revenge. She managed to gather a hundred young people and toured the region with them until she found and killed the bandits. Persecuted by the authorities, Su Sanniang and her gang dedicated themselves to rob the rich to divide their wealth among the poor. This earned Su the sympathy of the people and more volunteers joined their group. Su Sanniang and the two thousand men under her command joined the

, a devastating civil war. It lasted from 1850 to 1864 and at one point involved over one million soldiers, both men and women. The Rebellion was known for advocating equal rights for women, but also for mandating separation between women and men.Pamela Kyle Crossley, The Wobbling Pivot: China Since 1800 105 (2010) When the men's and women's forces were divided, Su Sanniang became the leader of the female battalions, alongside Qiu Ersao, who was one of the commanders of Red Turban Rebels. The last historical record about her places her in the Siege of Zhenjiang City in 1854. It is unknown if she died there or survived.

Sources

* Lily Xiao Hong Lee, Clara Lau, A.D. Stefanowska:
Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women: v. 1: The Qing Period, 1644–1911
' * Kazuko Ono:
Chinese Women in a Century of Revolution, 1850–1950
'

References

{{Taiping Rebellion 1830 births 1854 deaths 19th-century Chinese people People of the Taiping Rebellion Women in 19th-century warfare Women in war in China 19th-century Chinese women Military leaders of the Taiping Rebellion