ABSTRACT
The Taiping movement was, of course, an anti-Qing revolution which arose toward the end of the dynasty, a struggle which rocked the foundations of Manchu rule and nearly succeeded in toppling it. If we return 210 years prior to the rebellion, we find, in the very last years of the Ming dynasty, a war of resistance fought by Han Chinese against the Manchu armies which had invaded Chinese soil from Manchuria to the northeast. The Ming state was on the verge of collapse, and the war sent shock waves as far away as Japan. News of the great tumult of this dynastic transition in China and the ethnic clash it engendered were conveyed to Japan at the time. I would like now to examine how the news was received and what response was made in Japan at the time.
