Qing China had access to gunpowder, not to mention a vast manpower pool to draw from. But what weapons would a Chinese soldier carry? Would they be given guns, and what type? Were some infantry still sent into battle with swords, spears, and bows?
This is drawing from the palace museum in Nanjing which housed a collection of supposed weaponry used in the rebellion. Match locks and flint locks were on display with heavy bladed simple medium sized sabers with large hand guards. I take everything on display in Chinese museums with a grain of salt. But pole arm halberds, spears and swords were presented as authentic Taiping weapons. Qing and Taiping soldiers were both much less better armed than the British sepoys that invaded during the first opium war. The self strengthening movement which directly followed the Taiping rebellion focused heavily on military modernization and the importation and setting up of heavy industrial equipment for the production of modern Chinese arms. 'Gods Chinese son' by Jonathan Spence focused on the point of better unit cohesiveness, esprit de corps, and tactics along with poor organization amongst the regular Qing units as to the reasons for the prolonged effort in stopping the rebellion.
In a peasant rebellion which this originally started as I think we can trust to the fact that weaponry started primitively and improved with the capture of the major cities and garrisons in central China. At the time from 1850 to 1864 Chinese regular issue weaponry was at least one generation removed from state of the art advancements currently taking the field i.e. Percussion caps, rifling, gunboats, and revolvers.
Chinese Gordon's ever victorious army was armed with more up to date modern period weapons.