Hi!
Did the first Opium war help create conditions to precipitate it or are there no - or almost no - connections between the two events?
Thanks in advance for your answer!
This is a rather complicated problem because the First Opium War did have an effect in some areas but not in others.
To some extent, the First Opium War made a direct contribution to the military situation that spawned the rebellion. The incomplete demobilisation of mercenary forces led to the emergence of vast bandit gangs, particularly in the 'Lingnan' provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi.^1 In fighting these forces, the Taiping were able not only to gain credibility but also an increasingly large following.^2 ^3 At the same time, militia reforms made the degree of decentralised militarisation much higher, and so the quality of recruits increased as well as the quantity.^1 At the same time, the God-Worshippers (the predecessors of the Taiping) also piggybacked off a lot of existing racial tensions between the Hakka-speaking Hakka people and the Yue-speaking Punti, which were galvanised by the disruption after the First Opium War.^1 ^2 ^3
It also helped with the particulars of Hong Xiuquan's early rise. Certainly the peculiar circumstances of Hong's particular conversion were basically unaffected by the First Opium War. Hong had gained access to Christian pamphlets through Canton in 1836, gained his revelation in 1837 and taken on the 'son of God' persona in 1843 without having had any access to Christian material since, and his convert Feng Yunshan would establish the God-Worshipping Society in Guangxi the next year. However, what pushed Hong to action came after he was approached by Western missionaries based in Hong Kong in 1847, after which he briefly studied under the Southern Baptist preacher Issachar Roberts before being suddenly snubbed, which drove him to seek out Feng Yunshan again and resettle in Guangxi with the God-Worshippers.^2 ^3
For the middle stage of the history of the Taiping, from Hong's return to Guangxi in 1848 to Hong Rengan's arrival in Nanjing ten years later, the First Opium War was, however, arguably insignificant with regards to how they handled affairs. Taiping propaganda was based on a mixture of racial and religious lines, with the First Opium War not really being referred to except in passing.^2 Certainly there was fear among the Imperials of the Westerners, but more as a general wariness rather than because of the particular actions of Britain in 1839-42.^4 Indeed the Taiping operated mainly in inland provinces like Hunan at this point due to a reliance on major waterways like the Yangtze River and Grand Canal,^2 ^3 and so the major coastal provinces like Guangdong, Fujian and Jiangsu, where the First Opium War had been waged, were not brought into the conflict significantly (although the Taiping capital of Tianjing had been Jiangsu's provincial capital of Nanjing before).
Where (or rather when) the First Opium War could be said to have been more influential was with regards to the endgame from 1858-64. Hong Rengan had been based in Hong Kong for some years by the time he travelled to Nanjing, and clearly planned to introduce several modernising reforms and supported international diplomacy. Additionally, the inroads into China granted by the First Opium War increased Western trade interests in the region and hence created motives for intervention by the West (which Britain and France would ultimately formally provide to the Qing from 1862 onwards.)^3 ^4
The effect of the First Opium War actually comes full circle in a way. At first it helped to spawn the movement, and in the end led in part to its downfall. However, to suggest that the First Opium War was some sort of tipping point does overstate the degree to which it was actually significant for the Chinese actors before 1858. Racial enmity against the Manchus, ethnic tensions between the Hakka and Punti and missionary activities in Guangdong were as old as the Qing themselves, ^2 ^5 and given the number of simultaneous rebellions like the Panthays in Yunnan, the Dungans in the northwest, the Nian in the northeast-centre and the Miao peoples of the interior, the emergence of a national rebellion amongst the particularist chaos would perhaps not have been all that surprising even in the absence of a Western war earlier on.
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