So, as I am aware, China has had a system of regimented and clearly defined civil ranks and a comprehensive civil service system ranging from the PRC to the Qing, Ming, etc. So the main thing that I have been wondering is that did the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom have one, and if so, what was the structure of it, and if possible, have sources such as books, links or websites dedicated to it. Not a general description, but a highly detailed list of rank numbers, military equivalents, and the charts and diagrams for these systems.
I must preface this answer with an important point that needs to be made, which is that most Taiping documentation was destroyed subsequently by the Imperials,^1 and that as a result of this, the documentation we have remaining is to an extent pretty scant,^2 with only around 40 major Taiping publications still in existence.^3 Indeed, much of the 15-volume Taiping Tianguo (太平天囯) collection of primary sources is contained within only about 1300 pages of English translation compiled by Franz Michael and Chung-Li Chang. Worst of all, government documentation is among the rarest of the surviving material, the only unified piece of source material on government functions being the Tianchao Tianmu Zhidu (天朝田畝制度).
However, it does get the basic point across, which is that there was nominally no distinction between civil and military ranks when it came to direct administration. We will look first at administration within the lower administrative divisions. Every 13,156 families was designated as an 'army', each family providing 1 male such that there was a 'corps general' (軍帥 – jünshuai), five 'colonels' (師帥 – shishuai), 25 'captains' (旅帥 – lüshuai), 125 'lieutenants' (卒長 – zuzhang), 500 'sergeants' (兩司馬 – liangsima), 2500 'corporals' (伍長 – wuzhang) and 10,000 'privates'.^4 ^5 ^6 ^7 (How exactly the women that Augustus Lindley claimed made up a quarter of Taiping troops^8 got there is uncertain – perhaps excessive attrition or the possibility of volunteering?) Each of the five 'colonels' had one 'captain' as a designated deputy, one pair responsible for land, one for legal issues, one for money and grain, one for receipts and one for disbursements. 'Corporals' were tasked with ensuring that their wu had sufficient food at harvest time and ensuring church attendance on the Sabbath. 'Sergeants' were to be responsible for keeping accounts of money and grain figures, and their charges of 25 families needed to be furnished with a granary and church. These 'sergeants' also had religious responsibilities, operating as the preacher during services, and were required to preside over and perform sacrifices at marriages and funerals, and were required to preside over disputes. Disputes unresolved by the ‘sergeant’ went up to the ‘lieutenant’, then the 'captain', then the ’colonel’, then a ‘provost marshal’ (Michael does not provide the original Chinese – the names from before are sourced from elsewhere), who, if unable to deliberate alone, would do so jointly with the ‘corps general’.^4
Going beyond the army corps we reach some more senior ranks. The lowest would be ‘corps superintendent’ (監軍 – jianjun), followed by ‘corps commandant’ (總制 – zhongzi), ‘general’ (將軍 – jiangjun), ‘commander’ (指揮 – zhihui), ‘senior secretary’ (檢點 – jiandian) and ‘chancellor’ (丞相 – chengxiang), with the absolute head being the ‘king’ or ‘prince’ (henceforth referred to as 王 – wang). Reports on births, deaths, marriages and so forth would pass up the chain from ‘corps generals’, and disputes that had been resolved by the ‘corps general’ and ‘provost marshal’ further required the attention of those further up the chain until reaching the Heavenly King (天王 – Tianwang) himself at the top of the chain.^4 ^9 ^7 The interesting thing is that this was not a unitary structure. Each wang clearly had his own subordinate staff, which was probably redistributed on his death.^2 An added complication is the nature of informal activities via the royal harems, which Hong Xiuquan used as private administrators^3 ^10 and Yang Xiuqing for gathering court intrigue.^2
Exams ended up being resurrected for higher bureaucratic posts, with Hong Xiuquan initially restricting the core texts to the Bible but Yang Xiuqing gradually adding Confucian texts.^2 Indeed, it appears women were permitted to take the exams, as one of Yang Xiuqing’s ‘chancellors’ was a woman named Fu Shanxiang (who ended up being prosecuted for drunkenness and narrowly escaped execution.)^11 Some exam topics still survive, including ‘The August God is the One True Deity’ and ‘Thus Confucius Did Not Have the Empire’.^12 ^13
Diagrams and lists are not that easy to come by. A diagram of corps-level organisation can be found on p. 134 in Volume 2 of Michael and Chang (see sources list), whilst a less cluttered table of corps ranks and numbers is included on p. 260 of Vincent Shih’s The Taiping Ideology. Hope this helps.
Sources and References: