Born Then1850–1864
Life during the Taiping Rebellion
Be born in a place it hit, a few years before it began, and see what it did to five ordinary lives.
What it meant for ordinary people
A civil war between the Qing and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, centred on Nanjing. It was one of the deadliest wars in history; whole provinces in the lower Yangtze lost a large share of their people. The multiplier here is a national average and was much higher in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui.
Deaths: about 20 to 30 million, mostly from famine and disease in the Yangtze region.
How hard it hits each person in the game (risk of death, of being conscripted, of leaving) comes from scholarly estimates.
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