Third Battle of Nanjing

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Third Battle of Nanjing
Part of the Taiping Rebellion
Date 14 March – 19 July 1864 Location Nanjing, Qing China Result Qing victory Mass scale summary execution, wartime rape, looting and arson End of the Taiping Rebellion
Belligerents
Qing Dynasty	Taiping Heavenly Kingdom
Commanders and leaders
Zeng Guofan Zeng Guoquan Zhu Hongzhang	Hong Xiuquan # Li Xiucheng
Strength
500,000+ Xiang Army	370,000 defenders
Casualties and losses
10,000+ died of illness 9,000+ killed	Zeng Guofan allege 100,000 Taiping soldier casualties 200,000+ surrendered
200,000–300,000 civilians massacred[1]

The Third Battle of Nanjing in 1864 was the last major engagement of the Taiping Rebellion in the Qing Empire. With the fall of Nanjing, the capital of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the rebellion came to an end. The Hunan Army, an unpaid and barely fed militia commissioned by the Qing Empire, lost all their discipline and committed mass-scale random murder, wartime rape, looting and arson against the civilians of Nanjing, seen as "rebels".^[2][3] 200,000–300,000 "rebels" were reported dead by Zeng Guofan, the commander-in-chief of the Hunan Army.