<P> In 1837 Hong Xiuquan, a Hakka from a poor mountain village, once again failed the imperial examination, frustrating his ambition to become a scholar - official in the civil service . He returned home, fell sick and was bedridden for several days, during which he experienced mystical visions . In 1843, after carefully reading a pamphlet he had received years before from a Protestant Christian missionary, Hong declared that he now understood that his vision meant that he was the younger brother of Jesus and that he had been sent to rid China of the "devils", including the corrupt Qing government and Confucian teachings . In 1847 Hong went to Guangzhou, where he studied the Bible with Issachar Jacox Roberts, an American Baptist missionary . Roberts refused to baptize him and later stated that Hong's followers were "bent on making their burlesque religious pretensions serve their political purpose ." </P> <P> Soon after Hong began preaching across Guangxi in 1844, Hong's follower Feng Yunshan founded the God Worshipping Society, a movement which followed Hong's fusion of Christianity, Daoism, Confucianism and indigenous millenarianism, which Hong presented as a restoration of the ancient Chinese faith in Shangdi . The Taiping faith, says one historian, "developed into a dynamic new Chinese religion...Taiping Christianity". The movement at first grew by suppressing groups of bandits and pirates in southern China in the late 1840s, then suppression by Qing authorities led it to evolve into guerrilla warfare and subsequently a widespread civil war . Eventually, two other God Worshippers claimed to possess the ability to speak as members of the Holy Trinity, God the Father in the case of Yang Xiuqing and Jesus Christ in the case of Xiao Chaogui . </P> <P> The revolt began in Guangxi . In early January 1851, after a small - scale battle resulted in a victory in late December 1850, a 10,000 - strong rebel army organized by Feng Yunshan and Wei Changhui routed Qing forces stationed in Jintian (present - day Guiping, Guangxi). Taiping forces successfully repulsed an attempted imperial reprisal against the Jintian Uprising . </P> <P> In 1853 Taiping forces captured Nanjing, making it their capital and renaming it Tianjing ("Heavenly Capital"). Since the Taipings considered the Manchus to be demons, they first killed all the Manchu men, then forced the Manchu women outside the city and burned them to death . Shortly thereafter, the Taiping launched concurrent Northern and Western expeditions, in an effort to relieve pressure on Nanjing and achieve significant territorial gains . The former was a complete failure but the latter achieved limited success . </P>

Name two rebellions that took place against the britishers in 1860 and 1861