Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"The loss of life in Nanjing was enormous, but then the whole rebellion, begun 14 years earlier, had seen around 20 million people slaughtered. By the third and final day, some 100,000 had been killed in vicious street-by-street fighting. The original rebel leader Hong Xiuquan, the self-styled brother of Jesus Christ, charged with establishing Taiping (the 'Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace') at the expense of the ineffectual Qing Dynasty and the rapacious foreigners, had held Nanjing as its capital for a decade, but had died of food poisoning in the previous month. The victorious imperial forces owed a good deal to the British who fought on their side, especially to the successes achieved by Charles Gordon and the 'Ever Victorious Army.'. . . Qing domination of China, plus the continuing influence of the Europeans, was secure for decades to come." [Furtado: 1001 Days]