China, The Nien Rebellion

Often in the first half of the 19th century plundering gangs, called nien, ravaged northern Anhwei, southern Shantung, and southern Honan. In mid-century, however, their activities were suddenly intensified, partly by the addition to their numbers of a great many starving people who had lost their livelihood from repeated floods of the Huang Ho in the early 1850s, and partly