An Analysis of the Qing Government's Inspection Into Taiping Army Weapons Purchase

Qing Army and Taiping Army rushed to buy western new weapons in order to obtain militarysuperiority during the reign of Xianfeng and Tongzhi. Taiping Army bought weapons mainly from foreign firmsor through middlemen.The Qing government took severe inspection measures to stop Taiping from buying weap-ons, but the effect is not balanced. Not until the early years of Tongzhi, when the Qing government introducedthe measure ofsuppression with borrowed troopsdid it cut off the source of weapon buying of Taiping Army,thus severely weakening Taiping's fighting effectiveness ever since.