Rise to power
in 1644, the ruling Ming dynasty was swept away by the invading Manchu from the North. Establishing the Qing dynasty, this ethnic Manchu minority would rule over all of China up to the early 20th century. To sustain their rule, they maintained the medieval bureaucratic governmental structure based on Confucian philosophy. Entrance into the bureaucratic class of imperial administrators required one to memorize several Confucian texts and pass several excruciatingly difficult tests. This may seem a minor detail on the governmental structure, but these civil service tests will return later in our story...
Further reading
For more information about the Manchu and the Qing specifically, these two books are a great starting point. The Search for Modern China is a broader history of modern China, but it gives excellent context for the Qing dynasty, its establishment, and its eventual fall.
Powerless to stop western empires
By the early 19th century, western powers, in particular the British empire, were establishing trade and colonial footholds in China. The "century of humiliation" began with the first Opium war when the British empire forced the Chinese markets to purchase and distribute opium grown elsewhere in the empire throughout china. The humiliation would continue through the second opium war, our focus here, the Taiping Rebellion, and the Boxer Rebellion at the end of the century. In all these wars, the Qing dynasty would prove to be fully incapable of resisting colonial pressure from the western powers. This is an important piece of context to consider while studying the Taiping Rebellion as western intervention would decide the outcome of the conflict. To this day, this period of history remains an important part of Chinese cultural memory.
Further reading
Chappell, J. (2016). The Limits of the Shanghai Bridgehead: Understanding British intervention in the Taiping Rebellion 1860-62. Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 44(4), 533–550. https://doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2016.1210251
Darwin, J. (1997). Imperialism and the Victorians: The dynamics of territorial expansion. The English Historical Review, 112(447), 614–642. http://www.jstor.org/stable/576347
Gregory, J. S. (1959). British intervention against the Taiping rebellion. The Journal of Asian Studies, 19(1), 11–24. https://doi.org/10.2307/2943446