The Beginning...

China began to experience serious economic problems. This began with the massive population growth that occurred between 1800 and 1900. This caused the population of China to go up by 50%. The problem with this is that the arable land did not increase enough to support such a large population causing massive problems with the peasantry as they began discontent with their lives. This situation was not helped by how massive amounts of land was concentrated in the hands of the wealthy.
The Taiping rebellion was caused by the discontent of the peasantry and the troubled state of the economy.