The Taiping rebellion swept through Southwest China. They took Nanjing in 1853 and made it the capital of their Taiping Kingdom and they launched their attack on the rest of the nation from there. As they passed through the countryside, they had a lot of villages and towns join them, most of them joined them voluntarily. A very small number of them had to be forced to join through coercion. By 1855, the Taiping posed a major threat to Beijing. The Qing forces were able to keep them away, but the peace did not last forever.