In the course of this fifteen-year Chinese Civil War, between 20 and 30 million had died, the vast majority of them civilians. In one of the first total wars, both sides had attempted to deprive their military and civilian enemies of food and supplies. This resulted in widespread famine and disease. Moreover, both sides had a fanatical hatred of the other based partly on ethnic and linguistic differences. The Taiping massacred Manchu civilians in the cities they conquered while the Qing forces took revenge against the traitorous population of Guangxi, executing hundreds of thousands for the crime of living in the region where the rebellion had started.