Taiping Army

“ As we approached the Yangtse, vegetation covered more and more thickly the islands passed by us; sea-birds were increasingly numerous, the water thick with mud. We arrived at Shanghai on December 3.
In the latter days of August, Shanghai had been seriously attacked by the Taiping rebels. On both occasions, the Imperialists fled before the enemy; but a foreign contingent of British, Indian, and French troops, with a body of volunteers composed of the foreign residents, repulsed the rebels, on whom they inflicted severe loss. ”

“ Having rescued these leaders, they went on to the Wuhsuan district, where the most formidable of their followers joined the movement; among them Lin Hung-ch'iang, later placed at the head of the expeditionary force that marehed from Nanking to the north, the pirate, Lo Ta-kang, a member of the Triad Society, and Hung Ta-ch'üan, later the T'ienteh-wang, Hung's co-sovereign. Little by little, arms and various other warlike necessities were obtained and the government and army organisations began to take shape. ”

“ The comparatively early death of Hu Lin-yi, a Hunanese, Governor of the province of Hupei, who, in conjunction with Kuanwen, the Governor-General of the Hu provinces, originated the scheme for repressing the Taiping rebellion, prevented him from receiving the credit of that notable achievement. The institutions of the country paralysed its defence, for a provincial army was an object of dread to the Manchu rulers, while they possessed no imperial organisation to cope with the calamity. ”

“ The Taiping rebellion, which caused the death of millions of innocent creatures, is but a specimen of what might go on throughout the world did not skilful, well-trained soldiers throw in their lot with the side of law and order. Had the Chinese Government only possessed an able general, and a proper army, that rebellion would never have made such headway as it did. And had they not received the services of such an able soldier as Gordon proved to be, the rebellion might have been indefinitely prolonged, and might have broken up the Empire of China. ”

“ Accurate numbers are lacking in our sources of information. The imperialists are said to have had "several tens of ying," [33] and we may infer, from the fact that the rebels did not fill out their first army until they had reached Hunan, that they scarcely had more than twelve thousand fighting men. ”

“ At the same time that Anhui was overrun by the rebels, the Eastern king, Yang, in person led a large army up the river to capture Wuchang and thus control the Yangtse above Nanking. The viceroy went to Hwangchow in the hope of intercepting them. ”

“ In the columns of some English journals, strong comments with regard to British policy in China in taking military action against the Taiping rebels. In Japan, a revolution, the city of Yedo destroyed by the insurgents. In the Straits of Corea, the Russians induced to abandon the island, of which they had quietly taken possession during the earlier stages of the Anglo-French expedition against China. Garibaldi wounded; a consultation of surgeons as to whether the bullet was in the wound or not—​one would think, not a very difficult enigma to solve by men of experience in the field. ”

“ The English barbarians are at Kiangnan and peace is already decided on, because Kinling is the throat as between the north and south. Since it is already taken by the English we are compelled to adopt a peaceful policy instead of one of force, to quiet the people and turn off the army. ”

“ THE SUPPRESSED LEADER
Thus far we have gone on the assumption that the Taiping records were to be trusted and that the party of Hung Siu-ch'üan was the only one concerned in the uprising. Our account of the beginnings may he summarised somewhat as follows. For a year or two prior to 1848 the God-worshippers had been following the fashion set by their neighbors in organising and drilling military companies with the apparent purpose of helping to deal with wandering bandits. Through competition of the various units and careful training they had reached a high order of fighting power. ”

“ By advancing at once they could avoid any danger from General Hsiang Yung, the imperial commissioner, who, after a short delay at Wuchang, where he arranged the affairs of that place, had set out to follow the rebels, only to be held up by a lack of boats at Kiukiang. Could they only secure themselves along the Yellow River, the Taipings would be in a favorable position to attack the eapital. ”

“ It was a critical juncture in the history both of the Taiping movement itself and of foreign relations with it and with China. Without exaggeration, it may be said 372 that the proximate fate of the Taipings then lay hidden within the brain of Sir James Hope, and each occasion of contact between him and them during the next few months added its definite contribution to the data on which the momentous decision was ultimately taken. Although he had then no higher opinion of the Taipings than that they were "an organised band of robbers," the admiral was resolved to give them fair play ”

“ ORGANISATION OF THE GOD-WORSHIPPERS.
When we seek the causes for such a mighty upheaval as the Taiping rebellion, many points of weakness in the government suggest themselves at once. But those causes were inherent in the organisation of the military and civil services, and we are compelled to examine more closely into the particular circumstances which prevailed in the southern part of China if we would attempt to understand the movement. ”

“ Thus far we have seen the Taipings, in their progress from Kwangsi to Nanking, move like a gala procession, welcomed in spite of their bizarre religious ideas as deliverers from Manchu bondage. The moment they should cross the river and plunge into the northern provinces it would be quite otherwise. They would be strangers in the enemy's country. Few would be their recruits; more stubborn would be the resistance from government and populace. ”

“ Armies were apparently free to go and come at will; people with good credentials might easily pass through the city gates; foreign vessels, at least after 1860, plied up and down the Yangtse. But Nanking was no longer open to trade. Its gates were closed and guarded; its population lived on rations from the state, while husbands, fathers, and sons fought in the Taiping armies that came and went. The strictest laws were enforced within the vast camp.
The importance of Chinkiang and Yangchow insured a serious imperialist attempt to effect their recapture. ”

“ Not that the price to the Chinese receiver would increase; the dues must fall upon the exporter.
Meanwhile the Taipings were steadily advancing in their progress of devastation and murder; the atrocities reported as committed by them horrible in their details. Towards the end of April, Admiral Hope and Brigadier Staveley proceeded to Pekin, at the request of Prince Kung, who desired to consult with them relative to a plan initiated by himself, of dispatching a body of British troops to aid the Imperial forces against the rebels in question. ”

“ It is a curious circumstance that the governor who defended the city at the end of, the siege, Lo Ping-chang, was also a native of Hwahsien, which produced the T'ienwang. The imperialists gradually moved down the river, and again had the chance to crush the rebellion if they had only possessed soldiers who could fight like those of Kiang Chung-yuan. Three times during November (the tenth, thirteenth, and twenty-ninth) the rebels sprung mines, twice breaking down the city wall, only to be repulsed when they tried to enter through the breach. ”

“ He arrived at Sung-Kiong and entered on his new duties as a mandarin and lieutenant-colonel in the Chinese service on 24 March 1863. His force was composed of some three to four thousand Chinese, officered by 150 Europeans of almost every nationality and often of doubtful character. By the indomitable will of its commander this heterogeneous body was moulded into a little army whose high-sounding title of 'ever-victorious' became a reality, and in less than two years, after 33 engagements, the power of the Taipings was completely broken and the rebellion stamped out. ”

“ In order to achieve any great or lasting success in this enterprise, Taitsong saw that it was essential that he should possess a large and well-trained standing army, on which he could rely for efficient service beyond the frontier as well as in China itself. Before his time Chinese armies had been little better than a rude militia, and the military knowledge of the officers could only be described as contemptible. The soldiers were, for the most part, peasants, who knew nothing of discipline, and into whose hands weapons were put for the first time on the eve of a war. ”

“ LI-HUNG-CHANG stands foremost among the viceroys of the eighteen provinces of China as the man who exerts, probably, the greatest influence on the progress and destinies of the Empire. Foreigners generally know him best as the associate of Tseng-quo-fan, and Colonel Gordon, in dealing to the Taiping rebels their final blow; but more recently he has established the Nanking Arsenal, the first of the kind in China, and has, besides this, been familiarizing the Chinese soldiery with foreign discipline and drill. ”

“ But the thoughts of Tien Wang and his immediate advisers were still of offensive and forward measures, and when Nanking was equipped for defence a large part of the Taeping army was ordered to march against Peking. At this time it was computed that the total number of the Taepings did not fall short of 80,000 trustworthy fighting men, while there were perhaps more than 100,000 Chinese pressed into their service as hewers of wood and drawers of water. ”

“ The rebel forces in Ningpo, who had been on their good behaviour for a short time, became aggressive and insulting, even going the length of offering rewards for foreign heads in the good old mandarin fashion. It is well to remember that even in their unkempt condition, and with everything to gain from the goodwill of foreigners, the Taiping rebels lacked nothing of the most arrogant of Chinese assumptions. The pretensions of the chief far exceeded those of the Emperors of China. ”

“ In China, the Taiping rebels still holding Lintsing were beset by the Growth of Taiping movement imperial troops. They were expelled from the province of Shantung during the spring, but on the other hand carried their arms up the Yangtse-Kiang as far as Ichang, and eastward from Nanking to the sea. The establishment of the Taiping power at Nanking attracted the attention of Europeans. At length a ruthless system of capital executions, by which nearly one hundred thousand victims are believed to have perished, terrorized China. ”

“ If Taiping sources do not throw any more light on these difficulties we may examine other sources. The chief imperialist accounts of the rebellion trace the rise of the movement to a revolutionary brotherhood started at Kout'ushan by a certain Chu Kiu-t'ao. Into this brotherhood Hung and Fêng both entered later. But afterwards they realised that their magical arts were insufficient and thereupon all went to Kwangsi, where they founded the order of God-worshippers, in the Kweip'ing district. ”

“ Nor do the Chinese find anything reprehensible in his action. Instinctively a peace-loving people, they have learned through centuries of dreadful experience that there can be no humanitarianism in these ever-recurring rebellions, which are but one phase of the deadly struggle for life in China, and that the survival of the fittest implies the extermination of the unfit. Tso had first learned this lesson in the fierce warfare of the Taiping rebellion, where there was no question of quarter, asked or given, on either side. ”

“ Most of the people we saw and met were rebels, traveling between Tan Yang and Suchau, and but few boats were seen passing each other. All the country surrounding the canal between those cities seemed to have been abandoned by the peasantry and the cultivated fields were covered with rank grass and weeds, instead of flourishing crops. A traveler, not knowing the circumstances, would naturally lay the blame wholly upon the Taiping rebels, but the imperialists in their conflicts with the rebels, were as culpable as their enemies. ”

“ The Ssŭ-ch’uan and Hupei rebellion of half a century ago was, however, limited to four provinces, and only some twenty cities were held by the rebels. The insurrection of Wu San-kuei, in the reign of K’ang-Hsi, overran twelve provinces, and the rebels captured some three hundred cities and towns. But this Taiping rebellion has been on a scale vaster than any before, and has produced some great leaders in its armies. Here in Nanking not a single rebel surrendered. Many burned themselves alive rather than be taken. ”

“ In 1854 he commanded detachments in the operations in Australia against the insurgents at the Ballarat goldfields. In North China in 1860 he served with the 67th Regiment and was wounded when in command of a half-battalion attacking the North Taku Fort. For this campaign he was mentioned in despatches and given a C.B. Two years later he commanded the 67th Regiment and a brigade at the second capture of Khading in the Taiping rebellion. ”

“ The Taiping Rebellion differs from its predecessors in that in its embryo stage it had taken onto itself the religious element, which became the vital force that carried it from the defiles and wilds of Kwangsi province in the southwest to the city of Nanking in the northeast, and made it for a period of fifteen years a constantly impending danger to the Manchu Dynasty, whose corruption, weakness and maladministration were the main causes that evoked the existence of this great rebellion. ”