Taiping rebels

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The rebels lost Hung Ta-ch'üan, one of their chief military leaders. But their escape so clearly pointed to divine interposition that the religious side of their cause was greatly strengthened; they believed themselves invincible. More and more their enterprise became characterised by fanaticism, less and less by levelheaded and far-seeing statesmanship. Indeed, there is reason to suspect that Hung Ta-ch'üan was deliberately abandoned to the imperialists, for only Wei Ch'ang-hui attempted his rescue. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At this time the Taiping rebels were overrunning Hunan in their conquering career, and had possessed themselves of the cities and strongholds on both shores of the Yangtse-kiang. By a special decree Tsēng was ordered to assist the governor of the province in raising a volunteer force, and on his own initiative he built a fleet of war junks, with which he attacked the rebels. ”

“ The farmers were busily engaged in gathering in their rice crops.
It might be well to mention here that during my sojourn in the interior, the Taiping rebels had captured the city of Suchau, and there was some apprehension on the part of foreigners in the settlement that they might swoop down to take possession of the city of Shanghai, as well as the foreign settlement. That was the reason the Sung Kiang River was picketed by Chinese gun-boats, and the foreign pickets were extended miles beyond the boundary line of the foreign concession. ”

“ This consideration led Meadows [25] to dismiss the confession of Hung Ta-ch'üan with a shrug, remarking, "Teen tih is not even a myth; he is a pure mistake." He bases this on his conversations with Taiping rebels and on the lack of traces of suppression in their books. If we have concluded rightly that the movement had lost its real leader and a large part of its Triad following, and if those who remained were followers of the fanatical group gathered about the T'ienwang, could we expect them to admit that there had been a lost leader? ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ The world’s critics must now change their criterions. A strong cause WILL make a strong battle anywhere the world over, no matter what the color of the soldier, or the cut or tint of his battle flag. The fighting now closed in on Nanking, the old capital of the Mings, the high-water city of the Taiping rebellion, and the rebels had a great deal to avenge, and a great deal to gain. ”

“ I started with four Chinese tea-men, natives of Taiping who had fled to Shanghai as refugees when the whole district was changed into a theatre of bloody conflicts between the imperialist and rebel forces for two years. On the way up the Wuhu River, we passed three cities mostly deserted by their inhabitants, but occupied by rebels. Paddy fields on both sides of the river were mostly left uncultivated and deserted, overrun with rank weeds and tall grass. As we ascended towards{127} Taiping, the whole region presented a heartrending and depressing scene of wild waste and devastation. ”

“ What could such a distinguished man want of me? Had he got wind of my late visit to Nanking and of my late enterprise to the district of Taiping for the green tea that was held there by the rebels?{138} Tsang Kwoh Fan himself had been in the department of Hwui Chow fighting the rebels a year before and had been defeated, and he was reported to have been killed in battle. ”

“ After burning the great commercial city of Hankow, they crossed the river to attack Wuchang. On the pretence of defending Hunan the viceroy was absent. The governor did the best he could, and the soldiers who, under Hsiang Yung, were arriving from Hunan, were only a mile from the city walls with the rebels between, them and the city. Neither the defenders nor the army of Hsiang seemed willing to come to blows with the rebels, and the winter rains afforded them excuses for inactivity. The Taipings were therefore left free to undermine the wall. ”

“ The failure of the crops in portions of Hunan and Kwangsi led to the rise of robber bands from among the distressed people. [6] In some oases these were small and inconsequential, but in others large bodies of men numbering hundreds and even thousands, under influential leaders, gave to district magistrates and even to provincial authorities, much anxiety. [7]
Against these quasi rebels, the drill and even organisation into armies of the country militia had been directed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the reign of Hsien-Feng the Taiping and Mahomedan rebels devastated more than ten provinces, and the uprising was not quelled until ten years had passed. In the reign of Chia-Ch’ing the rebellion of the ‘White Lily’ sect laid waste three or four provinces. It is recorded in the history of these wars that, only after the most heroic efforts, and with the greatest difficulty, the Imperial armies succeeded in restoring order. But these rebellions, in comparison with the present Boxer rising, were mere trifling ailments: the State to-day stands threatened with mortal sickness. ”

“ The phrase 'Taiping Rebellion is wholly of foreign manufacture; at Peking and everywhere among those loyal to the government the insurgents were styled 'Chang-mao tseh,' or 'Long-haired rebels,' while on their side, by a whimsical resemblance to English slang, the imperialists were dubbed 'imps.' When the chiefs assumed to be aiming at independence in 1850, in order to identify their followers with their cause they took the term 'Ping Chao,' or 'Peace Dynasty,' as the style of their sway, to distinguish it from the 'Tsing Chao,' or 'Pure Dynasty' of the Manchus. ”

“ The Peking Gazettes of the day are full of frank condemnation for magistrates, prefects, and even governors, generals, and viceroys who abandoned their posts and ran away, pretending to be sick and under necessity, in critical moments, of seeking medical aid, rushing oflf to recruit forces when the enemy stood at the city gates, or claiming victories when they had caught a few detached rebels and executed them, or had entered some town just abandoned by the rebels. ”

“ After a fruitless siege of thirty-one days, the rebels left Kweilin and set out for Hunan, pursued by seven thousand men under Ho Chun. They captured Hsingan (May 22) , and Ch'üanchow (June 3) . Kiang Chung-yuan, believing that the rebels would go from Ch'üanchow straight down the river to Changsha, hastened to Soh-yi Ferry, a point not far from Ch'üanchow, where the river was narrow and the banks well wooded. With trees instead of earthworks he determined to prevent the rebels from passing. As he anticipated, the Taipings descended the river in small boats ”

“ 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. ”

“ To this day the removal of the queue and allowing the hair to grow on the front portion of the head is regarded as a casting off of allegiance to the dynasty. In the Taiping rebellion that raged in the southern provinces from 1850 to 1867, and which down to its 6 suppression by Gordon and Li Hung Chang is computed to have cost the lives of twenty-two and a half millions of people, the removal of the queue and allowing the hair to grow freely was the symbol adopted by the rebels. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Whether they were simply terrified at the gradual closing in of the imperial army or were urged to mutiny by men who desired to gain the leadership does not appear from the records.
The great deliverance that came inspired confidence throughout the entire army. No longer did they disobey their leaders or fear the imperialists. In the city of Yungan, while the imperialists slowly gathered their forces for the siege, the Taipings organised their kingdom. The provisional government instituted at Kint'ien gave place to the more permanent organisation ”

“ Not only did overseas foreigners openly thunder at the gateways of the empire and force an ingress, but native rebellions were constant and common. Leaving minor disturbances out 3 of account, there were during this period two huge Mahommedan rebellions, besides the cataclysmic Taiping rising which lasted ten years and is supposed to have destroyed the unbelievable total of one hundred million persons. ”