THE TAI-PING REBELLION.'

[CONCLUDED.]

THE DECLINE OF HUNG SIU TSUEN'S CAUSE.

NE inherent defect in the rebellion, viewed in its political

bearing, soon showed itself. Hung Siu-tsuen's conviction of his divine mission had been most cordially received by his generals and the entire body of followers which left Yung-ngan in 1852; but their faith was not accepted by the enormous additions made to the Tai-pings as they advanced to Nanking, and gradually the original force became so diluted that it was inadequate to restrain and inspirit their auxiliaries. Moreover, the Tien-wang had never seriously worked out any conception of the radical changes in his system of government, which it would be absolutely necessary to inaugurate under a Christian code of laws. Having had no knowledge of any Western kingdom, he probably regarded them all as conformed to the rules and examples given in the Bible; perhaps, too, he trusted that the "Heavenly Father and Elder Brother" would reveal the proper course of action when the time came. The great body of literati would naturally be indisposed to even examine the claims of a Western religion which placed Shangti above all other gods, and allowed no images in worship, no ritual in temples, and no adoration to ancestors, to Confucius, or to the heavenly bodies. But if this patriotic call to throw off the Manchu yoke had been fortified by a well-devised system of public examinations for office,-modified to suit the new order of things by introducing more practical subjects than those found in the classics and put into practice, it is hard to suppose that the intellectual classes would not gradually have ranged themselves on the side of this rising power.

Incentives addressed to the patriotic feelings of the Chinese were mixed with their obligations to worship Shangti, now made

1 From S. Wells Williams's Middle Kingdom. See note in the November Open Court.

known to them as the Great God, our Heavenly Father, and security was promised to all who submitted.

In 1855 dissensions sprang up among the leaders themselves inside of Nanking, which ended in the execution of Yang, the Eastern King, the next year; a fierce struggle maintained by Wei, the Northern King, on behalf of the Tien-wang, upheld his supremacy, but at a loss of his best general. Another man of note, Shih Takai, the Assistant King, losing faith in the whole undertaking, managed to withdraw with a large following westward and reached Sz'chuen. The early friend of Hung Siu tsuen, Fung Yun-shan, known as the Southern King, disappeared about the same time.

It had become a life struggle with Siu-tsuen, and his removal of the four kings resulted in leaving him without any real military chief on whose loyalty he could depend. The rumors which reached Shanghai in 1856 of the fierce conflict in the city were probably exaggerated by the desire prevalent in that region that the parties would go on, like the Midianites in Gideon's time, beating each other down till they ended the matter.

The success of the Tai-pings had encouraged discontented leaders in other parts of China to set up their standards of revolt. The progress of Shih Ta-kai in Sz'chuen and Kweichau engaged the utmost efforts of the provincial rulers to restore peace. In Kwangtung a powerful band invested the city, but the operations of Governor Yeh, after the departure of Sü Kwang tsun in 1854, were well supported by the gentry. By the middle of 1855 the rising was quenched in blood. A band of Cantonese desperadoes seized the city of Shanghai in September, 1853, killing the district magistrate and some other officials. They retained possession till the Chinese New Year, January 27, 1854, leaving the city amid flames and carnage, when many of the leaders escaped in foreign vessels. None of these men were affiliated with the Tai pings.

By 1857 the imperialists had begun to draw close lines about the rebels, when they were nearly restricted to the river banks between Nganking and Nanking, both of which cities were blockaded. Two years later the insurgent capital was beleaguered, but in its siege the loyalists trusted almost wholly to the effects of want and disease, which at last reached such an extreme degree (up to 1860) that it was said that human flesh was sold in the butchers' stalls of Nanking. Their ammunition was nearly expended, their numbers were reduced, and their men apparently desirous to disperse; but the indomitable spirit of the leader never quailed. He had appointed eleven other wang or generals, called Chung Wang

("Loyal King"), Ying Wang ("Heroic King"), Kan Wang ("Shield King"), Ting Wang ("Listening King"), etc., whose abilities were quite equal to the old ones.

A small body of Tai-pings managed to get out toward the north of Kiangsu, near the Yellow River. Another body had already (in March) carried Hangchau by assault by springing a mine; as many as seventy thousand inhabitants, including the Manchu garrison, perished here during the week the city remained in possession of the rebels. On their return to Nanking the joint force carried all before it, and the needed guns and ammunition fell into their hands. The loyalist soldiers also turned against their old officers, but the larger part had been killed or dispersed. Chinkiang and Changchau were captured, and Ho Kwei-tsing, the governor-general, fled in the most dastardly manner to Suchau, without an effort to retrieve his overthrow. Some resistance was made at Wusih on the Grand Canal, but Ho Chun was so paralysed by the onslaught that he killed himself, and Suchau fell into the hands of Chung Wang with no resistance whatever. It was, nevertheless, burned and pillaged by the cowardly imperialists before they left it, Ho Kwei-tsing setting the large suburbs on fire to uncover the solid walls. This destruction was so unnecessary that the citizens welcomed the Tai-pings, for they would at least leave them their houses. With Suchau and Hangchau in their hands, the Kan Wang and Chung Wang had control of the great watercourses in the two provinces, and their desire now was to obtain foreign steamers to use in regaining mastery of the Yangtsz' River. The loss of their first leaders was by this time admirably supplied to the insurgents by these two men, who had had a wider experience than the Tien wang himself, while their extraordinary success in dispersing their enemies had been to them all an assurance of divine protection and approval.

The populous and fertile region of Kiangnan and Chehkiang was wholly in their hands by June, 1860, so far as any organised Manchu force could resist them. The destruction of life, property, and industry within the three months since their sally from Nanking had been unparalleled probably since the Conquest, more than two centuries before, and revived the stories told of the ruthless acts of Attila and Tamerlane. Shanghai was threatened in August by a force of less than twenty thousand men led by the Chung Wang, and it would have been captured if it had not been protected by British and French troops.