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Imperial Government felt itself strong enough to

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Accordingly Mr Bruce, the British envoy, was refused access to the Peiho, and on the 26th June 1859 Admiral Hope attempted to force a passage through the stakes and beams which closed the entrance to the river. It was an oppressive, sultry day, with a lurid mist stretching over the muddy shores and turgid water of the Gulf of Pechelee. The guns in the forts were concealed, and only a few ragged louts showed themselves at the gates; but when the gunboats rushed up against the beams, suddenly the matting over the cannon of the forts rolled up, and a terrible cross-fire opened on the devoted British vessels, crashing through oak and iron, making the vessels tremble with every shot,, knocking men in two, and sending splinters around. It was rather surprising for three British gunboats to be destroyed by the Chinese; and the land attack which followed was not more successful. Men jumped out of the boats into mud and water never to rise again. The six hundred yards of mud to be crossed under a heavy fire, the two ditches, the rifles filled with mud, and the broken ladders, made the assault worse than useless. Those who crossed the second ditch had to remain under shelter of the bank until after dark, the enemy amusing them with arrows shot vertically, and with balls of blue-fire.

This disaster was, of course, not one which the wrath of Britain could endure, and its influence on the future of Tai-pingdom was very great. It not merely concentrated the attention of the Imperialists upon the defences of the Peiho, and made them indifferent to other matters, so enabling the Rebels to recover lost ground; it also encouraged a certain class of Foreigners at Shanghai, who saw that troublous times were coming, to devise

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schemes for affording the Tai-pings what Americans would call "aid and comfort." Further, it led to the allied French and English expedition against Peking of 1860; to a temporary paralysis of the power of the Imperial Government, which allowed the Tai-pings again to become very formidable; to the pressure of these last upon Shanghai, which first caused our interference with them, and also to that employment of British officers by the Imperialists which, followed up as it was by Chinese commanders, finally resulted in the extinction of the Great Rebellion.

A detailed account of the movements by which the Faithful King contrived to relieve Nanking for the sixth time, would be exceedingly uninteresting. It is of more importance to note that the rescue of the capital educed not even an encouraging edict from the Heavenly Prince, much less any permission for the fighting Ministers to enter his presence. He seems in some way or other to have held their lives pretty much in his hand, and to have ordered them to attempt whatever he desired. Nor is this very strange, for his life and pretensions constituted the centre of the whole revolutionary movement. It may be well, however, as we now approach the close of the period when Tai-pingdom had only the Imperialists to contend with, to state the positions of the opposing parties after the raising of the siege of Nanking by Chung, the Faithful King, and Ying Wang, the Heroic King, better known as the Four-eyed Dog.

Nanking, the Rebel capital, was not threatened by any Imperialist force either on the north or on the south, and in the direction of the Grand Canal and the Taiho Lake the Tai-pings held the country as far as Liyang and Chewying; the Imperialist General Chang Kwoliang having retreated to Tanyan, and Ho Ch'un to Chanchu,

both places on the Grand Canal near the estuary of the Yangtsze. Thus a large district of rich country, lying towards the sea, was left ill protected against the ravages of the Tai-pings-a district which was fated to witness their last great efforts and their final extinction. Tseng Kwo-fan, the ablest and highest of the Imperialist generals, was at Kuanteche, a considerable way south-west of the Taiho Lake, but he had little part in the operations which took place at this time. His brother, Tseng Kwo

Anking) tsun, was engaged up the Yangtsze in investing Nganking

with a large army, his covering forces being at the cities of Soosung, Taho, Tsienchow, and in front of Tungching, which was held by Rebels belonging to the army of the Four-eyed Dog. In the province of Kiangsi, at Yenchow, there was also a force of Tai-pings under the command of Shí Ta-kai, the I Wang, or Assistant King; but this was held in check, and prevented from advancing on the provincial capital, by an Imperialist army under the command of Paou Chiaou, stationed at Hokin, to the south of the Poyang Lake. The Imperialist Chang Yuliang was advancing from Hangchow (whither he had gone on a fruitless chase of the Faithful King) to Chanchu on the Grand Canal, where were the forces of Ho Ch'un, and the residence of Ho Kwei-tsin, the GovernorGeneral of Kiangsoo. At Nanking, Yenchow, and Nganking, the Rebels had three commanding situations, of which only the latter was invested by the enemy; and by pushing on their forces from the Sacred Capital towards the Taiho Lake, they kept the Imperialist troops in Kiangsoo in a divided state.

Leaving the Four-eyed Dog to proceed to the relief of Nganking, and at the express command of the Heavenly Prince, but somewhat against his own inclinations, the Faithful King advanced against Tanyan in May 1860,

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and defeated Chang Kwo-liang, that general being himself drowned in a creek and 10,000 of his men being "cut up" or destroyed. This general was brave and capable. He had formerly been a Triad chief, then a leader among the Tai-pings themselves; but, as happened in many cases during this long conflict, he surrendered to the Imperialists and took service under them. The Faithful King next advanced against Chanchu, to which the remnant of the defeated army had fled, and where Chang Yu-liang (not Chang Kwo-liang) had assembled his force. This place was also taken, and, as the Chung Wang admits, when the Rebels entered many of the people committed suicide from fear. Ho, the Viceroy, had left it with his family before the assault; and Chang Yu-liang made another stand at Wusieh, being reinforced by an army under Liu, which came up from the Taiho Lake. Twenty-four hours' hard fighting ensued, and the Faithful King says he was just on the point of giving way when, to his unexpected delight, the enemy did so instead. This gave the Tai-pings command of the Grand Canal between the Taiho Lake and the Yangtsze and of all the neighbouring country; but southward there was still a formidable Imperialist army at Soochow, under Ho Ch'un. This general, however, was so dismayed on hearing of the death of Chang Kwo-liang that he committed suicide, and the Faithful King met with almost no resistance at one of the very wealthiest and most fashionable cities of the Flowery Land, Soochow, the capital of Kiangsoo.

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"Above," says a Chinese proverb, "is paradise, but * beneath are Soo and Hang." To be happy on earth," runs another, "one must be born in Soochow ;' because the people of that place are remarkable for their personal beauty. The walls of the city itself

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were at this time ten miles in circumference; but outside there were four enormous suburbs, one of which, on the west side, extended for ten miles each way, and, besides, there was a large floating population. It was supposed to contain about two millions of inhabitants, and had almost a fabulous reputation throughout China for its ancient and modern marble buildings, its elegant tombs, granite bridges, canals, streets, gardens, quays, intelligent men, and beautiful women. Soochow was famous for manufactures of many kinds, but especially for the richness and variety of its silk goods. Even after the suicide of Ho Ch'un it might have been expected that Ho, the fugitive Viceroy, and Chang Yu-liang would have made some energetic efforts to save this magnificent city from becoming the prey of the spoiler; but the Imperialist troops seem to have been thoroughly disorganised, and Ho hastened its fate by ordering the suburbs to be fired for purposes of defence. To a large number of the inhabitants this appeared quite as bad as falling into the hands of the Tai-pings, and, combined with outrages committed by the fugitive soldiers of Chang Kwoliang, caused such a state of confusion and anarchy, that when the Chung Wang advanced on the 24th May 1860 he found no opposition, and, amid the welcome of the lower class of the population, walked in at one gate while the Imperial troops fled at another. Shortly after the city of Hangchow was taken by the Faithful King, and in the province of Kiangsoo everything looked promising in the prospects of the Heavenly Empire of the Great Peace.

Up to this period, May 1860, the Tai-pings had only the Imperialists and the people of the country to contend with. A few Malays and Manilamen, and,

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