CHAPTER VIII. THE ORGANISATION OF GORDON'S FORCE. CHINESE PARTIALITY FOR BEAUTIFUL PHRASEOLOGY THE TITLE "EVER-VICTORIOUS ARMY"-CAPTAIN HOLLAND'S DEFEAT AT TAITSAN, AND MAJOR BRENNAN'S AT FUSHAN -COLONEL GORDON APPOINTED TO COMMAND THE E. V. A.-HIS PREVIOUS SERVICES -ITS OFFICERS AND PRIVATES-RATES OF PAY-ITS ARTILLERY AND SMALL-ARMS-THE PUNISHMENTS INFLICTED-CHINESE APTITUDE FOR DRILL-COLONEL GORDON'S FLOTILLA-THE STEAMER HYSON AND CAPTAIN DAVIDSON THE AUXILIARY IMPERIALIST FORCE-APTITUDE OF THE CHINESE FOR WAR-FOR THE WORK OF SAPPERS-COLONEL GORDON'S TACTICS-EXPENDITURE OF THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT-COLONEL GORDON'S VIEW OF HIS POSITION AND THE AUTHORITY UNDER WHICH HE ACTED. - THOUGH it had done some good service, and had received its title under Ward, yet it was not until it came under Colonel Gordon's command that the Ever-Victorious Army became in any degree worthy of its highsounding name, which must be taken not in a literal but in a transcendental and Celestial sense. The Chinese have a fine faculty for inventing happy names -their streams are fragrant, their mountains holy, the poorest hamlet may call itself the place of sweetsmelling grain, and the smallest junk be a wonder of the deep. Nor are such titles merely hollow sounds. Foreigners, on discovering the immense discrepancy between the Celestial phrase and that which it re presents, are apt to regard the former as a mere trivial absurdity; but to the Chinaman these titles have a vital significance, and the turn of a phrase will often influence his whole conduct towards the subject designated. No principle is more constantly enforced in the Chinese Classics than that wisdom lies in the proper knowledge and use of words. When it was asked of Mencius in what he surpassed, his brief reply was, "I understand words;" and elsewhere he complains of inauspicious, hurtful words, which throw men of virtue and talent into the shade. When inquiry was made of Confucius as to what was the first thing necessary to improve the government, he answered, "What is necessary is to rectify names;" and very expressively he said, that "to have a bad name is to dwell in a low-lying situation, where all the evil of the world flows in upon one." Views such as these have sunk deep into the national mind, and every Chinaman is singularly desirous that he and all his belongings should have auspicious and honourable designations. When the people are so inclined, of course the Government is very careful in all its edicts and proclamations to use either high-sounding or beautiful phraseology, whether the reference be to the Son of Earth and Heaven sitting on the dragon throne, or to a ragged lictor who runs by the chair of some petty Mandarin. Crime and official imbecility are reprobated in the most vigorous and picturesque manner by the Emperor's vermilion pencil; but where praise is to be awarded for judicious counsel or for battles won, then 'Strength is gigantic, valour high, Hence it is in a Celestial and somewhat transcendental, not in an occidental or literal meaning, that this phrase, THE OFFICIAL NAME OF GORDON'S FORCE. 125 "The Ever - Victorious Army," must be understood. "Ch'ang Sheng Chi'un," however the high-sounding title which this army received at a very early period of its existence, and by which it will be known, in Chinese history at least-turned out to be by no means extravagantly hyperbolic, seeing what was the work that it accomplished in the suppression of a most formidable movement, which afflicted the Flowery Land for more than ten years, which at one time had threatened to subvert not only the ruling dynasty, but also the institutions of the empire, and which had caused a prodigious amount of devastation and slaughter. It has been mentioned that in January 1863, General Staveley, now Sir Charles Staveley and second in command of the Abyssinian Expedition, but then chief of her Majesty's forces in China, being applied to by the Futai for advice and assistance, offered to place Captain Holland, the chief of his staff, in temporary command, and recommended Captain Gordon, R.E., to the permanent command, if his Government should approve of its being taken by a British officer. While under charge of Captain Holland, in February 1863, this disciplined force made an attack upon the town of Taitsan, but was defeated by the Tai-pings, with the loss of some guns and of many officers and men, though the commander made great exertions, and exposed himself throughout the engagement to a very heavy fire. Another expedition, under Major Brennan, was repulsed in an attempt to take Fushan; and these two failures, together with the insinuations of Imperialists, made the Futai very much dissatisfied and disgusted with this far from victorious army. But on the very day of Captain Holland's defeat a despatch arrived from Sir Frederick Bruce, sanctioning the placing of a British officer in command of this disciplined force; and on receiving this permission, General Staveley decided on placing Captain and Brevet-Major Gordon of the Royal Engineers in charge whenever that officer had finished with the survey on which he was engaged of the country within the thirty-mile radius round Shanghai. Captain (now Lieutenant-Colonel) Gordon, C.B., had served before Sebastopol in the Crimean war, and been there wounded in the trenches. After peace had been made, he was employed in surveying and settling the Turkish and Russian frontier in Asia, a work of no little danger and difficulty, owing to the wild character of the tribes of Armenia and Koordistan. Engaged in the expedition against Peking, he continued on service in China after our difficulties with the Imperial Government had been arranged; and in the end of 1861 made a long journey from that capital to the Chotow and Kalgan Passes on the Great Wall, striking down from the latter place through Shensi, and passing Taiyuen, the capital of that province, a city before unvisited by foreigners, unless by Catholic priests in disguise. In his new position as commander of the Ever-Victorious Army, Colonel Gordon did not fail to display the judgment and tireless energy which had characterised his brief but not undistinguished career. Indeed, it very soon became apparent that the Tai-pings had to meet a more formidable opponent than any they had before encountered, and one who knew how to break their ranks, not less by his skill in the arts of war than by his personal prestige, and by the assurance which his character soon inspired, that those who gave up their arms to him would receive humane and honourable treatment. Some curiosity may be felt in regard to the composition, arms, rates of pay, and so forth, of this disciplined COLONEL GORDON'S PREVIOUS SERVICES. 127 Chinese force which Colonel Gordon now undertook to command; and, moreover, without such knowledge his operations and the state of affairs in China can hardly be understood. Its origin under Ward has already been noticed, and as further organised by Gordon it may now be described generally. The commissioned officers were all Foreigners-Englishmen, Americans, Germans, Frenchmen, and Spaniards, but Americans were in the majority. Among them were to be found many seafaring men, and old soldiers of our infantry regiments who had purchased their discharge. As a rule they were brave, reckless, very quick in adapting themselves to circumstances, and reliable in action; but, on the other hand, they were troublesome when in garrison, very touchy as to precedence, and apt to work themselves about trifles into violent states of mind. Excited by Rebel sympathisers at Shanghai, and being of different nationalities, one half of them were usually in a violent state of quarrel with the other; but this, of course, was often an advantage to the commander. The non-commissioned officers were all Chinese, selected from the ranks; but very few of these were advanced to the higher grade, as it was found that, on such promotion, the most zealous sergeants became lazy and useless. Up to the capture of Quinsan in May 1863, the privates were principally natives of Kiangsoo and Chekiang, inferior to Cantonese and Northerners; but after that date the force was largely recruited from the captured Rebels, who were from all parts of China, and who, having been accustomed to very hard work and no pay, found the new service an elysium, and when taken one day, never objected to going into action against their old comrades the next. |
