BLACKWOOD’SEDINBURGH MAGAZINE.No. DLXVIII.FEBRUARY 1863.Vol. XCIII.
BLACKWOOD’SEDINBURGH MAGAZINE.No. DLXVIII.FEBRUARY 1863.Vol. XCIII.
BLACKWOOD’SEDINBURGH MAGAZINE.No. DLXVIII.FEBRUARY 1863.Vol. XCIII.
BLACKWOOD’S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
No. DLXVIII.FEBRUARY 1863.Vol. XCIII.
PROGRESS IN CHINA.
It would have required many cycles of Cathay to bring to the councils of the Court of Pekin the enlightenment we have alluded to in our last Number, if the populations over which it ruled had not threatened to outstrip the Government in the adoption of European ideas. Petty sedition, which had always been acknowledged in China as the expression of the will of the people, suddenly assumed an alarming form, and threatened to subvert not only the present dynasty, but, what was of far greater importance, a much venerated constitution, the result of the collective wisdom and experience of twenty-five centuries.
The two Kwang provinces, Kwang-tung and Kwang-si, were the first affected by the leaven of European example, and were so the more readily because our violent acts, irrespective of any question of justification, were congenial to the predatory tastes of the inhabitants of that portion of China. That region, which contains from twenty-six to twenty-eight millions of Chinese, has always been the last to submit to the rule of a new dynasty, and the first to revolt. Six centuries ago, the Mongol conquerors of China had no easy task in mastering these southerners; and Arab historians, never very nice in their estimate of the value of human life, write in strong terms of the terrible means by which the subjection of Kwang-tung was accomplished. “The blood of the people flowing in sounding torrents,” was a strong metaphor applied to the Mongol conquest; yet, four centuries afterwards, the Manchous had to repeat the same frightful lesson before they could say that they ruled over the cities and plains of Kwang-si. Even then, large bodies of the disaffected fled to the mountains on the north, and to the sea on the south, and, as banditti or pirates, have never been entirely reconciled to any form of government. In the lawless seafaring population of Kwang-tung, our armed smugglers found willing allies against a weak executive, and the leaven of our example at length brought about a rebellion, which, under the name of Taepingism, has been the most appalling scourge that ever fell upon a nation. We will endeavour to trace its origin, analyse the character of its reputed leaders, and, from the testimony of impartial witnesses, show what Taepingdom has done during the fourteen years it has had existence.
The elements of revolution were, as we have said, always ready to hand in Southern China; and even before the establishment of our sovereignty at Hong-Kong, there were thousands of lawless Cantonese ready to work any wickedness, whether as land or sea pirates, it mattered little, and they were merely kept in anything like subjection by excessive severity on the part of the mandarins and the executive of China. We stepped in, destroyed the prestige of Imperial fleets and armies; and our smugglers, in armed merchantmen called opium-clippers, brought into utter contempt the police of the Empire, and showed the natives of all classes how to evade the payment of all dues or taxes. Smuggling and piracy were divided by too narrow a distinction for the appreciation of the Cantonese, and their defiance of the Government was actively supported by the opium-clippers. The visitors to our settlement of Hong-Kong might have seen fleets of heavily-armed native vessels, loading with salt, opium, and other goods, all of which were to be run in the teeth of mandarins, war-junks, or forts. Fast boats, each manned with a hundred men, flaunted their flags, and beat their gongs. They became quite as ready to fight the European as their own rulers. When these ruffians had no other work in hand, they cut off their own lawful traders, or the little coasters under European flags. Gradually increasing in numbers and audacity, they attacked outlying Chinese towns; and when their own Government offered a sufficiently high pecuniary reward, they were equally ready to assist Governor-General Yeh to exterminate us.
We do not care to pass any opinion upon the iniquity or otherwise of the opium trade. It may have been a political and commercial necessity; but we should be false to history if we failed to trace much of the evil under which China is now suffering to that melancholy source. Owing to the enormous profits made upon the drug as a contraband article, the native traders formed themselves into powerful guilds, with ramifications at Hong-Kong, Macao, and Canton, which actually guaranteed the success of smuggling ventures—a smuggling assurance company, so to speak, against the lawful tax-gatherers of China; and the writer has heard the officers and crew of more than one English opium-clipper boast of having protected these ruffians, and beaten off the Government boats. This defiance of the native authorities extended itself to the interior. Bands of armed men were led by opium-brokers through the provinces, fighting their way with smuggled goods. To this fact we have the testimony of the Roman Catholic missionaries; and indeed Monsieur Chauveau, the head of the Catholic mission in Yunnan, insists—and we believe him—that the Taeping rebellion was inaugurated by a large band of six hundred opium-smugglers forcing their way from Yunnan to Canton, and compelling some influential personages in Kwang-si to assist them. After the smugglers had retired, the authorities naturally called the gentry to account. The mob took part with their neighbours; a secret society gave its aid; sedition spread, and, like a ball of snow, gathered weight as it rolled through a turbulent province. Hither hastened, as official reports state, the soldiery and braves that had been disbanded after the first war with us; hither went the disaffected of all classes, the ruined opium-smokers androuésof Canton; in short, the rowdies of a population equal to that of the French empire in extent soon collected at the base of the Kwang-si mountain-ranges, and devastated the best part of that province. In the year 1850, these troubles assumed the distinct phase of rebellion. After shirking the difficulty for as long a time as possible, the ‘Pekin Gazette’ began to publish reports of the state of Kwang-si. It told how vast districts had been swept over by banditti, how the entire eastern circuit of the province “had been atrociously dealt with by bands, who carried banners inscribed with the information, ‘We are dealing justice on behalf of Heaven.’” These justice-dispensing robbers “fired the villages wherever they came, violated the women, murdered the well-disposed, and took care to carry off all guns, horses, and arms.”
Directly the ‘Pekin Gazette’ officially recognised the rebellion, the European residents, instead of sympathising with the Government and the well-disposed Chinese, at once testified their interest in the movement, and openly avowed a hope that by the swords of these rebels China would be reformed and converted. Each one had his reason for adopting what at first sight seemed so unfair a course. The European official was sick of mandarin arrogance; the missionary was wearied with the slowness of his progress in dealing with the stolid self-sufficiency of the Chinese character, and in trying to establish breaches in the obstinacy of his belief in Confucius and Mencius; the trader longed for extended commerce or larger profits; and our smugglers were at war, as well as the Kwang-si rebels or Canton pirates, with all law and order.
The Taepings were speciously represented as men battling for religious and political freedom; and a Swedish missionary, Mr Hamberg, claimed for our reputed converts the credit of having organised and guided the rebellion. Himself deceived by the cunning of the Asiatic, he put forth a strange fable, called the ‘Revelations of Hung-siu-tsien,’ and was thus mainly instrumental in enlisting on behalf of an organised system of land-piracy the religious sympathy of this country. Hordes of armed robbers, ravaging the interior of a distant country, because they said they believed in Heaven, were forthwith pronounced Christians, engaged in war upon heathenism. And, forgetting the first principle of our faith, that it is not to be propagated by the sword, we shut our ears and hearts against the wail of perishing multitudes, and dreamed that the light of the Gospel had dawned on Cathay. Years have elapsed since our credulity was thus imposed on, and from the experience gathered we are now able, we think, to tear the veil from the monstrous imposition.
The rebellion in Kwang-si first obtained political importance when it secured the adhesion of a few literary expectants for office, who had been rejected at the competitive examinations in Canton. By those examinations, every man in China may hope to reach the highest posts in the empire. The necessities of the Court of Pekin during the reign of the last three inefficient monarchs had compelled it to dispose of certain appointments by purchase. Every disappointed candidate at the provincial examinations traced his failure to this abuse, and a formidable body of ambitious, half-educated enemies to the State was thus formed. This was exactly the class needed by the hard-fighting brigands of Kwang-si and pirates of Kwang-tung to bind them together under a common banner, and they were not long in finding their way to a theatre where they might play at being kings, ministers, and generals to their hearts’ content.
For one of these disappointed candidates for office, named Hung-siu-tsien, and for a society of reputed converts at Hong-Kong, known as the Christian Union, Mr Hamberg claims the credit of the Taeping movement. They are perfectly welcome to the honour; but we, in the first place, impeach the testimony of the Chinaman who persuaded Mr Hamberg that the leader of the Taepings was a Christian convert; and, in the next place, we declare that the members of the “Christian Union” were as arrant knaves as ever imposed upon the good-nature of a confiding clergyman.
The Christian Union at Hong-Kong was instituted for the purpose of training Chinese in Protestant Christianity, and sending them as missionaries into the interior of the country. Mr Gutzlaff had the charge of this Union, and seems to have been utterly deceived by them; for we are assured by one who was immediately brought up amongst them as an Englishman studying the Chinese language, that they were dissolute characters, pretending to be converts for the sake of a livelihood. There was no duplicity they did not practise, and no lie they did not invent. Our informant one day entered the study of one of these missionaries, as he was poring over a long and well-written Chinese letter. His face was lit up with joy and interest, and he exclaimed, “Ah, when you are able to compose like that!” The young English student took up the letter, and found it to be from a convert named Wang-pin, giving an account of a mission upon which he had been despatched into the interior. It described his adventures and difficulties, his hopes and anxieties; how some officials had maltreated him; how he had escaped: it recounted labours amongst his brethren, and, lastly, the conversion of two women and a youth, and the joy with which he had welcomed by baptism such and such persons into the fold. The imposition was perfect; but, unfortunately, the writer had allowed himself to be seen very recently in Hong-Kong. Search was made for him. Aided by a policeman, the task of discovering Wang-pin was not difficult. He was dragged out of a brothel, where, no doubt, he had penned his interesting report.
Such profligacy was the rule rather than the exception amongst the Christian Union. At a recent meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, Mr Lay related another instance of moral turpitude. It appears that the Union was supposed to consist of men from various provinces of China, and a number of Bibles adapted for circulation in their respective districts were regularly issued to these natives, when they were despatched upon their tours of duty. As there was reason to suppose that these Bibles were often returned to the office, and had to be paid for as new ones supplied from the Chinese publisher at Hong-Kong, a number of them were secretly marked with the names of the converts who were supposed to distribute them gratis in remote parts of the empire. Before many days, every one of these marked Bibles returned to the hands of Mr Hamberg, and it was then discovered that they had been sold to the Chinese publisher, who had again presented them as new Bibles. Of course this system of pillage was put a stop to, but we leave the reader to guess how many more frauds were daily perpetrated by such a set of scamps upon innocent-minded missionaries. We might fill a volume with further details of the tricks of the Christian Union, but we forbear.
Amongst these reputed converts to Christianity was one who can at any rate claim the credit of having so thoroughly deceived us, that even so recent a writer as Commander Lindesay Brine, of the Royal Navy, did not succeed in discovering the wolf under the skin of the oily Hung-jin. Mr Hamberg first met Hung-jin (or, as he now styles himself, Kan-wang) in 1852, at a time when the minds of our residents in China were much excited. Mr Hamberg was full of curiosity, Hung-jin all ready to gratify it. Hung-jin quite delighted the missionary “with the interest he displayed in Christianity, and his acquaintance with its precepts.” The rogue, be it known, had actually studied Christianityfor two entire months, some years previously, under Mr Roberts, an American missionary in Canton. As a near connection of two out of three of the most prominent leaders in Kwang-si, Hung-jin could give information about them; and, still more to delight Mr Hamberg, he invented a fable he knew would be very palatable to the outer barbarian, and promote the fortune of himself and family. Hung-jin, having converted us to Taepingism, was much treasured by our religious societies in China, and every care and expense were lavished upon him to render him a fit instrument for keeping up the connection between us and the leaders of the Taeping movement. He and his brother, we know, were in the employ of two missionaries in Hong-Kong about the year 1853. Hung-jin was above the average of his countrymen in ability; and, under the care of the Rev. Mr Chalmers for three years, made considerable progress in secular studies. In 1854 he was baptised, and repeated unsuccessful attempts were then and subsequently made to send him back to his friends in Kwang-si and Central China. Our missionaries were almost hysterical over their treasure; they declared he had quite established himself in the confidence and esteem of the Shanghai missions; that he exhibited “much talent, evinced much sweetness of disposition, and, above all, had given undoubted proofs of the sincerity of his attachment to the Christian faith.” Early in 1859 he contrived at last to rejoin his relative in Nankin: a relative whom he had left years before as a mere conspirator in Kwang-si, he now found self-installed as an incarnation of the Deity in a yamun of Nankin. The discontented and unsuccessful candidate for literary honours of Canton was now the King of Heaven, the Tien-wang of Nankin. Hung-jin was welcomed as he deserved, for he had well served the King of Heaven by throwing dust in the eyes of the much-feared foreigner; and Hung-jin, the Christian impostor, stepped into royal robes as the “Kan-wang,” “Shield King,” or, in other words, the prop and stay of Taepingism; and, having shown such ability in bamboozling the foreigner, his especial province appears to have been to feed us with hopes of a general conversion and extension of trade, but to take care that we did not test their sincerity. Feeling that it was not yet time to throw off the cloak of piety which had hitherto served him so well, Commander Brine tells us that the Kan-wang wrote to the Rev. Mr Edkins, deploring his unfitness for the high post to which his distinguished relative had appointed him; expressing his own anxiety “to promote the diffusion of true religion;” adding, that he was more than ever impressed with the superhuman wisdom of the Tien-wang, or King of Heaven! Just after he had thus given utterance to these expressions of diffidence and zeal, our late pupil, now an assistant-king in Nankin, started on an expedition into Ngan-hwuy province, to spread the knowledge of Perfect Peace. A traveller who happened to be on the river Yang-tsze at that time, tells us that it was easy to trace the path of the mission by “the smoking and flaming villages.” Every impostor must, however, eventually be exposed, and so it was with the Kan-wang; for the missionaries, taking him and his relative at their word, thrust themselves into Nankin. Mr Roberts, the quondam instructor in divinity of the Taeping rulers, had preceded the Kan-wang, and the latter found Mr Roberts clad in regal robes, and holding some sort of office. About this time also (1860), the Rev. Mr Holmes visited Nankin; he came away shocked at what he had seen and heard. We shall avail ourselves presently of his testimony as to the character of the Taeping rebellion; but for the present we shall confine ourselves to the career of Hung-jin, or Kan-wang. In the ‘North China Herald’ of October 19, 1861, under the signature “Rusticus Expectans,” we next hear of the scamp. The anonymous writer turns out, by the evidence of Captain T. W. Blakiston, to be Mr Forrest, an interpreter in the British consular establishment.[1]Mr Forrest draws a vivid picture of the homes of the different Taeping-wangs. He tells us of his Excellency Le, who was building a gorgeous yamun, “upon which upwards of a thousand workmen were engaged—some building, some carving stone and wood, and not a few standing with a bundle of rattans in their hands ready to inflict blows on any one shirking his work. A great portion of the building is already completed, and the whole will be a good specimen of a Chinese yamun of the old style, with its network of beams at the gables, its large wooden columns, and fantastic carvings. Asking what the workmen were paid, Le laughingly replied,—‘You English pay for work; we Taepings know better. Is not ours a truly great Empire?’”
In front of the Kan-wang’s palace were two orchestras, painted over with dragons, diablerie, Chinese characters, and the beatitudes from St Matthew! The Kan-wang is, it seems, a hearty fat individual, forty years of age, and very intelligent. He can shake hands like an Englishman, and say, “How do you do?” Mr Chalmers’s care in his education was evinced by his knowledge of geography especially, and the number of books of reference by which he was surrounded.
“His sanctum is quite a museum in its way; a fine cheerful room facing a garden of flowers, with a large bed of Soochow manufacture for its principal article of furniture. The bed is covered with jade ornaments, and hung with rich yellow curtains. Tables line the sides of this chamber, and they are loaded with the strangest conglomeration of articles: a telescope on a moving pedestal, a gun-box, three Colt’s revolvers useless from rust, a box of percussion-caps, ditto of vestas, Windsor soap, a Woolwich manual of fortification, and a Holy Bible; any amount of Chinese books, five clocks, broken barometers, ink-stones, and dirty rags, fans mounted in silver, jade-stone drinking-cups, gold and silver platters, chopsticks, English port-wine bottles, and Coward’s mixed pickles. About the apartment were suspended an English naval sword, some dragoon-caps, a couple of Japanese knives, two French plates, an engraving of the Holy Well in Flintshire, and lying on the bed was a mass of silver ingots tied up in a cloth.”
Amidst this collection of loot, the Kan-wang could give a neat dinner and plenty of wine, for which he had an especial dispensation. Our informant then adds that Kan-wang is “a good fellow, and merely accommodates his Christianity to his tastes and habits”—an opinion in which we agree, only substituting the words arch-knave for good fellow. Hear, for instance, what Mr Roberts says of him, in January 1862:—
“From having been the religious teacher of Hung-siu-tsuen in 1847, and hoping that good—religious, commercial, and political—would result to the nation from his elevation, I have hitherto been a friend to his revolutionary movement, sustaining it by word and deed, as far as a missionary consistently could without vitiating his higher character as an ambassador of Christ. But after living among them fifteen months, and closely observing their proceedings—political, commercial, and religious—I have turned over entirely a new leaf, and am now as much opposed to them—for good reasons, I think—as I ever was in favour of them. Not that I have aught personally against Hung-siu-tsuen; he has been exceedingly kind to me. But I believe him to be a crazy man, entirely unfit to rule without any organised government; nor is he, with his coolie kings, capable of organising a government, of equal benefit to the people, of even the old Imperial Government. He is violent in his temper, and lets his wrath fall heavily upon his people, making a man or woman ‘an offender for a word,’ and ordering such instantly to be murdered without ‘judge or jury.’ He is opposed to commerce, having had more than a dozen of his own people murdered since I have been here, for no other crime than trading in the city, and has promptly repelled every foreign effort to establish lawful commerce here among them, whether inside of the city or out. His religious toleration and multiplicity of chapels turn out to be a farce—of no avail in the spread of Christianity—worse than useless. It only amounts to a machinery for the promotion and spread of his own political religion, making himself equal with Jesus Christ, who, with God the Father, himself, and his own son, constitute one Lord over all!! Nor is any missionary who will not believe in his divine appointment to this high equality, and promulgate his political religion accordingly, safe among these rebels, in life, servants, or property. He told me soon after I arrived, that if I did not believe in him I would perish, like the Jews did for not believing in the Saviour. But little did I then think that I should ever come so near it, by the sword of one of his own miscreants, in his own capital, as I did the other day.
“Kan-wang, moved by his coolie elder brother (literally a coolie at Hong-Kong) and the devil, without the fear of God before his eyes, did, on Monday the 13th instant, come into the house in which I was living, then and there most wilfully, maliciously, and with malice aforethought, murder one of my servants with a large sword in his own hand in my presence, without a moment’s warning or any just cause. And after having slain my poor harmless, helpless boy, he jumped on his head most fiend-like, and stamped it with his foot; notwithstanding I besought him most entreatingly from the commencement of his murderous attack to spare my poor boy’s life.
“And not only so, but he insulted me myself in every possible way he could think of, to provoke me to do or say something which would give him an apology, as I then thought and think yet, to kill me, as well as my dear boy, whom I loved like a son. He stormed at me, seized the bench on which I sat with the violence of a madman, threw the dregs of a cup of tea in my face, seized hold of me personally and shook me violently, struck me on my right cheek with his open hand; then, according to the instruction of my King for whom I am ambassador, I turned the other, and he struck me quite a sounder blow on my left cheek with his right hand, making my ear ring again; and then, perceiving that he could not provoke me to offend him in word or deed, he seemed to get more outrageous, and stormed at me like a dog, to be gone out of his presence. ‘If they do these things in the green tree, what will they do in the dry?’—to a favourite of Tien-wang’s—who can trust himself among them, either as a missionary or a merchant? I then despaired of missionary success among them, or any good coming out of the movement—religious, commercial, or political—and determined to leave them, which I did on Monday, January 20, 1862.”
We may add, that subsequent to the departure of Mr Roberts, the Taeping leaders signified that they had no farther need of missionaries at Nankin.
Let us now trace the career of the head of Taepingism, Hung-siu-tsuen, from the ‘Pekin Gazette’ and other documents.
In the year 1837, a man twenty-three years of age, whose family resided near Canton, went up for his literary examination—a competitive examination for office under his Government. He was plucked—it was not the first time. Perfectly satisfied with his own merits, he had assumed the title Siu-tsuen, or “Elegantly perfect,” in addition to the family name of Hung. As Siu-tsuen we shall speak of him. Between 1837 and 1843, Siu-tsuen was again repeatedly unsuccessful at the examinations; disappointment brought on brain fever, and for some years he was a dangerous lunatic. Recovering from this attack, he accidentally obtained possession of a number of tracts on Christianity by a native convert called Leang-Afah. They were in style and translation enough to puzzle a stronger brain than Siu-tsuen’s. Naturally excitable, he was now seized with a religious mania, and fancied he had personal interviews with the Trinity. He had witnessed the proceedings of Western nations against the Government of his country; and our combination of civilisation, religion, and war no doubt struck him as the right means for gratifying his spleen and his ambition. From a crack-brained enthusiast, Siu-tsuen sobered down into a conspirator against his sovereign and the order of the State. From 1843 to 1846, he was, we are told, busy inoculating a small circle of his immediate friends with his views. His disciples believed that he was in direct communication with the Deity, and he appears at first to have merely contented himself with the character of a second Moses. He formed a society which he called the “Congregation of the Worshippers of God” (or “Shangti”). Hung-jin, or Kan-wang, and another relative of Siu-tsuen’s, named Fung, likewise joined it. As the society increased, Siu-tsuen bound the members by oaths “to live or die with him, and to exert all their efforts to assist him;” and in return he promised to ascertain from heaven for the members “wherein lay their respective interests and profits,”[2]an essentially Chinese way of looking at Christianity. They soon worshipped Siu-tsuen as an incarnation of Shangti, or God. Both he and his relative Fung had ecstatic fits. The latter performed miracles; and like other arch-impostors, they passed unconsciously from deluding others into deceiving themselves. The disordered condition of Southern China favoured the propagation of any doctrines, however wild and bizarre; and the mountains and secluded valleys of Kwang-si afforded the necessary hiding-places for a sect whose first article of faith was disobedience to the Emperor. In either 1846 or 1847 Mr Roberts, residing in Canton, was so interested in the doings of Siu-tsuen that he invited him to stay at his house, and promised a kind welcome on the part of his brethren. Siu-tsuen, accompanied by his relative Hung-jin, accordingly went to Mr Roberts, and stayed two entire months studying Protestantism. Their conduct was exemplary, but Mr Roberts did not feel justified in baptising the worthies before they left, which is just as well, for, in “the 3d month of 1848,” Siu-tsuen announced to his flock that “our Heavenly Father had come down into the world,” and on “the 9th month he was followed by the Saviour, who wrought innumerable miracles!”
About this time the plot of sending Hung-jin to the Europeans, and intrusting him with the office of misleading us as to the real character of the intended insurrection, must have been decided upon, for we now find him in communication with Mr Hamberg. What occurred between 1850 and 1853, when Hung-jin rejoined his relative at Nankin, we will condense in a few words. Siu-tsuen and Fung, aided by another disappointed candidate for office named Tai-tsuen, or Tien-teh, raised the standard of revolution, and declared openly their intention of subverting the present dynasty. Siu-tsuen styled himself the King of Perfect Peace, or “Tae-ping-wang,” and nominated the other two as subordinate kings. They sacked several cities in Kwang-si, but finding the province getting too hot to hold them, they decamped with the loss of Tien-teh, their best leader, and crossed into Honan province, so as to strike the great water-communication which circulates through Central China. The Taeping leader, then captured, made a full confession, which, tested by the experience of to-day, is a most truthful account; and though vaunting the courage of his brother rebels, he distinctly says that, after all, Siu-tsuen was a mere profligate and winebibber, rejoicing in no less than thirty-six mistresses.
In June 1852, we find that the Taepings, ten thousand strong, had reached a large river flowing through Honan into the Yang-tsze. The water-communication once reached, they had but to embark, and the current would waft them to Nankin, and as far north as Tien-tsin.
By Christmas 1852 they had reached the commercial heart of the Empire in the great emporiums which lie about the confluence of the rivers Han and Yang-tsze. Two centuries of peaceful industry, of buying and selling, giving and taking in marriage, without one thought of a sudden and bloody awakening from a dream of luxury, were here ready for the strong-handed. The writer met a man who witnessed the destruction of the three great cities of Wuchang, Hankow, and Han-yang, the slaughter of the ill-starred inhabitants, and the conflagration of the vast fleets of junks and trading-boats there assembled. For eight days and nights the place was, he said, wrapt in flames—a perfect hell upon earth. The horrors of this scene were sufficient to frighten all the inhabitants of the lower valley of the Yang-tsze into subjection, but it did not save them from pillage and rapine. The officials were everywhere slaughtered when they dared to remain at their posts, and the Manchou garrisons, with their children and women, perished to a soul. Wherever the current of the river would float these Taepings, they conquered, unopposed. Nankin in its turn fell into their hands with frightful slaughter, and Chin-Keang, at the entrance of the Grand Canal, shared the same fate. Still aided by the water-communication, they aimed a blow at Pekin, and actually advanced to the head of the canal. Directly, however, the water-communication failed them, their progress was arrested, and they sustained a defeat that deterred them from a second attempt on the capital. There can be no greater fallacy than the notion that the stability of the dynasty has been really jeopardised, or that the raid of the Taepings towards Pekin was the result of organisation or military skill, instead of being entirely due, as we have said, to the immense water facilities at their command, from the very mountains of Kwang-si to the Tung-ting Lake, and from the lake to the Yang-tsze, and from it to Tien-tsin by the Grand Canal.
Siu-tsuen,aliasTien-wang, or King of Heaven, now sat (in 1853) in Nankin, and Taepingism was thoroughly established as an evil which it would require years to extirpate; and what was worse, damage had been done to the extension of Protestant Christianity in the minds of the better classes in China, from the artful manner in which Siu-tsuen had succeeded in dragging us in as his allies against the Government and peaceable classes of China.
That he and his emissaries did not confine themselves to converting sanguine and anxious missionaries, is well attested in the Blue-Book of 1853. There we find one of our consular body officially reporting:—
“All I have heard tends to strengthen my previously expressed conviction that the insurrectionary movement is a national one of the Chinese against the continued rule, or rather misrule, of the Manchous; and that the power of the latter is alreadyirrevocably subverted in the southern half of the Empire. The interference of foreigners in their behalf would now only have the effect of prolonging hostilities and anarchy for an indefinite period; while, if they abstain from interference, it is highly probable that the valley of the Yang-tsze, with the southern provinces,will speedily come under the rule of a purely Chinese dynasty as one internally strong State, governed according to the old national principles of administration.”
Ten years have elapsed since that prophecy. The Manchou has had during that period two wars with Great Britain and France, and rebellions in every one of the eighteen provinces of China. Yet Pekin rules while Nankin plunders. The dynasty was not quite so sick as Mr Meadows supposed.
Following the weak example of the United States representatives in 1853, our authorities actually put themselves into official communication with the Taeping kings. The insolence of their communications was as gross as their mendacity.
Take the following extract for example, written by two subordinate rulers, Lo and Woo, who perhaps had formerly been of the Christian Union:—
“Well do we remember how, in conjunction with Bremer, Elliot, and Wanking, in the province of Canton, we together erected a church, and together worshipped Jesus, our Celestial Elder Brother; all these circumstances are as fresh as if they had happened but yesterday. We are grieved to hear that Bremer has met with a misfortune, and we can never forget the nobleness of his character. As to Elliot and Wanking, we hope they have enjoyed health since we last met—we feel an irrepressible anxiety to meet our old friends.”
So much for the dodge of Christianity, for the whole idea of building a church with Sir Charles Elliot and “Wanking” was evidently coined with the aid of one Mang, the teacher of Mr Meadows, and who, like all these teachers, was handing his master over as a sheep to be shorn by his countrymen. Then in another place a sop is held for the commercial interest:—
“Our Royal Master has received the command of Heaven to show kindness to foreigners, and harmonise them with the Chinese” [Mr Roberts’s testimony, dated ten years afterwards, to wit], “not restricting commercial intercourse, or levying transit duties upon merchandise.”
We may have done right, after all, in allowing these Taepings time to show by their acts how little they intended to fulfil their promises. In ten years they have utterly wrecked the richest portion of China. All the wonders of Chinese art and industry are levelled with the dust and destroyed. The Porcelain Pagoda—the Iron Tower—the Ming Cemetery of Nankin—the beautiful temples and valuable libraries of Golden Island, exist no longer. A district once teeming with hamlets and farms, rich in silks and teas, and all the products of the Flowery Land, is now a wilderness; and the Englishman who looked upon the wondrous scene of Asiatic civilisation and industry, as spread before him in the valley of the Yang-tsze in the year 1842, would never recognise it again in the famine-stricken desolation of to-day. Lest we should allow our indignation at such unchecked barbarism to carry us away, we will quote from two recent visitors, the one a soldier, the other a clergyman. Colonel Wolseley, in 1862, says: “Having had some little experience of the imbecility of the Imperial Government, I went to Nankin strongly prejudiced against it, and only too anxious to recognise any good which we might discover in its rival.... The Imperial Government, with all its weakness, is as far removed above that established at Nankin, as the true religion of our Saviour is above that set up by the impostor Tien-wang.” He confirms the fact that no man of worth or station in China has joined the movement; and after describing all the ruin, crime, and nastiness of the interior of the Taeping stronghold, he urges his countrymen to assist the better classes of Chinese in sweeping away the abomination, because it is the barrier to true progress in China.
Mr Holmes, whose zeal for the spiritual welfare of the Chinese subsequently led to his being slain by some rebels in Shan-tung, bears the following testimony to the hopelessness of anything good from Taepingism. After visiting Nankin in the end of 1861, he says:—
“I went to Nankin predisposed to receive a favourable impression; indeed, the favourable impressions of a previous visit to Suchau led me to undertake this journey. I came away with my views very materially changed. I had hoped that their doctrines, though crude and erroneous, might notwithstanding embrace some of the elements of Christianity. I found, to my sorrow, nothing of Christianity but its names, falsely applied—applied to a system of revolting idolatry. Whatever there may be in their books, and whatever they may have believed in times past, I could not escape the conclusion that such is the system which they now promulgate, and by which the character of their people is being moulded. Their idea of God is distorted until it is inferior, if possible, to that entertained by other Chinese idolaters. Their willingness—if indeed they are willing to receive Christian missionaries among them—is doubtless founded upon a misapprehension of their true character. They suppose that the missionary will prove an instrument which they can bend to suit their own purposes. Exceptions might, perhaps, be made in favour of individuals: it is of those who hold the reins of power that I speak.
“The city of Nankin is in a ruinous condition. It would be no exaggeration to say that half the houses have been destroyed. The country around is not half cultivated. Provisions are very scarce and expensive. Their trade is very limited. We observed instances in which workmen were compelled to labour without compensation. All indicates a policy that has little regard to the welfare of the people, or to any interests other than those immediately connected with war, and with the indulgence of their rulers.
“The present state of their political affairs would indicate that Hung-siu-tsuen’s career must close before the present dynasty can be supplanted. His horrible doctrines, which have served to break down every distinction between right and wrong in the minds of his soldiers, and send them forth to perform every enormity without remorse, have secured him the lasting hatred of the masses of the people. The scenes of internal discord which so nearly proved their destruction a few years since, would doubtless be enacted again, and upon a large scale, when, with their enemies vanquished, they came to a final division of the spoils.”
And if any farther testimony were necessary, we might, in the pages of the last Blue-Book for 1862, cull evidence enough to convince the most sceptical that the people, as well as the Government, are hostile to the robbers who pretend to be inaugurating a new rule.
This Taeping movement has never had at any time a national character. It has not been joined by any influential class. The Taepings have never organised any sort of government, and they have never held any ground but that on which their camps stood. Had they shown any disposition to gain the suffrages of the Chinese people, already dissatisfied with their mandarins, their chances of subverting the dynasty would have been great. They have not done so, and the consequence is, that the popular feeling is strongly against them. Hear, for instance, what thirty-two of the representative elders of the districts between Soochow and the Yang-tsze river say in a petition to our Minister, and then decide on which side our humanity should be enlisted:—
“Living to the east of the river, we have the misfortune to be visited by the murderously ferocious rebels, who have burnt our dwellings, carried off our people, dishonoured our wives and daughters, robbed us, and murdered innumerable of us, till the land is covered with corpses, and the roads run with tears and blood. We ourselves have suffered so in our persons, and our families overwhelmed with bitterness, refugees from our homes, that there is no name for our misery; our lives can scarcely be called our own. It seems that not one of us will escape. In desperation, therefore, we piteously implore the Minister, that in his great goodness, surpassing all things, he will pity us, and speedily rescue us, and will despatch his energetic soldiers to sweep the abomination out of the land, that our death may be turned to life, our gratitude be unimaginable; and unless his goodness does rescue us, there will be no escape for us, and the people and property on the east of the river will be destroyed, and the land left a desert, without hope of recovery. We implore him, therefore, the more earnestly, that millions of the poor people are lying, leaning on each other, in this deep snow, in misery unspeakable, waiting for his will.”
Could any words be more expressive? And it is not only the Imperialists who suffer, but there are tens of thousands who have joined the Taeping ranks from compulsion and to save their lives. These poor creatures are, if possible, more to be pitied than any other class. They stand between two fires,—the sword of the Taeping and the Imperial executioner. On their behalf we ought as soon as possible to place the Imperial Government in such a position that an amnesty could be safely granted, or arrangements made for allowing these compromised people to emigrate to Borneo, the Straits settlements, to Burmah, and elsewhere. The compromised might embark with their wives and families, and in less populated regions found colonies as creditable to their mother country as they would be profitable to European civilisation and commerce. This would be a triumphant solution of the Taeping difficulty; and we feel justified in hoping that the Court of Pekin may be persuaded to temper justice with mercy, inasmuch as one of its highest officers has recently recognised the evils of over-population, and legalised emigration from the provinces under his jurisdiction.
Our collision with the Taepings has been denounced as if it had been sought by the British authorities in China. But this is by no means the case. In 1858, when Lord Elgin ascended the Yang-tsze, the escorting squadron was deliberately attacked, although the smallest vessel was sent considerably in advance with a flag of truce flying, and a person was expressly sent in her to afford every explanation of our Ambassador’s motive in desiring to pass Nankin.
Both then and subsequently the Taeping chiefs were told that we entertained no hostile feeling towards them, and that so long as they respected British property we should be strictly neutral. In spite of these warnings and the promises of their leaders, the Taepings, not satisfied with the sack of the great cities in the districts around Shanghai and Ningpo, actually attacked our settlements. Necessity has compelled us to act upon the defensive. We had to drive them from the neighbourhood; and in order to prevent their starving out the vast numbers of Chinese who had taken shelter in Shanghai, we had to mark certain limits within which we would not suffer their presence. Such is the history of our “war” against the Taepings. Troops have been sent for from India, and Shanghai and Ningpo are virtually under the protection of the British and French forces. As a temporary measure this may answer, but it is beset with inconveniences and risks if prolonged. Temporary protection, as our Indian experience abundantly teaches us, leads to permanent occupation, and ultimate absorption of territory. The foot of a vigorous European nation, once placed firmly on the soil of an Eastern state, cannot be withdrawn.
Yet the present state of China leaves us no alternative. There are other important considerations upon which our space forbids us entering, but there is one we will allude to in passing—the evils inflicted upon the country by the influx of adventurers now swarming thither, who are amenable to no law, with no fortunes or characters to lose, but abundance of appetite to acquire. The misdeeds of these miscreants are a great obstacle to friendly intercourse with the Chinese people; and to watch and keep them within bounds, the operation of a high and powerful police is absolutely necessary. Our trade and property must be protected by some Power, or be sacrificed. How that protection shall be afforded is the problem to be solved.
This country is decidedly opposed to direct intervention, while the assumption of a protectorate over China by any other Power would be directly opposed to our interests.
It might be well, if it were possible, to leave the Chinese to work out their own regeneration; but unfortunately our commercial interests and revenue are so interwoven with the wellbeing of China, that we cannot afford to wait the time that might elapse before the restoration of order.
In respect to ourselves, were we disposed to look on and abide the issue, other Powers whose interests differ, and whose risks are by no means as great, would not refrain with such a temptation before them. We have already a glut of territory in Asia; it is quite natural that other European powers should crave an India likewise. In respect to China herself, she is fully alive to the necessity of calling in European vigour and intelligence, and has made up her mind to procure it; a step the natural consequence of contact with Europeans, and over which we have no control.
If the Governments of Europe were to agree to withhold the service of their troops, this would not prevent the employment of private individuals from Europe or America, and we have seen only recently how easy it is to evade the jurisdiction of the foreign consul by the simple process of hailing for a Chinaman, or from any State not represented on the spot. The Chinese Government can command foreign aid if so disposed, but irresponsible enlistment of foreigners is on all grounds objectionable and dangerous. It has been tried, and the results have been what might have been anticipated—waste, peculation, and danger to the State. What indeed is the experience of those European Powers who have at different times independently raised foreign legions?
The Taoutai of Shanghai long since tried the experiment upon his own responsibility of forming a European-Chinese fleet, and utterly failed, after spending millions of dollars. He bought up in 1853 a number of vessels, manned and officered them with all the dregs of our settlements; without proper status or discipline they were sent up to fight Taepings at Nankin, and of course ran away. Other mandarins hired lorchas under European flags to protect trade on the coast; these likewise turned upon their employers, and, instead of fighting pirates, frightened their employers. The last item of news from China is, that the crews of some hired lorchas had passed over in a body to the pirates, and that one of Ward’s regiments had mutinied after his death, and looted the yamun of a high official.
In our opinion, there is, in view of the interests of all European Powers, but one mode of giving aid to the Chinese Government—to wit, encouraging officers of character and respectability, subjects of those Powers, to enter the service of the Chinese Government.
We have with China an enormous and profitable trade; we want it guaranteed and developed. This duty properly devolves upon China, but she is as yet unable to discharge it. It is by the aid of men who possess both character and status, the guarantee of good behaviour, that she will acquire strength and knowledge to fulfil her obligations, and through their influence be induced to adopt the results of European science and skill—the steamship, railways, and electric telegraph—thus insuring progress profitable to herself and the world at large. This end, we take it, should be our object in giving help to China. She should not be strengthened out of hand, but by a slow process with a small force, whose action should be spread over a period sufficient to enable us to open the country, throughout its length and breadth, to Christianity and commerce.
Views in consonance with the foregoing remarks appear to have found favour at Pekin, but owing, doubtless, to the different views entertained by the Ministers of England, France, Russia, and America, the Regency has been dragged first in one direction and then in the other. Russia is evidently ready for direct intervention. In 1860 she persuaded the Emperor of China to barter square miles of territory for old rifles, and we hear that the Czar’s ships are ready to retake Nankin. The capture of that city is just now worth a province to the Court of Pekin. The French and ourselves have been flirting with the question, watching and checkmating each other, rather than promoting the real interests of China. Not, perhaps, because Sir Frederick Bruce has not been aware of what was really essential, but because he was apprehensive, probably, of compromising our Ministry in any direct line of policy. The result has been that small bodies of Imperialists have been drilled by English and French officers upon totally different systems, in spots scattered all over the sea frontier of China. Every one of these half-trained braves will be as dangerous as a Taeping, unless he be under efficient discipline and thorough control. No regular organisation has been attempted, and we cannot but fear that such trifling with a very serious question will lead to great evils.
As an instance, permission has just been given to all our military officers, of any stamp, to accept commissions in China. The officer of repute is thus placed on a footing with discharged seamen and marines now holding the rank of Colonels and Majors in the Chinese army, while the Chinese Government is unfairly left to discriminate between the good and the worthless. A surer method of bringing discredit upon ourselves, and involving us eventually in direct intervention, could scarcely be devised.
Surrounded with difficulties, Prince Kung appears to have rightly turned his first attention to the organisation of a maritime police, and given a willing ear to the counsels of the Acting Inspector-General, Mr Hart, supported by our able Minister. Instructions have been issued for a certain sum to be set aside from the customs revenue, and the chief of that department has been authorised to take such steps as would accomplish the desired object. These instructions are interesting, and evince a real desire to master the subject; whilst the admission that a departure from ancient custom is necessary, is highly significative of the dawn of progress in China. Prince Kung writes from Pekin in February last as follows:—
“The Foreign Office repeat the instructions they have already given the Inspector-General, to give effect to the arrangement for the purchase of foreign steamers with the utmost despatch. The orders to the various customhouses to get ready their quota were issued some time back; and these orders have been repeated, coupled with a caution against delay, as it is the Emperor’s particular wish that not a day should be lost. The Board understand that there are several classes of foreign steamers—the mail steamer, the merchant steamer, and the war steamer; that the first is very small, the second the reverse of handy, and that neither are available like the third for warlike purposes. They are further informed that the mail and merchant steamers are paddle-wheel steamers, while the war steamers are ‘secret wheel’ (screw) vessels. This is a point of great importance, to which they would draw the special attention of the Inspector-General. The money being now ready for transmission, there is no reason why there should be any, the slightest, delay.”
The despatch gives instructions upon other points, and concludes with again urging the Inspector-General to lose no time, closing with the words, “Hasten! hasten!!”
The Inspector-General, obliged by ill-health to return to England, was the better able to work out the desires of the Emperor’s Council, and put himself in communication with Her Majesty’s Government, with a view to obtain their necessary sanction before he could legally purchase a vessel or employ a British subject. He was, above all, desirous to insure the thorough respectability and good character of the European force destined to guide as well as aid the Chinese—at the same time, to take care that the help should be granted in a way to insure real progress at Pekin, and thus guard against a return to the old policy of exclusion as soon as the officials were relieved from the fears and difficulties of their present position—and to effect this in such a manner as should not supersede, but merely supplement, the action of the Chinese themselves. This maxim should ever be borne in mind in our dealings with China. To supersede the native authority, besides humiliating him, brings about no beneficial result.
Her Majesty’s Government met the proposals of the Inspector-General on behalf of the Emperor of China in an enlightened spirit, guarding themselves, however, carefully against any risk of being charged with intervention. Mr Lay offered the post of Commander-in-Chief of the European-Chinese naval force to Captain Sherard Osborn, C. B., which office, under the sanction of Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and the Board of Admiralty, he gladly accepted. The necessary authority from Her Majesty in Council was issued, authorising the Inspector-General Horatio Lay and Captain Sherard Osborn to purchase such vessels and enter such British subjects as might be necessary, without an infringement of the Foreign Enlistment Act. With the permission of the Admiralty, Captain Osborn selected the following officers:—Captain Hugh Burgoyne, V.C., as second in command; Commander C. S. Forbes; Lieutenants Arthur Salwey, Noel Osborn, F. C. Vincent, H. M. Ommanney, Allen Young, and G. Morice; Mr Henry Collins in charge of the Paymaster’s and Storekeeper’s Departments; and Doctors John Elliot, F. Piercey, Fegan, and others, of the hospital arrangements. Officers of the highest stamp have been likewise selected from the mercantile marine, and no seamen or marines have been entered except such as could show years of good conduct.
It is, moreover, Mr Lay’s intention to enlist presently in this force the subjects of the other Treaty Powers, so as to render it aEuropeanChinese force, in accordance with the principle successfully carried out in the customs administration.
As the funds arrived from China the vessels and stores were purchased. The Admiralty afforded the same facilities from our arsenals as would have been conceded to any other friendly Power. From the superabundant ships in our navy the Emperor of China was allowed to purchase the Mohawk, Africa, and Jasper, and they were re-named respectively the Pekin, China, and Amoy. There being no others available, and the private yards having been swept by the Federals of such vessels as could carry guns or serve for warlike purposes, it became necessary, in spite of the delay it would entail, to enter into contracts for the construction of three other vessels, which will be launched in March. The six vessels—three of them despatch-vessels fit to cope with the stormy seas of the Chinese seaboard, and the other three for river service—form as small a force as it is safe to begin with. It is intended that they shall carry about 40 guns, and be manned by 400 European officers and seamen, of the very best character. During the interval occupied in the building of some of the vessels and equipment of the others, there has been abundant occupation in arranging the details necessary for a sound organisation. A code of laws for the good order and comfort of all, based upon the customs of a European navy, has been compiled, so that Prince Kung’s seal may render it the future naval law of China. The scale of pay, rations, prize-money, and pensions for wounds, has been carefully considered, to meet the requirements of the special service. A signal-book has been adapted for intercommunication; and, strange as it may sound, even an ensign—green ground intersected by two yellow diagonal bands, and bearing the Imperial crest—had to be improvised, inasmuch as in China every armed native vessel flies her own colours according to the whim of her master,—an irregularity to which it is very necessary a stop should be put.
No one will deny that the task about to be undertaken is an arduous one; yet, after having carefully weighed all its difficulties, we cannot help feeling sanguine of a successful issue. A good maritime police is the secret of government in China. If the water-ways of China are in a state of security and order, peace will re-establish itself everywhere. The rivers, the seas, and lakes and canals, within the area of the Empire, cut it up into such sections that rebellion will be destroyed in detail, or rather starve, directly a strong executive is placed upon the Emperor’s waters. The Taepings and other banditti spread over the area they have devastated, by availing themselves of the extensive water-communication. The Government of Pekin, if it is wise, will pursue the same course in its measures of repression. The steam gunboat and the electric telegraph, by their very appearance in the disturbed districts, will re-assure those who have almost ceased to believe in any government, and frighten away the evildoers; whilst the fall of Nankin will break the neck of a scourge which is on its last legs. The fleets of piratical junks which now infest the coasts of China, and whose depredations are known only to the natives, will, we hope, disappear before the vigorous operations of a steam flotilla under the Imperial flag. These “vikings” of the East occupy every creek between Canton and the borders of Cochin-China; they have quite cut up the native trade of the whole seaboard, and occasionally pirate even European traders. It is mainly owing to these gentry that we have been unable as yet to establish relations and open a customhouse at Kiung-Chow in the island of Hainan, a point which we hope one day to see the centre of an enormous trade. Lastly, we see every reason to expect most important results from the information the officers of the European-Chinese flotilla will be able to gather of the interior of the Chinese Empire, and of the commercial advantages likely to flow therefrom. As employés, though merely temporarily so, of the Emperor, they will have access to every part of that vast county, and excite no fears or jealousy; their opportunities will be immense, and we have reason to believe that they will bear well in mind the duty they owe to their fellow-men of gathering and storing well every crumb of information, geographical and otherwise. What they may effect for the benefit of our commerce, we may estimate from the fruits that have already followed in the wake of their brethren of the navy of England who first penetrated to Shanghai in 1842, and to Hankow in 1858. There are cities as rich as the former, rivers as large as the Yang-tsze, and lakes equal to those of Canada, to be re-discovered. Those almost unknown provinces of the interior are not wastes profitable only to the geographical enthusiast, but countries equal to states of Europe, thickly dotted with cities, and densely populated, with a people second only to ourselves in commercial energy and respect for law and order. England for years has spent wealth, energy, and precious lives in opening China to Western influence and civilisation. To-day, her success is certain. The Government and people of China both ask us to aid them in their hour of trouble, and in return they will assuredly grant us that access and commercial freedom for which we have so long laboured and so often fought. The portals of ignorance and heathenism are opening. Shall we, who are in the vanguard of nations, hesitate? No—assuredly not! Our motto must ever be “Forward;” and will not all enlightened Christendom join us in wishing “God speed” to those about to put forth in this fresh enterprise to the land of Cathay?