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individuals accumulated enormous fortunes, and the government of the country sank lower and lower in the estimation of the millions of people who were supposed to regard their sovereign with unspeakable awe as the embodiment of Celestial wisdom and power, and their form of political existence as the most perfect administration ever devised by man.

The Government lost also in efficiency. A corrupt and effeminate body of officers and administrators can serve but as poor defenders for an embarrassed prince and an assailed Government against even enemies who are in themselves insignificant, and not free from the vices of a corrupt society and a decaying age; and it was on such that Hienfung had in the first place alone to lean. Even his own Manchus, the warlike Tartars who, despite the smallness of their numbers, had conquered the whole of China, and given its Empire such grandeur and military fame as it had not known for more than one thousand years-for the Mongol Empire was a thing distinct from that of China-had lost their primitive virtue and warlike efficiency in the southern land which they had made their home. To them the opulent cities of the Chinese had proved as fatal as Capua to the army of the Carthaginian; and when the peril came suddenly upon them they showed themselves unworthy of the Empire won by their ancestors. So far as they individually were concerned, they lost it. Other Tartars, worthier of their earlier fame, had to come from the cold and vigorous regions of the north to help the embarrassed Hienfung and his successor out of their difficulties, and to re-assert the claims of Manchu supremacy. For the first time since the revolt of Wou Sankwei the Manchus are brought face to face with a danger threatening their right of conquest. It is evidently not a danger to be overcome by fine words or lavish promises. Yet on the eve of the Taeping revolt that is all that Hienfung or his advisers can suggest or produce in order to avert a crisis and to crush the incipient rebellion in its birth.

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CHAPTER X.

THE BEGINNING OF THE TAEPING REBELLION.

DURING fifty years the provinces of China had now witnessed many disturbances, and the officers of the Government found that they had not the power to enforce their orders, and that the people would pay no heed to them except under compulsion. Yet, up to the present, these disorders had scarcely partaken of the character of rebellion, and might even have been considered the natural accompaniments of an administration so easily satisfied, both as to the behaviour of the people and also as to the execution of its own orders, as that of Pekin has generally been. We have now reached a time when, after the tranquillity of nearly two centuries, sedition was to wear a bolder front, and when it was becoming impossible for the Government of the Emperor Hienfung to pretend that the disorder in the province of Kwangsi was anything short of an open rebellion for the purpose of driving him and the Manchu dynasty from the

throne.

*

As far back as the year 1830 there had been symptoms of disturbed popular feeling in Kwangsi. The difficulty of operating in a region which possessed few roads, and which was only rendered at all accessible by the West river or Sikiang, had led the Chinese authorities, much engaged as they were about the foreign question, to postpone those

* The province of Kwangsi lies west of Kwantung, and forms with it the southern border towards Tonquin. Further west still is Yunnan. Kwantung and Kwangsi constitute the vice-royalty of the Two Kwang, with its seat of government at Canton.

vigorous measures which if taken at the outset might have speedily restored peace and stamped out the first promptings of revolt. But it was considered a purely local question, and although the people of Canton were disposed to see signs of danger and an omen of coming change in the most insignificant natural phenomena, their rulers thought it safe to ignore the popular temperament, and to treat the rebels in Kwangsi with as much indifference as they bestowed on the language of the skies. Events moved very slowly, and for twenty years it seemed as if the authorities would have no cause to repent their apathy.

The authorities were more concerned at the proceedings of the formidable secret association known as the Triads than at the occurrences in Kwangsi, probably because the Triads made no secret that their object was the expulsion of the Manchus, and the restoration of the Mings.* Their oaths were framed so as to appeal to the patriotism and personal pride of the native-born Chinese, who were instigated to resist and cast off the yoke of the Tartars contemptuously designated as an inferior race little better than barbarians. The extraordinary fact in their proceedings was not that they should plot rebellion, or that they should feel a deep antipathy to their conquerors, who monopolized as far as they could the best posts in the service, but that they should base their plans on a proposed restoration of the Ming dynasty, which was not merely forgotten, but which, practically speaking, had expired two centuries before. It was obvious to the most ordinary intelligence that to fight for the Ming dynasty was struggling for an impossible idea; and the great mass of the Chinese long held aloof from a connection which could mean nothing more in the end than furthering the personal schemes of some unknown and probably unscrupulous adventurer.

The true origin of the Triads is not to be assigned. The

* "We combine everywhere to recall the Ming and exterminate the barbarians, cut off the Tsing and await the right prince." See, for a very interesting account of the Triads, of whose oath these lines formed the opening sentence, an article in vol. xviii. of "Chinese Repository," pp. 281-95.

A FANCIFUL STORY.

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popular account gives a very figurative description of how the inmates of a monastery near Foochow came to the aid of a Manchu Emperor in one of his foreign wars. As their reward they were to, and did for several generations, enjoy great privileges, but their descendants at last became the victims of official tyranny. Their monastery was either destroyed or taken from them, and they went through the land in search of their revenge. Then it was that they came to the decision to put forward the Ming pretension; and members of the brotherhood went to the different provinces to stir up disaffection and to point popular aspiration towards a desirable end. We cannot accept, if we may not deny the truth of, this fanciful story. Perhaps we shall have gleaned the modicum of fact in it by saying that this tradition invests with additional probability the suspicion that the Taeping revolt was originally conceived in a Buddhist monastery. The agents of such a band would naturally be attracted to the disturbed parts of the Empire; and although there was no dearth of places to choose from, no province offered so favourable a ground for the action of conspirators as that of Kwangsi.

The summer of 1850 witnessed a great accession of energy on the part of the rebels in that province, which may perhaps be attributed to the death of the Emperor. The important town of Wuchow on the Sikiang, close to the western border of Kwantung, was besieged by a force which rumour placed as high as 50,000 men. The Governor was afraid to report the occurrence, knowing that it would carry his own condemnation and probable disgrace; and it was left for a minor official to reveal the extent to which the insurgents had carried their depredations. Two leaders named Chang had assumed the style of royalty. Other bands had appeared in the province of Hoonan, as well as in the southern parts of Kwantung; but they all collected by degrees on the Sikiang, where they placed an embargo on merchandise, and gradually crushed out such trade as there had been by that stream best known to-day as the West river. But their proceedings were not restricted to the fair operations of war. They plundered and massacred wherever

they went. They claimed to act in the name of the Chinese people; yet they slew all they could lay hands upon, without discrimination of age or sex. Such of the women as suited their purposes were allowed to live a life of degradation and shame.

The confidence of the insurgents was raised by frequent success, and by the manifest inability of the Canton Viceroy to take any effectual military measures against them. A body of rebels from either the eastern parts of Kwantung or from Hoonan decoyed a party of the Imperial troops into a defile between Sinyuen and Yingtin, two places on the northern high road from Canton, and killed 200 of them.* This reverse naturally aroused considerable alarm in Canton, and the gates were barricaded and a vigilant look-out was kept to prevent any large bodies of men approaching the city. An open attack having been thus committed so near Canton, Governor Yeh was sent out with 2000 soldiers to engage them. That official was never conspicuous for his valour, and he was content to employ his force in such a manner as to impress upon the insurgents a belief as to its overwhelming strength. This object must have been attained, for they quickly retired into Kwangsi. In their retreat they were assailed by the armed inhabitants and local militia, and suffered considerable loss. Not unnaturally this success excited great enthusiasm, and the most was made of the details of the struggle. Governor Yeh took all the credit of the success to himself; and if vaunting proclamations ensure

About this time the following proclamation was discovered :-" The present dynasty are only Manchus, people of a small nation, but the power of their troops enabled them to usurp possession of China and take its revenues, from which it is plain that any one may get money from China if they are only powerful in warfare. There is, therefore, no difference between one taking money from the villagers and the local authorities taking the revenues. Whoever can take keeps. Why then are troops causelessly sent against us? It is most unjust! The Manchus get the revenues of the provinces and appoint officers who oppress the people, and why should we, natives of China, be excluded from levying money? The universal sovereignty does not belong to any particular individual; and a dynasty of a hundred generations of emperors has not been seen. All, therefore, depends on obtaining the possession" ("Chinese Repository," vol. xix. p. 568).

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