Tsêng Kuo-fan and the Taiping Rebellion

Front matter

TSÊNG KUO-FAN AND THE TAIPING REBELLION

WITH A SHORT SKETCH OF HIS LATER CAREER

By

List of Maps

MAPS

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

Many careful observers of world events believe that no calamity of the nineteenth century approached the Taiping rebellion in the total of misery and destruction. Several hundred district cities were taken and retaken, with looting and slaughter on both sides. Great cities became wildernesses; fruitful fields, deserts. Sanguinary battles and still more bloody massacres marked its progress. It threatened disruption to the empire and downfall to the emperor. In his Middle Kingdom, as late as 1882, S. W. Williams says of this group of insurgents:

Their presence was an unmitigated scourge, attended by nothing but disaster from beginning to end, without the least effort on their part to rebuild what had been destroyed, to protect what was left, or to repay what had been stolen. Wild beasts roamed at large over the land after their departure, and made their dens in the deserted towns; the pheasant's whirr resounded where the hum of busy populations had ceased, and weeds or jungle covered the ground once tilled with patient industry. Besides millions upon millions of taels irrecoverably lost and destroyed, and the misery, sickness, and starvation which were endured by the survivors, it has been estimated by foreigners living at Shanghai that, during the whole period from 1851 to 1865, fully twenty millions of human beings were destroyed in connection with the Tai-ping rebellion.

That it was allowed to spread so far and wide was due to Chinese decentralisation and official incompetence; that the fanatical insurgents did not win was due to their lack of leadership from 1853 to 1858, and to the emergence of Zeng Guofan. Chinese modern history awards this man the honor that is his due, but foreign observers were so dazzled by the fame of the valuable little force of foreign-trained soldiers organised by Frederick Townsend Ward and eventually led by Charles George Gordon, that they have immortalised the "Ever Victorious Army" of three thousand men, almost canonised Gordon, and relegated the real hero of the Taiping rebellion to oblivion.

Seldom has a greater injustice been done than that which filched from Tsêng Kuo-fan his dearly earned fame and enshrined Gordon and Li Hongzhang in the temple of history. Against difficulties woven together out of the practices of Chinese government for centuries; with far too little coöperation; lacking funds to secure armies—his total expense for more than ten years being limited to slightly more than a paltry 21,300,000 taels—and without any military skill whatever; Tseng eventually performed the miracle of suppressing this immense rebellion. This he did through clear thinking, unfailing patience, prudence, and common sense. He never feared that others would eclipse him, he begrudged no man his fairly earned laurels; and gathered able men around him through whose talents he made up for his own lack of military skill. Taking Confucius seriously, and attempting to put into his own conduct the qualities of the Princely Man, Tseng was never willing through danger or loss of "face" to swerve from the line of duty. He was plainspoken, straightforward, and, in a time when dishonesty was usual, honest.

A Japanese biographer has, I learn, preceded me in comparing him, not to Napoleon,—whom he did not in the least resemble,—but to George Washington. He was indeed the Washington of the Far East, who through his personal worth and his adherence to the path marked out by reason and conscience, preserved China from division or destruction through years of uncertain struggle against overwhelming odds. A Chinese essayist of today, Liang Ch'i-ch'iao, claims that he was not merely a man whose like has been seen but a few times in the whole long history of the Middle Kingdom, but a man "of whom the whole world has produced but a handful." If that praise is too high, we may at least rank him amongst the great characters of the nineteenth century and do no injustice to the rest.

The strident voice of youthful China finds fault with him as the upholder of the alien Manchu Dynasty and of absolute monarchy. So he was. Monarchy and all forms of imperialism are as unpopular in China today as in Europe, but is it fair to judge a great hero by ideals that first entered the minds of his countrymen a full generation after he had been gathered unto his fathers? Must we not rather place ourselves in the surroundings of the age in which Tsêng lived and labored, when he uttered the voice of the universal conviction of the nation? In addition to their pre-dating a disdain for monarchy, these youthful critics fail to consider that if no one had then been found strong and faithful enough to hold the empire together it would, in all probability, have been cut to pieces through civil war, eventually to have fallen into foreign hands—for strong nations were at that moment building empires. That China continued in unity and independence until another mood came over the Western lands is a result of the successful suppression of this and other insurrections by Tsêng and the able men who coöperated with him.

This study was first presented as a dissertation in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the doctor's degree in Yale University, and covered the Taiping period alone. To render it more complete I have added a short sketch of the last seven years of Tsêng's life. This includes chiefly his preparations for the suppression of the Men rebels, which made possible Li Hung-chang's rapid conquest of the troublesome horde, and the service as viceroy in Nanking and Chihli. From the superabundant materials found in his letters I have gathered together what seem to he the most significant principles by which his life was inspired. It seemed desirable also to insert the chapter on the government of China under the Manchu Dynasty, so that the rise of such a movement as the Taiping Rebellion from such small beginnings might be more intelligible. In order to make these changes possible, much detail regarding the different campaigns has been omitted.

Chinese names of persons and places are hard to romanise. There are several systems by which this is done. For places I have tried as far as possible to follow the post office lists. For other names I have taken the Wade system. But there are some exceptions in each group. Some names are so generally written in one manner that it would seem pure pedantry to change them.

If in some way this study will serve to bring before Westerners a fair understanding of the great rebellion, and of the man to whose devotion and loyal services its suppression is due, the writer will feel amply rewarded. It is only a beginning, however, and there is need for more careful study from Chinese materials of the whole period covered here when foreign relations were becoming constantly more important in Chinese history. We have seen far too much of the period through Western eyes alone, and it is not thus that history can be properly understood.

May I record my profound gratitude to Professor F. W. Williams of Yale University under whose direction the study was made, whose suggestions have guided the revision, and the loan of whose rare pamphlets and books supplied very valuable material; also to Professor E. Asakawa for suggestions and help in some of the translations, to the Reverend G. G. Warren of Changsha for useful advice in recasting some of the chapters, and to Tso Fu and other members of the faculty of Yale-in-China for help with the Chinese texts.

W. J. H.

Changsha, China, November, 1926.

2. Organisation of the God-Worshippers

CHAPTER II

ORGANISATION OF THE GOD-WORSHIPPERS.

When we seek the causes for such a mighty upheaval as the Taiping rebellion, many points of weakness in the government suggest themselves at once. But those causes were inherent in the organisation of the military and civil services, and we are compelled to examine more closely into the particular circumstances which prevailed in the southern part of China if we would attempt to understand the movement.

The decade which ended with the outbreak of the Taiping rebellion had been marked by military disaster and natural calamities. A relatively small force of outer barbarians, in the so-called Opium War (1839-1842), had wrested victory from the imperial commissioner at Canton and made its triumphant way along the coasts and into the Yangtse River, eventually to wring from the Manchu government, at Nanking, a treaty of peace with recognition of full equality. This war was a shock to the nation at large, revealing as it did the emptiness of Chinese pretensions and the weakness of their military arm.

At once the disbanded soldiers of Kwangtung scattered out among their villages and hillsides to take up their peaceful occupations again or to engage in the more exciting pursuit of robbery. These must inevitably have regaled their friends and companions with fearful tales of Western prowess, of the superior foreign guns and their unheard of tactics, until they came to regard those strangers with awe, if not with affection. But, watching the foreigners at close range in Canton, they discovered that the foreigner who had made imperial commissioners tremble could not secure admission to the city, the turbulence of the population being adduced as the chief cause for this refusal. A common saying arose. "The populace fears the officials," it ran, "the officials fear the foreigners, and the foreigners fear the populace." As to the last statement the fact was that, out of a consideration for the interests of trade, the question of entering Canton had been waived for the time being, though it was to reëmerge, in connection with the incident of the lorcha Arrow in 1856, as an unsettled issue. Nevertheless, the humiliation of the Manchus in the Opium War led reflective minds to wonder if the Chinese themselves, in a national uprising, might not drive back their inefficient soldiery and set a native prince on the throne.

Such an object lesson could not fail to make its impression on the revolutionary brotherhoods that existed in China. Some of these combined political aims with definite religious teachings; others were more completely

anti-dynastic, with a membership that had to act in secret because of government spies who were on the alert to ferret out and destroy all such subversive organisations. Only half a century before, one of these fraternities, the White Lily Society, had fomented a rebellion which raged in several provinces of the west and northwest and even penetrated central China. From 1796 until 1804 the government had its hands full in suppressing this outbreak. The White Lily Society had first sprung up as a protest against Mongol usurpation. It languished under the native Ming Dynasty, but revived when the Manchus overthrew them.

Another of these secret orders was the Triad Society, sometimes called the Society of Heaven and Earth. This organisation was distinctly anti-Manchu, a product of the first century of Tartar domination in China; it was especially strong in Kwangtung and Kwangsi, the very region where the Taipings first arose. With the avowed purpose of restoring the Ming Dynasty to power it had a widely scattered membership, bound together by solemn oaths, and only awaited a favorable opportunity to overthrow the alien government. We shall later consider its relation to the Taipings in the early days of that movement. The Triads, or a branch of their order, held Shanghai for three years, from 1853 to 1856, but were unable to come to terms with the religious fanatics in power at Nanking. It is only a fair assumption that these societies, not to mention many others with similar aims, noted the Manchu weakness against the Westerners and believed that their long-awaited opportunity had come.

To this foreign war and its influence on thinking men, on peasants near Canton, and on secret brotherhoods, we must add a series of calamities in the years 1846 and 1847. The failure of the crops in portions of Hunan and Kwangsi led to the rise of robber bands from among the distressed people. In some oases these were small and inconsequential, but in others large bodies of men numbering hundreds and even thousands, under influential leaders, gave to district magistrates and even to provincial authorities, much anxiety.

Against these quasi rebels, the drill and even organisation into armies of the country militia had been directed. The adoption on a large scale of this type of militia, organised into armies similar to that first led by Kiang Chung-yuan, enabled Tsêng Kuo-fan to put down the re

eventually. The Taipings themselves emerged from this 'volunteer movement' in Kwangsi.

Along the coasts, moreover, pirates abounded, whose depredations not only affected Chinese vessels, but those under foreign flags as well. They became so troublesome that at last British warships were sent against them in 1849, which succeeded in destroying fifty-eight of their junks near the Kwangtung coast; within a month of that time a large body of rebels was fighting with government troops in Kwangsi, only a few days' march from the place where this took place. Inasmuch as many of the pirates were still armed when forced ashore, it is a natural supposition that they either joined the Taipings or fomented disorder on their own account. Such characters as these might be expected to ally themselves with the Hakka population who lived in that part of Kwangsi, and it was apparently among the Hakkas that the societies of God-worshippers from whom the Taipings came were first organised.

A more general cause for such a movement was the character of the reign of Daoguang Emperor. This monarch was indeed asleep if he did not see the signs of general stagnation and decay in the once powerful empire of Kangxi Emperor and Qianlong Emperor. The sale of offices and titles increased, armies became less and less capable; a debased currency proclaimed approaching bankruptcy, pirates and bandits increased in boldness as they increased in numbers, and provincial independence became more pronounced. The general paralysis of local and national government, made evident to all through the ridiculous failure of the foreign war and the inability to cope with local uprisings, offered a loud challenge to any man of surpassing ability to raise his standard and attempt the restoration of a Chinese dynasty; for all recorded history had taught that when a reigning line of emperors is about to pass from the stage, just such a period as that of Taokwang presages its doom. Indeed, a foreigner in 1849, observing the universal disorder and lack of leadership, recorded his belief that a great civil war was approaching. Nor was he mistaken, for already the Taiping rebellion, as yet small and not differentiated from other disturbances, was under way in the hills of Kwangsi.

The man who eventually occupied the rebel throne in Nanking under the title of T'ienwang, was of Hakka origin, dwelling in Hwahsien, a district of Kwangtung not far from Canton. His name was Hong Xiuquan, and he was one of three brothers. Born in 1813, he was enabled through the efforts of the family to spend his youth in study. Several times he competed in the provincial examinations, only to meet with failure. In 1836, while he was at the examinations, a set of Christian books came into his possession which he did not then examine. After another failure in the year 1837, he fell ill and had to be carried home in a sedan chair. During this illness he saw the visions which in later years he insisted were revelations from God.

In these visions he was carried to heaven, where, after being washed in the river and having a new heart placed within him, he was ushered into the presence of a venerable old man who sat on a throne. This man addressed Hung, saying; "All human beings in the whole world are produced and sustained by me; they eat my food and wear my clothing, but not a single one among them has a heart to remember and venerate me. What is, however still worse, they take of my gifts, and therewith worship demons; they purposely rebel against me and arouse my anger. Do not thou imitate them." He then gave him a sword wherewith to exterminate demons, a seal having power to overcome the spirits, and a yellow fruit sweet to the taste. Hung at once set about converting those who were standing in the hall, but even there he found some who were indifferent to him or hostile. When the old man led him to the parapet of heaven and bade him gaze on the earth, the sight of its evil and depravity moved him greatly. In several other visions of the same kind he received further instructions, frequently meeting there a middle-aged man whom he learned to call his elder brother. Likewise he met there the sages of antiquity and once he even heard the old man reprove Confucius himself for having failed to make him known in the classics.

From such visions he awoke filled with wrath at the evil practices and false beliefs of men, and zeal to exterminate the lying spirits and bring China back to the right way. On such occasions his relatives and friends kept a close watch on him, for they feared that he was mad. Notwithstanding the vividness of these trances, their effect, so immediate and powerful during the course of his illness, faded out entirely after his recovery, when he began the career of a schoolmaster. The only outward effect of the illness was to change him from a cheer- ful, companionable young man into a grave and dignified teacher.

Only by an accidental circumstance six years later did the memory of the visions revive and become a permanent force within him. One of his cousins named Li happened to be looking over Hung's library one day, when by chance he picked up the set of volumes Hung had received in Canton in 1836. Impressed by their unusual character, he borrowed and read them. When he brought them home he persuaded Hung to read them. The effect was instantaneous and powerful, for they opened to Hung's understanding the meaning of the visions he had seen during his illness. The venerable old man was none other than God; the elder brother was Jesus; the idols in the temples and shrines were the false demons. Hung had been commissioned to restore the worship of the true God. To his mind the visions and books independently confirmed each other. Accepting the duty thus doubly laid on him, Hung and his cousin baptized each other, and Hung began to preach the new doctrines. His first converts were a neighbor, Feng Yunshan, and his own cousin, Hung Jen-kan, or Hung Jin, to give him the name by which he was known to Westerners through Hamberg's account. Both of these men became wangs in the new kingdom, Fêng in the formative period, and Hung Jin many years later, a little before the movement collapsed.

After encountering opposition from the people of his native village, Hung resolved to go with Fêng Yun-shan to preach the new doctrines elsewhere. Accordingly they set out in 1844 and eventually reached the Kwei district, Kwangsi, where they were hospitably received by a kinsman named Wang and entertained by him until Hung was no longer willing to impose on his relative's bounty. He therefore sent the rest of the party back to Hwahsien, intending to follow them in a short while. Without any previous consultation with his senior colleague, Fêng now turned aside from his companions and went to "Thistle Mount," which he made his headquarters for the next few years, planting religious communities known as the God-worshippers, and achieving great success. By the time the rebellion was launched, these societies were numerous in several prefectures and districts located in eastern Kwangsi, along the river that flows to Canton. At least a few scholars and men of influence were among the members, but the rank and file were chiefly from the Hakka peasants and the Miao tribes among the hills.

Meanwhile, Hung Siu-ch'üan returned to Hwahsien, where he was surprised not to meet Fêng. Again he settled down quietly to his old task of teaching, spending his leisure hours in religious reflections which bore fruit in several pamphlets, subsequently to be the theological textbooks of the Taiping state. While he was thus cultivating his scholarly tastes a preacher from a Protestant mission in Canton, Moo by name, came to Hwahsien. Through him Hung learned of the missionaries and their work, which led to a visit, in 1846 or 1847, and a period of instruction for Hung and his cousin, Hung Jin. Through some misunderstanding, however, they left without receiving baptism.

About the middle of 1847 Hung decided to make another trip to Kwangsi and visit the region where he had preached three years earlier. Here—apparently for the first time—he learned of the great work accomplished by Fêng Yun-shan, whom he now decided to visit at "Thistle Mount." But on arriving there he learned that Fêng was in prison. So he set out at once for Canton to intercede on his behalf with the viceroy there, basing his plea on the foreign treaties which granted religious liberty. Unsuccessful in this quest. Hung hastened back to Kwangsi, there to discover that Fêng had been liberated and had gone in search of Hung. Again Hung went to Hwahsien, and there he found that Fêng had been there, but had just returned to Kwangsi. Instead of continuing to pass and repass each other Hung remained at home, until in the tenth moon, 1849, Fêng came there once more and took him to Kwangsi to head the Taiping rebellion.

Following this account of Hung Jin alone, we are led to the view that Hung Siu-ch'üan was not an active factor in the organisation of the religion brotherhoods of God-worshippers, and the Chungwang in his autobiography tells us bluntly that Fêng Yun-shan "was the originator of the project for setting up a government, and was the prime mover in the affair." He also states that the project was known but to six men besides the T'ienwang. In the next chapter I shall consider this question as to the founder of the movement; from both Hung Jin and the Chungwang it is certain that if Hung knew of the purpose at all, which I doubt, he had very little to do with the actual work of bringing it to fruition.

The troubles of 1846 and 1847 afforded the occasion for organising the new religious brotherhoods into companies of militia. With bandits and robbers from the famine region going freely to and fro, and with no adequate military resources available, the people of the villages throughout these provinces were drilling and forming themselves into military companies to defend their countryside from pillagers. The God-worshippers also organised themselves into military units, but carefully avoided joining the other volunteers. There was an abundance of zeal and a shade too much rivalry between the various parties, but the total effect was to increase their enrolment very materially.

As early as 1848 these new military companies were in conflict with imperial soldiers, though it is possible that nothing more resulted than minor skirmishes. In this year their cause passed through some kind of serious crisis, one fraught with peril to them, followed by a deliverance that appeared little short of miraculous. Its exact nature we are only able to surmise, but the subsequent references to this year point to two things; first, a series of conflicts with the authorities, and second, an inner transformation of their movement into a great cause which resulted in bringing Hung forward as leader. It also brought about the supposed intervention of God the Father, who inspired Yang (later King of the East), and Jesus the Saviour who spoke through Hsiao (King of the West). Two or three of these accounts may throw some light on the crystallisation of the Taiping movement.

… in the Mow-shin year [a.d. 1848] the great God compassionated the calamities of the people, who had been entangled in the meshes of the devil's net; on the third month of that year [April], the great God and supreme Lord came down into the world; and in the ninth month [October] Jesus, the Saviour of the world, came down, manifesting to the world innumerable acts of power, and slaughtering a great number of impish fiends in several pitched battles: for how can impish fiends expect to resist the majesty of Heaven?

The nature of these manifestations of divine power is more clearly indicated, perhaps, in the following extract from the proclamation sent to the British in 1858:

In the third moon of the year, "Mo-shin" [1848], Shangti descended,

And commissioned the King of the East to become a mortal.

In the 9th moon of the same year the Redeemer descended,

And commissioned the King of the West to manifest divine powers,

The Father and Elder Brother led us to sit on [the throne of] the heavenly kingdom;

With great display of authority and might to sit in the hall of heaven;

13. To make the heavenly city our capital; to found the heavenly kingdom,

14. [That] the ministers and people of all nations might do homage to their Father Emperor.

The Trimetrical Classic also gives us a hint regarding these descents:

In the Mow-shin year [1848] The son was troubled and distressed, When the great God Appeared on his behalf. Bringing Jesus with him, They both came down into the world; Where he instructed his Son To endure forever, To defeat corrupt machinations, And to display majesty and authority.

Another extract regarding the same year, which also appears in the proclamation sent to the British in 1858 may refer to one of these descents, though it gives the appearance of being a special manifestation of power.

In the year "Wu-shin" [1848], when the King of the South was besieged in Kwei-ping,

We besought the Father to come down and manifest his terms.

We had returned from Kwangsi to Kwang-tung.

The Heavenly Father did come down to the world and rescued [the king of] the south.

Hung Jin's account of what was happening during this year, while Fêng Yun-shan was absent in Kwangtung, pictures among the God-worshippers a great amount of disorder and dissension. From his description it would appear that there were phenomena similar to those recorded in the account of the early Christian church, when many men and women spoke as if they were inspired by the Holy Ghost. Many possessions of this kind were recorded among these Kwangsi congregations, trances in which messages—sometimes unintelligible, but generally in doggerel verse—were delivered through those who had received the possessions. Hung, on his arrival, inspected the records of the various alleged utterances and judged some to be divine and others of demon origin—those of Yang and Hsiao falling into the first group and representing actual messages of the heavenly Father and the celestial elder brother, Jesus. He does not give us any clew as to who were apparently trying to gain the leadership, but whoever they were, the acceptance of Yang and Hsiao as the mouthpieces for God the Father and Jesus the Savior quieted the opposition, and gave the control of the movement into the hands of these men. But they were not able to go forward without the presence of a head, and that must be Hung, the original source of the movement, on the strength of whose story most of the propaganda had probably been carried on.

One matter is fairly clear from these accounts; that some struggle for leadership had been going on among these congregations, serious enough to involve the whole future of Hung himself; and that temporarily this struggle had been brought to an end. Another point is also clear. Though the actual organisation of the Taiping government did not take place until nearly three years later, the delivery of Fêng from Kweip'ing, possibly from prison, was so important a matter as to verge on the miraculous. The probable explanation, in the light of the passages implying several pitched battles, is that the rescue was effected by force against the officials and their soldiers. Hence we may consider this event the real opening of the Taiping rebellion.

Hung Jin represents the movement as one thrust by a hostile government on the God-worshippers about the middle of 1850, though he does admit that as early as 1845 or 1846 Hung had expressed to a relative his secret purpose of overthrowing the Manchus. Apparently forgetting that admission he later insisted that the genesis of the revolutionary movement was in 1850, after fighting had been going on for two years, and was due to the sudden adherence of a horde of defeated Hakkas who joined these congregations in order to secure refuge from their neighbors with whom they had been forced to quarrel. But we have already examined several passages which prove that 1848 was the year when fighting began, and are prepared to understand that in 1850 these congregations, still separated among the different leaders, had much training in military tactics.

In the sixth month, 1850 (July 8-August 7), the detached companies first came together at Kint'ien, a small town in the district of Kweip'ing, having been aroused, apparently, by some quarrel between the Pênti and Hakka groups in which the officials gave aid to the former. From the villages round about, the angry bands poured into Kint'ien, where Tang Siu-ch'ing was ready to receive them. Hung Siu-ch'üan and Fêng Yun-shan were at that time held as prisoners at Hwachow in P'ingnan-hsien, some forty miles away, and had to be rescued by the united band under Tang, in the eighth moon. Having rescued these leaders, they went on to the Wuhsuan district, where the most formidable of their followers joined the movement; among them Lin Hung-ch'iang, later placed at the head of the expeditionary force that marehed from Nanking to the north, the pirate, Lo Ta-kang, a member of the Triad Society, and Hung Ta-ch'üan, later the T'ienteh-wang, Hung's co-sovereign. Little by little, arms and various other warlike necessities were obtained and the government and army organisations began to take shape. With their numbers thus increased, they returned to Kint'ien.