Part 27 (1/2)
Mr. Adkins goes on to say ”that the impostor (?) and his immediate attendants lie buried in its ruins.”
The victors also reported that they captured the Chung-w.a.n.g a few days later, and also the Kan-w.a.n.g when they entered the city, finding him in the Tien-w.a.n.g's palace. Chung-w.a.n.g, they say, managed to leave the city with a number of followers, but was captured three days later by a body of cavalry sent in pursuit: this was the account given to Mr. Adkins.
Another Imperialist version states that the Ti-ping Commander-in-Chief was captured by _some villagers_ a few miles from the city, through having given up his own white horse (celebrated for great strength and fleetness) to his young prince, the Tien-w.a.n.g's son, and having compelled him to mount it and escape when he saw that at least a portion of his party must be captured. Certainly this seems very characteristic of the Chung-w.a.n.g's brave, loyal, and generous nature, but then it is the only incident in the whole narrative which bears the appearance of truth and probability. Besides the above two stories of his capture, when the enemy obtained possession of Hoo-chow-foo, they reported that they had caught the Chung-w.a.n.g _there_, and from that place a head, stated to be the great rebel general's, was sent over the country as a warning to the people.
As for the story of the Kan-w.a.n.g's capture, there are several contradictory and apparently authentic statements: one by a certain Patrick Nellis, who personally saw the chief and talked with him at Hoo-chow (subsequent to the fall of Nankin), where it seems that he proceeded with an escort to communicate the loss or abandonment of the capital, and concert measures for the evacuation of Hoo-chow-foo as well.[79]
Besides the above reports, others were promulgated by the Mandarins, in which they defeated different Ti-ping armies _en route_ for the south, killing thousands and tens of thousands of rebels and capturing many chiefs, among them the s.h.i.+-w.a.n.g, who, singularly enough, still managed to be in command of the Ti-pings near Amoy, until within the last few months, when he retired to join other leaders farther inland.
Confessions were produced which professed to be written by the penitent rebel leaders in their dungeons, while awaiting their turn to be disembowelled, or ”cut into a thousand pieces”--a pleasing prospect, of course likely to make the destined victims suddenly feel inspired with love and respect for the benevolent Manchoos, whom they had so vigorously opposed all their lives! Among these seemingly fabricated confessions only one is worthy of any attention, and that is a lengthy composition, ent.i.tled, ”The autographic deposition of Chung-w.a.n.g, the faithful king, at his trial after the capture of Nankin.” Were it not for the known mendacity of the Mandarins, and their particular addiction to forging doc.u.ments of this sort in order to lessen the prestige of the revolution by representing its princ.i.p.al leaders as in their merciless power, there would be little doubt but that the one in question was genuine. In 1852, previous to the capture of Nankin by the Ti-pings, the Imperial authorities concocted an article they named the ”Confession of Tien-teh,” pretending that it was the deposition of the leader of the rebellion, whom they falsely declared was their prisoner. It is quite probable that the ”Chung-w.a.n.g's deposition” is of similar truthlessness, and was made up by some prisoner of note (who may have been pardoned in consequence), and the cunning writers attached to the Governor-General of the two Kiang, Tseng-kwo-fan. Still it must be admitted that many portions of the alleged deposition bear not only the impress of truth (in so far as historical events, data, &c., are concerned), but expressions closely resembling the well known sentiments of the great Ti-ping general; so that if, as we trust, he was not the author, some one pretty intimately acquainted with him must have been. However, some facts tending to support the theory (for there is no direct proof in any case except the s.h.i.+-w.a.n.g's movements subsequent to the fall of Nankin) of the Chung-w.a.n.g's escape, will be given in the course of our narrative.
Having noticed the Imperialist reports, it is now necessary to give the following digest of the events referred to, and which may be depended upon as the only possible version to be derived from the existing and attainable sources of information:--
It is known that when the Chung-w.a.n.g became convinced England was determined to persist in prosecuting hostilities against his people, and likewise felt their inability to cope with the foreign power, he at once decided upon the best military movement under the circ.u.mstances--namely, an entire abandonment of all accessible possessions, and a retreat into the interior, where British hostility could not reach them, and where no Manchoo forces could either prevent their operations, restrain their consequent reinforcement, or impede their future progress.
Before parting with the Chung-w.a.n.g, I was myself present at several councils when the above plan was discussed, and unanimously agreed to by every chief present. But one impediment prevented the Commander-in-Chief from acting with his usual brilliancy of conception and wonderfully successful rapidity of execution; it was the Tien-w.a.n.g, who refused even to listen to any proposal to abandon his capital.
Different people will view this ruinous obstinacy of the Ti-ping king in various ways. Some will look upon it as sheer, downright folly; others, as the useless, fanatical sacrifice of a bigot; while some may consider that that great, heroic, n.o.ble-minded man, having once established the capital of his dominions and the centre of his religio-political movement at Nankin, did right and gloriously in meeting death rather than turning backwards on the grand path. If we ascribe to the Tien-w.a.n.g motives partaking equally of the three traits--n.o.bleness, fanaticism, and rashness--we shall probably be pretty near the truth.
At all events, the Tien-w.a.n.g pa.s.sionately refused to entertain the only plan by which the existence of the Ti-ping power, and the perpetuation of his dynasty, seemed possible. All the court officers, cabinet ministers, and other high authorities of Nankin, were blindly subservient to the will of their king, and equally infatuated with his religious and temporal command. Besides, many of those about him were of the Hung family, and, being nearly related to their chief, not only followed implicitly his wishes, but jealously formed themselves into a clique about him, to the prejudice and exclusion of other more capable and independent officers. All the fighting w.a.n.gs were outside the capital, and incessantly engaged with the enemy; few troops were in garrison, while many thousands of helpless non-combatants daily diminished the stores of the failing granaries; and if the mult.i.tudinous besieging army, encamped and fortified all round the devoted city, had been animated with the slightest particle of courage or military spirit, they might easily have captured it many months before it eventually fell through starvation, or was evacuated by the troops.
The Chung-w.a.n.g, after his separation from myself at Wu-see, proceeded direct to Nankin _via_ Chang-chow-foo. His only object was to save the king and his own family (living with his aged mother, whom he loved with excessive filial tenderness), by inducing them to leave the untenable city. He, alone, proposed the unpalatable manoeuvre to the Tien-w.a.n.g, whose severe displeasure he had already incurred, being punished in various ways--by deprivation of t.i.tles, refusal of audience, accusation of disloyalty, &c. How the time (December, 1863, to 19th July, 1864) was pa.s.sed, from the arrival of the Chung-w.a.n.g to the fall of the capital, unless the professed ”autographic deposition” be true, or the garrison really abandoned the city and escaped, will probably never be known to history. Either, as the ”deposition” states, the whole city pet.i.tioned against the departure of the renowned commander, or he personally elected to remain, rather than desert his king in the hour of death and darkness, even though such calamity might have been avoided but for the fatal perverseness of the monarch; perhaps both causes operated to confine him to useless inactivity within the walls of the doomed city--inevitably doomed, and encircled by the numberless siege works of the enemy as with a band of impenetrable steel.
How the poor people, fated by the pa.s.sive stubbornness of their rulers, must have gathered together round their great warrior, as men will rally about a tower of strength; how the unnumbered thousands of helpless non-combatants must have rejoiced at the presence of him whose very name was an army, a bulwark to his people, and a terror to the enemy; how bitterly must the brave, energetic soldier have grieved and chafed at the unnecessarily-incurred annihilation, and growing horrors of the siege, which should have been avoided; but, alas! how could one great man, without means, save a people, a sacred cause, and a city invested by 100,000 savage foemen?
Loyalty and filial duty brought the ”faithful prince” to Nankin; the same motives bound him there to await destruction, when his presence in the field--at the head of his own army, left under command of his cousin, the s.h.i.+-w.a.n.g--would have proved invaluable, and would surely have placed the Ti-pings in a much better position than they occupied at the close of the year 1865.
Nankin fell at last. All that is _positively_ known by Europeans--apart from false, garbled, and exaggerated Mandarin sources--may be summed up in few words:--Frightful privations were endured before the enemy took possession; and when the city was entered by Mr. Consul Adkins, and other gentlemen, the streets and houses were literally blocked up with the bodies of the dead, by far the greater portion having the appearance of death from starvation; and many being very far advanced in decomposition, proved that, long before the Imperialists found courage enough to blow an opening through the undefended walls, the unfortunate people had succ.u.mbed to famine faster than the living could bury the dead--in fact, it was evident that no such effort could have been successful from the numbers who had daily perished.
Mr. Adkins, in his despatch to Earl Russell, places the number of people slaughtered by the Imperialists on their entry at 10,000; but other visitors state as many as 30,000, which is probably nearer the truth.
It is also certain that many chiefs with their followers left Nankin in safety. A successor to the Mo-w.a.n.g, a.s.sa.s.sinated at Soo-chow, having afterwards appeared at Hong-kong; the Yu and Hsieh w.a.n.gs (the latter being one of the Tien-w.a.n.g's brothers, and always attached to the court) being heard of in Kiang-si at the head of an army; while the following extract from the narrative of one Patrick Nellis, already referred to, and which was made on affidavit before the British Consul at Shanghae, seems to prove that the Ti-ping prime minister escaped from Nankin, and such being the case, undoubtedly there are strong grounds to believe the military leaders did likewise. In the evidence sworn to, Nellis, after describing an engagement with the Imperialists, states:--
”On our return to Hoo-chow-foo, Kang-w.a.n.g arrived from Nankin with an escort. Great ceremonies were shown at his reception; he did not look as if he had suffered any hards.h.i.+p....”
In speaking of the evacuation of the city, Nellis makes the following statement:--
”Kan-w.a.n.g spoke to me in English very slowly. He asked me what I was. I said, 'an Englishman.' He said he had never met a good foreigner, and asked me if I would go with him to Kiang-si. I said I should be very glad if Tow-w.a.n.g (Commandant of Hoo-chow) would let me.”
This conversation took place more than a month after the fall of Nankin, and a few days before the abandonment of Hoo-chow-foo on the 28th August, 1864. Upon the strength of such facts the _Friend of China_ has steadily maintained that Nankin was abandoned by all but the poorest civilians when the Imperialists made their breach and marched through without opposition.
Another circ.u.mstance damaging to the veracity of the Imperialist reports, is a statement (contained in one of the Mandarin's inspired ”confessions,”) purporting to be that of the Tien-w.a.n.g's son (the heir to the throne). The young prince is made to state that his father ”succ.u.mbed to sickness on the 24th of May, 1864;” but of this all-important event the ”Chung-w.a.n.g's deposition” makes no mention. Here is an inconsistency which at once proves either one or both the ”confessions” false; because, if the Tien-w.a.n.g had really died, the Chung-w.a.n.g would have been at liberty to carry out his own views and abandon Nankin; whereas his professed ”deposition” states that, to the day the city fell, he was unable to do so in consequence of the Tien-w.a.n.g's opposition.
The _Friend of China_ also states that a Mr. Butler, of Shanghae, actually witnessed the withdrawal of the garrison. Moreover, adding together the few spared by the enemy, those slain and those destroyed by famine, we should even then scarcely have the number of dest.i.tute people--labourers, coolies, and friendless non-combatants--who were relieved by the Chung-w.a.n.g alone during the early part of the year 1864, when he kept a list of about 80,000 dependent upon his resources and charity. In 1863 rations were daily issued to upwards of 400,000 people.
At the period now referred to, when the Chung-w.a.n.g shut himself up in the beleaguered city, the population, inclusive, was certainly not less than a fifth of a million, and, probably, far exceeded that number; therefore, even supposing that one-half (which is a large estimate) perished, were slain, or made prisoners, during and at the termination of the siege, how can we account for the 100,000 remaining, unless we believe that they had previously managed to effect their retreat from the city?
In the _Friend of China_, August 16, 1864, appears the following:--
”We are still a.s.sured by parties who have means of knowing, that our first story of the evacuation of Nankin by its soldiery, before the Imperialists sprung their mine and rushed in, was the correct story; all those 30,000 ma.s.sacred individuals told of by the _Recorder_ (but _not_ mentioned at the Asiatic Society with the ”flus.h.i.+ng of a pheasant”) being inoffensive men, women, and children.
”The Chung-w.a.n.g, it is said, is not dead. He is at Hoo-chow-foo, while the Tien-w.a.n.g is still in the body.”
The strongest support of the Imperialist statement of the death of the Tien-w.a.n.g, and the capture and subsequent execution of the Chung-w.a.n.g, is the fact that, since the fall of Nankin, nothing whatever has been heard of them elsewhere. On the other hand, however, it was supposed that one or the other was commanding the forces in the interior, acting in Fu-keen in concert with the s.h.i.+-w.a.n.g when he occupied the city of Chang-chow, near Amoy, from October, 1864, to May, 1865: and what seems to lend force to this supposition is that he appeared to be acting under the orders of some superior farther inland; the only chiefs of higher rank being the King and his son, the Chung, Kan, I (several years absent in Sz-chuen), and Si w.a.n.gs--the latter being a young man (son of the original Western King) attached to the court at Nankin, and totally without authority in military affairs. Upon the whole, it is quite possible that the Ti-ping King, his son and heir, Prime Minister, and General-in-Chief, may have met with the fate ascribed to them by the enemy; still there is no positive proof, and there are good grounds for supposing that some, if not all, are yet living and directing the Ti-ping movements.
The siege of Hoo-chow-foo by the Imperialists was merely nominal, for, up to the abandonment of that city by the Ti-pings, they were never allowed within range of its walls, and were compelled to act almost entirely on the defensive, so repeated and vigorous were the attacks by the garrison and a corps of observation they had encamped outside the place on a neighbouring range of hills. Only a few days before the evacuation took place, the garrison succeeded in capturing a number of Imperialist stockades, several hundred gunboats, and three or four thousand men, besides inflicting heavy loss in killed and wounded; the Franco-Manchoo disciplined auxiliaries alone losing 6 officers and 800 men. Very soon after this victory, the evacuation was effected with consummate skill, the enemy not discovering that the Ti-pings had flown until the day after. The number of troops forming the garrison and encampment was very considerable, 50,000 being the lowest estimate;[80]