Age of Conquest: A Kings and Generals Podcast

Last time we spoke Shi Dakai went into exile while performing a western expedition, riding out into an eventual oblivion. Hong Xiuquan fell into depression, paranoia and seclusion as he began to only trust his close family members and appointed them to grand positions despite the fact their skills might not be up to par. The Taiping kings were gone, now the new military leadership lay in the hands of Li Xiucheng and Chen Yucheng. The Nian rebels began to work closely with the Taiping to campaign against the Qing, but it was ultimately not working out. The taiping sought foreign support, but things simply were not going well on that front and they were gradually finding themselves being more and more isolated from allies to defeat the Qing.   #29 This episode is The Taiping Rebellion part 6: Rise of the Shield King Hong Rengan   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. Our old friend, the cousin to the Heavenly King, Hong Rengan had heard so much news over the years about his famous cousin and the Taiping. He decided to try and visit the Taiping capital of Tianjin. He left Hong Kong in may of 1858, traveling first to Canton which was at that time under British and French occupation, thus safe to him who was friends with missionaries. From there he set off northeast through Guangdong province along the riverways. For the most part, he ran into travelers trying to sell wares and Qing soldiers patrolling for bandits. He got to a junction at Nanxiong country and turned north upon an ancient stone road that led to the Meiling pass, the gateway dividing the southern part of the empire from the Yangtze valley. Beyond was Jiangxi province and beyond that Nanjing, or as I keep fumbling back and forth, Tianjin. He dressed as a peddler so he would be unremarkable to anyone, especially Qing troops and thus pass without incident. Once he entered Jiangxi he continued northeast along the Gan River where he came to the edge of the active war zone just outside the Taiping realm of control. Many Qing encampments were found along the way, many massive in size. Hong Rengan was able to attach himself quite easily to an outlying unit, joining them on their march eastward towards the porcelain producing city of Jingdezhen. There the Taiping attacked, forcing the Qing into a rout. Within the chaos Hong Rengan was lucky to escape the slaughter, escaping with only his clothes on his back.    After escaping the heated battle, he worked his way west for a time, away from the active fighting, then further north towards the Yangtze river towards Hubei province. This territory had been fought over for more than 5 years at this point, being conquered and reconquered by the Qing and Taiping. Countless cities he came across were empty, houses stripped of wood to make cooking fires for passing armies. Even in the more prosperous parts of the province, underpopulated farms were unable to muster enough hands to bring in the harvests. Hong Rengan eventually came across a Qing soldier. THe man told him he sought to purchase goods in the Qing held river town of Longping and then to sell the goods downriver in Nanjing to the rebels. The soldier seemed to have many contacts, thus Hong Rengan gave him a piece of gold leaf he had kept sewn safely into the fabric of his jacket and they partnered up.   While the soldier went to Longping to buy the goods, Hong Rengang waited for him in the city of Huangmei around 15 miles northeast with one of the soldiers contacts, a magistrate named Tan. Tan found Hong Rengan’s intelligence and education so impressive he offered him a job on the spot as a secretary. It was quite a coveted job for an unemployed scholar,but Hong Rengan was still fixated on getting to Nanjing and gave Tan an ambiguous reply. The soldier did not seem to show up, leaving Hong Rengan with no way to get to Nanjing so he stayed with the magistrate for many months. Hong Rengan began to hear rumors about the Qing encircling the Taiping capital, strangling them into submission. Hong Rengan began to become anxious so he left Huangmei with a letter of introduction and a bit of money given to him by Tan.    Hong Rengan took back the mantle of a peddler, but in October a Qing patrol captured him, though they had no idea how valuable a bounty he truly was. He was kept a prisoner for several days, but in the end they simply let him go, sending him on his way to Longping where he found a secret house serving as a way station for Taiping refugees. In December of 1858, he crossed paths with Lord Elgin. From the secret house he heard that foreign ships had been spotted on the Yangtze on their way back to Shanghai. He ventured down the waterfront just in time to see Elgins small fleet at anchor and he soon become acquainted with Thomas Wade, Elgin’s interpreter. Turns out he knew the man from Hong Kong and he tried to get board on one of the vessels to receive passage as far as Nanjing. He was unable to get the ride, but he did manage to get a letter delivered to Hong Kong addressed to some missionary friends letting them know he was alive and trying to get to Nanjing.    Some months later he found himself in Anhui province in the spring of 1859 where he finally found a Taiping patrol. When he told them his story, they took him for a Qing spy and sent him with armed guard to a garrison in Chentanghe. While under interrogation from the garrison commander, he opened a seam in his jacket providing a scrap of paper describing his family history. It was enough to convince the commander that he was indeed from the same village as the heavenly king. Thus the commander escorted him personally down the river on a Taiping vessel arriving in Nanjing on april 22nd of 1859, nearly a year after Hong Rengan began his journey.    Tianjin, was of course Nanjing, one of the greatest Chinese cities in its heyday, the secondary capital and former Ming capital. It was rich in temples, government offices, trading houses and such, a wide metropolis. It was now built for war, with countless fortifications and cannon placements everywhere. When the Taiping took it they burnt the Daoist and Buddhist monasteries, creating something of their own version of Jerusalem. In the Ming days, the city had a population in the millions, but now it seemed rather empty. The civilian residents were allowed to come and go and many had drifted off into the countryside. The Heavenly King’s palace was incredible, there were drummers that flanked its main gate, a reception hall with lacquered wood carvings of dragons, walls inlaid with gold and nearly everything that touched the heavenly kings fingers, chopsticks, bowls, brushes and such were fashioned from gold. It is said his chamber pot was made out of silver, Trump would love that one. Behind the main hall lay the vast inner sanctum where Hong Xiuquan and his harem lived.   By the time Hong Rengan had come to Nanjing, Hong XIuquan had retreated from public life, spending his days behind the palace walls. Almost no one was allowed to meet with him, save for the women in his service. Hong Rengans reunion with his cousin, as he accounts it was bittersweet. It had been over 8 years since they last saw another and well…a lot had happened to say the least. Hong Rengan had heard the rumors that despite the weakness of the Manchu forces against the Europeans, Nanjing was almost encircled and being bled. The mass of Taiping armies had left the city marching in 3 separate armies on long range foraging expeditions, while the Qing forces concentrated all of their might to strangle Nanjing from its provisions. Hong XIuquan’s seclusion from his active leadership role had hindered the Taiping. What Hong Xiuquan needed was an adviser, someone he could trust and that man was to be Hong Rengan.    Hong Xiuquan showered his cousin with titles and promoted him swiftly through the Taiping ranks. Little more than 2 weeks since his arrival, Hong Rengan earned the rank of king amongst the Taiping, even though this broke a promise Hong Xiuquan had made to not appoint anymore. Hong Rengangs title was “founder of the dynasty and loyal military adviser, the upholder of heaven and keeper of order in the court” he was henceforth known as the “shield king”. Hong Rengan joined the echelon of Taiping military officials and was in charge of the entire civil government of Nanjing. Basically he became Yang Xiuqing 2.0 and was only second to the heavenly king. His unexpected arrival seemed a sign from god for Hong Xiuquan, but as you would imagine a lot of jealousy and resentment emerged from the Taiping leaders. One particularly resentful man was Li Xiucheng who commanded the defenses of Nanjing. Li Xiucheng proved himself quite capable and a very trustworthy general, but he was not a king. To watch this other man come from out of nowhere and suddenly be promoted above him after so many years of loyal service, well anyone would be jealous. Li would actually gain the rank of King months later as the “loyal king”, but it seems it came too late and the jealousy over Hong Rengan only grew.    Hong Xiuquan was well aware of the dissatisfaction over Hong Rengan amongst his officers, so he called a full congregation of Taiping officials to honor the appointment of the Shield King. There he announced all matters in need of decision making were to be referred to the sole authority of the SHield King and as the crowd began to show audible disapproval Hong Rengan tried to turn down the appointment, but Hong Xiuquan whispered to him “all will be well, the wave that crashes with great force, soon spends itself and leaves peace”. Thus Hong Rengan accepted the official seal and began to preach to the crowd. He also began criticizing the policies made by the late Yang Xiuqing, offering improvements. In his own words about their reaction “They saw that I could stand in front of a multitude and hold forth flawlessly on doctrinal issues, and so they accepted me as their model of wisdom.”   It was clear to Hong Rengan that commanding the loyalty of the Taiping followers meant more than just giving them spiritual salvation; they also needed earthly rewards, such as the promises of a better state, and that of a better life. Hong Rengan sought a long lasting structure for the future Taiping government and society, for this he needed to weave together threads of Chinese tradition with his knowledge of the industrial societies of the west. He tried to infuse a prototype of ethnic nationalism that had not been seen in China since the Manchu conquered it. His first major proclamation served to fan the flames of ethnic resentment towards the Manchu calling the people to  “rejuvenate China and resist the northern barbarians, in order to wipe out the humiliations of two hundred years. We mouth their language … we live together with their members, and our people suffer from the vileness of the Manchu dogs.” The cause to get rid of the Manchu did not only resonate amongst the Taiping, but also many of those on the sidelines. And this was not limited to the Chinese, foreigners also took noticed to this fight against the tyranny of the Manchu. As one American in SHanghai put it  “Americans are too firmly attached to the principles on which their government was founded and has flourished, to refuse sympathy for a heroic people battling against foreign thraldom.”   Hong Rengan hashed out his vision of the new Taiping state in a document titled “a new work for the aid of government”. Now the traditional dynastic viewpoint had always been that CHina was the center of world civilizations and that barbarians were welcome come and trade, but they must acknowledge China’s cultural superiority. Hong Rengan knew full well this annoyed foreigners and that foreign nations like Britain were both militarily powerful and very proud people. So he began to encourage not using the term barbarian and instead express ideas of “equality, friendship, harmony and affect”. Alongside this he thought the tributary model of diplomacy needed to be abandoned as a relic of the past with no use in the contemporary world. He argued that human beings were not willing to be considered inferior and that the foreigners in the past only performed the tributary customs out of force. The new China needed to establish friendly relations and long lasting respect from other nations.   Hong Rengans experience with foreigners in Hong Kong showed him China was merely one state among many with much to gain from studying other great powers in the 19th century. He also believed the christian religion was the key to the strength of western nations. He pointed out the Protestant nations of Britain, the US, Germany, the scandinavian nations were all the strongest and most prosperous followed by the slightly weaker French catholics and Orthodox Russians who held onto miracles and mysticism. By his reckoning, Islam or even worse Buddhism were unfiromly weak and nations who abided them found themselves colonized. He argued the Manchus were like Persia, where people accepted their slavelike status without complaint. The most powerful nation to Hong Rengang was Britain whose ruling he thought lasted more than a thousand years making it longer than any dynasty of China. He explained to the masses that Britains strength derived from the intelligence of its populace, a system of laws which China could and should emulate. But Hong Rengans greatest admiration was saved for the United States which was known as the “flowery flag country” to many of the CHinese, because of its flag. He called it “the most righteous and wealthy country of all, she does not encroach upon her neighboring countries. ” Well that last part certainly changed haha. He talked about American democracy, the notion that all people of virtue should have a say in choosing their leaders and setting policy. Hong Rengan began to list his western friends such as British missionary James Legge, the swedish missionary Theodore Hamsberg and countless americans he knew in Shanghai. He proposed to use his connections to help establish cooperation with the west. He proposed CHina tap into the global industrial economy, it was necessary to become strong. He pointed out that Siam had learnt from the west how to build steamships and thereby made itself a “nation of wealth and civilization”. Likewise Japan unlike the Qing rulers of China had opened themselves willings to foreign trade “and will certainly become skillful in the future”. Boy oh boy is that one ominous. This he argued was the path of a Taiping ruled China. Hong Rengans ideas in many ways were a vision of China as a modern industrial power. A lot of what he argues will be adopted by future Chinese leaders, some of whom were currently fighting the Taiping, such as Li Hongzhang. Now before anything could be down, the state needed to be founded and for that the war needed to be won.    To establish some central administration, financial and military authority, Hong Rengan needed the backing from military commanders. He could not expect support from Li Xuicheng so he began securing support from the other big heads such as Chen Yucheng. Chen Yucheng seemed quite willing to accept the new system Hong Rengan was advocating for. Shortly after taking the title of Shield King, Chen Yucheng and Li Xiucheng were also made kings; Chen became the Ying Wang and Li Zhong Wang; ie: the brave king and loyal king. These appointments were obviously done to placate any jealousy the generals might feel towards Hong Rengan. These men had been on their own for quite awhile and by no means eager to accept subordination under a newcomer. But for better or worse these 3 men were the top officials who would control Taiping politics and military strategy.    Now Li Xiucheng was very ambitious and was the one who sought the most self glory out of the Taiping leaders. His area of command was by his own design, that to protect Nanjing and he made every effort to place himself close to the heavenly king as his protector. Thus far he had managed to become the new Yang Xiuqing, but he did not like Hong Rengan nor was he open much to his ideas. Chen Yucheng on the other hand was more willing to accept a new political leadership role of Hong Rengan and would become his main supporter. Aside from his role as a commander in the field he also helped Hong Rengans governmental reorganization. Chen Yucheng became a member of Hong Rengans board for a newly organized state examinations. Hong Rengan wanted a government based on law and stressed therefore the need of education for the Taiping people.   One of Hong Rengans first proclamations was to revamp the examination. Interestingly to do this he advocated to blend confucian classics, the four books and 5 classics with the taiping christian texts. Though none of these texts survived, scholars assumed the general principles of the confucian work were revised heavily before being adopted. Hong Rengan wanted to carry on some of the imperial tradition; to formulate an elite that would be characterized not only by ranks and titles but also exempt from labor service. While the examinations and privileges of those who passed them looked similar to the imperial systems of before, the substance of the system was quite different. The imperial gentry was a statum that took its uniform based on the study of confucian classics, but Hong Rengan wanted a CHristian gentry. Thus the new examinations looked more so at qualifications for official service. At the same time Hong Rengan took the time to clarify “yes thats a good word”, the visions of Hong Xiuquan in a way that would make more sense in traditional christian literature. This was not just for the CHinese, but also for foreigners who were greatly weirded out by the fantasifull aspects of the Taiping doctrine. Hong Rengan was trying to have the Taiping version of christianity mesh more so with the protestant one so foreigners would accept it more.    Hong Rengan suggested that foreign missionaries and technical advisers be permitted to come to Nanjing. He was trying to establish some westernization and friendly relations with western powers and many missionaries would come to Nanjing such as T.P Crawford, J.L Holmes, J. Roberts and Hartwell of the American Baptists and Josiah Cox of the British Wesleyans. However the year 1860 brought with it an end to the Second Opium War and the signing of the treaty of Tianjin, thus the western powers had effectively tossed their lot in with the Qing. Hong Rengans hopes of gaining the western aid to defeat the Qing was snatched.    In the meantime, while Chen Yucheng proved a valuable ally to his cause, in the absence of having Li Xiucheng on his side, Hong Rengan was unable to overcome the resistance to his authority. Regardless he attempted to take a leading role in planning military campaigns; and his strategies were initially successful.    When Hong Xiuquan and his cousin spoke in their younger years they envisioned building a kingdom that did not include the north. Instead it set its foundation in Nanjing and reached down over the 7 southern provinces. It would abandon the larger expanse of the Qing dynasty for something more akin to the Ming. However when the Taiping took Nanjing, they tried to take the south and north failing in the process. Now the Taiping capital was in a dire situation, the had lost most of their southern territory that they acquired in the initial campaign. They still held the strategic city of Anqing upstream, but the Qing had retaken Zhenjiang. Qing forces had established encampments with 10s of thousands of soldiers guarding strategic points north and south of Nanjing keeping them firmly under siege. These encampments represented the leading forces of the Qing empire, the counterparts to Prince Seng’s army in the north. The southern camp had dug in just 10 days after the fall of Nanjing to the Taiping and stood its ground almost continually ever since. Zhang Guoliang commanded the southern encampment and He Chun the north.   Zhang Guoliang’s siege forces were too large to be easily scattered by the Taiping sorties from Nanjing. But at the same time Nanjing was too strong for the besiegers to mount an attack upon it. Thus a stalemate occured for a long time, peppered with Taiping victories in 1856 that did shatter the Qing siege, but then the Taiping internal collapse undid this. 3 years after the Qing rebuilt their ranks and commenced digging trenches below Nanjing that would stretch 45 miles with more than 100 guard camps along the length blocking access to the capital. He Chun and Zhang Guoliang prepared for what they thought would be the final assault to crush the rebel capital. Hong Rengan presented a bold plan to relieve Nanjing. The Taiping would send a small expeditionary force in a wide, sweeping arc beyond the rear guard of the Qing armies within Zhejiang province to attack its weakly defended capital Hangzhou. Hangzhou was 150 miles southeast of Nanjing and was the supply line supporting the southern Qing encampment. Now because He Chun and Zhang Guoliang concentrated all of their forces around Nanjing, there was little real defense left for Hangzhou, so they would be forced to transfer troops from the large encampments around Nanjing to lift a siege of the city.    As per Hong Rengans plan, they would recall two roving armies led by Chen Yucheng and the younger cousin of Li Xiucheng, known as the attending King who would return to Nanjing from their distant foraging campaigns. As soon as the Qing forces around Nanjing thinned out sufficiently, the expeditionary force at Hangzhou would secretly retreat as the combined armies of the Brave, loyal and attending King’s would sweep in from 3 sides to crush the weakened Qing camps, thus raising the siege. Even Li Xiucheng agreed such a plan might break the siege, but he did question what lasting effect it might accomplish. He argued it would reconcentrate the Taiping forces in Nanjing where they had limited supplies, thus Hong Rengan laid out the full scope of his revised strategy for winning the war. The rice growing southern provinces, sichuan in the west and the Great Wall to the north were over 1000 miles from Nanjing, but to the east were grand and wealthy cities like Suzhou and Hangzhou who had access to the sea. It was to the east they should strike. Once they performed the siege lifting offensive they should turn east and conquer the cities between Nanjing and Suzhou in a swift and precise campaign. With access to the sea they could ensure supplies, arms, wealth and new recruits. If all went well they could get help from foreign allies and using the wealth taken from Suzhou and Hangzhou they could purchase perhaps 20 steam powered ships from the foreigners in shanghai. With such naval forces they could patrol the Yangtze unopposed and begin taking the southern coast along Fujian, Guangdong all the way to Hong Kong. From there they could march on Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei and seize Hankow, solidifying the Taiping control over the entire Yangtze river valley and cutting the Qing empire effectively in 2. By consolidating the south, they could take Sichuan, Shaanxi and the original dream of Hong XIuquan and Hong Rengan would be complete. The former Ming empires borders would be theres and Beijing and the northern provinces would eventually be starved and wither away. The success of his grand plan depended heavily on the support of foreigners in Shanghai, but would they be open to it?   On February 10th of 1860, the Loyal King left Nanjing with 6000 handpicked men disguised in Qing uniforms stolen from slain enemies. The coordination between the Green Standard, Yung-Ying armies and local militias was so weak, the Loyal King’s force managed to seize several garrison towns along their way before looping around to hit Hangzhou. They surprised the city on March 11th when hundreds of Taiping banners began to be erected around the great city indicating its was under siege. The main Taiping force battered the front gate of Hangzhou using sappers and tunnels and a hole was blasted by march 19th. Hell unleashed upon the city as its untrained militia routed fleeing to their homes in neighboring towns. The leaders of Hangzhou likewise abandoned their offices taking their bodyguards with them, with many also ransacking the city as they fled. Li Xiuchengs men fought against the local residents who stood their ground and the local women did as moral instructions proscribed, they began to kill themselves en masse. The women hanged themselves, poisoned themselves, stabbed themselves and threw themselves into wells to drown. The Manchu commander of Hangzhou fled with his troops back into the inner garrison holding out against the fierce Taiping invaders. Li’s men were unable to break into the Manchu garrison after 6 days, so he abandoned the attack and began the retreat back to Nanjing. He had accomplished his objective and the plan would work out perfectly. Zhang Guoliang received reports of the attack on Hangzhou, without any clear indication of the size of the Taiping force. He shifted nearly a quarter of his total siege forces to relieve Hangzhou as a result while the Loyal King and his men took to their Qing disguises yet again easily slipping past Zhang Guoliangs men. Zhang’s force arrived to Hangzhou to find no Taiping, nor any civil government, so they looted the city hahahaah.    By April the main Taiping armies of the Brave and Attending kings went to the outskirts of Nanjing and join up with the Loyal Kings forces to throw their combined weight on the weakest point of the southern QIng encampment. The southern camp fell apart in a rout as 100,000 Taiping overran them from 3 different directions. Li’s cavalry smashed into the Qing rear lines crushing the men under their own defensive works. Thousands were cut down with their bodies left in the trenches they had dug. The waterways overflowed their banks raising corpses everywhere. The routed Qing dropped their weapons as they fled, but the Taiping pursued them for weeks cutting more and more down. Soon the Taiping overran the city of Danyang, 45 miles to the east of Nanjing. General He Chun committed suicide by eating raw opium and Zhang Guoliang drowned while trying to escape from Danyang. Thus in the central theater of the war, no more capable Qing commanders were left.   In the spring of 1860, suddenly the Taiping came out like a scourge from their capital marching to the east. Local militias fled before them, Jiangsu province was swarmed, countless cities fell without a fight. By mid may the Taiping captured Changzhou a few days later Wuxi. Then the Taiping plucked one of the greatest cities, Suzhou which held a population of 2 million, providing them with a vast source of new recruits and plunder. The Taiping’s momentum was unbreakable, Suzhou simply opened the gates to them. For those who were in the path of the Taiping choices were always the same, be brave and fight to protect your homes, or cut your manchu queues and join them. Many peasants tried to appease both sides by growing their hair long on top when the Taiping took over, but kept their Manchu braid wound up underneath their long hair in case the Qing came back. Soon the Taiping spread past Jiangsu to Zhejiang forcing countless to flee to the protection of the international city of Shanghai. Yet rumors spread to those in Shanghai that an army of 100,000 Taiping was going to march upon Shanghai with a flotilla of 10,000 boats so large it would take 3 days to fully pass the river.   The treaty port of Shanghai held half a million Chinese inhabitants, a figure growing daily with refugees. Shanghai was divided into 4 sections; the east going to Jiangsu province; the south was the old Chinese city with a circular defensive wall 25 feet high governed by the Qing holding most of Shanghais population; to the north was the French and British concessions and to the east was the Suzhou creek where past that was the American concession. The foreign population numbered around 2000 settled people and shipping crews numbering another 2000 or so. The British dominated the community, seconded by the French, leaving the Americans a minority. It was not a beautiful city. Countless newcomers had grand visions of “an El dorado of wealth, hope and fortune, only to find a dirty, overcrowded settlement with “ill built houses reeking with impurities and fevers and vile stenches”. One missionary said of the city  “one of the filthiest in this world. I have seen nothing to be compared to it in dirt and filth, it surpasses everything.”   Shanghai had access to the sea and the Yangtze river making it an ideal point of trade for tea and silk from China’s interior. Shanghai quite frankly was built specifically for the purpose of dominating the China trade. As the Taiping edged down the river, British authorities in Shanghai issued an injunction from trading with the rebels and fear set into the foreign community that their immensely profitable commerce was about to be destroyed. The top ranking British official in Shanghai was our old friend Frederick Bruce, the younger brother to Lord Elgin. After failing at his job to get the Qing to abide by their treaty, he left his brother to finish that work up as he took up the mantle to manage Shanghai. Because of his experiences he sought to walk a very fine line when it came to his new role and he was determined to remain neutral towards the civil war. He issued the trade injunction believing to even trade with the Taiping was breaking neutrality. He also simultaneously tried to avoid aiding the Qing, but Britain had interests with the Qing and the Qing knew how to twist an arm. The Qing had an official named Wu Xu who hounded Bruce for British support in defending Shanghai from a possible Taiping attack. Wu Xu warned if the Taiping took Shanghai, it would shut down all trade and the British would be cast out. Bruce began to hear rumors about horrible dealings in Hangzhou by the hands of Li Xiuchengs men and began to worry what might unfold in Shanghai.   It was not just the Taiping that were a threat, there were legions of renegade Qing forces who had taken up residence in Shanghai who had fled from Suzhou and Hangzhou. Bruce wrote  “the defeated imperialists have revenged themselves for their defeat by pillaging the defenceless villages on their line of retreat. The beaten troops, the victorious insurgents, and the vagabonds of the city itself, all join in plundering the wealthy and respectable inhabitants.” There were continuous false alarms being made that the Taiping were attacking Shanghai causing the city to become a powder keg. Weighing the options, Bruce decided it was Britain's moral duty to protect Shanghai, but not just the foreign settlements, also the Chinese city under the Qing civil governments control. He made it clear any British defense of Shanghai would strictly be limited to the city itself. Wu Xu tried to press Bruce that a preemptive British led force at Suzhou to halt the Taiping would be a good idea, but Bruce rejected this immediately. The French however heard reports that another French catholic missionary had been murdered by the Taiping, and they decided to rally a force of 3000 men to march on Suzhou, but Bruce was able to scuttle the mission. The British merchants began to hound Bruce to mount a sturdy defense of the city, but Bruce had to wait, probably months for Britain to give him permission to deploy defenses. Thus in the meantime Bruce began calling up volunteers, and only a handful of cannons were dragged together with a few hundred inexperienced men to man the walls to face if rumors were true, legend of Taiping.    I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.  Hong Rengan went on a great pilgrimage to Nanjing and became the Shield King. His reforms were grand, but he drew ire from his fellow the Loyal King. Could Hong Rengan turn the movement around?  

Last time we spoke tension was brewing within the Taiping capital between the the heavenly king and his subordinate kings. The Foreigners were debating who would win the civil war for China and who would be the best bet for trade. The new Yung-Ying armies, such as the Xiang army of Zeng Guofan began to encircle Nanjing in an effort to strangle the Taiping. Within the Taiping capital, conflict finally broke out and Yang Xiuqing was murdered by his comrade King Wei Changhui. When Shi Dakai found out he demanded blood, leading to Wei Changhui’s death and almost his own, but he fled Nanjing, taking a large army with him to campaign in exile. Now Hong Xiuquan fell into a depression and fell into seclusion, who would lead the movement now that the great taiping kings were all gone? #28 This episode is The Taiping Rebellion part 5: Out with the old kings, in with the new   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War.   With Shi Dakai’s departure, Hong was put in quite a pickle, as one of his commanders, General Li said “morale declined and there was no unified policy. Each went his own way. The Sovereign did not place complete confidence in anyone. He had been frightened by the East, North and Flank Kings and dared not trust other ministers, but placed all his trust in members of his own clan”. Thus the Taiping fortune had turned dramatically, the period of swift campaigns and sweeping victories had ended. They would not be able to exploit the blitzkrieg like momentum they once held. Now the Qing provincial armies would organize and begin the process of wrestling back control over vital and strategic territories in the upper Yangtze valley. Hong Xiuquan was alone in Nanjing with none of his original comrades to pick up the much needed leadership roles. As bad as Yang XIuqing had been, he was at least effective as an organizer and strategist.    On the other side of the coin, the Qing were unable to take advantage of all the Taiping upheaval. Their main besieging camps around Nanjing were smashed in 1856 and they faced two other large threats. The first ws another rebellion taking place in northern CHina, that of the Nian rebellion. The Nian rebellion was severing lines of communications from north to south making it extremely difficult to coordinate against the Taiping. The second was of course the second Opium war which threatened the eastern coast and cut off contact with the sea, effectively leaving local regional commanders in the south and center of China to have to formulate their own strategies against the Taiping. The financial records show at this time Emperor Xianfengs treasuries were significantly reduced. The Qing court had begun suspending orders for silk and porcelain and these sort of goods were necessary to showcase imperial glory. Alongside this, weddings and funeral stipends for Manchu Banner troops were canceled, golden bells, buddhist statues and other items made of gold, silver and such were melted down to make coins. The Qing court forced officials to reduce staff, canceled repairs to palace buildings and by 1857 some Imperial Banner families had reached starvation levels of just a few pounds of relief grain per month. The Emperor was allowing his Banner troops to use their own banks and rice stores in an attempt to shield military personnel from the effects of inflation. Despite the economic hard times, and enemies left right and center, the Qing armies could have crushed the Taiping altogether during this turbulent time, had it not been for the Qing leaders insistence on the policy of having veteran Taiping troops executed if captured without exception. There was really little incentive to stop serving the Taiping.   Now Hong Xiuquan did not stop at just placing his two brothers in high positions. There was Hong’s sister, his wife Lai and his children, the 8 sons of his eldest brother, 2 from his second eldest brother. Hong also had 8 daughters from various consorts, many of whom were married. Hong also had a dozen or so cousins, the Hong family had roots in Guangdong and Guangxi and many had made the trek from Thistle mountain to Nanjing. Now that Yang was dead, Hong was able to do things with less scrutiny, thus he began to extend his family as he saw fit. Hong’s palace was run entirely by women under his general supervision. Allegedly 2000 women worked for him divided into 3 categories, female ministers and bureaucrats, maids and attendants and the women of his immediate family. That last group included consorts of which according to his son Tiangui, Hong Xiuquan had 88 consorts in Nanjing. Tiangui was around 9 years old in 1857 is told he is too old to remain in the palace and is forced to live in an outer palace and given 4 wives. He is forbidden from seeing his mother or sisters, bound by stern rules set forth by his father. Hong Xiuquan dictated at four, his sons are no longer allowed close contact with their older sisters; at seven, they can no longer sleep in their mothers’ or other consorts’ beds; they must also stay ten feet or more away from their sisters, and learn to bathe themselves; by nine they should not even see their grandmothers. Their sisters’ separation from their brothers is similar: after five, they must never be touched by their brothers, and after nine they stay entirely with the women and are not meant to see even their younger brothers any more. In 1857, a year after the assasination ordeal, Hong Xiuquan issued the only official publication of the time known as “poems by the heavenly father”. They show us how Hong Xiuquan concerned himself with maintaining order and harmony among his hundreds of concubines and maids in his giant harem. He then explained “heavenly principles” admonishing his women to please their master and to follow his ordained rules. The mixture of fantastic ideas and fanatical beliefs in these writing to his women showcase the decline of the heavenly king. He was so concerned with having his own personal religious experience, that to ascent to heaven, rather than focus on the Taiping revolution. Whatever governmental structure existed was handled by Hong Xiuquans family rather than him, most at the hands of Hong Rengfa/Rengfu. Later on when one of the leading Taiping commanders, General Li Xiucheng is captured by Zeng Guofan he tells him “In Nanjing there was no one at court to carry on the government, the morale of the soldiers and people was broken and troubled. The military leaders were greatly displeased with the Hong brothers as both men were deficient in talent and had no plans”.   Yet the Hong clan did not seem to have anyone who could pull everything together. Hong Renfa and Renfu were said to be “deficient in talent and military tactics. THey were obstinately bent on carrying out their own views, and were obsessed with the notion that Heaven would support them in everything”. Shi Dakai was the last real hope for the revolution and when he left he also took with a significant part of the military and some of the best commanders. When the Qing court received news of Shi Dakai’s departure they instructed Zeng Guofan to invite Shi Dakai into the fold. Shi Dakai refused to surrender to the Qing and instead marched his army through Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Fujian and then westward into Hunan. From Hunan he tried to gain entry to Sichuan. Shi Dakai had thus conducted a ceaseless and exhausting campaign across 15 different provinces over a distance of more than 6000 miles, seeking first a permanent base, and then it became more of a game of survival. Countless troops got sick, died or deserted. By June, Shi Dakai found himself cornered, helpless and exhausted, so he simply walked into the encampment of the commanding Qing general pursuing him and gave himself up. He hoped by forfeiting his life he could have 2000 other Taiping veterans be pardoned. He prepared for all of this by having having his 5 wives commit suicide and his drowned, to save them from the inevitable shame and agony they would have faced at the hands of the Qing troops. He was interrogated for over 6 months by Luo Bingzhang who had directed the defenses at Changsha which killed the west king. Shi Dakai was executed slowly via dismemberment and his 2000 of his most loyal followers who had been held under guard at a local temple were slaughtered. Though Shi Dakai had assumed new titles and gave many to his commanders, he never promulgated any new political programs, nor did he have any grand purpose for his military campaign, and thus he was more of a military adventurer rather than a revolutionary leader in the end.   Shi’s forces would remain a threat to the Qing and Zeng Guofan’s Hunan forces. Shi had permitted many of his men to leave for home and the Taiping who went back to Guangxi province would survive to the end of the rebellion, slaughtering many more Qing. Shi also continuously recruiting as he marched his forces, in 1858 Shi’s forces were said to be several hundred thousand strong before Zeng Guofans armies decimated them. Shi Dakai’s force was quite the diversionary campaign, forcing Zeng Guofan to dispatch many of his best commanders to deal with him, but he was never distracted from his main target, the Taiping stronghold of Nanjing. Initially when the Qing ordered Zeng Guofan to march into Sichuan to stop Shi’s invasion of the provin, he refused the follow the Qing strategy. He argued with the Qing court stating the difference between the rebels who occupied and developed strategic areas for economic bases, ie: the main Taiping force in the lower Yangtze versus what he called the “roaming bandits” who never settled down. Those roamers were Shi Dakai and the Nian rebels. The real threat he insisted was the Taiping in Nanjing and Anhwei and they must be dealt with first. The Qing government…well they had no real way to coerce Zeng Guofan at this point and just followed his advice.    Meanwhile in Nanjing, Hong Xiuquan’s choice to appoint his own kin as officials was backfiring. He had made this appointment in the hopes of re-establishing a working organization. However the proliferation of titles contributed to disorganization and chaos. He had appointed Meng De’en as chief of staff. Meng had been a member of the administrative staff and Taiping documents indicate he was an official responsible for providing women for the heavenly king’s harem but had no experience in military matters. And despite his nominal role in the central administration and his new military authority he really held no real influence over either the courts or the armies. Alongside this Hong’s brothers were using their positions to amass wealth and live lives of luxury. So the field commanders became the only ones making actually military decisions. The attitudes of these commanders towards the new appoints in Nanjing can be seen strongly be the remarks of Li Xiucheng who again as a prisoner under Zeng Guofan wrote “there was no one at court to carry on the government, the morale of the soldiers and people was broken and troubled”. From his perspective, the military leaders were very dissatisfied with the Hong brothers and distrustful of Meng who in his words “was a great favorite of the heavenly king and had not been outside the capital. He alongside his second in command Li Kaifang were both men without ability and moreover kept in hand by the Hong brothers”.   Its easy to see the Taiping were in a major crisis and Li Xiucheng wrote one passage that shows us that it could have very well fallen to pieces by 1858. “The feeling of the people has undergone a great change. Government affairs were in disorder, and each man was pursuing his own course. The sovereign had become mistrustful of others. The affairs between the kings had so alarmed him that he was distrustful of ministers of other surnames and put his confidence in his own family and relations. There was a unanimous desire at this time to separate. However, they did not dare to separate on their own, since they had heard that whenever the Qing generals and soldiers capture Guangxi men they decapitated them, not sparing a single one. Hence they banded closely together instead of dispersing. Had the Qing dynasty been willing at this early date to spare Guangxi men, a breakup would have taken place long ago”. A very revealing passage to be sure. The inability of the Hong brothers and Meng De’en to manage military campaigns forced Hong Xiuquan to give the military leaders a free hand and he even created new titles and positions for them within the Taiping hierarchy. The first two important men to emerge in 1856 were Chen Yucheng and Li Xiucheng who received the titles of second chief commandant and deputy commandant. Left to their own by the useless Taiping court, they were forced to make their own strategic decisions and coordinate based on their need for self preservation.    The military situation for the Taiping was critical. Control over the Yangtze had been lost to Zeng Guofan’s Xiang army and with it came the loss of transportation for military supplies and provisions. In december of 1856, Wuhan had been recovered by the Qing which threatened Taiping control over the south Yangtze areas. The 2 Taiping commander thus came together in January of 1857 at a conference in Anqing to figure out how to coordinate a campaign. This led to a joint strategy to strengthen the Taiping military position in the Yangtze area. Now neither commander had played a large role in the Taiping campaigns prior to taking Nanjing. Chen Yucheng was too young to take an active role during the march from Guangxi to Nanjing. At Nanjing he was appointed to the rank of corps superintendent in charge of provisions for the Taiping left fourth army, to be blunt it was a desk job. By 1854 he petitioned for combat duty and got his wish in june that year to occupy Wuchang. He distinguished himself as the 38th commander then the 13 senior secretary commanding the Taiping rear 13th army and front 4th army of river troops. His military achievements and personal bravery earned him fame amongst the Taiping, and he also became well known to the Qing who targeted him as an important Taiping commander.   Li Xiucheng was a fellow villager of Chen Yucheng. He did fight during the march from Guangxi to Nanjing, but was not promoted to important military positions until later on. At Nanjing he became an assistant to another Taiping leader, Hu I-Kuang before receiving an appointment by Yang Xuiqing as a new corps general and later corps superintendents leading troops in 1853. Before the power struggle, Li had been sent with other Taiping officers to Chenchiang in Guangxi. After the power struggle Li was in command at Tongcheng in Anhwei and found himself in quite a struggle. He had a small force of less than 3000 men in a city isolated by Qing forces, he was surrounded, by his own account by over 10,000 Qing troops in over a 100 camps. To break out of this terrible position, Li cooperated with Chen Yucheng and collaborated with a Nian rebel force.    I have not spoken too much about the Nian, but at this time the area of northern Anhwei along the borders of Henan, Shandong and Jiangsu were under their control. They had started as groups of local corps formed during all the disarray of the 1840’s and 1850’s. They rose up to defend their villages against local bandits and raids from neighboring forces. By the mid 1850’s these groups banded together into a regional force held together by a secret society affiliation and by support from some local gentry clans. They held a formidable cavalry force and used a system of defense in depth, allowing them to perform campaigns into neighboring areas. They were anti-Qing and thus rebels, making it easy for them to cooperate with the Taiping when possible. Honestly I am contemplating writing an episode on the Nian rebellion and on many of the other lesser known rebellions of the 19th century, but my god there are many and its easy to become sidetracked. Who knows maybe at some point I will have to make a patreon to produce exclusive content, wink wink, anyone who might be interested in such things let me know, comment on my private channel, the pacific war channel or catch me in the KNG discord perhaps, really want to hear from you guys and gals what you want to hear more about.   There does not seem to be significant coordination between the Nian and Taiping prior to this, and perhaps that can be explained by a simple difference in goals of the two movements. The Nian were a local rebel group that had little program nor major political purpose beyond control and exploitation of the area their forces dominated. They did not hold the ambition to establish a new dynasty, let alone some sort of proto-marxist revolution like the Taiping sought. The Taiping for their part had little interest in local bandit or rebel groups who were unwilling to submit to the Taiping faith. At the start of the Taiping rebellion in Guangxi province they had already alienated many secret society and bandit groups who were quasi interested in the Taiping cause. Yang Xiuqing in Nanjing did little to change this policy. But after the breakdown of centralized command in Nanjing, men like Li Xuicheng who held purely military interests to heart saw joint action with groups like the Nian.   Thus the first significant joint action between the Taiping and Nian came about in early 1856 when the Nian leader Li Chaozhou from southern Huai area joined up with Li Xiucheng to perform a campaign in Chenchiang. When Li’s position was in crisis at Tongcheng he quickly tried to establish contact with Li Chaozhou the southern Nian leader, but also the northern Nian leader Zhang Luoxing. Zhang pledged collaboration with the Taiping forces under Li Xiucheng, claiming the Nian forces under his control to be a million strong. This forced the Qing in northern Anhwei to go on the defensive easing the pressure upon Li Xiuchang. The military alliance also raised Li Xiuchangs status amongst the Taiping, earning him a promotion in rank. The joint military campaign led to a number of cities in the Huai area to be taken between 1857 and 1859. But this cooperation remained purley on a military basis and would not last. It never extended beyond the Huai area and even within the area it was quite nominal in scale as a result of the Nian not having any real political structure. The Nian were more of a federation of autonomous communal units and the incapability with the Taiping ideology made any further integration impossible. The southern Nian leaders such as Li Chaozhou who had been the chief collaborators with Li Xiucheng could not be trusted for very long. They were not Guangxi men like Li Xiucheng, and thus could surrender to the Qing and keep their heads, which they eventually did. The cities they were defending were handed over much to Li Xiuchengs despair.    Li ascribed their surrender to be a result of undisciplined troops stating “Li Chaozhous troops were a disorderly lot; they were constantly troubling the people and plundering any city that was taken, and when this could not be effected they vented their rage on the peoples themselves. Li chastised the assistant generals of the districts until he was ashamed to meet me and finally sent his submission to the Qing”. Li was also dissatisfied with the northern Nian leader Zhang Luoxing who according to him “His men were only interested in promotions but not in serving when called”. Li was angered by the lack of cooperation or to be more blunt the fact the Nian’s disobeyed Taiping directions as to why the Taiping campaigns failed. However the push to perform joint actions led to Taiping victories in the central Yangtze area which most definitely helped their cause.   For one thing the joint actions led the Nian to hit Qing supply lines which further contributed to a major victory over the Qing at Tongcheng on february 24th of 1857. After this victory the Taiping leaders pursued the retreating Qing forces northwards alongside their Nian allies. But then many Nian forces attempted a western campaign and lost ground in Hubei. There were 2 major thrusts made in April and september of 1857 and then april and may of 1858, but both were frustrated by the Xiang army and other Qing forces. The Nian began a general retreat back into northern Anhwei which was their economic base. Meanwhile Li Xiucheng acquired a base closer to Nanjing establishing supply lines and from then on took on a key role defending the Nanjing region.    Though the Taiping/Nian joint operations slowed the advance of the Xiang army in Hunan, Zeng Guofan’s strategic plan still proved itself and his forces slowly but surely advanced in the Yangtze area. In may of 1858 contingents of the Xiang army recovered the city of JiuJiang which was the last remaining Taiping strategic base in the center of the Yangtze area. It was a vital base that provided them with resources from the provinces of Jiangxi and Hunan as well as a major recruitment point. From Jiujiang, Zeng Guofans army could prepare to march into Anhwei. Zeng Guofan also sought to advance forces into the upper Yangtze area to strangle the Taiping, while other Qing forces rebuilt the camps that were surrounding Nanjing in 1856. The northern and southern blockading camps were rebuilt in 1857 under the command of the Manchu generals He Chun and Zhang Guoliang. By the end of 1857 their forces were marching upon the city of Chenchiang which the Taiping had been holding since 1853.   To face the new threat, a Taiping military conference was held and alongside Li Xiucheng and Chen Yucheng a number of other Taiping generals gained prominence. Two of the most important were Yang Fuqing and Li Shixian. Yang was actually a cousin of Yang Xiuqing who escaped the slaughter by being in Jiangxi province performing a military campaign. Li Shixian wsa a cousin of Li Xiucheng and fought under him, until 1858 when he assumed his own command campaigning in southern Anhwei. The Taiping government depended on the loyalty of these key generals rather than any efforts made by Meng De’en and other useless Taiping administrators within Nanjing. In August of 1858 when the Qing began to strangle Nanjing, Hong Xiuquan gave the military commanders new titles and assignments. Now ever since the Yong’an campaign way back when, the Taiping military was more or less divided as such: the forward army, rear army, central army and left army. Chen Yucheng was appointed chief general of the forward army, which originally had been Feng Yunshans title; Li Xiucheng became chief general of the rear army; Yang Fuqing became the chief general of the center army, but was forced to share this position with Meng De’en who somehow was going to command men from Nanjing; and last Li Shixian was made chief general of the left army previously held by Shi Dakai.   At the conference Li Xiucheng called for unified action, here is some of what he said in his own words “I then wrote to the garrison generals of the different places, calling on all officers of the Heavenly dynasty to hold a council of war on an appointed day at Ts’ung-yang near Anqing. The generals and officers of the various places responded to my call…we each took an oath that we would support each other and agreed to join forces in the conflict before us”. The result of the conference led Chen Yucheng to march upon Shuch’eng, luzhou, chuzhou, then to link up with Li Xiucheng at the Anhwei-Jiangsu border to hit the Qing forces at Wuxi and Pukou dealing a complete defeat to the northern Qing camp trying to strangle Nanjing. The Taiping broke the northern half of the Qing blockading forces ending a large threat to Nanjing.   However these forces the Taiping defeated at the northern blockade were regular Qing forces. Fresh from that victory the Taiping now had to face the Xiang army who were marching into Anhwei. These forces were being led by Li Xubin who was accompanied by Zeng Guofans brother, Zeng Guohua. Their Xiang army was threatening the entire Taiping position in Anhwei and to face it Chen Yucheng rushed his army over to its defense, followed by Li Xiucheng. A major battle occurred on November 15th of 1858, resulting in the complete annihilation of the Xiang force and the deaths of Li Xubin and Zeng Guohua. Thus the Taiping control over Anhwei remained firm and Zeng Guofan suffered a terrible setback. Chen Yucheng and Li Xiucheng quickly recaptured all the lost territories in Anhwei and parted ways. Chen Yucheng chose to establish a base in the northern and western parts of Anhwei around Anqing, while Li Xiucheng took the eastern section closer to Nanjing.    Because Li Xiucheng was closer to Nanjing he was able to assert more control and began to introduce some order to the chaotic Taiping capital. According to his own account Li Xiucheng requested of the heavenly king ‘to select men according to talent, enact laws for the relief of the people, promulgate strict decrees, renovate court discipline, enforce rewards and punishments, treat the people with compassion, reduce taxes in grain and money”. Apparently the only response he got was a demotion, though he was soon promoted right back. A demotion really did nothing to affect any of the field generals actual power as they were basically the only ones doing anything. Later in 1858 when Nanjing was yet again under siege, Li Xiucheng went to Nanjing where he claimed he succeeded in re-establishing order and control. He convinced the heavenly king that to save Tianjin, they must collect forces outside for its relief. Each of the leaders continued thus to hold their own areas of supply, until messengers from Nanjing showed up demanding their armies come help break another blockade against Nanjing at the cities of Chianpu and Pukou.    Now during the years of 1856 to 1859, the Taiping were firmly on the defensive. Their military actions were almost always done by commanders working amongst themselves without any regard for the Nanjing government. These commanders thought in military terms and were no longer really concerned with the Taiping ideology, thus their revolutionary purpose was dying. This also resulted in each commander becoming shortsighted and their focus shifted simply to their own respective regions. They only coordinated with each other during times of immediate threat and had proven themselves capable of defeating not just the regular Qing forces, but that of Zeng Guofan. No attempt was made by the Taiping leaders to regain the initiative and the disintegration of central control was crumbling Nanjing. Transporting supplies to Nanjing had become an issue as Zeng Guofan began attacking riverways, especially along the Yangtze. Earlier, Tianjin enjoyed dominion over the Yangtze river and supplies poured in from 50-100 miles away inland. Yet by 1856 the Yangtze and other lakes were severed from Tianjin, and this resulted in a large loss for communication and the supply network. Even though the Taiping held numerous important cities on the banks of the Yangtze, the waterway itself was denied to them.   The general decline of the Taiping became quite apparent to foreign observers, between the years of 1857 and 1859 only one significant foreign mission would journey up the Yangtze and it was led by Lord Elgin. Yes if you remember from our Second Opium War series, Elgin tried to go up the Yangtze to navigate the commercial prospects of the region and to investigate the political situation. Elgin departed from the new treaty port of Hankou which was in the hands of the Qing and the furthest up the Yangtze river. Elgin wanted to test if the Chinese authorities would respect the status of the British flag under the new treaty of Tianjin, but it was also a chance to investigate the Taiping. Elgin had only heard rumors in SHanghai about the rebels and he wanted to gauge them first hand. As Elgin wrote to the foreign secretary “As we have seen fit to affect neutrality between the Emperor of China and the rebels. We could not, of course, without absurdity, require him to give us rights and protection in places actually occupied by a Power which we treat with the same respect as his own.” When Elgin could see from the bridge of his ship, the Furious and a few inland excursions, it looked like the civil war was more devastating than any rumors in SHanghai led one to believe. He reported this about the state of the city of Zhenjiang “I never before saw such a scene of desolation. heaps of ruins, intersected by a few straggling streets.“[We] might have imagined ourselves in Pompeii. We walked along deserted streets, between roofless houses, and walls overgrown with rank, tangled weeds; heaps of rubbish blocked up the thoroughfares, but they obstructed nobody.In order to save repetition I may here observe, once for all, that with certain differences of degree, this was the condition of every city which I visited on my voyage up and down the Yang-tze.”   Elgins first direct contact with the Taiping came in the form of a cannonball that roared over the deck of his ship as they passed by Nanjing on November 20th. Elgin did not expect hostilities and thought they would merely pass by unmolested. In response he sent a few gunships back downriver to hammer the rebel forts. The Taiping then sent messengers offering an apology for firing upon Elgins ships and asked for aid in fighting the Qing dynasty. A month later on Christmas day of 1858, as Elgins fleet was passing the city of Anqing on their way back to Shanghai he received a letter from Hong Xiuquan inviting him to join the Taiping in their divine mission to destroy the Manchu. “The Father and the Elder Brother led me to rule the Heavenly Kingdom, to sweep away and exterminate the devilish spirits, bestowing on me great honor. Foreign younger brothers of the western ocean, listen to my words. Join us in doing service to the Father and Elder Brother and extinguishing the stinking reptiles.” There were many attempts at communication and trade. Many individual Taiping commanders sent letters expressing hope to procure foreign rifles and cannons, but the British continuously stated they were abiding by a neutrality stance. Many of the Taiping tried to appeal to the British on the basis of their shared religion. “are both sons of the Heavenly Father, God, and are both younger brothers of the Heavenly Elder Brother, Jesus. Our feelings towards each other are like those of brothers, and our friendship is as intimate as that of two brothers of the same parentage.” The shared christianity between the two remained a sticky situation. There were many in Britain who pointed out the need to help the Christians in China. At a time when Britain and France were at war with the Qing, it seemed like there was quite a rationale for simply allying with the Taiping. But there were two major obstacles in the way, the first being the principle of neutrality. If they helped the Taiping, they may lose any relations they had left with the Qing. The second issue was that it was hard to understand if the Taiping were really christian or not. Multiple missionaries tried to investigate this matter and they were not convinced. It also did not help that the Heavenly King began sending the foreigners a manifesto demanding their come pay their respects to him as god’s son.   The foreigners in the end would have little sympathy for the Taiping cause and it would actually lead to them contributing to the Qing side of the war in the end. The rationale for this was to secure the treaties they signed with the Qing and quite honestly, the Taiping did not look like they were going to win the war by the late 1850s. But were the Taiping defeated? Many would argue this is not the case, they could have reorganized and revamped their revolutionary purpose, and in 1859 a man arrived to Nanjing to do just that.   I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.  The Taiping found new leadership figures in Li Xiucheng and Chen Yucheng. The Nian rebels proved valuable allies initially, but in the end it simply was not working out. The Taiping desperately needed foreign support but were burning those bridges.   

Last time we spoke the Heavenly King established his new capital Tianjing, the heavenly kingdom. Dramatic reforms were made, soldiers were recruited and armies were made to perform grand campaigns. The Taiping performed the Northern expedition, but instead of throwing the kitchen sink and potentially taking the dragon throne, it failed. The western expedition proved more fruitful and soon large swathes of territory fell to the Taiping enlarging their new empire. Yet not all was well in the heavenly kingdom, Yang Xiuqing, the mouth of the heavenly father began to abuse the heavenly king and draw the god worshipers under his thumb. Alongside this Zeng Guofan was created a brand new type of army that could challenge the Taiping and quell China of their rebellion once and for all.   #27 This episode is The Taiping Rebellion part 4: Murder amongst the Taiping Kings   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War.   While the Taiping at Nanjing were beginning to lose their political and military initiative to the Qing and Yung-ying forces, they were also losing something vitally important outside of China, western support. Western forces definitely would play a crucial role in the Taiping Qing war and western attitudes would shift dramatically from pro Taiping to anti Taiping. The first major rumblings about the Taiping came to westerners when they captured Nanjing. Overall the impression of the Taiping was quite favorable, reports indicated they were a well disciplined group of Christian character. There were many westerners who thought the Taiping might be a better alternative than the Manchu whose attitudes towards western missionaries and economic activities were aggravating. Western dissatisfaction with the Qing government really came down to their unwillingness to abide by the treaty of Nanjing in full. Thus as you can imagine quite a few missions were sent by Westerners to the new Taiping capital in Nanjing to evaluate the situation.   The first official mission that went to Nanjing was sent by the British. Sir George Bonham accompanied by Captain Fishbourne and T.T Meadows sailed to Nanjing aboard the Hermes. Bonham was egged into the mission by influential British merchants in Shanghai who were worried by the disruption in commerce. Most of the information on the Taiping that came to westerners was during the Yongan occupation and the information was quite vague and contradictory. Issachar Roberts who knew Hong Xiuquan wrote to local newspapers describing the man “ “He is a man of ordinary appearance, about five feet four or five inches high; well built, round faced, regular featured, rather handsome, about middle age, and gentlemanly in his manners.  he is trying to be something in the capacity of a prophet and appears to be struggling for religious liberty.” What the British really wanted to know, was about the trading interests and investments in SHanghai which amounted to around 25 million pounds sterling at the time. The foreigners in Shanghai wanted to know if the Taiping would offer greater chances for stability and trade expansion than their QIng counterpart. While enroute they ran into the Taiping leader named Lo Ta-kang in Chen-chiang in april of 1853. The man told him the Taiping were friendly to foreigners and would not interfere with any commercial relations. Yet when Bonham reached Nanjing he quickly found that the Taiping government like the Qing, regarded foreign governments as subordinates to their rule. While the Qing believed their mandate was that of heaven, likewise the Taiping assumed their heavenly king held an equal position within the globe. Yang Xiuqing sent a formal letter to the British and here is some of what it said and I am strongly paraphrases as its a very long letter. “Now that you distant English “have not deemed myriads of miles too far to come” and acknowledge our sovereignty; not only are the soldiers and officers of our Celestial dynasty delighted and gratified thereby, but even in high heaven itself Our Celestial Father and Elder Brother will also admire this manifestation of your fidelity and truth. We therefore issue this special decree, permitting you, the English Chief, to lead your brethren out or in, backwards or forwards, in full accordance with your own will or wish, whether to aid us in exterminating our impish foes, or to carry on your commercial operations as usual; and it is our earnest hope that you will, with us, earn the merit of diligently serving our royal master, and, with us, recompense the goodness of the Father of Spirits. Wherefore we promulgate this new decree of (our Sovereign) Taiping for the information of you English, so that all the human race may learn to worship Our Heavenly Father and Celestial Elder Brother, and that all may know that, wherever our royal master is, there men unite in congratulating him on having obtained the decree to rule”   The implication was that the British were subordinates to the Taiping. Bonham rejected the document stating it was incredibly difficult to understand and that if the Taiping “presume to injure, in any manner, the persons or property of British subjects, immediate steps will be taken to resent the injury in the same manner as similar injuries were resented ten years ago, resulting in the capture of Chinkiang, Nanking, and the neighbouring cities.” So needless to say Bonham’s mind was made up.    The French likewise would send a mission to Nanjing, concerned by news of maltreatment and killings of Catholic chinese by the Taiping. In December of 1853 the French minister Anton de Bourboulon made an official visit to Nanjing aboard the steamship Cassini. The Cassini found itself boarded by many Taiping emissaries, dressed in red and yellow robes with their long hair flowing freely. The French are eventually brought ashore and they find somethings that impress them, such as the severed heads of opium smokers; printing presses hard at work and examinations taking place based on religious texts. When the French are brought to an audience hall to meet with Taiping officials they are startled by the contrast between the rundown streets and palace. They see the officials wearing rich robes with fanciful gold. They call the frenchmen friends and brothers. Qin Rigang, a close confidant to Hong Xiuquan meets them, but he is placed on a single seat higher above the ones given to the french, something they note as a slight. Bourboulon enquires if the Taiping will guarantee the well being of Chinese catholics, reminding the man of Frances neutrality towards the civil war. In the end the French talked about the treaties they have with Emperor Xianfeng, and upon hearing the emperors name spoken the Taiping become livid. The Taiping say this to them “if the French revere the Qing ruler Xianfeng so much, they must be his friends; if they are Xianfeng’s friends, they must see the Taiping as rebels; if they see the Taiping as rebels, then they are the Taiping’s enemies; and so, in conclusion, “the better to help your friend you have come to spy on us, and to acquaint yourselves with the strengths and weaknesses of our position.” The Taiping follow this up with days of silence as the French sat aboard Cassini until a new message was brought on december 13th. The message “ordered” the French to visit the palace of the North King so they could receive his verbal instructions. De Bourboulon rejected this and simply left accepting the mission as a failure. De Bourboulon comes back with this to say about the Taiping “What stands out most for me from all that I have seen is the strength of this revolutionary movement, which promises nothing less than to accomplish a complete transformation, at once religious, social and political in this immense Empire, by tradition a land of custom and immobility. Whatever doubts may exist about its ultimate success, whatever obstacles the indifference of the masses and the resources of the Tartar dynasty may yet oppose to the rebellion’s triumph, it is clear to me that this revolt is one of formidable character and proportions; that it is led by men who, be they fanatical or ambitious, have faith in the success of their venture, and who, besides their audacity, have in their favour ideas, a strength of organisation, tactics, in short a moral force which gives them great superiority over their adversaries. . .” In May of 1854 the US sent commissioner Robert McLand, Captain Buchanan and E.C Bridgman to Nanjing aboard the Susquehanna and later in June the British sent representative Sir John Bowring to Nanjing. The American attempts at speaking with the Taiping does not go well, for one thing the Taiping dont recognize the US flag and fire upon their ships at first, pretty much ruining potential talks. Then the Taiping follow it up by sending similar letters they had sent the British and French indicating their stance on foreigners.  An american missionary, Dr. Charles Taylor also went to Chen-chiang in June of 1853 and spoke to Lo Ta-Kang whom told him the Taiping would favor commercial relations with the foreigners once they toppled the Manchu.   After these visits the British paper, North China Herald wrote about the Taiping attitudes towards foreigners and their treaties and it sort of summarizes the feelings of western nations towards them. “That whatever mingling of Christianity there might be among the leaders of the great insurrectionary movement and their followers they would be found veritably Chinese in their relations with foreigners; and that whenever the time came for seriously engaging in negotiations, we should encounter precisely the same difficulties we have always before experienced with the government and officials of the Tartar dynasty. In regard to the Taiping respecting existing treaties, most assuredly they will not, except on compulsion, or unless they willingly descend from their high position. Their ‘second son’ of the most high God, and his royal associates, they and they alone are to be the dispensers of all authority and all instruction”.    Thus the years between 1854-1856 marked a decisive turning point for the fate of the Taiping on multiple fronts. The northern expedition against Beijing was a failure; the western expedition only met nominal success, but was turned back putting them on a defensive footing. Now those like Zeng Guofan were creating private armies that were proving effective against them and were turning Chinese society against the Taiping based on traditional order. The chance at receiving support from the west was largely being missed. The Taipings main political and military leader Yang Xiuqing had been a brilliant organizer and strategist. He attempted to assume the role of ideological leader as well, but the way in which he did so was not very effective. Humiliating the Heavenly King and degrading his fellow kings and princes aroused a fear and hostility that would eventually cause a violent power struggle.   The Taiping capital was slowly being surrounded by two Yung-Ying army encampments that had been established by Qing government forces near Nanjing. These were a northern and southern encampment; with one at Chiang-nan and the other in Chiang-pei. The Taiping supply began to be threatened, leading a large number of non-combatants in september of 1854 to leave Nanjing searching for food. Then in march of 1855 to deal with the growing desertions, Yang Xiuqing reversed the policy of separating men and women, permitting marriages among the Taiping. The pressure of the Nanjing blockade by the northern and southern encampments forced Yang Xiuqing to withdraw many of his forces from the battle against Zeng Guofans forces to break the blockade. Thus the Taiping commander Qin Rigang was ordered to turn back from his battles against the Xiang army and to hit the northern encampment at Chiang-nan. Qin Rigang ended up defeating their forces while Shi Dakai who had also been recalled from his offensives in Jiangxi to attack the southern encampment at Chiang-pei in June of 1856. The battles were an overwhelming Taiping victory, the southern camp routed with its commander, the Taipings infamous rival Xiang Rong becoming wounded and he would die of the wounds several days later. Honestly this guy Xiang Rong from basically day one, chased the Taiping all the way to Nanjing and never stopped fighting. The poor guy just kept getting smashed.    Now back within Nanjing, the leadership system of the Taiping had been over complex and quite ambiguous from the start. The loose structure, sort of a quasi collective leadership left the door open to power struggle. There were two main principals to the leadership system: 1) the leadership was sanctioned by a divine mandate. Hong Xiuquan had received the Taiping mission as he claimed, from heaven under orders from God the father to fight the demons to establish the heavenly kingdom on earth. Yang Xiuqing claimed to derive his own authority from the fact that he had suffered for mankind and that God the father spoke through him in the form of the holy ghost. Before his death Xiao Chaogui claimed to represent the voice of Jesus Christ, thus now there were only 2 claimants to hold divine authority. There was no clear defined relationship between the 2 claimants, the Heavenly King was himself the son of God, a younger brother to Jesus Christ while Yang Xiuqing was nothing of that kind, he was just the instrument for gods voice. Yang Xiuqing could only maintain this role however under his trances when he needed to exceed the authority of Hong Xiuquan. 2) was the system of brotherhood amongst the Taiping. The Taiping held a concept that all of them were brothers and sisters, but they made a distinction amongst those followers who had been around at the very beginning versus newcomers. Put simply, those who shared the dangers of the rebellion reaped the rewards.    At first Hong Xiuquan held a special and exalted position, but it seems pressure from Yang Xiuqing and a few others eventually forced him to give up that concentrated holiness, and now the Taiping drew a distinction between God the father and Jesus christ who alone were holy, and Hong was just a sovereign head of the movement of brothers. Every leadership brother had associated staff. And Even though Hong Xiuquan and his staff were the sovereign and in theory handled all things at the highest level, in practice it was actually Yang Xiuqing and his staff that became the real central bureaucracy who were making the decisions and channeling them through Hong Xiuquan and his staff. The administrative structure abided by the brotherhood system and its equality amongst the top leaders. Yang Xiuqing just kept using his trance voice ability to undermine and interfere with the personal life of Hong Xiuquan. Once Xiang Rong and his blockade forces were defeated, it seems Yang Xiuqing saw the opportunity to finally seize control of Tianjing.   Yang Xiuqing went into one of his classic stances and summoned Hong Xiuquan to his palace. Yang said to Hong "You and the East King are both my sons. The East King has made significant contributions, so why is he still being hailed as *'Long Live for Nine Thousand Years' instead of 'Long Live for Ten Thousand Years'?" Hong Xiuquan replied, "The East King has indeed made significant contributions by conquering an empire, so he should be hailed as 'Long Live for Ten Thousand Years'." Yang Xiuqing then went into another trance and said "Should the East King's son be hailed as 'Long Live for Ten Thousand Years'?" Hong Xiuquan replied, "Since the East King is hailed as 'Long Live for Ten Thousand Years', his son and his descendants should also be hailed as 'Long Live for Ten Thousand Years' as well." To all of this Yang went into another stance and proclaimed "I'm returning to heaven."   Obviously Hong Xiuquan opposed the challenged to his role, but there was also opposition from the two remaining kings, the North king Wei Changhui and the flank king Shi Dakai. They had gradually been forced to submit to the directions of Yang and no longer played any real part in policy making. There were a ton of personal attacks as well. Once Yang had Wei flogged after one of his subordinates offended him. Another time a relative of Wei had a property dispute with one of Yang’s relatives pissing off Yang and he called upon Wei to decide the punishment for Wei’s relative together. Wei’s reply apparently was that his own relative should be torn into five parts, wow. Another time Shi Dakai’s father in law, Huang Yukun offended Yang and received 300 flogs, had his title removed and was demoted. The major issue for these 2 was unlike Yang they never claimed any divine inspiration, they had no trances or voices to fall upon. All they could really do to challenge Yang was straight up old violence, ie: assasination. Thus a conspiracy against Yang was brewing. It also seems by 1856, Yang Xiuqing was becoming unpopular with the Taiping forces. He was ruthless and mistreated officers of the other kings or anyone who did not kowtow to him. There was an air of fear and disrespect. His harem was allegedly the largest of any of the Taiping leaders and in the words of one Taiping government informant “people laugh behind his back”.   Now before Yang Xiuqing pulled his maneuver to receive the Ten Thousand Years title, he dispatched Wei Changhui, Shi Dakai and Qin Rigang to 3 separate provinces. Hong rightfully saw Yang’s requests as blatant treasons and he sent word alerting the 3 generals to return at once. Qin Rigang was the first to arrive followed by Wei Changhui by September 1st of 1856 alongside 3000 troops. The 2 men met with Hong Xiuquan and they decided to act before Shi Dakai arrived and before Yang Xiuqing can rally more than 6000 troops in the city who were believed to be loyal to him. On september 2nd, Wei and Qin led the troops to storm Yangs residence where they slaughtered every member of his family and followers, male and female, and of any rank or age. Yang was cut down trying to flee and his severed head was hung on a pole in the street. It is unknown whether Hong Xiuquan gave the order to kill Yang or Wei Changhui just went ahead with it. There is one version of the tale that indicates Hong Xiuquan ordered Wei only to kill Yang and to leave the others unmolested. Regardless of the versions, Wei Changhui was pinned for being the decision maker.    Hong Xiuquan in an angry edict denounces the slaying of Yangs family and followers and the bloodbath and looting that occurred. He has Wei and Qin arrested and forces them to kneel with chains around their necks in front of his palace gate. Hong’s female servants then issue a huge proclamation written in vermillion ink on a large piece of yellow silk 7-8 feet long. The edict sentence the 2 men to a savage punishment of 500 blows, the same punishment dealt to traitors during the Thistle mountain days. All of Yang’s surviving followers are invited to witness the beatings, which are administered inside the walls of Hong's enormous palace. It is said Yang’s surviving followers make their way through the crowd, get to the gate where they leave their arms and enter the palace ground to get a closer look. Once all of them enter, the doors and gates are shut, the beatings stop and Yangs followers are all trapped. Amongst those who witnessed this event were some western mercenaries believe it or not, one Irishman had this to tell    Next morning at daylight the doors and windows of these prisons were opened, and several powder bags thrown in on the prisoners, while the entrance was strongly guarded. In one house the soldiers entered with little resistance and massacred the whole, but in the other the prisoners fought with the bricks from the walls and partitions, most desperately for upwards of six hours before they were got under. In addition to musketry, a two pounder discharged grape at them.—These poor devils then stripped themselves, and many were seen to fall from sheer exhaustion. At last [Wei and Qin] called upon their men to draw their right arms from their sleeves, so as to distinguish them from No. 2’s men; they then rushed in and massacred the remainder— We shortly after entered, and, good heavens! such a scene, the dead bodies were in some places five and six deep; some had hung themselves and others were severely scorched from the explosions of the powder bags thrown in.—These bodies were removed from this to a field and remained uncovered.—After this every master of a house in the city had to give an account of how many men, women and children were residing under his roof, to every one of whom was given a small chop [seal imprint] which they wore on their breast, and if they found any of No. 2’s men they were to secure them—For several weeks these people were brought to the execution ground in parcels of fives, tens, hundreds, and thousands, who were all beheaded. All the women and children also, any one who had eaten of No. 2’s rice suffered.   Wei and Qin are apparently unsatisfied and continue killing people for over 3 months, with estimates being in the thousands, including 500 of Yang’s former palace women and female retainers. Now at the time of the assasination, Shi Dakai was fighting a campaign in Hubei and had far more to travel than Wei or Qin to reach Nanjing. He was far up the Yangtze river, near Wuchang and despite leaving immediately upon hearing the news only managed to get to Nanjing by early October. He was informing on the way of the slaughter and was revolted and furious. Shi met with Wei whom he blamed for the killing and warned him that such actions could only lead to a Qing victory over their cause. Wei was furious in turn and suggested that perhaps Shi was in league with Yang Xiuqing, or perhaps a traitor to the Qing. Sources vary, but some claim Wei sought to make a sweep of it all before Shi even made it to Nanjing, electing to assassinate him. Afterall Shi Dakai’s army was still in the field. Regardless, Shi Dakai was warned by mutual friends that he too might be assassinated and upon finding gates closed against him, Shi secretly broke out of the city the same day he had returned to it.  Late within that night both Wei and Qin surrounded Shi’s palace, the same way they had done to Yang’s, they forced their way past some of his guards but Shi has already given them the slip. One source claims Shi cleverly escaped by being lowered over the city wall in a basket. Wei and Qin thus turned their attention on his poor wife and children whom they murdered.   Shi Dakai moved upriver west of Nanjing, rallying troops loyal to him alongside all those who were dissatisfied with the current Taiping leadership clique. It should be noted many of these dissatisfied forces were in fact Triad organizations. Shi Dakai proved to be the most popular of the Taiping commanders and consolidated close to 100,000 men. With such a huge force he returned by river back to Nanjing sending word to Hong Xiuquan that only the heads of Wei and Qin could satisfy his revenge. Alerted to the danger, Wei dispatched General Qin to block Shi’s march and ends up blowing up the hallowed porcelain tower to deny Shi’s artillery a commanding height to fire shells into the city. Some sources claim Wei simultaneously had plans to imprison Hong Xiuquan, but before this could unfold Hong Xiuquan assembled his loyal and elite bodyguard killing Wei Changhui and sends his head to Shi. Likewise Hong Xiuquan uses a clever ploy to lure General Qin back into the city and has him killed. Thus Shi Dakai and his army march into Nanjing, not as slaughterers, but as heroes, welcomed by Hong Xiuquan with open arms.   All of this became known as the Tianjing incident, and perhaps surprisingly, the deceased Yang Xiuqing is given amnesty and acquitted of his crimes against the Taiping throne. Yangs death is literally marked as “the east king ascends to heaven”, Hong never fails to publicly revere him. In proclamations for the remaining years of the Taiping rebellion, Yang’s role as the voice of god is remembered, and one of Yang’s brothers who miraculously survived the slaughter is honored as a noble. All of Yang’s sons die, but Hong gives his second son, Tianyou to the east king posthumously as an adopted son, keeping Yang’s family line alive. This means that Jesus too can have his line maintained on earth as well as in heaven. Hong likewise names his eldest son, Tiangui, the Taiping heir apparent to be Jesus’s adopted son.    Now the slaughter in the Nanjing removed 3 Taiping leaders and a large number of their followers. Only Hong Xiuquan, his family and Shi Dakai remain of the original Taiping leaders. Hong Xiuquan turns to his two eldest brothers, Hong Renfa and Hong Renda to fill some of the power vacuum. With Shi Dakai being the only survivor of the 5 kings, he begins promoting these brothers to make up for the lack of kings. Renfa becomes the Peace King and Renda becomes the blessings king, also known as the An Prince and Fu Prince. As for Shi Dakai, to make sure this did not look like some sort of slight against him, Hong raises his title from flank king to righteous king. Shi Dakai refuses the honor putting Hong in a surprising quandary. Thus Hong offers to add to his flank king title instead making it “lightning of the holy spirit” which matched the once held title of Yang. This compromise seems to have done nothing, Shi Dakai resents the power given to Hong’s family members, whom he believes are morons. Likewise the Hong brothers resent Shi Dakai’s status and do everything they can to undercut his power. Thus for nearly half a year in 1857, Shi Dakai rules most of the Nanjing region, and it is a sad and lonely existence. His family is dead, it is reported he lives in complete seclusion, not receiving oral messages, but only those in writing. He answers written messages during the night and has his staff bring them out in the morning. When he came back to the capital rumors spread in Nanjing that the people actually wanted Shi Dakai to rule the government, but it was Hong Xiuquan unpleased with him who employed his brothers to thwart this. The people at the Taiping court were displeased with Hong Xiuquan for this because the 2 brothers were neither talented, not well versed in heavenly doctrines. According to one General Li Xiucheng all of these variables, but most in particular the 2 brothers “suspicions and obstructions forced Shi Dakai to leave Nanjing, a defection that left no one in charge at court”.   And so Shi Dakai left Nanjing in the summer of 1857, peacefully with his most loyal troops by his side. Whatever his animosity towards the two Hong brothers may have been, he did not put it in clear words, and he seems to have remained loyal to Hong Xiuquan. He posted a manifesto throughout the cities he passes giving his reason for leaving as his desire to continue with the western expedition. This is part of the manifesto “Last year, amidst the disaster and turbulence, I hurried in anguish back to the Capital. Confident that my unwavering loyalty Would be clearly understood by my Holy Ruler. However, things were not quite so, And imperial edicts were issued one after another. Dark suspicions abounded on all sides, How can my own brush record them all? Because of this, I am determined to exert my utmost, To lead a military campaign and reemphasize my sincerity. I shall endeavor to reward those who walk with God, In order to repay the Sovereign’s grace and goodness”.   I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.  Yang Xiuqing and Wei Changhui were killed, Shi Dakai left Nanjing in exile taking a large army of Taiping with him. Nanjing has lost its kings, Hong Xiuquan falls into a depression and isolates himself, who will really lead the movement now?

Last time we spoke Hong Xiuquan had gathered a rabble of peasants, named them the god worshippers and declared war upon the Qing dynasty. He gave titles to his closest comrades forming the North, South, East, West and Flank Kings who led the great Taiping armies on a march towards the secondary capital of China, Nanjing. Countless cities fell the Taiping and the Qing desperately tried to encircle and quell the menace. But the Taiping never stayed in any given place long enough to be captured and even when they were dealt significant losses, they simply moved on and recruited more and more to their cause. Their armies grew exponentially and so did their conquests until they reached the secondary capital of China, Nanjing. Nanjing was put through a brutal siege and taken, her citizens put to the sword and now the Taiping held a grand capital city.   #26 This episode is The Taiping Rebellion part 3: The Heavenly Kingdom of Tianjing   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War.   14 years after his first vision, Hong Xiuquan alongside an incredible 2 million followers had captured the secondary capital of China, Nanjing. Hong Xiuquan, the heavenly king, Yang Xiuqing the East King and the surviving Taiping leadership had developed their military based on the work of the late Feng Yunshan and their combined experiences from the march from the Thistle Mountains all the way to Nanjing. Much like the military structure the new capital would have 4 families linked to every corporal's family and 25 family units linked under every sergeant. These communities would build the public granaries, chapels for worship and so forth. The sergeants would dwell in chapels, the corporals would take their family and those families under their command to sabbath to worship. Every sabbath day, all senior officers, from generals to captains would visit one of the great churches of the sergeants to pray and work hard obeying the Ten commandments.    By day people would work the land, all serving in some form, whether it was pottery, ironwork, carpentry, masonry, whatever according to their skills. The land under Taiping rule was divided up amongst all with one full share for every man and women aged 16 and older and half a share for children below 16. All of the land was graded according to its productivity and when land was insufficient for the peoples needs, the people were moved to land that was plentiful. Of the products of labor, each corporal saw to it that every family under him had food, but all the rest went to the public treasuries. Sergeants checked the books and tallied the accounts, presenting records to superiors “ for all people on this earth are as the family of the Lord their God on High, and when people of this earth keep nothing for their private use but give all things to God for all to use in common, then in the whole land every place shall have equal shares, and every one be clothed and fed. This was why the Lord God expressly sent the Taiping Heavenly Lord to come down and save the world.”   The public treasuries would give gifts to every family at times of birth, marriage and death according their needs, but never in excess of one thousand copper cash or one hundred catties of grain. Surpluses had to be maintained incase of famine or war. Every family unit with a living male head had to give a soldier to the army, but the Taiping would not take widowers, widows, orphans or childless, nor weak or sick. With births came new families and every 5th family gave a new corporal, and every 25th a new sergeant and so on. All officers and officials, even the highest would be reviewed every 3 years and promoted or demoted according to performance. This was the system pushed out upon Nanjing when it was taken. As you can imagine it was a goliath task to meet these demands, thus the system could not actually be implemented all at once, but they were diligent to starting the listing and recording keeping to establish it. Not everyone flocked eagerly to the Taiping ranks. Many households were reluctant to register their members and hid for weeks, countless fled Nanjing.    The Taiping burnt down countless Taoist and Buddhist architecture, smashed statues and image and stripped or killed priests. Everyone was to conform to the new Taiping religion. Notably though the Chinese Muslims in Nanjing were not attacked and their mosques were allowed to stand. One group in Nanjing that were in a position of particular ambiguity were the catholics who numbered around 200. At least 30 catholics were burned in their homes or cut down in the streets during the early chaos. The Taiping found the catholic survivors in a catholic church, but when pressed they refused to recite Taiping liturgy. The Taiping authorities gave them 3 days to comply, then they burst into the church and destroyed the cross and overturned their altar. 70-80 catholic men had their arms tied behind their backs and were given a trial before a Taiping judge and condemned to death unless they said Taiping prayers. They refused opting for martyrdom, but in the end 25 eventually recited the Taiping prayers and the rest were sent to be vanguard forces in the army. In order to push the movement, the Taiping had to seize the Nanjing printing industry to distribute their sacred texts to all the sergeants for reading and preaching. Back when the Taiping captured Yangzhou in april of 1853 they acquired printing press craftsmen, so they brought them to Nanjing.   Hong Xiuquan makes 3 major strategic decisions, the first was to select Nanjing as the new Taiping Capital now known as Tianjing, the second was to create the printing system to promote the Taiping program and the 3rd was to alter name places in China. Hong Xiuquan proclaimed henceforth the city of Beijing was to be named “Yaoxue- demon’s den” and the province of Zhili “criminal’s province”. When all the Manchu demons were destroyed, Beijing’s name could be restored and Zhili once its people repented for their sins and began worshiping the heavenly father. “The world has long been deluded by these demonic Tartars, and it is imperative that they be soon destroyed. But before we destroy these people, we must first destroy their bases. And before we can destroy the power of their bases, we must first destroy the bases’ names.” Emperor Xianfeng by definition was the leader of earthly demons and Hong Xiuquan changed his name that meant “united in glory” to have a dog component added and he also did this to terms referring to Manchu.   The Taiping followers in Nanjing were told the time to end sexual separation had not come yet, any men who forced themselves on women, whether they be veterans or new would be executed. Those who worked as prostitutes would not only be executed, but also their families. Male homosexuality was severly punished, if partner were both aged 13 or older they would be beheaded. If you were under 13 you could be spared unless it was proven you were an active partner. The city of Nanjing was divided similar to what the Taiping did in Wuchang, with blocks for men and those for women and children. Those skilled in specific types of labor lived amongst another, for example carpenters with carpenters tailors with tailors.    Hong Xiuquan had a ceremonial hat made with a fan shaped front, decorated with twin dragons and twin phoenixes. The other kings were allowed to have twin dragons as well but only one phoenix. On the upper part of Hong Xiuquans hat he alone had written “the mountains and river are unified and the heavens are filled with stars”. The 3 surviving kings each had one line embroidered on their hats; for the East king Yang Xiuqing “long phoenix perching in the clouds”, for the north king Wei Changhui “long phoenix perching on the mountain peak” and for the flank king Shi Dakai “lone phoenix perching on the peony”.   Hong Xiuquan had 10,000 people work for 6 months to built him a palace in the former site of the governor generals mansion in the center of the northern side of the main residential city. Within mere days of taking Nanjing, the Qing began counter attacks leading to the gates of Nanjing being reinforced with additional gates built in front or behind the existing ones. Cannon emplacements and palisades for gunners are created en masse. Forward defensive encampments, wooden watch towers as high as 30 or even 40 feet are created. Smaller towns surrounded nanjing are reinforced. Large swathes of area have ditches dug, palisades erected, felled, honeycombed networked of small round holes with straw placed over them and bamboo spikes underneath. Its a regional fortress built with the purpose of overthrowing the Qing.   Now until the capture of Nanjing, the Taiping had been a mobile force whose success for a large part was simply because they would seize a major city and move on before the Qing could get them. The establishment of their Tianjing Capital meant the core of the Taiping movement, its leadership and central army were now in a fixed position. The Qing could finally plan and coordinate large scale action directed at their capital. Interestingly enough, the decision to hunker down in Nanjing is what many scholars regard as the crucial reason for their eventual failure. If they had simply done what they done best and took Nanjing for perhaps a month or so and moved on to Beijing they could have very well toppled the Qing. None the less, the Taiping were in a good position in Nanjing compared to that on Beijing. It is estimated in 1853 Nanjing held 18 million taels of silver, while Beijing was depleted to a possible 3 million. The Nanjing granaries by the end of 1853 totalled 1,270,000 piculs of unhulled rice and 750,000 hulled rice, sufficient to feed the Taiping for many months. An American missionary named E.C Bridgman visited Nanjing in may of 1854 and reported “all the people we saw were well-clad, well fed and well provided for in every way. They all seemed content, and in high spirits as if sure of success”. The surrounding areas continued to supply Nanjing with grain and the Yangtze river continued to serve as its artery of communication and trade.   Now once they had Nanjing the Taiping set out to accomplish their ultimate goal, the final defeat of the Manchu demons in Beijing. But when the Taiping took Nanjing a lot of internal strife began to grow. While Hong Xiuquan was the bonafide religious and political leader to the Taiping, he was never alone and although many of the great figureheads had died, a few large ones remained. Yang Xiuqing the east king, Wei Changhui the north king and Shi Dakai the flank king were the 3 largest leaders alongside Hong Xiuquan. Yang Xiuqing established himself as the highest ideological leader, above that of Wei Changhui and in many aspects above hong Xiuquan. When Xiao Chaogui the West King died, Hong Xiuquan made a proclamation that granted Yang a supervisory power over the 4 other kings, clearly promoting him above the rest. When Xiao Chaogui died, Shi Dakai sort of filled the dead kings space in many ways and when  Nanjing was captured he was the only king constantly occupied in the field, directing and personally leading western campaigns. Hong Xiuquan as the spiritual leader, began to gradually isolate himself within his palace only acting through proclamations. Wei Changhui the north king, acted as the coordinator for the defense of the region around the capital and was responsible for food supplies. This left general administrative supervision in the hands of Yang Xiuqing who also acted as the coordinator of all military campaigns. Now Yang Xiuqing back in the early days of 1851 had coalesced the Taiping when he began in trance-like states to state he was the mouthpiece of God the father. Likewise Xiao Chaogui had these trances where he said he was the mouthpiece of Jesus, hmmmmm. Oh and there was a lot of roleplay in this by the way, when Xiao Chaogui spoke to Hong Xiuquan in a trance state he would refer to him as “younger brother” like wise Yang would refer to him as son. Both Yang and Xiao it seems were in league with another using this unique trance behavior to raise their status. But when Xiao died, there was a lot of confusion, leading Yang to stop messing around for awhile as the voice of god the father. But in december of 1853 Yang once again began to speak publicly as the voice of god. Yang began a campaign where he attempted to humiliate the heavenly king using trances as the voice of god. Yang begins a campaign to humiliate Hong where he uses the voice of god to accuse the Heavenly King of growing to be too harsh and indulgent with his power. That he is harsh to women who serve him and far too indulgent of his 4 year old son. One accusation in particular was that 4 of Hong’s palace women were treated so badly that they should be released from Hong’s palace and instead should live at Yang’s palace. Yang says Hong orders women under him to work in rain or snow and allows his concubines to sneer and scold the other women, oh yes despite all the laws and such Hong and many of the Taiping leaders have concubines. Remember when I said the Taiping rebellion was like a proto marxist one? Yes just like any good marxist they dont live the way they preach, shots fired. Yang continues to argue the women officials are prevented from their duties by the mean concubines and that Hong Xiuquan had even kicked some of them in anger and punished pregnant concubines similarly, something that is a serious crime. You don’t kick pregnant women. He follows this up saying in God's voice that the heavenly king should receive 40 blows of the rod for his derelictions. To this Hong publicly prostrated himself to receive said blows, so god would forgive him. Hong’s 4 year old son is said to be too self-indulgent and willful because he plays in the rain, and smashes presents given to him…..weird. God states he must stop all of this because it will lead him to abuse the people in the future when he leads.   Yang Xiuqing did not stop at attacking Hong, he also went after two others in particular: the north king Wei Chanhui and marquis Qin Rigang, both men who had been with Hong since the earliest days at Thistle mountain. Wei was an educated man, Qin was a miner who studied military arts and proved himself a formidable strategist. For years both men handled key military assignments for Hong, Qin was regarded as the senior ranking Taiping officer after the surviving kings. Yang began to use the voice of god to humiliate Wei in many ways. Whenever his trances began, Yang’s woman attendants would summon Wei at once using drum calls and if Wei was late the women would berate him. Wei was forced to kowtow to Yang when he was in trance and when Yang was in trance he moved by sedan chair while Wei was forced to walk beside it. Yang kept his attendants on Wei’s ass also disturbing him. Qin had to endure similar humiliations and was forced to help carry Yangs sedan chair up the palace stairs a few times. To give some more flavor, here is one story about a clash that occurred in december between Yang and Wei.    Yang one day in public suggested that Hong had more than enough embroideries and robes in his palace and should economize for a time instead of getting more. Wei ignored what Yang said and told Hong “You, our second elder brother, are the true Sovereign of all nations of the world, and you are rich in the possession of all within the four seas; although robes and garments are sufficient, it will still be necessary to be constantly engaged in making up more.” Upon hearing this Yang responded “I beseech you, our second elder brother, to pardon this younger brother’s crime and permit this younger brother to memorialize straightforwardly. If apparel were insufficient, then it would be necessary to make up more; but if it is said it is sufficient, it will be better to delay the making up of more, and then we can see the second elder brother’s virtues of economy and love of man. Why should our younger brother Zheng [the North King] memorialize on the necessity of constantly making up more clothing?” To both of them Hong replied “Brother [Yang Xiu]Qing! You are certainly what the ancients called a bold and outspoken minister. And you, brother Zheng, although you may have a sincere regard for your elder brother, are not so straightforward and open in your statements as our brother Qing; for which he is to be much more commended. Later, in the reign of the Young Monarch, all who are ministers should imitate the example of our brother Qing in speaking straightforwardly as he has done this day; thus will they fulfill their duty as ministers.”   Some of the events I just talked about occur a bit later on, but I wanted to give you the idea that in the background, Yang was humiliating others and doing whatever he could to take more and more power. Now of the 5 kings, 3 survived and the administrative staffs of the former 2 simply were distributed amongst the 3 survivors. But after Nanjing was captured the kings would not be the solo ruling leaders anymore. Additional “princes” were added, they were similar to the kings, just lesser so. They held lesser rank than the kings, but were above the Taiping military rank structure. They come about at different times but there would be the Zhong price: Li Xiucheng, Ying prince: Chen Yucheng, Jun Prince: Lai Wenkwok, Fu Prince: Hong Renda, An Prince: Hong Renfa, Yong Prince: Hong Rengui, Fu Prince: Hong Renfu and the Gan Prince: Hong Rengan, yes our old friend Rengan will come to this story but much later on. It seems Yang orchestrated the creation of these princes and the multiplicity of administrative staffs to make it easier for him to weaken the authority of his most senior rivals.    Yang Xiuqing acting as commander in chief of the Taiping military sent out 4 offensives, 2 towards the north against Beijing and 2 up the Yangtze river into western China. Yang Xiuqings overall plan was to use the northern and western expeditionary forces to create a large pincer to capture the whole of northern and western China. According to Missionary Bridgman “ The Taiping had four armies in the field, carrying on active aggressive operations: 2 of these had gone northwards: they were designed to cooperate and after storming and destroying Peking, to turn westwards and march through Shanxi, Shensi, Kansuh, into Szechuan, where they are expected to meet their other 2 armies, which from Kingsi and the Lake provinces are to move up the great river and along through the regions on its southern bank’.    The northern expedition of around 80,000 men was led by 2 commanders, Li Kaifang and Lin Fengxiang who led the vanguard to take Yangchow on April the 1st. By May the 8th they left Yangchow after receiving reinforcements and advanced towards Ch’u-chou in Anhwei province. As their forces went into Anhwei and Henan province they were bolstered by local bandits, particularly the Nian rebels, who were performing the Nian rebellion simultaneously. Following the same strategy applied to the Hunan campaign and the Yangtze valley, they moved rapidly through Anhwei and Henan without leaving behind garrisons nor supply stations. At first, they did not attempt to take any city that proved to be well defended. However at Huaiqing in Henan at the border of Shanxi, they used their 80,000 strong force to besiege the prefectural city, believing it held rich military supplies.    The siege lasted 2 months, but the Taiping failed to capture it and had to move on. The delay in their march as the result of failing at Huaiqing seems to be a decisive turning point for the northern expedition as a whole. The Taiping suffered terrible losses in both shock troops and officers, while the Qing court in Beijing gained valuable time to prepare against the impending Taiping attacks. The Taiping gradually penetrated Zhili via Shanxi province and reached the suburbs of Tianjin, and it was here another large mistake was made for the second time. The Taiping could have simply marched on Beijing, but yet against chose to attack a secondary target. The northern expeditionary force was tiny compared to that of the entire Taiping army which should have been consolidated and marched upon Beijing. The Taiping were greatly hindered by northern chinas winters, because do remember most of the Taiping were from southern china. The Qing had begun a war of attrition, making sure to take away food stuffs in the path of the northern expedition. The Taiping found it extremely hard to forage and on top of this the Qing even broke dikes in the grand canal to flood the Taiping out.   Emperor Xianfeng also released what would be his greatest weapon, the Mongolian prince Senggelinqin. Prince Seng was from the Horqin left back banner of inner Mongolia and a member of the Borjiqin clan. He was a 26th generation descendant of Qasar brother to Genghis Khan. His name Sengge Rinchen was made up of two tibetan words meaning Lion and Treasure. When he was just a child he was adopted by Sodnamdorji a Jasagh “head of a mongol banner” of the Horqin left back banner and Junwang, second rank prince under the Qing dynasty. He would inherit his adoptive fathers titles during the reign of Emperor Daoguang. It was at the 1853 battle for Tianjin where Prince Seng would earn his fame.    The Taiping expeditionary force had fought its way bitterly from Nanjing to Tianjin, leaving just 80 miles between them and Beijing. Prince Seng rushed to the scene aided greatly by a valuable ally, winter. The winter ravaged the Taiping, many of them had never seen snow in their lives and this forced them to fall upon a village fortification to survive it causing an immediate stalemate. When the weather broke in spring, Prince Seng ordered his troops to build a dirt and stone wall to encircle the entire Taiping army camp from a distance while a crew of 1000 laborers spent a month digging a series of trenches to connect it, via a dry riverbed to the grand canal over 40 miles away. When they broke the dikes, the canal water rushed in flooding the Taiping camp to its rooftops, drowning a considerable amount of the army and forcing their submission. Being a Mongol, Prince Seng and those he commanded preferred the bow and arrow as their chief weapon, something they had overwhelming supremacy over the southern chinese. The Taiping could have overwhelmed Prince Sengs cavalry units, if they had western firearms, but they did not. The Taiping forces were dispersed and destroyed. Lin Fengxiang was captured at Lichen in Zhili province on march 7th of 1855 and Li Kaifang was captured at Fengkuat’un in Shandong on March the 31st of 1855. This was the ultimate end to the north expedition. Had the Taiping marched on Beijing at the rate they were going, it is argued they could have taken down the Qing. Tactical blunders, logistical issues, severe weather and the capability of Qing commanders such as Prince Seng ultimately put an end to the Taiping threat to Beijing, though they were certainly nowhere near defeated.   While the northern expedition was going on there was also a western expedition that left Nanjing on May 19th of 1853, just 11 days after the northern expedition launched from Yangzhou. The objective of the western expedition as conceived by Yang Xiuqing was to follow the Yangtze river and ultimately meet up with the northern expedition in Sichuan province. This would have resulted in a pincer maneuver that could swallow up all of western and northern China. On June 10th the western forces recaptured the vital city of Anqing which had been taken back by Qing forces. They were able to provision up from there and divided the force into several armies to march through the Yangtze valley. One army was commanded by Hu Yiguang who set out north of the Yangtze to conquer Anhwei province. Lai Hanyang took another army south to conquer Jiangxi. A 3rd mobile force led by Zeng Tianyang began to independently attack cities south of the Yangtze.    Hu Yiguang’s force got as far as Luzhou, the new capital of Anhwei province at the time. Luzhou was guarded by one of the most capable Qing commanders, Jiang Zhongyuan, a Hunanese native from Xinning. He became the magistrate of Xiushi and Lishui, earning a reputation for being a great scholar and military leader. Zeng Guofan recommended Jiang for a higher office in 1850 to Emperor Xianfeng, but when he was supposed to leave for Beijing his father died and he had to return home to mourn. When the Taiping rebellion began, Jiang was appointed to assist the Grand secretary Sha-Shan-a in quelling the insurrection. Jiang began a campaign of gathering Hunanese volunteers who for the first time fought outside Hunan. It was one of the first waves of local forces led by a gentry class to fight the Taiping menace, something that influenced future Yung-Ying armies. Jiang won a great battle in Guangxi and was promoted to the rank of first class sub prefect. When the Taiping were invading Guilin in 1852, Jiang led his men from his home of Xinning to attack them. He won 3 major battles and managed to lift the Taiping siege of Guilin earning the rank of prefect. After this Jiang thwarted a Taiping naval invasion of Hunan province. He dammed the Xiang river near Suoyi ford and ambushed the Taiping Navy causing massive casualties upon them. It was the battle I mentioned where 10,000 Taiping men and Feng Yunshan perished. He thwarted the Taiping overland invasion of Hunan and besieged the Taiping stronghold of Chenzhou for a month before they fled to attack Changsha, the capital of Hunan. Jiang was one of those who helped defend Changsha earning the promotion of provincial judge of Hubei and then by 1853 assistant commander of the Qing armies in Jiangnan. He then aided in the defense of Nanchang which was besieged from June 22 to september 24th of 1853. For this he was appointed governor of Anhui which is what led him to the battle over Luzhou. When word came that the Taiping sought to attack Luzhou, Jiang rushed over with a small force to try and defend the new capital. He found himself outnumbered and outgunned, especially in siege mining technology that the Taiping had dramatically improved by this point in time. The Taiping took the city by January the 15th and in the process Jiang was wounded and he opted to commit suicide by drowning himself. The Qing lost an important capital city and one of their finest commanders who had proven himself successful at defeating Taiping using local militia forces.    Lai Hanying’s army besieged Nanchang, the capital of Jiangxi from june to september of 1853, but ultimately failed to take the city. This resulted in Lai losing his command and his army divided in 2 to hit Hubei and Hunan under the leadership of Wei Jun and Shi Zhenxiang. The high point of their campaigns led to the capture of Xiangtan on April 24th of 1854. After a year of taking Nanjing, the Taipings expeditions had run out of momentum. The northern expedition was a failure, the western had gained limited success, but not enough to extend their reach to the upper Yangtze and that of western china. The Taiping riverine forces dominated the Yangtze up into Hunan allowing them to use it for provisioning, logistics and most importantly further recruiting. But the original lightning speed drive of the Taiping had faded and the Qing were beginning to recover from the blitzkrieg. Now the offensives became see-saw’s which allowed the Qing more time to recover, reorganize and build up new leadership that could effectively face the Taiping menace. Being a Pacific War specialist, its very much like the situation during the Guadalcanal campaign. Prior to this, the Japanese ran rampant on offensive controlling the when and where actions would occur, but after the horrible loss at Midway and Guadalcanal, the Japanese had gone past their logistical capabilities and lost the initiative, for the rest of the Pacific War the allies controlled the initiative. This is what we call the turning point, and it was here a year after taking Nanjing and losing the window of opportunity to take Beijing that was the Taiping rebellion's turning point. It is not to say they could not win the war, but the initiative was now in the hands of the Qing.   Although the campaign to take Beijing failed and the western campaign only held limited successes near the Yangtze, the Taiping were steadily extending their territory and thus were gaining additional manpower and supplies from the greater Yangtze region. The Taiping were struggling to consolidate their gains to establish better rule. Their offensives were being hampered by both political and religious confusion, often orchestrated by the efforts of Yang Xiuqing. The Taiping structure threatened Chinese traditions and saw backlash particularly from the Gentry class. I would note the gentry and landowner types probably were not the keenist on a group who sought land/wealth redistribution haha. The Taiping were a threat to Chinese social order as much as it was a threat to the Qing rule. Thus the gentry of China began to put their resources together to help the war effort resulting in a large push to the creation of Yung-ying militia groups such as Zeng Guofan’s Xiang army. On top of the external actors trying to destroy the Taiping, the Taiping were having a ton of inner conflict as well. A violent and bloody power struggle had emerged destroying the unified political and military command established under Yang Xiuqing.   Now although I spoke about the formation of the new armies, I need to go into it a bit further, especially in regards to Zeng Guofan. While I explained how Zeng Guofan created his force, I did not talk about how this all looked from the Qing dynasties point of few. In late 1852 and early 1853 a number of edicts were made by Emperor Xianfeng leading to the appointment of 43 supervisors of new local corps in the provinces of Hunan, Anhwei, Jiangsu, Zhili, Henan, Shandong, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Guizhou and Fujian. Amongst the appointed was Zeng Guofan. The Qing government sought to have these organized smaller forces led by the gentry class so they could be loyal and relied upon. These forces were set up in each district to contest the Taiping. Zeng Guofan’s Xiang army proved themselves to be highly effective, but Zeng Guofan chose to be very cautious when reporting back to the Qing court. This was because his military organizational building was strongly autonomous and could be seen as a threat to the Qing military. There had been numerous local militia groups that shifted from pro-government to banditry. The establishment of these armies was obviously a last resort means, and definitely could be a threat to the dynasty, they were not so unalike to the bandit armies created in the 17th century to fight the Daxi or Dashun armies afterall.    Zeng Guofan did not state exactly what he was doing to the Qing court, in one of his first memorial he simply reported back that he was enlisting men from the countryside to establish a large military corps at its capital to be trained. It looked like Zeng Guofan was building a personal army, one that could be led on campaigns outside its local area. He sent more memorials stating that local corpsmen could not be relied upon in critical moments and that it was better to recruit from these local corpsmen an official militia, whose rations could be paid from public funds. When he was building the Xiang army he was consciously departing from the Qing courts authorization. He realized that local defense corps that had sprung up all over China were useful against local bandits and small raiders, but they were not large nor strong enough to withstand attacks from larger organized armies such as the Taiping. The Taiping were only growing larger, more organized, better armed. They simply could not be stopped by just local corps, what the Qing needed was a mobile army that could be used for offensive campaigns throughout larger areas.   Now the way Zeng Guofan made the Xiang army was based strongly on personal loyalty, the units were recruited, led and paid for by their commander. The commanders were loyal to Zeng Guofan, thus more or less the Xiang army was a personal army at his command. Zeng Guofan also assembled a number of future leaders who would go on to create their own versions of the Xiang army. Such men were Zeng Zongtang and Li Hongzhang of Anhwei province. By the end of the century, Zeng Guofan’s example led to most provinces being dominated by regional forces under military organizations over whom the Qing central government had only minimal control. In many ways Zeng Guofan was a symptom of the ailing dynasty, the Qing were gradually losing control and there was emerging a threat to the political and social order in china. Zeng Guofan say the Taiping menace as a threat to traditional chinese society. He made many proclamations stating as such. “The Taiping rebels have stolen the ways of the foreign barbarians when they distort family relations by calling all people brothers and sisters, when they declare that all land belongs to the heavenly king and that all profit also belongs to him. They force scholars to give up the COnfucian classics to read instead the so called teaching of Jesus. They wipe away our moral standards, the very way we conduct ourselves as humans, the classics, and the institutions that have existed in CHina for several thousands of years. This is not only a tragedy for the Qing dynasty but a great tragedy for the whole of “ming-chiao” Chinese tradition and causes confucius and Mencius to weep bitterly in the underworld. How could any educated person remain sitting, hands in sleeves, without doing something about it”.    Zeng Guofan kept bringing up how the Taiping destroyed Buddhist and Taoist temples, that they were angering the gods who would take revenge. To right these terrible wrongs he said he was under Qing orders to advance his troops by land and water, not just to ease the Qing monarchs but also to console Confucious and Mencius, to avenge the slaughter of millions of Chinese. Appealing to the masses, Zeng Guofan began to ask for recruits, financial support and the surrender of any who decided to join the Taiping. Now I said he paid his army handsomely compared to that of the Green standards and such, but a lot of the funds were not under Qing control. The Gentry class were strongly supporting those like Zeng Guofan. Zeng Guofan began to ask and obtain permission from the Qing government to sell certificates of academic degrees, official titles and office appointments to sell to these said Gentry. The sale of all these degrees and titles increased gentry contributions, but also increased their influence and it began to build a new gentry role in leadership.    Another major source of income for the Xiang army was new internal custom taxes introduced in 1853. And although the Qing government permitted this new tax, it held no control or supervision over it. Zeng Guofan and other commanders of regional armies were gaining control over regular provincial taxes and were using them to build their armies. The combined income from the gentry class and regional taxes made men like Zeng Guofan basically warlords. Their forces were not really governmental troops although they were fighting for said government. The other side, the Taiping failed to gain any support from the Gentry class because of their alienating religious and economic beliefs. Fundamentally the Taiping were a revolutionary group breaking the stratum of Chinese society, and a large part of that was the Chinese gentry class.    Now Zeng Guofan began with a army of just a thousand men in 1853, composing 3 battalions. When they began to really clash with the Taiping they were soon 20,000 strong with naval and cavalry units. Later on they would become 120,000 men strong and Zeng Guofan had planned to use them for a long drawn out campaign despite pressure coming from Beijing to smash the rebels. Now the first major engagement between the Xiang army and the Taiping came in early 1854 and the Taiping defeated them. But on May 1st of 1854, the Xiang army defeated the Taiping at Xiangtan forcing them to withdraw. Then in a battle at Yuzhou in Hunan in July, the Xiang army on land and river gained a major victory. This victory gained Zeng Guofan great prestige and demonstrated the effectiveness of his army. The battle cost the Taiping more than half their fleet of boats and thus the loss of control over the central Yangtze river area. It was the first serious setback for the Taiping and it reduced their perimeter of military operations. Following up this victory, the Xiang army entered Hubei province and quickly recaptured Wuchang and Hanyang by october of 1854. Soon Zeng Guofans forces began to penetrate into Hubei and Jiangxi provinces marking the failure and end to the Taiping western expedition.   I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.  The Northern expedition was a complete bust, the Taiping had lost the opportunity to claim the dragon throne. But the western expedition proved fruitful and gradually the heavenly kingdom was growing, and perhaps it could eclipse the Qing.  

Last time we spoke Hong Xiuquan attempted four times to pass the imperial examination, but was met each time with failure. The stress put upon him was too much, causing him to have multiple mental breakdowns and to see visions leading him to realize he was the brother of Jesus Christ. God and the elder brother Jesus taught Hong Xiuquan had to fight demons and gave him a magical sword to rid the world of them. Hong Xiuquan knew the Manchu were demons and it was he who could usher in a heavenly kingdom on earth. He began to preach to the masses gathering those he called god worshippers and this began to raise concerns with the Qing officials who sought to stamp out what looked like the White Lotus Rebellion 2.0. Now the Qing forces led by Xiang Rong were trying to surround the god worshippers to end the menace before it became an even larger problem.   #25 This episode is The Taiping Rebellion part 2: The March to Nanjing   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War.   The Taiping had taken Jintai, but were being pursued constantly by multiple Qing armies always seeking to encircle and quell the rebellion. By this point the Taiping numbered around 60,000 men and they sought to seize the first major town, that of Yong’an, present day Mengshan town. Now before I get to this I just want to describe a bit the forces at play. The Taiping like I said were around 60,000 strong and were as you can imagine more of a peasantry type of group. They did not have much in the way of firearms, most were armed with spears ranging from 8-18feet long halberds, knives or swords such as the Liuyidao. There were those with bows and arrows, but archery in this time period was more specialized in northern china than southern china. For example the eight banner army had manchu and mongols who were extremely proficient in archery, but in the south it was simply not as great. There were some firearms, consisting of the usual suspects, firelock muskets and the every hilarious jingalls. Women took part in the initial battles, such as at Jintian, but there is pretty much no evidence of Taiping women fighting battles after 1853, it seems it was a necessity in the beginning but later on it was not employed. Later on in 1858 there would be an official women garrison under the Taiping, but they seem to be a ceremonial group.    Now the Qing military is quite complex at this point and although I have described it a bit in the past I would like to refresh memories here because the Qing military will evolve during this conflict. In the 1850’s, the Qing military was roughly 3.4 million strong, quelling the Taiping rebellion while simultaneously fighting the Europeans during the second opium war. The eight banner army consisted of Manchu’s, Mongolians and Han Chinese, roughly 250,000 men strong. They were much more of an imperial guard and stationed around Beijing. Then there was the Green Standard army consisted pretty much exclusively of Han Chinese. They were around 600,000 strong and were the real military might of the empire. Their creation was mostly because of the lack of efficiency within the eight banner army and ironically another type of military force would be created later on in this story because of the Green Standard armies lack of efficiency. There would also be varying groups of Europeans involved in this conflict, but that all comes later.    Now the last time we spoke, the Taiping were fleeing their stronghold in the Thistle Mountains, and sought to attack Yong’an. With their large force of 60,000 they took Yong’an easily on September 24th of 1851. A large reason Yong’an fell so easily was because there was an extreme lack of coordination on the part of the Qing forces. Meanwhile the Taiping had their 5 king system, the north,south,west,east and flank kings who were coordinating their military efforts quite well to fend off encirclement efforts by the Qing. It was at Yong’an that Hong Xiuquan enacted a lot of reforms. One of them was to replace the classic lunar calendar with a solar calendar. The lunar calendar is based on the monthly cycles of the moon’s phases while the solar calendar’s dates are based on the position of the sun, ie; seasons. Hong Xiuquan also began to develop many social reforms that we will talk about later.   Now by 1852 the Taiping were gradually driven out of Yong’an by the Qing military who was encircling them and this led to them losing 20% of their forces. Now while this was a large loss, do remember anyone the Taiping go, they are increasing in number, because they are targeting the countryside, the peasants, all those who are dissatisfied with the Qing dynasty. Hong Xiuquan led the god worshipers out of the encirclement at Yong’an and then marched into Guangxi province. Now in the earliest days of the rebellion, while Hong Xiuquan was the leader, it was actually Feng Yunshan, the south king who was the military mastermind. It was also Feng Yunshan who was the first leader of the god worshippers who called for an open revolt. He was the chief military strategist and administrator amongst them. He was the man who came up with the military configuration, a formidable mind. Now on May 24th the Taiping marched near Quanzhou in Guangxi province, but they had no intention of invading the city. It seems Feng Yunshan made an egregious mistake as his sedan chair was close enough to the city whereupon a Qing gunner, or I guess better said sharpshooter fatally wounded him. Hong Xiuquan was outraged one of his closest comrades was hurt and he quickly rallied the Taiping forces to surround Quanzhou and within just 2 days they breached its walls and butchered all its citizens who did not flee or join the cause. The south king Feng Yunshan became the first high ranking leader of the Taiping to die when he succumbed to his wounds in June of 1852.   Now in June the main bulk of the Taiping began to head north in Hunan province where they captured Jeonju and began traveling along the Xiang river planning to attack the hinterlands of Hunan by land and river. The idea behind this was to find paths that were quick, because at all times multiple Qing armies were trying to encircle them. While they traversed the Xiang River they came to the Suoyi ford where they were finally ambushed by a Qing army. The Qing army repelled their northern march and in the process killed approximately 10,000 taiping. After this large setback, the Taiping turned their attention to lesser targets seizing Daozhou, Yongming, Jianghua, Jiahe, Guiyang and Chenzhou. The Taiping faced another Qing encirclement by Qing forces led by Xiang rong in Guangxi but managed to thwart him and escape. At this point the Taiping were operating on a very large scale threatening Hunan, absolutely terrifying the Qing court who hastile mobilized a large army to gather in the area of Hengyang and Chenzhou. The Qing sought to block the march of the Taiping in Hunan. Xiang rong led the Qing the 2 Qing forces to make a northern and southern strike upon the Taiping completely annihilating a Taiping force in the Shonan region.   The Taiping leaders were frustrated again and again by encirclement maneuvers by the Qing military. They were unable to break through the Qing blockades, but then they began to notice the Qing had distributed the majority of their forces in the Shonan region, leaving the hinterland of Hunan fairly open. The West king, Xiao Chaogui detached from the bulk of the Taiping forces and bypassed the Qing army holding the city of Chenzhou and made a direct march upon Changsha. When they reached Changsha, Xiao Chaogui ordered a siege of the city. The Taiping began to dig siege tunnels in order to blow up parts of its defensive walls using mines. Meanwhile the Taiping fanned out capturing the surrounding area to make sure the city could receive no provisions via land or river. The former governor of Hunan, Luo Bingzhang was about to leave that said post to receive a new appointment in Beijing when the situation erupted. He spoke to the deputy in charge of military affairs, Luo Huodian who was placed in charge of the city's defense. At this time the new governor of Hunan, Zhang Liangji had yet to arrive, thus Changsha was in quite a predicament, there was really no one to command its defenses since it was surrounded. Within the city were 8000 defenders, while Xiao Chaogui held 3000 light cavalry and a few thousand other infantry, some of whom were garrisoning at Yongxing.    When Xiao Chaoguis forces arrived to Changsha on September 11th, they found a force of Green Standard army and militia forces led by Liuyang. The Taiping fought them out in the field exacting 900 Qing casualties and publicly beheaded the general Fu Cheng and the deputy general Yin Peili. This led the garrison commander Zhu Han to flee and abandon a ton of military equipment. From September 12th to the 18th, Xiao Chaogui continuously mounted attacks upon the city while the defenders inside desperately hurled burning oil, arrows and rocks at them. Now Xiao Chaogui only had roughly 4000 men with him, more were enroute but came in piecemeals. With only 4000 men he was unable to mount a powerful enough attack to breach the walls of the city. For example if he took all his men to the south of Changsha, the defenders would simply concentrate their 7000 or so men south.    It seems in an effort to bolster morale, Xiao Chaogui decided to personally hoist some Taiping banners while wearing royal robes on the battlefield. Well he was easily spotted by a Qing sharpshooter or artillery shell shot him dead. Alongside this the Qing militia force led by Deng Shaoliang attacked the Taipings rear by surprise and this effectively stopped the siege, forcing the Taiping to withdraw further away from the city walls. Meanwhile the Qing court was freaking out over the reports Changsha, a significant city was under siege and they dispatched a force of up to 50,000 men to concentrate in the area. Upon hearing the news of the incoming Qing forces and the death of the west King, Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing led the bulk of the Taiping forces out of Chenzhou overnight, rushing over to Changsha by October 5th. The next day the Taiping made a large offensive out in the field near the tomb of Cai Gong against a Qing force led by Ren Dagui. The Taiping won the battle, killed General Ren Dagui and wounded his deputy general De’an. On October 11th Hong Xiuquan launched an assault on Changsha hitting 3 sides of its walls, but the Qing defenders managed to hold on. Then on October 15th a Qing army coming from the direction of Chenzhou managed to reinforce Changsha, fighting skirmishes with the Taiping along the way.    Despite their numbers the Taiping were failing to make progress against the city and as time went by more and more of the dispatched Qing forces were arriving to its aid. In order to break the stalemate, the Taiping leaders decided to cross the Xiang River and open up an attack upon Changsha’s western portion. On October 17th, Shi Dakai the flank king led thousands of Taiping to cross the river and attack Zhu Zhangdu, Nanjinggang, Hexi and the line of Monkey stone catching the Qing off guard. The infuriated General Xiang Rong who was commanding some of the Qing forces and at this point had become something of a rival to the Taiping launched an attack against Hexi, but was ambushed. This led the Qing to send more forces to retake Hexi, but Shi Dakai’s men dug in and repelled them. Xiang Rong was humiliated and this led him on October 30th to personally lead 3000 Qing infantry and cavalry to attack the Taiping at Hexi with the intent of cutting them off from the rest of the Taiping army. Xiang Rong was ambushed yet again, suffered heavy casualties and was forced to flee.   While the battle over Hexi was raging, the battle on the south of Changsha with the bulk of the Taiping continued. Throughout October and November large scale siege assaults were made. The Taiping tried to detonate mines in tunnels to breach the walls, but counter tunneling by the defenders thwarted their best efforts. At one point a breach was made in the wall, but the Qing commander Zuo Zongtang proclaimed to the defenders of the city that he would pay an enormous sum of money to anyone who helped hurl large stone and rock to close any gaps made by the Taiping and this proved to be highly effective. The citizens and defenders quickly hurled everything they could at the Taiping and the gap quickly closing the breach. Zuo Zongtang won quite a lot of fame for this, and would become an important player later on. If you did not know, Zuo Zongtang is quite famous for something else in our world, something I certainly am grateful for as I cook it now and then, General Tso Chicken. Haha I can’t really get into the bizarre and long history of this one, but the American-Chinese dish introduced in the 1970’s in New York city was inspired by another dish called Peng Chuang-kuei, by a Taiwanese chef who specialized in Hunanese cuisine. Peng named the dish in honour of Zuo Zongtang. Honestly people who know more about this history know what I just said is just one of many many stories as to how the dish came to be, its quite a rabbit hole.    The Taiping’s efforts were not working fast enough and soon the Qing reinforcements were arriving en masse, yet again threatening to encircle them. In view of the deteriorating situation, Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing both agreed the battle for Changsha was meaningless and that they should withdraw and take a much more important city. So the Taiping left in the middle of a rainstorm at night after fighting a bitter 3 month campaign over Changsha and its surrounding area. Despite the failure at Changsha, the Taiping were still in a great position and confident. The Qing had thrown countless armies at them, but they always managed to escape encirclements and were able to pick and choose when they fought. The Qing were slow to react and it was difficult to pinpoint where the Taiping would concentrate their forces. Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing chose the formidable city of Wuchang as the next target.   The Qing it seems did believe the Taiping would march upon Wuchang, because they left the path to it quite empty. The Taiping took very deceptive maneuvers to try and hide their march on Wuchang. They went along the Xiang river only to abandon their boats and march over land to another unsuspecting rivertown where they stole boats and continued. They would destroy bridges as the moved and recruit countless boatmen to hinder Qing riverine units. Countless times they would cross rivers using pontoon bridges, leave them on the other side and simply find more boats to go down river. Its sort of like the old ploy of making multiple tracks in the snow when you are evading someone. The bitter Taiping rival Xiang Rong was leading many of the Qing forces pursing the Taiping and it seems he nor other Qing commanders figuring out what was going on nor where the Taiping ultimately were heading. After 600 miles of twists, turns and tricks the Taiping army ended up at Wuchang, and Xiang Rong was still in Yuezhou chasing a Taiping feint army.    The Taipings last great deception had come at Dongting lake in December. The Taiping had captured Yueyang with little resistance and seized over 5000 boats. They took them to the banks of the Yangtze river were they moved east downstream, but instead of heading straight at Wuchang, they maneuvered to the north shore and seized the commercial towns of Hanyang and Hankou. After capturing these towns the Taiping constructed two enormous floating bridges by linking all the boats together across the Yangtze so they could attack Wuchang on its weaker northern face. The first attack came in the middle of the night when suddenly shouting could be heard waking the defenders of Wuchang from their sleep. Chang Dachun, the newly appointed inspector of Shanxi was in the city at the time taking refuge. The Taiping used cannons to try and breach the wall, but were unable to and by dawn they withdrew. The surprise attack shocked the city and Chang Dachun quickly ordered its gates closed. Before doing so he also sent word to Xiang Rongjun about the plight of Wuchang hoping he could rally the Qing forces to their aid in time. Meanwhile the Taiping began tunnel sieging prompting Chang Dachun to order counter measures. Basically this meant counter tunneling on the other side of the walls with the intent to cave in the attackers before they could properly detonate mines near the walls. Defenders would create sunken listening posts to try and pinpoint where the Taiping were digging. Chang Dachun also ordered the garrison to burn all the homes outside Wuchang’s walls to provide clearer fields of fire pissing off the citizens. But he forsaw this ordeal and promised cash rewards to anyone who captured a Taiping soldier, 20 ounces of silver for any male with long enough hair indicating they were a veteran and 10 ounces for shorter hair men.    Xiang Rong reached Wuchang and attacked a Taiping force in the eastern suburbs on the 7th of December, but Chang Dachun failed to get his forces outside the walls to help, apparently because he was too afraid to meet the enemy. Xiang Rong’s forces were repelled and the Taiping continued their siege of Wuchang relatively unmolested. By January the 12th the Taiping tunnelers filled powder kegs of gunpowder in one tunnel under the Wenchang Gate and detonated it. Turns out despite the financial incentives, the citizens of Wuchang were really angry their homes were burnt and basically were doing nothing and some were literally aiding the Taiping siege. The Wenchang gate collapsed and the Taiping swarmed into the capital city catching Chang Dachun asleep. When Chang Dachun woke up to the reports the city was being captured he committed suicide. After 20 days of being besieged, Wuchang was in the hands of the Taiping on January 12th of 1853.    At this point the Taiping had bolstered their ranks to a whopping 500,000 strong. It was after Wuchang where Hong Xiuquan and his fellow Taiping leaders made a serious strategic error. Instead of marching north to hit Beijing, which they could have taken, they decided instead to head down the Yangtze to Nanjing. This would have been their greatest chance at toppling the Manchu rule, but apparently the Taiping leaders were being given reports that the capital was protected by a large force, which was not the case. The Taiping burned their floatings bridges behind themselves to delay the Qing forces pursuing them. Parts of the army would march by land while the majority utilized over 20,000 stolen boats to traverse the riverways. En route to Nanjing they captured Jiujiang in western Jiangxi province and Anqing the capital of Anhui province. They plundered the storehouses and kept marching towards the second largest city in China. At this point the city had swelled to a population of over 750,000, and by the time the Taiping would reach the city their numbers would be around the same.    When the Taiping began to take major cities, the Qing courts panicked and Emperor Xianfeng issued orders for civil officials to start mustering local militia forces to protect their respective jurisdictions. This was a similar situation that occurred during the White Lotus Rebellion. These militias were made up of hastily recruited soldiers who usually had little experience in combat and weapons were hard to come by. In the beginning they were worse than ineffective, because their leaders had their own interests at hand. When thes militia groups engaged the Taiping, which was rare, they often plundered where they went. In early January of 1853, the Qing statesman and general Zeng Guofan was ordered by the emperor to take charge of the haphazard militia units in Hunan province to try and use them and take charge of restoring order. Basically the Green standard army and Eight banner army were proving to be completely useless against the Taiping. The Qing were desperate and looking for strong men to pull things together. Zeng Guofan in a very unprecedented manner was granted power to take up broadbased military affairs in his region. Emperor Xianfang knew him to be loyal and Zeng Guofan was an effective military leader. As his teacher described him to the Qing court “he is good at recognizing talents and is capable of synthesizing people’s good points. If he is willing to use the wisdom of others as his own…he might make a fine leader”.   Zeng Guofan did not want to be a leader to such a thing, he has henceforth been called “the reluctant general”. Shepherding of the militias struck him as an impossible task, he even began writing a draft refusing the appointment which was a big deal, you did not say no to the emperor. But then came news on January 12th of 1853, the Taiping had taken Wuchang, the capital of Hubei province, just north of Hunan. The Taiping now held control over the middle reaches of the Yangtze river, the crisis was becoming larger than anyone ever thought possible. Zeng Guofan’s brothers and father pleaded with him to take up the appointment so he could help save their province from destruction. In the end he tore up the draft and accepted the appointment.   Now the Eight banner army made up mostly of Manchu and Mongols operated mostly in the north. These were the imperial guardsmen, they concentrated wherever the emperor was and around Manchuria. They did garrison a few cities scattered around the empire, but for the most part the south was protected by the Green standards. There were roughly 130,000 eight bannermen in the region around Beijing. The Green Standard army stood at around 600,000 in the early 1850s, but those numbers were illusionary as I mentioned corrupt commanders inflated them to pocket money. On Top of pocketing money for fake troops, there was wide scale embezzlement of materials and a huge lack of training. To be brutally honest, most men had not received proper military training since the White Lotus Rebellion over 50 years prior. To make matters even worse, the eight banner army commanded the lion share of the Qing military budget, leaving the Green Standards widely underfunded. By tradition, individual soldiers were responsible for purchasing and maintaining their own melee weapons. The state provided firearms, matchlocks mostly, useful in China but extremely outdated compared to that of the west. There was actually an edit made in 1816 decreeing weapons should not be replaced until they had been used for at least 30-40 years. Its not a joke to say, many of the guns were more than a century old. The Qing military was suffering from a fatal combination of too much peace time and economic collapse because of the opium wars.    When the Taiping rebellion broke out the Green Standards were functioning more or less as a constabulary or police force, not a real military. They usually kept order protecting grain shipments and performed mundane tasks like transporting prisoners. Commands were purposely fragmented and distributed among local civil and military officials in jealous competition with another to thwart any potential mutinies against the Qing. This also meant there was a huge absence of any clear chain of command making it nearly impossible to mobilize against a large enemy like that of the Taiping. Now Zeng Guofan was well aware of all the problems with the Green Standard army. As early as 1851 he had advocated for reducing the number of Green Standard troops because they were bloated and doing nothing, a man after my own Ron Swanson libertarian heart. Many men got bored and they simply took up with bandit groups to make more money. This was also at the time countless were addicted to opium and it was literally breaking CHinese society down.   As for the effectiveness of the Green standard troops against the Taiping, Guofan reported ““As soon as they spy the enemy, they run away,and when the enemy departs, they come back and murder the locals [to dress them up as rebels] and claim victory.”To a friend, he wrote that “even if Confucius himself came back to life, he could spend three years and still not manage to correct their evil ways.” After taking the appointment Zeng Guofan’s criticisms of the Green standard army increased. He said they “just kept chasing the rebels tail, but never even attempted attacking head on. They used cannons and muskets to attack from a distance but he’d never heard of them fighting in close quarters with small arms”. The men lacked proper training, courage and martial skills.    From the beginning he proposed starting from scratch with a new kind of force. His model was based on the Ming dynasty who had formed militia’s to fight Japanese pirates along the eastern coast. It would be a smaller force, but efficient, carefully trained and the soldiers had to be courageous. The force began to form in 1853 built upon the Neo-Confucian sense of moral order, the same thing Zeng Guofan learned to discipline himself. Emperor Xianfeng worried he would not be able to do anything in time or have great numbers, but Zeng replied “we aim for excellence, not sheer numbers, and we want it to be truly effective, not just available quickly”. The recruits were to be young men from rural not urban backgrounds, as he put it “those who want a strong army use soldiers from the mountain villages, and they avoid the men of the cities and waterways.Those who live their lives in the mountains and rural areas are tough, while the ones from the river villages are slippery. The cities are full of lazy and carefree wanderers, while the rural villages have men who are simple and sincere.””. The recruits were to be selected only by a close cabal of his most trusted friends, family members and scholars. That process of keeping recruiters a close knit group would be passed down the ranks, providing a network of close connected people.    Zeng encouraged loyalty by paying his men very well, a foot soldier under Zeng could earn over 4 taels of silver per month, triple that of the Green Standard. In addition the men could earn 10 taels for killing a bandit, 15 for capturing one alive and 20 for a Taiping with longhair. He indoctrinated the men to have a feeling they served the country and their emperor. He stressed it was kill or be killed, he often warned the men “If you do not hone your skills every morning, then when you encounter the bandits you will not be able to kill them, and they will kill you.” If soldiers ran from battle and were caught they were beheaded, if soldiers gave false reports they would not just lose their heads, they would have placards set alongside them as a warning to others.    The structure of the military was as such, the Army of Zenf Guofan was the Ying “battalion” formed as 505 men including officers. Each battalion was made up of 4 shao “regular companies” designated as fore, aft, right and left of 108 men each plus a personal bodyguard of 72 men for the battalion commander making up 505 men. Each company was broken into 8 dui “squads”, 2 jingall squads, 2 matchlock muskets, 4 sword and spear. A normal squad had 10 soldiers, plus a squad officer and a cook. Since jingalls were so unwieldy, those squads received 2 extra men. Then there were porters, 180 support personnel for each battalion to carry supplies. Zeng also commissioned riverine navies to fight on lakes and riverways, which was novel to most in Hunan.   And thus the Xiang Army was created, also referred to as the Hunan or Chu Army. This type of army was also known as “Yung-Ying” the “brave battalion” and Zeng Guofang was not alone, in Anhui there was the Huai army and another in Szechuan. These militia army groups as you may have guessed, were the building blocks to warlord armies. Now these armies have just begun to form and some of their units even took part in battles, but its not until 1853 where they make a real presence. Yet we will leave this for now to get back to the situation in Nanjing.   Upon hearing reports the Taiping were marching towards Nanjing, the governor of Liangjiang, Lu Jianying grabbed over 300,000 taels of silver out of the city and fled to Nanjing where he planned to pretend to be mounting defenses. In truth the governor was trying to secure his pockets, if he lost at Liangjiang, Emperor Xianfeng would most certainly force him to settle up with the lost money. Thus the mess of actually mounting a defense fell onto the governor of Jiangsu, Yang Wending and the General Xiangzhou of Jiangning. Well Yang Wending was even more corrupt than Lu Jianying it seems because he simply fled to Zhenjiang and abandoned Lu Jianying and General Xiangzhou. This sort of gives you an idea why the Taiping were largely successful, the Qing were rampant with corruption. Nanjing’s regular forces were 1200 green standards and 4000 eight banner, with 15,000 recruited militiamen. When the battle of Nanjing occurred it was defended by roughly 20,000 eight bannermen and possibly upto 40,000 Green standards.    The Taiping arrived before Nanjing on march 6th of 1853. The next day Taiping General Li Kaifang was leading a vanguard of 1200 troops where he arrived at Yuhuatai south of Nanjing. The Qing General Cheng Lisan who had a force of 3000 soldiers there promptly fled to Nanjing, thus handing over Yuhuatai completely intact. Li Kaifang was unaware of how poorly defended Nanjing was so he stationed his men at Yuhuatai and awaited other Taiping forces. The next day, Lin Fengxiang leading a division showed up and both men directed their forces to attack Nanjing together. Li Kaifang sent 300 soldiers to prod the city finding none of the Qing defenders were willing to come fight out in the field. Instead the Qing fired wildly at the small group wasting a lot of valuable ammunition. While the Qing regulars dared not go out into the field to fight, a hastily improvise group of 1000 porters went out to face the Taiping. The porter group fought bravely and screamed to the city wall defenders to throw them guns and spears to help them win the battle. Lu Jianying however thought this might be a ploy and might I add he had good reason to believe so. Many cities that fell to the Taiping were aided heavily by the local populace. Lu Jianying instead ordered artillery to open fire, and while the more battle hardened Taiping saw the cannons and began to crawl away the poor ignorant porters were standing tall still as the artillery smashed them allegedly killing 500 people.   On the 9th, Lin Fengxiang held a conference with the other commanders. It was decided Li Kaifang, Huang Yiyuan would attack Jubaomen from Yuhuatai while Lin Fengxiang would commence the main siege effort. It was to be the classic “cave siege” seen countless times before, dig a tunnel blow up a mine to breach the city walls. Alongside the sapper work with the tunnels, the Taiping also began a propaganda campaign. Lin Fengxiang had his men shoot written letters into the city with bows and arrows calling on the soldiers and civilians in Nanjing to rise up against the Qing demons. Lin Fengxiang announced to the people they would not disturb them as long as they wrote the words Shang, King, Heaven or Lord on the doors of their homes when the Taiping took the city. He vowed the army would not enter their homes and everyone could live. Lin Fengxiang also announced the general offensive would begin on the 19th, something the Qing did not believe.    Well on March the 19th the Taiping brought hundreds of horses carrying effigies of soldiers bearing torches before the west wall of Nanjing. The Qing saw this expecting an attack and they all rushed to the west well and it was too late when they realized it was a ruse to draw them closer in as the Taiping exploded mines in the tunnels. The explosions within 2 tunnels breached the wall causing a gap almost 40 meters wide, unfortunately the 3rd tunnel explosion went off far too early killing quite a few Taiping as well. Now the Taiping had access to the city.   Upon learning the Taiping were flooding into Nanjing, countless Qing high officials fled the city or commited suicide. General Xiangzhou allowed over 4000 eight bannermen and 4000 other manchu to retreat into Mancheng, that is the inner city where Manchu and no Han reside, but he refused Lu Jianying from entering. Lu Jianying it seems was abandoned by the manchu and as a result was hacked to pieces by Taiping soldiers who found him. Within Mancheng, General Xiangzhou and governor Huo Longwu chose to continue the resistance mobilizing women and children if its to be believed to assist in the defense. They fought a bloody battle and never surrendered, as was expected of Manchu. Despite the heroic pride of the manchu being at play, it should not be forgotten, the Taiping literally were telling the entire population of Nanjing they sought to kill all the Manchu.   During the afternoon of the 19th, Yang Xiuqing personally commanded the front with Lin Fengxiang, Li Kaifang, Ji Wenyuan, Zhu Xikun and other Taiping generals to storm Mancheng from the west and south. It was a fierce fight with General Xiangzhou directing his men to fire artillery, guns and arrows while the women and children tossed bricks. The Taiping were forced to fight in 6 waves paying the price of 3000 men, yet they still could not breach Mancheng. To this end Yang Xiuqing decided to change strategy, he issued an order: those who surrendered, would not be killed. Many of the Manchu pleaded with General Xianzhou to surrender to save them, but Xiangzhou was unwilling. Yang Xiuqing was livid and had 8000 pounds of artillery brought up to blow Mancheng to pieces. As the walls were battered, the Taiping flooded the inner city and began to hack the Qing defenders to pieces. Upon seeing this General Xiangzhou drew his sword and killed himself, governor Huo Longwu was shot in the battle. As for those who fought, surrenders or tried to flee, Yang Xiuqing ordered military and civilians alike to be killed with a reward of 5 taels of silver each. Its said 4000 Taiping received payment. It is estimated 30,000 manchu family members were butchered upon the taking of the city.   From March 7th to the 20th the Taiping carried the siege of Nanjing were they killed countless high officials and over 4000 eight bannermen. The ancient capital of 6 former dynasties, the land of dragons and tigers was taken in just 14 days, showcasing to the Qing they were on the verge of extinction.    I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.  Hong Xiuquan and the God Worshippers began as just a small rabble of peasants and rose to be multiple armies strong and seized all the major cities along their march to the secondary capital of China, Nanjing. With Nanjing under their thumb what would the Taiping do next?  

Last time we spoke the entire Second Opium War of 1856-1860. The forces of Britain and France brought the Qing dynasty to its knees, forcing yet again unequal treaties and humiliation. While the opium wars were certainly a large contributor to the century of humiliation, the story we are about to talk about is arguably a lot more significant. During that five part series there was an ongoing and much more significant event occurring within China, that being one of if not the deadliest civil wars in human history, the Taiping Rebellion. Both the Taiping Rebellion and Second Opium War are intertwined, they influenced another greatly and together they are a large reason for the eventual downfall of the Qing dynasty. Buckle up folks because we are taking an extra long dive into an event that killed an estimated 20-30 million people.    #24 This episode is The Taiping Rebellion part 1: Hong Xiuquan the self proclaimed brother of Jesus   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. I first need to take a moment to explain something. I am literally writing this down after finishing the last page of my first draft of the entire series and without the last final touches I can tell it will be a whopping 10-12 episodes long gasp. I in no way expected this, I thought hell it would be the longest for sure, but maybe 6 episodes, not 12! But what really drove me to write so much, 99 pages to be exact cough, was fantastic sources I had not read until recently. One source looked at the event from a religious point of view, another was much older from the 1970’s which simply explained the events in a large picture, the old school way of history. Then a third source, which is a much more recent book tied up everything quite nicely with a lot of primary sources and feelings of the people from nobility to the commoners. I could not bring myself to cut down as a result and I do apologize if its a long venture, but for all of you who can rough it out I ensure it will be worth it. This is an incredible story filled with hardship, dramatic change, religion and insanity, and since the Qing dynasty is involved a hell of a lot of corruption. Stating all of that thank you so much to all those who have been listening you guys are awesome I greatly appreciate you all. If you want to reach out to suggest anything for the future, have critique and so on, please reach out to me by commenting at my Youtube channel the Pacific War Channel or if your are on the Kings and Generals discord shout out to me there! Please enjoy the Taiping Rebellion.   In 1852, Theodore Hamberg, a young Swedish Protestant missionary with a thin chinstrap beard was in Hong Kong. He was one of the first Europeans of his generation to brave the Chinese countryside, as he left the relative safety of Hong Kong, which was by this time a british colony to preach in a village 100 miles up the Pearl River. Hamburg was one of the first non chinese to learn and speak the dialect of the Hakka people. These were as described by one of my sources “a gypsy minority that thickly populate south CHina. They are sometimes referred to as the “guest people””. All of this amounted to nothing of too much importance, save for one short, round-faced Hakka, Hamburg converted named Hong Rengan. Hong Rengan had a incredible story to tell it seems.   Hamburg was surprised and found it a bit odd, that a lot of the Hakka he met already knew about God and Jesus despite these people being well beyond the narrow reach of the Hong Kong missionaries. Hamburg listened to Hong Rengan recount stories of battles, armies and congregations of christian believers all being led by a heavenly prophet, a Hakka one no less. This prophet claimed to be hunted by agents of the Qing dynasty and lived in disguise under an assumed name. He was once kidnapped, but escaped and lived in a forest for 4 days and a cave for 6. Hamburg confessed the stories this man told him were confusing “I could form no clear conception of the whole matter”. Hamburg did not know what to make of it all, so he asked Hong Rengan to write the stories down for him. Hamburg thought little of any of this for nearly a year, then in the spring of 1853 news came that Nanjing had fallen in a torrent of blood. Hamberg then realized Hong Rengan’s stories were very real.    News of the great upheaval in China reached those like Hamberg in Hong Kong and along the coast where foreigners did business. Reports of local uprisings and small scale banditry in the countryside were never anything of much importance, it was just the same old news in China. Then Catholic missionaries deep within the interior began to spread rumors of a larger movement led by a man known as “Tian de” or “heavenly virtue”. Some said the man was actually dead, killed by Qing forces, others questioned his very existence. Without any concrete news, little attention was paid to any of it, just bandits disrupting the production of silk and tea, a common problem. But when Nanjing, the southern capital of China fell in 1853, well this suddenly brought attention to foreigners that a very real and very large civil war was occuring in China. Those in Shanghai were alarmed, and rightful so, Nanjing was very close to what was now called “The Taiping Tianguo - The heavenly kingdom of Great peace”. A million rebels were flooding down from central China on a grand flotilla of commandeered ships to what was formerly called Nanjing. A ton of cities were emptied and Qing defenses lay in rubble as these small local bandits were a grand rebel army on the march. Fear gripped the city of Shanghai, communications with Nanjing were cut, rumors spread that Shanghai would be attacked.   Shanghai’s citizens boarded up their homes, many of the Chinese fled into the countryside for safety. The foreign settlers called for defenses to be erected, for volunteers to take arms. British, French and American steamers began to bring men to defend the walls of Shanghai. Yet there was no attack, at least for the time being, apparently the Taiping rebels went to march upon Beijing if it was to be believed! The capital of the Manchu were under threat from these rebels who held Nanjing. A single British vessel went over to Nanjing in april of 1853 but brought back very conflicting news of what was occurring there. It became the opinion of the British plenipotentiary at the time that these so called Taiping were “nothing but superstition and nonsense”. Despite the scarcity of clear information, raw accounts of this apparent civil war in China began to get out of Shanghai and Hong Kong to the western world. Tales that the Chinese were fed up with their Manchu rulers and were rising up spread. The economist read “a social change or convulsion such as have of late afflicted europe. It is singular to find similar commotions at the same time in Asia and Europe”.   Karl Marx, yes the Karl Marx wrote in 1853 as the London correspondent for the New York Daily Tribune about the situation in China. He considered the rebellion to be a symptom of China’s integration into the global economy, as a result of Britain's opening up of CHina during the First Opium War. What was happening in China was not merely a rebellion, it was a “formidable revolution”, one that demonstrated the interconnectedness of the industrial world. Marx argued what was happening in China would come to Europe “the next uprising of the people of Europe, and their next movement for republican freedom and economy of Government, may depend more probably on what is now passing in the Celestial Empire—the very opposite of Europe—than on any other political cause that now exists.” The disorder that China faced was caused by the opium trade, and exposure to the world. The old was facing the new as they say and Marx believed “dissolution must follow as surely as that of any mummy carefully preserved in a hermetically sealed coffin, whenever it is brought into contact with the open air.” Marx argued the Qing dynasty may dissolve and that it would not be limited to just China. The whole Taiping revolution was for Marx, Britain's fault and now the effects of her actions overseas would go back to bite her ass at home  “the question, is how that revolution will in time react on England, and through England on Europe.” Marx predicted the loss of the Chinese market because of the Taiping would undermine British exports, particularly textile. By the way as I pointed out in previous episodes that very much was not the case, textiles from Britain went up actually because of the Taiping rebellion killing the Chinese trade network internally resulting in foreigners making up the demand. But then again when has Marx ever been right, shots fired. Marx believed the Taiping revolution would cut off England's source of tea imports and that the price of tea would spike in England leading to economic downfall and further revolution. “It may be safely augured, that the Chinese revolution will throw the spark into the overloaded mine of the present industrial system and cause the explosion of the long-prepared general crisis, which, spreading abroad, will be closely followed by political revolutions on the Continent.”  Many news outlets and intellectuals had differing accounts of what exactly the Taiping were and what was going on. Some made analogies to the African slaves rebeling in the United states to that of Chinese under the Manchus. Yet almost no one had any real explanation for the origin of the movement. Its rather funny to say, one of the very best accounts to explain it all could have been found in a desk in Hong Kong on some scribbled pieces of paper that Theodore Hamberg shoved in his desk.   Hong Rengan came back to Hamberg at a village outside Canton, but this time the Swedish missionary knew the man for who he was: he was the cousin and lifelong companion of the prophet of the Taiping, the Heavenly King. Hong Rengan was the only person to come into contact with a foreigner who had firsthand knowledge of the Taiping and that of their leader. Hamburg and Hong Rengan formed a close friendship, Hamburg even got to baptize Hong Rengan in september of 1853. Hamburg educated the man in Lutheran doctrine, preparing him to serve as an assistant to the foreign preachers and eventually to take their brand of Christianity over to the Taiping in Nanjing. As they worked together, Hamburg kept asking Hong Rengan about the movement, stories of the man who started it. And so here we can now learn about the famous Hong Xiuquan.   Hong Rengan told the story of his cousin, Hong Xiuquan who was 9 years older and had always been brilliant. They lived in neighboring villages roughly 30 miles away from Canton. Many of the villagers were relatives of their clan which back in the Song dynasty had been a grand one with countless high officials and imperial advisers amongst their ranks. Yet as time passed they had all become poor farmers. One thing they held with great esteem was a small schoolhouse where Hong Xiuquan began studying the confucian classics at the age of 7. He was extremely gifted and spent years memorizing the four books, the 5 classics and other necessary texts required for the civil service examinations. When Hong Xiuquan was a teen he was very well read on Chinese history and literature, he even read ancient texts without assistance. His family dreamed that he would restore their family to its former glory and several teachers worked without pay to provide him with the knowledge he would need to pass the exams to become a Qing official. As time went on his educative needs took him outside the village and his family got together all the money they could to support the 16 year old who at the point was already supporting himself as a schoolteacher with a small salary paid in lard, salt, rice and lamp oil.    The key to gaining an official appointment in the Qing government was passing the Confucian civil service examinations and this was a goal shared by both Hong cousins. But the exams were extremely difficult and if you failed an attempt you had to wait years for another opportunity to take them. The exam process took 3 days in a small cubicle in Canton. Hong Rengan never had much success, but Hong Xiuquan ranked high on the first day of his first attempt in 1827. As the grueling exam went on, he began to slip through the ranks and by the end of the 3rd day he fell out of the winners circle. It was to be 9 more years before he could qualify again to take the exam in 1836. Wow and I thought it was brutal trying to gain entry to a graduate program at my university for Neurobehavioral science sheesh. Well Hong Xiuquan did not give up, he took the exam a second time and failed. Hong Rengan likewise failed, but unlike Hong Xiuquan he was not carrying the entire family’s hope upon his shoulders. Thus between the 2 cousins its was Hong Xiuquan that succumbed to a mental breakdown.   Hong Xiuquan had his first visions in 1837, right after failing the examination for a third time. He was greatly weakened by the ordeal and was carried home afterwards. When he got home he simply collapsed into bed and called for his family to crowd around him. He apologized to them all and said his life was over, he had let them all down. It is said he closed his eyes and lost all strength, many thought he was dead. Eventually he woke up and began telling his family about strange dreams. In his dreams, a dragon, a tiger and a cock entered his room, followed by musicians and a sedan chair. They all carried him away to a wondrous and beautiful place full of people who rejoiced when they saw him and an old woman washed him to remove all defilements from his body. Then a group of old men appeared and he recognized some of them to be sages of ancient China. They opened his body with a knife and removed his organs, replacing them with new healthier ones, before closing him up. Not a trace of incision could be found afterwards and he was escorted back to a grand hall where an old man in a black robe with a flowing golden beard sat upon a throne. The man said to him “they take of my gifts and therewith worship demons; they purposely rebel against me, and arouse my anger. DO not though imitate them”. The man then gave him a magical sword for which he said its purpose was to kill demons, but he told him to never use it on his brothers and sisters. Alongside this was a seal and a piece of yellow fruit which he ate. The old man led him to look upon the people of earth where they could both see defilement and perversions.    Hong’s visions continued for 40 days and Hong Rengan was one of those who stuck by his cousins side listening to his waking stories. There were other recurring characters in his dreams, one was a middle-aged man he referred to as ‘elder brother” who traveled with him to far regions of the world to slay demons with his magical sword. The old man in black at some points began berating Confucius for failing to teach proper doctrine to the Chinese people and Confucius confessed guilt and shame as such. Those around Hong Xiuquan say he often lept out of bed screaming “kill the demons” while he slashed wildly into thin air. His clear insanity drew at first curiosity and amusement of neighbors, who came to see the famous sleeping madman. At one point he woke up and claimed to be the emperor of China. Hong Rengan said to Hamberg “His friends and relatives only replied, that the whole was strange indeed, without thinking at the time that there was any reality in the matter.”   Eventually Hong Xiuquan recovered and he was a completely different person. He was taller, stronger, more intelligent. He seemed more handsome, fair skinned and his gaze had “become piercing and difficult to endure”. He seemed healthier and he quickly returned to his teaching and prepared for another attempt at the civil service exams. In 1843 he tried for a 4th time and failed yet again, this poor guy. That same year Hong Xiuquan found a Christian text that a missionary had given him years before in Canton and he decided to read it. Upon reading the text closely he came to an epiphany. The book seemed to unlock the secret of his dream-visions over the past 6 years. He suddenly realized the old man in black robes with a golden beard was God and the elder brother who helped him slay demons was none other than Jesus Christ. The demons were the idols worshiped by the Chinese that believed in Confucian and Buddhism, but Hong Xiuquans real brothers and sisters were that of the Christian Chinese people. Hong Xiuquan baptized himself and threw away the Confucian texts within his schoolroom.   Hong Rengan became Hong Xiuquans first convert followed by a neighbor named Feng Yunshan. They all baptized themselves in a river and cast away the Confucian idols from their classrooms. The 3 men began to study together, gathering Christian texts where they could find them. Hong Xiuquan preached to them and soon others began to join the flock. Hong Xiuquan believed the bible was literally written for him. The converts first came from parents, siblings, extended family and such. It was not easy, for example Hong Rengans older brother beat him with a stick for losing students at the local school he taught after the Confucian tablets were cast away. Hong Xiuquan and Feng Yunshan both left their villages in 1844 to spread the gospel to other villages throughout the province of Guangxi. Hong Rengan desperately wanted to join them, but his relatives forced him to stay and remain a schoolteacher because he was only 20 years old. Hong Rengan was forced to bring back the Confucian texts and idols so that his students would return, but even so he simultaneously baptized at least 50 new converts.    So Hong and Feng preached from village to village throughout Guangxi and the movement spread. Autonomous congregations sprang up, numbering in hundreds who began to refer to themselves as the “god worshippers”. They took the man named Hong Xiuquan, whom many had not even met as their prophetic leader. Hong Xiuquan came back home in 1845, preaching the gospel while disparaging the Manchu, the Qing dynasty and Confucianism. He said things like “God has divided the kingdoms of the world, and made the Ocean to be a boundary for them, just as a father divides his estates among his sons, Why should these Manchus forcibly enter China and rob their brothers of their estate?” His religious movement thus was becoming a political one.   By 1847, the god worshippers grew to around 2000, mostly Hakka. They began to smash Buddhist idols and temples and all of this was driving iere from the Qing authorities. Then in 1850, a pestilence ravaged Guangxi and rumors spread that Hong Xiuquan’s prayers to the Christian God could heal those sick of the infliction. This exponentially increased their ranks and the passing of the disease gave credit to Hong Xiuquans religion. Yet despite all of this, they were no army. Then some small violence broke out amongst Hakka settlers in Guangxi province. The Hakka settlers were scrambling to find land and water rights and the long standing local families were unhappy with the encroachments. This led to a small scale war between Hakka and other villagers in the autumn of 1850. The non Hakka burned the homes of Hakka and this led them to turn to the God worshippers for protection and help. Local authorities had already been suspicious of the sect and now began to view them more so as troublemakers. According to Hong Rengan, Hong Xiuquan predicted all of this and was waiting patiently to make a move.    As the Hakka vs other villager violence spread, Qing officials placed blame squarely on the Hakka and sent a detachment of soldiers to arrest Hong Xiuquan and Feng Yunshan. The god worshippers heard of the incoming threat and began to arm themselves with swords and spears to defend their leader. For those of you who heard my podcast on the White Lotus rebellion, it is eerily similar. The Qing detachment was easily overwhelmed and routed. Hong Xiuquan sent word calling out for all the god worshippers to gather for the first time and prepare for what he called the next step of their great movement. Countless members sold their homes and lands and marched. The following days saw tens of thousands gathering. The god worshippers leaders told the converts to converge on the town of Jintian and soon a force of 10-30 thousand seized the town. In preparation for a rebellion, Hong Xiuquan began organizing the people into military formations, each led by commanders with military ranks. The Chtin “army corps” consisted of 13,156 men divided into 5 Shih regiments 2500 men with officers. Each shih was divided into 5 “leu” battalions of 500 men and each had 5 “tsu” companies of 100. Each tsu had 5 “liang” platoons of 25 men with a sergeant. A Liang was made up of 4 “wu” Squads of privates with a corporal. Now the Qing garrison of Guangxi was not particularly strong at this time as they were dealing with other uprisings, this is 19th century China afterall, not a year went by without a few.    The Qing commander at Xunzhou, Li Dianyuan led the Qing forces went attack Hong Xiuquans residences within the village of Huanzhoushanren in Pingnan county. It was a dangerous situation, but both Hong Xiuquan and Feng Yunshan were saved by reinforcements sent by Yang Xiuqing and the god worshippers retained Jintian. Then a Qing force led by Zhou Fengqi alongside his subordinate Li Dianyuan attacked Jintian and erected a siege of the town. The god worshippers anticipated this and ambushed the Qing forces along the way to the Jintian at a smaller village called Caijiang near Thistle mountain. The Qing forces were ambushed by the god worshipers both men and women wielding mostly pikes and halberds. The Qing forces were defeated and one of their high ranking officers was killed.   Then on January the 11th of 1851, Hong Xiuquans birthday, the god worshipers proclaimed an uprising in Jintian and Hong Xiuquan declared the founding of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom with himself as its new emperor, or better said Heavenly King. Feng Yunshan alongside 3 other lt’s were appointed the kings of four directions: Feng Yunshan was the South King, Wei Changhui the North King, Xiao Chaogui the West King and Yang Xiuqing the East King. Eventually there was also an additional king, the flank king who was Shi Dakai. These men would go on to control roughly 100,000 people each including their own army.  Hong Xiuquan ordered the god worshippers to cut their manchu queues as a universal symbol of severing their allegiance to the Qing dynasty. Many of the Taiping would go on to let their long hair grow leading to the nickname “chang mao tsei / long haired bandits”.    Now from 1851-1852 the Taiping army began to fight its way north, absorbing the poor, disenfranchised, the criminals and all those other groups who hated their manchu overlords. It was a blend of those seeking to be part of something, to join the religious aspect of it and those who simply hated the Qing dynasty and sought to overthrow it. Yes its very much like the White Lotus rebellion 2.0. Now I had mentioned there was another rebellion going on, in fact if you look up a list of how many rebellions take place in the 19th century for China its….just comical, its insane. One rebellion was led by the Tiandihui and a large reason the Taiping won at Jinian was because the Qing were too busy dealing with the Tiandihui. After the victory at Jinian many Tiandihui joined them bolstering their ranks. Meanwhile the Qing began tossing more and more forces at the growing Taiping menace.    General Xiang Rong led 3000 men and was aided by other Qing forces led by General Li Nengchen and General Zhou Fengqi. The idea was simple, the forces would converge on the rebels to encircle them. Their 3 armies attacked the Taiping at Dahuangjiangkou on February 18th. As they approached the town from the west and east they ran straight into minefields set up by the Taiping and were ambushed leading to hundreds of casualties. The Qing forces were eventually forced to stop their offensive and hunker down for a siege. Now something important to note is what exactly is the Qing forces I am speaking of. If you remember during my opium wars episodes I explained the difference between the Green Standard army and the Eight banner army. To brutally summarize, the manchu armies that conquered the Ming used the banner system, with each colored banner being a different group. Well the eight banner army by the turn of the 19th century had become sort of a ceremonial, guardsmen type force. They were extremely ineffective as a large standing force and thus the Green Standard army was formed as a need for a more…well standard army haha. The Green standard army can be seen more so as a police force, but when the White Lotus rebellion broke out they proved to be very ineffective and in decline. The major reasons for this was their pay did not rise with inflation requiring many of them to seek additional work: they were widely dispersed preventing centralized training; more often than naught their ranks came about only in times of conflict; rampant corruption from higher officials led to embezzlement and I mean insane levels, a lot of armies left their rosters unfilled so officers could simply pocket soldiers pay and pretend they were leading more men than they had; soldiers literally could hire substitutes, often poor people to train and fight in their place; overall lack of morale and discipline; and the ultimate culprit at the time, opium addiction. The reason I bring this up is much like the White Lotus Rebellion, the Qing officials would find the Eight banner army and Green Standard army unable to cope with the task of quelling a rebellion and would be forced to find new alternative ways to find armies. This very well became a major reason for the downfall of the Qing dynasty and why China would find itself in a warlord era from 1916-1928, something I am currently writing a seven part series about on my personal channel, the pacific war channel. Lame plug in I know forgive me, but the Warlord Era is fascinating and the Taiping period holds so much roots for it.   Now when the Qing began to strangle the Taiping, they yet again broke out at night on the 10th of March marching towards the East village in Wuxuan county. The Qing forces pursued them but every time they got near the Taiping ambushed them. The Taiping and Qing eventually found themselves in a stalemate near Sanli Dyke. In early april the governor of Guangxi province, Zhou Tianjue and General Xiang Rong rallied 6000 troops to attack East Village, but yet again the rebels repelled them. By May the Qing were losing more and more men when the Taiping broke out of another siege and marched towards Xiangzhou. General Xiang Rong decided to coordinate a net strategy and had the aid of General Wulantai stationed at Liangshan Village while his men struck out from Jie Ridge.    The Taiping fought the 2 Qing forces at the battle of Du’ao Ridge just due north of Liangshan village and General Wulantai’s force were smashed. Despite the major Qing losses, they still had managed to encircle the Taiping for the 4th time. The Taiping fought a war of attrition until july when they pulled out of Xiangzhou to a former base of operations at Mt. Zijing in Guiping. The path north was effectively blocked to the Taiping by the Qing forces, but the entire time and everywhere the Taiping went they converted more and more to their cause.   I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.  And so the self proclaimed brother of Jesus Christ, Hong Xiuquan gathered his flock and chose to wage a war on the demon Manchu who sat upon the Dragon Throne. Hong Xiuquan and his kings now march forward to their destiny.  

Last time we spoke the Europeans licked their wounds after their nasty defeat to the Taku Forts. Elgin returned to China and a even larger coalition force now set itself on a warpath to march upon Beijing, but this time they went around the Taku Forts. They seized Kowloon, Chusan, Shanghai, Beitang, Tianjin, Danggu and then exacted their revenge upon the Taku Forts. The key to their success was the devastating Armstrong field gun which ripped asunder anything the Qing threw at them. Prince Seng lost the battle for Zhangjiawan utterly humiliating the Qing, but the great General did not simply call it quits, for now he reorganized the forces and put together a last stand at Baliqao. Could Prince Seng stop the European menace before they got to Beijing? Only time will tell.   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. #23 This episode is Part 6 of the Second Opium War: The Burning of the Summer Palace   Prince Seng and Prince Sengbao, the brother of Emperor Xianfeng had gathered a force of the Green Standard Army, reinforced by imperial guards of the 8 Banner Army, for a combined force nearly 30,000 strong. After their victory at Zhangjiawan, both Grant and Montauban were overly confident that they could simply march on Beijing. As they marched, the 101st regiment led by General Jamin arrived to increase their numbers. On the morning of September 21st as the European columns moved past Tongzhou they saw the Qing force in position in front of the Baliqao bridges. The Qing force was formidable with its left on the canal, reinforced by the village of Baliqao, another village in the center and a third on the far right. The road to Beijing passed through a rolling wooden terrain veering towards the canal and the Baliqao bridges. Seng had re-established order to his army and strengthened their resolve by bringing 100 guns and positioning them in the villages, on the other side of the canal and along his entire front. The Green Standard army were the majority, while the 8 Banner Army units were kept in reserve at the bridges. Seng also had of course a large cavalry force which was being led by Sengbao on their formation flanks. Grant kept inline with what he had done in the previous battle, he took the left while Montauban took the center and right to protect his flank. Montauban used the wooden terrain to hide his lack of numbers, sending the first column to hit the Qing center. General Jamin moved to Collineau’s right to hit the Qing left. Grant moved to the far left of Collineau hoping to flank the Qing. General Collineau took the advance guard consisting of the elite companies of the 101 and 12nd regiments, two companies of the 2nd Chasseuers a pied, an engineer detachment, two batteries of horse artillery and a battery of 4 pound foot artillery. Montauban and Jamin commanded the 101 regiment along with the 2nd Chasseurs a pied, a battery of 12 pounders and a Congreve rocket section. Collineau’s infantry sped through the woods towards the Qing center and their speed shocked Sengbao as he moved most of the cavalry from the wings to protect the center. The French advance guard moved into skirmish order forming a long line towards Baliqao. Montauban ordered Jamin to go forward as two large bodies of Qing cavalry, around 12,000 charged at each of the French columns. Collineau’s artillery rained hell into the Mongol and Manchu cavalry, while the elite company's rifle fired from secure locations along the sides of the main road. The accurate rifle fire took a massive toll on the cavalry, but Collineau soon found himself embroiled in hand to hand combat. Montauban and Jamin also used their artillery to devastating effect while their infantry formed two squares before the cavalry hit their position. The French 12 pound battery was positioned between Collineau and Jamin, continuously shelling the enemy. After some time the Qing cavalry broke off their attack having failed to break the French square formations or to overrun Collineau’s men. A brief lull allowed Montauban to re-form and advance upon the villages being defended by Green Standard battalions. Prince Sengbao and Seng did not renew their cavalry assaults, because Grants column was marching onto their right flank. The 101st stormed into the village of Oua-kaua-ye in the center scattering the defenders with each and suffering little casualties from the enemies artillery. Montauban followed this up by sending both brigades to march upon the village of Baliqao. Collineau advanced along a road with his elite companies firing upon Qing forces trying to hold the road towards the village. Large cannons in the streets and across the canal fired upon the french columns,but Jamin brought up his batteries to fire upon the cannons easily overwhelming them. The village and bridge of Baliqao were defended by the 8 banner army units and they did not falter nor give ground. Collineau brought up his artillery to form a crossfire with Jamins batteries slaughtering the 8 bannermen. Collineau then formed his forces into a column and stormed the village. Fighting raged on at close quarters for 30 minutes as Montauban led the 101st to Collineaus support securing the village. Suddenly a Qing messenger was sent from Sengbao to Montauban proclaiming that they had two captured colleagues, the French cleric named Abbe Duluc and the British Captain Brabazon of the royal artillery on one of the bridges and would execute them both if the Europeans did not halt their attack. Without pause Montauban pressed the attack. Collineau then reformed his command and rapidly advanced upon the bridge with the French batteries providing cover fire. Most of the Qing artillerymen were killed by European artillery and with them gone the rest of the 8 banner army men were forced to cede ground and the bridge was overwhelmed. The French bayonet charged across the bring as Qing troops leapt into the canal for their lives. Prince Sengbao made good on his threat and had Duluc and Brabazon executed and tossed over into the canal. The bridge was now in the French hands. Grant’s column dislodged the Green stand troops from their village while the British and Indian cavalry rolled up the line overwhelming the Qing cavalry trying to hold their ground. Grants line of attack brought him within sight of the bridge that cross the canal 1 mile west of Baliqao. The arrival of the British on Seng’s right flank collapsed his forces in the face of their attack and Seng was compelled to pull his army from the field before being trapped on the right side of the canal. The French claimed 3 dead 18 wounded, the British 2 dead and 29 wounded while the Qing had upto a possible 1500 casualties. The shocking triumph prompted Napoleon III to ennoble de Montauban, who would chose his place of victory for his new aristocratic title, Comte de Baliqao, joining the list of name-place conquerors like Scipio Africanus, the Duke of Marlborough or Germanicus. Over on the other Baliqao bridge General Hope was not enjoying the same easy going time the French had. Grant thought a horde of Mongol cavalry in the distance were French and didn't open fire. The mongols mistook this to mean Grants men were cowards and charged upon them. When the British realized it was the enemy they opened fire at close range and blew the Mongolians to pieces with Armstrong guns. Tongzhou surrendered without a fight, but still suffered the same fate as Zhangjiawan. They plundered the town and General Grant had 3 rapists flogged with 100 strokes by a cat o nine tails then hanged one of them, but all 3 of the said rapists happened to be coolies. The British claimed many of the rapes also came at the hands of Sikhs, but again these sources always seem to wash away the British and French from the bad stuff. Oh and the British and French placed blame at one another of course. One French soldier said of the plunder of Beitang “Quant aux anglais, ce sont nos maîtres: on ne trouve pas un clou où ils ont passé.” (“As for the English, they are our superiors [when it comes to looting]. You can’t find a nail where they have passed.” Prince Seng panicked after the last two obstacles to Beijing had fallen, Tongzhou and Zhangjiawan. Beijings only remained defense were its thick walls at 40 feet high and 60 feet thick, bristling with towers that housed defenders armed with more antique guns, bows and arrows and spears. Both Elgin and Gros pleaded with the military forces to hurry to Beijing as they feared the hostages might be massacred if they delayed. But General Grant refused to budge until all his heavy siege guns were shipped upriver from Tianjin to support their march on the great city. Elgin and Gros’s fears were not unplaced, Emperor Xianfeng had fled Beijing to go to Rehe, leaving his brother Prince Gong behind with orders to dig in and fight. Best Emperor Ever. Gong was 28 years old and a much more capable sibling. The European force made its way to Beijing where Elgin sent word to Gong they refused to negotiate with him until after the hostages were freed. But they also helped him save face by allowing him to blame the hostage taking on his subordinates. Gong was not moved by the gesture and sent word to withdraw from Beijing and then the prisoners would be released. If they began an assault of the city the prisoners would all be beheaded. On October 6th the heavy artillery needed to blast a hole in Beijing's walls arrived. Prince Gong’s position was…welll really bad. On top of literally being ditched there by the Emperor, most of the army had left with him as well. On the 5th Parkes and Loch were told their execution would take place the next morning and both prisoners were given paper and pens to write their last will and testaments. But by now the captives were far too important as political pawns than to be wasted away on executions. On the 7th the prisoners all heard the sound of gunfire and presumed the Europeans were bombarding the city meaning they were all going to die soon. They were actually mistaken the British were firing their guns in the air to let the French know their position because they were spreading out. On october the 6th the British and French agreed to march around the grand city from opposite directions and to meet at the Summer Palace just outside the walls. The two armies quickly lost contact with another. The French reached the Summer palace first finding out that its occupant, Emperor Xianfeng had fled with his 13 wives, a fraction of his harem. The French had expected the Emperors personal guard to defend the summer palace to the death, but everyone had fled. The only resistance they faced was 500 unarmed court eunuchs who screamed at them “don’t commit sacrilege! Don’t come within the sacred precincts!”. The French shot 20 of them on the spot sending the rest fleeing.   The Summer Palace or as the Chinese called it “Yuanming Yuan” (the gardens of perfect brightness”, simply does not embody how grand it truly was. A more accurate term would have been Summer Palaces, since it was a complex of 2 hundred main building sets, in an 80 square mile park dotted with vermillion tents, artificial lakes and exquisite gardens. The interiors were all unique, one for example was Baroque audience chamber designed by Jesuit missionaries in the 17th century, two other baroque palaces with gold roofs were designed by the same Jesuit priests. Emperor Xianfeng had spent countless days on the lakes staging mock naval battles with miniature boats representing the Qing navy and the British. The emperor always won the naval battles. The Summer palace was not just an architectural marvel, it was a national treasure, a storehouse of centuries of tribute the Emperors of China had received from barbarians. De Montauban realized what a historical treasure was now laying in his possession and he tried to preserve the place by telling his senior staff quote “he counted on their honor to respect the palace and see that it was respected by others…until the English arrived”. But the sheer temptation of the priceless artifacts which lay littered across the palace floors proved an impossible temptation for the French. Montauban’s orders to not touch the treasures quickly fell apart. The French soldiers could not resist helping themselves to an Ali Baba’s worth of loot. Later in 1874 Montauban would find himself before a government committee set up to investigate the looting that took place that day. The General lied to his examiners saying the French soldiers had not participated in the looting.  “I had sentries posted, and directed two officers with two companies of marine infantry to protect the palace from depredation and to allow nothing to be moved until the arrival of the English commanders. Thus there would be no pillage. Nothing had been touched in the Palace when the English arrived.” General Hope contradicted this testimony with eyewitness accounts. “It was pitiful to see the way in which everything was robbed. Only one room in the Palace was untouched. General de Montauban informed me he had reserved any valuables it might contain for equal division between the English and French”. Grant’s critique of Montauban not being able to control his troops is a bit hypocritical as he himself could not control his men. Despite apparently similar orders from Grant, the British soldiers found a cornucopia of loot to be had. Jewels lay scattered all over the Palaces. One French officer snatched a pearl necklace whose gems were the size of marbles and sold it in Hong Kong for 3000 pounds. De Montauban realized he was fighting against the impossible and just let his men take home souvenirs, he said, one prize per soldier, sureeeee. It’s said when the French left the palace at 10pm, their pockets bulged with stolen treasure. When the British infantry arrived on october 7th, they saw French tents piled high with jewels and other plunder, some French soldiers were casually walking around wearing jewels worth millions of Frances. Both generals simply gave up trying to establish order and by October 8th Grant demanded Montauban split the gold bars found in the palace 50/50 with the British. Grant tried to restore some order by ordering his men to render their plunder up for a public auction, the money did not go to charity. One British major turned in 8000 pounds worth of gold ingots alone. The auction listed countless Chinese art and artifacts, sculptures of gold and silver, thousands of bolts of imperial yellow silk and the list could go on forever. The 3 day auction netted nearly 100,000 pounds, ⅓ of which went to the officers and other ⅔’s to the NCOs. A private received 17 pounds, an officer 50. The French simply let their men keep what they had stolen. It was rumored that Baron Rothschild had an outstanding order with one French officer to buy anything he could at whatever price. De Montauban tried to mollify a conscious stricken general Grant by offering him a pair of gold and jade scepters as a gift for Queen Victoria, the other half was going to Napoleon III. Now the European armies did not show up to Beijing with baggage carts, but they soon managed to commandeer 300 local carriages to whisk off their treasure.  When Elgin arrived to Beijing on October 7th he was mortified by the looting of the summer palace. On October 8th, Heng Chi an imperial commissioner assigned to treat with the invaders, visited Loch and Parkes. He treated them with respect, but also fed them lies like how the Emperor had a secret army of hundreds of thousands of men in Mongolia waiting to rescue the capital. He also tried pressing to them the fact the trade between their nations might fall apart. Then Heng Chi delivered to them a request from Prince Gong that they write a letter to Elgin urging him to end hostilities. Parkes declined to help, even though Heng said he might be executed if the men did not write the letter. Then Parkes stated “Although you would do the Allied forces but little injury by killing the few prisoners…you would by such an act bring down on yourselves a terrible vengeance.” Heng switched back to good cop again and said “You will be in no danger for the next two or three days.”. Back on september 29th, Loch and Parkes had been transferred to the Gaomiao temple in northern Beijing where their treatment took a 180. They were wined and dined at a 48 course meal banquet catered by a restaurant near the temple. The men were too ill to eat, but happily accepted a bath and new clothes. Parkes eventually wrote to Elgin “The Chinese authorities are now treating Loch and myself well. We are told that His Highness [Gong] is a man of decision and great intelligence, and I trust that under these circumstances, hostilities may be temporarily suspended to give opportunity for negotiation.” At the bottom of that said letter, Loch added in Hindustani that he was writing under duress and believed the Qing could not decipher the Hindu language. Elgin was happy to receive the letter but worried the hostages would be executed.  Elgin was in a real pickle. He felt as trapped as the hostages. If he ordered the siege to commence the hostages might be executed. On October 8th orders arrived from Prince Gong to release the prisoners. The reason Gong did this was actually because orders were coming in from Emperor Xianfeng to execute them all in revenge for plundering the summer palace. Loch and Parkes were released first and it seems just their release alleviated Elgin and Gros’s stress to such an extent that they did not seem to care about the fate of the other 30-40 hostages still in the Qing hands. Less than 24 hours after Loch and Parkes were released the allies on October 9th positioned 13 field pieces opposite of the An Tung Gate, begun to dig trenches and posted a placard threatening bombardment if the gate did not open. Elgin gave the Qing until noon of October the 24th to open the gates to the city or the shelling would commence. And on october 24th, 5 minutes before noon the gate of An Tung cracked open a bit hesitatingly, then swung wide open. Without firing a single shot Elgen marched at the head of 500 men into Beijing as conquerors.  The return of the remaining prisoners was not done promptly. 3 days after the An Tung Gate opened, a frenchman and 8 Sikhs were freed. Two days after that, 2 more Sikhs were freed both both men were almost dead and one did die the next day. In all 19 prisoners were freed, 10 others had died being forced to kneel in the courtyard of the summer palace for days without food or water, their hand bound by moistened ropes and leather straps that shrank and causing excruciating pain. The British and French found coffins with the bodies of the victims, one including The Times correspondent, Thomas Bowlby. Many of the freed prisoners described their ordeal. They said they had been bound with ropes or chains for days, exposed to the elements. Many got gangrene and their infections took their lives. The Sikh and British victims were interred in the Russian cemetery on october 17th without ceremony. The next day the French held an elaborate funeral and high mass for the deaths. The fate of the prisoners seemed to have pushed Elgin over the edge. He rattled his brain for a response to such a heinous crime. Elgin plotted a bloodless revenge in his mind, something to restore British honor through a symbolic act that would prevent the Qing from ever harming a contingent of European ambassadors in Beijing in the future. Elgin thought of a way to hurt the Chinese but not at the cost of any lives, he sought to burn down the Summer Palace, a place where many of the prisoners were tortured to death. Elgin wrote to his wife his decision was in his mind to hurt the Emperor’s home but spare the Chinese people. Jack Beeching had a rather interesting thing to say about Elgins decision, “Elgin’s decision to burn the Summer Palace at least meant that flesh-and-blood injuries done to people he knew intimately would for once be revenged, not as in war, upon other people—on helpless Chinese—but on inanimate objects, on redundant and expensive things. He had suffered all his life from his father’s costly obsession with works of art; now works of art would bear the brunt of his revenge.” Thus Elgin’s father had profited from the plunder of art and now Elgin was going to destroy art. Elgin also had pressing concerns, he faced a deadline imposed by General Grant, who warned him that a treaty must be concluded before Beijing's winter set in so the allies could return safely to their base at Tianjin. If they did not Grant warned Elgin that their supply lines were overextended and they would easily be severed off by the Qing forces. Prince Seng had been defeated, but his cavalry remained a constant threat and they could blockade the city off at any time.  D-day for the burning of the summer palace was set to October 18th. A 27 year old captain in the Royal Engineers said this of the event  We went out, and, after pillaging it, burned the whole place, destroying in a vandal-like manner most valuable property which [could] not be replaced for four millions. We got upward of £48 apiece prize money ... I have done well. The [local] people are very civil, but I think the grandees hate us, as they must after what we did the Palace. You can scarcely imagine the beauty and magnificence of the places we burnt. It made one's heart sore to burn them; in fact, these places were so large, and we were so pressed for time, that we could not plunder them carefully. Quantities of gold ornaments were burnt, considered as brass. It was wretchedly demoralising work for an army The destroyed the 800 acre complex of building and gardens where countless Chinese emperors had spent much of their time. There were so many ornate buildings on the grounds covering more than a square mile that it took 2 full days of burning, breaking and smashing to bring it down. Countless books, artifacts, centuries of history burned to ashes. I don’t think its controversial to say it ranks on par with the burning of the library of Alexandria (despite if you believe the library ever burnt down that is, listen to Our Fake History’s podcast for that one haha). It was a tragedy and the remains of the summer palace stand today as a monument of what once stood there, China is still trying to have the site placed on the list of UNESCO world heritage sites.  On October 23rd, the Qing imperial treasury paid in full the increased indemnity fee of 500,000 taels to Britain and France. On October 24th Elgin met with Prince Gong at the board of Ceremonies to sign the new treaty of Peking. By this point Elgin had become a student of the Qing court protocols and used his knowledge to further humiliate Prince Gong and the court officials by arrived at the Board in a chair carried by 8 porters. According to tradition, only the Emperor had the right to that many porters. Now Elgin had learnt he was a target for assasination so he showed up with 500 troops and dispatched another 2000 troops to perform a triumph tour of Beijing. Lt Col Wolseley also performed a mine sweep of the meeting room before Elgin went. Elgin also ordered a huge artillery piece to be mounted on the An Tung gate, aimed directly at the city to ensure good behavior from the population. Prince Gong arrived to the board in a sedan chair bourn by 6 porters, something prescribed for his rank and when he saw Elgin’s 8 he knew immediately it was a direct insult towards his brother. Elgin also made sure to show up 2 hours late. The signing of the new treaty took on a sort of comedy. Elgin scared the hell out of the court officials when he screamed at them to “keep perfectly still”, because his Italian photographer, Signor Beato was taking a shot of the scene to preserve the Chinese humiliation. Bad lighting, doomed the Italians efforts and no photographic evidence of the signing was made available to the British press. By the way on the note of photography, the 2nd opium war is one of the first instances you have actual photos of some of the events. Over on my personal channel, the Pacific War Channel, I have rather long 45 minute~ episodes, 1 on the first opium war and 1 on the second. My episode on the second utilizes a lot of the photo’s taken and they are honestly incredible, especially the shots outside Beijing and the Taku Forts. So stating that it be awesome if you checked my episode out, or give the photos a google! So again the Qing were given a document to sign, not a treaty to negotiate, when Elgin presented the treaty to Prince Gong for his signature. The convention included an apology for the Emperor’s aggression, the British ambassador was granted a year round residency and 10 million in reparations were to be paid to Britain. Another port city was added to the list of those to be opened to trade and kowloon was to be handed over to Britain. After signing and being degraded, Prince Gong invited Elgin to a banquet in his honor and Elgin declined citing his fear the Qing would simply poison him, haha! The French version of the same treaty occurred the next day and Baron Gros was much more gracious. After signing the treaty Gross gave Gong a rare collection of French coins and an autographed photo of Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie. Gross apologized for the burning of the summer palace, but did not mention the looting. Gross then accepted Prince Gong’s invitation to dinner and no one was poisoned.  In December Elgen spent his time recuperating in Shanghai reading victorian romance novels and Darwin’s recent bestseller “On the Origin of the Species” which Elgin found to be audacious. In January he left China for good as Britain began the process for annexing Kowloon. Elgin returned to Britain a hero and received the new appointment as Viceroyalty of India, a position Lord Canning fought to get him. As the viceroy Elgin enjoyed the lucrative post for 20 months, but then he died of an aneurysm in november of 1864 in Calcutta, the same city Cantons viceroy Ye Mingchen died, perhaps a symbolic symmetry. Emperor Xianfeng died at 30 years old, only a year after the signing of the Convention of Peking which had humiliated him so much he secluded and anesthetized himself with opium, wine and of course his harem at Rehe. Emperor Xianfeng never returned to Beijing and refused to meet foreign ambassadors or even his own courtiers so deep it was said of his shame.  Prince Seng the defacto commander in chief of the Qing military continued to suffer military setbacks and humiliations. At one point he led 23,000 infantry and cavalry to quell a violent tax revolt in Shandong province and was forced to beg European occupiers to return some of his guns he surrendered to them during the 2nd opium war. They ignored his pleas and the Prince ended up failing to suppress the rebellion. Queen Victoria had received one interesting gift from the summer palace, a small Pekinese dog that she named Lootie. The poor thing had been found wandering around the ruins of the Summer Palace, where a captain in the Wiltshire regiment rescued it and gave it to the Queen. The Queen also of course received a jade and gold scepter from General Hope.  Both the first and second Opium war were fought largely because of the opium trade and British manufacturers. The conflict was an incredible pay off for Britain. Four years after the second opium war ended, Britain sold China ⅞’s of all the conquered nations imports, more than 100,000 pounds annually. Opium imports to China increased from 58,000 chests in 1859 to 105,000 chests by 1879. The British textiles which the Chinese rejected for their own silk eventually found a market, quadrupling from 113 million yards in 1856 to 448 million yards 25 years later. The Treaty of Tianjin basically made opium legal in China by setting the amount at which the Qing taxed it. The Qing court tried to fight the importation of opium by raising taxes on it. There were many attempts by officials in Britain to stop the opium trade, but it was far to profitable and those voices were quelled whenever they rose up. Eventually the Qing realized they could not stop the plague that was opium addiction, so they began to cultivate opium in large quantities within China to at least offset the British imports. Opium addiction became more and more rampant in China. In 1906 the Qing government forbade the sale of opium, but users over the age of 60 were exempted for a specific reason, Empress dowager Cixi was an opium addict herself. Opium cultivation and consumption thrived in the 1920’s and 1930’s under Chiang Kai-shek’s government. By the time of the 2nd sino Japanese war in 1937, 4 million Chinese, around 10 percent of the population were opium addicts. Over in British held Hong Kong 30% of the colony’s population were dependent on opium. The Japanese occupiers encouraged opium consumption to make the population more docile. Within a year of the communist takeover under Mao Zedong, dealers of opium were to be executed, some lucky ones got to go to Gulags. Users were treated more humanely and detoxed in hospitals. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.  The Chinese struggled for 150 years against opium. More than half a century of legislation by both Britain and China failed, while Mao’s totalitarian efficiency succeeded in half a generation. Ironically Mao Zedong enforced a policy and plan that had been first tried by a commissioner named Lin Zexu, go figure. 

Last time we spoke the first time the British and French armada attacked the Taku forts it was a literal cake walk. Reminscent of the first opium war, the Qing cannons proved inept at hitting the European ships. Elgin’s coalition made their way to Tianjin where they were met by the Emperors emissaries who began the same old tired procrastination strategy. Elgin was simply fed up and left the job to his brother Bruce who thought he got the deal won and done, but little did they all know the Qing had no intention of following through with the new treaty. A rebellion broke out at Canton and now Bruce was left with a new coalition force to fight yet again to get to Beijing to force the Qing to heed the treaty. However this time the Taku Forts were led by Prince Seng and he served the Europeans a truly nasty defeat. The tides of war were turning in favor of the Qing dynasty.    Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. #22 This episode is Part 4 of the Second Opium War: The March to Beijing   When news came back to Britain about the loss, Lord Derby’s government fell on June 10th 1859. Lord Palmerston returned to power at the age of 75 and wrote to the foreign office  “We must in some way or other make the Chinese repent of the outrage. We might send a military-naval force to attack and occupy Peking.” Elgin sat in on a cabinet meeting as Palmerston had appointed him Postmaster-General in the new Whig government. Elgin proscribed a moderate response, fearing that if Britain toppled the Manchu government the new masters of China would become the Taiping who lets just say were not great friends to capitalism and especially not towards the opium trade. For those MP’s who still sought diplomacy, a recent event had hurt their cause. American ambassador John Ward made an attempt at diplomacy, agreeing to go to Beitang around 160 miles north of Beijing before heading to the capital. Yet instead of traveling in a sedan chair like any respectable Qing official, Ward accepted the humiliating Chinese offer to use a wooden cart without springs or a cushioned seat. The Chinese it turns out slyly told Ward this was the preferred method of transport the Russians took when in reality it was the typical transport for tribute bearers. Apparently the trip was so bumpy and painful, Ward chose to walk the last few miles. The Qing were delighted at the sight of the western representative entering Beijing on July 27th on foot like a common peasant. Ward like so many before him, ran into the kowtow situation. Ward said he was willing to bow but “I am accustomed to kneel only to God and women” to which some Qing court official said “but the emperor is God’. Another absolutely ridiculous war about the logistics of Kowtowing emerged. Ward was unwilling to do the full blown deal and kept trying to cut corners. The Qing officials asked if he could touch the floor with his fingertips instead of his head, he said no. They then asked if he could hide his legs behind a curtain so the emperor thought he was kneeling when in fact he wouldnt be. Many letters went back and forth trying to find a way to accommodate Ward’s kowtow, but at the last moment Emperor Xianfeng came out of an opium stupor and upon receiving the recent news about the grand victory at the Taku Forts demanded Ward do the full blown kowtow. The Emperor added, since the Americans decided to break neutrality at the Taku Forts it was the least Ward could do, ouch. If you can believe it, the kowtow argument went on for 14 days. The Emperor eventually ordered Ward and his entourage to be expelled from Beijing. Though this all looked horrible on the surface, in truth Ward went to Beitang without interference from the Emperor and signed a treaty with the Qing officials on August 15th of 1859. Wards success was due to the fact, unlike his British and French counterparts, America was not insistent on signing the treaty within the capital. The American experience made Bruce look bad and Palmerston was fed up with the Qing protocols, kowtowing and such. The British newspapers were calling for blood after hearing news about the Taku fort disaster. Yet the situation was delicate. 10% of Britains tax revenue came from the opium trade in China. As Elgin put it in a letter to a colleague “If you humiliate the Emperor beyond measure, if you seriously impair his influence over his own subjects, you kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. [You] throw the country into confusion and imperil the most lucrative trade you have in the world. I know that these opinions are not popular. The general notion is that if we use the bludgeon freely enough we can do anything in China. I hold the opposite view so strongly that I must give expression to it at whatever cost to myself.” Then some international actions stirred things into motion. Italy suddenly seized the Austrian controlled territory of Lombardy. Rumors began to spread that France was mustering 12,000 infantry, two squadrons of cavalry, 6 batteries of artillery and 20 gunboats most likely to hit Beijing….or perhaps Britain. It does seem to all be hysteria, but one thing was for sure, the British needed to take action to secure their interests in China. The Foreign Secretary on October 29th ordered Bruce to demand an apology for the lives lost at the Taku forts, for unspecified reparations and an agreement to respect the terms of the Treaty of Tianjin. The Qing would be given 30 days to respond, no more tactical delays allowed, if they failed to meet the deadline Bruce would block the Bei He River. Bruce received the orders in January of 1860, but there were problems. The idea was to starve out Beijing, its been an idea tossed around a few times at this point. However blockading the Bei He river would result in just rice crop not getting north, those living in Beijing could simply sustain themselves on the other crops found abundantly at the time in the north, corn and beans for example. On top of this Admiral Hope needed to furnish the warships and it would take until April, thus Elgin began to showcase the issues and it was agreed to extend the deadline until March.  The Qing responded surprisingly quickly to Bruce's ultimatum on April 5th with a no. Instead the Qing officials invited Bruce to negotiate with some imperial commissioners, not the Emperor and at Beitang. It seems the Qing remained ever emboldened by their victory at the Taku Forts, they also ended the response off by telling Bruce the barbarian representatives in the future should be more respectful, ompf. Bruce was out of his depth and many officials in Britain knew it. Instead of replacing Bruce outright they simply superseded him with another British emissary…his brother Elgin, double ompf. Thus Bruce was to remain in China to help his brother. Elgin had spent his entire time in Britain trying to stop the escalation to war and was extremely reluctant to take the diplomatic role again. None the less he felt he had to defend the treaty he had built and was being stamped upon. En route back to China, Elgin stopped in Paris at the Tuileries to speak the Napoleon III to ask what Frances territorial ambitions were in China. Napoleon III said the major drive was for Indo-China and that France was more than happy to leave Britain the pesky nation of China to deal with. If anything, weakening China would just help France more so in Indo-China, une gagnon-gagnon.  Baron Gros caught up to Elgin en route to China and both steamed out of Sri Lanka aboard the Malabar. The pair were in for a real fun time, as a brutal storm hit their ship and it sunk taking with it Baron Gros’s uninsured plate and Elgin’s top secret instructions from Britain. Eglin and Gros were delayed 2 more weeks to retrieve their lost stuff, those documents Elgin had lost by the way held some brand new demands of China such as the annexation of Kowloon, something that might have distressed the French. Again, a rumor had been spread to London that Napoleon III sought to seize Kowloon. This prompted some panicky British officials such as our old friend Harry Parkes to negotiate a permanent lease over Kowloon with the Chinese Viceroy of Canton. In a bizarre fashion while the British forces were mustering for an expedition, this was occurring indifferently and the viceroy of Canton accused because he was bankrupt.  The international force sent to China was staggering, 18,000 men, 7000 being French. Because of Kowloon easily going over to Britain, this allowed Sikh cavalry to perform military exercises on their large arabian horses terrifying the locals. The Sikhs and British brought with them a terrifying new toy, the 25 pound Armstrong fieldgun. It held the accuracy of a rifle with the destructive power of a cannon. It was designed to scatter large armies by firing a shell that burst into 49 angular fragments, making it one of the most brutal antipersonnel weapon in existence. I can’t state it enough here, this one piece of military technology is what will destroy the Qing forces, it performed tremendously. The French were armed with an outdated Napoleon gun for their own artillery. 2500 Chinese coolies were hired by the British at 9$ a month + rations and 2 uniforms. Ironically crime in Hong Kong declined dramatically after the British left with these men, seems they got all the criminals on the island haha. General Sir James Hope Grant led the British forces and commanded a special loyalty from the Sikhs as they served under his fair leadership during the Indian revolt. Grant got the job, not because he was particularly gifted, just merely the closest General in the east. An allied force of 2000 British and 500 French were sent to seize Chusan island allowing them to assert dominance over the Yangtze and its critical use as a supply road to Beijing. The residents of Chusan were so traumatized from the last invasion they gave up without a fight. 50 miles north of Chusan was Shanghai whom welcomed the allies also without a fight because the mayor desperately needed help fighting off the Taiping rebels. The Taiping had recently seized Fuzhou and were on their way to claim the grand prize of Shanghai. The mayor of Shanghai pleaded with the Europeans to help despite the fact they literally were going to war with other parts of the Qing dynasty. The mayor offered to secretly report the ongoings of Beijing to the Europeans. The French counterpart to Grant, General Cousin de Montauban hated the chinese in general but really hated the Taiping rebels particularly because they were protestant. The French general wanted to annihilate the Taiping menace once and for all, but the British held the mans bloodlust back agreeing to use forces just to defend Shanghai against any Taiping invasion. Even Baron Gros went against his General agreeing with the British. At Shanghai the Europeans helped augment the outdated Chinese cannons that could not aim properly to be placed as swivel cannons on the walls, which could fire outward and inward, a notably helpful feature against residents who might lend their support to the Taiping. They sold some pieces of artillery to the delight of the mayor of Shanghai. As Elgin approached Shanghai he was falling further into a spiral of depression, he had this to write in his diary “If I had been anything but the greatest fool that the world ever saw I should never have been where I now am. I deserve to suffer for it, and no doubt I shall do so.” Meanwhile the guy was getting letters from the Whig government saying if he did not conclude the China mission by the next meeting of parliament, their government would most likely fall and it would be his fault. Rumors had spread in London that Elgin’s overly appeasement of the Chinese was dragging the conflict on. On July 26th, 150 British ships steamed up the northern coast to land near Beitang, just 8 miles north of the Taku Forts on the gulf of Zhili. The French fleet soon joined them and for 5 days they began to unload troops from more than 200 warships, if I was the Qing dynasty, already facing the Taiping horde I would be peeing my pants. None of the wall guns in Beitang fired upon the Europeans as they approached and as they opened the gates they soon figured out why, the garrison literally had run away. They also found out a lot of the wall mounted artillery turned out to be fakes made out of wood, and I just know theres a great embezzlement story for that one. The 20,000 residents of the city welcomed the invaders like liberators and even began to point out where the forces of the infamous Prince Seng had buried mines inside and outside the city. A lot of those kind residents were rewarded with rape and looting by the troops. It is alleged many of the women of Beitang escaped the rape by poisoning themselves with opium, strangaltion or drowning, my god. Many residents sought refuge fleeing to a fetid marsh outside the city. General Grant blamed the hired coolies who he said “were for the most part atrocious villains…the robberies and crimes they committed in the town were fearful”. But it is most certain all the groups present took part in the orgy of plunder and rape, war never changes. British Provost-Marshal Captain Con ordered 30 soldiers flogged for looting and military discipline was restored the next week. The march from Beitang to Tianjin was a mud filled nightmare, an advance company of 1000 British and 1000 French eventually crawled along a stone causeway for 4 miles until they finally spotted Tianjin in the distance and a large horde of Prince Seng’s cavalry blocking the way. As the Europeans drew closer, hundreds of Manchus, Han and Mongol cavalry became visible. Their sheer numbers were intimidating at first until the Europeans saw their weaponry. Most were utilizing bows and arrows, spears, some 18th century flintlocks and of course Gingalls. The allies lacked enough cavalry to fight even such an under equipped force and pulled back for the time being. A Qing commander upon seeing the Europeans peel back away sent a letter immediately to Beijing proclaiming a grand victory had already been won. Then on August the 12th of 1860, Grant assembled 800 cavalry to march around the Qing blockading the causeway and to take them from the rear. The main allied forced would hit the Qing head on using 3 Armstrong guns. When the frontal units were within a mile of the Qing horde they open fire with the Armstrongs. The Armstrong shells exploded and tore to piece the Qing cavalry, but the defenders were truly fearless, even as their comrades at either side were literally blown to pieces, they charged at the invaders. The Qing forces got within 450 yards when the effectiveness of the invaders guns simply halted them in their tracks, creating 25 minutes of terror. The suicidal valor of the Qing impressed many of their opponents, Major General Sir Robert Napier commanding the second division under Grant wrote “they bore unflinchingly for a considerable time such a fire as would have tried any troops in the world”. The Sikh riflemen gunned down the Qing with enfields and pistols while they were met mostly bow arrows. Lt Col G Wolseley recalled “never saw men come on so pluckily”. The better armed but widely outnumbered Sikhs managed to force the Qing to break and flee. The Punjab cavalry would have caused an even larger bloodbath pursuing the fleeing Qing, but the mud trapped their horses. Many of the Qing fled all the way to the safety of the Taku forts.  At the same time Grant had launched an attack on the Qing cavalry guarding the causeway leading to Tianjin when quite an unfortunate event unfolded. A drunk Irish sergeant who had recently took too much rum that he was literally ordered to delivery to the troops and got lost and stumbled into what he thought was a pack of friendly Sikh cavalry, it turns out they were Manchu. The Manchu cavalrymen seized the man and a few unfortunate souls who were following him. The Manchu ordered the Europeans to kowtow and they all did except for a Scottish private named Moyse who was beheaded on the spot. The Irish sergeant and other survivors were allowed to make their way back to camp to tell the others what had happened and they got back safely a week later. Their story made it into The Times which published a poem about the man, though it got his nationality wrong, typical English “Let dusky Indians whine and kneel,/An English lad must die./And thus with eyes that would not shrink,/With knee to man unbent,/Unfaltering on its dreadful brink,/To his red grave he went.” Two days after the kowtow incident the Europeans made their way up the causeway coming to a village called Sin-ho where they found the defenders had recently fled from. Further past the village was a large outpost called Danggu and unlike Sin-ho this was defended by Qing forces. Prince Seng had abandoned Danggu leaving behind Green standard troops. General de Montauban wanted to attack immediately, but Grant cautioned that the men needed rest. In a typical French-British rivalry fashion, de Montauban decided to attack without the British, but they found themselves quickly overwhelmed by the mud-walled fortification’s 45 wall cannons. This setback humiliated the French general who had personally led the assault, but it did not lessen up his pursuit for glory. De Montauban came up with a wild plan to attack all 4 of the Dagu forts at the same time. Grant insisted on singling out the most northern fort as it was the most vulnerable. De Montauban made a mention of the situation in his diary on August 20th “I shall nevertheless send a French land force to work conjointly with our allies. The object of my observations is, above all, to free myself from military responsibility with reference to my own government.” On August 14th, the British and French took Danggu using 36 guns and two rocket batteries before the infantry swept in. As one British Lt said to his commander “the Armstrong gun is a great success”. By taking Danggu, the Europeans were now in a great position to attack the northern most Dagu Fort that Grant had singled out, it was just a mile from Danggu across the Bei He River. There was a 6 day delay at this point as the Europeans were bringing the rest of their supplies and equipment along the causeway and the French garrison in Shanghai had a nasty situation leading them to burn some of the city’s suburbs in an effort to drive out Taiping rebels. On August 20th the Europeans set up 6 artillery batteries within half a mile of the northernmost Taku Fort and called in for 8 gunboats to attack it from the south. Just before sunrise of August 21st the Taku Fort opened fire on their position. The Europeans responded by performing a rolling forward bombardment all the way up to 500 yards from the Forts walls. The European Armstrongs, 8 inch mortars, 24 pound howitzers and French 12 inch cannons rayes absolutely smashed the forts wall cannons until the Qing were only left with Gingalls to operate. At 6:30am a powder magazine blew up inside the fort causing a massive explosion, but the defenders kept the fight on. Once the Europeans were 30 yards from the fort, a French force led by General Collineau began to scale the walls, but there was a moat in the way. The French General forced a detachment of coolies to stand in the moat up to their necks while supporting the scaling ladders on their shoulders for the French to climb up and my god is that a heinous act. Apparently Grant felt so terrible upon seeing what happened to the coolies that he gave them all an extra months salary as bonus. Once the French got atop the walls they launched bayonet charges that scattered the remaining defenders while the British blew a small hole in the forts wall allowing their own troops to charge single file through. The Qing commander of the fort showed more bravery than many of his men. When he was cornered he refused to surrender until an agitated Captain named Prynne of the royal marines pulled out his revolver and shot the man dead. Prynne then took the commanders peacock feather cap as a trophy of war. It took a few hours for the fort to be secured. The casualties were quite heavy, the British and French reported losing about 200 men, the Chinese were said to have over 1000 dead and another 1500 had fled the scene. 9000 surrendered to General Collineau, kneeling at his feet. The inside of the fort was a horror story. Thomas Bowlby described the devastation caused by the Armstrong guns to the defenders inside the fort “a mass of brains and blood smelling most foully”. Grant awarded 6 Victoria Crosses to celebrate the taking of the first Taku Fort. The taking of the northern most fort meant the other Taku forts were now uselessly outflanked, they had all been built to withstand attacks only from the river and were open from behind. The psychological effect was very apparent as within 5 hours, two emissaries from Heng Fu and the Viceroy of Zhili province turned up to negotiate. They were met by the ever xenophobic Harry Parkes who at this point was quite famous to the Chinese for being so xenophobic. Heng Fu’s emissaries offered to remove the booms blocking the Bei He River and to allow the European ships safe passage to Tianjin where peace negotiations could resume. Parkes proceeded to crumple heng fu’s letter and threw it right in the face of one of his emissaries, a man named Wang who happened to be an anglophile and fluent in English. Parkes he personally knew the guy, what an asshole. Parkes then began screaming that if the other 3 Taku Forts did not surrender within the next two hours they would suffer the same fate as the northern one. One European present at this parley described Parkes to be “harsh and unnecessarily violent towards Wang. This was not customary among European nations and the envoys should be treaty with the courtesy common to civilization”. Long before Parkes two hour screamfest had elapsed, white flags were already waving amongst the 3 other Taku forts without a single shot being fired.  The path to Tianjin was now open and as of August 23rd, Grant took the armada unchallenged up to the riverway with the infantry as the cavalry made its way overland on the twin banks of the river. By August 27th the Europeans had an encampment just outside Tianjin and the ambassadors prepared to negotiate yet again. This time the Qing court sent the senior official Guilian who had previously negotiated the treaty of Tianjin, but this time he carried plenipotentiary powers. Elgin and Gros were notified of his authority beforehand and discussed amongst another the best strategy going forward. Both men presented new demands much harsher than the previous ones. The Qing were asked to make a formal apology for the casualties caused by the first battle of the Taku Forts in 1859; to pay double the original amount in reparations of 4 million taels of silver; the right to station ambassadors in the capital and to confirm the treaty of Tianjin. The Europeans would occupy Tianjin, which controlled the flow of food to Beijing, giving them the power to starve out the capital if the Qing did not agree. The Taku Forts would also be occupied and they demanded admission to Tongzhou, a suburb only 15 miles away from Beijing. Now Guiliang did indeed have carte blanche from Emperor Xianfeng, but he found the new terms so unacceptable he resorted to the classic Chinese ruse that he did not in fact have plenipotentiary which completely contradicted his original claims. Elgin recognized the classic Chinese stalling tactic because it had occurred so many times at this point. Elgin wrote in his diary “The blockheads have gone on negotiating with me just long enough to enable [Hope] Grant to bring all his army up to this point. Here we are with our base established in the heart of the country, in a capital climate, with abundance [food] around us, our army in excellent health, and these stupid people give me a snub which obliges me to break with them,” Elgin at the same time wrote to his wife “I am at war again! My idiotical Chinamen have taken to playing tricks, which give me an excellent excuse for carrying the army on to Pekin.” Thus Elgin and Gros both agreed the time had finally come to simply march on Beijing. After the fall of Beitang and the Taku forts came so easily, Prince Seng was prepared to commit suicide. However he was ordered to retreat north to the city of Tongzhou just outside Beijing. Tongzhou stood on the road between Tianjin and Beijing and it was there he would prepare a last stand. He had sent 10,000 of his infantry and 700 Cavalry from Danggu and 40,000 Mongolian troops towards Tongzhou where he was amassing an army of 60,000. His instructions were not to attack, but to simply ensure peace while protecting the capital. As the Europeans marched, the Emperor dispatched more envoys and countless letters to Elgin and Gros to delay them. They kept saying that Guiliang had been confused and that in fact the Emperor had accepted all the terms if the Europeans would just stop their advance they could ratify the treaty. It seemed the closer the European force got to Beijing the high the frequency of letters and envoys became. But Elgin was fed up with the Chinese delaying tactics and told them all they would not stop until they reached the  suburb of Beijing, Tongzhou. Many of the frantic envoys made a counteroffer asking the Europeans to go to Hesewu which was between Tianjin and Beijing. Grant liked the offer because in truth, the military force was having a hard time keeping up their logistics. In a kind of humorous way, when Grant began to press Elgin about the logistical issue, Elgin began to blame the troops for quote “the difficulty of getting our army along is incredible; our men are so pampered that they do nothing for themselves and their necessities so great that we are almost immovable. I was disgusted to find out the troops refuse to drink their daily ration of grog unless it is iced.” I love the 19th century its so wild.  On September 14th Elgin sent Harry Parkes and Thomas Wade to negotiate with two new emissaries the Emperor sent to Tongzhou. Their names were Zaiyuan and Muyin, Zaiyuan was also the emperor cousin and both men held real authority. On the very first day of negotiation at Tongzhou, after 8 hours of discussion which is light speed it seems for the Chinese, they accepted all terms. They also agreed to a protocol for ratification, the European forces would be allowed to advance to a place known as Zhengjiawan, just 6 miles from Tongzhou. From there Elgin would leave behind the majority of the forces and proceed to Tongzhou with an escort of 1000 men to sign the treaty. After that Elgin and his escort could continue to Beijing to meet Emperor Xianfeng for a formal ceremony of the treaty ratification. Harry Parkes traveled back to Elgin to report the great news and by September 17th he came back to Tongzhou to tell the Qing emissaries Elgin was preparing his arrival. However by the time Parkes got back, the Emperor had secretly instructed Prince Seng to destroy Elgins party when he came to sign the treaty. The Qing forces at Tongzhou were all hard at work preparing artillery batteries and surprise attack launching points such as millet coverings to conceal units. When Parkes began talking to the emissaries they suddenly began an argument about Elgin needing to Kowtow, it was all a ruse to delay. Prince Seng meanwhile counseled his Emperor to save face by going on a “hunting expedition” near the northern border. Seng did not want the Europeans to take the Emperor hostage, though there were many who believed it was actually a secret ploy to grab the dragon throne himself. Emperor Xianfangs concubine turned consort, Cixi urged him to remain in Beijing. The Emperor proposed to march out of the capital at the head of a huge army, make a feint attack at the European force and then flee to the safety of his hunting lodge at Rehe over 100 miles away near the Great Wall. The European military officials told Elgin and Gros to go to Tongzhou with such a small escort was suicide and they believed it to all be a trap. On september 18th as Parkes was riding back to Tianjin to report to Elgin, he noticed Prince Seng’s cavalry massing behind these rows of millets. The cavalry were beginning to occupy Zhengjiawan and now Parkes suspected it was all a trap. Parkes dispatched Henry Loch, Lord Elgin’s private secretary post-haste to rush back to Elgin and report all of this. Meanwhile Parkes alongside two Sikh’s returned to Tongzhou to confront Zaiyuan and Muyin. When Loch got to Elgin it turns out his warning was unnecessary, Grant had sent scouts who had spotted the force at Zhengjiawan. Loch showing true courage quickly rode back to Tongzhou to report back to Parkes with only a single body guard. Both men were captured by Qing cavalry units and they alongside Parkes were offered safe conduct to meet with Prince Seng too which they agreed, I mean they had no real choice. Once they reached Seng they were both arrested alongside 19 Sikh, Thomas Bowlby and 3 British officers.  Parkes remained fearless as he confronted what he described to be “a acne plagued, short, fat Prince Seng”. Despite being in no position to reject such an order, Seng ordered Parkes to kowtow. Parkes refused and was met with his head being smashed into the marble floor multiple times. Qing soldiers pinned Parkes down as Seng screamed  “You have gained two victories to our one. Twice you have dared to take the [Dagu] forts. Why does not that content you? I know your name, and that you instigate all the evil that your people commit. It is time that foreigners should be taught respect.” Parkes managed to free his head to look up at Seng and screamed “we came to you under the flag of truce and you promised safe conduct”. Seng laughed and had his men slam Parkes head back to the floor before he responded “write to your people and tell them to stop the attack”. Parkes replied “I cannot control or influence military movement in any way. I will not deceive your highness”. Suddenly European artillery could be heard and Seng ordered Parkes and the rest of the prisoners to be tossed into wooden carts and sent to Beijing. Parkes and Loch were shackled and incarcerated in the board of Punishments awaiting an execution. The prisoners hands were secured with leather straps that were moistened so they would shrink and cut into the victims wrists. Some of the POW’s were sent to the Summer palace for private inspection and public humiliation by the Emperor. It was Prince Seng’s intention to showcase these prisoners as such so the Qing who witnessed them would see they were not invincible and stop believing the Chinese could not win the war. The prisoners were forced to kneel in the palace courtyard, bound without food or water for 3 days. Their hands swelled and many became gangrenous. Disease and dehydration led to deaths. Parkes and Loch at the board of punishments were placed in separate cells and interrogated and tortured. After days of this they were demanded to write back to Elgin to plead for better terms. Meanwhile Prince Seng had his men continue to dig in and for the first time the Qing forces held a lot of firepower, 70 guns in all. Seng had a 3 mile wide force of cavalry at Zhangjiawan serving as a road block between the Europeans and Beijing. Seng had over 20,000 troops and. approaching them was a force of 1000 French and 2500 British. Yet again the Qing were relying upon bow and arrows for the mounted cavalry and antiquated firelock muskets and gingalls for the, versus the British Enfield rifle, French Minie gun and the deadly Armstrong guns. Seng was using a strategy of encirclement before going in for the kill, something more akin to medieval tactics that had the serious flaw of stretching Seng’s lines out making them easier for enemy penetration.  The smaller European force fought its way forward to meet head on with the bulk of Sings army just outside Tongzhou on september 21. The swift Mongolian cavalry charged in a broad wave at the left flank of the approaching European force which was moving in three columns, cavalry to the left, artillery in the center and infantry to the right. The British and French cavalry quickly split and pulled aside as the artillery in the center wheeled their guns around to fire upon the incoming Mongolians. The Armstrong guns poured salvo after salvo deep into the ranks of the charging cavalry to terrifying effect. The Mongolians pulled up in confusion then the British cavalry of Sikh and Spahi being led by De Montauban smashed into Seng’s left flank, breaking through the lines and scattering them into a chaotic retreat. Then the true slaughter came as one British officer put it “Our artillery opened fire upon the retreating forces with good effect. Firing slowly, every Armstrong shell bursting amongst them and bringing down the enemy in clumps”. A Qing eye witness had this to say about the same event “Our cavalry went out in front, but they were Mongolian horsemen who had never seen battle before. As soon as they heard the sounds of the foreign cannons, they turned back. The foot soldiers behind them scattered ranks, and then everyone trampled one another.” French infantry assaulted the town of Zhangjiawan as Seng’s Mongolian cavalry’s ponies were being crushed by the larger Sikh and Spahi horses using their more advanced rifles. As De Montauban’s cavalry penetrated the Qing lines, they retaliated as best they could with gingalls and firelock rifles all the while Armstrongs kept blasting. When the Qing cavalry began to rout and flee the Sikh and Spahi chased them down bayoneting stragglers. Despite the absolute carnage of the artillery and bayonets, Seng lost only 1500 men during the battle, but the Europeans reported only losing 35, a staggering difference. By the end of the day the Qing forces were broken and their remnants were in a full retreat to Beijing. Elgin worried about the consequences of their victory writing in his diary “I rode out very early this morning, to see my General before he started, and to give him a hint about the looting which has been very bad here. He disapproves of it as much as I do”. General Grant had allowed the troops to sack Zhangjiawan, he considered it reparations rather than vengeance and thievery. Many of the women at Zhangjiawan feared rape, and many of the looting europeans were shocked to find countless women and children committing suicide by opium overdose. One man named Swinhoe recalled ‘the more conscious of them, beating their breasts, condemned the opium for its slow work, crying out, ‘let us die; we do not wish to live’”. Some British army surgeons began pumping the victims stomachs with such success only one of the victims still alive when the army got there died. Baron Gros shared Elgin’s disgust over the looting, he wrote in a communique to the French foreign minister  “J’ai le coeur serré par les actes de vandalisme que j’ai vu commis par nos soldats, comme par nos alliés, charmés de pouvoir rejeter mutuellement les uns sur les autres les actes abominable dont ils se rendaient coupables.” (I was heartbroken by the acts of vandalism that I saw committed by our soldiers as well as by those of our allies, each delighted at the chance of heaping upon the other the blame for abominable deeds for which all deserved punishment.)” After the looting was done the force began to march towards Tongzhou. While the Europeans were marching over at Baliqao where 2 large bridge went over the Bei He River towards Beijing a Qing army was forming. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.  The coalition forces served Pring Seng a bunch of nasty defeats and it seems it was impossible to stop them from marching upon Beijing. All that was left in their path was the great bridges at Baliqao where Pring Seng would make his last stand.

Last time we spoke the reluctant Lord Elgin took up the job as the new emissary to China. Alongside his french counterpart Baron Gross, both men would overlook their military coalitions expedition in China to force the Qing emperor to abide by their treaty and some new demands. They began with a bombardment and occupation of the grand city of Canton and then Ye Mingchen was hunted down and arrested. Ye was replaced with a puppet named Pih-Kwei who would be nominally controlled by the European forces. Now the coalition would fight their way to Beijing to force an audience with Emperor Xianfeng, but something lied in their way, the famous Taku forts at the mouth of the Bei He River. Could the coalition fight past these legendary forts and strangle Beijing  enough to get their demands met?   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. #21 This episode is Part 3 of the Second Opium War: battles for the Taku Forts At high tide the Taku Forts were surrounded by water, the Bei He River became something like a natural moat. The entrance to the Bei He River was 200 yards in width, forcing the British and French warships into a bottleneck gauntlet with each shore holding 137 pieces of antiquated artillery. When the invaders arrived, the Qing forces quickly went to work creating earthwork walls with sandbags to bolster the defenses. The Qing forces presumed the European gunboats hulls were too deep and thus they would not risk entering the river until it was very high tide to avoid going aground. That presumption was a grave error as Seymour and Rigault were willing to risk it and mounted a surprise attack at 10am on May 20th. Elgin made one last ditch effort to get Tan to surrender peacefully, but Tan did not even bother to respond to Elgins message. Now in a similar fashion to the first opium war, as you might remember a large problem for the Qing was their outdated artillery. Their cannons were usually immobile, unable to aim at all degrees and angles. The Taku Fort cannons were aimed in such a way to hit warships at high tide, but the British-French force was going to attack during low tide. Alongside the Taku Forts cannons another defensive obstacle was a 7 inch thick boom made out of bamboo. The Europeans opened fire unleashed pure hell upon the forts and when the forts unleashed their own volley, literally all of their shots went over the European masts. To add insult to injury, the British sacrificed one of their ships, the Coromandel to ram into the boom which broke with ease. The Coromandal received a nasty gash in her hull, but the job had been done. As pieces of the boom floated away, the rest of the European armada began to steam through the gap while the Qing helplessly fired their cannons straight over their masts. The French ships Mitraille and Fusee alongside the British Cormorant fired upon 2 of the Taku Forts on the left bank while the French Avalance, Dragonne and British Nimrod fired upon the 3 forts on the right. The Chinese manning Gingalls had much better luck than the cannons, though it also came at the price of making the Europeans laugh watching men fall over from firing each shot. However not all was funny as Gingalls could be properly aimed unlike the cannons and managed to kill 5 British and 6 French while wounding another 61. Then tragedy happened when a gunpowder cache in one of the Taku forts accidentally exploded killing 100 Chinese. Alongside the invaders maelstrom of gunfire and the defenders despair at the futility of their cannons many began to panic. Even before many of the British and French forces began to land ashore, countless Qing forces were deserting the earthen parapet en masse. In desperation seeing his men flee, the Qing commander launched 50 fireboats stuffed with straw at the barbarian ships, only to see the fireships crash into the bank at the bend in the river. Not a single fireship was able to cause damage to the invaders. With the last ditch effort a complete failure, the commander of the Taku Forts went to the Temple of the Sea God and slashed his jugular vein with his sword killing himself.  The Viceroy of Zhili province was banished to the desolate border territory with Russia in the north. As he packed his bags, Emperor Xianfeng condemned the Viceroy’s mismanagement of the Taku Fort defense as being “without plan or resource”. Elgin after witnessing the victory over the Taku Forts had a really interesting thing to say “Twenty-four determined men with revolvers, and a sufficient number of cartridges, might walk through China from one end to another.”  Back home in Britain Elgin was being praised and was rewarded likewise with carte blanche for all further military actions and negotiations. The new Prime Minister, Lord Derby, haha looks like those grand speeches worked out for him, well he sent Elgin a congratulatory dispatch “giving me latitude to do anything I choose, if only I will finish the affair.” The very same man who condemned British imperialism the year prior was now a warhawk. Lord Malmesbury became the new foreign minister replacing Lord Clarendon. Back in China, the European gunboats made their way up the Bei He River triumphantly towards the next Qing stronghold, Tianjin. Tianjin was around 30 miles away from Beijing. The 3 Plenipotentiaries stayed further behind at the Taku Forts for their own safety as Seymour and Rigault took the lead. As they steamed up the Bei He River, both the Fusee and Cormorant ran aground numerous time, but the Europeans found some very unlikely allies to help, the local Chinese. Turns out a lot of the populace absolutely hated their Manchu overlords and volunteered their tugboats free of charge to help the Europeans. Apparently when the Europeans tried to pay them many refused if it is to be believed.  On June 4th the European armada arrived at Tianjin without any resistance along the way. The Qing defenders at Tianjin morale was so low they were at the point of surrender. There was also a rumor spreading around that Emperor Xianfeng had been overthrown and replaced by a new dynasty who was willing to simply sign a new treaty with the Europeans. Seymour and Rigault advised Elgin he should stay at the Taku Forts for security, but he disregarded this and came up to the war party on May 26th. Elgin wrote in his diary as he made his way up the river. “Through the night watches, when no Chinaman moves, when the junks cast anchor, we laboured on, cutting ruthlessly and recklessly through that glancing and startled river which, until the last few weeks, no stranger keel had ever furrowed. Whose work are we engaged in, when we burst thus with hideous violence and brutal energy into these darkest and most mysterious recesses of the traditions of the past? I wish I could answer that question in a manner satisfactory to myself. At the same time there is certainly not much to regret in the old civilisation which we are thus scattering to the winds. A dense population, timorous and pauperised, such would seem to be its chief product. “ The Plenipotentiaries were quite surprised when they were met outside Tianjin by a detachment of local Qing officials and merchants who came looking for opium. Yes these were those types of middle men folks who were used to bribes and the lucrative business of moving opium. Despite the rumors, Emperor Xianfeng had not been overthrown, but he was willing to negotiate with the Europeans. Emperor Xianfeng sent commissioners to Tianjin in the hope of stopping the European advance to Beijing. Meanwhile with Tianjin not putting up a fight, Elgin wrote in his diary “[I have] complete military command of the capital of China, without having broken off relations with the neutral powers, and without having interrupted, for a single day, our trade at the different ports of the Empire.” The Europeans were treated with the utmost respect and the lavish temple known as the Supreme Felicity was used as headquarters for the Europeans. The Europeans transformed the temple by creating a bowling alley, they used its myriad of altars for washbasins and placed vanity mirrors in front of statues of the gods. This cultural vandalized would be an appetizer for events in the future. Two emissaries were sent by Emperor Xianfeng, both were commissioners, the first was the 74 year old Guiliang, a senior military officer. The other was a 53 year old Mongolian military officer. They met with the Europeans at the Temple of Oceanic Influences southwest of Tianjin. Elgin arrived on June 4th alongside 50 Royal marines and a band from the warship Calcutta to add some muscle.  The first meeting went…terribly. The commissioners had the authority to negotiate, but lacked carte blanche to finalize any deal. Elgin stormed out of the first meeting, completely blowing off this lavish buffet the Qing had set for the party to celebrate the new peace treaty. Elgin was well known to be courtes, but after spending 6 months in China had quickly learnt the only way to get Qing officials to act was to show some bravado. Elgin even wrote to his wife at the time “I have made up my mind, disgusting as the part is to me, to act the role of the ‘uncontrollably fierce barbarian.’” As Elgin stomped his feet walking off he made a threat that he would soon march upon Beijing, even though in truth the Europeans did not have the land forces to do so. Elgin left his brother to continue negotiations, Lord Frederick Bruce. One of Fredericks interpreters, Horatio Lay decided it was a good idea to use some Sturm und Drang and began to literally scream at the Qing commissioners whenever they talked about clauses in the new treaty. Lay even threatened to lay waste to Beijing and would slap the Emperor himself, this guy had some balls. Lay’s abuse of the two commissioners became so bad, the men went around his head to speak to Putiatin and the American envoy William Reed. Reed sent a letter to Elgin asking him to help rein in the tyrannical Lay, but Elgin ignored the letter, wow. Putiatin asked Gros whom he knew had grown very close to Elgin, to intercede, but Gros declined to do so as he feared it would alienate his friendship to Elgin. The Qing then resorted to bribery, they tried to give Lay a horse, but Lay did not change his aggressive stance.  The negotiations were taking very long, it was the typical Chinese strategy of procrastination. Elgin was becoming livid and wrote in his diary about Reed and Putiatin “These sneaking scoundrels do what they can to thwart me and then while affecting to support the Chinese act as their own worst enemies.” Elgin also felt British parliament had failed to back him up. Elgin received a letter from the new Foriegn minister Lord Malmesbury on April the 9th, berating him for not concluding the peace treaty in due time. “A Cabinet has been held today and it is our anxious wish to see this Chinese business settled if it can be done without loss of honour and commercial interests as at present enjoyed. Our reputation is sufficiently vindicated at Canton and we do not look at the chance of a war with the Chinese Empire without much apprehension. I trust therefore that you will not engage us in a contest of this sort if you can possibly avoid it.” The negotiations over the terms of the new treaty stretched for 3 weeks and the Qing were rejecting two clauses the British absolutely wanted: free passage throughout China and for a permanent British and French embassy at the Qing imperial court. The two commissioners stated that accepting either of these would cost the men their lives. Gros and Putiatin began arguing that the permanent embassy point was not critical as long as their ministers had access to Beijing in some form. After much arguing the commissioners conceded to the two points and thus the Treaty of Tianjin was formed. The Europeans made sure to add a clause they henceforth they would no longer be called barbarians in official communications and treaties, though it should be noted the term used by the Chinese literally just meant “those who don't speak Chinese”.  The Treaty of Tianjin opened new ports for trade: Tianjin, Hangzhou and Nanjing. It should be noted the Qing were all too happy to toss Nanjing into the treaty as the Taiping were occupying it as their own capital. Perhaps if they were lucky, the Europeans would go to Nanjing, run into some trouble and attack the Taiping for them! Baron Gros raised concerns over the clauses as he argued Britain would have to bear even more military might to enforce the treaty. As Gros pointed out to Elgin, the Confucious principle, a promise made under duress does not need to be kept. Another item on the treaty clauses was the payment of 2 million taels of silver to Britain for the damage to their factories at Canton and another 2 million in general reparation. The French were to receive 2 million taels as well. Now the warnings Gros made concerned Elgin and he was having second thoughts. One major concern was the idea of extracting he enormous sums of money from what seemed to be an Empire on the verge of Bankruptcy. Elgin wrote back to the foreign minister, concerned that extracting the large sums of money would lead to the toppling of the Manchu rule “Everything we saw around us indicated the penury of the Treasury. To despair, by putting forward pecuniary claims which it could satisfy only by measures that would increase its unpopularity and extend the area of rebellion.” Elgin ended by saying the humiliating treaty would be a large beacon for the Taiping Rebels. William Reed recommended legalizing opium as a clause, arguing the tax revenue from it would benefit the Qing Empire. The British wanted a tariff of only 30 taels and the Cohong merchants supported this. Jardine & Matheson & co released a statement “The use of opium is not a curse, but a comfort and benefit to the hard-working Chinese.” Boy you can’t get any more gross than that one. The French for their part performed a study of the opium problem in China. Baron Gros found that users who smoked upto 8 pipes per day had a life expectancy of only 6 years. Casual consumers could expect around 20 years after starting to smoke it, many died around the age of 50 or so. Opium addicts were found to be spending 2/3 ‘s of their income to feed their addiction. The Russians and Americans agreed with the French that the opium trade was horrible. The French however have little to nothing to say about another form of trade they took part in with China, the “pig trade”, that being the enslavement of coolies. Now you have to hear this one, this is so symbolic of the event as a whole. The translator for the treaty took forever because he was an opium addict. You just can’t make this stuff up folks. The Russians agreed to the terms first on June 18th Putiantian signed off, making Elgin feel betrayed and abandoned because he still had qualms. What was really important to Russia was the border they shared with the Qing, it had been a source of much conflict. Thus Russia settled with a visiting ambassador to Beijing with no permanent status. Christianity received a formal toleration and the Russians got access to 2 more ports on Taiwan and Hainan. Five days later the Americans signed off on a similar agreement to the Russians. Both the Americans and Russians made sure to include the most favored nations clause in their treaties, which meant that whatever further concessions went to the British and French, they too would enjoy them. Thus the 2 nations who brought zero military aid and did basically nothing reaped the same benefits as the 2 nations shouldering everything, ain't that nice? Putiatin sent Elgin and Gros a copy of Russia’s treaty urging them not to topple the manchu rule with too many humiliating concessions. Reed made a similar appeal. Gros reached an agreement on june 23rd and did not hesitate to sign the treaty because he did not want to undercut Elgin’s negotiators, preferring to let them finish the job. The French also sought much less than Britain from the Chinese. A week after and the British had still not come to an agreement, Gros became impatient and sent Elgin a letter, that if the British did not sign soon the French would simply sail off. The British were stuck on two key issue; to have a permanent ambassador in Beijing and freedom to travel anywhere in China. The Chinese commissioners desperately sought the aid of Gros and Putiatin, indicating to them the Emperor was going to have them killed if they agreed to the two clauses. Elgin threatened to march on Beijing and it seems the commissioners were forced to give in. On June 26th the British Treaty of Tianjin was ratified. The Chinese would pay 5 million in war reparations, Christian missionaries would be allowed to work unhindered throughout China and 11 ports would be opened for trade. Taxes on imported goods would be set on a follow up meeting at Shanghai, and there 5% was agreed upon. Taxables goods would be silk, brocades and of course opium. The taxation agreement basically made opium legal in China, but without bringing the subject up. The Commissioners signed the treaty, but when they got back to Beijing, take a wild guess, the Emperor rejected the humiliating terms. Now Elgin failed to bring up the issue of the opium trade and its official legalization as were his instructions from Clarendon. Elgin probably felt since Clarendon lost his position he no longer had to respect the order. Clarendons successor Lord Malmesbury did not give a similar order. On July 3rd, 400 men and a naval band serenaded Elgin signing the Treaty of Tianjin at the Temple of Oceanic Influences under some paper lanterns. And despite the fact the commissioners, as they said it, were soon to be beheaded, they invited Elgin to a lavish dinner at the temple after the signing. At the dinner one of the commissioners, Hua Shan gave Elgin copies of some famous poetry. The next day, Baron Gross signed the French treaty but cheekily added some new demands that the commissioners were forced to abide by. He demanded the release of all Chinese christians imprisoned for their faith. Gros sent a triumphant report back home stating “Je suis heureux de pouvoir annoncer aujord-hui à Votre Excellence que la Chine s’ouvre enfin au Christianisme, source réelle de toute civilisation, et au commerce et à l’industrie des nations occidentales.” (“I am happy to be able to announce today to Your Excellence that China has at last opened itself to Christianity, the real source of all civilization, and to trade and the manufactures of the nations of the West.)” Back in Britain Elgins triumph was met with mixed reviews, though most were favorable. Elgins private secretary Laurence Oliphant, noted the impressive cost/benefit ratio of the casualties in his 1860 account of the campaign, ‘Narrative of the Earl of Elgin’s Mission to China and Japan’: “Hostilities with the Empire of China had terminated with a loss to the British arms of about twenty men killed in action...and a treaty had been signed far more intensive in its scope, and more subversive of imperial prejudices than that concluded fifteen years before, after a bloody and expensive war, which had been protracted over a period of two years.” Karl Marx, yes the Karl Marx, was working at the time as the European correspondent of the New York Tribune wrote a letter to his writing partner Friedrich Engels on some thoughts towards the conflict  “The present Anglo-Chinese Treaty which in my opinion was worked out by Palmerston in conjunction with the Petersburg Cabinet and given to Lord Elgin to take with him on his journey is a mockery from beginning to end.” Karl Marx would have a lot more to say about the Taiping Rebellion, which is quite interesting given the rebellion is considered a proto marxist one. Elgin himself was quite depressed over the ordeal, he wrote this in his diary “I have an instinct in me which loves righteousness and hates iniquity and all this keeps me in a perpetual boil. Though I have been forced to act almost brutally I am China’s friend in almost all this.” To try and raise the celebration somewhat, Elgin decided to take 5 ships up the Yangtze River as a demonstration of Britain's naval power and to discourage the Chinese from going back on the new treaty. However news of some raids against Canton forced him to pull be short. The new Viceroy of Canton named Huang had incited a rebellion rallying Canton residents to quote “Go forth in your myriads, then, and take vengeance on the enemies of your Sovereign, imbued with public spirit and fertile in expedients.” In July a group of Cantonese got their hands on some artillery and began to shell the British resident at Whampoa. The Cantonese mob followed this up by performing a raid after they heard about the humiliating terms of the treaty of Tianjin. During a short conference in Shanghai, Elgin demanded Viceroy Huang be removed. On top of the Canton problem, the two commissioners, Guiling and Hua Shan had reneged on the treaty clauses about allowing British ambassadors in Beijing. They sent a letter to Elgin stating that had agreed to such clauses under duress and suggested that future British ambassadors visit Beijing from time to time as diplomatic business warranted. They argued that because of large scale xenophobia in Beijing, they feared for the lives of any British dwelling there. Then 4 days later they added another excuse; they said that to allow British ambassadors to live in Beijing would generate fear and a loss of respect for the Qing government. Such further humiliation might very well topple the Manchu and allow the Taiping to take over. Elgin was somewhat swayed by the Taiping excuse and said he would pass their message onto his foreign officer. Elgin was also in a tough position as the fact a rebellion was occurring in Canton made it seem clear that guaranteeing the safety of British ambassadors in Beijing would not be an easy task. The French concurred with Elgin, that to have ambassadors in Beijing would be dangerous now. In the meantime Elgin had set up a 2 month survey of the Yangtze River using 2 gunboats to demonstrate Britains new right of travel throughout China. The idea had been to see if the local Chinese would obey the treaty clauses. Elgins tour wound up going past the Taiping capital of Nanjing and it is alleged a single cannon perched on a Nanjing wall fired upon Elgin’s ships. Elgin’s reprisal was pretty brutal, he sent a volley knocking out the Taiping cannon then ordered a 99 minute naval bombardment of Nanjing before sailing on. Eglin had planned to finish the trip by meeting with the Emperor and giving him a letter from Queen Victoria, but the worsening of the Canton situation forced him to pull back south. In February of 1859 Cantonese rebels ambushed and massacred 700 British marines around the countryside of Canton. In retaliation, General van Straubenzee, the military commander of 3000 troops in Canton, hunted down the headquarters of the rebels which they found at Shektsing a few miles south of the city and completely annihilated all those there and razed everything to the ground. The destruction of the rebel camp seems to have worked quite well as suddenly the Emperor sent word to ratify the treaty of Tianjin’s clauses and had Huang removed from power and demanded the rebels disband. While Elgin dealt with the renewed China problem, his brother Frederick Bruce returned to Britain with the signed Treaty of Tianjin. Lord Malmesbury rewarded Bruce by naming him the first ambassador to China, a post Elgin would have received, but he was too wary of the post given the circumstances now. Elgin left China in March of 1859, taking the chance to link up and meet his brother in Sri Lanka in April as Bruce was on his way back to China. Now Bruce was not lets say, as great as his brother. He had recently been the Lt-governor of Newfoundland, then the Colonial secretary of Hong Kong. In all honestly a lot of his appointments were merely a result of him being Elgin’s brother. But Bruce did have working knowledge of Chinese customs. Bruce arrived back at the mouth of the Bei He River on June 18th of 1859 alongside a force of 16 warships. Admiral Seymour had returned to London and was replaced by Rear-admiral James Hope. Unfortunately it seems Hope was even more racist and hated the Chinese more than Seymour. 3 days later the new American ambassador showed up John E Ward aboard a steamer, the Powhatan. The French representative, Anton de Bourbelon brought 2 warships with him as the French fleet had remained close by in Indo-China. Now Emperor Xianfeng wanted above all else to keep the Europeans the hell out of Beijing. The Emperor suggested right away that they ratify the new treaty at Shanghai, but all 3 of the European powers declined this. Many of the Emperors close advisors wanted to resist the foreigners taking up residence in Beijing. Some of these high ranking officials gave orders for 3 large bamboo booms, 3 feet thick to be strung across the Bei He river to block the foreigners advance. It looked like war was back on the menu and in a vain attempt Bruce tried writing a letter to Beijing politely asking the booms be removed. Well Bruce got no reply and this prompted Admiral Hope to ask permission to blow the booms apart. On June 21st, Hope sent captain Willes aboard a steamer to break through the first boom which went successfully, but the other 2 proved unbreakable. The British tried using some gunpowder but it just couldn't do the job, then to add insult to injury during the night the Qing repaired the first boom.  On June 25th Bruce received a letter from the Viceroy of Zhili, Heng Fu. Heng suggested the ambassadors lodge at Beitang, around 8 miles north of Beijing, basically it was a face saving gesture. The British however were armed to the teeth and had just undergone 3 annoying and long years of negotiations and war and had no patience. Bruce told Admiral Hope to attack the booms again. That afternoon Hope took his flagship Plover and attempted ramming the boom, but this time hit ship was stopped cold. The Qing had learnt a lesson from the previous conflict and this time had made the 2nd and 3rd booms out of full sized tree trunks sling together with heavy chains. As the Plover staled and the other European gunships had to stop just before it, all of a sudden the forts portholes were cast aside to reveal a full complement of 40 cannons and they opened fire. The first salvo took the head right off Plovers bow gunner and 3 other sailors fell wounded. For 3 hours Plover was pulverized. Hope unwisely stood on his deck wearing a gold braid basically showing the Chinese he was a high ranking official. A Qing sharpshooter landed a shot hitting Hope in his thigh. Hope fell on deck and was bound up by a surgeon as the Qing retaliated. For a rather surprising change, the Qing cannons, though still immobile were better aimed and managed to blow Hope’s second in command and 8 other sailors to pieces, 22 others were wounded. Plovers hull eventually burst sinking the ship into the mud and this would lead to the deaths of countless crew. Hope believe it or not got up and rowed over to another ship, the Opossum and began standing on its deck in plain sight. Because of his thigh wound he had to hold onto a railing to hold himself upright and that said railing was hit by a Qing cannonball. The railing collapsed and Hope fell breaking several ribs, ouch. This prompted him to turn command over to Captain Shadwell. The Qing volleys managed to disable 5 of the invaders frontal gunships prompting Bruce to order 7 more which were 8 miles away to come forward and replace the damaged ones. By the evening, 5 British warships had been immobilized and 2 had run aground and one was a sitting duck for fort cannons.  The fort guns went silent in the early evening and the British officers took it to mean that the forts garrisons had fled like they had in the previous year. The landing parties surged ahead as planned and that was when disaster struck again. It turned out to be a ruse to entice the landing parties to storm the beach. The landing party soon found out to their horror 2 trenches were dug in front of the walls, filled with water and mud and some large iron spikes behind them. That was bad, but immediately when the marines got off their barges the muddy banks seized their feet leaving them helpless as the forts unleashed carnage upon them. Those lucky enough to make it to the trenches found the muddy water was too thick to swim. Many men in despair clambered beside the base of a fort wall to escape the trenches and gunfire. The Qing began setting off fireworks to illuminate the trapped marines as they fired upon them. Although America said it would remain neutral, Commodore Josiah Tattnall aboard the USS Powhatan was trying to get past the booms as well when he ran into the conflict. Tattnal was a veteran of the war of 1812 and like pretty much any American at the time disliked the British. Tattnal received word that Hope had been shot and upon witnessing the horror show he suddenly cast neutrality to the wind. Tattnal was from Georgia, a loyal southerner with a lets say, strong sense of racial pride…yeah we will call it that. Whatever hate he held for the British was cast aside as he suddenly screamed out “blood is thicker than water, I’d be damned if I stood by and watched white men butchered before my eyes!”. Tattnals charge forward hardly turned the tide of battle, it amount mostly to him towing more British marines forward to their horrific death. Some of his men grabbed and operated some British guns firing at the fort while Tattnall personally tended to Hope. A single american died and the breach of neutrality could have caused a catastrophe, but one thing it did do was set a new tone for British-American friendship. As the London times wrote “Whatever may be the result of the fight, England will never forget the day when the deeds and words of kindly Americans sustained and comforted her stricken warriors on the waters of the Bei He.” Around 7pm, as the Qing set off fireworks to illuminate the area, Captain Shadwell with 50 royal marines and French seamen led by the French commander Tricault landed on some muddy flats outside one of the Taku forts. They clamored through knee deep mud as the defenders rained Gingall fire down upon them at short range. The British-Franco force found themselves literally stuck in the mud, unable to use their wall scaling ladders to get over the fort. Shadwell sent word back to his superior that he and his men were pinned down and requested reinforcements to storm the Taku walls. There was no more fighting men available however, he was eventually order to limp back to the ships. The British and French suffered high casualties. Shadwell was wounded, Tricault was dead, and of the 1000 men who took part in the battle around half were killed or wounded, 29 of them officers. Many men dragged themselves or limped through mud to get back to their ships. A lot of these men were veterans of the Crimean war and had never tasted such defeat. One veteran of the battle of Balaclava said he would rather have relived that battle three times over than suffer the Taku Forts again. The gunboats, Lee, Plover and Cormorant were disabled, the Kestrel sank.  Admiral Hope sent a dispatch to the Admiralty showing his shock at how the Qing performed “Had the opposition they expected been that as usual in Chinese warfare, there is little doubt that the place would have been successfully carried at the point of the bayonet.” To try and save face, Bruce reported back to Britain that the sudden military prowess of the Qing forces at the Taku forts was because Russians were helping them. He alleged based on eyewitness testimony that some men in fur hats and European dress had been seen directing operations atop a Taku fort, it was mere bullshit. The real reason for the Qing victory was because of Prince Senggelinqin. Senggelinqin was a mongol cavalry commander that had helped the Qing crush a large army of Taiping rebels. He was a member of the Borjigin clan and the 26th generation descendant of Qasar, a brother to Genghis Khan. He led Qing forces to smash the Taiping during the Northern Expedition in the southern suburbs of Tianjin. When the Second Opium War broke out he was appointed Imperial commissioner in charge of the defense of Tianjin. Seng rejoiced in his well earned victory. He wrote back to the emperor acknowledging the British and French might return with more ships, but asserted confidently he would thrash them again and again “the pride and vainglory of the barbarians, already under severe trial, will immediately disappear. When that happens, China can then enjoy some decades of peace. The barbarians, already somewhat disillusioned and repentant, may lend themselves to persuasion and be brought under control. If they of their own accord should wholeheartedly become obedient, then peace would be secure and permanent.” The Emperor responded with caution “the foreigners may harbor secret designs and hide themselves around nearby islands, waiting for the arrival of more soldiers and ships for a surprise attack in the night or in a storm” Emperor Xianfeng still shared a sense of relief and expressed hope the foreigners needs for Chinese goods would mean that they could sort out their problems in Shanghai and that there would be no need for ambassadors in Beijing nor new treaties. Seng also pointed out during the battle the Americans got involved. “Although the starting of hostilities was by the English barbarians, France and America’s cooperation in the melee is also inescapable.” Seng based his claim off intelligence extracted from a Canadian POW named John Powers. John claimed to be a neutral American in an attempt to escape imprisonment. The Chinese did not free him and instead used him as proof the Americans had abandoned neutrality. Seng much like most Chinese at the time were weak on Western Geography and assumed Canada was part of the United States, sad Canadian noises. At one point an American missionary who spoke Chinese tried to explain to Seng the difference between English and French Canada and the United States, Seng described the experience in a letter to the Qing imperial court. “[The missionary] stated that America contained Englishmen and Frenchmen, and when there was fighting, the flag was the only criterion.” Eventually John was released after a month, the Qing simply did not want to add America to a list of growing enemies. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.  The battle for the Taku Fort was an absolute catastrophe resulting in humiliation for the Europeans for once. Prince Seng had a grand victory, perhaps now the foreign barbarians would learn their lesson and stop their war. Or perhaps the Europeans would like their wounds and come right back.  

Last time we spoke Rear Admiral Seymour took the charge as he waged war first on the city of Canton to hunt down the seemingly tyrannical Ye Mingchen. Seymour took the city quickly and with ease, but knew he had no way to hold onto it so he opted to start capturing all the forts he could along the riverways. Meanwhile back in Britain, the politicians were raging over the entire conflict and what was to be the best course of action. The Torries and Whigs fought another to use the issue for their own interests and it seems the Torries might be successful at thwarting the need for another war with China, but not if the Whigs had anything to say about it. Now a new figure will come to the forefront to be placed in charge of the China issue and it will consume his life. Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. #20 This episode is Part 2 of the Second Opium War: Lord Elgin’s reluctant War Now outside parliament, the British public was in a jingoistic mood after winning the Crimean War. Palmerston began to appeal to the masses on the basis of patriotism. Meanwhile the Prime Minister decided to appoint a plenipotentiary to carry out negotiations with the Qing court. The Duke of Newcastle was Palmerstons first choice, but he rejected the job as he knew it would be a thankless one and would earn him no favors. On March 13th, in the middle of a general election, Palmerston announced a new appointment for the new envoy to China. It was the popular Scotsman, former governor of Jamaica and British North America, James Bruce the Earl of Elgin, a direct descendant of Robert the Bruce. Lord Elgin was the son of a famous antiquarian who had notoriously preserved or better said vandalized, if you're Greek, parts of Ancient Athens by shipping them back to Britain. Yes the British museum issue. Elgin also sold these pieces of history in question to the British Museum at around 35,000 pounds in 1816 before going bankrupt and leaving England in exile to escape creditors. So yeah daddy was not a good person so to say. Ironically Elgin’s fathers actions would haunt him in this story, because he would perform a heinous act on a similar level. During the 3 day voting period that began on March 28th of 1857, the Whigs managed to return to office with a landslide victory. Turns out Palmerston had won the public over, alongside the Queen and now parliament.  The day before Palmerston named Elgin the plenipotentiary to China, Elgin wrote to his wife “My Dearest, I have had a note from [Palmerston] followed by an interview. The proposal is to undertake a special mission of a few months’ duration to settle the important and difficult question now embarrassing us in the East and concentrating the attention of all the world. On what grounds can I decline? Not on political grounds for however opposed I might be to the Govt. that would be a reason to prevent them from making the offer, but not me from accepting it. The very mission of a Plenipotentiary is an admission that there are errors of policy to be repaired.” Elgin’s wife responded “Dearest, it was unexpected but if your conscience and feelings tell you to say yes I would not for the world dissuade you. God bless you my own darling. I promise you to do my best not to distress you. Forgive me if I can’t write more today. Your own ever Mary.” Now Lord Elgin had a very impressive career, as I said he had been the governor of Jamaica and the governor-general of British North America, I live in quebec and he is quite the figure here. There is a statue of him in front of the Quebec parliament building. Lord Elgin attempted to establish responsible government to Canada, wrestled issues of immigration to Canada and took a surprising stance during a French English conflict. You see there were rebellions in what was then Upper and Lower Canada over various colonial issues. Lord Elgin ended up compensating French Canadians who had suffered during the rebellions and this greatly pissed off his British colleagues. On top of that Elgin invited the leader of the lower Canada revolt, Papineau to dine with him at the governor-generals residence in Canada. An English mob began burning parliament buildings in montreal, Elgin was assaulted, but instead of calling in the military, Elgin got his family to safety and allowed civil authorities to restore order. Anyways Elgin did a lot in Canada such as setting up economic treaties with the US and such, he is a large figure in my countries history, though I’d argue not many Canadians are even aware of him haha. Canadian history can be, the best way to put it, a bit boring. Now back to the story at hand, Lord Elgin was a very well regarded figure for his capabilities and royal blood. But he also held a ton of debt from his father, the Greek artifact plunderer. Elgin was notably not xenophobic in a time when many British were. Elgin spoke English and French and was a highly educated man. The day before Elgin set off for China he was given detailed instructions from Lord Clarendon. Clarendon ordered Elgin that under no circumstance was he to try and retake Canton, a tall order since Bowring and Seymour were literally trying to do just that. Clarendon stated he was to acquire the right for Britain to send an ambassador to Beijing to conduct and direct negotiations with the Qing imperial court. He was to demand the opening of new ports of trade and to force the Qing government to adhere to the terms of the treaty of Nanjing. Military force was to be only a last resort if the Emperor refused and Elgin was urged to contain the military action to naval attacks only to save British lives. Elgin had his own demand, he wanted the British military forces in China to be under his sole command. Britain ended up giving Elgin joint command alongside Lt Generals Ashburnham and Seymour who could decide when and where to attack. Elgin made record time journeying to China by riding on the brand new railroad that cut across the Isthmus of Suez. From Suez he took a ship, rounding the coast of India in late May. Elgin came across troops who had been summoned from Bombay and Calcutta. Interesting side note, in May, Sepoy’s, those being Indian troops of the East India Company Army, stationed in Meerut performed a mutiny. They had refused to follow orders from the British officers and on May 10th, an entire garrison killed their officers, their families and any Europeans in the vicinity. Word spread of the mutiny resulting in similar outbreaks amongst other sepoy units. Within just a few days there was a widespread rebellion as some Indian prince joined, rallying against the British Raj. Northern India was ablaze with bloodshed and it looked like Britain was at threat of losing its greatest colony. Elgin arrived in Singapore on June 3rd where he was met with two letters from Lord Canning the governor general of india. The letters told Elgin the dire news and begged him to divert troops assigned to the China mission to come help in India. Canning was an old classmate of Elgin and said “If you send me troops they shall not be kept one hour more than is absolutely needed.” Elgin had no time to consult with Plamerston or Clarendon, as it would take 2 months to get word back to London. Without hesitation Elgin diverted 1700 men of the 90th regiment from Mauritius to help quell the rebellion. I obviously cant go into the Indian Rebellion of 1857, but just want to say if you get a chance do learnt about it, an absolutely horrible event. Around 150,000 Indians were killed in the rebellion with 100,000 of them being civilians. The British suffered around 6000 troops and 40,000 civilians killed. The British forces performed massacres and numerous atrocities in places like Delhi, Kanpur, Lucknow and Allahabad. On top of the war deaths, it is estimated up to a possible 800,000 Indians would die from famine and disease as well. A truly horrible event.  Back to Elgin, he faced a period in Singapore where he had to await some troops from India to come over to China and during this period he began to study the China situation. Elgin visited an opium den in Singapore to witness the evil effects of the drug firsthand. He wrote this to his wife about the experience  “They are wretched, dark places with little lamps. The opium looks like treacle, and the smokers are haggard and stupefied, except at the moment of inhaling, when an unnatural brightness sparkles from their eyes,” As a result of dispatching men to India to help Canning, Elgin now had to go to China aboard a single ship, the Shannon without any troops. He arrived in Hong Kong on July 2nd of 1857 and was welcomed warmly by the Chinese. Seymour was not all too pleased to find Elgin arriving without any troops. Seymour soon pressed Elgin to form an attack on Canton, handing to him a petition signed by 85 British opium merchants who all believed if Canton fell to the British, the Emperor would have to capitulate to all of their demands. Elgin did not give in to the pressure, though he also did not have the troops to carry out the task regardless.  Elgin then began to brush shoulders with Harry Parkes and they did not get off on the right foot. Parks said of Elgin  “He may be a man that suits the government well, very cautious, having ever before him [placating] Parliament, the world, the public, etc.” Parkes soon began a campaign against Elgin by sending a ton of letters back home criticizing Elgin for what he called “too generous a treatment of the Chinese”. As warhawkish as Seymour and Parkes could be, it was Bowring who really brought the heat. Bowring felt demoted by Elgin’s new position and began to work behind the scenes to bring Elgin down. Bowring also began to lecture Elgin on the imperative for  full scale military action against Canton. “There is quite an explosion of public opinion as to the fatal mistake which would be committed by any movement upon Peking until the Cantonese question is settled. Many think such a movement might imperil the whole trade of China. I am quite of the opinion that any action which refers the Canton question to the Emperor would be a most injurious and embarrassing step.” Elgin for the most part ignored Bowring and opted instead for negotiations as were his instructions. Elgin also shared a concern it seems the other men did not, Elgin worried about tearing China apart. Elgin did not want to topple the Manchu rulers of China and throw the nation into some Balkanization hellscape which would only make things harder for Britain to deal with. The Taiping and their talk of banning private property scared Elgin, who knew Britain's trade would be hurt by such rule. In the end Elgin did not wait for his reinforcements from India, he instead went to India himself. Elgin gathered a small force of 400 marines and sailors aboard the 55 gun ship Shannon and sailed for Calcutta. Elgin made it to Calcutta on June 14th where he found the city abandoned by its European residents. Turned out there was a rumor the Sepoy’s were going to march into the city to slaughter the Europeans so they all fled, the rumor proved to be false however. Elgin was mortified by the situation in India. He was lambasted with horror stories of sexual atrocities committed against British subjects and mass hangings in reprisal. One Major Renard, ordered the execution of 12 Indians for allegedly turning their faces the wrong way as Renards troops marched past them. That same Major also allegedly burnt down every Indian village he passed and hung 42 villagers along the way. Elgin sent a letter back to his wife  “I have seldom from man or woman since I came to the East heard a sentence that was reconcilable with the hypothesis that Christianity had come into the world. Detestation, contempt, ferocity, vengeance, whether Chinamen or Indians be the object.” Elgin hopped aboard the steamship Ava on september 20th to return to China. Back in China, Bowring had taken advantage of Elgin’s trip by making overtures to Ye Mingchen in violation of Britain's instructions that the Chinese viceroy should only deal with Elgin. When Elgin found out and confronted Bowring, Bowring simply denied it. A month after Elgin had arrived to China, his French counterpart arrived, Baron Gros. The French aristocrat quickly began to share Elgin’s hatred for Bowring upon meeting the man. Gros and Elgin both agreed to disagree with Bowring’s ideas from the offset. Gros and Elgin agreed the response to the arsenic bakery debacle and the murder of Father Chapedelaine, would be a well coordinated, measured and hopefully light on military deaths. Gros advocated for an attack upon Beijing, while Elgin urged for negotiation. However, foreign minister Clarendon chose another option. Clarendon sent Elgin a letter on October 14th supporting Bowrings ideas. Winter was fast approaching, and the Bei He River, the gateway to Beijing would be frozen before an allied army could reach the city gates. Thus Clarendon advocated for an attack on Canton. Elgin was forced to allow Bowring to take the lead. In november, William Reed, the new American Minister showed up aboard the 55 gun steamship Minnesota. Reed was instructed by his government that America would remain neutral in the inevitable conflict. Russia’s emissary, Count Euphemius Putiatin also arrived in november aboard the Amerika. Putiatin brought with him a proposal for China, if the emperor would give Manchuria to the Russians, the Tsar would help the Qing stamp out the Taiping Rebels once and for all. So each of the 4 nations brought their representatives looking to strike a deal with the Qing dynasty. In December of 1857, 3 ships carrying 2000 British soldiers from Calcutta sailed into Canton’s harbor followed by a French fleet led by Admiral Rigault de Genouilly. Elgin and Gros sent Ye Mingchen separate ultimatums. France demanded the murderers of Father Chapedelaine to be brought to justice, reparations and permission to operate unrestricted in Canton. Britain demanded compliance with the terms of the treaty of Nanjing; a permanent British ambassador in Beijing; and unspecified reparations for the loss of life and property. Elgin felt his demands were reasonable, but also knew full well they were unacceptable for the Emperor. Ye Mingchen believed the demands to be mere posturing rather than actual threats. He did not have the authority to satisfy the British and French ultimata. So he did nothing…well nothing is a strong word he actually began spending his time by beheading 400 Taiping and placed their heads on spikes atop Cantons walls. It seems perhaps Ye believed such actions would scare off the foreigners, because he had no real army or navy to back him up. Well his brutality against the Taiping sure backfired. The British enlisted 700 really enraged Hakka to man the artillery at the Dutch Folly which was across the Pearl River near the foreign factories. Hakka if you remember made up some of the Taiping ranks as they were a persecuted ethnic minority in Guangxi province. 8 British and 4 French steamships arrived to the scene to add extra military might.  Ye Mingchen replied to the British and French in separate letters. To the British Ye stated, that in 1850 Sir George Bonham had agreed to give up access to Canton to avoid a war with the Qing dynasty. Ye heard that Bonham was given the Order of Bath and perhaps if Elgin did likewise he could also receive such a title. Ye was not aware that the title of Earl was high than that of Sir, but give the guy some credit for doing some homework on the foreign advisory. As for the treaty of Nanjing, Ye simply stated the Emperor declared the terms would be held inviolate for 10 millennium, it would be suicide to go against the Emperor. Ye sent a similar letter to the French and while he made these rather coy and cheeky remarks he did not seem to grasp the very real war threat going on. It may have been because he was too distracted by the Taiping rebellion, which to be brutally honest was a much more pressing concern, regardless Ye lacked any real strategy with how to deal with the foreign threat. When the British and French landed on Henan island, opposite of Canton of December 15th, Ye apparently made no move. The British and French disembarked without any resistance and found the strategic island undefended and without fortification. 200 Chinese war junks and sampans near Henan island fled as soon as the British and French had arrived.  On December 21st, Elgin, Gros and Putiatin had a talk aboard the French flagship Audacieuse. They all agreed to give Ye Mingchen one more chance before the shelling of Canton began. They sent Ye a 2 day deadline to meet their demands. As they waited Elgin wrote in his diary “Canton the great city doomed I fear to destruction by the folly of its own rulers and the vanity and levity of ours.” While they waited for 2 days, Elgin and Gros discussed military organization. Admiral Seymour and Rigault would command sea forces, while land troops would be commanded by General Ashburnham. On paper the invaders seemed to be completely out gunned. Canton’s 6 mile wall circumference was 25 feet high and 20 feet wide. The allied force amounted to 800 men of the Indian Royal Sappers and Miners and the British 59th regiment of Foot, 2100 Royal marines, 1829 men of a British naval brigade and 950 men of the French Navy. The Qing forces were 30,000 strong at Canton, they were outnumbered 5 to 1. The Europeans did have one major tactical advantage however. The European ship born artillery had superior range and firepower compared to Cantons gun and their position on Henan island was within shelling distance of Canton.  On December 22nd, Ye’s deadline ran out, but Elgin and Gros hesitated. On December 24th, perhaps because it was so close to Christmas they decided to give the Viceroy another 3 days to accept their terms, but Ye did not respond. On the evening of the 27th, the Europeans sent a reconnaissance team ashore a mile from the city's walls. On the morning of the 28th, the Anglo-Franco armada began shelling the city with artillery support from Henan. The bombardment went on for an entire day and on top of the shells, the europeans also fired incendiary rockets. It is alleged the Qing defenders only tossed back 2 shells. It is estimated the Chinese suffered almost 200 casualties to the shelling, while the incendiary rockets lit parts of Canton ablaze.While the day long shelling was raging on, 500 British and French forces landed and made their way through some rice paddies and came across a cemetery. At the cemetery Qing soldiers were taking up positions behind tombstones. Many of the Qing soldiers were armed with an 18th century weapon known as a Jingall. Now if you have a chance to google these, please do because they are comical to say the least. Its a muzzle loaded giant musket, the barrel is around 60 inches. Usually these were mount on walls, but they could be placed on tipods or on the shoulder of a comrade while you shoot it. Picture a comically big musket and thats basically what it looks like. In the west we call them “wall guns”, anyways they are extremely impractical. So for the Qing it took at minimum 2 men to fire one Jingall and usually when they fired them, the kick back knocked the men to the ground which provided quite the slapstick humor for the Europeans witnessing it. Many of the Qing soldiers also fired bow and arrow alongside some firelock muskets. On the other side, the British and French were using 19th century rifles, such as the British Enfield Rifle and French Minie rifle. Basically it was like Mike Tyson fighting an infant. The Europeans began to take up positions behind tombstones similar to the Qing. During the night the european formed an HQ in a temple on the cemetery grounds and apparently did nothing while some of their soldiers began to ransack the cemetery’s statuaries thinking they would find gems or gold inside them. Dawn of the next day, the Europeans woke up to a shocking sight. On the hills behind Canton emerged 1500 Qing soldiers. The Qing soldiers had fled the battle to go atop the hill and were simply staring at the Europeans like they were watching a sports game. It seems Ye’s brutality had caused a lot of dissatisfaction amongst the local populace and this resulted in quite the lackluster will to fight. At 9am Admiral Rigault personally led French troops towards the walls of canton carrying scaling ladders. The defenders on top of the walls provided little resistance, while some Chinese artillery on some nearby hills tried to shell the invaders. By 10am British and French flags were flying from the 5 story Pagoda near the walls. Alongside the wall climbing, the British stormed the East Gate of the city with ease. Over 4700 British, Indian alongside 950 French troops scaled the walls in total. Seymour and Rigault had stopped the shelling to allow the troops to get atop the walls and began to fire again, but Elgin quickly forced them to stop deeming it overkill. The death toll was incredibly lopsided, the French reported 3 men dead and 30 wounded, the British reported 13 men dead with around 83 wounded. The Qing suffered upto a possible 650 casualties. The allies set to work hunting Ye Mingchen who they believed was still hiding in the city. Ye’s second in command Pih-kwei came out suddenly making a proclamation that he would no longer associate himself with Ye Mingchen nor his disastrous policies. On New Years day, Elgin made a tour of Canton and noticed a lack of resistance, confirming to himself he made the right decision to halt the shelling. Then Elgin witnessed large scale looting. Elgin’s private secretary Laurence Oliphant noted “While honest Jack was flourishing down the street with a broad grin of triumph on his face, a bowl of goldfish under one arm and a cage of canary-birds under the other, honest Jean, with a demure countenance and no external display, was conveying his well-lined pockets to the waterside.” It seemed the French preferred to grab cash while the British sought out souvenirs. Elgin feared losing control of the men and ordered them to all stop looting, but he had no authority for the French forces. Upon seeing that the French were not halting their looting, the British soldiers soon rejoined the plundering spree. Elgin lamented the situation in his diary “My difficulty has been to prevent the wretched Cantonese from being plundered and bullied. There is a [Hindi] word called ‘loot’ which gives unfortunately a venial character to what would, in common English, be styled robbery. Add to this that there is no flogging in the French Army, so that it is impossible to punish men committing this class of offenses.” The son of Howqua and other Cohong merchants began to petition Elgin to do something to restore order and stop the plunder and destruction of Canton. Within mere days of the city's occupation, 90% of its inhabitants fled the city. One thing Elgin did not seem to mind though was “official expropriations” and sent one Colonel Lemon with a few Royal marines to Canton’s treasury where they seized 52 boxes of silver, 68 boxes of gold ingots and over a millions dollars worth in silver taels. This “legal plunder” wink wink, was put aboard the HMS Calcutta and sent post haste to India. After all, the war had to be paid for.  On January 5th, over 8000 British and French marched through the gates of Canton unopposed. Harry Parkes grabbed a squad of 100 Royal Marines and rushed over to Ye Mingchens residence armed with a miniature of the man to identify him. This was quite the smart move, because many of Ye Mingchen’s subordinates had attempted to pass themselves off as the viceroy to protect him. Well the tactic provided results as they caught Ye as he was trying to climb over the rear wall of his residence. A marine seized Ye by his queue and dragged the man to a sedan chair enclosed with bars to humiliate him. The tiny prison was put aboard the steamship Inflexible to an audience of Europeans and many Hakka, including Taiping rebels who taunted the disgraced viceroy by making the slashing throat gesture. When the marines searching Ye’s residence they came across his letters back to the Qing court, giving them a ton of insight into how the Qing worked. That same day, Elgin and Gross named Ye’s second in command, Pih-Kwei the new governor of Canton, but he would be advised by the triumvirate of Parkes, Captain Martineau and Colonel Holloway. The 3 real powers behind Pih-Kwei were granted control of judiciary, and to vet edicts before they were promulgated. Each man spoke Chinese and would report to Clarendon. Elgin wrote to Clarendon to explain the situation “If Pih-kwei was removed or harshly dealt with we should be called upon to govern a city containing many hundred thousand inhabitants with hardly any means of communicating with the people.” The Europeans also created a police force for Canton to stop all the looting and restore confidence in the once great commercial city. Howqua, his son and the other Cohong merchants found the new situation with the Europeans a far better deal than what would occur if the Taiping took Canton. Pih-Kwei received secret instructions from Beijing on January 27th, ordering him to organize an army of civilians and kick the invaders out. He also received orders from Seymour to hand over 17 Chinese war junks to help fight off a Taiping fleet obstructing the Pearl River. On the 28th, 2 french warships, the Fusee and Mitraille both shelled Ye’s residence to further Ye’s punishment. Ye’s subordinates made attempts to rescue him from his prison, so Elgin sent Ye into exile to Calcutta on February 20th. In Calcutta Ye lived under house arrest for a year until he starved himself to death. Back over in Canton, the 70th Sepoy regiment arrived in March to reinforce Canton’s garrison. The Sepoys were delighted when they found out 200 Chinese servants were assigned to them as they had been dealing with a lot of racism. Notably the British called them the N word and the French killed 3 Sepoys claiming they were looting. No Europeans were ever shot for looting in Canton. Elgin, Seymour and Gross then took a naval squadron up north towards the mouth of the Bei He River by April 24th. The British, French and Russian plenipotentiaries sent a joint communique to the governor of Zhili province, Tan. Elgin, ever the pacifist, tried to negotiate a way out of further bloodshed writing to Tan to see if they could meet a minister duly authorized by Emperor Xianfeng. Tan performed the standard Chinese response, by stalling and claiming he didn't have the power to negotiate with them. Apparently in his letter response, he used larger characters for the Emperor than that of Queen Victoria which infuriated the British as it was yet again in violation of the terms to the treaty of Nanjing, that both nations be considered equal. Ironically if you think about it, the British and Qing were both so uptight about such status symbols and such. Tan sent another letter that indicated the Chinese position was shifting somewhat, iit offer some negotiation, opened some ports, granted religious freedom to Christians and agreed to pay reparations for the foreign factories being destroyed in 1856. Tan also said he passed on the Europeans request for an embassy in Beijing to the Emperor. What he did not tell them, was that the Emperor rejected that request outright. Putiatin in an attempt to avoid further bloodshed pleaded with the parties to accept this offer, but allegedly the French Foriegn office replied to him with a smirk “they are only Chinese lives”. On a bit of a side note, a rather remarkable thing occurred on the Russian side of this story at this time. The Archimandrite, named Palladius, something of a spiritual leader to a tiny population of Russians living in Beijing was granted permission by Emperor Xianfeng to visit the European fleet at the end of may. He was forced to travel in a sealed litter. Prior to leaving, Putiatin got word to the man ordering him to gather as much intelligence as he could traveling towards them. Palladius was able to peer through a small crack in the shutter and did his best to get details on the position of the Qing fleet. When Palladius arrived he brought with him great news, apparently Beijing was starving and the rambunctious life of the Emperor was catching up to him. Please note the Emperor was only 30 years old, guy must have really partied it up. Another thing the Emperor was doing was strongly contemplating leaving the country because he was terrified. Meanwhile Elgin’s anxiety was being lifted day by day as more warships arrived. By late May, the combined Anglo-French fleet was now 26 gunboats strong, preparing to take on the famous Taku Forts that guarded the mouth of the Bei He River. D-day was to be may 20th and the invaders were just 100 miles away from Beijing. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me.  The reluctant Elgin had done it, they seized Canton and finally brought Ye Mingchen to British justice. The British French coalition was working its way slowly but surely to straggle Beijing and force its Emperor to abide by their demands.