For thirty-three days the Taiping besiege Guilin, concentrating their attacks on the southern edge, but they can neither break through nor undermine the walls, nor can they starve out the city for they do not have enough troops to surround Guilin completely. But camped on the banks of the fast-flowing Li River, they are able to rest their forces and seize large numbers of boats, to make up for those that had to be abandoned on the Meng River when they left Yongan. It is during the Guilin siege that the Taiping develop the strategic and logistical skills to make themselves a power on the water as well as on the land. A few weeks into the siege, they have already amassed a fleet of forty or more large river vessels. It is on these ships that they store their munitions and their grain reserves, the cash and treasure from looted houses, along with the noncombatant women, and the children. This tactic frees up the stronger Hakka women and other male troops from tedious guard duty and lets them join in active combat, while dependents and supplies can be swiftly moved if danger threatens.5 Land batteries of cannon are there to hold back the ships of Big-head Yang if needed, but he does not press the attack with vigor. The other Qing river forces stay mainly to the south, fearing the Taiping might try to double back and join up with Ling Shiba or other supporters in western Guangdong.6 By mid-May, the siege still unsuccessful, the Taiping pay a massive bribe to Big-head Yang to leave them unpursued; with their now well-honed skills, they execute a swift withdrawal along two routes, one by land and one by water, and continue their journey to the north.
The choice of direction has now become a fateful one, for north of Guilin the Taiping forces cross one of China's great strategic and geographical divides, the band of hills and mountains where the river systems that flow from north to south have their source; on the far side of the range, a different group of rivers flows from south to north. So having traveled some sixty miles north of Guilin, to the northern end of the navigable section of the Li River, the Taiping troops come to the ancient but still serviceable canal at Xingan city, which links the Li River to the northward-flowing river Xiang. From here, the Xiang River flows straight through the heart of Hunan province, and thence, via the wide waters of the Dongting Lake, directly to the Yangzi River itself.
Astonishingly, Qing forces have left Xingan virtually unguarded, and the Taiping enter it on May 23 without a fight. But they do not have the time to linger there, for the journey north draws them with greater urgency, and the Qing are in pursuit. Thus they push on immediately to the river junction city of Quanzhou, which the Taiping vanguard reaches the next day, on May 24. Unlike Xingan, Quanzhou is strongly guarded, but since it is not the Taiping goal, their troops march and sail past the walls. In their midst, comfortable in his ornamental sedan chair, sits Feng Yunshan, the South King, the closest friend of Hong Xiuquan and founder of the God-worshipers in Thistle Mountain. Idly, a Qing gunner on the Quanzhou walls takes aim at the gaudy target and fires at the unseen passenger within. The casual shot has a deadly accuracy. The ball smashes through the chair's ornamental coverings, seriously wounding Feng.8
When Xiao Chaogui, the West King and voice of Jesus, was struck by the demons at Yongan, there was confusion among the leaders and the sound of contradictory voices. But at Quanzhou, the news of Feng's mortal wound spreads unstoppably through the ranks, and the Taiping forces
seem to act as one. Breaking their march, massing around the city walls, for over a week the Taipings launch assault after assault, while the neighboring Qing commanders, scared of the Taiping ferocity, linger in their camps and refuse to give the city aid, despite the anguished pleas of the city magistrate, written with his own blood. Finally breaching the gate and walls on June 3, the Taiping force their way into the city and attack everyone inside without quarter. They have never acted thus before. Within two days almost all of Quanzhou's residents, except for those who fled in time, are dead.9
Leaving the gutted city on June 5, the double Taiping columns continue north, apparently intending to proceed down the Xiang River to the provincial capital of Changsha. As before, they follow the dual tactic of one line of river vessels and a parallel marching column, for the time being on the western bank. Now more of the foot soldiers can travel by water, for their fleet of boats has expanded once again. They have seized at least two hundred craft of different sizes anchored off Quanzhou at the time of the siege.10 Tired and careless after the siege and slaughter in Quanzhou, the Taiping move swiftly on their way without the careful procedures of advance reconnaissance that they usually follow on the march through unknown terrain. So it is that only five miles north of the city they blunder straight into the trap set for them by a local militia leader, Jiang Zhongyuan.
Jiang Zhongyuan is the earliest exemplar of a new kind of antagonist the Taiping must now confront, a man backed by more resources and with infinitely more important family and bureaucratic contacts than local landlords like Wang Zuoxin and the God-worshipers' other enemies in the Thistle Mountain region. Jiang is a scholar from southern Hunan, just two years older than Hong Xiuquan. His first experience with organizing local militia troops came in the late 1840s, before the Taiping had yet appeared, as he sought to protect his home and lands from Yao tribesmen and other disaffected groups. These rootless men drew strength and inspiration from millenarian sects like the "Black Lotus" or from local secret societies like the "Cudgels," which combined elements of martial arts with Buddhist beliefs and vegetarian dietary practices." Such groups had been expanding their forces in Jiang's native Hunan for years, gaining recruits as drought conditions worsened and corrupt local magistrates connived with local grain merchants to manipulate distributions from the local granaries so as to drive the already exorbitant rice prices still higher.
One of Jiang's purposes in raising a local militia was pre-emptive, to keep his own kinsmen out of these potentially rebellious organizations.
The members of such defensive militia groups were, as in Guangxi, a complicated mix: representatives of powerful lineages, local farmers, the unemployed, and semi-professional soldiers who had no strong local ties but sought a military sponsor to guarantee them a steady income. Jiang's militia numbered around two thousand men by the late 1840s, and though his successes brought him career preferment and a posting in a distant province, the militia were kept partly intact by Jiang's brothers and family friends from the educated Hunanese elite.12 When in 1850 Jiang returned to his Hunan hometown following his father's death—as Qing ritual practice demanded—his previous skills were brought to the attention of the Qing commanders, who summoned Jiang and his militia to aid in the siege of Yongan and the relief of Guilin, even though it meant traveling far from his home base. Jiang did take part, briefly, in both those campaigns, though he was mortified by the hesitancy of the various Qing government forces to take decisive or concerted action.13
The ambush that Jiang lays is just beyond the Suoyi ford on the Xiang River, five miles north of Quanzhou. At this point, where the river makes an abrupt eastward turn, it is about one hundred yards wide and fairly shallow, but the current is swift and the riverbed is crisscrossed by an intricate tracery of sandbars that make navigation difficult. The west bank is hilly and thickly wooded, with trees and shrubs growing down to the water's edge. It is here that Jiang oversees the blocking of the stream with cut trees and logs, through which huge iron spikes have been driven to hold them in place, making the river impassable to vessels. Meantime he positions his troops on the west bank, among the dense trees.14
Swept along the river by the swift stream, the first Taiping vessels in the column sail through the sandbanks and round the bend in the river straight into the great barrier of tethered tree trunks. As hails of shot are poured on them, and their stranded vessels set afire, the boats behind, unable to halt, pile into those in front. Each arriving vessel compounds the confusion, while the fire spreads from boat to boat and the trapped troops and sailors—joined by their comrades who have been marching along the west bank—flounder across the river
to the eastern shore. Had Jiang had more troops at his command, and had one of his fellow military commanders not reneged on his promise to set up a similar ambush on the eastern edge of Suoyi ford, the Taiping force might have been wiped out. As it is, the Taiping casualties are colossal: three hundred boats are burned, sunk, or captured, and around ten thousand of their troops are killed or drowned, many of them the original God-worshipers from Guangxi who gave the movement so much passion and energy. Among the dead is the South King, Feng Yunshan, who succumbs to his wounds."
Abandoning the remaining vessels, Hong Xiuquan and the Taiping troops cut across the wooded hills beyond the east bank of the Xiang River and trek into Hunan province, hoping to seize the prosperous river city of Yongzhou by surprise. But the Qing have cut the bridges and pulled all boats over to the farther shore. With no clear destination open to it, the whole army veers south again and finding the city of Daozhou unprepared for its sudden change of direction, and weakly defended, occupies it on June 12.16
Here the Taiping stay, either in the city itself, or campaigning, raiding, and destroying temples in the vicinity, for a month and a half. The leaders must not only restore morale but also attract new recruits to make up for their stunning losses. The greatest potential sources for such recruits are also the most problematical: the members of the various groups who—for ethnic, economic, political, or religious reasons—have turned against the state and its officials, and seek an often rough-and-ready version of a better life. In wooing such people directly, the Taiping leaders are taking a calculated risk, for whether or not such men will make true God-worshipers, or care about the Taiping's Heavenly Kingdom, has to remain unknown.
The proclamations posted in southern Hunan are issued in the names of Yang Xiuqing and Xiao Chaogui, the East and West Kings, who have already begun to prepare such materials in Yongan. The rhetoric they employ to denigrate the Manchu rulers and their minions is both forceful and personal. The ruling emperor himself, Xianfeng, is referred to as "the Manchu demon" and "the Tartar dog," of "barbarian origin," and the "mortal enemy of us Chinese." By serving him, the followers of the Heaven-and-Earth Society are reminded, they not only obey the "old serpent devil" and shun the "glory of the Great God"; they violate their own blood oaths, which pledged them "with united hearts and united efforts to exterminate the Qing."17 But avoiding all references to the cause of restoring the Ming dynasty, which some secret-society brothers still espouse, Xiao and Yang urge on them the duty of supporting Hong Xiuquan, the "True Sovereign," in his goal of "founding the state."18
In their earliest recruiting efforts, in the Guiping region of Guangxi, the Taiping leaders had begun to talk of a common "sacred treasury" and the need to donate to it. The secret societies, too, in the same areas as the God-worshipers, constructed their own appeals, often as songs or jingles, with a powerful social message:
The people at the top owe us their money;
The people in the middle are content to snooze.
The people at the bottom should go with us—
For that's far better than renting an ox to plow some worn-out land.
Playing on the same theme, the Taiping had their own version in Thistle Mountain jingle:
Those with millions owe us their money,
Those who are half poor-half rich can till their fields.
Those with ambitions but no cash should go with us:
Broke or hungry, Heaven will keep you well.19
Now Yang and Xiao expand these ideas and relate them specifically to Manchu abuses and callousness:
Whenever floods and droughts occur, [the Manchus| do not show the slightest compassion; they sit and watch the starving people wander by until the bleached bones grow like wild weeds, for they desire to reduce the numbers of us Chinese. Moreover, throughout China the Manchus have unleashed grasping officials and their corrupt subordinates to strip the people of their flesh until men and women weep by the roadsides, for they desire to impoverish us Chinese. Official posts are obtained by bribes, and punishments bought off with money; the rich hold the power and heroes despair.20
This oppression is one of the main reasons that the Taiping armies are on the march: "On behalf of God above we shall avenge those who have deceived Heaven, and for China below we shall free the common people from their miseries. We must wipe away the foul air of the Qing dynasty so that we can together enjoy the happiness of Taiping."21
The Taiping proclamations tie mockery of the Manchus to mockery of their racial ancestry and their pretensions:
We have carefully investigated the Manchu Tartars' origins and have found that their first ancestors were a white fox and a red dog, who copulated together and from their seed produced this race of demons. As their numbers grew they mated together since they had no proper human relationships nor civilization. Availing themselves of China's lack of real men, they seized the country, established their own demon throne and placed the wild fox upon it; in their court the monkeys bathed and dressed. We Chinese could not plow up their caves or dig up their dens; instead we fell in with their treacherous plots, bore their insults, and obeyed their commands. Moreover, our civil and military officials, coveting their awards, bowed and knelt in the midst of this pack of foxes and dogs. Now, a little child only three feet tall may be extremely ignorant, but point to a pig or a dog and tell him to bow down to it and he will redden with anger.22
In other passages, Yang and Xiao link social humiliation to sexual subservience:
Chinese people should look like Chinese; but now the Manchus have ordered us to shave the hair around the head, leaving a long tail behind, thus making the Chinese appear to be brute animals. The Chinese have their own Chinese robes and hats; but now the Manchus have instituted buttons of rank on the hat, barbarian clothes, and monkey caps, discarding the robes and headdresses of former dynasties, in order to make the Chinese forget their basic origins. The Chinese have Chinese family relationships; but the former false demon, Kangxi, secretly ordered the Ta [Tartars] each to control ten families and to defile the Chinese women, hoping thereby that the Chinese would all become barbarians. The Chinese have Chinese consorts; but now the Manchu demon devils have taken all of China's beautiful girls to be their slaves and concubines. Thus three thousand beautiful women have been ravished by the barbarian dogs, one million lovely girls have had to sleep with the malodorous foxes; to speak of it distresses the heart, to talk of it pollutes the tongue.23
The manifestos also invoke the kind of numerological wordplays that the secret societies use so often, and that Hong Xiuquan and the Taiping kings also use to emphasize their prestige. In telling their followers that "the demons' fortune of three by seven has ended," the Taiping leaders refer to an astrologer eighteen hundred years before, who predicted that in "three by seven decades," or 210 years, the dynasty in which he lived would come to its end. Applying the same time frame to the Qing, who founded their dynasty in 1644, this would make 1853 the year of the Manchu fall. In that year "the true sovereign of nine by five" would rule triumphant—in other words, Hong Xiuquan. For the reference here is to the first hexagram of the Book of Changes, which declares, "Nine in the fifth place means: Flying Dragon in the Heavens. It forces one to see the Great Man." The Confucian commentary on this line elaborated that "things that accord in tone vibrate together. Things that have affinity in their inmost natures seek one another. Water flows to what is wet, fire turns to what is dry. . . . Thus the sage arises, and all creatures follow him with their eyes."24
It is in this same spirit of dignity and emancipation, of shared fellowship in the knowledge that all Chinese are God's children, even if they have unwittingly or even willingly served the Manchu demon, that the Taiping armies are fighting. Those who reject the Taiping message after it is offered to them will be "caught in the demons' net of delusion and in death become slaves and underlings of the demons, to bear their debaucheries and evil poisons, to become bloated with leprosy, to become ugly and evil ghost
s eternally consigned to the eighteenth layer of hell." For those who repent and join the Taiping, and for their descendants, there will be "unlimited happiness, eternal dignity, and eternal honor."25
The numbers drawn to the Taiping in Hunan, at least in part because of these messages, are large: according to one man serving in their ranks, in the three cities briefly held after the disaster at Suoyi ford, the Taiping gained respectively twenty thousand, "twenty or thirty thousand," and "several thousand" new recruits, bringing a total of at least fifty thousand new troops to their army.26 These secret-society recruits, toughened by years of hardship in this area of Hunan, and speaking the local dialect, can infiltrate towns ahead of the Taiping forces, posing as local militia members or as traveling merchants, and thus gauge the defenders' strength. Holding some of these cities for a day or two, dodging others altogether, and acquiring the mules and pack horses wherever they find them to speed their land advance, the Heavenly King, his Taiping veterans, and the new recruits drift between various prosperous towns in southeast Hunan.27
God's Chinese Son Page 22
