The six central government ministries, with their elegant archaic names drawn from the Rites of Zhou—the Ministries of Heaven, of Earth, of Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter—are largely honorific, the real work being done in the more than fifty departments and agencies ranked under them. These oversee the treasuries and granaries that supply the Heavenly Kingdom. They provide the personnel to supervise the storehouses of gunpowder and shot that supply the armies on campaign, to manufacture war vessels, to provide the robes and embroideries for the kings and their palace women, and to preserve the heavenly decrees and other sacred texts. There are also staff positions for the procurement of cooking oil, salt, and firewood, for the goldsmiths, and for the supplying of fresh water.41
Sometimes the various skills must flow together, as with the symbols and calligraphy of the new hats that the Taiping rulers design for themselves. The ceremonial hat for Hong will have a fan-shaped front and be decorated with twin dragons and twin phoenixes. The other kings may each have twin dragons as well, but only a single phoenix. On the upper part of his hat the Heavenly King—and he alone—shall have the embroidered words "the mountains and rivers are unified" and on the lower part the words "the heavens are filled with stars." The three other surviving kings shall each have one line of embroidered calligraphy: for East King Yang, the characters "Lone Phoenix Perching in the Clouds"; for North King Wei, "Lone Phoenix Perching on the Mountain Peak"; for Shi Dakai, the Wing King, "Lone Phoenix Perching on the Peony," accompanied—as a gesture to his youth?—with a single embroidered butterfly.42 One group of skilled practitioners constantly in demand are doctors, for most of the scholars specializing in these arts left Nanjing for the shelter of Shanghai or other cities as the Taiping troops approached. In a great city such as Nanjing, there is always the danger of disease, but to the city's normal needs are added now the exigencies of war, with the attendant wounds, the presence of many additional women and their children, some separated from their families at short notice in nearby towns, and the East King, Yang Xiuqing, whose problems with his eyes and ears had kept him from the front lines of leadership for a time in Thistle Mountain. Thus the Taiping proclamations, issued by the North King, invite all those living in Taiping areas who have skills at curing diseases of the eyes, handling children with convulsions and other illnesses, and special knowledge of obstetrics to make their names known to any Taiping commanders in their area. Those doing so will be given special escorts to the Heavenly Capital and—if their skills are real—high-ranking office and a huge cash payment of ten thousand taels (each tael roughly one ounce) of silver. Their term of service completed—the length of time
is nowhere specified—they will "be sent back to their native place in 43 peace.
The North King expresses regret that doctors have not responded in the past to Taiping pleas, but hopes now that the higher rank and cash payments will be sufficient inducements. "None should hide their talents," for they were given to them by God "for benefit of all mankind."44 Enough doctors are attracted by these or other means at least to staff the hospitals for the seriously ill—known, so as not to discourage the patients, as "institutes for the able-bodied"—and to provide some basic medical care in each of the sixty zones into which the Heavenly City has been divided. Others are assigned to the neighboring garrison towns, to help those wounded in combat.45
The Heavenly Capital needs fitting palaces for the kingdom's rulers. Part of the Taiping plan is implemented here, in that all those with skills at carpentry, masonry, and decoration are called to pool their skills and labor to create the palaces. Ten thousand people work for six months on the splendid palace built for their Heavenly King, ten times grander than the former magistrate's residence in Yongan. This palace rises on the site of the former governor-general's mansion, at the center of the northern side of the main residential city.46 After the first few days of the occupation, the leaders move into the main city, using what is still salvageable from the old buildings in the ravaged Manchu citadel to decorate their grand new palaces. When Hong's almost completed palace complex accidentally burns down, in late 1853, as many more hands—some from Nanjing and some from neighboring provinces—are recruited to rebuild among the ruins, and to decorate the walls and pillars with the colorful paintings of birds, animals, and mountain scenery that the leaders seem to value most.47
Much of the energy and cost for building goes not into palaces but into defense of the Heavenly Capital, or the newly conquered or reconquered towns that lie beyond. Within Nanjing, the great city gates are at first cleared of the obstructions and the sacks of earth put there by Qing troops in their fruitless defense. But within a few days, under the constant threat of counterattacks by government forces, the gateways are reinforced with stone, and the passageways through them narrowed so that only one file of people at a time can pass through; the gates themselves are repaired, and additional gates built in front of or behind the existing ones, so that one leaf at a time can be opened without rendering the whole defensive system vulnerable. Emplacements for cannon—two per gate—are constructed, and special encampments reinforced with palisades for the gunners and the other troops on gate duty. At intervals across the city, and beyond the walls in the forward defensive encampments, wooden watch- towers are raised, to a height of thirty or even forty feet. Here veteran soldiers stand the watches, supplied with colored flags to make the signals that can warn from which direction any demon attacks are launched.48
The smaller towns nearby—though lacking Nanjing's mighty walls and gates—are defended with a care designed to give even the largest demon army pause; the houses near the city walls are burned or torn down to remove the possibility of cover, and the open spaces crisscrossed with ditches, palisades, and felled trees with obtruding branches. Whole areas are honeycombed with small round holes, a foot across and two feet deep, lightly camouflaged with grass or straw, so that any rapid movement or transportation of heavy loads is impossible. Between these barriers lie fields of sharpened bamboo stakes, their spikes four inches or so above the ground, so sharp they rip bare feet and go through any shoe, so close together that only by moving slowly one step at a time can one pass through them. Tens of thousands of such stakes are made and sharpened by the civilian populations of the occupied towns, working as ordered through the nights. Where stone for walls is lacking, the doors and floors of all the city houses have been commandeered and fastened in serried rows to two high lines of posts, five feet or so apart, and the space between them filled with pounded earth.49
Beyond the walls of the heavenly havens, in the land the Taipings pray will soon become the Earthly Paradise, the war is one of guile and cruelty. Just as the demons find it hard to pierce walls so defended, so the heavenly troops are cautious when they venture forth to cities abandoned by the enemy. The Taiping troops are warned by their commanders, "The demons sometimes bury gunpowder and shot under the ground and camouflage it with straw, fresh earth, or bamboo leaves. Sometimes they conceal a bow and arrow so that anyone coming in contact with it releases the arrow. Sometimes they conceal spikes or iron nails under wooden bars, or sometimes they dig pits." Umbrellas, apparently abandoned on the ground, conceal shot and gunpowder in their handles, which are triggered when the umbrella is opened. Precious objects lying on the ground are linked to fuses and explode when one picks them up. Even innocent- looking documents may contain concealed arrows or explosives that fire or erupt when the document is opened. Such demon tricks "cannot be detected by the eye," the troops are told. Anticipation and wariness are the only methods of defense.s"
Secure for now behind the stakes and walls and ditches, with the watchers in their towers around him, and his women at his side, Hong Xiuquan surveys his kingdom. He knows that the naming of all under Heaven is now within his personal purview. It is his royal writing brush that contains all things, all mysteries. As once the vocabulary of China's children was learned from the Thousand Character Essay, which gave the essence
of the language to those who had mastered their "Three Character Classic," so now the subjects of the Heavenly King will learn from Hong's own "Imperially Written Tale of a Thousand Words" not only the history of their origins but the very words with which to phrase them:
Our Great Lord God
Is One. There is no other.
In the beginning He showed his skills,
Creating Heaven and earth.
When the myriad things were all
complete
He gave life to men on earth,
Dividing lightness and darkness
So day and night came in succession.
Sun and moon each shone their light,
Stars and constellations formed an order.
The winds reached to the four directions,
Fierce and harsh they blew.
Far off, the clouds gathered
And rain fell from the void.
After the flood waters ebbed away
God in compassion made a Covenant:
Never again to send such a deluge—
The rainbow would stand as His sign.
He slew the devils, wiped out the demons,
Thunder crashed and lightning struck.51
Now that Hong's name is in the rainbow, he partakes both of God's wrath and of His mercy. The proof of this, for the Heavenly King, is in the present:
The capital is established near Zhong Mountain;
The palaces and thresholds are brilliant and shining;
The forests and gardens are fragrant and flourishing;
Epidendrums and cassia complement each other in beauty.
The forbidden palace is magnificent;
Buildings and pavilions a hundred stories high.
Halls and gates are beautiful and lustrous;
Bells and chimes sound musically.
The towers reach up to the sky;
Upon altars sacrificial animals are burned.
Cleansed and purified, We fast and bathe.
We are respectful and devout in worship,
Dignified and serene in prayer.
Supplicating with fervor,
Each seeks happiness and joy.
The uncivilized and border peoples offer tribute,
And all the barbarians are submissive.
No matter how vast the territory,
All will eventually be under our rule.52
14 THREE SHIPS
There are three large foreign ships moored off the Shanghai waterfront as the Heavenly King enters his Earthly Paradise: the Hermes, the Cassini, and the Susquehanna. The first is British, the second French, the third American. Over the weeks preceding and immediately following Nanjing's fall, the local Qing officials have been asking the foreigners to intervene, to help maintain law and order in the Yangzi valley, or failing that at least to guard the Shanghai gates with reliable troops and suppress piracy on the river. Far from their home government's reassuring presence, each of the ships' commanders has to decide whether to intervene or not, and if so to what extent.1 As the French captain of the Cassini puts it in a journal entry, in such a situation "one can either perform a real service or commit stupid mistakes."2
Over their shared dinners on one another's vessels, the captains and the consuls of the three nations discuss far into the night their national strategies and feasible options, and whether or not to summon their missionaries from other towns to find shelter under their guns in Shanghai.3 Rumors of every kind about the atrocities committed in Nanjing swirl through the countryside, and Shanghai is filled with terrified inhabitants—the mere appearance of four long-haired rebels in one neighboring market town sets off a stampede of fear in which twenty-seven Chinese are trampled to death.4 The British and Americans pledge themselves to form a defensive militia and to dig trenches and gun emplacements at strategic points around their own settlement areas, though they differ on how to approach the crisis: the British land seventy sailors in early April, and put them in a fortified house on the edge of Soochow Creek, while the Americans decide not to send men ashore until disaster actually happens, though they do make exceptions for the members of their ship's band, who charm all assembled at the theater with their spirited renderings of "The Young Reefer" and "Harlequin Golden Lily." As for the French captain, he decides to land his men only if the life of the French consul is threatened.5 When in late April 1853 the British plenipotentiary, Sir George Bon- ham, gives orders to sail the Hermes to Nanjing, it is to the chagrin of the captain of the American vessel, which has just run aground attempting the same feat. Bonham is egged on by the most influential British merchants in Shanghai, worried over the total disruption of all commerce, but also by simple human curiosity.' The few items of information that the Westerners have gathered on the Taiping over the previous two years, drawn mainly from the period of the Taiping's occupation of Yongan, have been vague and contradictory, blurring the lines between the secret societies and the God-worshipers, muddling the names of the Taiping leaders, and attempting to ascertain if they are really Christians or not.8 In Canton, Issachar Roberts, prompted to recollection by Hong Xiuquan's victories, now underplays his refusal to give Hong baptism, and writes in a local newspaper that Hong Xiuquan, during their period of study together, had "maintained a blameless deportment." Roberts recalls Hong clearly enough to give the first physical description of the Heavenly King recorded by a Westerner: "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." Hong may have made his name as a "destroyer of idolatry," writes Roberts, but seems now to act "something in the capacity of a prophet" and appears to be "struggling for religious liberty."9
The question, to the British especially, whose trading interests and investments in Shanghai's buildings, docks, and trade are estimated already at around twenty-five million pounds sterling, is whether the Taiping offer greater chances for current stability and future expansion of trade than the reigning Qing.10 For the time being, as Bonham writes to the Foreign Office from Shanghai on the eve of Hong's entrance into Nanjing, he has decided "not to interfere in any shape in favour of the Chinese Government, as I feel confident that any such interference on my part could only prolong the struggle."11 The need to imprint this stance of British neutrality firmly on the Taiping mind by a personal visit is uppermost in Bonham's mind, since at least one wealthy American merchant has already leased one of his vessels to the Qing forces, as have several Portuguese traders in Macao, while the Qing intendant in Shanghai has also been buying up on his own initiative any foreign vessels that he can find.12
The British consul's own interpreter, T. T. Meadows, who tries to keep abreast of all the latest news or rumors on the Taiping, concurs that foreign interference on behalf of the Qing would "only have the effect of prolonging hostilities and anarchy for an indefinite period"; while if the British stayed on the sidelines, it was "highly probable" that the whole of China's southern provinces and the Yangzi valley would be solidified by the Taiping "under the rule of a purely Chinese dynasty as one internally strong State."13 At the same time the interpreter Meadows, making a reconnaissance trip on his own across country to the banks of the Yangzi, and coordinating his observations with the reports of his own personally dispatched "Chinese messengers" and his Chinese-language teacher, concludes that the Taiping forces consist of thirty to forty thousand original "long hair" insurgents and their eighty thousand to one hundred thousand later additional recruits and "pressed men." They are, as a rule, "puritanical and even fanatic," punishing rape, adultery, and opium smoking with death, placing their women in separate buildings, and with "the whole army pray[ing] regularly before meals."14
As a result of these various baffling reports, Bonham feels "unwilling to rest" until he has personally ascertained "the intentions of the insurgents towards foreigners." The task will be difficult, perhaps dangerous, because the Qing officials have taken their ow
n initiative by spreading proclamations that "the ships of the barbarian volunteers" are all now on the Qing side, and that the British are all "filled with a strong feeling of common hatred to the rebels" and themselves ready to pay all the necessary expenses needed to "exterminate" the Taiping.15
The departure of the British armed steamship Hermes for Nanjing on April 22, 1853, is thus a scouting expedition that might or might not become the basis of policy formation. But rapidly it also becomes something else, a battle for dignity. Sir George Bonham has many responsibilities and many titles: he is superintendent of foreign trade, governor of Hong Kong, and the minister plenipotentiary to China of the British crown. But Hong Xiuquan is the Heavenly King presiding over the Celestial Capital. In the delicate balance of prestige and power, while it is certainly all right for the interpreter Meadows and even perhaps the Hermes's captain, E. G. Fishbourne, to meet with lower-ranking Taiping officials, for Bonham only a meeting with Hong Xiuquan himself or one of the other "kings" will permit a conversation between equals to take place. The Taiping response on April 28 to Sir George Bonham's request for such a high-level meeting is not encouraging:
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