THE CHINESE REVOLUTION.

THE revolution in China-unquestionably the most important event of the times we live in the greatest revolution, it has been justly remarked, the world has yet seen, comprising in mere magnitude a population equal to that of all Europe and all America put together-has had its origin in the same causes that brought about the war with Great Britain the stubborn ignorance and the insufferable pride of the Tartar dynasty. On ascending his throne, Ta-u-kuang, or Tau-wang, entrusted the conduct of public affairs to statesmen who were, in the eyes of all, the mere guardians of superannuated Chinese traditions. Every nation that has institutions of any duration has its conservative party. During times of little excitement, the government may be safely left in the hands of such representatives of the old national faith; but when the time for modifying ancient guarantees comes, as it inevitably will, their tenacity in upholding a state of things no longer compatible with the new circumstances and new opinions that have come into existence, becomes a source of extreme danger. This political truth has at length made itself as manifest in the history of the Celestial Empire as it has in our own history and that of neighbouring countries. The servants of Ta-u-kuang, in mere wanton contempt of barbarous nations, involved their country in a disastrous war. They did not understand that the moment was come when they must step down from the diplomatic heights to which their ignorant presumption had raised them, and in which European forbearance had so long upheld them.

Hian-fung, the son and successor of Ta-u-kuang, derived no benefit from the lesson so justly inflicted on his imperial father. Mu-chang-ha and Ki-in, ministers who, during the latter years of Ta-u-kuang, had been unusually zealous in the cause of a liberal and progressive state of things, were rudely dismissed, and successors were appointed, distinguished by their inveterate hatred to Europeans. This change was accompanied by other violent reactionary measures, which only increased the mischief. Notwithstanding the obstinacy and perversity of the successive emperors, the war of China with Great Britain had the effect of opening the eyes of a large portion of the population to the advantages of European civilisation; and this movement received a further impulse from the progress of secret societies, more especially the "Chinese Union," by the founding of military and naval stations, by throwing open the commerce previously monopolised by the East India Company to the vessels of all nations, by the increase of consular and mercantile agencies, by the labours of missionaries, and by the emigrations of the Chinese themselves to other countries, more especially the East Indies, the Indian Archipelago, and California; also by the aid given by Great Britain to its new ally in extinguishing piracy from its seas and rivers. By all these circumstances combined, the way for China (Shin-wah, like the French Chinois) entering into the community of nations was inevitably prepared, and woe to the dynasty that cannot move with the people!

No sooner were the hopes of the Chinese patriots crushed by the dis

missal of Mu-chang-ha and of Ki-in, than a rumour spread far and wide that prophecies of old had predicted the re-establishment of the Ming dynasty in the forty-eighth year of the cycle, corresponding to our 1851. To this general prophecy one of a more definite character was added: it was, that he who should raise the standard of Ming, preserved by an apocryphal patriarch, who lived at the time of the last of the dynasty, should ascend the throne. This movement soon assumed a formidable character; people discussed the downfal of the Tartar dynasty at their secret societies—the higher, the middle, and the lower classes alike, came under the dominion of the new opinions that were so industriously spread abroad, and the public mind was everywhere prepared for revolution. But that not before a small body of insurgents, averaging probably a few hundreds, and over-estimated by Messrs. Callery and Yvan at 100,000 men,* had collected together in the province of Kuang-si, a province immediately north-west of Canton.

The two Kuangs, Kuang-si and Kuang-tung, of which latter Canton is the chief city, constitute the two great south-westerly provinces of China. The first is a hilly, rocky, woody, and in parts desert and mountainous country. The inhabitants are poor, hardy, and adventurous; they have plenty of time on hand, being only for a short period of the year engaged in collecting the products of the cinnamon and aniseedbearing plants-and of such components was the nucleus of the revolution made up. The same district is highly metalliferous, and a quantity of lead nuggets miraculously discovered, when the insurgents were engaged in erecting a monument to commemorate the upraising of the revolutionary standard, served at the onset to procure the necessaries of life for the patriot army.

It was not till August, 1850, that the official Gazette of Pekin condescended to notice the Chinese insurrection. According to the official paper, it had its origin in a body of pirates who had escaped the shot of the English on the coasts of Fu-kian. The insurrectionists, strengthened in the mean time by the adhesion of the Mia-u-tsi-a race of hardy, warlike mountaineers, who have never been completely subjected by the Tartars, and whose very name is a source of terror to all pacific Celestials-opened a campaign, destined to be of such long duration and of such vital importance to the future of China, by an attack upon Ho, or Hu, one of the most commercial cities of the province. The two Kuangs, it is necessary to observe, form one vice-royalty, and one Siu, an officer in no way adapted to meet the exigencies of the case, held at that time the vice

L'Insurrection en Chine depuis son origine jusqu'a la prise de Nankin. Par MM. Callery et Yvan.

†There are certain terminable syllables constantly repeated in the Chinese, a knowledge of the meaning of which facilitates the memory of the word. Thus fu, or foo, is a town of the first magnitude, or of a canton averaging a population of 1,000,000. Chu, or choo, a town of second magnitude, averaging 500,000 souls. Hin, a township of third magnitude. Tung is east; si, west; nan, south; pe, or pa, north. Others, as wang, kin, &c., are titles, as Pakin, or Pekin, north king; Nan-kin, south king; Wang-si, king of the west; Wang-tung (Canton), east king. Tung-fu, east city; Nan-chu, south town; Si-nin, west town, &c. Wang is variously written Kuang, Quang, Kouang, as Kuang-si, or Wang-si, the west king, and Kuang, or Wang-tung, east king, whence Canton. Curious enough, Europeans call the town Canton, the province Kouang, or Quang-tung. The proper name for Canton is Kuang-chu, "king town of second class.

regal sceptre. This Siu sent troops to disperse the rebels, but they were defeated, and for the most part exterminated. The tactics of the insurgents has always been to feign a retreat before the Manchus, to draw the latter by such a feint into a difficult country, and then to exterminate them; for, as far as the war has yet gone on-it is grievous for the sake of humanity to have to relate-it has been one of extermination of a Tartar or Manchu race by Chinese insurrectionists or patriots.

Encouraged by these first successes, the Chinese, under the two chiefs Chang-kia-sung and Chang-kia-fu, advanced into Kuang-tung, where they were met by the Manchu troops, towards whom they adopted their usual tactics, and every single individual of the enemy, it is said, no doubt with the exaggeration of success, was slain.

Siu, terrified by these reverses, fled to Pekin, and Lin, the impracticable, obstinate old mandarin, who involved the emperor in war with Great Britain, was sent to disperse the rebels. To an imperial edict which was issued at the commencement of these more serious hostilities, the Chinese gave an answer, which at once declared their objects and made their intentions manifest.

"The Manchus," said they, "who for now two centuries have enjoyed an hereditary usurpation of the throne of China, sprung from a small foreign population. Aided by a warlike army, they seized upon our treasures, our lands, and the government of the country, which shows that to usurp the empire it only requires to be the strongest. There is, therefore, no difference between us who levy contributions from the towns which we gain possession of, and the authorities sent from Pekin to levy the same. What is good to take, is just as good to keep. Wherefore, then, do they send troops against us without reason? Such a step appears to us to be very unjust. What! the Manchus, who are foreigners, have the right to levy the tribute of eighteen provinces, and to name the officers who shall enforce those very acts of oppression, while we, being Chinese, are forbidden to levy any money whatsoever from out of the public revenues! Universal sovereignty belongs to no individual to the exclusion of all others, and a dynasty has never yet been seen that counted a hundred generations of emperors. The right of governing lies in possession."

The Mandarin Lin died on his way to the insurgent province, and he was succeeded by Li-sing-uan, who endeavoured, with true Manchu astucy, to inculpate Siu, while Siu, on his part, threw the responsibility of past disasters upon the governor of the province of Kuang-si. The young emperor, puzzled by these contradictory reports, left each in the enjoyment of his authority. The patriots, who in the mean time had discarded the tail imposed upon the Chinese by their Tartar conquerors, and had exchanged the Tartar cloak for the open garment worn by their ancestors in the time of the Ming dynasty, captured in March, 1851, the town of Lu-nan, and levied the usual contribution from the inhabitants. The next day, the Manchu troops arriving in strength, the latter succeeded in expelling the Chinese patriots, and also levied a large contribution. The citizens, struck with the injustice of such a proceeding, rose to a man, cut off their tails, and opened the gates to the insurgents, who came in in the dead of night and massacred the imperial troops. At this very time the official papers were publishing bulletins

of imaginary victories won by the " great army," and declaring that the insurrection was stifled at every point.

The Imperial Commissioner Li had established his head-quarters at Kuai-lin, and appointed for his lieutenant the terrible Chang-tian-siu, notorious for cutting off the lower lips of all opium smokers. This ferocious mandarin put to death thirty-six suspected persons in one day, as a kind of precautionary measure, and to strike terror among the disaffected. Such sanguinary measures, however, not sufficing to arrest the progress of the insurrection, the prime minister, Sai-chang-ha, was sent, accompanied by two other Manchus, Ta-hing and Ta-tung-ha-the latter inculpated in the massacre of the crew of the Nerbuddha—to Kuai-lin, and Canton was put under contribution to assist in the expenses of the war, which was opened by marching several bodies of troops into the insurgent province of Kuang-si.

The patriots replied to these hostile manifestations by proclaiming that a descendant of the Ming dynasty was at their head, that he was the rightful Emperor of China, and that his name was Tian-ta, or Tiente, that is, Celestial Virtue. The portrait of Tian-ta was, at the same time, distributed throughout the empire, and the Anglo-Chinese journals declared that he was a Christian; some said a Catholic, others that he was a Chang-ti, that is to say, a Protestant. The insurrection spread at the same time in the west of Kuang-tung, and the patriots obtained possession of Ka-u-chu-fu, a maritime town and chief city of a department. The districts of Nan-hai and Tung-kuan refused at the same time to pay the imperial taxes. Siu sent a mandarin to compel the latter to submission, but they dragged the official from his palanquin, and nearly tore him to pieces. The renowned Tartar general, U-lan-tai, was then despatched from Canton to attack the patriots at the pass near Lu-ul, when, as usual, the imperial forces were defeated, many were slain, and the general lost his arm in the engagement.

Upon hearing of this disaster, and that the Chinese were assembled in force at U-chu-fu, one of the most easterly cities of Kuang-si, the Viceroy Siu marched out of Canton at the head of three thousand soldiers, with a numerous retinue of attendants, palanquin bearers, and coolies, the latter of whom had charge of a treasure-chest of imposing magnitude. Having occasion to pass a narrow bamboo bridge, this chest was one evening unfortunately tumbled into a river. Great was the ire of the viceroy. He would have bastinadoed the coolies on the spot, but he wanted their services to recover the chest. This was not effected without a long delay and much labour, but at length the chest was recovered, no longer recognisable from its coating of mud, but intact, and as heavy as ever. Arrived at Cha-u-king, where the viceroy established his head-quarters, the chest was opened, and found to be full of stones and lumps of lead carefully wrapped in tissue paper! Needless to say that the coolies had taken themselves off to the patriot army previous to the examination of the chest. One of the patriot generals, Chu-lu-ta-u, endeavoured to entice the viceroy to an engagement without the walls of the city but the old mandarin was too wily to try his prowess in aught save the usual policy of bribery and dissimulation. Add to this, it was well known that the soldiers of Tian-ta treated the Manchus with barbarous severity, giving no quarter to rank or file, and Siu was far too

prudent a general to trust his valuable person, or that of his followers, to such an unceremonious enemy. The gallant viceroy contented himself, therefore, with sending despatches to Pekin, which duly appeared in the official Gazette, and recorded extraordinary exploits of courage, victories hard won, and personal feats of valour unexampled in Chinese history, more especially one instance of a great gun so skilfully used that it destroyed at a single discharge a whole file of the enemy, and a reward was claimed for the imaginary gunner!

In July, 1851, a new incident came to increase the general apprehension that prevailed throughout the empire. The young emperor was walking in his gardens, when a stranger rushed upon him, and would have assassinated him, but for the intercession of an attendant, who received the blow intended for his imperial master. It was never known if the assassin belonged to the party in insurrection; but certain it is, that, according to the laws observed under such circumstances, eighteen mandarins were put to death, as were also all the members of their family; not so much for their connivance in the crime, as for their guilty ignorance of such a conspiracy being in existence.

Nor did affairs prosper better in the provinces. True that the patriots had been unable to subdue Kuai-lin, the capital of Kuang-si, but a great number of towns, and a vast booty, had fallen into their hands. Luting-chu and Li-ning-hian were carried by assault; and Chu-lu-ta-u, the patriot chief, followed up these conquests by despatching a flotilla mounted with 6000 men to besiege U-lin-chu. The Tartar general, U-lan-tai, went out to give the insurgents battle, but his troops were caught in an ambuscade, and the greater part of them, among whom many chief mandarins, were put to death. Before the expiration of 1851, the victories of the patriots succeeded to one another so rapidly that the Gazette of Pekin was obliged to supersede its encomiums of the imperial forces by accounts of the progress of the rebels.

It was after all but a war of skirmishes. Neither party seemed either willing or prepared to throw the chances of the campaign upon the events of a general battle. One of the most decisive engagements of 1851 took place on the 29th of September, in the district of Yun-gan, when the imperialists were defeated with great slaughter; and the patriots followed up their success by the capture of Yung-gan-chu, Huan-mu, and the city of Ping-lu. All mandarins and official personages who refused to acknowledge the supremacy of Tian-ta in the newly-captured towns, were mutilated or put to death. The property and persons of the inhabitants were, on the other hand, respected and held inviolable. Those of the inhabitants who would not recognise the supremacy of Tian-ta were allowed to retire elsewhere with their property. Many availed themselves of this privilege, and on joining the imperialists were invariably robbed and subjected to all kinds of ill-treatment. are said to have exclaimed in their indignation to the Tartars, "You are but mice before the rebels, you are tigers before us!"

The unfortunates

Siu, in the mean time, upon whose head the patriots had placed a reward of 10,000 piastres, advertised 80,000 taels as the honorarium to whosoever would bring in a sack the heads of Tian-ta, of Tian-ta's father, and of his prime minister. Siu thought everything could be done with money, and having offered 20,000 taels more for each of the chief rebels