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En fattig kinesisk skolelærer får et mentalt sammenbrud, møder Gud og Jesus i et syn, og beslutter sig for at... vælte kejseren og starte et nyt himmelsk kongerige. I dette afsnit tager vi dig med til Kina i midten af 1800-tallet, hvor en selvudnævnt lillebror til Jesus starter et oprør, der ender med at koste op mod 30 millioner mennesker livet. Det er fortællingen om Taiping-oprøret – verdenshistoriens blodigste borgerkrig, som (næsten) ingen i Vesten har hørt om. Hvorfor gik det så galt? Hvem var Hong Xiuquan? Og hvordan endte kristendom, kejserhad og opium med at kaste et helt imperium ud i kaos? Lyt med og få svar.
Today's revolutionary ideas come from China: David talks to historian Julia Lovell about the Taiping Revolution, another massive mid-19th-century upheaval that nearly overturned the established order. How did Christianity inspire an uprising against the Qing dynasty? Was it a revolution or a civil war? What was the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom? And where does this cataclysmic event fit into China's 20th-century revolutionary history? Out now: a bonus episode on 1848 with Chris Clark looking at the counter-revolution – how did the ruling regimes of Europe fight back? To get this and a year's worth of bonus episodes sign up to PPF+ https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus Available tomorrow: the latest edition of our free fortnightly newsletter with clips, guides, further reading and much more. Sign up now https://www.ppfideas.com/newsletters Next time: Darwin w/Adam Rutherford Past Present Future is part of the Airwave Podcast Network Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Ce jour-là, une longue descente aux enfers pour l'Empire du Milieu débuta… Mention légales : Vos données de connexion, dont votre adresse IP, sont traités par Radio Classique, responsable de traitement, sur la base de son intérêt légitime, par l'intermédiaire de son sous-traitant Ausha, à des fins de réalisation de statistiques agréées et de lutte contre la fraude. Ces données sont supprimées en temps réel pour la finalité statistique et sous cinq mois à compter de la collecte à des fins de lutte contre la fraude. Pour plus d'informations sur les traitements réalisés par Radio Classique et exercer vos droits, consultez notre Politique de confidentialité.Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.
Rebellion in China... Mach's dir bequem und kuschel dich ein! Dieser Podcast wird durch Werbung finanziert. Infos und Angebote unserer Werbepartner: https://linktr.ee/EinschlafenMitPodcast Hier geht's zum Wikipedia-Artikel. Der Artikel wurde redaktionell überarbeitet: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping-Aufstand CC BY-SA 4.0
Episode 204 - A quick whip around the globe in 1855 and Cetshwayo kaMpande makes his Regal Entrance. First up, a quick thank you to Adi Badenhorst at AA Badenhorst family wines in the Swartland of the Cape — your gift was extraorindarily generous and well received. I am truly indebted to you. And to all those folks sending me tips and notes, thank you its gratifying to receive correspondence from such learned people! Straight to our episode 2024, Planet Earth 1855, Cetshwayo kaMpande grows powerful and Natal Land Realities. A legend is the only way to describe the amaZulu king who was going to dethrone his father Mpande kaSenzangakhona, usurp his brother's right to rule, and later in life, destroy an entire British column at Isandhlwana. In this episode we'll deal with the initial years of his life. Folks tend to focus on Shaka when it comes to important Zulu warriors, but by the time we're done, you'll agree that Cetshwayo was probably more significant. I'll end the editorialising there - let's head over to the eastern seaboard of South Africa, into Zululand across the Thukela. It's 1855. Mpande had overthrown his half-brother Dingana, and one of his professed goals was to stop the internecine conflict that had riven the house of the Zulu. Peace is what he strived for, and so he set about creating sons unlike Shaka and Dingana who had their offspring killed and tried to insure themselves against being bumped off by their own children by just not getting their wives or concubines pregnant. Easier said than done. Mpande had at least 30 sons with his wives, believing that protection lay in numbers. Problem was, there will always be someone who thinks they're better than the eldest son of the Great Wife. And the eldest son of the Great Wife will always believe he should be king. Fade up the ominous music. And thus, in a nutshell, Cetshwayo. The settler port village of Durban had gone through various ructions by the mid-1850s. For some distance around the port and into the interior, English settlers had replaced the original Dutch farmers with the stipulation that a farmer could own only one farm of 2500 acres and security of tenure had improved. Originally tenure was a measly 15 years - then changed to perpetuity. Marking out the farms was done on horseback at walking pace. One hour each way. Four hours later, that was your farm. Of course most mustered the fastest horse they could find, some even changed horses, then tried to gallop or canter the four hours. Land sizes could top 5000 acres by cheating in this way. Simultaneously a clash of ideas between the indigenous population of South Africa and the British Government was most marked in Natal. Most of the region is suitable for farming in some manner — the region can be divided, pretty broadly, into two zones. The interior grasslands and open tree savannah, and the coastal bush and forest. The grasslands were not ideal for arable agriculture, but were great for livestock farming. The coastal zone was a different story — more rain fell along the coast, it was more suitable for farming — and that's why sugar became such an important story in Natal a little later. With that, its time now to step back and peer inscrutably at what was going on internationally in the year 1855. The Panama Railway became the first railroad to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, long before before the time of the Canal which was built between 1904 and 1916. In 1855 Alexander the Second ascended the Russian throne while in China, the Taiping Rebellion rolled on — the Taiping army of 350 000 invaded Anhui in the east of the country. Van Diemen's land was seperated from New South Wales and granted selfgovernment and later in the year, renamed Tasmania. For the wine connoissours listening, including Adi Badenhorst I hope, the Bordeaux wine classification system was first listed in 1855.
Episode 204 - A quick whip around the globe in 1855 and Cetshwayo kaMpande makes his Regal Entrance. First up, a quick thank you to Adi Badenhorst at AA Badenhorst family wines in the Swartland of the Cape — your gift was extraorindarily generous and well received. I am truly indebted to you. And to all those folks sending me tips and notes, thank you its gratifying to receive correspondence from such learned people! Straight to our episode 2024, Planet Earth 1855, Cetshwayo kaMpande grows powerful and Natal Land Realities. A legend is the only way to describe the amaZulu king who was going to dethrone his father Mpande kaSenzangakhona, usurp his brother's right to rule, and later in life, destroy an entire British column at Isandhlwana. In this episode we'll deal with the initial years of his life. Folks tend to focus on Shaka when it comes to important Zulu warriors, but by the time we're done, you'll agree that Cetshwayo was probably more significant. I'll end the editorialising there - let's head over to the eastern seaboard of South Africa, into Zululand across the Thukela. It's 1855. Mpande had overthrown his half-brother Dingana, and one of his professed goals was to stop the internecine conflict that had riven the house of the Zulu. Peace is what he strived for, and so he set about creating sons unlike Shaka and Dingana who had their offspring killed and tried to insure themselves against being bumped off by their own children by just not getting their wives or concubines pregnant. Easier said than done. Mpande had at least 30 sons with his wives, believing that protection lay in numbers. Problem was, there will always be someone who thinks they're better than the eldest son of the Great Wife. And the eldest son of the Great Wife will always believe he should be king. Fade up the ominous music. And thus, in a nutshell, Cetshwayo. The settler port village of Durban had gone through various ructions by the mid-1850s. For some distance around the port and into the interior, English settlers had replaced the original Dutch farmers with the stipulation that a farmer could own only one farm of 2500 acres and security of tenure had improved. Originally tenure was a measly 15 years - then changed to perpetuity. Marking out the farms was done on horseback at walking pace. One hour each way. Four hours later, that was your farm. Of course most mustered the fastest horse they could find, some even changed horses, then tried to gallop or canter the four hours. Land sizes could top 5000 acres by cheating in this way. Simultaneously a clash of ideas between the indigenous population of South Africa and the British Government was most marked in Natal. Most of the region is suitable for farming in some manner — the region can be divided, pretty broadly, into two zones. The interior grasslands and open tree savannah, and the coastal bush and forest. The grasslands were not ideal for arable agriculture, but were great for livestock farming. The coastal zone was a different story — more rain fell along the coast, it was more suitable for farming — and that's why sugar became such an important story in Natal a little later. With that, its time now to step back and peer inscrutably at what was going on internationally in the year 1855. The Panama Railway became the first railroad to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, long before before the time of the Canal which was built between 1904 and 1916. In 1855 Alexander the Second ascended the Russian throne while in China, the Taiping Rebellion rolled on — the Taiping army of 350 000 invaded Anhui in the east of the country. Van Diemen's land was seperated from New South Wales and granted selfgovernment and later in the year, renamed Tasmania. For the wine connoissours listening, including Adi Badenhorst I hope, the Bordeaux wine classification system was first listed in 1855.
Morning Chanting at SBS Sasanarakkha Buddhist Sanctuary, Taiping, Malaysia. Info about Sasanarakkha and the Sanghaparinayaka, Ayasma Ariyadhammika: https://sasanarakkha.org Info about Dhammagiri: Dhammagiri Website Our Spotify Playlists Newsletter Dhammagiri Youtube Channel Pics #chanting #buddhistchanting #palichanting #buddhism #buddhapuja #morningchanting
Dołącz do grona Patronów tego podcastu na http://www.patronite.pl/maopowiedziane Dołącz do naszego Discorda (dla Patronów) https://patronite.pl/post/59230/jak-dolaczyc-do-naszego-discorda Wielokrotnie sygnalizowaliście nam, że interesuje Was temat religii w Chinach. Chiny, kraj kojarzony z ateizmem, mają bardzo bogatą historię duchowości. Niemożliwe byłoby zmieszczenie tego tematu w jednym odcinku, więc będziemy do niego wracać w różnych kontekstach. Dzisiejszy odcinek dotyczy tematu, który jest nam, Polakom i Europejczykom, bliski. Mówimy bowiem o chrześcijaństwie w Chinach. Ten podcast jest pierwszym z dwóch odcinków mu poświęconych. Skupiamy się w nim na historii misjonarstwa oraz powstaniu Taipingów. Spis treści:(0:00) Misjonarstwo w Chinach (20:38) Powstanie Taipingów – kontekst historyczny(42:46) Powstanie Taipingów – przebieg Postaw nam kawę na http://buycoffee.to/maopowiedzianeInstagram: http://instagram.com/maopowiedzianeInstagram Nadii: http://instagram.com/nadia.urbanInstagram Weroniki: http://instagram.com/wtruszczynskaNapisz do nas: kontakt@maopowiedziane.pl
En la China del siglo XIX, tradicionalista, misógina y aislada del resto del mundo, una mujer inteligente y decidida escaló desde el harén del emperador al trono y condujo al país al mundo moderno. Bibliografía: BBC News Mundo. La historia oculta de Cixí, la poderosa emperatriz que tuvo las riendas del poder en China en el siglo XIX. (Febrero, 2020). Sitio Web: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-internacional-51401929 Cantón Álvarez, José Antonio. China en Llamas: la gran rebelión de los Taiping. (enero, 2019) Historia. National Geographic. Sitio Web: https://historia.nationalgeographic.com.es/a/china-llamas-gran-rebelion-taiping_13837 Casals, Josep Maria. Cixí, la concubina que se convirtió en una poderosa emperatriz china (noviembre, 2023). Historia National Geographic. Sitio Web: https://historia.nationalgeographic.com.es/a/cixi-concubina-que-se-convirtio-poderosa-emperatriz-china_20376 Chang, Jung. Cixí, Emperatriz. La concubine que creó la China moderna. (2014) Editorial Taurus. 600pp. Morató, Cristina. Emperatriz Cixí. En Reinas de Leyenda (2023) Editorial Plaza y Janes. México. Pp. 485 – 586. Sadurní, J.M. La Rebelión de los Bóxers, un momento clave en la historia de China. (Agosto, 2024) Historia. National Geographic. Sitio Web: https://historia.nationalgeographic.com.es/a/rebelion-boxers-momento-clave-historia-china_14406#:~:text=El%2020%20de%20junio%20de,agosto%20de%20ese%20mismo%20a%C3%B1o.
En la China del siglo XIX, tradicionalista, misógina y aislada del resto del mundo, una mujer inteligente y decidida escaló desde el harén del emperador al trono y condujo al país al mundo moderno. Bibliografía: BBC News Mundo. La historia oculta de Cixí, la poderosa emperatriz que tuvo las riendas del poder en China en el siglo XIX. (Febrero, 2020). Sitio Web: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-internacional-51401929 Cantón Álvarez, José Antonio. China en Llamas: la gran rebelión de los Taiping. (enero, 2019) Historia. National Geographic. Sitio Web: https://historia.nationalgeographic.com.es/a/china-llamas-gran-rebelion-taiping_13837 Casals, Josep Maria. Cixí, la concubina que se convirtió en una poderosa emperatriz china (noviembre, 2023). Historia National Geographic. Sitio Web: https://historia.nationalgeographic.com.es/a/cixi-concubina-que-se-convirtio-poderosa-emperatriz-china_20376 Chang, Jung. Cixí, Emperatriz. La concubine que creó la China moderna. (2014) Editorial Taurus. 600pp. Morató, Cristina. Emperatriz Cixí. En Reinas de Leyenda (2023) Editorial Plaza y Janes. México. Pp. 485 – 586. Sadurní, J.M. La Rebelión de los Bóxers, un momento clave en la historia de China. (Agosto, 2024) Historia. National Geographic. Sitio Web: https://historia.nationalgeographic.com.es/a/rebelion-boxers-momento-clave-historia-china_14406#:~:text=El%2020%20de%20junio%20de,agosto%20de%20ese%20mismo%20a%C3%B1o.
Cape Governor Harry Smith had made his escape from Fort Cox to King Williams' Town, and was now hoping for help in the form of 3000 Zulu warriors. The British had mucked things up on the frontier, and most of their old allies the Khoekhoe of the Kat River Settlement had decided to rise up, along with the amaXhosa. The Boers were also not in any mood to send help, in fact, the destabilisation was in their favour, it drew English troops away from the transOrangia Region. Mlanjeni the prophet had told the Xhosa that this was the time to drive the English into the sea - and Maqoma the amaRharhabe chief of the amaNhlambe was all to ready to do just that. It was new Year, 1851. In a few days, the Taiping Rebellion - or Civil War as some call it - would begin in China. And like the uprising in the Cape, a man who claimed super powers was behind this war in Asia. Hong Xiuquan was an ethnic Hakka man who claimed to be related to Jesus Christ and was trying to convert the local Han people to his syncretic version of Christianity. Xiuquan was trying to overthrow the Qing dynasty and the Taiping rebels were hell bent on should I say, heaven bent on upending the entire country's social order. Eventually the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom based in Nanjing managed to seize a significant portion of southern China. It was to become the bloodiest war of the 19th Century, lasting 14 years. Back on the eastern Cape frontier, the settlers were facing the amaXhosa rage and fury, frustration that had built up over generations burst into the 8th Frontier War. Maqoma had warned the errant missionary George Brown that a war was coming of cruelty never seen before in southern AFrica. Some called it the first war of colour, a general war of the races. The Kat River people rebelled, some Khoekhoe soldiers rebelled, some of the famous Cape Mounted Rifles men mutinied, the amaThembu people under Maphasa, so important to Xhosa tradition, joined the Xhosa. amaNhlambe chief Siyolo, the best soldier amongst the amaXhosa, had cut off the road between King WilliamsTown and Grahamstown. And yet, in this frontier war it wasn't just black versus white - oh no. As you'll hear, Black South Africans fought for the British, and there were incidents of British soldiers who mutinied and joined the amaXhosa. amaNgqika men upset at how they'd been treated by their own countrymen worked for the colonists in this war, not the mention the amaMfengu people who the amaXhosa regarded as illegal immigrants on their land - there was no love lost between these two either. To merely describe this war as blacks versus whites is to commit historical incongruity. Sandile met with Maqoma in the first days of 1851 in order to work out a series of offensive moves against the British. Hermanus Matroos, who you met last episode was leading a powerful battalion sized group of amaXhosa and Khoesan fighters. Willem Uithaalder, former Cape Mounted Rifles cavalryman, was also fighting the British — his knowledge about how to go about focusing attacks was key.
Last time we spoke about the invasion of Zhejiang. Chiang Kai-Shek kept the momentum going by invading Zhejiang after taking Jiangxi and Fujian. However Sun Chuanfang in desperation ran to an unlikely ally, Zhang Zuolin to form the National Pacification Army. Now the NPA would go to war with the NRA. The NRA also faced internal strife as strikes broke out in Guangzhou and Wuhan. After quelling the worker strikes, the NRA began to concentrate on the Zhejiang campaign performing strategic counter attacks against Sun Chuanfangs offensives. By early 1927 Sun Chuanfang's control over Zhejiang was being undermined by Zhejiang independence movement leaders who joined the KMT to overthrow him. Sun Chuanfang was served disastrous defeats, his armies began to rout with many plundering before they fled north. Those that still continued the fight fled for Shanghai, where Sun Chuanfang prepared to make a last stand to hold the NRA back before Zhejiang fell. #113 The Northern Expedition Part 4: The taking of Shanghai & Nanking 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 NRA east route army had concentrated around Sungchiang just in front of Shanghai. They made it seem they were preparing for a major assault on the super city, yet up the Yangtze, half of the NRA were secretly preparing an offensive directed against Nanking. If the NRA captured Nanking and its strategic Tianjin-Pukou railway line, Sun Chuanfang's forces south of the Yangtze would be isolated and cut off from reinforcements and supplies. On February 19th of 1927, Sun Chuanfang pulled his battered armies out of Zhejiang as he awaited reinforcements from Zhang Zongchang's Shandong army. Meanwhile the KMT called upon their agents and allies within Shanghai to foment disorder. Going back to November of 1926, KMT and CCP members within Shanghai had been assembling recruits together to strengthen their first united front. Shanghai held a large part of China's modern factory workers, numbering in the several hundred of thousands. They represented a considerable percent of the Shanghai population. Following the formation of the NPA, Shanghai unions began attacking Sun Chuanfang for bringing Shandong mercenaries into Zhejiang and strongly disagreed with his alliance with the northerners. They had real grievances with the northerners, because they had ties to foreign powers like the Empire of Japan. Those in Shanghai sought to break the chains of foreign imperialism and wanted more autonomy. From 1926 onwards many unions, particularly those directed by the CCP organized demonstrations against Sun Chuanfang and the NPA. By February of 1927 the anti-Sun Chuanfang movement really heated up. The National General Labor Union of the CCP had ordered some assassinations to terrorize the Chinese and foreign industrialists. To bring even more Shanghai workers under their influence and hurt Sun Chuanfangs hold over the city the CCP organized a political strike, similar to what had occurred in Hong Kong the year prior. A general strike in Shanghai was planned for February 19th and it would include the foreign concession factories. The strikers had 5 political and 12 economic demands. A major aim of the strike was to seize power through the use of the masses, even against a well armed regime like Sun Chuanfangs. The CCP hoped to direct large crowds of workers against Sun Chuanfang's police stations and garrison posts where they could seize their weapons to arm some workers corps. They had acquired quite a bit of experience during the Hong Kong and Guangzhou strikers when it came to arming workers. However the response of Sun Chuanfangs regime would be vastly different than the KMT in Guangzhou. Sun Chuanfangs garrison commander at Shanghai responded violently and quickly. He dispatched broadsword carrying executioners and soldiers through the city grabbing and beheading any strikers on sight. Heads were placed on lamp posts at street corners and on spikes all around. Its estimated out of perhaps 100,000 to 350,000 workers who striked, the headcount ranged between 100-500. The CCP continued its efforts to attack police stations, but the general strike died out on the third day. In a form of retaliation the Shanghai workers held a mass trial and execution of at least one police officer. A new garrison commander was sent to Sahnghai, Pi Shucheng in an effort to reinforce the city. By the point he showed up the CCP gave up and told the strikers to get back to work to end the bloodshed. What became known as the second shanghai uprising failed to achieve much. Despite its failure, the second uprising in Shanghai displayed disunity under Sun Chuanfangs rule. By mid February Sun Chuanfangs Shanghai navy had begun to act suspiciously. On the 22nd as the CCP led sorties against the Shanghai Police, shells from the warships Chienkang and Chienwei fll over the Jiangnan arsenal. Thinking not much of it, Sun Chuanfang blamed a few young officers for the bombardment and gave his Admiral Yang Shuchuang a demerit. Sun Chuanfang was of course reluctant at this point to penalize his subordinates for fear they mutiny. The bombardment did not knock out the aresnal but a fire began mysteriously on the 28th blowing up 40 crates of artillery shells. The uprising did little to weaken Sun Chuanfangs hold over Shanghai, so the NRA shifted strategy. Over in Hangzhou, NRA units advance to the Sungchiang front while NRA units in Jiangxi advance downriver towards Nanking. The 6th and 7th NRA armies advance along the Jiangxi-Anhui border as the eastern route command dug in near Shanghai. Back in December, at the Nanchang conference Chiang Kai-Shek and Borodin had managed to smooth the tension between the CCP and KMT. Borodin agreed to curtain some union disorder that were interfering with the war effort so the First United Front would not collapse. However within the new conquered territories, many that contained enormous industrial potential, strikes and labor violence kept breaking out. This was quite dangerous for the stability of the NRA as they performed the northern expedition. But from the CCP point of view they were simply organizing the enormous untapped power of Chinese workers. The CCP began to really grow in power at Wuhan and were becoming less cooperative with Chiang Kai-Shek. They believed Chiang Kai-Shek was dependent and at the mercy of Soviet aid. They also believed, since he had left Guangdong, a more malleable KMT military figure would better suit their interests. Thus a concerted effort was made to replace Chiang Kai-Shek. You could call it a anti-Chiang movement sprang up and it was taking an effect on the Northern Expedition. Chiang Kai-Shek had just wired the Wuhan administration three times for funds to pay some disgruntled 7th army troops. The administration at Wuhan created by a joint council of the party and government, by insistence of Borodin, were generally compliant to Chiang Kai-Sheks demands. One of their leaders was Xu Chen, the current minister of justice. According to a group close to Wang Jingwei, it seemed the CCP, Chiang Kai-Sheks inner circle and the new Joint Council at Wuhan between January and February of 1927 were becoming quite dependent on Soviet advice. Early in January the CCP were attacking Chiang Kai-Shek with propaganda aimed to make it seem he was in bed with other warlords and the Japanese, thus a betrayer to Dr Sun Yat-Sens movement. Xu Chen the current commander of the 8th NRA army became a potential replacement for Chiang Kai-Shek, but the CCP were still afraid to risk open strife with the KMT. Borodin and CCP leaders like Mao Zedong were encouraged by the CCP membership growth in the countryside and within military units around Wuhan. As the NRA advance through Hunan, CCP membership increased as they spread through peasant associations. It was a similar case in Hubei. The Hunanese commander of the 2nd NRA army brought up the issue at a KMT meeting warning his colleagues “not to neglect the dangers of internal strife. Many of our members have become sidetracked by… ideas … not indicated in Sun Yat-sen's instructions,… not belittle the enemy. Our enemies are now uniting together and gathering to attack us. We should concentrate the power of the Party and obey its orders strictly regardless of our own opinions.” Chiang Kai-Shek of course was not oblivious to the danger all around him. He launched his own sort of counterattack. He began claiming the CCP strategy and those who were following them, threatened the all-class union of the KMT. On February 19th he urged a KMT audience during a speech to “look to … the doctrines of Sun Yat-sen and nothing else.” The anti Chiang Kai-Shek sentiment was felt in crowds at Wuhan. On February 24th, a crowd of 50,000 assembled at the party HQ parade ground where they made fiery speeches against Chiang Kai-Shek and against the Northern Expedition. “All we have seen is military power, but no Party power; individual will but not Party will…. Old degenerate counterrevolutionaries have caused these pathetic facts of the Party. That is why we must… knock down the feudal influences.” After this several people began chanting “Down with the Old and Degenerate!” Then another man made a speech stating “a few individuals could not do the work…. Now the old, rotten feudal thinking members manipulate the KMT, we must therefore knock them down.” Then the chant turned to “Down with Chang Ching-chiang,Oppose the Military Dictatorship.” Then the head of the NRA's Political Departments, Teng Yenta stated “democratic centralization was the way to achieve the ideals of the Three People's Principles, but now our leadership has been occupied by the old, ignorant, and the incompetent …, and we must overthrow personal dictatorship … and bring the military under control….” Chiang Kai-Shek was enraged by all of this of course and he refuted the charges made against him. He singled out Xu Chen who had just made himself chairman of the new Joint Council without KMT party authorization. Chiang Kai-Shek began a little investigation and concluded it was Borodin's doing so he telegrammed Moscow on February 26th requesting Borodin be sent back to the USSR. The next day at a KMT meeting, Chiang Kai-Shek told his colleagues he felt despite the fact the NRA advanced into new territories, while the people saw them as KMT members, they only heard propaganda from the CCP. By March the anti-Chiang cabal now sought to replace him with General Tang Shengchih, the Hunanese defector made commander of the 8th NRA army. According to one soviet report written on the 5th of March, Tang Shengchih was seen to be much more dependent on Soviet aid and a lot more cooperative in helping the anti-chiang effort amongst the other generals. A new anti-chiang alliance would require the support of other high ranking generals such as Chang Fakuai new corps, Chen Mingshu's 11th army, Chu Peitehs 3rd army and the 9th and 10th armies. According to the same Soviet report, Tang Shenchih managed to turn Li Tsungjen against Chiang Kai-Shek and this hampered Chiang Kai-Sheks ability to obtain funds from Wuhan to pay Li Tsunjens 7th army. Spring of 1927 brought more disunity to the First United Front and thus hurt the Northern Expedition. Although the NRA were clearly on a roll in Zhejiang and Fujian, their progress north of Wuhan and downriver from Jiangxi lost steam. Chiang Kai-Shek still held confidence of the men in the eastern route army concentrating along the Jiangsu-Anhui border, but their offensive was also halted. In southern Honan where the NRA were facing the remnants of Wu Peifu's army, winter's chill was beginning to slow down the expedition. The offensive kicked back up with a bunch of defections amongst Sun Chuanfang's forces in Anhui. Chen Tiaoyuan, Sun Chuanfangs commander in Chief for his Anhui forces, had became dissatisfied with him and how he was ruling the 5 province empire…which I guess is now more like 2. Chen Tiaoyuan was demoralized, who could blame him. Back on December 5th of 1926, Chen Tiaoyuan began secret negotiations by dispatching some of his subordinates such as Fan Shao-kai over to the KMT hoping to defect and gain a decent position. Simultaneously, Sun Chuanfang maintained hope of holding his frontline in Anhui by promoting subordinates. Sun Chuanfang appointed Chen Tiaoyuan to be the director of defenses over the province on December 21st. On February 20th of 1927, one of Chen Tiaoyuans divisions, led by Liu Paoti defected to the NRA when he was guarding a strategic pass known as the Chimen gateway. This was a 5000 foot high range leading into Anhui. Now the NRA held a mountain side door leading directly into Anhui. The mountain range in question also happened to be the last natural barrier that Sun Chuanfang's troops were utilizing to defend the lower Yangtze area, including of course Shanghai. After that Chen Tiaoyuang tossed the towel to the inevitable and defected to the NRA. Chen Tiaoyuan proved his defection by turning his defensive sector along the Yangtze over on March 2nd. He brought with him the mixed brigade of Wang Pu and elements of the Hunan Army led by Yue Kaixin. The NRA proceeded to advance over the Yellow Mountain and down it to seize Taiping in Anhui on march 3rd. Pretty much unopposed the NRA marched upon Nanking through Anhui taking several routes. By March 17th, the 17th Division of Cheng Chens 6th NRA Army had advanced 200 miles downstream using river steamboats and was only 70 miles away from Nanking. Over the north banks of the Yangtze the NRA formed a spearhead and thrusted it into the soft midsection of the north-south railway. By mid march the NRA captured Hofei in northern Anhui. At this point Sun Chuanfangs relationship with his navy was greatly waning and he was becoming more and more dependent on the Tsinpu railway as an escape option to head north rather than via the sea. Thus March of 1927 saw the NRA effectively begin trapping Sun Chuanfang into the Yangtze delta around Shanghai. The NRA southern forces were now advancing out of Zhejiang into the delta region. One pincer was heading north along the shores of Lake Tai aiming for the Shanghai-Nanking railway at Changzhou. Meanwhile in Anhui the 6th army was attacking Wuhu on the 6th of March. Anti-foreign disorder broke out at Wuhu as NRA political agents raillied crowds of civilians and soldiers to mob the foreigners maritime customs office and clubhouse. This sent the foreigners to flee downriver to Shanghai by ship carrying more tales of anti-foreign abuse with them. The eastern route force facing Shanghai was met with heavy artillery bombardment as more and more NPA troops from Shandong arrived. Several NRA attacks north of Shanghai against railway links were made, threatening the city's defensive capabilities. By mid march many forces defending Shanghai began evacuating for Nanking. On March 15th the eastern route army had its first major breakthrough over the hills that overlooked Lake Tai. NRA forces managed to outflank the enemy artillery placements and erected a real blockade by march 16th. Now a new NRA pincer moved west against Lishui, 40 miles from Nanking. Along the east shore of said lake, the NRA was effectively blocked by Shandong troops who held an advantage in heavy artillery. By mid march many Shandong reinforcements arrived at Changzhou along the Nanking-Shanghai railway, but were simply turned back to Nanking. Not a good look. From Wuhu the NRA kept the advance towards Tangtu which was outflanked and captured on the 17th, while the east route force took up a position 50 miles from Nanking on some ridges where Sun Chuanfang had once headquartered. On the 18th, north of the Yangtze the 7th NRA army just captured Hofei and its railway link. The delta area's defenses were falling apart everywhere one looked. The Dogmeat General took one look and ordered a general withdrawal of all the Shandong forces from the Shanghai area to some positions north of the Yangtze. With that Shanghai defenses fell apart. Over at the Sungchiang front the forces of Pi Shucheng retreated into the city towards the railway station, but did not high tail it to Nanking despite being ordered to do so. According to foreign and Chinese journalists, Pi Shucheng had been waiting for the opportune moment to defect to the NRA and had been secretly negotiating to turn Shanghai over. Thus it seemed the NRA had managed to capture the city without provoking the foreigners. On the 20th the NRA managed to flank the railroad artillery position still manned by some White Russian forces. They managed this through more defections, this time from Shanghai police. The Shanghai police controlled the waterways and aided the NRA in navigating them so they could advance more rapidly. Simultaneously Suzhou, Changzhou and Henglin were captured. Sun Chuanfang was receiving zero aid from the sea for over a week by this point as AdmiralYang Shuchuang had taken the fleet upriver to join the NRA's river fleet. Of course Admiral Yang Shuchuangs defection had been in the works for well over a year, but his timing could not have been worse for Sun Chuanfang. On March 21st a bloodless seizure of Shanghai proceeded. Now going back to our conversation about the anti-Chiang Kai-Shek movement, there had been a lot of development during this time period. In January of 1927, Wang Jingwei with his left wing allies, members of the CCP and Borodin had transferred the seat of the KMT government from Guangzhou to Wuhan. On March 1st the KMT government then reorganized the military commission and placed Chiang Kai-Shek under its jurisdiction with the secret intent to arrest him. As the NRA was about to storm Shanghai, a major opportunity presented itself to the CCP. Most of the Northern Chinese defenders still stuck in Shanghai were simply looking to surrender. Thus on March 21st, CCP leaders Zhou Enlai and Chen Duxiu launched an armed uprising. The CCP seized weapons, created a general strike and seized most of the city. This caused many of Sun Chuanfangs soldiers to flee to the railway station or coasts, looting as they did. Major battle took place between armed workers and soldiers, causing fires and damaged to heavily populated areas of the city. For example in the northern suburb of Zhapei, armed workers burnt down 3000 homes. By the night of the 22nd Bai Chongxi's NRA troops were gradually occupying the city, however the general strike was disrupting their efforts. General Bai Chongxi' ordered the CCP to call off the general strike on the 24th, but for over 4 days 322 Chinese were killed and over 2000 were wounded. As the NRA consolidated their authority over the city, their top spokesmen, Chiang Kai-SHek, Ho Yingqin and Bai Chongxi tried to alleviate the foreign community who were ridden with frightened refugees in the international settlement. The settlement was a literal warzone, fitted with barbed wire, gates, marines and soldiers behind sandbag trenches and such. Very real and many false stories were spread of anti-foreign atrocities. The NRA put out notices stating “The purpose of the military operations of the Northern Expedition is to establish a nation governed by the people and to get rid of the warlords. Our army occupied Hunan, Kiangsi, Hupeh, Fukien, Chekiang, Anhui, and other provinces and the unification of the entire nation will be accomplished soon. The Party Army's success is the victory of the people…. In accordance with international morality we shall guard the lives and property of foreigners. We have occupied Shanghai by more than force. We request that consuls inform your nationals to carry on your activities as usual and order the marines not to misunderstand our motives and not to carry out means to obstruct our revolutionary cause'. And now we come to a large and confusing part of the story. At Nanking and Shanghai major events would unfold, seeing the end of the first United Front. After a few days, anti-foreign actions would follow the capture of Nanking requiring more and more public assurances from the KMT. The last demoralized rear guard crossed the Yangtze to get to the safer northern bank. By doing this, now the NPA's most southern position was the rail terminal at Pukou. The NRA vanguard entered Nanking on March 24th, with units of the 6th army and countless NPA Anhui defectors alongside them. Chiang Kai-Shek loyalists in the KMT then charged the head of the 6th NRA army's political department, a CCP member named Lin Xuhan with masterminding attacks upon foreigners. These attacks provoked the foreign powers to then attack Chiang Kai-Shek, diverting his attention from the northern expedition and weakening his authority over the new Wuhan government. Elements of the 6th army had stirred up anti-foreign attitudes amongst their troops and civilians within Nanking. Yet the foreign community in the city would go on to say the attacks they witnessed were not made by civilian mobs. Whatever motivations, the situation that unfolded at Nanking signified a giant breach of soldier discipline. For Chiang Kai-Shek to have permitted such actions to take place was inconsistent with his strategy of avoiding any provocation upon the foreign powers. Yet over 25,000 Nanking refugees flooded over to Shanghai as 25,000 foreign marines and soldiers began defending the concessions, assuring the NRA they were ready for a fight. Going back in time somewhat, the March 20th coup was something akin to a patient zero. Back on January 3rd of 1927 elements of the KMT at Wuhan had triggered mobs to attack the British concessions until they gave back authority at Hankou and Kiukiang to the Chinese. Yet the KMT had never given such orders to do so. It seemed the CCP were pushing these actions. Between March 7th to the 17th, the new Joint Council at Wuhan was openly being defiant towards Chiang Kai-Shek and they held their first plenary session to work against him. They met with KMT leftists and CCP members and agreed to appoint CCP members, Su Chaocheng and Tan Pingshan as ministers; promoted CCP peasant and labour groups and dispatched three representatives to the Third Communist International to discuss China's role in the would be world revolution. It did not seem the CCP intended to keep their promise to the KMT about China not going communist. All of this authority at Wuhan undermined Chiang Kai-Sheks authority and those loyal to him. They immediately voted to take direct control of military funds which had been previously handled by the minister of Finance, T.V Soong, obviously considered a loyal supporter to Chiang Kai-Shek. In order to gain more influence in the NRA, the Wuhan guys began creating a parallel military chain of command and recruited CCP members into major officer positions. They hoped such actions would see more military types defect over to their cause. Now by this point the NRA really had become a giant beast. When the northern expedition launched in July of 1926 the were 8 armies, by March of 1927 they were now 40. Wuhans fiscal and political control over said armies would clearly undermine and probably be capable of getting rid of Chiang Kai-Shek, so it was a no brainer to attempt seizing them for the CCP. The Wuhan cabal hoped to incorporate some of the new armies, made mostly of defectors, whose alliances were probably flimsy to be under their control. Chiang Kai-Shek tried to counter these attacks, but anything he did would be seen as censorship or anti-communist, thus shattering the first united front, from which he still depended….or did he? Now technically the Wuhan Cabal was only able to do what they were doing because leading KMT figures were not present such as Chiang Kai-Shek and Wang Jingwei. Thus lesser members like Xu Chen and Teng Yenta were able to make some big decisions. Both men were CCP aligned and worked to abolish Chiang Kai-Sheks posts that he held such as ministry of the military which was replaced by the Wuhan Military council. The Wuhan cabal was able to reduce Chiang Kai-Sheks role as commander in chief and give various tasks to other military commanders. Likewise the military education programs at the KMT academics removed Chiang Kai-Sheks supervisory role, depriving him of obtaining the loyalty of the new junior officer corps. Appointment, promotions and dismissals of commanders would be done by the Military council, ie: Xu CHen and Teng Yenta. They first relieved Chen Mingshu, a known Chiang Kai-Shek loyalist and replaced him with a Moscow certified star Tang Shengchih. It became very obvious what they were trying to do. Thus as the Wuhan cabal tore apart Chiang Kai-Sheks authority piece by piece, the NRA's war against Wu Peifu and Sun Chuanfang began to collapse. Without a high degree of coordination and leadership, the NRA was finding it difficult to fight the numerically superior NPA forces. In March of 1927, Wuhan proclaimed all regulations ordered by Chiang Kai-Sheks HQ to be nullified. This meant although he retained authority over troops at the frontlines, Wuhan now claimed authority over all the other troops. All of these attacks upon Chiang Kai-Shek caused massive confusion in the ranks. Many within the KMT believed and rightfully so that the CCP was trying to take leadership over the movement. As the northern expedition took the NRA into Jiangsu, the momentum of their previous victories had pushed them across the Yangtze. This was heavily aided by the recent Shanghai Navy defectors who eased the crossing using their vessels. Those already operating north of the Yangtze such as the 3rd, 7th and 10th armies were pressing past Hofei towards Pengpu by early April. Pengpu was the capital of Anhui, forming a sort of bridgehead over the Huai river with a railway depot for Zhang Zongchang's armies. Thus its capture would open a door to the invasion of North China. Yet the NRA's momentum died in confusion over which direction they were to take, because of the Wuhan cabal-Chiang Kai-Shek fighting, and their logistical support was falling apart. It seemed to all like the northern expedition might never make it to the north. 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 NRA managed to seize the super cities of Shanghai and Nanking. The NRA now dominated most of south China and were about to begin invading the north, when internal problems arose. The CCP and Chiang Kai-Shek were not seeing eye to eye and now a civil war seemed to be breaking out in the first united front.
Did you know that in that in 1850, Hong Xiuquan, a man who interpreted literal fever demons as religious visions from God informing him that he was Jesus's little brother and that he needed to overthrow the Qing Dynasty and take over all of China, almost did just that? He raised an army that fought imperial China for over decade and waged a war that left between 20 and 70 million people dead. Perhaps the craziest historical event I've ever heard of that I didn't know anything about before starting this podcast.Hope you enjoy the sound of the new recording equipment! Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: store@badmagicproductions.com (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. And you get the download link for my secret standup album, Feel the Heat.
Nach der traditionellen chinesischen Kultur leben Gottheiten und Kultivierende in Berghöhlen. Manche Menschen wollten sie finden, konnten es aber nicht, während andere ihnen eher zufällig begegneten. Es heißt, dass der Gelbe Kaiser von Guang Chengzi vom Berg Kongtong gelernt hat und daraufhin unsterblich wurde. Sowohl im Taiping Guangji (Aufzeichnungen aus der Zeit der Taiping) als auch im Yijian Zhi aus der Song-Dynastie finden sich viele Geschichten über geheimnisvolle Ereignisse in den Höhlen... https://de.minghui.org/html/articles/2023/6/13/168821.html
Last time we spoke about the Anti-Fengtian War. The Anti-Fengtian War included two major theaters, the Zhejiang-Fengtian War and the Guominjun-Fengtian War. Within China's north, Feng Yuxiang brokered many sneaky deals with other warlords, trying to bring down Zhang Zuolin. One of these warlords was the disgruntled Guo Songling who led a brave or some would say idiotic rebellion, striking at the heart of the Fengtian empire. Feng Yuxiang failed to really exploit Guo Songling's actions, and Wu Peifu ended up joining Zhang Zuolin, simply out of spite for Feng Yuxiang. The war between the Guominjun and Fengtian soon fell apart for Feng Yuxiang as his forces were gradually dislodged from the Beijing area into northwest China. In an ironic case of deja vu, Zhang Zuolin and Wu Peifu found themselves again working together in Beijing. Little did they know, while they had been fighting in the north, it was the south where real danger lay. #110 The Northern Expedition Part 1: Invading Hunan 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. So we have now come to a point where the warlord era takes a sharp turn. While we have been talking about countless wars between numerous factions, this is basically the end game as they say. I have no idea how many episodes it will take, so I apologize in advance, but we are going to be covering the Northern Expedition. I've probably mentioned it a hundred times by this point, the northern expedition. Dr Sun Yat-Sens brainchild, put simply build an army and march north to reunify China. Sounds kind of insane given the disparity in strength between whose in the north and south eh? Facing what can only be described as staggering odds, the Kuomintang over in their separate government based out of Guangzhou suddenly began the most incredible military expedition of the warlord era. On the verge of disintegration with inadequate materials, most of which were coming from the Soviets, the military campaign was a gamble to say the least. Chiang Kai-Shek was ultimately counting on the weakness of his enemies rather than his own NRA forces. His Soviet advisors all told him not to do it, that it would be a terrible blunder. Now if you open up text books, read contemporary buzzfeed like artiles or watch youtube shorts, they would have you believe the northern expedition was this easy sweep northward led by a vanguard of Communist propagandist forces. In reality it was a series of hard fought battles where either side could have knocked out the other completely. Now for most of its life, this Guangzhou based cabal that the KMT were in control of, had always been on the defensive. For the most part their secure powerbase was Guangdong and from there they would gradually conquer region after region, one by one. Something that can truly be said about the KMT, unlike the other factions, take the Fengtian or Zhili for example was its strong sense of having an ideology and its charismatic strong man at the head of its army. There was of course personal armies within the NRA, they were more or less a confederation, but the ideology of the KMT glued them all together. The other factions, perhaps excluding the Guominjun, simply did not have this. There was a shared concern that the political make up of China needed to be democratic and not devolve into the traditional or imperial autocracies that had plagued China for so long. The first region Chiang Kai-Shek would target would be the rich middle Yangtze provinces of Hubei and Hunan, both of which had recently come back under the dominion of the Jade Marshal Wu Peifu. The route the NRA would take would be through Hunan and Hubei, down the Yangtze and up into the North China plain before finally marching upon Beijing. Ironically it was an identical path, one Hong Xiuquan once took when he rallied the Taiping against the Qing Dynasty. To first invade Hunan, Chiang Kai-Shek faced a rather daunting task. He did not have the military power to simply defeat the warlords of the province. He needed to exploit the political scene within it. Prior to the northern expedition, Hunan was dominated by northern warlords who were alien to the southern province. This of course antagonized the local populations creating an unstable political environment. This was something the KMT could manipulate. The KMT's nationalistic ideology was something that could potentially win over allies or weaken petty warlords rule. The KMT could exploit local interests and provincialism, self rule movements and such. When the KMT looked at Hunan they could see an ongoing power struggle. The Hunanese gentry class was being kept alive purely upon a desire for provincial autonomy. The governor Chao Hengti, a Hunanese native was subordinate to Wu Peifu, a Shandong native. By 1926 a conflict had emerged between 4 Hunanese divisional commanders. Chao Hengti favored Yue Kaixin the strongest of them controlling the Hunanese 3rd division. Chao Hengti sought to weaken the rest and used Yue to weaken the second largest 4th division led by Tang Shengchih.Tang Shengchih dominated southwestern Hunan and went on the defensive when he figured out the Governor and Yue were after him. The KMT noticed this over in Guangdong. Now political intervention in Hunan required personal connections. Within the KMT party membership were Hunanese civilians and military officials. This was one of the great strengths of the KMT as a clique, how their political membership transcended provincial or regional bases. Similar to the CCP, who had those like Mao Zedong working with the rural masses in Hunan, the KMT had ties to those at some of the top echelons of the province's power structure. One leading KMT figure who pushed for the northern expedition was Tan Yenkai who also had been the governor of Hunan after the 1911 revolution. He had always maintained an interest in Hunan and while in Guangdong had rallied a 15,000 men strong force of Hunanese troops, now renamed the 2nd army of the NRA. Prior to 1926 Tan Yenkai had already led one military campaign to retake Hunan for Dr Sun Yat-Sen. Back in 1924, when Sun Yat-Sen was trying to form a coalition with northern powers, Tan Yenkai launched a rather ill-conceived and short lived campaign, trying to bolster Sun's position in Beijing. Another commander in Jiangxi had pushed Tan Yenkai's force back into Guangdong and the failure provided quite the lesson, that one should also exploit the political realm alongside the military. By spring of 1926 Chiang Kai-Shek and his top subordinates began planning an invasion of Hunan. Aside for the ex-governor Tan Yenkai, the KMT also had ties to Tang Shengchih. Liu Wentao and Chen Mingshu had been classmates of Tang Shengchih back at the Baoting Military academy in 1912. In 1925 they began reconnecting with the man, arranging a propaganda tour of the province. Liu Wentao, then a professor of political science, began touring China, lecturing all on the Three People's Principles of the KMT. Tang Shenchich went to one of these speeches and many of his men as well. There was also Pai Chungxi, another schoolmate of Tang Shenchih, the leader of the 7th Jiangxi Army of the NRA. The KMT also had loose connections with the hunan divisional commander Ho Yaotsu who was friends with Cheng Chien, a hunanese native and the commander of the 6th NRA army, primarily consisting of Hunanese troops. Now Chiang Kai-Shek began courting Governor Chao Hengti in June of 1926. He approached the man as a fellow member of the older Kuomintang party, pleading in a telegram that they should reunite into a new national movement. Obviously Chiang Kai-shek was making a powerplay to try and win over Hunan without shedding blood, he did not stop sending messages to the man even a week before the shells would fly. In southern Hunan at this time, Tang Shengchih was dominating the Hsiang valley with his 9000 man strong division. Tang Shengchih was a pretty intelligent player. He had numerous connections from his Baoting academy days and he managed to expand his domain to include 27 of Hunans 75 tax-collection districts. However by early 1926 Governor Chao had ordered all 4 Hunan divisional commanders to remit the local taxes they gathered to the provincial capital of Changsha. Obviously this was to centralize the power, and such revenue losses would strangle Tang Shengchih's power. So Tang Shengchih began talks with the KMT as early as february of 1926. It was a dangerous play, many had seen the numerous cases where inviting allies from another province only brought unwelcome guests. Perhaps Tang Shengchih believed by gaining some KMT support, he might be able to overpower Chao Hengti. But he was no idiot, he asked for KMT assurance he would fill the role of governorship and not someone like Tan Yenkai who indeed was lurking in the shadows. Tang Shengchih was given said assurance and signed an alliance treaty on February 24th. When Tang Shengchih unleashed his forces against Governor Chao Hengtai the same month, it was perfect timing. Wu Peifu was preoccupied in north China fighting Feng Yuxiang, thus the governor had no reinforcements. Threatened, Chao Hengti immediately fled Changsha, heading north. While this was occurring, Tang Shengchih labeled the governor nothing but a northern puppet of Wu Peifu. From February to March of 1926 Chiang Kai-Shek was still struggling for authority over the KMT to launch the Northern Expedition. Thus Tang Shengchih's rebellion had preceded it, and was done without KMT resources. Still feeling confident Tang Shengchih began marching into northern Hunan. Back over in Guangzhou, the KMT commissioner of foreign affairs notified everyone that Tang was doing this all on his own, none of their resources had reached him yet. When Tang Shengchih secured Changsha in mid march, a lot of the hunanese gentry began supporting his cause to be governor. Tang Shengchih's forces then overran Yochou along Hunan's northern border. Tang Shengchih had not yet accepted the governorship position, in march he was still looking to see how the KMT alliance would pan out. Yet in March tensions emerged within the KMT over the northern expedition The March 20th coup certainly expedited aid to Tang Shengchih. 5 Days after, Tang Shengchih accepted governorship and with his new position he proceeded to purge his political enemies from the provinces administration while installing his friends. By late March 1926, Wu Peifu finally responded to the threat to his hegemony over Hunan. He began threatening to return south with his Honanese troops. Now Wu Peifu's armies were still facing Feng Yuxiang at this time, but the KMT aid also had not come yet so Tang Shengchih paused. Tang Shengchih began playing down his ties to the KMT in responding to Wu Peifu, posing as a mere neutral. In early april of 1926, Feng Yuxiang had been cast out of the North China plain and now Wu Peifu had a free hand to play against the rebellion in Hunan. Tang Shengchih now under real threat, began recalling his regiments from northern Hunan and evacuated his forces from Changsha as he built a defense in his home valley. To deal with the menace, Wu Peifu looked to find a Hunanese local to manage the province for him. Wu Peifu turned to the Hunanese 3rd division commander, Yue Kaixin, to make him military governor and commander of the 1st division, with Ho Yaotsu to be civil governor. However the Hunanese gentry cried out immediately at this, stating they would not allow him to overturn their authority. Thwarted, Wu Peifu reverted to violence to pacify the troublesome province. In May, Tang Shengchih suffered a major defeat and was forced to fall back on the defense as Wu Peifu's Hunanese allies were battering him. Until NRA forces advanced into the province, there was little hope for Tang Shengchih and his crumbling defenses within the Xiang valley. Thousands of men from the NRA's 4th and 7th armies began to arrive in late May, but even so they were outnumbered in southern Hunan. It was not until June 2nd, when Tang Shengchih finally caved and accepted the offer from Chiang Kai-Shek to be the commander of the 8th NRA army. Thus Tang Shengchih went from leading a division to an army and his regimental commanders became division commanders. It was also of course a substantial pay raise. This was the type of model the NRA would adopt throughout the Northern Expedition. If you can't beat them, buy them. Just a few days later, the NRA forces within Hunan accepted Tang Shengchih as their front line commander. Tang Shengchih then proclaimed he would head a provisional Hunan government as its governor in the name of the KMT government. The KMT had done a lot to win over the Hunanese people. The Hunanese people wanted autonomy, so the KMT flouted notions of provincial autonomy with a federal system. It was a marriage of convenience. Another major carrot was promising to end the tyranny of the northern warlords and the exploitation of the foreign imperialists. Some began to refer to the Northern Expedition as the “anti-north campaign” and clearly the first target would be the warlord controlling Hunan, Hubei and Honan, the Jade Marshal. In July the 4th army divisions led by Chang Fangkuei and Chen Mingshu arrived at the front, thus the defense changed to offense. At this point Wu Peifu's armies were still too far in North China and his Hunan allies were now becoming overwhelmed by the NRA swarming out of Guangdong. Under these dire circumstance, Wu Peifu's appointed governor, Chao Hengti made a stand along the north banks of the Xiang, the Lien and Lu rivers. From late June to early July the NRA prepared to ford the Lien river sitting west of the Xiang and the Lu river to its east. Down the Xiang was Changsha. Facing the Lu river were two 4th army divisions and Yue Tings independent regiment and another Hunanese regiment. Over at the Lien river were Jiangxi troops of the 7th army alongside the remainder of Tang Shengchihs 8th army. As the first major offensive kicked out, Tang Shengchih was at the front raising morale for the Hunanese, which was very important, as do remember, all these forces coming out of Guangdong were alien Cantonese to them. A breakthrough emerged along the two-river lines with the 7th and 8th NRA armies over on the left wing on the 5th of July. By the 10th the 4th NRA Army engaged the enemy towards Changsha. Over in the east where Hunan bordered Jiangxi, a subordinate of Sun Chuanfang who controlled the lower Yangtze region was completely undisturbed by the NRA forces. Chiang Kai-Shek and his subordinates had given specific orders not to molest Sun Chuanfang, trying to avoid bringing him into the fight to join Wu Peifu. The NRA also profited off a recent flood of the Yangtze that had backed water up the streams of northern Hunan, hindering enemy communications. Wu Peifu was awaited reinforcements over at his HQ in Wuhan while his generals in Hunan faced the real threat of being encircled and annihilated. To Wu Peifu's western flank, two Guizhou warlords were watching the tide of battle. Wu Peifu was very aware of this and it threatened his western defensives. The season had also been a poor harvest, reducing food stuff for Hunan, a province that was already quite dependent on exports north in places like Wuhan. Even with his riverine navy, Wu Peifu could not hope to move enough foodstuff to his southern front. Another issue he faced was the passive resistance of Hunan's peasantry class who began hiding their produce from suppliers. The loss of the Lien-Lu River line left Changsha completely defenseless, so on July 11th the defenders simply withdraw further north of the city. With the Guangdong and Juangxi forces entering Hunan, the NRA had gained enough manpower to begin advancing north. From July 11th after taking Changsha until mid August the front moved north only 50 miles. Delays occurred because reinforcements and war materials for the NRA could only be moved halfway up from Guangzhou by rail. Afterwards they had to travel over back-breaking terrain by foot. Soldiers and their hired coolies had to hand carry supplies and arms and this in turn limited the largest weaponry they could move, such as small field cannons which took entire teams of carriers. For those of you who don't know, I specialize in the Pacific War and I can certainly say, the Japanese forces in isolated islands, take Guadalcanal for example, saw this exact type of situation. Japanese artillery teams would have to disassemble artillery pieces and carry them by hand through rough jungles, often under starvation conditions. Not fun. The NRA during these circumstance, much like the Japanese in the 1940's in jungle terrain islands would suffer from terrible ailments, not malaria like the Japanese, but cholera. Cholera was taking a toll on the overheated and exhausted soldiers and civilian coolies. One Chen Kungpo wrote in his memoirs “that hundreds died daily in one mountain town on the route going north”. By August, both sides were gathering in strength along a new front, established near the Milo River. A military advisor wrote “Sometimes there are no provisions, my colleagues tear off some sort of grass, chew it and are full.” However the northern forces could not launch counterattacks without the full support of the Jade Marshall's main army who were still stuck in North China aiding Zhang Zuolin against the treacherous Feng Yuxiang. To remedy the two front situation, Wu Piefu tried but failed to secure loans and aid from his former protege, Sun Chuanfang, who honestly was more foe than friend now. Sun Chuanfang had basically taken the mantle as the strong Zhili leader and certainly did not want to share any of his newfound limelight. Alongside this the British turned a cold shoulder to Wu Peifu and the Japanese never liked him to begin with. Despite some local floods and the cholera outbreak, Chiang Kai-Shek was able to arrive to Hengyang with over 100,000 NRA troops. These numbers had been recently bolstered by Guizhou warlords such as Peng Hanchang and Wang Tienpei who had watched eagerly the battles of the Lien-Lu line before tossing their lot in with the NRA. The Guizhou forces had marched into western Hunan clearing out pockets of resistance as they did. During the northern expedition, smaller warlords tended to simply defect or join the NRA when the NRA was winning. The NRA now prepared an offensive to break the Milo river line, also emboldened by the peasantry class who were very willing to work. The local floods in northern Hunan, combined with the droughts in southern Hunan had destroyed the peasants' fields, thus they needed to make money. The NRA exploited this to recruit soldiers and coolies en masse and this greatly improved their mobility. By contrast, Wu Peifu's forces were low on ammunition, rations were also beginning to dwindle and the majority of the soldiers had not been paid in quite some time. In the NRA controlled areas, the Hunanese peasants were selling what produce they could spare, but the NRA were also being supplemented by rice carried from Guangdong. The NRA also made sure to pay coolies properly instead of Shanghai'ing them and did not plunder peasants' foodstuffs. This of course led to wide scale cooperation from the local population, something quite rare for the warlord era. A final conference was held at Changsha on August 12th between Chiang Kai-Shek, the top NRA commanders and Soviet advisors. By the 15th orders were dispatched for a general offensive against the Moli line with the objective of reaching Hubei. The NRA right wing also prepared to defend the army in cause Sun Chuanfang finally extended help to Wu Peifu from Guanxi. Chiang Kai-Shek was filled with excitement, for if successful, the NRA offensive would capture Wuhan and her incredible Hanyang Arsenal. Chiang Kai-Shek dispatched word to his generals before the battle. “The importance of this fight is not only in that it will decide the fate of the warlords. But, whether or not the Chinese nation and race can restore their freedom and independence hangs in the balance. In other words, it is a struggle between the nation and the warlords, between the revolution and the anti-revolutionaries, between the Three People's Principles and imperialism. All are to be decided now in this time of battle … so as to restore independence and freedom to our Chinese race”. The general plan of attack was to breach the Milo river line and quickly capture Wuhan. Speed and timing were critical factors. It was all basically a huge gamle. The NRA needed to secure Wuhan before Wu Peifu or Sun Chuanfang entered the war, thus preventing the NRA incursion into the Yangtze Valley. At the moment the NRA and their immeidate adversary in northern Hunan were around equal number, but if Sun Chuanfang entered the mix he had nearly double what Chiang Kai-Shek had. The 4th and 6th NRA armies made their crossing over the Milo on August 17th, successfully outflanking the enemy line and easing the way for the left wing of the 7th and 8th NRA armies to advance. By the 19th, Wu Peifu's troops were forced out of their trenches and only provided sporadic resistance as they withdrew into southern Hubei. During the two day retreat the northern forces had divided in two with the western flank taking refuse in Wu Peifu's naval stronghold of Yuehzhou. Its port was heavily fortified, however the recent floods had caused water from Dongting lake and the Yangtze to meet, ruining many of the fortifications. The NRA cut across Yuehzhou's railway link to Wuhan and surrounded it. Wu Peifu had frantically orders troops to hold the naval base, until he could detach himself from the Hobei operations to take personal command of the shit storm in Hunan. However during a meeting with Zhang Zuolin at Baoding, Wu Peifu received word his subordinates had simply taken all the naval vessels, riverine vessels and even sampans to head downstream for Wuhan. Yuehzhou fell with ease by the 22nd and Hunan was practically cleared of Wu Peifu's regular forces. Wu Peifu's navy contuined to fight the enemy, but all they could really do is harass NRA units along th baks of Dongting lake or the Yangtze. In response the NRA simply tosses fire rafts at them, a classic and age old tactic. As the NRA chased the enemy, the local railway workers on lines heading into Hubei cooperated. The workers began cutting railway lines and telegraph lines to obstruct the enemy retreating from Yuehzhou. Entire trainloads of troops and war materials fell directly into the hands of the NRA. The end of August saw Chiang Kai-Shek's gamble pay off. Although Sun Chuanfang could pounce at any moment from Juangxi, the NRA had succesfully given a bloody nose to one warlord. The victory of the NRA over Hunan did not go unnoticed by the surrounding provinces warlords. Guizhou generals began joining the KMT as the war raged and the Milo river line fight influenced some generals under Sun Chuanfang to reconsider their loyalites. It was quite remarkable that Sun Chuanfangs decision to stay out of the immediate fight lost him the easiest chance of ending the NRA altogether. If Sun Chuanfang had intervened in the Hunan war, almost 100% he would have defeated Chiang Kai-Shek and easily march upon Guangzhou to end the first United Front. Losing Guangdong the KMT would have withered away, perhaps the CCP, would cower into the shadows awaited the right moment to pounce. Chiang Kai-Shek would not have withstood such a defeat, his leadership role would have been shattered. But such was not the case, Chiang Kai-Shek took Hunan and proved himself a new formidable player on the board. The Hunan campaign cost the NRA, but now they had the perfect base of operations and springboard for further offensives. By the end of August the NRA's intelligence reported Wu Peifu was advancing south to reinforce Wuhan, thus Chiang Kai-Shek tossed the dice of fate again. Advancing north against the three-city stronghold, was regiments of Chen Mingshu and Chang Fakuei's 4th Army. The withdrawal from the Milo river line had allowed Wu Peifu's Hubei forces to form a new line. The Guangzhou-Hankou railway followed a narrow land route between the Yangtze and highland ranges, crossing over multiple flooded bridgeheads. To further hinder the NRA's advance, the Hunanese had breached nearby dikes of the Yangtze. Then they heavily fortified the Tingszu Brigde with barbed wire and machine gun nests over its northern riverbank. The NRA vanguard attacked the stronghold on August 26th, coming to a abrupt halt. The NRA's superior mobility, aided by local boatsmen allowing the NRA right wing to head upstream and get around the enemy's flank. Likewise the NRA 4th army threatened the railway to Wuhan, making Wu Peifu's forces more vulnerable. The forces defending Wuhan were mainly the same troops who had fled Hunan, exhausted and demoralized. When the first attacks came upon the bridgehead, joined by flank attacks, the defensive line collapsed. During the night of the 26th the NRA stormed several strongpoints and outposts. Here again Wu Peifu's forces jumped onto any vessel they could get away with, or fled aboard the last trains heading north. The Tingszu bridge was captured, but at a bloody cost that would limit the NRA's ability to pursue the fleeing enemy. Once again the floods slowed the advance, alongside Wu Peifu's riverine vessels that continued to fire upon any NRA troops that ventured too close to waterways. Yet Wu Peifu's troops were running low on food while the NRA were accumulating more of it. As the NRA soldiers marched across the Tingszu bridge, locals flocked over to sell them foodstuff as by this time word had spread far about how the NRA paid for what they needed. On August 28th the NRA forces captured Xienning, but further north came across the Hesheng bridge. The bridge was heavily fortified and defended by forces under the personal command of Wu Peifu. Back on August the 25th and Hankou, Wu Peifu received word that Tingszu bridge had fallen, thus he quickened his advance to the front. He was shocked by the fall of the bridge and blamed his subordinates, labeling them cowards. When he arrived at Hesheng, Wu Peifu gathered his officers as he executed the commanders who lost the Tingszu bridge. He had with him mercenaries of the Big Swords Corps functioning as the executioners. On August 29th, Wu Peifu then went on the offensive and attacked the NRA vanguard, elements of Li Tsungjen's 7th Army just a bit due south of the Hesheng Bridge. His attack devastated the vanguard until the main bulk of the 7th and 4th armies arrived. Just before dawn on the 30th, Wu Peifu attacked the NRA's line of defense south of the bridge, probing for a weak point. He hit the 4th and 7th armies sectors, but was gradually met by artillery and rifle fire that took a heavy toll. Wu Peifu then had the Big Swords executioners clip more officers of their heads to boost morale. However as Wu Peifu continued to press his offensive his men eventually routed under pressure. His troops fled right over the Hesheng bridge allowing the 7th army to flank them further upstream where they took another smaller bridge and threatened his lifeline, the railway line to Wuhan. By noon on the 30th, Wu Peifu's Hunanese and Hubei forces were in a general retreat heading north. Wu Peifu had just lost southern Hubei in what was an absolute clumsy miscalculation. During the retreat the NRA flank attack against his railway line saw them capture 3 trains full loaded with troops and arms. Over the course of the past weeks he had lost two bridgeheads seeing 1000 deaths, 2000 wounded and 5000 captured alongside all their weaponry. After the entire debacle, Wu Peifu began frantically pleading with Sun Chuanfang to come down the Yangtze to help him. But Sun Chuanfang made ambiguous responses and dragged his feet. As he did so the NRA fortified their defenses facing Juangxi. In full retreat Wu Peifu began breaching dikes behind his forces to slow down the NRA as they approached Wuchang, the capital of Hubei. He left a force of 10,000 men to defend the city behind its sturdy walls as he ferried the rest of his men to Hankou. Once his forces landed on the other side of the Yangtze he had half of them take up positions to defend the Hanyang Arsenal, while the others defended Hankou, which served as his new HQ. By September his forces from Honan began to arrive. On August 31st, Chen Mingshu's 4th army was in hot pursuit of the enemy. His vanguard took a vantage point near Wuchang as reconnaissance investigated the city. On September 2nd, the NRA unleashed frontal assaults to probe its defenses, but they lacked any heavy artillery to actually back up a real attack. As a result the NRA suffered heavy casualties before pulling back to establish a proper siege. Meanwhile by september 5th, Hanyang was also surrounded. Defending Hanyang was a Hubei division led by Liu Tsolung who placed artillery on some fortified high points. When the NRA was just about to launch an assault, suddenly Liu Tsolung, overseeing the majority of Hanyangs defenses defected and helped capture the city and its arsenal. It was a tremendous blow to Wu Peifu as the NRA vanguard was now bypassing Hanyang to threaten his railway link to Honan. Wu Peifu tried to salvage the units he had left to mount a last ditch defensive line over the border hills between Hubei and Honan. Wu Peifu had now withdrawn to the Wushen pass lying on the border, hoping to hold out as more of his Honanese forces advanced south. Yet once again the NRA's superior mobility deprived Wu Peifu of enough time to dig into the pass. After a few assaults, Wu Peifu lost the pass and was driven further back into Honan. The walled city of Wuchang could not be taken as easily as Hanyang or Hankou. Wu Peifu and his men would defend it for well over a month. The NRA did not have proper siege weapons, and the threat of Sun Chuanfang loomed over them.Yet Wu Peifu had not expected Hunan and Hubei to fall so quickly and had not prepared his capital for a long siege. He had 10,000 soldiers, hundreds of thousands of civilians locked within its walls. There were also foreigners within the city and foreign gunboats. The threat of international intervention loomed upon the actions of the NRA. Chiang Kai-Shek telegrammed his foreign minister that a communique should be sent out to inform the world powers “… on the matter of protecting foreign nationals, I have already informed the armies to observe my prohibition against the military occupying or obstructing affairs in foreign-established churches, schools, and the like….” Chiang Kai-Shek personally overlooked the siege to make sure no foreigners were molested. Just to clear up something that might be confusing some of you, Wuchang refers to one of the 13 urban districts of the capital of Hubei, Wuhan. Now back in mid August, Chiang Kai-Shek called for the capture of Wuhan at Changsha and he had made secret negotiations with Sun Chuanfang to get him to sit out the war. Sun Chuanfang had been quite ambiguous about what he would do, but it was known to NRA intelligence he was massing troops along the borders of Jiangxi and Fujian. Sun Chuanfang made up the excuse he was simply defending his territory from NRA aggression. Apparently Chiang Kai-Shek offered a nonaggression pact and an open invitation to join the KMT, but Sun Chuanfang did not want to give up his new found control over the 5 southeastern provinces for what was perceived to be a lesser role in the KMT. Sun Chuanfang then prepared a two pronged offensive to relieve Wuchang by driving west into KMT territory. Sun Chuanfang was sitting on 200,000 troops and Chiang Kai-Shek was well aware of the threat he posed. Thus Chiang Kai-Shek would go for broke, casting the dice of fate once more. 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. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek rolled the dice of fate when he unleashed an offensive against Wu Peifu's holdings in Hunan and Hubei. The gambles paid off big time as the NRA swarmed their enemy, taking prisoners and war materials. However Sun Chuanfang was now entering the fray, a real fight would soon unfold.
This week we are rejoined by friend of the show and rising star of east coast comedy Bobby Tamburro to discuss a the mid 19th century Taiping rebel uprising. The brutal conflict was sparked by a religious movement congregated around a western influenced educator who decided he was the brother of Jesus Christ and would lead a holy revolution against the Qing Dynasty and purge the country of China from its minority ethnic rulers. The Western powers both arguably had a hand in the genesis of this movement as well as a hand in its downfall and all told between 20 and 30 million Chinese perished. Check out Bobby on the podcasts of the East Side Dave Universe and the POS on youtube and follow him across social media @bobby_tamburro Don't forget to join our Telegram channel at T.me/historyhomos and to join our group chat at T.me/historyhomoschat The video version of the show is available on Youtube, bitchute, odysee. For weekly premium episodes or to contribute to the show subscribe to our channel at www.rokfin.com/historyhomos Any questions comments concerns or T-shirt/sticker requests can be leveled at historyhomos@gmail.com Later homos --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/historyhomos/support
In this episode of Guerrilla History, we get into part 3 of our 4 part miniseries on modern Chinese history featuring Ken Hammond (and guest host Breht O'Shea of Revolutionary Left Radio) with an amazing discussion of The Great Leap Forward and The Cultural Revolution! If you haven't already listened to part 1 of the series, on the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions, or part 2 on The Chinese Revolution & Civil War, be sure to go back and check those out because we pick up right where we left off last time. With these final two episodes in the series, we enter the period where various ideological traditions diverge in their analysis of the events, but regardless of what ideological background you come from, we encourage you to listen to these and engage with the information, as we believe the information will help you deepen your own analysis regardless of your ideological position. Ken Hammond is Professor of East Asian and Global History at New Mexico State University. He has been engaged in radical politics since his involvement in the anti-war movement at Kent State in 1968-70. Ken is also the author of the book China's Revolution & the Quest for a Socialist Future. ----------------------------------------------------------- Support Rev Left Radio
Last time we spoke about the first Guangdong-Guangxi War. The First Anhui-Zhili War not only affected northern China, it also put into motion many events in the south. Viceroy Lu Rongting, working for Duan Qirui and his Anhui Clique was sent south to take over the position as governor of Guangdong. But those already in the Guangdong Clique wanted nothing to do with the north, nor with Lu Rongting and this led to conflict. A bitter struggle emerged between the southern cliques, all seeking to influence the Guangzhou southern government. Forces from Guizhou, Guangxi and Yunnan invaded Guangdong and it looked like they would have their way, until Chen Jiongming entered the scene. Chen Jiongming led the Guangdong Clique beside the common people of the province to rid themselves of the invaders resulting in the first Guangdong-Guangxi war. This resulted in the near annihilation of the Old Guangxi Clique and the return of Dr Sun Yat-Sen to Guangzhou. #100 The Spirit Soldier Rebellions 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. Hey before we jump into it, just wanted to acknowledge this is episode 100 for the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, sheesh. Thank you all for surviving this far into the wild story of China's Century of Humiliation, you are all awesome. Perhaps if you got a moment, could you do me a huge favor? Unlike Youtube with a built in comment section, its hard to get feedback for audio podcasts. If you get a second could you toss feedback, what you like, what you don't like, suggestions going forward anything. You can toss it to the Pacific War Channel Discord server or literally just comment any video over at the Pacific War Channel. Would mean a lot to me, lets get on with the show! As one can imagine, China's warlord era was not something one would refer to as stable. After the absolute mess Yuan Shikai made before his death he basically provided the perfect environment for any wannabe strongman to compete for their place amongst the warlords. The warlords fleeced their respective regions of control to pay for their private armies. They would overly tax, steal away funds and get involved in just about any means to acquire more money to pay their soldiers. Even after fleecing the population, these warlords would then allow their troops to plunder, rape and enslave. Combine this with the incredible amount of regionals wars, plus natural disasters, famine and an insane rise in banditry, it was not a great time to live in China to say the least. Some regions suffered more than others. The less developed provinces, the more remote areas of China, typically in the center, south and west were hit the worst. Here the common people were poor, more isolated and when major crises occurred, they were far less likely to see any outside assistance. The warlord armies in these regions were less equipped, less fed, less disciplined compared to their Northern or coastal counterparts. The troops of these warlords treated the citizenry especially bad. As a result of the unrelenting hardship, the peasants of these parts of China perceived the warlord soldiers, tax collectors and foreign state agents as literal parasites, hell wouldn't you? In a rather vain attempt to rid themselves of these parasites, the peasants launched a large number of uprisings, riots and protests. Some were tiny villages squabbles, others could bring down warlords. They often came directly after a bad harvest season. Some but not all saw peasants join secret societies, acting as self defense forces….yes it sounds exactly like the Yihetuan all over again. Yet in most cases these peasant groups were not coordinated enough to really make a dent, more often than naught, warlords crushed them. Now after the National Protection War against Yuan Shikai, the provinces of Hubei and Sichuan fell into miserable chaos. As we have talked about in the previous episode where I introduced the Southern Warlords, Sichuan province literally was cut up into pieces and dominated by a large number of what I would call Petty Warlords. Some of these Petty Warlords had little more than a few villages under their thumb, others led armies in the several tens of thousands. The situation in Hubei was not as bad, but comparable, seeing numerous warlords battle each other, resulting in hundreds of thousands of soldiers, militiamen and bandits roaming both provinces. To complicate things, these Petty Warlords in a means to try and bolster themselves often flirted with the Beiyang government. They did so similar to how the last episode saw figures trying to negotiate north-south resolutions, basically they would acknowledge the authority of the Beiyang government. The two provinces were also affected by socio-ethnic divisions. Within the valley and plains of Sichuan and Hubei were mostly Han Chinese, but in the highlands there were many non Han such as Miao and Tujia. For those interested, the Miao people speak Hmongic languages, a subfamily of the Hmong-Mien languages. Something notable about the Miao is how their women historically exercised more independence, especially in terms of socio-political mobility. Unlike the majority of asian cultures at the time, Miao women had the freedom to choose the men they marry. The Tujia people speak Tujia, a Sino-Tibetan language, they were at the zenith of their power under the Ming Dynasty. During the Qing Dynasty, the Manchu basically adopted a carrot and stick approach to the Tujia, by gifting compliant chieftains and hindered non compliant ones. The Tujia resented any central body trying to exert control over them and during the Taiping Rebellion many flocked to the Taiping. These non han groups felt oppressed and historically had always resisted Han immigration into their lands. The highlanders were much more versed in organized self defense forces and thus prone more so to uprising. The environments these people lived in were the type to foster ancestor worship and belief in magic, spiritualism, possession and such. Within the context of these people struggling for further autonomy this led to the development of “spirit soldiers”. Similar to the Yihetuan, this was the belief people could summon divine beings that would fight alongside or possess them, granting them power. These beliefs were also part of messianic and apocalyptic movements, think of the White Lotus apocalypse. There were many who believed the spirit soldiers would help establish a new and fair rule on earth. In 1920 there was a large power vacuum that hit western Hubei province. A 30,000 strong army commanded by the Warlords Li Tiancai, Bao Wenwei, Lan Tianwei and Wang Tianzong came into the area. The reason for this was because Wang Zhanyuan the governor of Hubei had evicted them from the Enshi-Hefeng area. Having suffered so greatly, the peasants of Hubei and Sichuan became increasingly discontent and in 1920, major conflicts emerged. A group of Taoist priests began a spiritual movement with a militant wing behind it. They were fighting against over taxation in Lichuan of Hubei province and the abuses upon them by warlord troops. In the beginning they were no more than 100 people chanting the slogan "Kill the Warlords and Out with Rotten Officials and Loafers". Their slogans were very appealing and as more people joined up the priests began to tell them they could bless them to become spirit soldiers through magical rituals. Again similar to the Yihetuan, these rituals consisted of acts like drinking special potions or consuming ashes of various things like burned amulets. Supposedly this would make the spirit soldiers invulnerable to gunfire and raise their bravery, so yeah it really does feel like the Boxer Movement 2.0. Of course these young males were emboldened and felt they could mount a serious rebellion against the warlord troops, who were vastly better armed. The spirit soldiers typically were armed with melee weapons such as spears or a dao. They quickly overran Lichuan county and killed the local magistrate there. Upon that success further uprisings sprang up like wildfire. After the taking of Lichuan it is estimated the spirit soldiers numbered over 10,000 and they would only continue to grow. Given their numbers, they were gradually beginning to organize themselves seriously, though they would still operate in numerous cells, they never unified. Three main spirit armies emerged alongside countless militias. They rarely coordinated, lacked real military training, had very few firearms, no uniforms, but nonetheless tried to act like real armies. They implemented military ranks and identified as such with yellow bands around their left hands middle finger, the color yellow being their official movement color. Similar to the Taiping Rebellion, which they definitely took inspiration from. Major spirit soldier armies and militias wore distinct colors based on their region. For example in western Hubei, they wore red turbans and sashes, many also carried red flags with their leaders' names inscribed upon them or with slogans. Some of these slogans were about “heavenly kingdoms being established on earth” yes Hong Xiuquan would approve. These spirit soldier groups did not want to seize power, nor did they have any real revolutionary ideologies. Even from a class point of view, they were not exactly championing the impoverished or anything, when they took over counties they did not change the counties social order. Typically they stormed a county, killed or replaced the magistrate with someone they deemed to be a fair person. Ironically this often led to an even more corrupt person taking the magistrate position, making the lives of people worse. But you know what, when these spirit soldiers showed up to your county, as a regular peasant you were probably pretty happy about it, because anything was better than being ruled by a warlord. The great thing about the Spirit armies was when they came to your town they fought the tax and rent collectors off alongside warlord troops and bandits. It was said, under spirit rule, the people could finally travel unarmed without fear. Now soldiers no matter what god or spirit resides within them need to eat, thus money was required. To make ends meet the Spirit armies fought bandits and warlords and seized control over salt and opium trade routes running from Sichuan and Guizhou through western Hubei. Just like the Yihetuan, the Spirit soldiers also persecuted christians and foreigners. Most of them were under the belief western modernization efforts and christianity were the reason for all of china's troubles. Once the Spirit soldier rebellion began to see tens of thousands enlist, they gradually advanced west into Sichuan province. There lies a regional trade hub, the city of Wanzhou, lying on the upper reaches of the 3 gorges of the Yangtze River. In the late part of 1920, a spirit army from Lichuan approached Wanzhou, spreading slogans of their movement, such as "Stand Against Rents and Taxes, Kill the Grey Dogs". Gray dogs refers to warlord troops. Now they did not attack Wanzhou, instead they allowed members to infiltrate the city and the local towns to mass recruit. After a few months they managed to nearly gain 5000 new spirit soldiers. They also set up a military HQ at a local temple dedicated to Yama. For those unaware Yama is a deity shared by Hindus and Buddhists. This temple was dedicated to the Buddhist variety of Yama. Yama here is regarded as one of the 20-24 Devas, a group of protective Dharmapalas. If you were a spirit soldier, it would be an ideal location to set up shop, +20 to spirituality and such. They were armed mostly with bamboo spears when they assaulted Wanzhou on March 5th of 1921. The assault was performed in two waves of roughly 2000 spirit soldiers each. Despite being armed with firearms, the local warlord troops were terrified by the tenacity of the spirit soldiers who very much performed like Boxers. They fought bare chested, unafraid of bullets, some performed martial arts and incantations. Just like what happened to Qing militia's and green standard troops in 1900, the warlord troops were terrified the spirit soldiers might actually be wielding magic, and soon routed fleeing Wanzhou's outskirts to hide behind fortified walls in the inner city. The Spirit troops stormed through Wanzhou quickly seizing most of the city, however unlike a warlord army who would have plundered and left or heavily fortified the city, well the spirit army was simply not that kind of army. As soon as they took footholds within, they began performing public incantations and rituals. Basically they were doing exactly what the Boxers had done, however the Boxers had been facing governmental forces who were not really keen on fighting back. For the spirit soldiers their enemy were warlords who relied on fleecing the population and Wanzhou was a major trade center, prime real estate. The warlord forces fortified parts of the inner city, hiding behind walls where the Spirit troops simply could not breach, nor did they try to do so. After 3 days, the Warlord leaders slapped their troops around, telling them not to be afraid of magic and they launched a counter attack on the 8th. That day saw brutal street to street fighting, which did benefit the melee wielding spirit warriors, but guns certainly would win the day. After an entire day of battle, the spirit forces were pushed out of the city. Nearly 500 were killed during the battle, the majority being spirit soldiers. On the 12th, the Warlord Chou Fu-yu after receiving distressed requests for help arrived in Wanzhou with reinforcements. Once he figured out they were holding up at the Yama temple he organized an offensive against their HQ. Chou Fu-yu's forces stormed the temple massacring over 1000 of them. Chou Fu-yu's men specifically hunted down their leadership, executing them publicly to send a message. After seeing the carnage the spirit army collapsed and fled the Wanzhou area swiftly, most would return to civilian life, though others would fight for another day. Those who chose to keep championing the cause formed small militia groups that honestly were more akin to Honghuzi. Local officials in Hubei and Sichuan would refer to them as such "the whole country districts [were] laid waste, by these rebels who plundered wherever they went". The spirit milita's did not attempt to seize any significant towns or cities, they simply stormed them hunting for christians and foreigners, before moving to the next. They would do this for years in the Hubei-Sichuan region with power bases located along their border. Now despite the major setback at Wanzhou, the spirit armies would continue to expand, but instead of heading westwards into Sichuan, they turned back to Hubei. This had a large effect on Hubei based warlords who sometimes were pushed out of their spheres of influence. Spirit armies seized Yichang, Badong, Xuan'en, Enshi and countless other counties. One Spirit leader, a farmers' work hand named Yuan declared himself the new Jade Emperor and attempted to seize most of western Hubei. From around 1920-1922, acting as an emperor he issued numerous edicts. For the most part he led a campaign against pretty much every class imaginable: students, farmers, business owners, land owners, merchants, the military, workers, missionaries, and more. He called for killing christians, placing blame upon them for all of China's problems, promising his followers once the Christians were all gone, China would be at peace. There were those amongst his flock and others who were Ming loyalists, the age old secret society types trying to restore the Ming Dynasty. Similar to the wannabe Jade Emperors belief that getting rid of Christianity would save China from her plight, the Ming loyalists saw the Ming Dynasty as a golden age that needed to be re-ushered in. The Spirit armies were largely successful because of the fighting amongst the warlords of Hubei and to a lesser extent Sichuan. Western Hubei in particular was ripe with chaos, for there was not only Spirit armies and warlord armies, there were large groups of Honghuzi roaming the region. Now I could cut this story about the spirit soldiers here, but instead I will try to not allude to things in the future too much. But around 1921, armies of the Zhili Clique began to invade Hubei and Sichuan from their power base in Hunan province. The Zhili armies soon fought battles against both Hubei and Sichuan warlord armies and were gradually forced back north. In the process some Sichuan warlords seized Badong, Zigui and Xingshan, fleecing the populations for all they were worth before departing. The Sichuan warlord, Yang Sen, notably seized Lichuan and Jianshi in October of 1921 and would hold them until February of 1923. Yang Sen was a Taoist master and an avid polygamist. He met the Taoist Master Li Ching-yuen, who claimed he had lived to be 250 years old. He was quite famous, hell Wu Peifu while leading the Zhili clique would take Li Ching-yuen into his home trying to discover his secret method of living for so long. Li Ching-yuen died in 1933, but claimed he produced over 200 descendants and had 24 wives over the course of his very long life. Yang Sen wrote a famous book after his death titled “A Factual Account of the 250 Year-Old Good-Luck Man” Within the book he described Li Ching-yuen "He has good eyesight and a brisk stride; Li stands seven feet tall, has very long fingernails, and a ruddy complexion." Allegedly, Li was born in Qijiang county of Sichuan province back in 1677. At the age of 13 he embarked on a life of gathering herbs in the mountains amongst 3 elders of his village. At 51 years of age he served as a topography advisor in the army of General Yue Zhongqi. At 78 he retired from military service after fighting in a battle at the Golden River, whence he returned to a life of gathering herbs on Snow Mountain of Sichuan province. Due to his military service under Yue Zongqi, the government sent him a document congratulating him on his 100th birthday and this was done on his 150th and 200th. In 1908 Li co-wrote a book a disciple of his, Yang Hexuan called “the secrets of Li Qingyuns immortality”. In 1920 General Xiong Yanghe interviewed Li and published an article about him at the Nanjing university. In 1926 Wu Peifu took him under his home and Li took up a job teaching at Beijing university's Meditation Society branch. In 1927 General Yang Sen invited Li to Wanxian where the first known photograph of the man was taken, if you google him you can see it. After hearing about the famous 200+ year old man, General Chiang Kai-Shek requested he visit him in Nanjing, however when Yang Sen sent envoys to find Li at his hometown of Chenjiachang, his current wife and disciplines broke the news, he had died, the year was 1928. You might be raising an eyebrow, yes, after his supposed death, newspapers began writing pieces claiming he died in 1929, 1930, then the last report was in 1933, no one has ever verified how he died, they all just list natural cases. Now about this fascinating case of his age, Li Ching-yuen claimed he had been born in 1736, it was a professor at Chengdu University, Wu CHung-Chieh who asserted he was born in 1677. According to an article by the New York Times in 1930, Wu discovered imperial records from 1827 congratulating Li on his 150th birthday, then another one for his 200th birthday in 1877. In another New York Times article from 1928, correspondence wrote that many old men of Li's village asserted that their grandfathers all knew him as young boys and that he had been a grown man at the time. Now many researchers have pointed out his claim to be 256 years of age was a multiple of 8, considered a lucky number in Chinese culture. Many researchers also point out the prevalence of such myths as extreme old age to be very common in China and the far east. They believed he was just telling a tall tale like countless others before him. One of Li's disciplines, Master Da Liu said of his master, when Li was 130 years old he encountered an older hermit in the mountains claiming to be 500 years old. This old hermit taught him Baguazhang, that is a style of martial arts and Qigong, these are breathing, meditation and posturing exercises. Alongside dietary habits all combined was what gave the hermit his longevity. Du Liu would say “his master said that his longevity is due to the fact that he performed the exercises every day – regularly, correctly, and with sincerity – for 120 years." Sorry for the extreme side story, but I just found it fascinating haha. So General Yang Sen had seized Lichuan and Jianshi and would be involved in numerous wars in Sichuan. He often fought the Governor of Sichuan, Xiong Kewu who was gradually defeated by 1923, where upon he took his armies into western Hubei. Yang Sen amongst other warlords exploited the absence of Xiong Kewu and invaded Sichuan. The departure of Xiong Kewu from Sichuan also allowed Petty warlord Kong Gen to seize territory and for a large Honghuzi army led by Lao Yangren to invade Yunxian. Things got so bad for Xiong Kewu, he turned to a very unlikely group to form an alliance, the Spirit Soldiers. Xiong Kewu allied the Spirit armies encamped at Enshi and Hefeng. In 1924 a large part of Xiong Kewu's army were advancing through the Wu Valley, trying to link up with him. The Wu valley was a strategic stronghold for the Spirit armies, thus in order to gain free passage he joined up with them. Chaos would reign supreme in both Hubei and Sichuan for many years, not aided much when General Yang Sen took the governorship over Sichuan. Once governor there he provoked several of his loose allies who all formed a coalition to oust him from his position by early 1925. Like Xiong Kewu, now it was Yang Sen retreating west into Hubei, eventually forming a base at Badong. One of his opponents, the Petty warlord Yuan Zuming, a member of the Guizhou clique invaded the region and seized Lichuan and Shinan, before setting his eyes on Hefeng. Meanwhile the Spirit Armies, bolstered by Xiong Kewu spread again into Sichuan where they offered protection to locals from warlord troops and Honghuzi. They fought a large battle around Wangying that allegedly turned the local river crimson red with blood. By early 1926 the Spirit movement had surged past 100,000 troops and dominated over 40 counties in Hubei. Yet they never fully centralized their organization, rarely coordinated between armies and differing groups and were not heavily armed with firearms. Honestly by becoming a larger force and by becoming more sedentary, it actually spelt their doom. While they were smaller and more mobile, they were harder to catch and less appetizing to warlord armies, now they were fully on the menu. In 1926 three divisions of warlord troops were sent against them. The Spirit armies were absolutely crushed in waves of one sided battles. Their leaders were hunted down and executed, that is if they did not die on the battlefield or simply off themselves prior to being caught. Yet 1926 would bring an entirely new element at play, it was when the Northern Expedition began and such a colossal event would save the Spirit soldiers from complete annihilation. Don't want to give anything away, but the Northern Expedition would affect both Yang Sen and Xiong Kewu and by proxy the areas they controlled. This would cause further chaos in Hubei and Sichuan which in turn would be exploited by countless figures. For example a large Honghuzi army of Lao Yangren, perhaps 20,000 men strong or more ran rampant in both provinces. Honghuzi loved to follow behind warlord armies, exploiting areas they passed through since the rival warlords would have been kicked out. With the Northern Expedition brushing aside countless warlords in the area, both Honghuzi and Spirit soldiers expanded. Some Spirit Soldiers even decided to join up with a new group hitting the scene, Red Armies. The CCP were falling into a war with the KMT and they began to latch onto anyone who would join forces with them. Two prominent CCP figures, Xu Xiangqian and He Long worked with Spirit Soldiers. He Long came to view them as nothing more than another version of Honghuzi, but acknowledged they wanted to protect the local people which was admirable. Their quasi alliance allowed the Spirit Soldiers to expand into northern and central Sichuan, western Henan and eastern Guizhou well into the 1930s. Despite the incredible amount of wars that would occur over the decades, the last known Spirit Army rebellion would take place in February of 1959. As you can imagine it was an anti-communist uprising, that occurred in Sizhuang county of Henan province. This was directly a result of Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward enacted the year prior. For those who don't know, the Great Leap Forward encompassed a change of pretty much all aspects of Chinese society and it was disastrous to say the least. Mao sought to reconstruct the entire nation from an agrarian economy into a real industrialized society, but on fast forward mode. He did so via peoples communes, while decreeing every possible effort to increase grain yield must be done so they could bring industry to rural China. This resulted in one of the worst man made famines in history. Alongside this came an economic disaster, unbelievable governmental abuses upon the people. An estimated 15-55 million would die. Many resisted the government's actions, but the government had decreed no one could leave their village or farms, thus it made it extremely difficult to coordinate a resistance movement. Desperate peasants tried to resist, alongside countless secret societies. Numerous rebellions broke out, but they were quite small in scale. Armed resistance broke out in Henan in 1959, where large bandit groups began to steal weapons from armories and attacked major roadways. A secret society known as the “shenbingtuan / regiment of spirit soldiers” gathered 1200 fighters from hubei, Sichuan and Shaanxi and began to attack government officers in Sizhuang county. It took the red army roughly 20 days to quell the uprising. Thus ended the Spirit Soldier movement. 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 Spirit Soldier Movement was a drop in the bucket for China's Warlord Era. They were a group amongst many others who tried to navigate a very cruel world. As comedic as they may come off, they were brave people who were trying to protect the population from what they deemed to be villains, many became twisted as a result.
In this episode of Guerrilla History, we get into part 2 of our 4 part miniseries on modern Chinese history featuring Ken Hammond (and guest host Breht O'Shea of Revolutionary Left Radio) with this absolutely terrific discussion on the Chinese Revolution & Civil War! If you haven't already listened to part 1 of the series, on the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions, be sure to do so because we pick up right where we left off last time. The next two installments will cover the Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, and then the Reform period up to the present day, so be sure to not miss any of those upcoming episodes! Ken Hammond is Professor of East Asian and Global History at New Mexico State University. He has been engaged in radical politics since his involvement in the anti-war movement at Kent State in 1968-70. Ken is also the author of the book China's Revolution & the Quest for a Socialist Future.
In this episode of Guerrilla History, we get into part 3 of our 4 part miniseries on modern Chinese history featuring Ken Hammond (and guest host Breht O'Shea of Revolutionary Left Radio) with an amazing discussion of The Great Leap Forward and The Cultural Revolution! If you haven't already listened to part 1 of the series, on the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions, or part 2 on The Chinese Revolution & Civil War, be sure to go back and check those out because we pick up right where we left off last time. With these final two episodes in the series, we enter the period where various ideological traditions diverge in their analysis of the events, but regardless of what ideological background you come from, we encourage you to listen to these and engage with the information, as we believe the information will help you deepen your own analysis regardless of your ideological position. The final installment will drop in two weeks (with another episode in between), and will cover the Reform period, so be sure to subscribe to not miss that episode! Ken Hammond is Professor of East Asian and Global History at New Mexico State University. He has been engaged in radical politics since his involvement in the anti-war movement at Kent State in 1968-70. Ken is also the author of the book China's Revolution & the Quest for a Socialist Future. Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory
蔡英文 Cài Yīngwén - Tsai Ing-wen (President of Taiwan) 即將 jí jiāng - soon; about to 卸任 xiè rèn - step down from office 高聲疾呼 gāo shēng jí hū - loudly call for 登上 dēng shàng - ascend; board 太平島 Tàipíng dǎo - Taiping Island 位於 wèiyú - located in 南海 Nánhǎi - South China Sea 中華民國 Zhōnghuá Mínguó - Republic of China (Taiwan) 實際 shíjì - actual; practical 管轄權 guǎnxiá quán - jurisdiction 控制 kòngzhì - control 中華人民共和國 Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó - People's Republic of China (PRC) 主張 zhǔzhāng - advocate; claim 擁有 yōngyǒu - possess; own 主權 zhǔquán - sovereignty 前總統 qián zǒngtǒng - former president 陳水扁 Chén Shuǐbiǎn - Chen Shui-bian (former president of Taiwan) 登島 dēng dǎo - land on an island 主持 zhǔchí - preside over 啟用 qǐyòng - put into use 馬英九 Mǎ Yīngjiǔ - Ma Ying-jeou (former president of Taiwan) 發表 fābiǎo - deliver; make a statement 南海和平倡議 Nánhǎi Hépíng Chàngyì - South China Sea Peace Initiative 避免 bìmiǎn - avoid 挑釁 tiǎoxìn - provoke 並且 bìngqiě - and; furthermore 經由 jīngyóu - through; via 對話 duìhuà - dialogue 和平 hépíng - peace 爭議 zhēngyì - dispute 區域合作機制 qūyù hézuò jīzhì - regional cooperation mechanism 共同開發 gòngtóng kāifā - jointly develop 捍衛主權 hànwèi zhǔquán - defend sovereignty 近年來 jìnnián lái - in recent years 情勢 qíngshì - situation; circumstances 風雲迭起 fēngyún dié qǐ - rapidly changing situation 詭譎多變 guǐjué duōbiàn - intricate and changeable 敏感 mǐngǎn - sensitive 飛航 fēiháng - aviation 維安 wéi'ān - security 考量 kǎoliáng - consider; take into account 整體區域 zhěngtǐ qūyù - overall region 正面效應 zhèngmiàn xiàoyìng - positive effect 慎思 shènsī - deliberate carefully 是否 shìfǒu - whether 親臨 qīn lín - personally visit ----- Want Taiwanese friends to understand your Chinese instantly? Ready to effortlessly communicate and blend into Taiwan's vibrant culture? Join my Chinese Speaking Course!
In this episode of Guerrilla History, we get into part 2 of our 4 part miniseries on modern Chinese history featuring Ken Hammond (and guest host Breht O'Shea of Revolutionary Left Radio) with this absolutely terrific discussion on the Chinese Revolution & Civil War! If you haven't already listened to part 1 of the series, on the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions, be sure to do so because we pick up right where we left off last time. The next two installments will drop every other week (with other episodes in between), and will cover the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, and the Reform period, so be sure to subscribe to not miss any of those coming episodes! Ken Hammond is Professor of East Asian and Global History at New Mexico State University. He has been engaged in radical politics since his involvement in the anti-war movement at Kent State in 1968-70. Ken is also the author of the book China's Revolution & the Quest for a Socialist Future. Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory
In this episode of Guerrilla History, we launch our 4 part miniseries on modern Chinese history featuring Ken Hammond (and guest host Breht O'Shea of Revolutionary Left Radio) with this terrific discussion on the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions! Be sure to go back and listen to the previous episode we did with Ken in the fall, which serves as a bit of an introductory work for this miniseries. The other three installments will drop every other week (with other episodes in between), and will cover the Chinese Revolution/Civil War, the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, and the Reform period, so be sure to subscribe to not miss any of those coming episodes! Ken Hammond is Professor of East Asian and Global History at New Mexico State University. He has been engaged in radical politics since his involvement in the anti-war movement at Kent State in 1968-70. Ken is also the author of the book China's Revolution & the Quest for a Socialist Future.
In this episode of Guerrilla History, we launch our 4 part miniseries on modern Chinese history featuring Ken Hammond (and guest host Breht O'Shea of Revolutionary Left Radio) with this terrific discussion on the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions! Be sure to go back and listen to the previous episode we did with Ken in the fall, which serves as a bit of an introductory work for this miniseries. The other three installments will drop every other week (with other episodes in between), and will cover the Chinese Revolution/Civil War, the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, and the Reform period, so be sure to subscribe to not miss any of those coming episodes! Ken Hammond is Professor of East Asian and Global History at New Mexico State University. He has been engaged in radical politics since his involvement in the anti-war movement at Kent State in 1968-70. Ken is also the author of the book China's Revolution & the Quest for a Socialist Future. Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory
We talk calls for a South China Sea visit, the 10th anniversary of Sunflower Movement, convenience store numbers and more.
Taiping Guangji or "Extensive Records of the Taiping Era" is an anthology of stories compiled during the early Song Dynasty. Its editors chose to collect the stories under a series of clearly unworkable categories. In so doing, they made Taiping Guangji a perfect illustration of the point made in an essay by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.Support the show
“Is not this insurgent movement truly wonderful? These rebels keep Sabbath as we do, they pray to God daily, they read the Scriptures, they break the idols, and they long for the time when, instead of those heathen temples, they shall have Christian chapels, and worship together with us… is it not a remarkable era in China?” — A Christian missionary wife about the Taiping Rebellion “Jesus our Elder Brother showed us the treacherous heart of this demon follower.” — Sign hanging around the neck of a man executed by the Taiping “Those who believe not in the true doctrine of God and Jesus, though they be old acquaintances, are still no friends of mine, but they are demons.” — Hong Xiuquan If I were to ask you which is the deadliest conflict in history, you'd probably answer WW II. But if I were to ask you which is the second deadliest conflict ever—at least according to most historians—I'd bet the number of raised hands would shrink quickly. And I'd also bet that a good percentage of those taking their chances with an answer would probably be wrong. So, welcome to the wildest, weirdest, biggest conflict in history that few people have heard about (that is…unless you are quite knowledgeable about Chinese history). Millions of troops took part in this war. Something in the neighborhood of 600 cities changed hands over decade and half of fighting. Conservative estimates place the dead around 20-30 millions (some estimates go as high as 100 millions.) For frame of references, this is deadlier than the Iraq War, the War in Afghanistan, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the Spanish American War, the American Civil War and the American Revolution put together. We can also throw in the 7 Years War, all three Punic wars and all of the Crusades for good measure. In light of this, it may begin to make sense why several historians believe this is the bloodiest civil war of all time. It all began with a Chinese man who, in the mid-1800s, dreamed of becoming a scholar and receive a government job. Seems like an innocent start, right? Well, our wannabe intellectual, a certain Hong Xiuquan, experienced a major crisis when he realized that no matter how much he studied, he would not succeed at passing the imperial exams, that were the prerequisite to getting the career he dreamed of. The fact that he failed was more than a personal tragedy for Hong. Rather, this failure would trigger a sequence of events leading to the death of millions. This was easily the most costly F in the history of education. Broken to the core, he had a mental breakdown, and began to experience visions. These visions revealed to him that he was God's son, and Jesus' younger brother, and he was tasked by his heavenly relatives to clean China off any demonic influences in order to create the Kingdom of Heavenly Peace. His efforts to create this Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace heralded a bloody civil war with a body count that would make most video gamers blush.In this episode, we follow Hong Xiuquan as he graduates from religious intolerance to armed insurrection against the government. We also run into angels torturing Confucius, ‘God' & ‘Jesus' & ‘Jesus' younger brother' leading an army to topple the Qing Dynasty, a massive army of sexually frustrated people, the capture of Nanjing, Quentin Tarantino's Biblical tales, the Taiping turning into The Sopranos, ‘Jesus' younger brother' placing a hit on ‘God's Voice', and much more. If you feel generous and enjoy History on Fire, please consider joining my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/historyonfire to access plenty of bonus content. All the links to History on Fire social media can be found at https://linktr.ee/danielebolelli Including the HOF YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFCiqHbWJO26nFzUP-Eu55Q Substack: https://substack.com/@danielebolelliInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/historyonfire/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@historyonfirepodcast Bison is some of the healthiest meat you could possibly eat. Get yours at https://dakotapurebison.com/ History on Fire listeners get a discount by using the code HOF10 at checkout. If you'd like to go to Japan for a historical tour with yours truly as a guide, please check out https://geeknationtours.com/tours/signature-battlefield-series-classic-samurai-from-the-gempei-war-to-the-mongol-invasions-2023/And a big thank you to the sponsor for today's episode, Factor, America's #1 Ready-To-Eat Meal Delivery Service. Head to FACTOR MEALS dot com slash historyonfire50 and use code historyonfire50 to get 50% off. That's code historyonfire50 at FACTOR MEALS dot com slash historyonfire50 to get 50% off!Also, thank you to St. John's College for sponsoring this episode. Please, check out https://www.sjc.edu/podcast
一个普普通通的学生，四次参加考试，四次失败。失望之际，他接触到基督教。基督教里描绘的人人平等的社会让他心驰神往。多年之后，他建立自己的宗教。追随他的人数不断扩增，他打算建立国家，自己成为国王。他的名字叫洪秀全。他建立的国家叫太平天国。他想要推翻清朝，让所有中国人活在一个 “天下大同” 的世界里。这样的目标可能达到吗? An ordinary student. He tried to pass an exam four times, and four times he failed. In despair, he was acquainted by the faith of Christianity. He was fascinated by what is depicted in the religion, a society where all men are equal. Years later, he founded his own religion, and when believers increased he decided to establish his own kingdom, where he was king. His name was Hong Xiuquan, and the kingdom was the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The aim was to overthrow the Qing Dynasty, so that every Chinese would live equally under heaven. Is such a dream achievable? A Documentary on Taiping Heavenly Kingdom ◉ Read transcripts for free ◉ Become a Patron ◉ Visit merch store ◉ Find us on YouTube ◉ We are on LinkedIn ◉ We are on Facebook ◉ Find a Chinese teacher on italki and receive $10 ◉ One-time Donate
This is the second installment of the Fruitless Bookclub (Chris didn't like it being called the Barker Bookclub), a show-within-a-show where we read all those nonfiction books we've been meaning to read. Today's episode is about Late Victorian Holocausts by Mike Davis.Next month: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter RodneyBecome a Fruitless Patron here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=11922141Check out Fruitless on YouTubeFind more of Josiah's work here: https://linktr.ee/josiahwsuttonFollow Josiah on Twitter @josiahwsuttonMusicYesterday – bloom.In My Dreams – bloom.
Princess Taiping wielded all but ultimate power in the Tang court. It appeared that it was only a matter of time before she might succeed to the throne itself. As extraordinary as that feat would have been, it was a very ordinary miscalculation that led to her downfall.Click here to read the article by James Carter.Narrated by Kaiser Kuo.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
During the Tang dynasty, court machinations saw at least two women reach the very cusp of supreme power in two coups in the imperial palace, taking place on consecutive weeks, three years apart. This is Part 1 of a two-part column.Click here to read the article by James Carter.Narrated by Kaiser Kuo.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Last time we spoke about the conclusion of the first Sino-Japanese War and we took a side trip speaking about overseas Chinese in the 19th century. The treaty of Shimonoseki ended the war between Japan and the Qing dynasty. The Qing dynasty was humiliated yet again, but so too was Japan because of the triple intervention of Germany, France and Russia. The balance of power in the east had shifted dramatically. Such dramatic change that was seen in the 19th century led to massive emigration within and outside of China. The wealthy and common Chinese people wanted to improve their lives and they moved within China seeking lands to farm and outside China seeking new opportunities. Overseas Chinese were heavily influenced by the great Gold Rushes of the 19th century and of course the colossal railway projects. In many ways it was a dark part of the histories of numerous nations, but in the end it was also the beginning of a new international community. #56 This episode it's not always sunny in Shandong 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. Shandong, anytime you hear about a conflict in Chinese history it always seems to originate with Shandong. Indeed Shandong has been at the heart of an unbelievable number of conflicts, it just always seems to be the birthing place for trouble, but hell it always gave us Confucious. Not going to lie, this is going to be a bit of a bizarre episode. The purpose of this episode is to somewhat explain, how certain groups emerge historically because….well of just a place. Shandong is unique, its been at the heart of so many events. We are soon going to be jumping into another major event in Chinese history, but to best tell how it comes about, I wanted to cover the origin of those responsible. It just so happens where the majority of these people come from, that is northwest Shandong by the way, makes for quite a story. So let us explore Shandong and perhaps touch just a bit, like a teaser upon a group of people that will become known to the western world as the Boxers. In the late 19th century Shandong held an enormous population, cereal agriculture and numerous impoverished villages. The climate of the region could go from just above freezing for the winter months and blazingly hot and humid for the summer months. China took its time modernizing as we all know, so the peasants of Shandong had to rely mostly on mother nature for irrigation and mother nature in China could be quite cruel. Floods were common, so were droughts. Shandong is quite diverse, its eastern portion was very productive, producing grain, fruits and vegetables. Its streams carried gold dust which was panned by locals. It was part of an ancient silk-raising region. Along the peninsula was a relative immunity to natural disasters. Landlords were more plentiful here than Shandongs western half and it held numerous important port cities like Qingdao which today produces Tsingtao beer, one of my favorites. Commerce was quite bountiful in the port cities and by far and large the peninsula and northern slope of eastern shandong were the most developed parts of the province. In the mid 19th century 58% of Shandongs provincial degree holders came from either the northern slope or peninsula. However when you look at the northwest plains of Shandong province you begin to see a discrepancy. Stretching across the entire region north of the Yellow River, held one of the most populous regions, with 250 people per square kilometer covering around 26% of Shandongs land area. 93% or so of these people were peasants and the region was purely agricultural, but it could be described as anything but prosperous. Average yields were the lowest of any region in Shandong, reflecting the persistent problems of waterlogging and salinity of the soil. The northwest was prone to natural disasters. The yellow river became quite problematic to this region in the 1880s. The bed of the river had risen above ground level through most of Shandong, and the floods became increasingly bad. Though bad, the yellow river was not the only source of misery for northwest Shandong. Lesser streams frequently caused local floodings and as funny as it sounds, too much water was an issue, but often it was too little that brought upon real calamity. In 1876 a terrible drought was said to have carried off nearly 2 million people. 10 years later, famine hit again, truly making Northwest Shandong a disaster area. As bad as mother nature could be, man could also be problemsome. West of Jinan is an imperial highway that runs north and south. It passed into the province of Dezhou, then through Haotang and Chiping before crossing the yellow river's northern course at Dong'e. This area since ancient times saw numerous invading armies cross it from north to south. The Mongols used it and then the Manchu in a similar fashion. It was ripe also for rebels to take up shop. As we saw, the Taiping's northern expedition in the mid 1850's brought them into Shandong, when they attempted to hit Beijing. But Prince Sengge Rinchen managed to turn away the Taiping, ironically by flooding them out. The Nian rebels likewise raided Shandong, first in its southwest, but then in its northwest by the late 1860's. Even the White Lotus Rebellion saw much spreading in the region. It was often said by travelers that this area “suffered quite as much from the imperial soldiers as they did from the rebels, and at times even worse”. With such conditions it was no surprise numerous rebels and bandits would emerge. Banditry was an important part of both northwest and southwest Shandong. It was prevalent especially along the southern border with Zhili were bands of around 8-13 men would often perform highway robbery. Roving bandits would prey upon innocent villages, with the prime time being winter as most of these men were not full time bandits, oh no most had homes and grew crops, it was seasonal work. One account in July of 1897 had this to say “the season when highwaymen are especially numerous and dangerous is upon us. The kaoliang is in its prime, and being 7 or 8 feet high and very thick affords a most convenient ambush. It is unsafe to travel alone even in daylight over lonely roads”. Now northwest shandong was disaster prone leading to barely any landlords. The region was simply not wealthy enough to support many landlords. Poverty and peasantry was the norm. It was not unheard of for entire villages to take up the road, carrying entire families of men, women and children begging for food. There was a ton of mobility, and a lot of young men would sell themselves as laborers to make ends meet. There was a constant migration of people in northwest Shandong because of the harsh conditions. All of these conditions lent the region into a certain mentality. Now Shandong is the birthplace of both Confucious and Mencius, the very foundation of orthodoxy in China, so why do so many rebellions seem to spurt up here? Confucian tradition holds that a ruler should educate, and lead people to do what is right. But Shandong has historically been seen to be a stubborn place for sectarianism, especially during the Qing dynasty. Something Qing officials took notice of, was how rebellions often came about with the marriage of a sect, take for example the White Lotus and martial arts, which we can also refer to as boxing. The Ming had set a law against Heterodoxy which the Qing adopted, it proscribed a penalty of strangulation for the leaders and banishment of 3000 li distance for followers. Here is a passage of the laws “all teachers and shamans who call down heterodox gods [jiang xieshen, write charms, [chant] incantations [to make] water [magically efficacious: zhou-shui], perform planchette and pray to sages, calling themselves duan-gong (First Lord), tai-bao (Great Protector) or shi-po (shamaness); and those who wildly call themselves the White Lotus Society of the Buddha Maitreya, the Ming-zun [Manichaean?] sect, or the White Cloud Assembly with their heretical and heterodox [zuo-daoyi-duan] techniques; or those who hide pictures [of heterodox gods or patriarchs] and gather in groups to burn incense, meeting at night and dispersing at dawn, pretending to do good works but [actually] arousing and misleading the people” So as you can see with this passage, the law made it clear that incantations or charms were particularly concerning to the Qing court. Mere worship was tolerated or at least treated leniently. But what was definitely not ok was the formation of hierarchies, such as master and disciples, or the use of lets say magic. These actions were seen as instrumental to providing the organization needed for subversive activity, ie rebellions. In the early Qing days, these prohibitions were pretty effective, while sectarian worship still flourished, at least no rebellions were kicking off. However by the late 18th century things began to change, rebellions emerged. Now I spoke extensively about the White Lotus Rebellion, but there were two other significant rebellions took place around this time, the Wang Lun rebellion of 1774 and the eight Trigrams uprising of 1813. Both broke out in the Shandong region and both involved significant participation from martial arts groups, more notably both involved those known as Yi-he-quan, aka those who the west would call Boxers by 1898. The Qing noted the persistence of sectarianism in Shandong, the province was a major source of what was called ‘meditational sects” built upon the White Lotus tradition. These meditational sects had no great halls, sutras or views, they usually were just people prescribing certain diets. They stressed meditation and breathing exercises, sometimes with recitation of incantations. They were pretty simplistic, groups with rituals based around certain times of the day. Both the Wang Lun rebellion and eight Trigrams uprising were begun by these so called “meditational sects”. Wang Lun was a former Yaman runner who managed to get rich working as a healer in Shouzhang county in southwest Shandong. He was the leader of the White Lotus sect in Shandong province in the 1770s. He was a self-taught physician and a martial arts master. He taught his followers yoga, meditation and the ability to fast for long periods of time. Honestly you could really call these people modern day yogi's. His sect was noted for their fasting techniques and martial arts prowess. By 1774 his sect numbered several thousand. It was in this year, Wang Lun began spreading rumors of an impending turn of the Kalpa. In the Hindu and Buddhist faiths, Kalpa refers to a period of time between creation and the recreation of the universe. He was telling his converts that the reincarnation of Maitreya was upon them, and he was destined to become the Emperor of China. He mobilized his followers and marched upon the city of Shouzhang on October 3rd of 1774. With some help from followers already inside the city, the rebels seized it and ransacked everything they could. The rebels held Shouzhang for a few days before abandoning it to attack the city of Yangku. Yangku was easily captured as its local garrison had just been sent to relieve Shouzhang. From there the rebels captured Tangyi and Liulin before marching upon the larger city of Linqing. By this point the rebels had defeated multiple Qing forces and rumors spread this sect were utilizing invulnerability magic. Many officials in Linqing fled in fear of this. For weeks Wang Lun's forces besieged the city, but the Qing defenders led by Qing Zhanhun resisted their attacks. Wang Lun's forces soon were surrounded and Wang Lun elected to burn himself alive rather than surrender. The Eight Trigrams rebellion was a short lived revolt that broke out in Zhili, Henan and of course Shandong. It too was a sub branch of the White Lotus, led by 3 notable figures. The Eight Trigram sect goes back to the late 17th century of the Ming Dynasty founded by Liu Zuochen and the Liu family of Shandong which maintain it for decades. It was the first folk religion to develop civil and martial work methods, this is referred to as “wen and wu” a conceptual pair in Chinese philosophy, referring to civil and military realms for governance. They believed in meditation techniques to overcome human limits, to reach salvation. They were organized into eight trigrams and predicted a time of troubles and a new kalpa and mobilized themselves through master-disciple relationships. A major component of them was practicing martial arts. Now like I said during this rebellion they had 3 leaders, the first was Lin Qing who was described as a hustler who loved gambling and took on some odds jobs like being a night watchman, an enforcer, and even a minor healer. Eventually he took over a small white lotus sect and in 1811 he met Li Wen-cheng who at the time was trying to assume leadership over a larger white lotus sect network spanning across Henan, Zhili and Shandong. Both Lin and Li were inspired by the appearance of a comet in 1811 that they believed was a sign that they could topple the Qing dynasty. They also met Feng Keshan who was a martial arts master, who was not really interested in their crazy religious stuff, but he was seen to be a great leader in his own right and he joined them as a means of recruiting followers from boxing groups within Henan, Zhili and Shandong. In July of 1813 the main leaders of the eight trigrams met and discussed a date for a rebellion. What really began their necessity to rebel, was a series of droughts and floods that had brought upon a famine which in turn led to a sharp increase in the price of wheat. The emperor at the time had scheduled a hunting trip on September 15th, so the rebels knew the Forbidden city would be lightly guarded. The plan called for ambushing the Emperor as he was coming back from the trip, just outside the city. Qing court officials heard rumors of the planned rebellion and quickly arrested Li Wen-cheng on September 2nd. They began torturing him, but soon his followers broke in and rescued him. The rebellion was then pushed forward and the Eight Trigrams quickly seized Huaxin, Dingtao and Caoxian in southern Zhili and Shandong. Lin Qing took charge of an attack upon the forbidden city, although he notably did not participate in the attack. The rebels hid in ships outside the eastern and western palace gates as Lin paid off palace eunuchs to lead his forces through the gates. The rebels wore white cloths around their heads and waists and were armed mostly with knives or iron bars. They tried to attack during a mealtime when they assumed the guards would be eating. The Emperor at this time was around 50 miles away from the city walls. Around 80 rebels managed to get through the gates before they were closed and fighting erupted inside. With the element of surprise lost, the rebels soon routed as the Imperial guards brigade hunted them down. Several thousand supported continued to besiege cities for months, but all would be suppressed in January of 1814. Li Wen-chang along with 4000 followers died while besieging Huixian. Over 20,000 or so eight trigram members would be killed and an estimated 70,000 people would die as a result of the short rebellion. So Shandong was kind of a breeding ground for sects, particularly from the White Lotus faith. Shandong also was a place notable for martial arts. As early as the Song dynasty, the people of Shandong were noted for being warlike and brave. Their reputation only strengthen with time. During the late 19th century a western source labeled the people of shandong “Warlike, industrious and intelligent. The natives of Shantung [Shandong] ... whose overflow has peopled the rich lands of Manchuria, enjoy the finest record for both physical and moral qualities. It is from them the Chinese navy drew its best recruits; it is they who proved their prowess either as brigands or as a self-reliant and self-defended exploiters of the resources of Liaotung [Liaodong] and Manchuria.” It was not just westerners who took notice of Shandong's martial arts prowess, the Qing dynasty looked to Shandong often for its military. Shandong was an area of China that had seen repeated invasions, take out a map of China, you see it immediately, anyone who comes from the north pretty much has to go through shandong. Repeated invasions by forces from the north encouraged the development of martial habits in self defense, add natural and human disasters that continuously disrupted the social order, and you eventually end up with bandits. The people who settled in shandong had to deal with constant banditry and attacks from invaders. Shandong also had a greater military/civil ratio than most provinces. From 1851-1900 the northwest ratio was around 1.22 to 1 and the southwest 2.38 to 1 while the ratio for the entire province was around .57 to 1. And those areas with the higher rations just so happen to be the areas where boxers and members of the Big Sword society emerged. We will talk more about them later. The martial arts tradition of western shandong spawned numerous martial arts groups. There was a popular culture which stressed military virtues, boxing and swordsmanship. Seeing martial arts teachers displaying their prowess in the market places was a very common sight. In 1899 the Zhili magistrate Lae Nai-xuan wrote a pamphlet urging the prohibition of boxers and he wrote about certain martial arts groups along the borders of Jiangsu, Anhu, Henan and Shandong. “In this area there are many vagabonds and rowdies (wu-lai gun-tu) who draw their swords and gather crowds. They have established societies of various names: the Obedient Swords (Shun-dao hui), Tiger-tail Whip (Huwei bian), the Yi-he Boxers,* and Eight Trigrams Sect (Ba-gua jiao). They are overbearing in the villages and oppress the good people. The origin of these disturbances is gambling. They go to fairs and markets and openly set up tents where they take valuables in pawn and gather to gamble. They [also] conspire with yamen clerks who act as their eyes and ears. “ The people Lai Nai-xuan are describing are the Yi-he-quan Boxers. Who the hell are these guys? These were young men, the type to gamble, drink, perform petty crime to get by, the thuggish types. They most often than naught were bandits, involved in things like salt smuggling. As seen with the Wang Lun and the eight trigrams rebellions, these types of young men practicing boxing were greatly sought after as followers, so sects often created civil and military like divisions to attract them. Adding martial arts to a sect's repertoire could help greatly to recruit. Take the White Lotus sect overall, many of its members, perhaps the majority were historically women. Females were much less likely to take an active role in violence, so white lotus leaders who were usually always looking to start a rebellion began seeing the necessity to recruit able bodied young men, those who knew some boxing to get things cooking. Boxing was often used as a way of luring people into sect activities. It was also a deceptive little trick. If a sect members was teaching youth boxing, it did not necessarily mean they were followers of his sect, it was like a foot in the door process. Thus Shandong was the breeding grounds for both sects and boxers, who often intermingled. Another interesting thing that has a lot of roots in Shandong is the long history of invulnerability rituals. When rebels kicked up, they were as you can imagine met with force by the Qing authorities. Facing well armed Qing soldiers, rebels often tried to enhance the fighting capabilities of their followers by the use of magic, specifically invulnerability magic. This goes back to ancient times of course, but the advent of firearms from the west during the 17th century really enhanced the appearance of such magic. Several rebel groups during the Ming dynasty would use the allegedly polluting power of women to stop gunfire from walled cities that were being besieged. Wang Lun famous used large numbers of women who would attempt summoning goddesses to prevent the approach of bullets or stop guns from firing. The eight trigrams rebellion used a particularly invulnerability technique known as “jin-zhon-zhao / the armor of the golden bell”. This technique would later be famously employed by the Big Swords society, again future episodes will delve into this more. The technique was a form of kung-fu that employed “Qigong”. Qigong is a system of coordinating body-posturing, like movement, breathing and meditation. Those performing it would perform breathing exercises which they claimed helped protect their bodies against blades and even bullets as if a large bell was covering their body. Some who practiced this would chant incantations like “a song does not tell his father; a father does not tell his son”. During the mid 19th century rebellions were tearing China apart. The Taiping, Nian, local white lotus were all hitting different parts of China simultaneously. By 1860 the Qing government was cracking down left right and center, increasing land taxes to support the suppressing efforts. In 1861, in Qiu county, the very extreme edge of western Shandong saw rebels rise up, a majority of them were of the white lotus. They were joined by martial artists of the Black Flag Army under the leadership of Song Jing-shi a professional boxer and swordsman who made a living as a highway escort, like a armed guard for wealthy nobles. Unlike the previous rebellions that had marriages between boxers and sects, these rebellions in the mid 19th century brought upon a new flavor, an anti-manchu one. The Taiping and Nian rebellions inspired a vigorous hate against the Manchu, particularly against the corrupt officials that made up their dynasty. Certainly when the Qing began to suppress the rebels, it led to a ravaging of the countryside seeing flocks of boxers join the rebels in response. While many boxers joined such rebels, others would join the Qing to combat them as well. In 1861, Song Jing-shi was forced to surrender to the Qing and he would claim he only joined the rebellion because he and his followers were facing persecution by yamen runners. He then offered his services against the rebels, but he had one condition, that his forces would stay intact. His forces indeed fought against the Nian rebels, marching into Henan. The Qing asked him and his followers to go to Shaanxi to fight them there, but he elected to take his men to western Shandong where his original base was and just rebelled again. The story of Song Jing-shi showcases how martial artists and sectarians were a mainstream aspect of peasantry life in shandong. The participation of boxers on the side of rebels and the government shows it was really part of the social fabric of the region. Western Shandong by the late Qing period saw greater numbers of military examination graduates. Boxing was becoming much more popular as a recreation for youthful men and a means of protecting one's home. As one Gazetter said “The local people like to practice the martial arts—especially to the west of Linqing. There are many schools: Shao-lin, Plum Flower and Greater and Lesser Hong Boxing. Their weapons are spears, swords, staff and mace. They specialize in one technique and compete with one another” . In rural villages of Shandong you would see what “ying-shen saihui / inviting the gods to a performance”. This can be described as a sort of opera, where a center for attention was erected. Shows would be put on to benefit the local temple gods, large tents went up and people came from all around for some good ol' R & R. Relatives from surrounding villages would come and drink, eat, gamble, have fun and such. And here at these opera places, many boxers would showcase their skills. Many of the gods being worshiped were military figures, especially for western shandong. Marital themes of the Water Margin, the romance of the 3 kingdoms and enfeoffment of the gods were notably loved spectacles. It was all a blend of social drama and theater and it was a beloved part of communities, and something they wanted to protect, and to protect it they had Boxers. Young men began studying martial arts to protect their communities, leading to things like crop watching associations. Poverty was getting worse and worse by the late 19th century, driving more into banditry and thus more boxers emerged to counter balance them. The late Qing dynasty would see an increase in military applicants from Shandong and it seems boxing was pushing it. Boxing was a popular part of the culture in Shandong, particularly in its western half and this led itself to providing the dynasty with good soldiers. The boxers were tolerated, hell they kind of became seen as defenders of local communities. But as the 19th century saw many internal rebellions, it also saw external threats. The British, French, Russians, and Japanese, amongst others, were encroaching and humiliating China. The threat of western imperialism would prove to be the final ingredient to see the rise of a new sort of movement. After the first opium war, 5 treaty ports were opened in China, but they were most confined the the southern and southeastern coast. Then the second opium war opened major ports in the north, like Tianjin and Chefoo along the Shandong peninsula in 1862. The Boxer movement was thus introduced to foreigners. Foreign cotton textiles began to enter Shandong through these ports, increasing during the 1880s and much more so during the 1890s. Despite the disruption of the first sino-Japanese war, cotton textile imports in Shandong rose rapidly. The increase in textile imports was seriously interfering with Shandong home grown textiles. In 1866 the Commissioner of customs at Yantai noted that the native Shandong textiles were "very good and durable, and are largely used in this province." Twenty years later, this same port reported that "the increase in its [cotton yarn's] import is said to be seriously interfering with the local industry ofspinning, which affords a means of support to many poor women." Then in 1887, the same commissioner reported that "I gather that the reeling of Native Cotton Yarn in this province is almost at a standstill." Foreign imports were having a disastrous effect particularly on northwest Shandong. The war with Japan hit the Shandong peninsula when the Japanese attacked weihaiwei. Qing forces were rushed northward and to the coast from interior parts of Shandong. The wars primary affect on Shandong was stripping it of its garrison forces as more and more men were sent to the front. This left a power vacuum in which two types of forces emerged; bandits and self defense forces, such as the Big Sword Society. When the war came to an end it provided dramatic evidence the Qing government was incompetent. There was a immediate feeling that China was breaking apart and that the Great Powers intended to carve it up for themselves. You all probably have seen the famous painting showing the great world powers leaders carving into china. 1897-1898 saw what we call the scramble for concessions and this was a very real crisis. Every since the opium wars, Christian missionaries gradually flooded China. In Shandong, catholic missionaries began at first in secret to convert the Chinese, by 1850 its estimated there were nearly 6000. By the late 19th century this grew to 16,850 in 1887 and during the 1890's it rose up dramatically to 47,221. The catholics remained in western Shandong and parts of Zhili while protestants grew along Shandongs coast around the treaty ports. The converts began to gain advantages with foreigners and this was met with resentment from those non christians around them. The church would intervene countless times in China's domestic politics and justice. The missionaries were protected and held extraterritoriality provisions from the many treaties of the 19th century. Their converts would also by extension be able to use some rights. For example if a convert Chinese stated they were being oppressed because of their faith, the foreign missionaries could intervene, and this was most definitely a system that was exploited. The missionaries would often intervene in any sort of temporal dispute, but the most common exploit was converts using their christianity to escape government punishments. Who else do you think would convert to Christianity to escape punishment, well bandits of course. In western shandong, bandits began seeking the protection of the church. So all of the sectarian groups that had been flourishing alongside the boxer groups were decaying and sought Christianity for protection. Likewise bandits would seek the same protection. The Boxers were losing their sense of being, those who they often aligned with to protect were seeking alternatives, and those they were protecting them from, were seeking the same thing. It looked to many of these youthful men that the missionaries were evil and ruining their lives. The situation was ripe for a major conflict. 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. Shandong, why is it always Shandong? It's sort of reminiscent of Bismarck talking about the balkans before WW1. Shandong was producing youthful men, who were watching their nation decay, and at some point enough would be enough.
Last time we spoke about the final days of the first Sino-Japanese War, the invasion of the Pescadores Islands, Taiwan and the Treaty of Shimonoseki. The Japanese had taken Port Arthur, Weihaiwei and were on the verge of marching upon Beijing. The Qing were slow to action on the negotiation front leading to three attempts to reach a peace agreement. However in the meantime the Japanese prolonged things for just enough time to allow their amphibious forces to invade the Pescadore islands and Taiwan. Li Hongzhang became the scapegoat for the entire conflict and was forced to sign the humiliating Treaty of Shimonoseki. However in the end it would also be Japan getting served a nasty deal because of the Triple Intervention of Germany, France and Russia. The balance of power in the east had dramatically changed, and with change comes movement, the movement of many people, all over the world. #55 This episode is, Overseas Chinese 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 did not know when I was going to tackle this subject, but I figured after the first Sino-Japanese war would be a good place. The 1890's-1900 is a sort of odd window of time for China where a lot of change occurs. When I was doing my undergraduate in History, a requirement of my University was to take a certain amount of courses in specific fields of history, one was Canadian history as I am from Quebec and its just forced on you. In one of those courses I had to spend an extensive amount of time learning about the Chinese-Canadian experience, particularly during the end half of the 19th century. Now I know the majority of you listeners are American and probably know the general history of Chinese immigration to America during the 19th century. For Canada is quite similar, first thing that comes to mind for all of you I imagine is the railroad work. Its a fundamental part of both America and Canada's history, the building of some of the great railroads and unfortunately the terrible mistreatment of Asian immigrants. In this episode however I don't want to just talk about Canada and the United States, because in truth, Chinese immigration saw Chinese going to all sorts of nations, for various reasons. I also believe it gives us a better understanding of all the events we have spoken about and how they affect the common person. There are more than 50 million Oversea Chinese today, most of them are in Southeast Asia, in places like Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Thailand and such. They represent one of the highest figures of immigration in the world. Their migration goes back to ancient times, roughly 2000 years ago during the opening of the maritime silk road. Chinese immigrants were moving mainly to Southeast Asia. When the 15th century came around, Chinese began moving to places like Sumatra and Java, establishing what we call today, Chinatowns. Where trade went, so did the Chinese and by the 16th century trade began to pick up with Europe. Europeans began to establish themselves in the Far East, looking to trade and in the process integrated numerous places within a world trade network. European powers began to compete with another to expand and develop colonies in places like Southeast Asia and this in turn increased a demand for Chinese merchants and laborers. When the 17th century rolled around, there was an estimated 100,000 or so Chinese scattered about Southeast Asia and 20-30 thousand perhaps in Japan. Many Chinese came over during the Wokou years, setting up bases in Japan to help raid mainland China as pirates. When the Manchu conquered the Ming dynasty, numerous Chinese refugees fled to Japan to escape Manchu rule. Now its during the 19th century when we really begin to see massive movements to the far reaches of the globe. When the age of colonialism was at its height so too would Chinese immigration be at its height, and with it a diaspora began. By the starting of the 19th century, millions of Chinese pulled up stakes and left for unfamiliar and faraway places, why? During the final century of the Qing dynasty, China began to struggle with mounting challenges as I think we all have seen in this series. These problems were both internal and external in nature. Internally, the Qing had doubled their territory, incorporating areas in the north and west which were sparsely populated, adding ethnic and religious diversity to the empire. There were Manchu, Hans, Mongolians, Tibetans, Muslims and such. Alongside this, the population exploded because of new irrigation and water management techniques that were helping tackle China's most troublesome historic nemesis, floods and droughts. New crops had come over from the America's such as corn, sweet potatoes and peanuts. The new foodstuffs could be grown in areas of China that historically always had trouble growing stuff, allowing for new lands to be expanded upon such as the southwest and northeast. As the nutrition improved, China's population exploded. By 1740 the Qing dynasty numbered 140 million, but by 1850 this increased to a whopping 430 million. Population growth holds numerous benefits to a nation, such as increasing economic activity, but it can also cause great strain. China took a very very long time to industrialize. In the early half of the 1800s, most Chinese supported themselves through farming, but with the population booming, less and less land pushed more and more to find new lands. The Qing government meanwhile, as we have seen in this series, proceeded to become incredibly corrupt. Their officials neglected the common people and engaged in corruption purely to enrich themselves, and they gradually became more and more inept at governance. With a corrupt government and a booming population of dissatisfied people, 19th century China was ripe for conflict. The first major one was the White Lotus Rebellion of 1796-1804. It broke out in response to famine, overcrowding of land and from the harassment by corrupt Qing officials. The cult lashed out, resulting in the deaths of millions and costing the Qing dynasty nearly 100 million taels. Then the First Opium War broke out against Britain resulting in a humiliating defeat and the beginning of unequal treaties upon China. After this, the worst civil war in history, the Taiping rebellion broke out, yet again during a time of famine, with another cult, the Taiping led by Hong Xiuquan who nearly toppled the Qing Dynasty leading to the death of over 20 million or so people. Alongside the Taiping was the Nian rebellion and the second opium war, inviting more death and humiliating treaties tossed upon China. The Dungan revolt killed another 10 or so million people, causing countless Hui Muslims to flee into surrounding neighboring states. The turmoil of the mid 19th century caused terrible suffering on the people of China whether it be from drought, famine, war, governmental harassment or simply incompetence and when this becomes your everyday life, what do you do to improve it? Well after witnessing such foreign barbarians nearly toppling your government multiple times, showcasing technologies you've never seen before, you might get curious what its like in their nations. Once the bans were lifted Christian missionaries were pouring into China from these nations. These people didn't not simply sail over to China either, in the mid 19th century the invention of steamships made sea crossings much faster and safer. With steamships came railroads, a much more efficient way to move raw materials and people across land. Steamships and railroads would have a profound effect on China. The construction of railroads required a lot of work, particularly dangerous work of clearing land and laying tracks. European colonies, the Americas, Southeast Asia, Oceania and other far reaching places had enormous demand for laborer, whether it be in construction, agriculture, mining, railway building, etc. Plantations for rice, rubber, fruit, sugar, tea, hell the mining of guano was huge, talk about a shitty job. Like we see today, companies sought cheap and exploitable pools of labor to fit their demands, many of them turned to China. China because of the Opium wars and later the First Sino-Japanese War had opened up countless treaty ports, she was burst open. Now there were fundamentally two rationales for Chinese migration, the first being flight and the second economic. Flight refers to those literally driven to flee where they were because of war, famine, disease, natural disasters, terrible government and persecution. Economic refers to the drive to just improve one's life, maybe the grass is greener on the other side as they say. Both of these rationales could lead to temporary move or permanent and it did not necessarily mean leaving China either, let's not forget a ton of internal moving was occurring. Now during the Taiping Rebellion as the violence escalated countless people fled. Take for example the wealthy class, whenever Taiping entered an area, obviously these people feared losing everything as the Taiping confiscated all wealth. Therefor countless fled to newly opened treaty ports like Shanghai where foreign protection was to be found. They began dealing with the foreigners and discovered some mutual interests. This was a large reason places like Shanghai and Hong Kong were transformed into booming sophisticated cities. But for the countless common people, the Taiping-Qing war saw a large mobile population, wandering wherever seemed safe at the time. Many of these people fled to provinces in the southwest and southeast of China. When the war ended, major food and tax producing provinces were de-populated, take Jiangsu for example which saw 70% of its population of around 24 million people. Anhui and Zhejiang lost around 50% of their respective 15 million or so people. When the war was finally over, the flight migrants did not all return. Hubei, Hunan and Henan saw a ton of their people simply pack up and set up shop east. A lot of people also fled into Manchuria which had always been sparsely populated, even though it was one of the richest areas for agriculture and natural resources. The Qing had always limited migration to Manchuria, trying to protect the Manchu homelands, but beginning in the 1860's the Qing leadership had a change of heart. There were two major reasons for this; number 1 the Taiping rebellion had ravaged the governmental budget, prosperous agricultural regions that provided a ton of tax revenue were depopulated. China had indemnity payments to pay the British and French, money needed to be made, so the Qing began selling land in Manchuria and increased taxes upon it once it started to become more productive. The second reason was Russia. Russia was encroaching into Manchuria, and the Qing worried its sparse population would leave it vulnerable, so they opened the doors to the Han to help out. Now it was not just the Russian encroaching into Manchuria, the Japanese also had their eyes on the region. As I explained briefly towards the end of last episode, the Russians basically swindled the Japanese with the triple intervention, managing to seize a 25 year lease over the Liaodong peninsula in 1898. The Russians quickly went to work developing the region's agriculture, mining and crucially its railways. All of this required the pumping of money into Manchuria further building up the desire for Chinese migration to fill the large demands. Now this was all internal movements, what about the external? Millions of Chinese responded to the international demand for labor during the mid to late 19th century, taking them first to Southeast Asia, and then to all the corners of the world. The major reason they were able to do this in large scale was because of the new steamships and the increase of foreigners inside China telling them about the various nations they came from. The majority of early migrants came from the wealthy class, who sought to move their families and businesses abroad. These types of businesses were typically, Luandromats, stores, restaurants and such. They mostly came from Guangdong and Fujian as southern China was in turmoil due to the opium trade and Taiping Rebellion. Southern China had become fertile grounds for western companies to come over and recruit or even Shanghai laborers. The British picked up Chinese and brought them to build up their colonies in Malaya and Singapore, while the Dutch brought them over to Sumatra. They worked in sweltering hot plantations, for tea, rubber, rice, fruit or in the great tin mines of Malaya for example. This all of course becomes quite dark, I briefly talked about the “pig trade”, the pigs being Chinese coolies who were either hired or kidnapped into indentured servitude overseas. Britain had outlawed slavery in 1807, but the experience for these poor souls would be very reminiscence of the western african slave trade. The term “shanghaied” comes from this time, when Chinese were sometimes drugged up or boozed up and tossed onto ships going to various places like Trinidad, British Honduras, Jamaica, New South Wales, British Guiana, Peru, Cuba, all over really. Now the Pig trade was quite reviled, take this passage from 1852 by foreign secretary Lord Malmesbury “iniquities scarcely exceeding those practiced on the African coast and on the African middle passage have not been wanting…the jails of China [have been] emptied to supply ‘labour' to British colonies…hundreds [of coolies] gathered together in barracoons, stripped naked and stamped or painted with the letter C (California), P (Peru) or S (Sandwich Islands) on their breasts, according to destination.” It was actually the gradual abolition of the Atlantic slave trade and slavery itself that rose the demand for Chinese coolies. The British were the pioneers on this front sending 200 Chinese laborers over to Trinidad in 1806 to quote “in an attempt to establish a settlement of free peasant cultivators and laborers” these initial shipments saw Chinese on vessels that had been used to transport African slaves in previous years. The Trinidad experiment failed, only 20 to 30 of the 200 Chinese remained on the island by the 1820's, however such stories inspired people like Sir John Gladstone to bring Chinese over to sugar plantation in British Guiana in the hopes of replacing the lost Afro-Caribbean workforce because the slave trade was coming to an end. Now the logistics of coolie labor were, murky lets say. Most in theory were under contract, paid, to be temporary, one would say consensual. Regardless many in Britain rightfully saw how horrible it was and tried to fight to end the trade or at least improve conditions for the Chinese coolies. Many of these humane reformers argued the Chinese would be tricked into signing employment contracts based on misleading promises, often kidnapped or even sold by coolie merchants within China. Yes a lot of these unfortunate men, had debts, like gambling debts and their lenders simply sold them off. But there were many who volunteered, because they were offered free passage and paid something like 20 cents per day. While I have been focusing on the British, everyone was in the game somewhat, take for example the Portuguese who held Macao which was the center of the coolie trade. It was said from 1848-1873 Macao's only real business was trading coolie slaves, and eventually it became so bad the British forced them to ban it. Spain sent Cuba two large shipments of Chinese Coolies in 1847 to work the sugar fields in Havana, these men came from Xiamen, one of the treaty ports that opened after the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. When Guangdong opened up, Peru saw a ton of Chinese coolies come over to work in their silver mines and in guano cultivation. When their contracts were up, many integrated into the countries of Peru, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Cuba. Before 1959 when the Cuban revolution broke out, Havana held latin americans largest Chinatown, a result of the coolie trade. South America saw around 100,000 Chinese indentured laborers come over between 1850 and the late 1870s. The most vulnerable would be those poor souls deceived by false contracts or kidnapped who saw themselves basically thrown into slavery. For the majority who went to Cuba and Peru this was to be the case. After a 4 month grueling journey crammed onto a ship like a sardine, they would arrive to be met with cruelty and abuse. Most would find their contracts were written in such a way that it would make it nearly impossible for them to ever repay the cost of their passage, which was not covered for, also housing and food. When reports began to surface between 1847-1854 about the abuse of those going to Cuba and Peru, British tried to take responsibility by closing ports sending these people off in China, such as Amoy, but this simply led Macao to become the largest coolie port in the end. Hell some of these Chinese participated in the War of the Pacific known also as the Saltpeter war, where they burned down many of the haciendas they worked for. 2000 Chinese coolies joined a Chilean Army in Peru helping the wounded and burying the dead. The Germans brought some over to German Samoa to work on their plantations which only ended during WW1 when Anzac seized such islands. The French shipping of Chinese coolies to Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, the French west indies and such, as this also involved Indian coolies. Then came the age of Gold Rushes, all around the world large scale gold rushes emerged, in Oceania, Africa, South American and North America. In Australia the population tripled from 430,000 in 1851 to 1.7 million in 1871, making Australia the first multicultural society during the gold rush period. The gold rush began in may of 1851 after a prospector named Edward Hargraves claimed to have discovered gold in Ophir. Hargreaves had been to California's goldfields learning gold prospecting techniques such as panning and cradling. Victoria would see the first large goldrush in July of 1851 and word spread fast. 290,000 migrated to Victoria from British territories, 15,000 from European nations, 18,000 from the US, but not all were welcome. In 1855, 11,493 Chinese arrived in Melbourne, which saw Victoria enact the Chinese immigration act of 1855 in response. This severely limited the number of Chinese passengers permitted on an arriving vessel, but to evade the new law, many Chinese began landing in southern parts of Australia and would hike it sometimes 400kms across the country to get to the Victoria goldfields. In 1865 Richard Daintree discovered the Cape River Goldfield which soon attracted Chinese to Queensland for the first time. In 1872 James Mulligan discovered gold in the Palmer River around Cooktown, seeing 3 years of waves upon waves of Chinese prospectors. By 1977 over 18,000 residents were Chinese miners. I wanted to leave the United States and Canada for last if you were wondering, as I think they are the most well known stories of Chinese immigration. Also there are numerous nations I could not cover, this story is far too expensive I do apologize. So lets start with a very popular story, that of the great Californian Gold rush. In 1848 James W Marshall found Gold at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news soon brought over 300,000 people to California. While most were Americans, the gold rush also attracted thousands from Latin America, Oceania, Europe and China. The Chinese began arriving in 1849, the first major rush was to Gum San nicknamed “Gold Mountain” by the newly arrived Chinese. In 1849, around 90,000 people had come over, of which around 50-60 thousand were american. By 1852 20,000 Chinese had landed in the San Francisco area. Their distinct dress and appearance made them particularly recognizable in the goldfields and they were met with a ton of racism and violence. The American miners were frustrated with all the foreigners encroaching and the Chinese were easier target than other groups. Initially the Chinese worked for themselves or labored with other miners, but the American miners began to press upon the government to thwart more Chinese from coming over. The California legislature passed a foreign miners license law in 1850, charging non-US citizens 20$ per month. The law would be repealed within a year because of how exorbitant the fees were. This did not dissuade the Chinese who would go on to found America's first Chinatown in San Francisco, where by 1852 the Chinese now accounted for 30% of all immigrants. In response the California legislature passed another foreign miners tax now at 4$ per month. Many Chinese thrived during this time despite the hurdles they faced. Chinese mining companies like John China Placer Mining company and Hong Kong China Wing Dam company hired up to 20 workers and provided industrial equipment, expanding large scale operations. Small scale workers cooperatives amongst the Chinese also thrived in the 1850's which operated similar to the larger companies, using a share-risk system amongst workers. Many Chinese also chose to work for wages from white employers. Its estimated though it varies greatly, that Chinese miners were making around 39-50 dollars a month which would have been around the average wage for white miners. But as you can imagine there was much hardship, and the violence could get incredibly bad. Take for example what is known as the Hells Canyon Massacre. In 1887 two groups of Chinese miners headed to Oregon's Hells canyon to search for gold. On May 25th of 1887, 7 White Horse gang members, these were horse thieves, they robbed, murdered and mutilated between 10-34 of the Chinese miners who were employee's of the Sam Yup company. Its said they stole up to a possible 50,000$ worth in gold. Historian David H Stratton described the massacre as such, “The brutality of the Snake River atrocity was probably unexcelled, whether by whites or Indians, in all the anti-Chinese violence of the American West. After the first day's onslaught at Robinson Gulch, the killers wrecked and burned the camp and then threw the mutilated corpses into the Snake River. The bodies of the other Chinese received similar treatment. Since it was the high-water stage of the spring runoff, the dead Chinese were found for months (some accounts say for years) afterwards along the lower river.” On the 26th more Chinese showed up to investigate the scene and 8 were shot dead by the gang. Later on in 1888 one Frank Vaughn confessed to taking part in the crime giving up the names of 6 associates. Most had departed america save for Vaughn and another man named Hughes. Their gang leader, Bruce Evan's known as “old blue” was blamed for everything, but he escaped custody. Now by the 1860's the goldrush was quieting down, leaving many Chinese looking for work and they found it in railway construction. The first major railway seeing Chinese workers was the first transcontinental railroad which linked up California to the eastern united states. Construction began in 1863 with terminal points at Omaha, Nebraska and Sacramento. Despite the Goldrush raising California's population, a large number of Chinese were recruited in 1865 to help build up the railway. Many of these were former gold or silver miners and it was Charles Crocker a manager of the Central Pacific Railroad who was one of the first trying to hire Chinese. As he pointed out to his colleagues, hiring Chinese as opposed to whites as they cost a third of the salary. Crocker also pointed out they could hire the Chinese immigrants to do much of the grueling work and particularly the dangerous jobs. Crocker soon broke records for laying track, finishing the project 7 years ahead of time. This was due to the fact he worked the men to down to the bones. The central pacific track was constructed primarily by Chinese, Crocker initially hired every Chinese he could find in California, but soon began importing Chinese workers directly from China. The railroad had to pass over river and through canyons requiring bridges to be made and tunnels to be blown open. Many of the Chinese workers would be sent into tunnels to break through using hand tools and black power bombs. To tunnel through places like the the foothills of Sierra Nevada, the Central Pacific began to use the newly invented but extremely unstable Nitro-glycerine explosives, aka TNT. This greatly accelerated the rate of construction and deaths for the poor Chinese workers who used them. The work often saw Chinese workers tossed in large baskets with the explosives down to hard to reach areas, they would lit the fuse and the basket would be pulled as fast as it could away from the blast area, not safe. Over 11,000 Chinese took part in the project and they made up 90% of the work effort. A large portion of them came from Guangdong, recruited through a network of small firms and labor contractors. Its estimated around 1000 Chinese died building the Central Pacific Railroad. Now as the Chinese came to the US for the Goldrush and then railroad construction, they were met with a lot of racism, violence and legislative efforts. I mentioned the American miners pushing for legislation against them, but when the Chinese began working on the railways this greatly expanded. In the 1870's various legal discriminatory measures were being made against the Chinese. In San Francisco Chinese school children from 1859-1870 were segregated, but in 1870 the requirement to educate them was simply dropped. Also in 1870 the Naturalization act which extended citizenship rights to African Americans specifically barred Chinese on the grounds they could not be assimilated into American society. Chinese immigrants were thus prohibited from voting, jury duty (which lets be honest is a blessing) and faced alien land laws prohibited them from purchasing property or establishing permanent homes or businesses. In 1873 the Pigtail Ordinance, you heard that right, targeted Qing dynasty immigrants based on their Queues. The law required prisoners in San Francisco to have their hair cut within an inch of their scalp and any Qing citizens who went to prison and had their queues cut, meant they could not go back home until it grew back. The law was passed with the idea it would dissuade Chinese immigration. Two years later came the Page Act of 1875, barring Chinese women from entering the US. This was justified under the guise many who came over were performing sex work. In reality it was another measure taken to dissuade Chinese immigration. This was followed up in 1882 by the infamous Chinese exclusion act which prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers. All of this was strongly driven by frustrated American workers who saw the Chinese as a threat to their jobs. Miners and railway workers pressed unions which pressed the legislatures to toss countless anti-Chinese laws trying to dissuade them from coming to the US. With so much discrimination and hurdles tossed at them, the Chinese began moving somewhere else to make ends meet. Chinese immigrants began arriving to the then Colony of Vancouver island in the late 1850's looking for gold. The colony of British Columbia, much like California was seeing a gold rush. The first Chinese community was established in Barkerville where half its population were Chinese. Soon other Chinatowns emerged in Richfield, Van Winkle, Quesnellemouthe, Stanley, Antlery and Quesnelle forks. By 1860 the Chinese population of Vancouver island and British columbia was around 7000. Then in 1871, British Columbia agreed to join the confederation of Canada and one of its conditions to do so was for the new federal government of Canada to build a railway linking BC to Eastern Canada, yes its basically the exact same thing as California with the Eastern US. Prime Minister John A Macdonald along with numerous investors realized the project would be unbelievably expensive. They also realized they could cut costs by employing Chinese laborers, as Macdonald told Parliament in 1882 “it is simply a question of alternatives either you must have this labour or you can't have the railway”. In 1880 Andrew Onderdonk, one of the main construction contractors in British Columbia for the new Canadian Pacific Railway began recruiting Chinese laborers from California. Learning from the Americans he also began importing Chinese workers from Guangdong and Taiwan. The Chinese workers were hired for the first 320 kms of the CPR which was considered to be the most difficult and dangerous segments, particularly the parts going through Fraser Canyon. Like their american counterparts they were paid much less than white Canadians, around 50% on the dollar. Between 1880-1885, 17000 Chinese workers came to build the CPR with around 700 dying due to the terrible work conditions. The CPR's construction resulted in the establishment of Chinatowns along the rail line which further resulted in Chinese communities spreading across Canada. Following directly in the footsteps as the Americans, when the CPR was finished in 1884, the following year saw the infamous Chinese Head Tax. The Canadian government levied its first of many to come, anti chinese immigration acts, to discourage Chinese from coming to Canada. The head tax system stipulated all Chinese people entering Canada first had to pay 50$ ie: the head tax. This would be amended to 100$ in 1900, 500$ in 1903 and so forth. Because of this, basically no Chinese laborers could afford to bring over their families, though BC's Chinese communities still grew. In British columbia the perception of all the asians coming into the province, as it was not just the Chinese, many Japanese came over particularly for the fishing industry, well they perceived these people to be taking their jobs. Australia likewise had tossed up immigration restriction acts in 1901, the infamous “white australia policy” which eliminated asian immigration after their federation, and Canada would try the same. The Asian Exclusion League in Canada, yes there was a league just for this lobbied as much as they could to thwart Chinese immigration. I did not want to delve into the 20th century in this episode, but I did want to touch upon the violence that would occur in BC. In 1907 tension had increased, as more and more Asian immigrants were flooding over into BC from the US as a result of their anti chinese regulations, kind of a hot potato situation. By the end of October 1907 over 11,440 immigrants came over, 8125 were Japanese, 1266 Chinese and Sikhs made up 2049. Anti-Asian acts were blowing up and soon full blown riots spread. The Asian exclusion league developed a new immigration act, but the federal government refused to back it. This led to outrage which led to its members starting a parade on September 7th of 1907. This parade turned into a mob riot where Chinese and Japanese neighborhoods were attacked. Asian owned businesses were vandalized, beer bottles were tossed at windows, fires were lit, the rioters were trying to destroy businesses. They came to Japantown where armed Japanese residents fought back, over 50 stores had their windows broken in and the entire riot only died down around 3am. Labour Minister MacKenzie King, yes the soon to be Prime Minister of Canada conducted a commission into the riots finding the damage to be worth around 26,000$ for the Chinese community and 9000$ for the Japanese. The riot directly led to the 1908 “gentleman's agreement”, one I might add not many people know about, not as notably as the head tax, but this was a secret agreement between Japan and Canada to restrict the number of passports issued to Japanese annually at under 400 peoples. It was a dark part of Canadian history. 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. I do apologize if this episode is more on the gloomy side, but do not forget these asian communities are thriving today all around the world. I plan to do another episode on Overseas Chinese in the 20th century, so I hope you enjoyed this one and come back for some more!
Last time we spoke about the battle of the Yalu River. It was an absolutely catastrophic week for the Qing dynasty. Within just two days they suffered a major land defeat and now a defeat at sea that practically annihilated the Beiyang fleet. Corruption and incompetence ran rampant as the Beiyang fleet crews found themselves undertrained, understaffed, lacking ammunition and what ammunition they did have, some of it was filled with concrete and porcelain. The Qing dynasty's corruption problems were shown on full display as the IJN combined fleet outperformed them, despite having smaller warships and less of them. Quick firing guns defeated the big guns at Yalu and now the Japanese held control over the seas. The Beiyang fleet now flee's to Weihaiwei to try and repair their ships for another chance at a decisive naval battle, but will it ever come to be? #52 The First Sino-Japanese War of 1898-1895 Part 4: The Battle for Port Arthur 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. After the battle of the Yalu River, the Japanese had a enormous boost to their propaganda campaign. Despite this the Qing backed press continued their charade of blemishing the losses, take this article from the North China Herald "In spite of the reiterated denials of the Japanese authorities that any of their vessels were badly injured in the recent naval fight, information which we have been able to gather from quarters entitled to all credence, corroborates in a very circumstantial manner the statement that the Japanese lost four vessels in the actual fight, and more probably later on, as the Chinese heavy guns treated them very severely. The Chinese engaged fought with wonderful bravery; there were no skulkers." Despite their claims, by September the 20th the jig was up for the Qing government as foreign military advisers who had participated or witnessed the battle at Yalu arrived to Tianjin. They began spilling the story to the western press, and unlike the Japanese press, the Qing could not simply write them off as mere propaganda. The foreign press corroborated the Japanese reports that 5 Qing warships were had been sunk and “to a man regard the statement that the Japanese lost no ships as a barefaced lie”. Even the foreign eye witnesses could not believe not a single Japanese ship was sunk. The reports caused severe issues for Beijing. This alongside other issues prompted Emperor Guangxu to take an unprecedented move, he summoned Inspector General Constantin von Hanneken, a Prussian officer who was working as a military adviser to the Beiyang fleet for an imperial audience. Von Hanneken was also one of the engineers who helped build the defenses at Port Arthur known to the Chinese as Lushunkou and at Weihaiwei. He of course was present at the battle of the Yalu and the EMperor demanded to learn what actually transpired from him. It certainly says a lot about your Empire, when you would trust a foreigner over your officials. It is also at this point Japan altered its position on foreign reporters. As mentioned near the beginning of this series, the Japanese opted to have a blackout on news about the war. On August 2nd of 1894 an Imperial Ordinance had been published requiring all newspapers and other publicans to submit any information concerning diplomatic or military affairs to the Japanese government authorities prior to publication. Well after the victories at Pyongyang and Yalu, the Japanese government decided to undermine the Qing war propaganda efforts by allowing foreign correspondence to accompany the IJA. Foreigners would not be given the same accommodation for the Qing ground forces. As explained by a reporter for the Peking and Tientsin times “no one could guarantee the safety of a foreigner accompanying the Chinese troops. Two interpreters accompanying the Second Japanese Army were captured and killed by Chinese forces”. Another major event occurred after the disaster at Yalu, Empress Dowager Cixi abandoned her plans for her extravagant 60th birthday celebration, which really adds to the myth about the embezzlement of naval funds. On September 25th, EMperor Guangxu issued this edict “"H.I.M. the Empress-Dowager, in view of the continuation of the war with Japan, cannot bear to be celebrating her birthday anniversary with great rejoicing while her subjects and soldiers are all suffering from the hardships of war, hence she has commanded that the triumphal progress from Eho [the Summer Palace or Yiheyuan, to the Forbidden City and the celebrations at the former place be given up, and only the ordinary celebrations settled upon in the Palace be observed on the auspicious day. We did our best to try to pray her Majesty to reconsider the above decision, but the grace and virtue of her Majesty has resisted our prayers." It was estimated by the French press that Empress Dowager had spent nearly 80 million francs in preparation for the celebration that was canceled. This is about the time you hear rumors of Empress Dowagers infamous embezzling scandal. It was said by many that she had siphoned naval funds in the figure of 100 million taels which was the reason why the Qing Navy received no significant funding after 1889. As I mentioned in the previous episode, its not so black and white, but indeed the summer palace did see serious renovations. Some of those renovations costs upto 14 million taels and it seems like at least 11 million did come from funds originally dedicated to the navy. There is also a huge amount of irony, as one of these renovations was to refurbish a marble pavilion in the shape of a boat for one of the palace gardens. Too good to be true some would say. The first two key battles of the war were focused on expelling the Chinese from the Korean Peninsula. After the victory at Yalu, the war theater now shifted to Manchuria. The IJA wanted to clear a way from the Korean border to the Liaodong Peninsula in preparation for an attack upon one of her grandest and most important fortresses and naval bases, Port Arthur. The Fortress of Port Arthur took over 16 years to build and its naval station was considered superior to that of Hong Kong. If Port Arthur were to fall, the Qing would be unable to repair their best damaged ships and would succumb to a naval war of attrition. Guarding the southern shores of the Bohai was China's second most important naval base, that at Weihaiwei. Weihaiwei and Port Arthur worked together to check any sea approaches to Beijing. If both fell, the rest of the war would literally descend into mop up operations. Japan's war plan was to execute a pincer attack against Beijing. Their forces would advance in 3 columns. 1) Part of the 1st IJA would move south through Manchuria towards the Liaodong Peninsula; 2) the 2nd IJA would land on the Liaodong Peninsula and advance upon Port Arthur; 3) another part of the 1st IJA would advance from the Korean border towards Mukden, hoping to seize it and use it as a down payment later on to decapitate the Qing dynasty. Once Port arthur was taken, the 1st IJA would continue their land campaign in Manchuria to clear a path to Beijing while the 2nd IJA would amphibious attack Weihaiwei. If successful this would obliterate the Qing southern naval forces and leave Beijing at their mercy. As a coup de grace, the Japanese were also organizing a 3rd IJA at Hiroshima in anticipation for amphibious landings at Dagu to march upon Beijing. However the Japanese were under no illusions of this all coming to be, they figured great powers would intervene at some point to limit their war aims. The Qing counterstrategy was quite minimal; it rested upon the assumption the Japanese would never be capable of crossing the Yalu River. After their defeat at Pyongyang the Qing ground forces made their next stand 125 miles to the north along the Yalu River. The river constituted the boundary between Korea and China. It was deep and wife, making it a formidable obstacle for the advancing Japanese army. Two fortified outposts faced another fromm opposite sides of the river, one at Jiliancheng on the Manchurian side and the other at Uiji on the Korean side. These became the headquarters for the opposing armies. General Song Qing fortified the northern bank of the Yalu for 7 miles going as far south as Andong and 10 miles north to Hushan. General Song Qing was 74 years old, famous for helping suppress the Taiping 30 years prior. He was one of Li Hongzhang's subordinates during the campaign against the Taiping and Nian rebellion. Since 1880 he had served as an assistant to Li Hongzhang, overseeing the defenses of Manchuria. By 1882 he alongside his troops took up a station at Port Arthur, and apparently there he had done very little to modernize the Manchurian army. After the battle of Pyongyang, Li Hongzhang put him in charge of directing the war and gave him authority to reorganize the army. Meanwhile the 1st IJA led by Field Marshal Count Yamagata Aritomo departed from Pyongyang on October 23rd. The 56 year old Yamagata was the father of the modern Japanese army, a leading Meiji era statesman. He had overseen the introduction of national conscription in 1873, the reorganization of the army along first French, then Prussian lines in 1878 and the adoption of an independent General staff system. During the 1880s he also oversaw the organization of the national police force and system of local government. He was prime minister from 1889-1891, during his time he introduced the imperial rescript on education. So needless to say he was a colossal figure. His plan was based on Napoleons successful tactic of making a feint to the front while delivering a blow to the flank, this time directed at Hushan. He planned to use a small force to attack the Qing left flank, in the hopes of turning its flank and feinting the movements of the main bulk of his army. The main bulk would concentrate on the center of the Qing lines. But to do all of this, he had to cross the Yalu. The Japanese had learned bitter lessons about fording large rivers at Pyongyang, they could have massively lost the battle because they never prepared the tools to ford such things. This time the IJA carefully prepared themselves. Yamagata occupied Uiju by October 23rd with around 10,000 troops of the 3rd and 5th divisions of the 1st IJA. On the other side of the Yalu, General Song Qing had 16 km's of fortifications in the form of hundreds of redoubts and trenches manned by nearly 23,000 troops. On the night of October 24th, the Japanese crept up to the Yalu river near Uiji and secretly erected a pontoon bridge to get the main body of their forces across. Miraculously this went undetected. The IJA 3rd division led by General Katsuro Taro performed a night attack against Hushan. Incredibly, upon attacking Hushan, the Japanese found the Qing garrison had deserted their fortifications the night before! Simultaneously the IJA 5th division led by General Nozu Michitsura sent his men over the pontoon bridge and attacked Jiuliancheng, also finding positions deserted. In fact only a Qing rear guard even bothered to make a token resistance! In less than 3 hours of combat the fortifications at Hushan and Juliancheng were already in Japanese hands? According to a military analyst named Du Boulay, "The Chinese garrison [at Jiuliancheng] which might have inflicted great damage on the hostile army from behind battlements of solid masonry, silently decamped during the night, keeping up a desultory fire in the meantime, in order to encourage the belief that they intended to retain possession of the stronghold." When the Japanese came to Dandong the situation was the very same. The Qing had abandoned enormous quantities of weapons, rice and other war materials. The battle to stop the Japanese from entering Manchuria resulted in about 34 deaths and 111 wounded or the Qing and practically nothing for the Japanese. It had turned out the field commanders, Generals Yikteang'a, Ye Zhicheng and Nie Shicheng had all retreated to Fenghuangcheng. Yiketang'a was a Manchu general in control of banner forces from Heilongjiang province and not under direct command of Li Hongzhang. The 1st IJA split into two groups to pursue the fleeing Qing forces. One group was commanded by Lt General Taro who advanced northwards towards Fenghuangcheng chasing after General Nie Shichengs men. At Fenghuangcheng, Yiketang and Nie chose to torch the city and fled the scene by October 30th. By November 15th, the Japanese seized Xiuyan just due west of Fenghuangcheng. By taking both these cities the land approaches to Port Arthur were now severed. Meanwhile the other Japanese group led by Lt General Oku Yasukata were advancing north towards Mukden. Severe winter conditions began to hit the region as General SOng Qing moved his forces to Liaoyang to block the Japanese advance upon Mukden. Because of the descending winter, both sides went into winter quarters. The Qing sources at this point stopped claiming victories, and instead began presenting events as brave encounters against overwhelmingly superior numbers. Take this from the North China Herald on November 2nd "When the Japanese army of forty odd thousand attacked Chiuliench'eng [Jiuliancheng] on the 24th of October there were only a little over 5,000 Chinese troops to oppose the enemy. But it took the latter two whole days to take the city. When the city was abandoned all the modern Krupp and Hotchkiss guns, over twenty in number, were carried along with the army, the ones left to the enemy being some thirty odd old muzzle-loading pieces, a hundred years old, which had been placed there many years ago as a defence against possible native or Corean marauders." Because of the absence of decent telegraph lines or good roads, communications were extremely slow to come out of the Manchurian campaign. Initial coverage tended to be based more so on rumor than fact, kind of like social media today. It would often take more than a month for a comprehensive account to become known. General Song Qing's forces had retreated in the general direction of Liaoyang to protect Mukden. It was after all the ancestral home of the Manchu, thus it held tremendous symbolic importance for their dynasty. The city could not afford to lose if the Manchu hoped to still control China. But for the Japanese, Mukden was like their trump card to play later, their primary target of course was Port Arthur. The Manchu leadership were following the traditional strategy focusing on the land war and dynastic continuity while overlooking the need to deny the Japanese access to the coast to continue landing their forces. They assumed China's vast territory and population would prove too much for the Japanese Army, that time was on their side and a war of attrition would deliver victory. This was a possibility of course, a strong government could abandon their capital and continue to fight, but the Manchu's fought under the belief they would lose the dynasty if they left the capital too long. If they were absent too long, perhaps the Han would strike a deal with the Japanese. Thus it was imperative to the Manchu they must thwart Japanese landings in China proper; the key to this of course was to deny Japan access to the key ports in Bohai. To do this they had to hold Port Arthur which held the only repair facilities capable of maintaining their best warships. Their land forces needed to concentrate at Port Arthur, not disperse in Manchuria. The next order of business for the Japanese was to seize Jinzhou and then Dalian which were on either neck of the Liaodong Peninsula. Once they were taken the Japanese could launch a land offensive against Port Arthur whose primary defenses anticipated an attack by sea. The 2nd IJA of Major General Nogi Maresuke and Lt General Baron Yamaji Motoharu began arriving at Pi-tse-Wo, present day Pikou along the Liaodong Peninsula on October 24th. Their first objective was Jinzhou, the most important fortified town in southern Fengtian province. It was a major transportation intersection, located at the fork in the road from China proper to the Liaodong Peninsula and Korea. One route followed the western coast of the Peninsula going to Niuzhang and further to parts of the Great Wall of China at Shanhaiguan. The other route went northward to the Yalu River. Jinzhou held a garrison of 1500 soldiers equipped with four 240mm, two 210mm and two 150mm artillery pieces. On November the 6th, General Nogi's men stormed Jinzhou, taking it with very little resistance. Jinzhou was actually quite a tough position to defend because it was surrounded by hills, making it easy for an enemy to position their artillery to batter the fortifications. The next day General Nogi's men advanced upon Dalian. Dalian was garrisoned by 3500 soldiers equipped with 5 forts and batteries consisting of eight 240mm, four 210mm, 6 150mm and two 120mm artillery pieces. It was a formidable fortress and it was taken without a single shot fired. Yes Dalian defenders had all fled to Port Arthur the night prior. Taking Jinzhou and Dalian was literally a cake walk. Dalian was a port town and its dock facilities greatly aided the Japanese supply lines. The Qing defenders of Dalian had left so fast they had even abandoned plans that showed the minefield locations for Port Arthur's defenses. While all of this was going on, the Beiyang fleet and limped back to Port Arthur by early November only to receive orders from Li Hongzhang over in Tianjin, to withdraw to Weihaiwei. It seemed Li Hongzhang did not want to risk another tussle with the IJN combined fleet. Thus Port Arthur would not be reinforced by the Beiyang warships big guns, and to add insult to injury, as the Beiyang fleet was pulling into Weihaiwei, the battleship Zhenyuan struck some rocks at the entrance to her harbor and had to be beached. The only dockyards capable of repairing either of the two giant German built battleships were at Port Arthur, thus one of China's best warships was out of commission. The commander of the Zhenyuan, Commodore Lin Taizeng, who was the grandson of the famous Lin Zexu who had legendary destroyed the crates of Opium that led to the opium wars was so ashamed of what had happened he committed suicide via opium overdose. That is quite the case of bad luck. After the battle of Yalu, both Li Hongzhang and Admiral Ding Ruchang's top priority was the preservation of the Beiyang Fleet. Ding was given instructions throughout the rest of the war to defend the Bohai coast from Weihaiwei to the Yalu, basically this meant protecting Beijing where the Manchu leadership were. This strategy wasted the Beiyang fleet on convoy duty instead of interrupting the IJN transportation of troops and materials to the theater of war. But from the Manchu point of view, the top priority was the protection of the dynasty and their most dangerous enemy was not necessarily the Japanese, but rather the Han population of China. Before the battle would commence over Port Arthur, Colonel J.F Maurice of the British Royal artillery informed the London and China express this “a comparatively small Chinese naval force could make it very difficult for the Japanese to transport large quantities of troops to the Asian mainland. Yet Admiral Ding did nothing to impede their troop build up to assault Port Arthur”. The Japanese Weekly Mail were complete dumbfounded at this time and produced this in an article “"When we begin to think what the loss of Port Arthur would signify for the Chinese Fleet, and what the abandonment of the place to its fate would imply under the circumstances, we can not but marvel at China's apparent inaction. Port Arthur is the only dock in north China. Did it come into Japanese possession, the Chinese war-ships would have no place to go for repairs and consequently dare not risk an engagement. Moreover, Port Arthur alone is not invested. The Japanese are holding the entrance to Pechili [Bohai] Gulf...Yet despite its easy accessibility for purposes of relief, and despite the crippling consequences involved in its capture, the Chinese seem resolved to leave it to its fate." It was unbelievable from the Japanese point of view. The very lifeline of the Japanese military relied upon her sealanes and transport. It was so direly needed, even merchant ships were helping the Japanese military to perform the task and they did so completely undaunted. As explained by the North China Herald “ordinary unarmed merchantmen, have been regularly plying to and fro without any escort, and they could have been waylaid and sent to the bottom time after time had China but risen to the occasion. The movement of the Chinese fleet have throughout the war been. . . utterly and incomprehensibly imbecile. . . The Chinese fleet has not attempted to meet the Japanese fleet in the open sea, or weighed a single anchor to hinder and debar the unprotected transports of Japan passing to and fro with their freight of eager invaders”. After the war, Hilary A Herbert the United States secretary of the navy provided an analysis on China's performance against the Japanese. "China had in this war a chance, and only one chance to win, and that lay in her fleet. To seize this chance required aggressive and daring use of that navy. Instead, China had entered upon a losing game of transporting troops to Korea, the battle ground Japan had chosen, in competition with an enemy, whose lines by sea were shorter and whose transports were as three to one. The result of this game was shortly seen in the numbers that met each other at the battle of Ping Yang [P'ydngyang]. Japan, having beaten China in transporting troops to Korea, was then allowed to choose her own time and place for a sea fight in the battle off the Yalu. The first of the untoward results of the unfortunate policy of scattering her war ships upon which China had embarked, was that she was worsted off Asan [at Feng Island], where three of Japan's ships attacked two of the Chinese vessels." The Chinese were doomed. To defeat Japan, China needed to be aggressive and daring. But the whole incentive system in the Qing dynasty penalized anyone who left its traditional war path, which was losing them said war. To break with the norm, to defy traditions and such, even if met with success in battle meant the creation of enemies within the Qing court. No one was willing to take daring action, not even the champion of China at this time, Li Hongzhang. With Dalian in hand, the Japanese had gained yet another perfect location to have their massive convoys deliver troops and materials. Dalian in many ways was the perfect base of operations to launch an attack upon Port Arthur. Reports began to circulate that within the fortress of Port Arthur, the soldiers had lost all discipline. The foreign military advisor Captain Calder reported this to Li Hongzhang “at Port Arthur with the growing unruliness of the so-called defenders, that the fabric was tottering. The Generals did little else but quarrel amongst themselves and act in opposition. Soldiers were wandering about in mobs, taking pot-shots at electric light lamps and destroying everything in the most wanton way. In some of the smaller forts the soldiers were finding amusement in discharging the smaller guns at everything and anything a small fishing boat for instance”. Before the Japanese made it to Port Arthur, the Chinese defenders of the city began looting it. The North China Herald stated on December 21st "commander of the submarine mines and torpedo corps, in his fright, cut the connecting electric wires and carrying away the firing apparatus immediately fled, his example being well imitated by those under him, so that of the 600 odd torpedoes laid in the harbour not a single one was fired against the enemy. "news of the fall of Port Arthur has been expected every day...Foreigners from Newchwang [Niuzhuang] and Port Arthur give a most deplorable account of the state of things among the common people. All who can are fleeing with such of their possessions as they can take away."" Skirmishes between the Japanese and Chinese began on November 20th on the outskirts around Port Arthur. The next day the main attack began. The Japanese lacked the proper grade and range of ammunition for their larger siege guns, thus the Qing held an enormous advantage in artillery. But the Japanese were able to storm the forts. As reported by the Japan Weekly Mail on December 8th "Chinese gunnery was hopelessly ineffective...What fighting followed was mere carnage...The Chinese officers abandoning their men to their fate, got on board two small steamers that remained in the harbour and put out to sea." It proved unnecessary for the Japanese to besiege the fortress, because the Chinese had given up quickly. The Japanese had begun their assault at midnight on the 21st under some heavy fire initially, but they had stormed all the important landward defenses by noon the following day. Defense by land required coordination among the forts on the semicircle hills surrounding the fortress. But the Chinese were not coordinating, thus the Japanese picked the smaller forts off one by one, turning their fort guns upon the others. Eventually the Japanese took forts closer to Port Arthur and began using their guns on the dockyards and arsenal. The shore fortifications held out a bit longer, but the final one was neutralized by 5pm. During the night of the 22nd, the Chinese defenders began deserting their remaining positions. Most of the Qing officers fled using two small boats in the port, literally ditching their men to their fate. The Qing had abandoned 57 large caliber and 163 small caliber artillery pieces. Within the fortifications and the dockyards were enormous stores of coal that the Japanese would readily take for their warships. The taking of Port Arthur was a colossal victory for Japan. There were outrageous estimates from the Japanese that they had inflicted over 4000 casualties upon the Qing at Port Arthur and only received 300 in return. Regardless of the real figures, it was the turning point of the war from the perspective of the western world. But while it was a grand victory it would represent a defeat for the Japanese. Ever since the sinking of the Kowshing, the Japanese had striven to acquire a reputation for absolute impeccable behavior on the battlefield. Since then they had demonstrated their military prowess, their high degree of civilization and their humane treatment of civilians and POW's. From a public relations viewpoint, they were brilliant. Even the anti-Japanese North China Herald reluctantly had to agree "Official corruption has certainly sapped China's strength and brought about defeat and loss, and Japan's humane treatment has certainly been the chief cause of her victories." Japan had signed the Geneva Convention and Minister of War Marshal Oyama Iwao had alerted the IJA of their responsibilities as such “Japanese soldiers must never forget that however cruel and vindictive the foe may allow himself, he must nevertheless be treated in accordance with the acknowledged rules of civilization; his disabled must be succored and his captured kindly and considerately protected.Our Army fights for the right and in accordance with the principles of civilization. Our enemies are the military forces of the country with which we are at war, not the individuals of the country. Against the force of our foe we must fight with all resolution, but as soon as any of his soldiers surrender, are taken prisoners, or receive wounds, they cease to be enemies, and it becomes our duty to treat them with all kindness." But at Port Arthur the Japanese would fail tremendously. Because of how the Japanese had treated civilians so well, alongside Oyama's publicized promises, countless civilians stayed within Port Arthur when the Japanese took it. When the Japanese patrols first entered the Port Arthur region on November 18th, they came upon mutilated Japanese bodies. Thomas Cowan of the London Times and James Creelman of the New York World were traveling with the Japanese patrol forces and witnessed this. Cowan had this to say "The sight was most revolting and was sufficient to excite revengeful feelings in the hearts of the best disciplined men." Creelman described what they saw when entering Port Arthur “the Japanese troops found the heads of their slain comrades hanging by cords, with the noses and ears gone" and "a rude arch in the main street decorated with bloody Japanese heads." Throughout the war, the IJA would discover severed heads and other mutilated body parts of their fallen comrades, but until Port Arthur they had not taken their revenge it seemed. One particularly bad incident occurred on November 18th when the IJA found a large group of wounded soldiers they had left behind in an area, were severely mutilated with their hands and feet cut off. As one eye witness, James Allan wrote after the war "Strongly as the massacre by the Japanese troops in Port Arthur is to be condemned, there is not the slightest doubt in the world that the Chinese brought it on themselves by their own vindictive savagery towards their enemies...[O]ne of the first things I saw on the morning of the 19th was a pair of [Japanese] corpses suspended by the feet from the branches of a huge camphor tree...They had been disemboweled; the eyes were gouged out, the throat cut, the right hand severed. They were perfectly naked, and groups of children were pelting them with mud and stones." When the Japanese began moving into the region on November 18th, the Qing government had issued bounties on POW's. Up to 50 taels were given for Japanese heads or other body parts. When the Japanese came to the fortress of Port Arthur there were several mutilated body parts of their comrades displayed at the entrance to the city. Several soldiers including Lt Kijiro Nanbu vowed revenge. The IJA entered the city at around 2pm and they began killing everyone who remained in the city. Here is a diary entry from Makio Okabe of the 1st division “As we entered the town of Port Arthur, we saw the head of a Japanese soldier displayed on a wooden stake. This filled us with rage and a desire to crush any Chinese soldier. Anyone we saw in the town, we killed. The streets were filled with corpses, so many they blocked our way. We killed people in their homes; by and large, there wasn't a single house without from three to six dead. Blood was flowing and the smell was awful. We sent out search parties. We shot some, hacked at others. The Chinese troops just dropped their arms and fled. Firing and slashing, it was unbounded joy. At this time, our artillery troops were at the rear, giving three cheers [banzai] for the emperor.” James Allen tells us "Nobody was spared, man, woman, or child, that 1 could see. The Chinese appeared to offer no resistance. Many of them prostrated themselves on the ground before the butchers with abject submission, and were shot or stabbed in that posture. The dead were mostly the townspeople; their valiant defenders seemed to have been able to make themselves scarce.the diabolical orgy of murder and mutilation, rape, lust, and rapine."" Thomas Cowan had this to say during the first day of the cities capture "I was greatly surprised next day to find them still killing the Chinese. They practically routed out the whole of the town: every house was entered and searched; the Chinese were driven out and killed; some were even killed in the houses." The Japanese press tried to place the blame of the massacres upon coolies working for the IJA, but as Cowan explained “The murders were all done by soldiers in uniform; not the work of coolies, so far as I could see." The Japanese press also tried to argue the case that it was difficult to distinguish civilians from combatants, and indeed many Qing soldiers wore civilian clothing, but this did not account for the killing of women and children. Again Cowan tells us "the hillsides around Port Arthur were strewn with their uniforms. I saw scores of Chinese hunted out of cover, shot down and hacked to pieces, and never a man made any attempt to fight...I watched intently for the slightest sign of cause, confident that there must be some, but I saw none whatever. The Japanese perhaps also are barbarous at heart, like the Chinese. To prove it, for the fact remains that a dozen white men saw these Japanese commit these savageries for four clear days after the day of the fight." Western press reports like Cowan were corroborated by diaries from Japanese soldiers. Creelman ran into a Japanese legal advisor named Agria Nagao of the 2nd IJA who told him this "On the night of the second day [of the massacre] the legal adviser of the army told me that Field Marshal Oyama regarded the continued slaughter as quite justifiable. 'Prisoners are a burden.We took a few hundred prisoners at Pingyang [Pyongyang], and we found it very expensive and troublesome to feed and guard them. We are taking practically no prisoners here."'" The massacre lasted several days, and one of the reports many Western audiences would remember was this chilling one from Cowan “Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were spent by the soldiery in murder and pillage from dawn to dark, in mutilation, in every conceivable kind of nameless atrocity, until the town became a ghastly Inferno to be remembered with a fearsome shudder until one's dying day. I saw corpses of women and children, three or four in the streets, more in the water ... Bodies of men strewed the streets in hundreds, perhaps thousands, for we could not count – some with not a limb unsevered, some with heads hacked, cross-cut, and split lengthwise, some ripped open, not by chance but with careful precision, down and across, disembowelled and dismembered, with occasionally a dagger or bayonet thrust in the private parts. I saw groups of prisoners tied together in a bunch with their hands behind their backs, riddled with bullets for five minutes and then hewn to pieces. I saw a junk stranded on the beach, filled with fugitives of either sex and of all ages, struck by volley after volley until – I can say no more.” The scale of the killing has long been debated. Figures range dramatically. Scout reports sent by Li Hongzhang placed civilian deaths at 2700 within the city, but this did not account for the countless people slaughtered in the surrounding area. After WW2 the CCP built a cemetery proclaiming the death toll to be 20,000, this figure includes the soldiers as well, but the number has been orthodoxy ever since. Creelman asserted 60,000 were slain, which would have represented the entire population around Port Arthur. It was a atrocious beyond imagination. As Creelman explains in the greater context of national status "The Japanese troops entered Port Arthur on Nov. 21 and massacred practically the entire population in cold blood. The defenseless and unarmed inhabitants were butchered in their houses and their bodies were unspeakably mutilated. There was an unrestrained reign of murder which continued for three days. The whole town was plundered with appalling atrocities. It was the first stain upon Japanese civilization. The Japanese in this instance relapsed into barbarism." Japan's meticulous crafted public image as the only civilized nation in the Far East was shattered. It would even threaten to upset the ratification of an American-Japanese treaty providing japan juridical equality. Japan had undone so much they had worked for in just a few days of senseless slaughter. 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 victory and capture of Port Arthur was a major turning point of the war, but it represented not just victory but also a defeat in many ways for Japan. Her public image had been shattered by senseless slaughter, would it undue everything?
Last time we spoke about about the emerging war between Big brother China and Little brother Japan. Li Hongzhang struggled to do everything he possible could to thwart the outbreak of war with Japan, but he could not stop the inevitable. The Japanese began landing troops and soon seized King Gojong trying to force Korea to take up the reforms they wanted them to. Li Hongzhang tried to keep the Qing forces at a distance, but the Japanese would not stop reinforcing their position in Korea. Eventually Li Hongzhang decided to play with what he thought was a Japanese bluff, sending further reinforcements to Asan, but the IJN intercepted the transports and disaster struck. The IJN sank the Kowshing and other Qing vessels ushering in the first shots of the First Sino-Japanese War. The Genie was out of the bottle and could not be put back in. #50 The First Sino-Japanese War of 1898-1895 Part 2: The battles of Seonghwan and Pyongyang 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 battle of Pungdo and sinking of the Kowshing robbed the Qing of 1100 men and 12 pieces of artillery along with other war materials that were needed at Asan. It's important also to remember the major differences between Japan and China when it came to their military forces. The Qing were composed of multiple different forces, as a journalist at Le Journal des debats politiques et litteraires said “there are chinese troops: there is no Chinese army, or rather there are as many armies as there are regions”. I know for those of you listening to the series I repeat the structure of the Qing military too often, but I imagine some people listening only joined us for the First Sino-Japanese War, so welcome and here is how the Qing military works. You have the 1) 8-banners army made up of Manchu, Mongol, Muslim and Han banners, 2) the Green Standard army which can be honestly seen more as a armed police force, made mostly because the 8-banners were very outdated 3) then there is the Yong Ying militias and hired mercenaries 4) lastly we have the foreign training army which are basically private armies held by grand officials like Li Hongzhang. The Yong-Ying's were pretty much the bread and butter, serving as a kind of national guard and sent to hot spots within the empire where rebels would break out. Many of these Yong-Ying types received foreign training thus fall into that 4th category, making them like the cream of the crop. Overall Yong-Ying's and well trained troops make up 10% of the total Qing forces, the Green standards make up the vast majority. Li Hongzhang like I said had a personal army, the Huai Army, created to fight the Taiping back in the 1860's. They were the elites, but as Li aged, he lessened his oversee on them. Adding to Li's age, the Qing court was reluctant to fund such an army, led by a Han no less, who might become too powerful and unseat their Manchu ruled dynasty. I mean they had good reason to worry, Li Hongzhang's teacher Zeng Guofan got to a point he could have done this with his army, he just chose to retire instead, kind of a Sulla thing to do I always find. Now as you can see the Qing military is quite regional in nature with many warlord like figures controlling private armies and the Qing state controlling the less effective forces, it severely lacked unity. So to was the situation of the Qing navy. There were 4 autonomous squadrons: the Beiyang (northern), Nanyang (southern), Fujian and Guangdong. Only the Beiyang possessed a modern fleet based at Weihaiwei and under the control of Li Hongzhang, yes old Li had a lot of firepower. China's arsenals and naval academics were the property of their province of origin and count not be counted on to supply other provinces in the event of…oh I dunno a war. We saw during the Sino-French War of 1884-1885 how this could led to disaster, when Li's Beiyang fleet declined to help the Nanyang fleet. Well, that decision came to bite him right in the ass, as now it would be the Nanyang fleet who would ignore his calls for him. Even within the Beiyang fleet, the guns and ammunition were not standardized. Gunpowder was local and not appropriate for import guns resulting in logistical mayhem. The supply system was likewise very ad hoc and prone to flaws leading to the Beiyang squadron grossly undersupplied. Again another reason for all of this ridiculousness, was the Manchu not wanting the Han military to be strong enough to overthrow them. The Manchu deliberately prevented the creation of a unified national army, it was the basis of their strategy since they defeated the Ming dynasty. The German press would focus on the fundamental weaknesses of the Qing land forces and on the eve of the war an article stated this “the lack of a unified command. Each of the provincial armies was the personal creation of that province's governor. It is naturally in the interest of each [provincial] Viceroy to retain the fruit of his exertions for himself; in no case is he inclined to come to the assistance of a neighbour who is worse provided, and incur the danger of denuding his own province, for whose safety he is responsible with his head. The same system of individual responsibility applied down through the military ranks. It squelched initiative and promoted defensive rather than preemptive action. By this system, common action is virtually excluded." It really was a terrible system, backed by horrific punishment for failure. Punishments ranged from exile to cudgel blows to executions. If you failed to hold your position against an enemy attack you were decapitated. If you destroyed arms the Qing government gave you, you would receive a lethal number of cudgel blows. In an era of slow communications, this made things a nightmare for commanders in the field, you could not retreat because of decapitation and could not destroy your weapons to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. Basically Qing officers would be forced to go into battle as scheduled and stay there until victory or death. In contrast the Japanese as described by the same German article as before "When three decades ago, Japan awoke out of the sleep of her isolation and attached herself to the civilisation of the West, her first care was the re-organisation of her army. The result may truly be called astonishing. The Japanese army is in reality a European force and any one of their army divisions, with the exception of the cavalry, which is small and would look badly mounted, might march through the streets of any town on the Continent, without, at first sight, being recognised as Oriental troops." Though obviously 19th century racist, it indeeds shows how Japan had what we would consider a modern army. The Times of London had this to say about them "They are brave, temperate, patient, and energetic, and though the Chinese might be made, under European officers, as fine soldiers as they are, at this moment they are about 200 years behind them; and, although the victory is not always to the strong, as found out in the Boer campaign, from every data that a soldier can judge by the Japanese should beat the Chinese in Korea with the greatest ease." Indeed the Japanese army was based on the Prussian model, with universal conscription and a standard term for service. They had Murata Type 18 Breech-loading rifles with the same type of ammunition, 75mm field guns and mountain pieces based on Krupp design. While the Qing scrambled for the right ammunition, when it could be found at all because of the rampant corruption involving embezzlement of military funds, the Japanese had excellent materials and logistical capabilities. The Japanese navy was based on the British and French, adopting the Jeune D'école doctrine. While the Qing had some large foreign purchased battleships, the Japanese focused on arming faster cruisers to combat them. Now the Japanese military strategy for this war was to first seize control of the sea so they could transport soldiers to the mainland at will. From there the IJA would invade Korea to expel the Chinese. Once Korea was occupied, Japan would strike at Weihaiwei which would provide naval access to Peking. This could be followed up with an invasion of Zhili province, though that notably would be an enormous task. The IJA invading forces would be in two groups; the 1st IJA under Yamagata Aritomo who would invade Korea and enter Manchuria from the north and the 2nd IJA under Marshal Oyama Iwao who would invade Manchuria from the south and attack the Liaodong Peninsula, hoping to meet the 1st IJA at Weihaiwei afterwards. For both nations the only efficient way to deploy troops to Korea was via the sea. There could be no war if Japan could not ferry her troops, and for China despite sharing landmass, the situation was arguably the same. China had the railway line between Tianjin to the cost and north to Shanhaiguan, but that was as good as it got, it did not reach the Korean border. The road system in Manchuria was terrible adding to the logistical issue. Japan's military got the Japan mail steamship company to lend her 90 steamships to transport the troops to alleviate other warships for military tasks. On the other side, the Chinese merchant fleet which was about ⅓ the size of Japans barely helped them. An article from Berlin's Neue Preussische Zeitung stating “China has 40 troop transports versus Japan's 450”. It was obvious to all, controlling the sea would win the war. The Pall Mall Gazette interviewed a long-time resident of Japan who predicted the war would be won at sea, stating "Which ever side holds the chief commercial ports of Korea...with the capital, completely controls the country. If Japan succeeds at the outset in sweeping the Chinese from those waters...she wins the key to the whole situation. It would be impossible for China to send up troops since the land route entailed an enormous distance where provisioning and feeding a large army would be unmanageable even for a well-organized European nation." Despite all of this, the Chinese leadership believed they held time on their side and that a war of attrition would see them victorious. They also had considerable assets in the Beiyang fleet, such as their two great ironclad battleships, the Dingyuan and Zhenyuan. However the Qing warships were overagged and basically obsolete. The ships were ill maintained, their crews lacked discipline. The Qing ships were much slower than the Japanese. The Qing battleships main armament was short barreled guns in twin barbettes mounted in echelon which could only fire in restricted arcs. Their short barrels meant their shells had a low muzzle velocity, poor penetration and terrible accuracy at long range. The Japanese emphasized quick firing guns, quicker ships and would outfire the Qing dramatically. There is honestly a litany of issues with the Beiyang fleet, take the signals books issued to it, they were all written in English, a language very few Beiyang officers understood. Regardless, I do not want to delve too much on the Beiyang fleet here, because that is certainly going to come about later. When the Japanese began landing forces at Chemulpo, Li Hongzhang had missed a key opportunity to destroy their transports. He made a crucial strategic error, ordering his fleet to sortie east of the Yalu-River, away from the Korean Peninsula. Basically he was trying to minimize any risk to his precious two battleships. He opted to use his fleet to deter attacks and help the Qing convoys of troops. His mindset was that of a “prevent-defeat strategy”, he sought to preserve his navy, this decision ceded the initiative to the Japanese. Now the Japanese could choose the timing and location of hostilities. Obviously Li believed time was on his side and that eventually they would overwhelm the Japanese with pure numbers. He was prolonging as much as he could, there was also a belief the winter months would hurt the Japanese, while the Manchu warriors would hold a distinct advantage. Now as a result of Li Hongzhang trying to thwart further conflict, the Qing had deliberately encamped their forces outside Seoul. General Ye Zhichao had 3000 men stationed at Seonghwan and another 1000 at his HQ in Cheonan, just a bit northeast of Asan. He had been hunkering down awaiting the arrival of reinforcements, but the battle of Pungdo and loss of the Kowshing delivered an enormous setback to this. Major General Oshima had roughly 4000 men with him and he began to march upon Asan from Seoul. Ye Zhichao was very aware of this and had his men erected forts, dug trenches, made earthworks, and flooded surrounding rice paddies. Ze Zhichao planned a pincer attack against Seoul, by massing troops at Pyongyang in the north and Asan in the south. The Japanese divided their forces to make a night attack: a small diversionary force would engage the Qing at the front while the main bulk would march upon their rear flank. The diversionary force consisted of 4 companies of infantry with one engineer who began their attack on the night of July 28th. Meanwhile 9 companies of infantry, 1 cavalry and a battalion of artillery snuck around the Qing defensive lines by crossing the Ansong river. The Qing fought hard but were unable to hold out. The Qing forces at Seonghwan had to flee for their lives back to Asan which was 10 miles southwest, and in doing so they left a large amount of weapons and supplies. The Japanese pursued them to Asan where further disaster struck the Chinese. Despite spending over 3 weeks fortifying the area, it seems their defeat at Seonghwan had broken their morale, as the Qing forces at Asan literally fled upon seeing the Japanese approaching the city. As a result the Japanese took Asan the next day. The Chinese were estimated to have 500 casualties while serving the Japanese 34 deaths and 54 wounded. The Chinese survivors fled towards Pyongyang, which would be a brutal 26 day march as they had to detour widely to avoid being hit by Japanese forces coming out of Seoul. The victory confounded columnists who all came to a similar conclusion that “the Chinese forces fight badly and are ill equipped”. A reporter for the Yokohama based Japan Weekly Mail had this to say : "The Chinese are indeed skilled in the art of running away. As they fled they generally cast off their uniforms and donning the clothes of Koreans made the best of their way to what they considered safe places. The directions toward which they fled are unmistakably indicated by the cast-off uniforms. Even the Vice-commander of the Chinese troops appears to have been tempted to avail himself of this method, for his uniform was left behind in camp." It would be a theme played out during this war. The Qing forces would take the habit of disguising themselves as civilians to escape battles. This would unfortunately result in many Japanese troops not trusting Chinese civilians near battlefields leading to atrocities. It is plain to see why Qing troops did this, as we have already seen, retreating was met with extremely harsh punishment, you were better off trying to escape into the crowd. A commander from the Shanghai based North-China Herald had a different take on the battle of Seonghwan "The Chinese have retired from the Yashan [Asan] district after several day's heavy fighting, 10,000 Japanese against 3,500 Chinese. In the first days, the Japanese met with a sharp reverse and severe losses, the Chinese loss being unimportant. On July 29th the Chinese withdrew, leaving the camp in charge of a guard of 300 men, who were attacked and captured by an overwhelming force of Japanese before dawn. The guard was killed. The Japanese lost 500 men, found only heavy baggage in the camp, and took no prisoners, many Chinese noncombatants in the vicinity being slain." Despite such claims, the Japanese had not engaged a small guard at Asan, it was the main body of Qing forces. The Qing had been handily defeated and alongside the men lost a ton of equipment. The Qing court had no way of knowing any of this however, because of the cell like structure of their military, who would simply report back to them victories or very minor defeats. In fact on August 3rd, General Ye Zhichao was congratulated in an imperial decree for quote “killing over 2000 Woren”, he received bonus payment for himself and his troops. Later on when the Qing court figured out what really happened, General Ye would escape decapitation only because he used the bonus payments to pay off officials to speak on his behalf. From the offset of the war the Qing government had a policy of publicizing false war bulletins, but the realities of what was actually happening on the battlefields could not be concealed from the western viewers. Every battle was reported a Chinese triumph in China and this actually was very reminiscent of our tale of the French-Sino War. A small article sprang up from a British reporter in Shanghai stating this "I read somewhere during the Franco-Chinese war [of 1884-5] the native papers of Shanghai reported the death of Admiral Courbet thirty-seven times, while the number of the killed among the French, according to these reliable (?) sheets reached 1,600,000. The amount of falsehood which these papers have poured forth since the commencement of the 'War of Pygmies and Pigtails' is simply astounding. O, that the word liar' had the same force in Chinese as in English for no other purpose than to enable one to tell a celestial, You are a liar!'" There are a wide variety of reasons the Qing government pumped up the propaganda this way. Ironically a major reason was because of their policy of decapitating defeated commanders. The Qing court officials also had barely any real knowledge of what was going on because 1) all the commanders were sending false reports back to them and 2) when defeated commanders were brought back to Beijing, they were beheaded so fast they never got to make real reports of what occurred on the battlefield. The court would only really begin to figure things out in times of war when the battles got closer to Beijing! And above all else, the Qing court could not allow the bad reports to get to the Han public out of fear they would rise up to topple their Manchu rule, something that remained their top obsession throughout the Dynasties lifetime. After the defeat at Asan a rumor emerged that the Emperor had demoted Li Hongzhang by stripping him of the Order of the Yellow Riding Jacket. Many speculated Li was demoted because he failed to thwart war. Regardless Li Hongzhangs presumed demotion cast a shadow over his ability to perform official dealings. Li Hongzhang would tragically become a very useful Han scapegoat for the Qing dynasty. Now while the loss at Asan meant the Qing plan to perform a pincer attack against Seoul was lost, it certainly did not mean the loss of Korea however. The bulk of Qing forces were stationed at Pyongyang, the old capital of Korea. The city sat on the right bank of the Taedong River which was large enough to provide a shipping route to the sea. Holding Pyongyang was imperative, it defended the approach to the Yalu river and behind that lay Manchuria, Qing soil. Pyongyang was surrounded by the wide river to the east and south, with cliffs along the river banks, mountains to the north and the massive city with fortified walls that could prolong a siege. The Qing seemed to hold all the major advantages, they had been massing troops and supplies and constructing fortifications at Pyongyang for almost 2 months. Altogether the Qing had 13,000 troops dispersed at 27 forts surrounded by trenches and moats. The majority of the Qing troops also arrived to Pyongyang by boat, while the Japanese all have to trek overland, via miserable Korean roadways crossing mountains and rivers. The Qing had invested a lot in Pyongyang because they were not just defending the city, they intended to recapture the rest of Korea using it as a main base, thus it was given their most modern equipment. Some Qing troops would carry American Winchester rifles, they had in total four artillery pieces, 6 machine guns and 28 mountain guns. On paper this looked wonderful for them, however there were serious problems. The reality of the situation was summed up just prior to the battle by the Pall Mall Gazette s "from more than one source agree that the Chinese army in Northern Korea is in a deplorable condition. The generals are said to be grossly incompetent, the minor officers discontented and disheartened, and the rank and file exhausted and dispirited. What roads there were a month ago have been washed away by floods. Transport through Manchuria to Korea is impossible; guns, ammunition, and food stores are blocked, and spoiling all along the long route southward. Food is becoming scarcer every day at the front.” The four Chinese commanders at Pyongyang each commanded their own army, but none adequately coordinated with the others. When the Japanese attacked, they did parcel out static defensive sectors, but this became more of a hindrance than help. Their plan was very simple: if their lines failed to hold out at Pyongyang, surely they would be able to hold out at Yalu….yes great plan. The Qing commanders in the field had no real worst-case scenario plans. Weak logistics and organization plagued the Qing forces throughout the war. Now for the Japanese, Pyongyang held symbolic importance going all the way back to Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasion during the 16th century. After the victory at Seonghwan, the Japanese held a reinforced brigade about 8000 strong within Korea led by General Oshima. Around 7000 of these troops were concentrated around Seoul and Chemulpo. The Japanese controlled southern Korea and it was time to expel the Chinese from it completely. The Japanese had 4 routes to march upon Pyongyang from; one via Chemulpo; one from Pusan; one from Wonsan and another done amphibiously, by landing on the eastern coast near the mouth of the Taedong River. The Japanese were hard pressed for time, as every day could see more Qing forces marching into Korea from Manchuria. Thus the route from Pusan was rejected and they opted for sending the bulk of their forces to march from CHemulpo on the west coast and two smaller forces from Wonsan on the east. The idea to land forces at the mouth of the Taedong river was not rejected outright, but they were going to only consider it as a last resort. The Chemulpo force would be the 1st Army led by Marshal Yamagata Aritomo consisting of the 5th provisional Hiroshima division led by Lt General Nozu Michitsura and the 3rd provisional Nagoya division led by General Katsura Taro. Although Aritomo held overall command, he did not land at Chemulpo until September 12th, thus Lt General Nozu commanded the 1st Army against Pyongyang. His Wonson column was led by Colonel Sato Tadashi; another from Sangnyong was led by Major General Tatsumi Naobumi with the Combined Brigade led by Major General Oshima Yoshimasa. Nozu's plan was for the combined brigade to make a frontal assault from the south, while his main division attacked from the southwest and flanking maneuvers would be carried out by the two columns. On September 15th approximately 10,000 Japanese troops made a three-pronged attack on Pyongyang. At 4:30am on the 15th, the attack began from the east with an artillery barrage on the forts along the west bank of the Taedong river to divert the Chinese attention from the main attack. The Japanese feigned an attack from the south while Nozu and Oshima performed flanking maneuvers to deliver a massive blow from the north. The Japanese army's main bulk designated to hit from the southwest would actually not end up participating in the main attack that broke through the principal Chinese fortifications. The fighting was fierce, with the Chinese launching repeated cavalry charges, igniting prearranged blazes, picture the scene from the last samurai if you saw that amazing film, by the way I did a review of it on the pacific war channel hint hint. The Japanese found themselves in blazes of fire and repeatedly being charged upon by cavalry units and while it was certainly valiant and showcased the bravery of the Qing forces, it was unbelievably stupid. The Qing had not taken advantage of the natural barrier that was the Taedong river and literally charged into the field, instead of forcing the Japanese to march through a muddy nightmare. There was no attempt to attack the Japanese columns as they crossed the river when they were extremely vulnerable. The Japanese had utterly failed to prepare the necessary equipment for crossing the Taedong river, they had no pontoon bridges so they ended up just stealing Korean river boats to ferry troops in secret. This was an enormous opportunity to smash the Japanese, but the Qing utterly failed to grab it. The Japanese successfully deceived the Chinese as to where their main attack was coming from. The 24 hour long battle saw heavy rain, causing massive amounts of mud for the Japanese to march through. The Japanese artillery was too far back initially to be effective, leading the vanguard troops who had taken the first line of Qing defense, some earthworks to abandon them in the morning. This ironically caused the Qing to begin writing reports to the Chinese press that they had already won the battle and that the Japanese were even fleeing. In reality the Columns from Wonsan and Sangnyong had seized the major fortress at Moktan-tei, due north of Pyongyang, giving the Japanese a position to bring their artillery to bare upon the city walls. Once their artillery began raining hell from Moktan-tei the Qing's defensive position was shattered and they offered their surrender at 4:30 on the 15th. During the night many Qing forces tried to flee for the coast and border town of Wiju along the lower reaches of the Yalu river. Japanese snipers killed large numbers of the fleeing Chinese as they did. As a result of the surrender, in the morning two Japanese columns entered the northern gate of the city unopposed, but because there was no way to communicate this with rest of the forces, the main bulk of the Japanese army continued its attack against the city's west gate. Later that day they would find it all undefended to their surprise. Later that morning the Combined brigade entered the city through the south gate. After seizing control of the city it was estimated the Qing casualties were around 2000 killed with 4000 wounded while the Japanese only reported 102 deaths and 433 wounded. 700 Chinese were taken prisoner, many escaped north fleeing for the Yalu. Many believed “the flower of the Chinese army was all but annihilated at Pyongyang”, indeed Li Hongzhang's elite Huai army with the best equipment had lost there. Though there was also rumors in China that Li Hongzhang actually held back his best troops. A reporter at the Japan Weekly Mail had this to say : "What resistance was made could not have been very great. This is the more surprising, as the Chinese took possession of the city on the 4th of August and had ample time to thoroughly entrench themselves." Commander of the British Royal Artillery at Colchester, Colonel J.F Maurice had this to say about the battle "Field Marshal Yamagata has conducted the campaign in the most brilliant manner, and his tactics would not have disgraced a Western general." One article from the North China Herald noted the ethnic loyalties that did not look too good for the Manchu “ Troops under the Moslem general Zuo Baogui had fought very well until he had perished in combat. In contrast, the Manchu troops have hitherto proved themselves utterly untrustworthy. The Jilin Manchus are far more intent on hunting for something to fill their opium pipes, than on doing anything to uphold the dynasty which has pampered them for so long a time that they seem to have concluded that the dynasty exists for their special benefit. The forces of the Jilin division remained under the separate command of a Manchu general. The Manchu forces at Pyongyang "retreated almost intact" rather than fight." Indeed the Muslim General Zuo Baogui, a Shandong citizen died in action from Japanese artillery and a memorial was constructed for him. It did not look good for the Manchu, and countless Han readers would have been ignited with bitterness about this. At Pyongyang it was reported, the Qing left behind 35 good field guns, hundreds of magazine rifles, hundreds of breechloaders, 2000 tents and 1700 horses. The magazine rifles were noted to be superior to the Japanese Murata rifles. Hallmarks of the Qing campaign for the war were present at Pyongyang; the abandonment of large quantities of war supplies; the looting and abuse of local civilian populations; the torture and mutilations of POW's and the use of civilian attire to flee the scene. up the abandoned supplies. The New York Times described the fleeing Chinese as "only too apparent. Rifles, swords, and ammunition, which they had thrown away in their haste to escape, were constantly being found. The fugitives had acted the part of bandits. Villages had been pillaged and afterwards set on fire. Farms had been destroyed and all the stored produce burned. The Korean natives who had resisted the robbers had been ruthlessly slaughtered. Many bodies were found hacked with spear thrusts. The whole line of retreat was one scene of desolation."According to a reporter at Moskovskie vedomosti, "The people fear Chinese soldiers much more than the invasion by the Japanese." The Qing troops had little choice but to plunder or starve because their military's logistics were frankly a joke. Plunder was the only solution for the Chinese soldier while the Japanese soldier had a modern logistical line keeping them going. Western observations were notably disgusting with how the Qing treated POW's, after all many nations had signed the August 22nd 1864 Geneva convention mandating the protection of POW's. But in retrospect, the Qing could not even take care of their own forces let alone the mouths of the enemy. There was also the issue of how the Qing had an official reward system built on payment per head. However that does not explain the wide ranging atrocities committed such as disembowelment, removal of facial features, extraction of livers, cutting off of penises and so on. The Qing penal code held insurrection to be “the worst of the ten abominations” and the Chinese most likely considered the Japanese actions to be basically an insurrection against their confucian order meriting the most severe punishments. Punishments under the penal code short of execution included cangue, handcuffs, shackles, caning, ankle crushers, finger crushers, the Chinese rack and the ever favorite prolong kneeling on chains. A lot of the horror was due to the Chinese views of their own cultural supremacy and disgust for barbarians. The American secretary of state ordered his consul in Shanghai to hand over to the Qing authorities two Japanese found spying. The Qing officials promised no harm would come to them, but we are left with this account. “The tortures included kneeling on chains while their captors stood on their legs, the removal of fingernails, the crushing of tongues, the pouring of boiling water on their handcuffed wrists until the metal reached the bone, the smashing of their groins, and decapitation just before they expired from all the other abuses” The Japanese coming off the bad publicity of the Kowshing incident took the opportunity to earn recognition from the west by showcasing how their modern Japanese medical units treated the Chinese POW's with utmost care. The Japanese military transported around 600 POW's to Tokyo, 111 of whom were sick or wounded who notably received top quality care. A correspondent from The Japan Weekly Mail had this to say "What has proved a thousand times more interesting to me is the way the Chinese prisoners and wounded have been treated, and for this I hardly know how to express my admiration...I had some conversation with a captured commander. He said he could not understand the meaning of the Japanese kindness...I went from there to the hospital for wounded Chinese. They were treated exactly as if they were Japanese...I do not see how Japan can be refused the place she rightly claims among the civilized nations of the world." Again, this is from a Japanese correspondent. After the battle of Pyongyang, there would be scant to no reports about the welfare of Qing POW's. Diaries from Japanese soldiers after the war would indicate the Japanese were not interested in taking POW's since they would just burden their supply lines as they marched deeper into Manchuria. 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 battles of Seonghwan and Pyongyang have caused the Qing forces to flee all the way to the last existing natural barrier before Manchuria, the Yalu River. While the Qing be able to stop the Japanese from marching upon their land?
Last time we spoke about the Gapsin Coup. Li Hongzhang snipped the bud of war before it could bloom after the Imo uprising and the Daewongun stole back power in Korea. The Daewongun was spanked and sent into exile yet again, but now Korea had become greatly factionalized. The progressives and conservatives were fighting bitterly to set Korea on a Japanese or Chinese path to modernization. This led radicals like Kim Ok-kyun to perform the Gapsin coup which was terribly planned and failed spectacularly. Japan and China were yet again tossed into a conflict in Korea, but China firmly won the day for she had more forces to bear. Japan licked her wounds and went home, learning a bitter lesson. That lesson was: next time bring more friends to the party. #48 This episode is the Assasination of Kim Ok-kyun & the Donghak Rebellion 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. Now despite the Gapsin coup, Japan and China still tried to cooperate against the west. But Japan was learning much from the outside world, particularly by the actions of imperialistic nations. Britain had begun large scale operations in Shanghai, developing the international settlement there. King Leopold of belgium established the Congo Free state of 1862, and likewise France and Britain were also establishing colonies all over Africa. The Dutch held Java, but then they invaded Aceh in Sumatra in 1873 and other parts of Indonesia after that. The Russians were taking large swathes of land including Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, parts of the Sakhalin, even territory close to Korea in the region of Priamur. Once the ports of Wonsan and Inchon were opened up, Japanese manufactured goods began to pour in. By 1893 91 percent of imports into Korea would be from Japan while 8 percent would be from China. While China tried to keep Japan out, the Meiji restoration had created an industrial powerhouse that made goods, and China had not managed this herself. Of Korea, 49 percent went to China and 50 percent went to Japan. In the eyes of Koreans, even though she was not formally a colony of Japan, the way the Japanese were behaving looked imperialistic. Now in 1886 the Beiyang Fleet was responsible for protecting China's northern coastline and she would make a fateful call to Nagasaki. The purpose of this call was to show off her 4 new modern battleships she had purchased from Germany, the Dingyuan, Zhenyuan, Jiyuan and Weiyuan. These ships were far larger than anything Japan had at the time, a large reason because Japan was following the Jeune Ecole naval strategy. This strategy was developed by France basically to combat the British royal navy. It emphasized using small rapid assault craft, cruisers and destroyers to thwart the might of capital ships like battleships. For my fellow world of warship players, the idea was simple, instead of slamming money into large battleships to fight other large battleships, the French began to experiment more with the capability of torpedo technology. With faster, smaller ships, the French thought they could be used more like raiders, to attack the enemy and cripple them. The Jeune ecole doctrine also sought to use strongly armed fast ships, thus its kind of a glass cannon situation. Anyways the implicit message from China was to show Japan how foolish they would be to go to war with her. On August 13th, 500 Chinese sailors took a shore leave in Nagasaki and they went to the local red-light district. As you can imagine, one thing led to another and some altercations began with the locals. The locals claimed the Chinese sailors got drunk and starting causing havoc, regardless the Chinese sailors began fighting some Japanese cops apparently using swords they bought at some stores. One source I found says over 80 people died during this which is pretty nuts. The next day a conference was held by the governor of Nagasaki, Kusaka Yoshio and the Qing consulate Xuan Cai which led to an agreement the Beiyang navy would prohibit their men from going ashore for a day. Then on August 15th at 1pm, 300 Chinese sailors went ashore, some wielding clubs apparently and they attacked 3 police officers killing one. A rickshaw saw the conflict and tried to punch a CHinese sailor, and this all snowballed into a riot. More cops showed up, more fighting, and this led to the deaths of 2 more cops, 3 sailors and more than 50 wounded. It was a real shit show, and the Qing decided not to apologize for the ordeal. In fact the Qing made demands to the Japanese government that from then on Japanese cops would not prohibit Chinese from wielding swords and forced the Japanese to make a large sum of reparation payments. Now aside from the drunken debauchery, which in the grand scheme of things was not much of a deal, the real deal was the Japanese reaction to the Beiyang fleet. When the Japanese saw the Dingyuan, they basically went 100% in on the Jeune D'ecole doctrine to counter it. They IJN immediately decided to construct 3 large cruisers with firepower identical to the Dingyuan, basically this meant they were making battleship killers. While Japan was aggressively modernizing and pouring a ton of money into their navy by the late 1880s, in China the reconstruction of the summer palace was taking enormous sums of funding. The marble boat pavilion, as I mentioned, was taking funds intended for the Beiyang fleet thanks to empress dowager Cixi and thus no major investments would be made for the Qing navy in the last 1880's and early 1890s. To give more of an idea, 1/10th of the salaries of for civil officials and military officers in Japan was being deducted to add additional funding for the construction of naval ships and purchase of arms, Japan was not messing around. Now something that often goes more unnoticed is Japan's early efforts at gaining intelligence on China. Despite the Sino-Japanese relations falling apart because of the Korea situation, trade between China and Japan was growing in the 1880s. Japanese businessmen expected trade with China to only increase and in preparation for the expansion they began collecting information of Chinese market opportunities. But for those who know a bit about Meiji era Japan, the Zaibatsu driven system meant private business went hand in hand with the government of Japan and this led the Japanese government to ask the businessmen to look at other things in China. What sort of things, military installations, military dockyards, everything military. In 1879 Katsura Taro took a trip to China with 10 Japanese observers to survey Chinese military facilities. He would publish a book describing Chinese military bases, weapons and organization in 1881 and that book would be revised in 1882 and 1889. By the time of 1894, the Japanese military had access to detailed information about China's geography, her economy, her railways, roads, ports, installations, the whole shebang, thanks to Japanese journalists and businessmen. Of course amongst all of these were full blown Japanese spies, but for the most part China did not do enough due diligence to hide its military capabilities. Rather ironically, the Japanese businessmen who opposed military actions and just wanted to help develop China contributed a lot of information that would hurt China. On the other side of the coin, chinese reports about Japan were a complete 180. China's consul general in Nagasaki wrote reports on the ships coming and going within Nagasaki harbor. Alongside him, the Chinese ambassador to Tokyo, Li Shuchang who served from 1881-1884 and 1887-1890 sent some warnings about developments in Korea. Other than those two, Japan attracted virtually no interest from Beijing. Just before the war would break out in 1894, the Chinese ambassador to Tokyo Wang Fengcao, reported to Beijing that the Japanese were so obsessed with internal politics they were unlikely to be active externally. I think its interesting to point out, while Japan was indeed building up its IJA/IJN, she never stopped pointing that gun at Russia. China and Japan right up to the conflict we will be talking about had its tensions, its conflicts, its escalations, but they never gave up the chance at cooperation against the west. Take a legendary figure like Yamagata Aritomo, who led the development of the IJA and was the head of the Japanese privy council. In 1893 he publicly stated Japan should cooperate with China against their main enemies, Russia, France and Britain. Despite all the tensions in Korea, vast amounts of Japanese and Chinese scholars who studied the causes of the first sino-japanese war, came to agree it would not have occurred if not for two key events. The first one is a assassination and the second is a rebellion. In early 1894, Kim Ok-kyun was invited to visit Li Hongzhang in Shanghai. After living nearly a decade in fear of assassination, he accepted the invitation, perhaps believing this was his only chance to reclaim normality in his life. Well unbeknownst to him another Korean acquaintance of his named Hong Jong-u had actually gone to Japan in 1893 trying to hunt him down and he found out about the voyage. A source claims Hong Jong-u was working for King Gojong and went to Japan befriending him, while trying to lure him back over to Shanghai. Regardless Hong Jong-u got aboard and murdered Kim Ok-gyun by shooting him on March the 27th. Hong Jong-u was arrested by British authorities in Shanghai for his crime, but in accordance with their treaty obligations they surrendered the assassin over to Qing authorities for trial. The Qing instead freed him, whereupon he became quite the celebrity for his actions. Hong Jong-u would return to Korea and would be appointed to a high office position, giving credence to the theory he was working for King Gojong the entire time. When Kim Ok-kyun's body arrived to Korea it was shrouded in some cloth bearing the inscription “Ok-kyun, arch rebel and heretic”. On april 14th, King Gojong ordered the body decapitated, so the head could be displayed in Seoul while 8 other body parts would be sent to each of Korea's 8 provinces to be showcased likewise. His severed body parts were showcased in various cities in Korea to display what happens to those who commit treason. Kim Ok'kyun's father was hanged and his brother, wife and daughter were all imprisoned. Under Korean practice at this time it was common practice for the family of the guilty to be punished as well, that's some hardcore stuff there folks. The wife and daughter would become slaves to the governmental offices, a standard punishment for the female household members of rebels. It was during this time one of Kim Ok-kyun's traveling companions, a Chinese linguist for the legation in Tokyo claimed to reporters that Kim Ok-kyun had come to Shanghai by invitation from Lord Li Jingfang, the former minister at Tokyo and adopted son of Li Hongzhang. The Japanese public was outraged. Japanese newspapers interpreted all of this to mean Viceroy Li Hongzhang had planned the whole thing. It was also alleged Li Hongzhang had sent a congratulatory telegram to the Korean government for the assassination. Many others pointed towards King Gojong since the assassin claimed to be under direct orders from the king. Kim Ok-kyun had been a guest in Japan and the Qing authorities had seemingly done nothing to protect him and made no attempt to bring the assassin to justice. The Qing had likewise handed over the corpse, knowing full well what the Koreans would do to it, as was their custom for treason. From the Japanese point of view, the Qing had gone out of their way to insult the Japanese in every possible manner. From the Chinese point of view, Kim Ok-kyun had committed high treason and deserved his fate. Fukuzawa Yukichi led a funeral ceremony held in Tokyo at Aoyama Cemetery for Kim Ok-kyun. He had taught the man, and spoke in his honor reflecting Japan's respect for his efforts to modernize Korea. The Japanese press began to fill with public calls for a strong national response. The Chinese reaction during this time period reflected their deep-seated prejudices concerning the Japanese. Even with official communications, the Qing routinely referred to the Japanese as ‘Woren” which is a racist term meaning Japanese Dwarf basically. Wo is the word for dwarf, and the link to the Japanese was a racial term emerged during the times the Japanese were pirating the waters around China's coast, the “wokou”. By the way do not use this word today to refer to Japanese haha. During the upcoming war a Qing official expressed these types of racial attitudes, that this quote for example "It took them 48,000 years before they made contact with China, while in 3,600 years they still have not accepted our celestial calendar...illegitimately assuming the reign title of Meiji (Enlightened Rule), they in reality abandon themselves all the more to debauchery and indolence. Falsely calling their new administration a 'reformation' they only defile themselves so much the more." One Captain William M Lang, a British officer who helped train the Beiyang Squadron of the Qing fleet from 1881 to 1890 had noted this about the Chinese and Japanese. "treated Japan with the utmost contempt, and Japan, for her part, has the same feeling towards China." One German military advisor in China said “The Chinese looked upon Japan as a traitor towards Asia”. Thus before the war broke out, the Chinese for the most part considered the Japanese to be another inferior neighboring people, below the status of a tributary since Japan had severed that link to China. The more tense the situation got between the two nations saw the Chinese viewing the Japanese with more contempt. They would ridicule the Japanese for the communal bathing habits, the attire of their women and the way they imitated western culture. The Japanese as you might guess resented this a lot. In 1891 Alexander III issued a special imperial rescript announcing Russia's intention to build a trans-siberian railway. From the Japanese point of view, this amounted to a foreign policy manifesto equivalent to the monroe doctrine of the united states. Just as America had kicked out all other powers from the Americas, so to it seemed Russia would do the same with the Asian mainland. For the great Meiji leadership of Japan, it looked like Russia would seize control over Korea and thwart Japan's dreams of empire and the ever coveted status of a great power that came with it. Once the trans-siberian railway was announced the Japanese knew they had roughly a decade to resolve the Korea situation before the balance of power would be irrevocably changed and the door would be shut upon them. Yet as bad as the situation was for Japan it was even worse for China. The trans-siberian railway would allow the Russians to deploy troops along the Chinese border in areas that would prove difficult for the Chinese to do the same as they did not have a major railway. On top of this Japan was pursuing an increasingly aggressive foreign policy focused on the Korean peninsula. Qing strategists had long considered Korea a essential buffer for their defenses. With the Russians pushing from the west and the Japanese from the east, Li Hongzhang was hard pressed to take a more aggressive stance in Korea. Now as I said, two major reasons were attributed to the outbreak of the first sino-japanese war, the first being the assassination of Kim Ok-kyun, the second is known as the Tonghak rebellion. I can't go to far into the rabbit hole, but the Tonghak movement began around 1860 as a sort of religion, emphasizing salvation and providing rituals to achieve this. It was much akin to the Taiping Rebellion, a sect that was deeply upset with a corrupt government. It was formed by a poor member of the Yangban class whose father had been a local village scholar and it was largely created to give hope to the poor class. It had some roman catholicism and western learning associated with it, again very much like the Taiping. The peasantry class of Korea found this sect very appealing and the Tonghak influence was particularly strong in Cholla province, the breadbasket of Korea. Members of the sect were angry that corrupt Joseon officials in Seoul were imposing high taxes on them. The leaders of the sect were all poor peasants who, because of their inability to pay their taxes, had either lost their land or were about to lose their land. Their leader was Choe Jeu who described the founding of the Tonghak religion as such “By 1860, I heard rumours that the people of the West worship God, and caring not for wealth, conquer the world, building temples and spreading their faith. I was wondering whether I, too, could do such a thing. On an April day, my mind was unnerved and my body trembled... Suddenly a voice could be heard. I rose and asked who he was. "Do not fear nor be scared! The people of the world call me Hanulnim. How do you not know me?" Said Hanul. I asked the reason he had appeared to me. "...I made you in this world so that you could teach my holy word to the people. Do not doubt my word!" Hanulnim replied. "Do you seek to teach the people with Christianity?" I asked again. "No. I have a magical talisman... use this talisman and save the people from disease, and use this book to teach the people to venerate me!" The Joseon Dynasty quickly banned the religion and executed its leader in 1864 for “tricking and lying to the foolish people”. Regardless the tonghak spread across Gyeongsang province by the 1870's under new leadership. However in the 1870's the rice agriculture in Korea had become increasingly commercialized as Japanese merchants bought more and more of it to ship back to Japan. Korea was not producing enough to meet the needs of its own population as a result. Japanese merchants would begin to lend money to local Korean peasants and when the peasants could not repay the funds, the rice merchants confiscated their land. This obviously was seen as dishonest and exploitative, as it was and the Tonghak gradually became very anti-Japanese. The Tonghaks performed a series of lesser rebellions against excessive taxation. There were revolts in 1885, 1888, 1889, 1890, 1891, 1892 and 1893. By the 1890's the Donhak's began a petition to overturn the 1863 execution of Choe Jeu, to stop the ban on them, to expel all western missionaries and merchants and to kill corrupt officials, a tall order. So yeah King Gojong did not want to give in to such reasonable petitions and told them “go to your home, If you do, I may grant your plea”. A lot of the Tonghak wanted to march on Seoul, and they began threatening westerners and Japanese. Soon a group of over 80,000 Donghak believers led by a southern leader named Jeon Bongjun began marching with flags stating “expel westerners and Japanese”. Now this is a really confusing a large scale event, one of if not the biggest rebellion in Korean history. One thing to focus on though is that a particularly oppressive county magistrate named Jo Byeonggap in Northern Cholla, seemed to have provided the “straw that broke the camel's back”. The magistrate had forced young men to work on a water reservoir and then charged them and their families for use of the water. He overly taxed, fined peasants for dubious crimes including infidelity, lack of harmony, adultery and needless talents, no idea how that last one works out. He also sent spoiled rice sacks to Seoul while keeping unspoiled sacks from himself. Basically this guy was an embezzling scumbag, by today's standards we would refer to him as a member of the US congress. By march 22nd tens of thousands of Tonghak rebels destroyed the new reservoir, burnt down the governmental offices and some storage facilities in northern Cholla. They then occupied Taein by April 1st, and a few days later Buan. The local Joseon government sent commander Yi Yeonghyo with 700 soldiers and 600 merchants to quell the rebellion only to be lured into an ambush at the Hwangto pass. Many of the troops were killed, some deserted and the Tonghak rebellion spread further north. King Gojong panicked, because news spread the rebels were being joined not only by countryside peasants but by many of his soldiers! Worried that the Joseon military would not be able to quell the rebellion King Gojong called upon his Qing allies to send reinforcements. Now there are two narratives that come into play. The first involved the Qing responding quickly, on June the 7th following the Tianjin treaty's requirements that if one country sent troops to Korea the other had to be notified, they informed Japan they were sending 2000 troops to Inchon. The Japanese leaders, having bitterly remembered what occurred the last time they sent a smaller force into Korea did not make the same mistake this time. Within just hours of receiving the notification they dispatched 8000 troops to Korea and notified China of this. The other narrative has it that on june 2nd the Japanese cabinet decided to deploy troops to Korea should China do so. On june the 3rd, King Gojong under advice of Empress Min and Yuan Shikai requested the Qing aid. In doing so he gave Japan the rationale to deploy their own troops. On June 5th the first Imperial headquarters was established and the next day the ministeries of the IJA and IJN instructed the Japanese press to not print any information concerning warlike operations. China notified Japan on june th of their deployments, and within hours the Japanese sent their notifications for the same. There is evidence many Japanese leaders accused China of not sending the notification thus breaching the treaty of Tianjin, but it seems highly likely they did send the notification. Regardless what is a fact is that Japan had already been pre planning its deployment during the end of May, thus it all seemed a likely rationale to start a conflict. This conflict would change the balance of power in asia, and begin a feud between two nations that still burns strongly to this very day. 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 endless conflicts between China, Japan and little Korea had finally sprung a large scale war, one that would change the balance of power in the east forever. Little brother was going to fight big brother.
The Taiping rebellion spreads and the rebels create the world's weirdest gunpowder Part 2/4 Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys
Last time we spoke about how France ended up in Indochina. Yes while Britain got her hands very messy in China, France had likewise done the same in Southeast Asia. It began with Jesuit priests trying to convert those to Catholicism but they soon found themselves becoming increasingly more involved. The Nguyen empire grew weary of the tiresome catholics and began to crack down on them, leading to conflicts with the French and to a lesser extent the Spanish. Before they knew it a full blown war emerged where the Vietnamese tried desperately to fight off a Franco-Spanish force, but in the end were forced to capitulate to brutal demands. Yet again unequal treaties were placed upon a nation of the far east, but worse than that, the French took colonial possession of what became known as French Indochina. Today we continue that story. #42 Francis Garnier's Insane Expedition 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. So we ended off the last episode with the signing of the Treaty of Saigon, yet again another unequal treaty in the east. It was so harsh, the Nguyen Emperor, Tu Duc sent an embassy to France in 1863 trying to revise it. The embassy failed their mission as Napoleon III had no intentions of lightening his grip on the new territorial acquisitions. Those territorial acquisitions to refresh your minds were Bien Hoa, Gia Dinh and Dinh Tuong. Thus by 1864 France had acquired a large part of southern Vietnam and declared it the French colony of Cochinchina. Also in August of 1863 the King of Cambodia Norodom signed a protectorate treaty with France cutting off the Kingdom of Siam and Empire of Nguyen's suzerainty over his country. If you think that is humiliating, just wait to hear this. Tu Duc's envoy to France, Phan Thanh Gian returned to Vietnam and was nominated governor ship of 3 southwestern provinces, Vinh Long, Chau Doc and Ha Tien. His French counterpart the Governor of the news Cochinchina, Pierre-Paul de la Grandiere was worried the 3 provinces to his west might be troublesome so he secretly organized an expedition to occupy them. Perhaps Phan Thanh Gian was told, or perhaps not, but it seems the French convinced Tu Duc to simply hand over the provinces which he did. Phan Thanh Gian told his people not to resistance, awaited orders which never came and killed himself via poisoning. Thus France now controlled all of southern Vietnam. Emperor Tu Duc officially handed the provinces over in the 1874 treaty of Saigon. The treaty officially made the rest of Vietnam a protectorate of France, to which she promised military protection against the Qing dynasty. A large reason why the Vietnamese signed off on this was because of another event that occurred in 1873, known as the Garnier affair. In 1873 the French explorer Jean Dupuis traveled up the Red River to attempt trade with Yunnan province, specifically to sell guns to its governor. While that sounds bad, Dupuis also performed the heinous crime of carrying salt up the river. Yes it turns out this was strictly prohibited by the Nguyen empire. A dispute emerged and Dupuis found himself stuck in a district of Hanoi alongside 90 of his Chinese hired mercenaries. The Vietnamese feared french reprisals, thus instead of using force to get rid of them they issued a complaint to the French admiral Marie Jules Dupre who was acting governor of Cochinchina. Dupre seemed to think he had something to gain from the situation, so he sent an expedition led by Lt Francis Garnir to Hanoi to solve the mater. Garnier took the ships D'estree and Fleurus alongside 83 men. Another 60 men would join them 2 weeks later aboard the Decres. The D'estree arrived at Tonkin on October 23rd , while Garnier and his men traveled to Hanoi using local junks. On November 5th Granier's party arrived and met with Dupuis. Despite being told to tell Dupuis to simply leave, Dupuis managed to convince Garnier he had been greatly mistreated by forces led by Marshal Nguyen Tri Phuong. Garnier then tried to negotiate with the local Nguyen authorities, but they would not budge on anything, so Garnier decided for military action. When the second part of his expeditionary forces arrived on, plus some additional units he requested, a total of 180 men, he decided to use them to capture Hanoi. Garnier wrote a letter and sent it back to Admiral Dupre using the D'estree to justify his actions. Garnier took the 2 gunboats he had left, the Scorpion and Espingole and anchored them roughly 1200 meters away from the walls of Hanoi, in the perfect position to fire upon her citadel, but being out of range of the Vietnamese cannons. On the morning of October 20th, Lt Garnier took a large portion of his forces towards the south eastern gate of Hanoi. Once they were in position they began to fire upon its thick door. The Vietnamese defenders atop the walls attempted to fire down upon the enemy with their cannons, but they were placed “en barbette” instead of inside embrasures, basically they were aimed to hit ships out in the water and could not properly aim downwards. The cannons failed to hit the french, while the French returned fire using Chassepot rifles. The defenders then tried to use older style riles, and as a french eye witness noted began throwing nails on the floor, which he assumed was to try and stop them from walking closer to the wall. Regardless the nails did not work. Once the gate had been demolished the defenders began to rout and the French quickly seized the south western entrance to the city. Meanwhile the two gunboats bombarded the northern and western gates and Garnier led another party to use land artillery to hit the south eastern gate. Garnier entered through a breach and this began a general rout for the enemy. Meanwhile Dupuis and 30 of his mercenaries including a former EVA member named Georges Vlavianos held the eastern gate to make sure the enemy did not escape there. During the chaos the French who came across Dupuis force assumed the chinese mercenaries were Vietnamese defenders and began to fire upon them causing some casualties until Dupuis stopped them. In the end Garnier took the city with a force of around 200 men, a city with a population of 80,000. Marshal Tri Phuong was captured alongside 2000 of his soldiers. On November 23rd, Garnier dispatched the Espingole from Hanoi to go obtain the submission of Nguyen officials at the fortified cities of Hung Yen and Phu-ly. The next day the small force aboard the Espingole arrived to Hung Yen and they met with some Nguyen officials. The officials promised the europeans they would capitulate as quote ‘you have managed to capture the great citadel of Hanoi. We will not have the audacity to attempt defending this one against you”. The Governor officially submitted, so the Espingole left Hung Yen and proceeded for Phu Ly. It was only a 3 hours journey. This time the French found the doors closed to them, with a few defenders offering fight. The French force began firing at those they saw and this caused the defenders to flee. The French entered Phu Ly finding some cannons, a few low quality rifles and a lot of rice and local currency. They waited a week holding the city and on December 1st a Vietnamese man named Le Van Ba, whom Garnier had appointed to be in charge of Phu Ly arrived with a small militia force. The French force greeted them, handing over some weapons to help them garrison the city and then proceeded to take the Espingole to Hai Duong. Hai Duong held strong fortifications, outfitted with a large number of cannons, including some more modern european ones and was defended by roughly 2000 men. The French delegation was met by the governor of Hai Duong, Dang Xuan Bang who politely had tea with them. The French demanded he come aboard their ship to officially begin handing over the city. He politely refused to go aboard their ship, so a French officer threatened him stating “we will capture Hai Duong like we captured Hanoi”. The governor politely refused their demands again, notably being charming and polite the entire time. The French went back to the Espingole, carrying some gifts the governor gave them. The last thing they told the governor was if he did not come over to their boat by 3pm, the city would be considered an enemy. 3pm went by without any sight of the governor, so the Espingole began to open fire on the citadel firing 10 shells to devastating effect. The French then ceased their fire hoping the damage to the citadel would entice the governor to surrender. The next day a junk came to the Espingole and aboard was an official, but not the governor himself. The French demanded the governor come himself or they would continue their attack. Well the governor did not show up so at 8:30 at night the Espingole made its way to fire on the nearest fort. The fort returned fire, but its cannons fire right over the Espingole's mast. The French sent 15 marines and 12 sailors aboard two sampans to assault the fort. Once they got within 50 meters of the fort they began firing their rifles which routed the forts defenders. They seized the fort with ease which was 600 meters from the cities citadel. From the fort they began to fire upon the Vietnamese soldiers. Eventually they began a march towards the citadel's main gate, but it had a moat. From atop its walls the Vietnamese were firing cannons, but the French simply waited for the cannons to fire and bolted towards the gate while they were reloading. The French had brought not artillery nor scaling ladders and were forced to run around the citadels walls looking or a weak spot to breach which they did find on its southern end. By 10:15am the French got inside the citadel and hoisted the french flag from its highest tower. They captured a few hundred vietnamese soldiers, but countless got away, including the governor. During this mess, the Espingole party was informed the governor of Ninh Binh and some Hanoi officials who had run away during the battle were organizing forces to oppose the French. The Espingole received 400 reinforcements who had been sent to help garrison their recent earnings. The Espingole commander sent word to Garnier about the Vietnamese building up a force to face them, prompting Garnier to send a force to subdue Ninh Binh. Garnier dispatched Aspirant Hautefeuille with a squad for the task and enroute he found out the Vietnamese were building large dams in the riverways to thwart their movements. Hautefeuilles force tore down the first dam operation they found only to find out another one was being built closer to Ninh Binh. They made their way to Ninh Binh and Hautefeuille got aboard a canoe with some sailors to parley at its citadel. When they landed they were swarmed by local civilians trying to give them gifts of oxen. As soon as the French reached the citadels gate they were swarmed by Vietnamese troops who proded them with spears trying to entice a battle. Hautefeuille noticed not to far away was the provincial governor, one Nguyen Vu, he recognized him because he had four parasols. Hautefeuille raised his pistol and screamed at the governor to submit to Garnier. The governor replied he would submit whole-heartedly. So Hautefeuille went over to him with a paper and pen demanding he write down his submission officially and allow him to escort the governor into the citadel, but to this the governor rejected. Apparently Hautefeuille grabbed the governor by his collar, but his gun to the mans head and threatened to kill him. A tense standoff occurred until the governor gave in and soon the french flag was raised over the citadel. For this achievement Hautefeuille would be appointed governor of the province by Garnier later in early December. Throughout early december Garniers garrisons were attacked by Vietnamese guerilla forces and hire Black Flag mercenaries. I had mentioned them once before, but to explain who exactly they are, they were the remnants of a bandit group that had ventured into northern vietnam from Guangxi province. Basically they were products of the Taiping Rebellion and when the Qing cracked down, they took up their shop and left for Vietnam. Nguyen officials loved to hire them to fight the French as they had experience fighting westerners. Garnier ended up visited some of the garrisons having issues with attacks, offering reinforcements and instructions on how to hold onto their cities. On December 18th, Garnier was back in Hanoi, receiving reports the Black Flags were becoming a real problem for its defenses. Garnier was just about to plan a assault of Son Tay where it was alleged the Black Flag's were operating, when a Nguyen envoy party showed up proclaiming a truce. Garnier began negotiations with the party, when on December 21st suddenly 2000 Vietnamese soldiers led by Hoang Ke Viem and 600 Black Flags approached Hanoi. The Black flags attacked Hanoi's citadel while the Vietnamese forces held back a further km away. The French lookouts saw an elephant amongst their force, which indicated the presence of a high Nguyen official. Garnier distributed his men around the walls while his men used their French cannons upon the Black Flag's, refusing to use the outdated Vietnamese swivel cannons. The French cannons began to cause a panic amongst the vietnamese army which quickly turned into a rout, while the Black Flag forces made an orderly retreat. Garnier was not satisfied with this, knowing full well they would attack again, so he decided to send a decisive blow against the Black Flags. Garnier sent Ensign Balny D'Avricourt with a squad of 12 men to hit the enemies left flank while he took 18 men to hit the village of Thu Le, around 1.2 kms southwest of the citadel where it looked like the Black Flag's were holding up. The two French forces went their separate paths and met up to bombard Thu Le. Garniers force saw the Black Flag force withdrawing and pursued them only to run into a swamp. Their cannon got stuck, but Garnier simply yelled “A la baionnette, en avant!”. Garnier charged through the swamp as his men tried to keep up with him. They were suddenly met with a volley from the Black Flag who had lured them in, killing a few of the French. Garnier unhit, kept charging with his handgun, but tripped and fell. Upon seeing this the Black flag forces rushed forward and stabbed Garnier multiple times with spears and swords while firing at his comrades. The French retreated back to the citadel losing more men, as the Nguyen forces took Garniers head and some others back to Son Tay. Despite losing their leader, the French held onto the garrisons, sending word of his death and receiving word a new French envoy would be sent. At this point French authorities had found out about the Garnier expedition and were quite embarrassed by the entire thing. Actually they had found out a bit early in late november, prompting Lt Paul-Louis-Felix-Philastre to relieve Garnier and send a scathing letter to him that he never got a chance to read “Have you thought about the shame that will befall upon you when it will be known that, having been sent to expel some ruffian, you allied yourself with him to attack people who hadn't caused you any harm?” Lt Philastre arrived in Haiphong to meet with Nguyen officials to end the unsanctioned campaign. On December 29th, Philastre went to Hai Duong where he ordered the garrisons to be evacuated, where the local french forces tried to persuade him otherwise. Philastre then went to Hanoi to speak to more Nguyen officials about his orders for the French to leave the cities they stole. This led to the 1874 signing of the new treaty of Saigon where the French gave back the stolen cities, thus concluded what was in essence a short undeclared war. So Garnier had been sent to simply tell a guy caught smuggling to leave an area in Vietnam, only to begin a war stealing a bunch of major cities. The French government was deeply embarrassed by the ordeal, disavowing Garnier for his actions, but because of how incredible his accomplishments were, many in France saw him heroic. Yes he was romanticized, much like the conquistador Francisco Pizarro or Hernan Cortez, absolute psychopaths that they were. So while you think, boy oh boy France sure loves to send people on expeditions that results in them stealing territory…well France was nowhere near done with this recurring activity. In 1881 the French naval officer Henri Riviere was sent with a small military force to Hanoi to investigate Nguyen complaints involving French merchants. As you can already guess by now, Henri acted in defiance of orders placed upon him. As he would later argue, based on the fact the Nguyen dynasty was not respecting the Treaty of Saigon, still having a tributary relation with China, was paying the Black Flags to attack French in southeast asia and not complying with trade regulations, Henri took a force of 2 gunboats and some forces straight to the citadel of Hanoi and stormed it. When he showed up to Hanoi he told the Nguyen officials he was simply leading his forces to stamp out Black Flag soldiers in the area, but instead immediately set to work stationing his forces within the citadel. The governor, Hoang Dieu was given an ultimatum to have his forces stand down, but instead Hoang Dieu sent a letter of apology to his emperor and killed himself. It was yet again another embarrassment for France who handed Hanoi back over to the Nguyen officials, but Henri was not done yet. In the meantime, Henri's actions pushed the Nguyen Empire to seek aid from the Qing dynasty and Black Flag army. The Qing seeking to help their Vietnamese allies, but not at the cost of incurring the wrath of France again said they would aid them via the Black Flag's. In the summer of 1882 Chinese forces from Yunnan and Guangxi crossed the border into Tonkin, beginning to covertly occupy Hung Hoa, Bac Ninh, Lang Son and other cities. The French and Qing saw the paint on the wall, despite the covert activity leading Li Hongzhang and a French envoy to try and work out a deal where they would divide Tonkin into French and Qing controlled spheres of influence, but the deal never came to be. Thus both sides gradually increased their power in the region and in February of 1883, France sent a 500 man battalion of marines led by Lt Colonel Carreau to Hanoi who would be at the disposal of Henri Riviere. On the other side the Nguyen officials received aid from the warlord and leader of the Black Flag Army, Liu Yongfu. Liu Yongfu came from Guangxi and joined a local militia during the Taiping Rebellion, some claim this militia also fought for the Taiping. When the Taiping Rebellion came to a close, Liu Yongfu's prospects looked dire so he took his forces southwest, until they were finally pushed to cross the border into northern Tonkin. Liu Yongfu then established a camp outside Son Tay where he formed the “Heiqi Jun / black flag army” based on his dream of becoming “general of the black tiger”. Though seen initially as an invader, the Vietnamese officials also were surprised at how proficient the Black Flag army was and reasoned it would be difficult to dislodge them. They reasoned if the Black Flag army could be hired to fight their enemies that served them just fine. When the Black Flag's killed Garnier that certainly earned them praise from the Vietnamese who would increasingly call upon them. Henri Riviere upon receiving the new forces was instructed specifically that they were not to venture past the French occupied parts of Tonkin. So Henri did the opposite of that, because French. He had learnt in early march of 1883, the Nguyen government was planning to lease some coal mines in Hon Gai to the Qing dynasty, but this proved to be a front for the British ironically enough. If the British were to gain this it would spell the end of French colonial expansion in Tonkin, this Riviere could have none of that. Riviere ordered Commandant Berthe de Villers to take 50 marines aboard the Parseval to take Hon Gai, and they did just that meeting zero resistance. As Riviere put it in a letter to the governor of Cochinchina, Charles Thomson “"I have taken possession of the entire mining district. We have always coveted it, but have always hesitated to act. This will force them to take forward their Tonkin Question!"” Now Riviere did not stop there, he received word that Liu Yongfu was preparing to attack Hanoi with an army of 5000 Black Flag troops. Over in Nam Dinh, their citadel had been warned by their governor of the incoming battle, prompting Riviere to act first. In Riviere's words "As this indecisive government has been imprudent enough to send me 500 men. I have decided to use them to do what it did not decide I should do." Riviere elected to strike at Nam Dinh, similar to how Garnier did in 1873. Nam Dinh was defended by around 6000 Nguyen soldiers and 500 Chinese led covertly by the Black Flag officer Vinh Thong Chat. These chinese soldiers wore the Black Flag Army uniforms, but in reality were Qing troops. French reconnaissance indicated around 8000 men defended Nam Dinh, regardless Riviere decided to go forward and attack the city with 520 men. They traveled the red river using 6 gunboats, reaching the Nam Dinh by march 25th. They quickly went to work seizing the naval barracks which were unoccupied. They also cleared fields of huts to set up firing lanes for their gunboats and set up artillery pieces. The next morning the bombardment began as Riviere simultaneously summoned the governor of Nam Dinh, Vu Trong Binh to come to his ship Pluvier to submit the citadel before 8am. Governor Vu Trong Binh was able to reject this before 8am. Nam Binh had 15 feet thick walls, unscalable and pretty much impossible to breach vie cannons, thus Riviere decided to force an entrance into the city by destroying one of its main gates with explosives. While his gunboats and artillery smashed the Vietnamese cannons along the walls, on March 27th his marines went ashore carrying dynamite blowing a gate up. The French then charged the citadel under heavy fire with Riviere at the front urging them on. The Vietnamese soldiers were overwhelmed by the superior firepower and by the afternoon the city fell as the governor fled. Riviere jubilantly stated “This will force them to take forward their Tonkin Question!'” Now Riviere expected to be punished for his renegade actions, but he lucked out enormous, for back home in France there was a change of government. The new administration led by Jules Ferry strongly supported colonial expansion and backed Riviere up from the offset. The new government followed this up by sending word to Li Hongzhang that Tonkin was going to be under French protection and to back off immediately. The Nguyen officials now were in quite a plight without their Qing defenders and wholeheartedly tossed their lot in with Liu Yongfu and the Black Flags. 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. Francis Garnier died in a blaze of glory or insanity and now it seemed he had a successor found 10 years later in Henry Riviere. Would southeast Asia be able to thwart off the colonizing efforts of France or fall like domino pieces?
Last time we spoke about the Dungan Revolt. Yes it was a grand little side story that only encompassed something that should have required at minimum three podcasts, but I do my best. Northwest China was a wild place and multiple groups on the frontiers of other nations saw an opportunity when the Taiping Rebellion kicked out to try and rebel themselves. Multiple muslim groups and some foreign leaders like Yaqub Bek fought the Qing, the Russians and other groups to try and consolidate control over key areas. However when the Taiping were finally quelled, the Qing sent Zuo Zongtang northwest to deal with the Dungan problem. Zuo Zongtang led a brutal campaign to reclaim Xinjiang and was successful, a large part to muslim chinese defectors. Now we need to venture back to the issue of Japan, China, Korea and a truly stressful situation for poor old Li Hongzhang. #39 This episode is the imo uprising 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 1880s were an extremely turbulent time for China, Japan and Korea. Each nation faced the same anxiety, that of western encroachment, the danger of colonization. Each of these nations would face challenges from the west and this would affect all 3 of them and in turn their relations to another. There were leading figures in each nation that sought to cooperate together to resist western colonialism. At the time the greatest threat was Russia. The Russian empire was beginning the process of building the grand trans-siberian railway. The railway would only begin construction in 1891, but by the 1880's settlers were being pushed east into Siberia and discussions were being held to push the process forward. Now when Japan pulled the sneaky maneuver of getting Korea to sign treaties acknowledging her independence from China, both Korea and Chinese officials were deeply concerned and no wonder. Japan had kept pressing the buttons and this was a major red flag moment. But the Chinese and Koreans had a multitude of problems at the time taking up much of their attention. Thus the Chinese and Koreans tried to ignore the implications of the Japanese treaties in the hopes they could be stamped down later thus easing Japan back into a passive role. You might be asking yourself why are the Chinese and Koreans backing down so much and allowing Japan basically to stomp over them, to put it simply, they had too much to deal with. You might remember when I barely talked about some of the rebels going on in China during and after the Taiping Rebellion. One of those known as the Dungan Revolt of 1862-1877, well that little guy was not such a little guy. If you go on wikipedia for example and look up the Dungan revolt you will notice a few things right off the bat, the first most likely the death toll which was in the millions, possibly up to 21 million. It hit Shaanxi, Gangsu and Xinjiang provinces very hard. But alongside the death toll, you would probably notice secondly the participants list which is extravagantly long and holds many surprising participants. The Ottomans, British, Russians, Uzbeks all hands their hands in the Chinese cookie jar. While the Dungan Revolt is certainly a big one, it gets even bigger, much bigger. The Dungan Revolt basically is part of “the Great Game”. Now you're probably asking yourselves what game? The Great Game was this mashup of conflicts between the British and Russian empires of multiple territories spanning the middle east and Asia. They fought for and over numerous things, for example the British believed Russia had plans to invade India. The Russians thought Britain wanted to expand into central asia. This led to countless wars such as the 1st anglo-afghan war of 1838, the first anglo-sikh war of 1845, the second anglo-sikh war of 1848, the second anglo-afghan war of 1878 and theres even more than that. Now for China this cultivated the Dungan Revolt somewhat and Russian began encroaching in Xinjiang. From 1871 to 1881 the Qing dynasty and the Russian empire were on the verge of a massive war over Xinjiang. Now I am literally pulling out my hair as I write this series because I planned to write a single podcast explaining how the situation in Korea led to what will be one of the most important wars, the first sino-japanese war of 1894-1895 and as I do so I keep skipping over major events, such as the multitude of rebellions in China, and this “great game situation”. Oh and its not just the great game, in the 1880s emerges another fantastic war known as the Sino-French War of 1884-1885 first involving Vietnam and France and then China gets mixed in. Needless to say I face two options, option number 1; I give a summary of these events and gloss right over them to carry on with my intended little narrow narrative about Korea, China and Japan. Option 2) I carry on as I am and write two separate episodes, “the great game” and “the Sino-French War of 1884-1885”. I am electing to do option 2, so please bear with me for the time being I imagine those 2 episodes will come right after I am done with the Hermit kingdom. Stating that I keep glossing over major events, but its simply impossible to hit them all, so if there are some you just are dying to hear about, or simply other things you want to hear about that I can't hit here please let me know on the Pacific War channel discord, comment my Youtube channel or become a patreon, if ya do I promise I will make content just for you, that's why it's there. So needless to say, these major events were hitting China at an extraordinarily bad time. These were major variables thwarting China from seeking a firmer hand against Japan when it came to Korea. China was waiting for things to simmer before they confront the Japanese. And do remember despite Japan's actions, they still represented the greatest possible ally against the looming Russian bear to the north who were gradually expanding into Asia. The prospect of large numbers of Russians moving into East Asia concerned Korea, Japan and China all the same. On top of this the Russians began plans in 1882 to start a steamship line from Ukraine to Priamur, on the coast of Siberia and this also meant a large development of Priamur. Korea had the great misfortune of being what one author has called ‘a shrimp among the whales”. The whales being China, Japan and Russia. Korea had a long history of being fought over, in 661 the Japanese sent troops, then the Yuan Dynasty forces of Kublai Khan used Korea to try and invade Japan in the 1190's and in the 1590s Hideyoshi invaded Korea. So Korea had this unfortunate history of simply being stuck in the middle. In 1882 China still held suzerainty over Korea…well from their point of view, the Japanese certainly did not see it that way. Korea was grasping at straws, trying to avoid conflict, but she was playing a game between two tigers. Now in 1881 Korea began expanding its relations with all 3 major players, Russia, China and Japan. Awhile back I mentioned that Korea sent Kim Hong-jip to Japan and after his journey he strongly suggested Korea send more envoys to learn more from Japan. In 1881 this led Korea to create the Gentlemen's sightseeing group. These were 12 young Koreans who went to Japan to learn more about the Meiji restoration efforts. The mission was akin to Japan's Iwakura Mission, the Koreans inspected administrative agencies, military facilities, education facilities, everything they could. The Koreans were very impressed by what they saw and when they came back home they sought ways to push Korea onto the same path as Japan's modernization efforts. Amongst the 12 gentleman was one Kim Ok-kyun. After the tour had ended Fukuzawa Yukichi one of Japans top liberal minded intellects arranged for Kim Ok-kyun to remain an extra 6 months at Keio university. Kim Ok-kyuns stay convinced him that the Meiji restoration was the essential path for Korea to self strengthen and thwart western encroachment. Now Kim OK-kyun will be a key player in many things to come, but I bring him up now just to signify the efforts of Japan to win over Korea. People such as Kim Ok-kyun began championing Japan as Korea's savior and this prompted King Gojong to look to Japan for some assistance in modernizing, such as the employment of Lt Horimoto Reizo who trained the Pyolgigun. But while Japan was making inroads to circumventing China, China was not sitting idly by. Li Hongzhang had emerged probably as the most influential person in all of China by the 1880s. The Qing government authorized the man who was the Grand Minister for the Northern Sea, the governor general of Zhili province, Commander of the Huai Army, associate controller over the board of admiralty and Grand secretary, yes China was continuing the practice of placing as many titles as possible onto a single man. Above all else Li Hongzhang was responsible for Korea. As much as I have talked about Zeng Guofan's pupil I have not really talked all that much about the man himself. Li Hongzhang dominated Chinese foreign policy for nearly quarter of a century. He was 6 feet tall and quite a lot of western diplomats noted him to have a fine physique, a vigor to his nature, piercing eyes, a commanding presence and a no-nonsense approach. As a Qing official he wore multicolored silk robes, a large triangular hat with the traditional three-eyed peacock feathers. As noted by his mentor Zeng Guofan “Li Hongzhang possessed a bearing and manner of speech sufficient to bring men to their knees”. Li Hongzhang was frankly a go-getter as we say in the west. George F Seward, a minister of the US to China called him “a giant among his fellow Chinese and the best foreigners who have met him in affairs will not hesitate to accord to him intellectual powers, which would command admiration in any cabinet or council”. Russia's count Sergei Lil'evich Witte, the architect of the empires industrialization program for over two decades and a man not known to overstate others said this of Li “I have met many notable statesmen in my career and would rate Li Hongzhang high among them. In fact, he was a great statesman; to be sure he was Chinese, without any kind of European education, but a man of sound Chinese education, and what is more, a man with a remarkably sound mind and good common sense." The socialist French newspaper, Le Siecle, called him "the yellow Bismarck." I particularly like that last one, yellow Bismarck thats a flavourful one isn't it. Li Hongzhang was Han Chinese, from 6 of 7 generations that passed the imperial examinations, a scholar through and through. He passed the third highest out of 4000 other students for the highest imperial degree and built up the Huai army with help from Zeng Guofan quickly becoming one of if not the dominant military ruler in China. It was in fact his rule over the most powerful army in CHina that led to many of his appointments as the Qing needed to try and rein him in somehow. He and Empress Dowager Cixi would have a long-standing relationship. Li Hongzhang aided her in installing her nephew as Emperor in 1875, though in reality he would not actually rule anything it would be Cixi and Li was loyal to her. On the note of Cixi, Li Hongzhang was criticized heavily for corruption and indeed he became fabulously wealthy. Yet I do not think you can point fingers simply at Li, as it was not just him but the Qing bureaucracy that was corrupt. A foreign employee under Li had this to say about him and corruption “The Viceroy was a diplomat of world-wide fame; but to his countrymen - before the war - he was chiefly reputed as a great military and naval organizer. He was not nor could he be that; for the corruption, peculation and nepotism which infested his organizations had their fountain-head in himself, and to an extent which was exceptional even for a Chinese official. He was himself enmeshed in the national machine of organized inefficiency; to him also it was a normal condition, and any other, had it been indicated, would have been incomprehensible to him.” You have to understand at this time in the Qing dynasty corruption was simply the status quo. Bribery was the normal source of political influence. The Qing salaries were insufficient, so all officials bribed and embezzled to make ends meet. To get anything done politically in China at this time one had to bribe whether it was for good means or bad, Li was no different. Li's activities were some of the largest in scope China would ever see and thus required enormous sums of money. None the less Li was a Han, and the Manchu were never going to let the Han simply run the show, so even if Li had idea's about reform to stop the corruption they would not allow him to do so as it would put a Han in the drivers seat. And so Li was a master operator within the corrupt system of Qing politics, he had to grease the corrupt wheels of power. Unlike the Meiji restoration which took daring reforms backed by the Genro of Japan, Li had major shackles. I think I already said this before, Li Hongzhang is one of my favorite characters of modern Chinese history, but he is also a terribly tragic character. One would call him a man before his time. He showed great foresight about how China could modernize but he was hampered by the system. Yet despite all of that he did an incredible amount to help modernize China nonetheless. He also never got a chance to really see the outside world until late in his life unlike most of his Japanese counterparts. He would also take the lionshare of the blame for the many humiliations CHina would receive, literally right until his death he just kept fighting bitterly. Many champion those who do great feats during good times, but we often forget those who lived in dire times who struggled to do great feats, and Li is one of those. Now as the man responsible for Korea Li Hongzhang advised his Korean counterpart in 1879 "There is no human agency capable of putting a stop to the expansionist movement of Japan: has not your Government been compelled to inaugurate a new era by making a Treaty of Commerce with it? As matters stand, therefore, is not our best course to neutralize one poison by another, to set one energy against another? You should seize every opportunity to establish treaty relations with Western nations, which you can use to check Japan." The advice was carried to King Gojong who in 1822 solicited Li Hongzhang to negotiate on Korea's behalf for a treaty with the United States. The Josen-United States Treaty of 1882 or Treaty of Peace, AMity, Commerce and Navigation would be signed in 1882 heavily influenced by Li Hongzhang. It was Korea's first treaty with a western nation, albeit an unequal treaty. It established mutual friendship with the US and mutual assistance in the case of attack. The treaty became the template for others as soon Germany signed one in 1883, then Russian and Italy in 1884 and France by 1886. The idea obviously being, Li Hongzhang trying to bolster up Korea so Japan would not try to invade her. Now despite the fact these treaties were intended to counterbalance Japan, they also indirectly undermined China. Combined with the Japanese treaties they all worked collectively to shatter Korea's isolation and severed China's suzerainty over her. To be blunt, while China could continue to scream about how Korea was still her tributary, now a collective group of other nations saw her as independent. This also began a process of creating pro-Japanese and pro-Chinese factions within the Korean political system. There were those who missed the times of the Daewongun reign. They believed the current actions of Korea were unfaithful to Confucianism. And then in 1882 a small problem would evolve into a larger one. Remember the Japanese military attache, Lt Horimoto Reizo? Well in January of 1882, his work ended up reorganizing the existing 5 army garrison structure into the Muwiyong “palace guards garrison” and the Changoyong “capital guards garrison”. But alongside that he also created the Pyolgigun “special skills force” which was basically the yolk of a new modern Korean army. This is all fantastic and good fun, however Korea held a very tight budget and was forced to reduce the number of her old-style troops. For those of you who know your Satsuma Rebellion that occurred in Japan, here in Korea a similar event unfolded. In July of 1882 many Korean soldiers were retired against their will. They protested that for over a year after the forced retirement they had not received back pay. 1000 men, mostly the old and disabled were let go, and they were not paid their stipends of rice for 13 months. They began to protest, and who wouldn't. Hearing about this, King Gojong ordered that a months allowance of rice be given to the soldiers and he directed one Min Gyeom-ho, the overseer of the Joseon's government finances to see to it. Min Gyeom-ho was the nephew of Queen Min, and that is an important fact as the Min family would be seen as culprits. Well Min Gyeom-ho handed the job over to his steward who sold the rice he had been given for the soldiers and used that money to buy millet which was further mixed with sand and bran, the good classic old case of embezzlement, like cutting cocaine with baking powder. Well the the substance by the time it got to the soldiers had gone rotten and as you might imagine it really pissed off the already pissed off protesting soldiers. So on July 23rd of 1882 a riot broke out in Uigeumbu. Pissed off soldiers marched upon the residence of Min Gyeom-ho who they suspected was the culprit swindling them all. Min Gyeom-ho heard of the incoming rioters and ordered the police to arrest their ringleaders and have them executed the next day. The rioters received word of these orders and broke into Min Gyeom-ho's home, but by that point he had fled so they simply trashed the place. Without the man to exact their vengeance upon the rioters marched to the armory and began stealing arms and ammo. Then they went to a local prison, overwhelmed its guards and released the arrested ringleaders alongside other political prisoners. At this point Min Gyeom-ho was hiding at the Royal palace. He panicked and ordered the army to quell the revolt, but by this time the revolt was snow balling. The armed rioters then turned their attention to two different groups of people, the first were the Japanese and second Korean progressives aka the reformers supporting the new changes to Korea propped by Japan. A group of rioters headed to Lt Horimoto's quarters where they grabbed him and took turns stabbing him to death. Another group of over 3000 rioters marched upon the Japanese legation. Over at the legation were the minister to Korea Hanabusa Yoshitada alongside 17 staff members and 10 legation police. The legation was quickly surrounded prompting Hanabusa to order all the documents within to be burnt. As the smoke and flames increased, many of the legation staff used it as a cover to escape through the rear gate. The Japanese fled to the nearest harbor where they took a boat down the Han river enroute to Incheon. From there they thought they would be safe, but Korean soldiers continued to hunt them down, soon they were fleeing to another harbor, but this time the Koreans caught up to them. 6 Japanese were killed with another 5 severely injured. The survivors got onto a boat and made a break for open sea, eventually running into the British survey ship HMS flying fish which took them in. The rioters certainly did not stop at the Japanese legation, on July 24th they took to marching upon the royal palace still hunting Min Gyeom-ho. They got their hands on Min Gyeom-ho killing him alongside a dozen high ranking Joseon officials including Heungin-gun Yi Choe-Heung, the older brother of the Daewongun. It should be noted that while he was the brother to him, he was also publicly critical against his isolationist policies and could be seen as an ally to the Min clan. The rioters also hunted for Queen Min, intending to kill her as well. They saw the Queen and the rest of the Min allies as the main culprits behind the corruption going on in the government. Queen Min managed to escape the palace being carried literally away on a guards back dressed as a commoner. She fled for refuse in the home of Min Eung-sik in Chungju of Chungcheong province. Meanwhile the rioters managed to kill an official of the Min family and the entire ordeal became known as the Soldiers Riot of 1882 or the Imo uprising. Now the Imo uprising was sort of a symptom of something else going on in Korea. I had mentioned previously that the Korean politics had created sort of a faction situation. It was not necessary one side was Pro Chinese and the other Japanese, a lot more was going on, but I will try to summarize it as best as I can. During the reign of the Daewongun, many of the Korean literati, you know the political, scholar, high society types, well they considered a lot of what the Daewongun was doing to be unfaithful to confucianism. However when the Daewogun was kicked out, they began to see all the grand reforms and treaties emerging under King Gojong as even worse. In fact they never really saw it as “King Gojong's” but rather Queen Min and her entourage of family members in high positions taking Korea to hell in a handbasket. During the Imo uprising incident there was a rather important figure amongst the rioting troops, Prince Waneun, the illegitimate son of Daewongun and one of his concubines named Kyeseongwol. He was the older half brother to King Gojong. Now When the Daewongun was “forcefully retired” he actually did not go without a fight and attempted a coup, which just saw him getting deported to China, and this greatly upset Prince Waneun. But he bide his time, entering the Korean military as a low ranking officer. When the rioters struck in 1881, Daewongun had sent agents to instigate them, one of which was Prince Waneun. It seems the Daewongun was trying to replace King Gojong with his illegitimate son, but the riots failed. When they arrested the rioters many of their leaders were executed, one of which was Prince Wanuen. Who ordered his specific execution is unknown, myth has the Korean politician Yi Yun-yong being responsible, but there is also evidence he did so under orders from Queen Min and King Gojong. On October 28th of 1881 he was poisoned to death while in prison at Jeju. The reason I bring up this minor part of the story is to highlight that there were serious efforts being made by political factions to usurp King Gojong and steer Korea in certain directions. The Daewongun clearly supported the rioters and their cause. In fact it is known the Daewongun exhorted the rioters to specifically bring down the Min clan and expel the Japanese. Daewongun was very much in the China camp politically. King Gojong clearly did not support their cause, but he saw the writing on the wall. King Gojong asked his father to return to the palace, who promptly showed up with 200 of the rioters backing him up. King Gojong capitulated to their demands, one of which was to restore his father to power. King Gojong basically said this to his father when he showed up to the palace “put an immediate end to the wild melee and I will give power over the small and large matters of the government”. And thus the Daewongun was back in power. His first order of business as you might imagine was to remove from office all officials of the Min family, he even had his own brother executed because he had allied to them! At the time it was believed Queen Min had been killed, thus he had a funeral process begun for her. Now in response to the killing of the Japanese officials, well Japan was not too happy about that. The foreign office under Inoue Kaoru ordered Hanasuba to return to Seoul to hold a meeting with senior Korean officials to get them to bring the rioters responsible to justice. If any more of these rioters were to attack Japanese, Japan was going to bear military force against them, regardless of whatever the Korean government did. Inoue instructed Hanabusa, that if he saw the Koreans making any attempts to hide the perpetrators and not punish them, or if they refused simply to comply at all with their demands this would constitute a breach of peace and thus the IJA would be rolling in. Japan also sent an official letter to the Korean government with an envoy, indicting it for the crimes that had been done to the Japanese and that Japan would be sending forces to occupy the port of Chempulpo. Hanabusa meanwhile was instructed that if China or another nation attempted to mediate on behalf of Korea, he should refuse this, but to reiterate none the less that Japan still believed her relations with Korea were friendly and that they best restore that friendly relationship. Thus Hanabusa was to go to Seoul with IJA and IJN forces to protect him and other Japanese officials. Now while Japan was doing all of this, in the background they were also calling up reserves for their military in advance and Inoue Kaoru made sure to notify western ministers in Tokyo they were sending IJA/IJN forces to Korea to “protect their citizens”. He strongly emphasized this was all in good faith and that their intentions were peaceful, but when the Americans offered to mediate he declined this off the bat, not a great look. As for the Chinese reaction, Li Hongzhang who was in charge had left his post just before the crisis had broken out, taking a leave of absence because his mother had just died. How fate tosses the dice sometimes eh? Thus China's de facto foreign minister was left out of touch and Korea did not have a Chinese legation on hand. Li Shuchang, the Chinese minister in Tokyo received word of the situation and sent word home. On August 1st, Zhang Shusheng dispatched 3 warships of the Beiyang Fleet under the command of Admiral Ding Ruchang to Korea with the Qing official Ma Jianzhong to assess the situation. 4500 Qing forces led by General Wu Changqing arrived and they quickly aided the Korean government in quelling the rioters thus thwarting a full blown rebellion. The Qing forces took control over Seoul. This was the first time that China had military intervened in Korea since 1636 and constituted a major departure in her foreign policy over Korea. Would this situation ignite a war between the Qing and Japan? 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 imo uprising was going to escalate things for China, Japan and Korea, simply boiling the pot of war gradually over time. How long could the diplomats and politicians keep those rattling the sabers of war?
Last time we spoke about the modernization efforts of China, Japan and the Hermit Kingdom of Korea. China and Japan undertook very different paths to modernization, and little Korea was stuck in between them. Yet there was even another play joining the mix, the empire of Russia who was threatening all 3 of the Asian nations with her encroachment. The 3 Asian nations attempted to cooperate against the common threat, but Japan and China were growing ever more and more hostile towards another, particularly over the issue of who should influence Korea more. Yet today we are actually doing something a bit different, this will be sort of a side episode, for China had too many events going on during the 19th century to cohesively tell. One story goes often forgotten, yet it encompassed numerous groups, vast amounts of territory and a lot of bloodshed. #38 This episode is the Dungan Revolt 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 am not going to lie, I have no idea where to even start with this one. Originally I wanted to write a single episode, perhaps a two parter, explaining how China and Japan find themselves going to war in the 1890's largely over Korea. Yet the late 19th century is probably one of the most jam packed time periods for Chinese history. So many uprisings, rebellions, wars with foreign states occurs for the Qing dynasty, there's simply no way to tell them all, but here I want to touch upon just a few. Now I keep bringing up but barely talk about, the Dungan Revolt of 1862-1877. If you go right now and please do, to the wikipedia article on the Dungan Revolt, check out the list of Belligerents. You will see the Qing, the Russian Empire, a short lived state called the Kashgaria, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire and an unbelievable number of Muslim rebel groups from all over the place. Events like this do not live in a bubble, as we say in the research world of neuroscience, this requires multivariable analysis. Well that's what I hope to accomplish, in a single episode. Now I expect when I say the Dungan Revolt, the first question that comes to mind for many of you is, who are Dungans? Its complicated. They can be described as Turkic or Chinese speaking, Hui Muslim people who inhabitant Xinjiang province, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, Tajikistan and parts of modern Russia. Now you are saying, wait are they Turks or Chinese, thats a very politically motivated question haha. Today you could call them, Hui, Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyzs, Uzbeks, Tatars, etc. In essence they inhibit a part of the world that has so many different groups around and their history goes very deep, before the time of the Qing dynasty. When the Qianlong Emperor hit the scene in the early 18th century, he named the province Xinjiang, meaning “new frontier” and the people there were known by many as Hui, but specifically for those Chinese speaking muslims in the northwest, well they were often referred to as Dungans. Prior to the Qing rule, Xinjiang was ruled by the Oirat Mongols of the Dzungar Khanate. I am sure you veteran listeners before I came to this podcast know much of these peoples and their history, you probably could teach me a thing or two, as this is very much so out of my specialization. One thing you might remember that I touched upon I believe in the very first episode of this podcast series was the Dzungar genocide. As ordered by the Qianlong Emperor “"Show no mercy at all to these rebels. Only the old and weak should be saved. Our previous military campaigns were too lenient. If we act as before, our troops will withdraw, and further trouble will occur. If a rebel is captured and his followers wish to surrender, he must personally come to the garrison, prostrate himself before the commander, and request surrender. If he only sends someone to request submission, it is undoubtedly a trick. Tell Tsengünjav to massacre these crafty Zunghars. Do not believe what they say." It is estimated perhaps 80 percent of the 600,000 or so Dzungars were killed through war and disease between 1755-1758, enough to argue the annihilation of them as a people. Now with Xinjiang so devastated and depopulated, the Qing sponsored a large-scale settlement of Han, Hui, Uyghur, Manchu and other Chinese. Thus the demographics of the region changed dramatically, Xinjiang became mostly Uyghurs around 60% or so, followed by 30% Han and Hui and the rest of various minority groups like Manchu. The Qing did their best to unify Xinjiang, and one of their policies was to turn over 17,000 acres of steppe grassland over to Han Chinese to farm and colonize. Some historians point this out to be an attempt to replace Uyghurs, but in truth its messier than just that, as the Qing also banned Han Chinese from settled in Uyghur concentrated areas of the province. Now the Oirat Mongol's come back to the scene, this time in the form of the Kalmyk Khanate. They were mostly Tibetan Buddhists and in 1770, over 300,000 of them tried to seize control of parts of Xinjiang from the Qing. However when they began their great expedition, their traditional rivals the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz attacked them the entire way leading them to show up to Xinjiang, worn out, starving and ridden with disease. Many of them simply came and surrendered to the Qing upon arrival and managed to settle within Qing territory. Now these were nomadic people, but the Qing demanded they give up the nomadic lifestyle to take up farming, which was a deliberate policy to break them as a people. They utterly failed at becoming farmers and quickly fell into poverty, undergoing such horrors as selling their own children into slavery, becoming prostitutes, bandits, and such, terrible times. Alongside the terrible treatment of the new coming Kalmyks, Uyghurs were being abused by Manchu officials. It is said Manchu officials were gang raping Uyghur women, such as the official Su-cheng. A rebellion occurred, and the Qing violently quelled. There were reports of mass rape by Manchu troops causing even more hatred from the Uyghur population. Now fast forward to the Taiping Rebellion, during 1862 as Taiping forces approached Shaanxi province, the local population began to form militias known as the Yong Ying. The Yong Ying or “brave camps” were similar to our friend Zeng Guofans “Yung-Ying” Xiang army, just less well structured and terribly under equipped. If they were lucky the Qing government would hand over some Jingalls, but more or less the old sword and spear were their choice of weapon. Now the Yong Ying's being propped up by the Qing were Han Chinese, but around them were large populations of Muslim Chinese who, well lets just say were having PTSD episodes from the countless atrocities performed upon them by these same people for centuries now. So the Muslim groups formed their own Yong Ying's and this is where our story really begins. In 1862 sporadic conflicts such as skirmishes between groups, riots, smaller uprisings and such. They ran the gambit for reasons, could be just a barroom brawl as they saw, trivial type of stuff. During this time any rebel groups that emerged drew attention from the Qing and by proxy association were believed to be possibly working with the Taiping. To add some more chaos to the situation, the Green Standard army as you would assume took its recruits from populaces all over China. Their job much more as a police force than a real army was to keep things running smoothly in all the provinces of the Qing dynasty. In northwest China this meant numerous Hui and other muslim chinese groups were amongst their ranks and thus training for combat and armed, so keep that in mind. There were numerous incidents that sprung the Dungan revolt, but one in particular involved of all things the price of bamboo poles. Some Han merchants were overcharging Hui and this led to a major fight. Bamboo poles were traditionally used to make spears. During a time of major conflict and open rebellion suddenly the Hui communities began to buy large quantities of bamboo poles and this led to the belief they were planning to set up an Islamic state in northwestern China. Organized mosques run by popular mullahs in Shaanxi were purchasing more and more bamboo poles, which they were indeed making into spears. The Hui communities were worried about their safety, seeing all these local militias pop up meant there would be fighting over resources and such. Well the non muslim merchants, mostly Han saw the paint on the wall and were obviously worried about selling bamboo poles to people who might attack them, or better said might defend themselves. Thus many merchants began to increase the prices on bamboo poles and this led to a major uprising known as the Shengshan bamboo incident. Manchu general Duolongga, the same man we talked about during the Taiping Rebellion was leading a cavalry unit in the north when the Hui revolt suddenly turned into a siege laid against Xi'an in Shaanxi province. Duolongga led a campaign against the muslim bands and by 1863 the siege was lifted and the rebels were pushed out of Shaanxi into neighboring Gansu province. In Gansu the Muslim leaders began to spread rumors of an impending Qing crackdown on muslims. They spread fear that the Qing would soon massacre many and this allowed them to organize another siege, this time against Ling-chou, a large city 40 miles north from Jinjipu. Jinjipu happened to be the HQ of a major Muslim leader named Ma Hualong, more about him later. While Lingzhou was laid siege, another strategic city was also attacked by Muslim forces, the city of Lanchow. The Governor General at Lanchow, En-lin reacted by trying to apply a policy of reconciliation. He advocated to the Qing court to not alienate the Muslims and began sending edicts in Gansu reiterating non-discrimination policies towards Muslims. His efforts seem to have been all for naught, as the rumors of a Qing massacre upon the muslims won out the day and large scale violence just grew. Within Eastern Gangsu, many of the Shaanxi Muslim refugees formed the what became known as the “18 great battalions”. Their purpose was to train and arm themselves to take back their homes in Shaanxi. Now while Gansu and Shaanxi were kicking off the beginnings of the Dungan revolt, this also opened the door to more groups to join in. Yaqub Bek, was born in the town of Pskente in the Khanate of Kokand, today's Uzbekistan. There region he lived in was drawn into conflict continuously with outsiders like the Russian and from within as it was deeply factionalized. Yaqub Bek claimed to be a descendant of Timur Gurkani the Turco-Mongol conqueror of the Timurid Empire, probably a ruse to give himself more credibility as a great ruler. He conspired against factions such as the Qipchaqs, taking part in a horrible event known as the Qipchaq massacre. Eventually in the 1860's he fought for the Kokand khanate as a General against the Russians, but they defeated them in 1866 resulting in the major loss of Tashkent. The ruler of Khokand, Sadik Beg dispatched Yakub Beg to Kashgar to raise and find new troops amongst Muslim allies. Yaqub Beg instead invaded Kashgar, defeated its Chinese defenders and declared himself ruler. Now Yaqub Beh was stuck between the forces of the Russian, British and Chinese empires who were all vying for control of the surrounding area, this was part of something called “the great game” which I simply cannot get into for it is too great, pun intended. Thus Yaqub Beg began a campaign that basically saw him conquer Xinjiang province, and this drew the ire of the Qing as you can imagine. So the Qing were now dealing with multiple Muslim rebel groups in the northwest and on top of this some of them were foreigners, who held considerable backing. The Qing dynasty sent one of their most formidable Generals, Zuo Zongtang in 1867 to Shaanxi to pacify the region. Zuo Zongtang as you already know was instrumental in the downfall of the Taiping, working closely with Zeng Guofan. Zuo Zongtangs task was to restore the peace, promote agricultural output particularly that of grain and cotton and to promote Confucian education. As we have seen throughout the series, northwestern China is a rough place to live, stricken with poverty and thus Zuo Zongtang would not be able to rely on the resources of the territory he would have to look elsewhere. This led Zuo Zongtang to immediately demand the Qing court help fund the expedition as he personally began to take out major loans worth millions of taels from foreigners. Zuo Zongtang wanted to prepare massive amounts of supplies before going on the offensive, a smart move. Zeng Guofan likewise helped his subordinate by allocating him 10,000 Xiang forces, led by General Liu Songshan to bolster Zuo Zongtang's 55,000 man army. Zuo Zongtang's forces were mostly Hunanese, but there were also men from Henan, Anhui and Sichuan as well. Because of the Taiping Rebellion, Zuo Zongtang was a proficient army raiser now and he did his best to train the men in a western fashion and outfit them with western arms. As I had mentioned, Zuo Zongtang was one of the champions of modernization and established the Lanzhou arsenal in 1872 which produced Remington breech loading type rifles for his forces alongside artillery and munitions. Now that name, Ma Hualong I had mentioned comes up here a bit. He was the leader of the Jahriyya, known also as “the new teaching”. They were something of a Muslim sect in Gansu province and had been around since the 1760s.They periodically rebelled as a group and caused conflict with other groups, including muslim ones. When Ma Hualong took the leadership position in 1849 he gradually began to build up their forces and to do so he created a vast trade network using a caravan trade through Inner Mongolia and Beijing. His group became extremely wealthy and when the Dungan revolt heated up he began to use his trade network to purchase guns. Zuo Zongtang understandably was suspicious of the gun purchasing activity and deduced Ma Hualong sought to conquer parts of Inner Mongolia and rebel. Ma Hualong began collaborating with Muslim refugees fleeing Shaanxi for Gansu and this led to conflicts with the Qing. General Liu Songshan ended up dying in combat while campaigning against multiple Muslim militia groups, some of which were controlled by Ma Haulong. Meanwhile Zuo Zongtang was finishing up suppressing Shaanxi and establishing control over the province when he finally had a free hand to deal with Ma Hualong who had heavily fortified Jinjipu into a stronghold. Zuo Zongtang's forces erected a siege upon Jinjipu using Krupps field guns, the good old fashion sappers tunneling with mines tactic and the age old classic of starving out the enemy. After 16 months of siege, starvation took its toll upon the defenders prompting Ma Hualong to surrender his forces in January of 1871. Ma Hualong hoped to save the majority of his people, but Jinjipu saw a massacre, thousands lose their lives and the town was rape, plundered and raized. Zuo Zongtang ordered the execution of Ma Hualong, his son Ma Yaobang and 80 Muslim rebel leaders via “Lingchi / death by slicing”. This was a horrible form of execution where a sharp object like a knife was used to slowly remove portions of ones body over long periods of time until the person died. Once done with Ma Hualong, Zuo Zongtang set his eyes upon another Muslim rebel leader named Ma Zhan'ao. Ma Zhan'ao worked loosely with Ma Hualong, but his stronghold was at Hezhou, present day Linxia. He controlled the region west of Lanzhou and benefited from Ma Hualong's vast trade network managing to arm his rebel forces. Unlike Ma Hualong who was of the “new teaching” sect, Ma Zhan'ao was of the “Khafiya / old teaching” sect and they proscribing trying to peacefully exist amongst the non muslim Qing population. When the Dungan revolt began, Ma Zhan'ao escorted numerous Han Chinese to the nearest safe area of Yixin and he did not attempt to conquer the area nor molest them. Regardless he was one of the major muslim leaders purchasing arms and earned the attention of Zuo Zongtang who began an offensive against his forces in 1872. Initially his muslim defenders inflicted heavy losses upon Zuo Zongtang's army much to the frustration of Zuo Zongtang. But Ma Zhan'ao did not want war and he dispatched his General Ma Chun to try and negotiate with General Zuo Zongtang. He offered to surrender his stronghold to the Qing and provide assistance to the Qing dynasty in quelling the Dungan revolt. Zuo Zongtang suspected this all to be a ruse, but the Qing ordered him to abide by the mutual assistance and indeed Ma Zhan'ao did assist the Qing. Zuo Zongtang began to pacify other areas, while Ma Zhan'ao basically saved his people from annihilation. To this very day the area he controlled holds a muslim population who control the Linxia Hui autonomous prefecture. Many of Ma Zhan'ao's generals like Ma Qianling and Ma Haiyan defected to the Qing, including his son Ma Anliang who proved themselves instrumental to helping Zuo Zongtangs campaign. As Zuo Zongtang pacified the areas he was soon awarded governor generalship over Shaanxi and Gansu. At this point Zuo Zongtang loosely followed a strategy of divide and conquer. Those Muslim groups part of the New Teaching he violently massacred, but those of the old teachings he tried to persuade defection to the Qing. The Qing government likewise began to make edicts stating the Muslim rebels did not represent all muslim chinese, just as all the White Lotus rebels back in the early part of the century did not represent all buddhists. They advocated the Muslim community take up the old teachings over the new teachings. With the help of the Dungan people of Hezhou Zuo Zongtang then turned his gaze west towards Xinjiang to defeat the forces of Yaqub Beg. Zuo Zongtang was now joined by defected Dungan armies led by Generals like Ma Anliang, Dong Fuxiang. By 1875 Zuo Zongtang had assembled men and supplies along the Gansu corridor and the next year began his campaign by attacking Urumchi where he massacres their garrison. Next he besieged Manas for over a month until they surrendered. Allegedly the garrison were allowed to march out of the city with weapons, but it seemed to Zuo Zongtang's commanders in the field they were planning an armed break out so they were all put to the sword as well. The women and children were spared luckily. Zuo Zongtang established a HQ at Gucheng while the Russian Empire annexed the Khanate of Kokand, squeezing Yakub Beg further. In September of 1876, Yakub Beh received reports a Chinese army was on the march 700 miles to the east and he began to prepare his defenses. He built up fortifications at Turfan and in 1877 he was visited by Aleksey Kuropatkin. Kuropatkin was sent on a diplomatic mission to Yaqub Beg to try and resolve some Russian border claims over the Fergana Valley. Kuropatkin told him he had around 17,000 troops spread over the Fergana Valley region and that he could not hope to match them. Yaqub Beg was in a very bad situation. The Chinese army had entered Urumqi pretty much unopposed, many of his eastern forces were defecting over to the Qing and in the west they were defecting to the Russians. In the spring the Chinese attacked the fort of Davanchi which lay between Urumchi and Turfan. Simultaneously an army led by Chang Yao seized Pichuan just 50 miles east of Turfan. Yaqub Beg's forces were shrinking from lost battles, desertions and defections. The Qing forces attacked Turfan where Yaqub Beg's men were beaten badly, so he fled to Toksun. At Toksun the Qing pursued him quickly and defeated him again, so he fled to Karashar, and then Korla. All of the fleeing demoralized his troops causing further desertions and defections. It would be at Korla where Yaqub Beg died and historians are uncertain as to exactly how or when. The Qing claimed he died on May 22, while Aleksey Kuropatkin claimed it was May 29th. What he died of is a bit of a mystery. The Russians state he died of illness, multiple historians think it was poisoning. Some modern historians think it could have been a stroke. Regardless with Yaqub Beg dead this pretty much closed the curtain on his forces control over the area. In autumn of 1877, Zuo Zongtang had kept his forces around Turfan as it was the hot season and he wished to gather further supplies, when he received news of the death of Yaqub Beg. Yaqub Begs forces disorganized into multiple rebel groups without a real leader consolidating anything. Zuo Zongtang sent advance parties to occupy Karashar and Korla meeting limited resistance. Zuo Zongtans army pushed the rebels further west until he eventually seized Kashgar with barely a fight and this led notable cities like Yarkand and Kohtan to submit. Xinjiang was officially reconquered by the Qing. The rebel groups dissolved gradually and no large scale revolts would occur for some time in the northwest. In 1884 Xinjiang was established as a province officially again. Zuo Zongtangs Xiang army and other Han Chinese troops began purchasing Uyghur girls from their parents to take as wives, relying often on their Hui allies to work as translators. Countless Uyghur muslim women would be married off to Han Chinese in Xinjiang during the late 19th to early 20th century. This was not limited to Han Chinese under the Qing as plenty of Hindu, Armenians, Jews and Russians also did the same. A large rationale for the situation was the amount of male depopulation from the area which caused a vacuum of single women. The punishments for the leaders who caused the Dungan revolt were harsh. Many of the songs of the Muslim leaders were castrated by the Qing imperial household department once they hit 11 years of age and they were sent to work as eunuch slaves for Qing held garrisons in Xinjiang. Many of the wives of the Muslim leaders were likewise enslaved. To give you an idea of how prevalent this was, the Muslim leader Ma Guiyuan had 9 of his sons castrated by the Qing. The Muslim leaders themselves were mostly executed by Lingchi. Yaqub Beg and his son Ishana's corpses were burned in public view. Yaqub had 4 other sons who died imprisoned at Lanzhou, Gansu or were killed by the Qing authorities upon discovery. Even Yaqub Beg's grandchildren were hunted for, many of which were caught and executed or castrated. The Dungan revolt led to mass migration all over the place. Some Hui people fled to Russia, settling in places like Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Within the Qing dynasty, the Hui Generals who defected were all promoted by the Emperor such as Dong Fuxiang and Ma Anliang. The power of these pro Qing Hui forces would become quite important to the Qing military further down the road, particularly during the Boxer Rebellion. 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. Well I hope you enjoyed my butchering of the Dungan Revolt, again I did my best to tell it in regards to its significance to the history of China. In reality it was part of something known as the “great game” that had had a long lasting impact on many other nations history.
Last time we spoke the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace, Tianjing had finally fallen to the forces of Zeng Guofan and his Xiang army. Hong Xiuquan, the self proclaimed brother of Jesus was dead. All the remaining Taiping Kings and Hong's son were hunted down and executed. History's bloodiest civil war was over, claiming the lives of 20-30 million people. Yet this civil war was just one event amongst many simultaneously occurring in the Qing dynasty. Foreign encroachment and internal strife were breaking down the dynasty brick by brick. China was facing an uncomfortable situation, she had to modernize to survive against threats abroad and within. Another nation, just across the sea, faced the same cataclysm, but would undergo a vastly different approach. Henceforth the two nations, China Big Brother and Japan, little brother, would never be the same again. #36 This episode is China & Japan: Big Brother & Little Brother 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. Now I want to say this right off the bat, for those of you who are fans of my Youtube channel and have seen my content, you already know my background from the beginning was more so the history of Japan. It was in fact my love of Japanese history that led me to the history of China and I think that says something about these two nations. You simply cannot speak about one's history without the other. I could delve deeply into the opening of Japan, its turbulent Bakumatsu period, my personal favorite, the Boshin war, the Meiji restoration, the Satsuma rebellion, etc etc. But this podcast is about the Fall and Rise of China. While my personal channel deals with both nations trying to give an equal amount of narrative to explain both their developments, I want to try my very best to keep it to the hip so to say. If you want more details about the historic events of Japan from 1600-1890 or so, check out my personal channel or perhaps become a Patreon over at www.patreon.com/pacificwarchannel and scream at me to do some podcasts in depth on those subjects, I certainly would love to dabble more into it, like for example a podcast dedicated to the Shinsengumi, the samurai police who fought to the bitter end to defend the Tokugawa shogunate during its death throes, just an idea. The last time we spoke, I went over the end of the Taiping Rebellion, a momentous part of the history of Modern China. I literally sighed with relief upon completing that large series….then I stared at a blank page. Where do I even begin now? The first thing that came to my mind is how to explain what occurred to both China and Japan in the mid 19th century. Both nations were forced to modernize lest they become colonized by foreign powers. For China this was brutal, she was quite literally being carved up, but for Japan who had spent 265 years almost completely isolated under her Sakoku policy, she was opened up, went through hyper modernization and thwarted colonization as a result. Japan's story is quite different for numerous reasons, major ones being that she got the enormous benefit of seeing what was happening to China and learnt directly from China's predicament. After the west defeated China during the Opium Wars and Commodore Perry opened up Japan in 1853, Asia could no longer maintain a separate existence. Both nations were forced to begin the process of becoming part of the world. Japan had many natural advantages over China. She was made up of 4 islands, very compact, sea transportation was widely available, her communications did not have to link very far. China would only get its first telegraph in the 1880s, and it took their governmental communications nearly a month to travel from one end of the country to the other. Japan being an island had always felt vulnerable to dangers from the sea. This sense of danger prompted Japan to seek knowledge of the outside world to protect herself. Chinese leaders had to worry about enemies coming over land from multiple directions, thus they were less concerned about the seas. Japan, had isolated herself for 265 years, while China had become the literal pinnacle of civilization, hoarding the worlds silver. Thus as you can imagine Japanese leadership were not as confident as the Chinese who saw themselves on top of the world, and you know that saying or the game, king of the mountain? Well its hard to sometimes see people coming after you when your on top. Japan was also more homogeneous, whereas China had hundreds of differing people, Han, Manchu's, Mongols, Uighurs, Tibetans, etc. Unifying such people and maintaining domestic harmony was pretty much impossible. China was also undergoing a population boom in the 19th century alongside massive food shortages. This led to the terrible rebellions such as the Taiping Rebellion, I think we covered that one pretty well, the Nian Rebellion which we talked about a little bit, but of course there were others. So I think we all know now the Taiping Rebellion encompassed many issues ongoing in China. For the Nian rebellion, it occurred mostly in the north and was basically peasants banding together to survive. Natural disasters had taken a toll, food was scarce and when bad times come, especially in China, bandits begin to roam. To fight off the bandits the Nian formed militias, but as you might imagine the Qing saw this and freaked out. The main purpose of the Nian was survival and resisting taxation, something I personally can subscribe to haha. Inevitably the Nian looted and raided as a means to keep their group going on, clashing with bandits, the Qing and other rebel groups like the Taiping. Much like the Taiping, the Nian failed to topple the Qing dynasty and were quelled gradually through the Qing ruthless campaigns that used scorched earth tactics. The Nian also were in the north and thus faced the forces of Mongol general Senggelinqin. Seng defeated the Nian and killed their greatest leader Zhang Lexing in 1863 from which the never recovered. After the 2nd opium war was done, the Qing simply were more able to deal with the internal rebellions, and the Nian unfortunately were close to Beijing and not as formidable as the Taiping. Now while all that was going on, multiple muslim rebellions occurred. There was the Hui Muslim backed Panthay Rebellion in southwestern China, mostly in Yunnan province. Panthay is the Burmese word used by Burmese for Chinese muslims who arrived from Burma to Yunnan. They were fighting discrimination and like many other rebellions during this time, they saw the Manchu weakened as a result of the opium wars and decided there was an opportunity to become independent. By the way while I am referring to this as a quote muslim rebellion it was not at all exclusively muslim, many non-muslims joined them such as the Shan and Kachin people of Burma. Once the Taiping were dealt the Qing had a stronger hand south and gradually quelled them by 1868. To the northwest of China came the Dungan revolts led mostly by Hui muslim chinese in Shaanxi, Gansu and Ningxia provinces. These revolts raged from 1862-1877 and they began from conflicts between Hui and Han chinese. It was a terrible time leading to massacres, famines, massive migrations of people, plagues, simply awful stuff. In northwest China its estimated something like 21 million people died. Zuo Zongtang, a subordinate of Zeng Guofan rose to prominence and created his own army based on the Xiang model called the “chu army”. He largely was responsible for quelling the Dungan revolts. So ye China was dealing with a lot. The 1860's in general were a turning point for China and Japan. Both nations gained new governing structures and resumed official contacts with another for the first time in over 2 centuries. For Japan the 1860's were part of what is called the Bakumatsu period, its this very messy point in their history where the leadership of Japan was frantically trying to figure out how to save themselves from colonization. Over in China the 1860's leads us into a period known as the Tongzhi restoration named after the new emperor. The Taiping by the early 1860's were on a steady decline and this gave the Qing leadership finally a moment to try and rebuild national strength. For Japan this period saw the Shogun being overthrown in 1868, and this also led to a bitter war called the Boshin war of 1868-1869. One of my personal favorite wars by the way, I have an episode on it over on my personal channel the Pacific War channel if you want the full rundown and a ton of Chimbara film clips to give it flavor. To brutally summarize, there was a call to end the Tokugawa shogunate, they even gave the Tokugawa family a great severance package, but the Shogun did not go down without a fight. Loyal hans and the Shinsengumi fought to retain the SHogunate while the hans of Satsuma/Choshu and Tosa rose up and defeated them. After the shogunate was dissolved Japan went into the Meiji restoration, which I also have a full episode on sorry for the plug ins over at my Youtube. I perhaps will get into it later, but to summarize the Meiji restoration is the greatest feat of Modernization I would say in human history. Its a hyper modernization process where Japan took the very best aspects of the outside world, while trying to retain important parts of their own culture to mold Japan into a modern state. They were extremely successful and as a result achieved the number one goal of the Meiji restoration, thwarting colonization. The Japanese had resolutely responded to the challenges from the west. As for China, with the death of Emperor Xianfeng in 1861 came the enthronement of Emperor Tongzhi at the age of 5. The Qing leadership were eager to restore the social order that had been severely damaged by the Taiping Rebellion, the Second Opium War and countless other rebellions. Xianfeng who died at the age of 30 was considered a failed emperor and I mean I would have to strongly agree. The guy spent all his time getting high, messing with his harem and fled the capital, never returning to it. China had been left in a disastrous state, but with the defeat of the Taiping came new leadership. That leadership was not Emperor Tongzhi, but rather a mix of Prince Gong and Empress Dowager Cixi. The Empress Dowager proved to be very skilled in managing court politics and quickly became the dominant power during the Tongzhi period and that power would last basically until her death in 1908. Prince Gong and other officials realized that to cope with the foreigners, new skills and new technology, especially that of shipping and weaponry would be required. But many Qing officials remained focused on cultivating the moral qualities that they considered essential for national vitality. Empress Dowager Cixi and many Qing officials believed that the essence of China's problems stemmed from the loss of a true confucian spirit. To address this problem, they sought to restore the importance of the imperial examination system and to eliminate the major corrupt issue that had emerged, that of buying and selling offices. As I had pointed out in the Opium War series, while in the past the integrity of the Qing dynasty and the other dynasties before it lay in officials being appointed by the merits after taking the imperial examination, starting around the 19th century this kinda fell apart. Officials were gradually purchasing their appointments and other high ranking officials began selling appointments, such as the Cohong merchants who basically inherited an incredible debt upon taking their role and were expected to extort funds back to their backers. The Qing dynasty was extremely corrupt and would just keep getting worse and worse. Cixi valued the importance of symbolism and undertook the building of the new summer palace after it was burnt down during the 2nd opium war. Her name would infamously be attached to the building of the summer palace which was unbelievably expensive. Many accusations and myths for that matter would involve Cixi utilizing funds for necessities of the empire instead for the palace. Now in 1861, China launched a self-strengthening movement. This focused upon training troops, building their ships and producing their own weaponry. Self-strengthening movements were not new to China, they had been seen countless times such as when the Ming began seeking foreign aid to fend off the Qing invasion all the way back in the 16th century. Now as we saw during the end half of the Taiping rebellion series, Zeng Guofan tackled self-strengthening head on. One of Zeng Guofans scholar colleagues was a man named Feng Guifen who had sent him a series of essays in 1861 highlighting the issue of self-strengthening. Feng spent considerable time focusing on studying warfare against the Taiping, specifically in the east around Shanghai. He was very impressed by the western military technology present there and would often write to Zeng Guofan about it. Likewise Zeng Guofan wrote in his diaries about self-strengthening and how western technology could be used to defend China's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Zeng Guofan's second hand man, Li Hongzhang likewise wrote of self strengthening during this time period and identified how Western power lied upon their technology and that China must learn to construct the same machines they did. He advocated first to apply this to the military, but gradually it must also apply to industry at large. As we saw during the Taiping Rebellion, there was a large struggle by both the Qing and Taiping to get their hands on western arms. Zeng Guofan purchased many western arms for his Xiang army and the Qing famously employed the EVA forces. By 1860 the majority of Qing leadership types including the scholar class were aware they had to move with the times and study western technology. By 1861 China officially began a self strengthening movement which can be seen to have three phases the first going from around 1861-1872, the second from 1872-1885 and the third from 1885-1895. The first phase focused on training of troops, building ships and the production of arms. With support from Prince Gong, Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, Zuo Zongtang and other officials began major projects. Zeng Guofan established a arsenal in Shanghai, Li Hongzhang built one in Nanjing and Tianjin and Zuo Zongtang built a dockyard at Fuzhou. The arsenals were created with help from foreign advisors and administrators who also set up schools for the study of specific sciences like mechanics. The Qing government likewise created the “Tongwen Guan” “school of combined learning” in Beijing. The purpose of the school was initially to teach foreign languages, but it would gradually expand course curriculum towards astronomy, mathematics, chemistry, medicine and so on. The school would begin a transformative process and lead to the construction of similar schools. Li Hongzhang for example would go on to create language schools in shanghai, Guangzhou and Fuzhou pioneering western studies. Zeng, Li and Zuo initially used foreign workers to build up their factories and arms, until their own native chinese could learn the skills necessary to replicate the processes. At Li Hongzhangs Jiangnan arsenal they began producing Remington breech loading rifles. They began production in 1871 and by 1873 produced 4200 rifles. The rifles were expensive to make and inferior to actual remington arms, but it was a start. The naval dockyards at Fuzhou amongst others had a much more difficult job ahead of them. By the time they began producing ships, they turned out to be twice as expensive than simply purchasing ships from Britain. This led China to purchase more ships to meet the demand and by the 1880s China would be purchasing and creating more ships than Japan. Also in the 1880s Li Hongzhang established the CHina Merchants steam navigation company to help China create its own commercial shipping, something necessary for modern trade. Another big process of modernization in the 19th century was of course, trains. Chinese laborers famously traveled to north american to help build the great railroad systems in both the United States and Canada. This prompted Qing officials to advocate for the same thing in China, famous figures like Lin Zexu and Hong Rengang called for this. However the hardline conservative types, most notably Empress Dowager Cixi were very reluctant about steam engine technology and that of trains. There were various reasons they were wary over railroad development. In 1865 a British merchant built a 600 meter long railroad outside Xuanwu Gate in Beijing to demonstrate the technology to the Qing imperial court. The courts reactions was mixed, they were certainly impressed by its functionality, but also found it very noisy and strange, so they had it quickly dismantled. It would not be until 1876 when the first railroad was established known as the Woosung road. It went from the American concession in Shanghai to Woosung, present day Zhabei district. It was built by Jardine Matheson & co, the nefarious company that had sunk its teeth into China since the first days of opium smuggling began under it. The construction of the railroad was done without approval from the Qing government and thus would get dismantled the next year. Then in 1881 another railway was created, the Kaiping Tramway and Imperial Railways of north china. British engineer Claude William Kinder spearhead the project with the support of Li Hongzhang, creating a line from Tangshan to Xugezhuang. It would expand eventually to Tianjin in 1888 and Shanhaiguan by 1894. It got the name Guanneiwai railway and was met with multiple attempts by conservative Qing officials to be dismantled. Famously Empress Dowager Cixi fought against Li Hongzhang who persisted to tell her railways were necessary to advance China. She was against their construction because she believed their noise would disturb the emperors tombs. Li Hongzhang tried everything he could to get her on board and at one point she tried to compromise with him asking if the train carts could be horse drawn instead. Yet despite her rather hilarious attempts to thwart railway construction by the 1890s great railways were created to link up eastern and central China. Now over in Japan, after the Boshin War was over, Japan famously sent a mission out to the west known as the Iwakura Mission of 1871-1873. The purpose of the mission was to study the most important aspects of the west from the most powerful nations. The diplomats and students that went on the mission would become key leaders in the new Meiji government of Japan driving the restoration. China also performed its own Iwakura Mission, but it was not as large in scale, and those who went on it did not exactly end up being the great drivers of modernization like their Japanese counterparts were. Three years before the Iwakura mission, a Chinese delegation known as the Burlingame Mission arrived in the United States. The delegation extended its journey to Britain, France, Prussia, Russia and visited smaller nations briefly before returning to China in 1870. The purpose of the delegation was to investigate how westerners conducted diplomacy so the Qing could figure out a means to get rid of the unequal treaties. It was the very same reason the Japanese would send their Iwakura mission. Anson Burlingame, a US minister and envoy to Beijing was appointed by the Qing to lead the delegation. Around 30 members attended the mission, and in 1870 Burlingame died of Pneumonia forcing two of the Chinese delegates, Zhigang and Sun Jiagu to take the reins of it. They met with heads of state, visited factories, shipyards, mines, all things big industry. They got to see electricity, machinery many scientific wonders, but also the plight of their own people. Yes they got to witness the conditions Chinese workers went through on the railways in places like California. They saw Chinese going into mines and not coming back out. This prompted some delegates to ask the question “why do Christian missionaries who do such good work in China, bully Chinese workers in California?”. The delegate Zhigang would publish some of these observations in a book giving very harrowing accounts. Another delegate, Zeng Jize, the eldest son of Zeng Guofan came back with extremely positive opinions of everything he saw in the west and was met with harsh criticism from conservative officials for being too sympathetic towards foreign customs. Li Hongzhang and other officials however grabbed the delegates when they got back to China, extremely eager to hear all about what they had seen. Li Hongzhang was particularly interested in the political and economic aspects of the west. Empress Dowager Cixi personally met with some delegates when they got back asking questions about things happening aboard. Even the conservative types were gravely concerned with how things were moving in the west. But the end result did not lead to a Meiji restoration. While Japanese leaders were investing in industry and infrastructure, Chinese leaders were looking to restore their national spirit instead. Its hard to blame the Qing leaders, unlike Japan who largely avoided conflict with the west, though there were a few fights in Satsuma against the British for example, well the Qing was like an old boxer who just got KO'd a few times too many. The opium wars and internal rebellions had destroyed the Chinese public's faith in their government, the fabric of the mandate of heaven was unraveling. So instead of putting all the money into industry, many projects were enacted to re-envigorate the grandeur of the Qing.As I had said, the Empress Dowager Cixi famously invested incredible sums of money to renovate the Summer Palace in Beijing. Infamously she took funds intended for modernizing the navy and used them to build a marble boat pavilion at the summer palace. Li Hongzhang believed in addition to the factories, arsenals and shipyards, China needed to update its school system and wanted to send students abroad just like Japan was doing. He also advocated that the civil service exams should offer technical knowledge alongside the cultural knowledge and he was met with large scale protest. By 1885 conservatives in Beijing began cracking down on the modernization. So while Chinese students stayed for the most part in China, Japan sent countless aboard to learn everything they could from the west. Now the Iwakura mission that went to the west also came to China on its way back. After witnessing 15 nations and all their wonders, they came to Shanghai where they spent 3 days. They were hosted by the Shanghai official Chen Fuxun and they were shocked by what they saw in the city. That shock was at the lack of change, the travelers who had grown up in a world where China was Big Brother were shocked that big brother seemed to have fallen behind. Kume Kunitake, the chief chronicler of the voyage said this of his first impressions of Shanghai “There are no sewers, and urine flows along the streets. Amid all this, the inhabitants seem quite unconcerned.” Believing that the Japanese were harboring illusions about Chinese sophistication based on the past, he tried to correct the view of his countrymen who “regarded every Chinese to be a refined gentleman well versed in literature and the arts. Thus [in Japan] the custom still persists of holding any curios, calligraphy, paintings, poetry or literature from China in high esteem. . . . Under the Qing dynasty, learning has been stagnant in China.” The members of the Iwakura mission had all studied history and knew of the great Tang dynasty and the greatest of China, but now in 1873 they thought there was very little to learn from her anymore. They shared a kinship with China, wished she could resist the western encroachments and remain a great civilization, but it looked to them China had no great leadership. China, Japan and even Korea had young emperors, but only Emperor Meiji would acquire real authority. In China emperor Tongzhi took the throne at 5, but it was Cixi who really ran the show. In Korea Emperor Gojong took the throne at the age of 12 in 1864, but his father Taewongun really held the power. Both Gojong and Tongzhi would be hampered by their relatives and isolated from advisors who might educate them on western advances. Emperor Meiji meanwhile was tutored by senior advisers starting in 1868 preparing him for his role in leadership. Lack of leadership led to a lack of ability to reign in certain aspects of modernization necessary for progress. In Japan key individuals working with Emperor Meiji grabbed the reigns of foreign affairs gradually dismantling the unequal treaties the west had forced upon Japan. The key individual in China who would undertake foreign affairs was Li Hongzhang who was for the most part doing everything on his own initiative and had to fight off conservatives. In Japan, foreign affairs specialists emerged, but this was not the case in China. Even emperor Meiji himself took an interest to learn about foreign affairs. Japan hired many western specialists in all aspects of governmental bureaucracy to help train the Japanese. When Chinese officials went to Japan in 1877 to set up a legation, they were astonished to find the Japanese bureaucracy for foreign affairs, unlike that in China had completely adopted European procedures and protocols. One of the Iwakura missions delegates was a man named Ito Hirobumi and he would serve in the foreign office before becoming prime minister in 1885. He studied in England, learning quickly that Japan was weaker than her and that Japan needed to learn from her to become strong. With his ability to speak english, Ito became the key man responsible for negotiations with other nations. He was to be Li Hongzhangs Japanese counterpart, and helped negotiate the Treaty of Tianjin in 1858 with Li. Both men would have a special relationship that was long lasting. The first time Chinese and Japanese officials met after two centuries was when the Senzaimaru arrived in Shanghai in 1862. The officials were strangers without precedents, they had no idea how to move forward. The Japanese members of the first Senzaimaru trip were carefully selected for their ability not only to learn about potential markets for Japanese goods, but also to investigate the political situation so Japan could open formal relations with China. 51 Japanese took part on the mission which lasted 2 months. The highest Chinese official in Shanghai, was our old friend Wu Xu. Since no Chinese were in Japan prior to notify about the mission, they literally just showed up to Shanghai and this certainly perplexed Wu Xu as to what he should do. Wu Xu reported the delegations arrival to Beijing but received a reply with no clear directions, thus he acted with caution. The Dutch helped the two sides speak and assured Wu Xu that the Japanese were reliable traders and this prompted Wu Xu to accept selling their goods. The Japanese brought things they already knew the Chinese market most likely desired, sea products, lacquerware, paper fans, nothing too fancy. Trade was slow, no treaties or relations were established, but the Japanese gathered great intelligence on the status of the Qing dynasty. They had not yet recovered from the Taiping Rebellion, to the Japanese China looked like chaos. They were shocked by the poverty, filth, the lack of hygiene. They were disappointed to find what their ancestors considered the greatest civilization seemed to be in rubles. They were outraged to find out how mistreated the Chinese were at the hands of westerners. They thought westerners extremely arrogant, mistreating Chinese like slaves in their own country it was so shameful. They worried what the British and French had done to the Chinese during the Opium Wars might come to Japan and indeed the British made a minor attack in Satsuma in 1863 and Choshu in 1864 raising concerns. 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. China and Japan went through their own processes of modernization, which were dramatically different to say the least. Li Hongzhang was emerging at the forefront and he desperately was trying to help China modernize, but he was but one man amongst many.
Last time we spoke Cholera spread like a plague taking countless lives on either side of the conflict. The loss of so much life hurt the Xiang armies positions, and Zeng Guofan worried dearly for the life of his brother fighting at Yuhaitai. Zeng Guofan desperately tossed any men he could to help his brother and it proved effective as Li Xiucheng was forced to flee for the safety of Nanjing's walls. The EVA force lost Ward and gained Chinese Gordon as its leader. But it was to be a short lived command as Gordon and the British became outraged with their allies atrocities and slights against them and thus took back on the stance of neutrality. Yuhaitai was taken and now Nanjing was under siege by the Xiang army, it was only a matter of time for the Taiping to finally fall. #35 This episode is The Taiping Rebellion part 12: The Fall of the Heavenly Kingdom 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 populace of Nanjing were terrified, with only two gates left open, provisions were becoming very limited and there was almost no way to get out. Roughly 30,000 people were inside the city, 10,000 of which were soldiers. After the fall of Suzhou to Li Hongzhang in December, Li Xiucheng returned to Nanjing pleading with the heavenly king, to simply abandon Nanjing and take the entire movement into Jiangxi province. The heavenly king was livid, saying Li Xiucheng lacked faith in the cause. Without much choice, Li Xiucheng began to prepare the city for a bitter siege. Meanwhile the heavenly king was becoming more and more paranoid and angry. His anger led him to cruelty and he began punishing the people in horrifying ways. For example the new crime of communicating with those outside the walls of the city saw people pounded to death between rocks or flayed alive in public. The people would have fled the city, but they knew the fate of what happened to those who did, as was the case when Anqing fell. By late December they heard the rumors about the fate of Suzhou thus sealing their fate to Nanjing. Zeng Guofan sent reports to his brother in spring of 1864 not to even let women and children escape the city, so their fear was well founded. Zeng Guofan justified this by stating, to force the Taiping to support the entire population within the city would accelerate their starvation. With Chen Yucheng dead, Li Xiucheng spread too thinly, Hong Rengan found himself yet again thrust into the role of military commander. Hong Xiuquan told his cousin he had to go out of the city to rally troops from nearby territories to help relieve Nanjing. But it was not possible to head north or west, nor was it possible to traverse the river. Hong Rengan set out the day after Christmas of 1863. His first destination was Danyang around 50 miles east of Nanjing which was commanded by an uncle to the late Chen Yucheng. The commander told Hong Rengan he could not spare any troops to help Nanjing, so Hong Rengan continued on to Changzhou. While enroute he found out Li Hongzhang had taken the city, forcing him to winter in Danyang. When spring came, he took his force south into Zhejiang, where Hangzhou was still holding out. Back in 1861 when Hong Rengan went out to get recruits, the work was much easier. This was no longer the case, in the cities of Danyang and Huzhou he found people too afraid to leave their garrisons to go back to Nanjing. Meanwhile the Xiang army was exponentially growing, by 1864 Zeng Guofan had 120,000 troops, Zeng Guoquan 50,000, another 30,000 garrisoned Anhui, 13,000 moved around with Bao Chao and 10,000 were in the area between Anhui and Suzhou. Li Hongzhang's Anhui army followed up its conquest of Suzhou by marching upon Nanjing from the east. They seized Changzhou and Wuxi with ease as Zuo Zongtang battled Taiping in Zhejiang province. All these armies would eventually converge upon Nanjing. Zeng Guoquan's forces managed to take the Fortress of Heaven on the Dragon's shoulder, pitting it against the Fortress of Earth. With the vantage point upon Dragon's shoulder the Xiang forces were able to create stockade camps at the Shence Gate and eastern Taiping Gate, thus cutting off the city completely. By the end of March, Hangzhou fell to Zuo Zongtang forcing its survivors to flee to Huzhou seeking refuge with Hong Rengan. With the loss of both Suzhou and Hangzhou, the Taiping no longer held any significant cities in the east. There were no more avenues for rescue for the Taiping capital, all that was left was a siege. Zeng Guoquan's siege army was running dry on provisions, the devastation of the countryside was hitting his men as bad as it was the Taiping. Even though they held the Yangtze, by spring of 1864 there was no longer much food coming from it. His men ate rice gruel and basically nothing else. He confided to his secretary, “If we don't break this city in a month, our whole army is going to crumble to pieces.” Within Nanjing the garrisons first crop of wheat was breaking the surface in april. Zeng Guofans men atop forts and mountain lookouts could see within the city the crops growing with bitterness. They held into the early summer, but Beijing's patience was wearing thin and so were their stomachs. Zeng Guoquan wanted the glory of taking Nanjing for himself, so he resisted the advice of Li Hongzhang to come supplement his forces. Zeng Guofan was torn by this, he understood his brothers ambition, but it was terribly unwise. He wrote to his brother “Why must you have sole credit for conquering Nanjing? Why should one person be the most famous under heaven?” Li Hongzhang realized the family predicament and offered to save face for the Zengs by forming an excuse that he was unable to come help after all. Zeng Guoquans siege had been enlarged, they built a 3 mile road for supplies through a bog, connecting the river to Yuhuatai. While on the surface it looked like the Xiang forces were loafing around, this was far from the truth, the real siege work was being done under the earth. They did not have large enough cannons to break the walls of Nanjing, so they had to tunnel and mine, the good old fashion way as they say. They would even have to tunnel under moats some 90 feet underground. Each tunnel was made hauling out dirt and rock by hand, but the spotters in Nanjing were always watching. A cool fact I did not know before writing this series, when sappers begin tunneling for long periods of time, the grass on the ground level above them turns brown leaving a kind of path the tunnellers are taking towards a wall. Spotters looked for this and for ventilation holes, after all if you are digging far you have to get air into the work space. Inside Nanjing Taiping sappers dug their own counter tunnels to thwart mines. They often did this by exploding their own mines, flushing gas into the tunnels or flooding them with boiling water or sewage. Imagine dying in a tunnel full of sewage, horrid. At one point a Xiang miner exploded a mine close enough to a wall, but the explosion failed to make a breach and the Taiping quickly went to work building more parts to the wall near it. By June, the Xiang had mines exploded up in over 30 areas of the walls, but their results were nothing less that 4000 dead sappers. Then on July 3rd, after they captured the Fortress of Earth at the base of the Dragon's shoulder they had a vantage point so close to part of Nanjing's walls they could fire cannons over. Throughout the night and day they fired cannons into part of Nanjing thwarting the Taiping tunnelers while their own worked. The most ambitious tunnel yet was dug, around 70 yards out, digging at a rate of 15 feet per day. It lead to a part of Nanjing's walls 50 feet thick. The Taiping knew what was coming, but the bombardment never ceased, and even the noise from the cannons prevented spotters from figuring out precisely where the tunnel was. By the 15th of July Li Xiucheng was forced to launch a night sortie to try and attack the tunnel opening, but the Xiang army forced them right back into the city. Three days later the tunnel had just about reached its target for the explosives. Zeng Guoquan was impatient, pressured by Beijing, so he ordered his men to pack 6000 cloth sacks under the wall containing over 20 tons of gunpowder. The explosion went off at noon on the 19th, as 400 hand picked veterans crouching hiding on the ground to launch themselves through the breach. The explosive experts lit the fuse and waited, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20, 30 the fuse took that long to travel the tunnel. Then a tremendous blast was heard forming a convulsion sending part of the wall to go up blasting outwards and skyward raining parts of the rubble everywhere killing tons of the 400 men hiding on the ground. When the smoke cleared, a 200 foot wide breach could be seen. The Xiang forces sounded the drums and stormed down the Dragon's shoulder towards the breach screaming. The clambering over dead bodies and rumble surging forward, many of them holding maps of the inner city. The first troops to breach the hole specifically dodged the defenders rushing further into the city with maps in hand as they had the specific mission to rush to the palace of the Heavenly King to kill the self proclaimed brother of jesus. But Li Xiucheng beat them to their mission and he spirited away Hong Xiuquans son, before they could capture the would-be future monarch. When the Xiang troops entered the palace they found nothing but an eerie silence. Hong Xiuquan the heavenly king, the self proclaimed brother of Jesus was already dead. Going back in time, to the spring of 1864, Li Xiucheng said to the heavenly king “There is no food in the whole city and many men and women are dying. I request a directive as to what should be done to put the people's mind at ease.” Starvation was hitting the people, but the heavenly king did not seem to pay any notice. Hong Xiuquan began to talk to Li Xiucheng about the 16th chapter of Exodus, how god would preserve the Taiping faithful, just as he preserved the children of Israel for 40 years as they wandered the desert, by scattering manna on the ground amidst the dew each morning. Beginning in 1862, Hong Xiuquan had begun ordering his subjects to emulate the lives of the israelites, storing 10 bushels of manna every year to see them through their times of trouble. What exactly manna is, hard to say, if you read the bible it says it was a small, white flower with the scent of coriander that tasted like honey. The Chinese Taiping bible describes it as “Tianlu and Ganlu” which means sweetened dew. Hong Xiuquan said to Li Xiucheng “everyone in the city should eat manna. This will keep them alive” he then issued an order “Bring some here, and after preparing it I shall partake of some first.” Li Xiucheng states “the Sovereign himself, in the open spaces of his palace, collected all sorts of weeds, which he made into a lump and sent out of the palace, demanding that everyone do likewise, without defaulting. He issued an edict ordering the people to act accordingly and everyone would have enough to eat.” Thus Hong Xiuquan began to eat the weeds he called manna within his palace. In April of 1864 he began to fall ill with his 50th year of life. He seems to get better in may, but then becomes sick again. The cause of his illness is not understood, but Li Xiucheng account states “its from him eating manna, and when this man was ill he would not take remedies”. Hong Rengan account states “a lingering illness of 20 days took him”. Tiangui Fu the son of Hong Xiuquan said “my father succumbed to sickness”. On May 30th, Hong Xiuquan or one of his aides announces it is time for the Heavenly king to go to Heaven where he will request the Heavenly father and Heavenly Elder brother to send a celestial army to defend Nanjing. There is no grand funeral for the heavenly king. On June 1st he is wrapped in a shroud of yellow silk by his palace women and buried in the bare ground, which was the regular service for the Taiping. No coffins were necessary, because he was expected to rise soon to go to heaven. Hong Xiuquan had ordered coffins to be abandoned prior and that the word “death” to be taboo, because they were all going to ascend to heaven. Five days after his death, his son Tiangui Fu takes his fathers throne. While the Qing forces are busy sieging the city, for 6 weeks the Young monarch reigns. He is basically at the mercy of Li Xiucheng and Hong Rengan. Li Xiucheng gives this account “After the Young Sovereign came to the throne,there was no grain for the soldiers, and there was chaos in the armies. . . . The Sovereign was young and had no ability to make decisions, no one, civil or military, in the capital, could think of a solution.” When the explosion went off on July 19th and the slaughter and chaos began within the city, Tiangui Fu stood bewildered in his palace beside his 4 wives. They tried to grab him, to stop him from fleeing, but he broke away from them and ran into the crowds with his 2 younger brothers heading for Li Xiuchengs palace. They grabbed the nearest horses and their bodyguards clustered around them. During the chaos they try to escape through the different gates in turn, each time turned back. Li Xiucheng eventually finds the royal group and whisks them to a safe location. They hide for some time in an abandoned temple on the western side of the city, perched atop a hill from which they can see the Qing forces scattering into the city. The Young monarch and his comrade put on Hunanese clothing as a disguise, something that had been prepared weeks before. They seize the cover of darkness as the Xiang army are busy raping and plundering the city. Li Xiucheng bids a tearful farewell to the Young monarch as he and his small party charge through the breach Zeng Guoquans sappers made, with the sun against their backs they vanish. The horse of Li Xiucheng collapses and his guard leaves without him. Dazed and confused, Li Xiucheng climbs back to the abandoned temple on the hill. He wakes up to find peasants robbing him of his valuables, when he is left with nothing to take, they grab him and bring him to Zeng Guoquans forces. No one knows where the Young monarch is, but Zeng Guoquan has Li Xiucheng in his hands and interrogates him. Without the leadership of Li Xiucheng the Taiping forces might linger on in the rest of the country to form some small kingdom, but they would never be able again to become a large movement. With the capture of Li Xiucheng, the Taiping rebellion was pretty much dead. Li Xiucheng writes a very lengthy confession before his execution. Before his death he begs the Qing officials to stop the slaughter of Nanjing, to spare the old Taiping veterans who had marched from Guangxi and Guangdong, to give them permission to go back home. “engage in some trade. If you are willing to spare them, everyone will hear of it, and everyone will be willing to submit.” He even provides his captors with some advice, to buy the best cannons from the foreigners, alongside efficient gun carriages and other weapons, so that the best Chinese craftsmen could reverse engineer them and teach the people of china how to make their own. “one craftsman can teach ten, ten can teach a hundred and everyone in our country will know. . . . To fight with the foreign devils the first thing is to buy cannon and get prepared early. It is certain that there will be a war with them.” “Our Heavenly Kingdom is finished . . . and this is because the former Heavenly King's span was ended. The fate of the people was hard, such a hard fate!” Li Xiucheng speaks to his captors believing the Young Monarch is already dead, but Tiangui Fu was safe accompanied by a few hundred loyal soldiers. Tiangui Fu and his small force circle the shore of Lake Tai, fleeing for Huzhou where Hong Rengan commands a small Taiping garrison. Yet before talking about that I want to talk about the horrors that befall Nanjing. The Xiang army's discipline broke at Nanjing, they were starving when they stormed the great city, filling their stomachs for the first time with food and the achievement of their ultimate goal, ending the war. After bitter years of campaigning, far away from their homelands, they began to break ranks and laid waste to the capital in an orgy of rape and plunder. Zeng Guofan issues proclamations forbidding troops from murdering civilians, rape of looting, but his commanders ignore this. The bloody occupation of Nanjing sees the fanatical death of many Taiping, refusing to surrender who fight to the bitter end. As Zeng Guofan reported to Beijing “On the 17th and 18th, Tseng Liang-Tso and others searched through the city for any rebels they could find, and in three days killed over 100,000 men. THe Ch'in-huai creek was filled with bodies. Half of the false wangs, chief generals, heavenly generals, and other heads were killed in battle, and the other half either drowned themselves in the dikes and ditches or else burned themselves. The whole of them numbered 3000 men. The fire in the city raged for 3 days and nights…Not one of the 100,000 rebels in Nanjing surrendered themselves when the city was taken but in many cases gathered together and burned themselves and passed away without repentance. Such a formidable band of rebels has been rarely known from ancient times to present”. The slaughter of Nanjing was the combination of fanaticism from the Taiping and the policy of Zeng Guofan who was determined that the surrender from the veterans Guangxi/Guangdong Taiping was not to be accepted. His goal was the extermination of the whole movement, via the death of its core leadership. He wanted no residue of any successors to try and carry on the Taiping ideology. He performed a ruthless extermination, thus forcing many of the Taiping to fight to the very end or commit mass suicide. Zeng Guoquan's aides reported to him that mass looting, murder and rapes were occuring. Soldiers could be seen running off with gold, silver, furs, jade and any other valuables. At first soldiers burned palaces, but then they moved onto homes, eventually the entire city was aflame. Only when a heavy rainstorm occurred on July 25th did the fires go out. On the 26th, Zeng Guoquans secretary entered the city and was overwhelmed at the sight. All the male Taiping still alive were being used by the Xiang soldiers to carry loot or dig up buried treasure. It seemed like many of them were being set free to flee the city after, but many were also slaughtered after. Countless, elderly who could not perform labor were killed outright. Countless children lay dead in the streets alongside the old, as the secretary wrote in his diary “Children and toddlers, some not even two years old, had been hacked up or run through just for sport. There wasn't a single women left in the city under 40 years old. Sometimes they had ten or twelve cuts on them, sometimes several times that. The sound of their weeping and moaning carried into the distance all around.” A female Taiping survivor named Huang Shuhua was 16 years of age during the capture of Nanjing. She had this to say about when the soldiers came. “They killed my two older brothers in the courtyard, then they went searching through the rooms of the house. One of the strong ones captured me and carried me out. My little brother tugged on his clothing, my mother threw herself down before him, weeping. He shouted angrily, ‘All rebel followers will be killed, no pardons—those are the general's orders!' Then he murdered my mother and my little brother. My eldest brother's wife came out, and he killed her too. Then he dragged me away, so I don't know what became of my other elder brother's wife. I was grief-stricken, sobbing and cursing at him, begging him to kill me quickly. But he only laughed at me. ‘You, I love,' he said. ‘You, I will not kill.' ” The soldier tied her up and took her aboard a boat back to his home in Hunan. The soldier was from the home county of Zeng Guofan, Xiangxiang. She would spend the rest of her life as the wife of a man who had murdered her entire family. She wrote down her story on two slips of paper one evening while traveling and when at an Inn she secretly slid the papers to someone at the inn before hanging herself. Zeng Guofan took possession of Nanjing, arriving from Anqing on July 28th, 9 days after his brother's forces breached its walls. Apparently officers from his brothers forces took him around the city in a sedan chair, telling him tales of the battles fought and won, showing him the scenes of the destruction. Poetry, plays, banquettes, song and wine, celebrating was made by the victors. Soon honors would be poured over said victors from Beijing once Zeng Guofan sent news of the fall of the Taiping capital. Zeng Guofan sent inflated numbers of Taiping killed, as you may have noticed when I read those quotes, there was absolutely not 100,000 dead in Nanjing. He was inflating the glory of his family, that of his armies prowess, and he masking over the rape and plundering of the second capital of the dynasty. He was very careful with what information got out. When he came face to face with Li Xiucheng, he had direct orders from Beijing to send the man alive back to Beijing, instead he executed him where he was making sure to overlook the interrogation process himself so he could make sure the writing of Li Xiucheng was exactly the way he wanted it. Now Hong Rengan was in Huzhou during the downfall of Nanjing, helplessly trying to find help for the capital. When news came that Nanjing had fallen and Li Xiucheng was dead, Hong Rengan found himself in possession of the Young monarch who fled to Huzhou for safety. At this time Huzhou was being attacked by Li Hongzhang's Anhui army and remnants of the EVA force. Not the Ever victorious army, no this was the Ever triumphant army. Basically the remnants of the EVA force were taken by some French officers who continued to work alongside the Qing. The roads to leading to Huzhou were strewn with corpses and severed heads to ward off the Qing/Anhui/EVA forces. The coalitionary forces are too much for the defenders of Huzhou who at the end of August of 1864 flee south. Hong Rengan intends to take the Young Monarch to Guangdong where the Taiping movement started. They rode for 3 months making it to the Meiling Pass, searching for safety. Their escapade left them in a mountainous country 15 miles northeast of a town called Stone Wall where they were finally attacked. Qing soldiers came upon them during the night before the Taiping loyalists could even mount their horses. Hong Rengan fled alone on foot wilding running through a forest where he is captured on October 9th. He is interrogated by the local Qing officials, where he tells them “The heavenly King was nine years older than I and gifted with extraordinary powers of intelligence. A glance at anything was all that was required to impress the subject on his memory. The uprising at Thistle mounted undoubted evidence of the display of divine power throughout those years,and despite the ultimate collapse of the Taiping movement, among those who have enjoyed the smiles of fortune for the longest time the Heavenly King stands pre-eminently forward,”. Hong Rengang is executed in Jiangxi's capital of Nanchang on November 23rd. As for the Young Monarch, Tiangui Fu, he manages to slip away with 10 followers. His band crosses a small bridge and climbs a nearby hill to hide, but they are discovered by their Qing pursuers. Somehow Tiangui Fu manages to evade them, hiding out in the hills, afraid and alone. He shaves off his long hair and finds work with a local farmer pretending to be a man named Zhang from Hubei. After the harvest for that year, he travels onwards but is finally caught and arrested on October 25th by a Qing patrol. He throws himself at the mercy of the state, confessing “The old Heavenly King told me to study religious books, and would not allow me to study ancient books, which he said were all demonic. I managed, however, to read secretly thirty or more volumes, and still retain some recollection of their subjects and contents. The conquest of the empire was the ambition of the old Heavenly King, and I had no part in it.” He tells his captors if they release him, he will study the Confucian classics and try to gain the lowest degree, that of Licentiate. Instead the Young Monarch is executed on November 18th, a week before his 15th birthday. The Heavenly King is dead, the Young Monarch is dead, all the kings, north, south, east, west, flank, shield, loyal, brave and countless others are all dead. The day Zeng Guofan took control of Nanjing was a triumph, not for the Qing dynasty but for him. He was at that moment the most powerful man in all of China. His Xiang army was dominant, he was that of a military dictator controlling the vast eastern and central parts of China. He was not fully under the Qing courts control, in fact the Qing relied upon him almost entirely to retain their own control. Until the Taiping menace was defeated, the Qing court watching his efforts without dread, once it was done that all changed. Rumors spread like wildfire, some said Zeng Guoquan told his brother the time was right to abandon the crumbling Qing dynasty and to start a new dynasty from his base in Nanjing. But Zeng Guofan did not do this. In truth, by the time Nanjing was under its last siege, Zeng Guofan began a process for disbanding his grand Xiang army and to relinquish his power. He sought to hold onto his positions as governor general over Anhui, Jiangsu and Jiangxi, and help rebuild Nanjing to its former glory. Many watched expected him to take his army and march upon Beijing, to rid China of the Manchu, but he sent his soldiers home. And thus Zeng Guofan remained a loyal subject, to a child emperor and the Empress Dowager Cixi. If you are bewildered by this, you are most definitely not alone, countless historians and contemporary figures were confused. Zeng Guofan's ruthlessness and brilliance led him to possess basically unlimited power. All of his top ranking commanders were people he knew, they all had strong personal ties to him, their loyalty was set in stone. What could have possibly stopped him from taking over China? Well, according to his closest family members and friends, they say Zeng Guofan was a man wrecked by anxiety and depression. He was reluctant from the very beginning to be given command, quite uncertain of himself. He was a true scholar and sought nothing but to go back to his books and to lead a life of moral scholarship. He was deeply influenced by Confucian beliefs, but many also think he was influenced by the horrible levels of corruption, greed and incompetence he saw within the Qing bureaucracy. He was never heard to question the legitimacy of the Emperor, and being very devout to Confucianism, he probably really believed in the mandate of heaven. There are also those who point out, to such a brilliant mind, was ruling China a desirable thing? He say how tumultuous the era they lived in was, was it a good era to rule over? Perhaps his uncertainty about himself, left him thinking he could not live up to the task. Regardless, the Xiang army demobilized in August of 1864, less than a month after the fall of Nanjing. In May he gave a notice for sick leave, which as he told his brother was just an excuse to go into hiding after the war was done. He wanted to escape all of his critics who were growing suspicious of his power. He recommended his brother should do the same, but it seems Zeng Guoquan resented this advice. Zeng Guoquan apparently was beginning to expand his economic powers and Zeng Guofan had this to write to his brother, “Military commanders who have usurped fiscal power have never brought anything but evil to the country and harm to their own families. Even if you, my brother, are a complete idiot, surely you cannot be ignorant that you have to distance yourself from power to avoid being slandered.” Well the Qing court went to work on Zeng Guoquan and his subordinates accusing them of corruption and usurpation. Likewise they hounded Zeng Guofan by proxy, and for the 8 years left of his life they tormented him, not allowing him to retire or pause from duties. Zeng Guofan's dreams of returning to scholarship, his homeland, a quiet life, would never come to be. In 1867 he wrote on the issue of his looming death “I would be happier there, than I am in this world”. The estimates on the death toll of the Taiping Rebellion are simply impossible to gauge fully. If you go to wikipedia, or pick up any book they all fall on 20-30 million people. There were no reliable censuses at the time, the estimates are based mostly upon demographic projections on what the Chinese population should otherwise have been in later generations. In an American study performed in 1969, by the year of 1913, almost 50 years after the fall of Nanjing, China's population had yet to recover to its pre 1850 levels. In 1999 it is estimated the provinces hardest hit by the Taiping Rebellion, Anhui, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Hubei and Jiangxi suffered a population loss of around 87 million people between 1851-1864. Around 57 million of them dead from war, the rest never born due to decreased birthrates. The projection for the full scale of the war in all provinces is around 70 million dead with a total loss for the population at 100 million. As you might imagine there is a large amount of skepticism over such unbelievable numbers. Regardless the scars of the event were most definitely felt for decades as attested by countless travelers and inhabitants of China. It was frankly one of if not the deadliest civil war in human history. What is rather incredible is the fact the Qing dynasty did not fall then. Don't get me wrong, it was a mortal wound, but the Qing dynasty would limp on for another 5 decades. Did the Qing dynasty win the war? Not entirely, its safer to say the efforts of Zeng Guofan, foreign intervention and the Qing defeated the Taiping movement. The Qing dynasty was basically put on life support by Zeng Guofan and foreign interests if you really think about it. The Opium wars linked the Qing dynasty to nations like Britain and France who had financial stakes in China and wanted the devil they knew rather than the Jesus they didn't to ensure the flow of unequal trade, see what I did there? Zeng Guofan, was simply in my opinion a strong conservative. I told you bits and pieces about his reluctance to work with foreigners and utilize their technology. He came around to it all of course, but he did so gradually and begrudgingly, there are countless tales of him butting heads over the issue. That issue being modernization, something his successor Li Hongzhang will become a champion of might I add. Zeng Guofan was devout to Confucianism and traditions, honestly he is a large part as to why the Taiping were unable to destroy much of Chinese culture. Zeng Guofan would be villainized by many as a traitor to his race, someone who held up the Manchu. In the end China suffered immensely, this was after all occurring during the century of humiliation. I will end with this to say about the intertwining years of the Second Opium War and the Taiping Rebellion. These years were a time of chaos and change for Asia as a whole. China would end up slowly moving towards modernization, but another nation would take the opposite route and usher in hyper modernization. The balance of power in Asia was turning, leaving more room for conflict on an unprecedented scale. 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. Sheesh, 12 parts my god, would you believe it if I told you there was a lot more left out? Remember there were other rebellions like the Nian and Dungan, and perhaps given a audience desire I might talk about those as well.
Last time we spoke Hong Rengan was in misery, nothing was going as planned. Li Xiucheng went off on his own to perform a campaign in the east, but it was drawing ire from the foreign community to make Hong Rengans life even worse. To defend Shanghai from Li Xiuchengs men, Ward's mercenary force became the Ever Victorious Army and began to work alongside the foreign community and Qing. Chen Yucheng was hunted down and executed, yet another great Taiping king gone. Zeng Guoquan made an extremely bold move and began a siege of Yuhuatai, a fort guarding Nanjing. Then the foreigners it seems quasi joined the Qing, thus ending any chance of the Taiping earning their support. With what seems the rest of the world against the Taiping, and the enemy nipping at their doors, what could they do to stop the inevitable? #34 This episode is The Taiping Rebellion part 11: The Siege of Heavenly Kingdom 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. Meanwhile, refugees from across Jiangsu and Zhejiang flooded into Shanghai seeked protection. In 1862 alone nearly 1.5 million refugees crammed into the Chinese and foreign held parts of the city. Where there are so many people, comes issues. One particular issue was human waste, with so many people crammed into the city, the waterways literally became clogged with fecal matter and other waste. The rivers were also the primary supply of water for the city and even with the custom of boiling the drinking water, the washing water and that used to prepare food was not. A massive cholera outbreak began in may of 1862 causing the usual symptoms, cramps, vomiting and diarrhea. Death ran rampant and by June it was a full blown pandemic. 10 to 15 Europeans were dying a day based on records, but obviously the Chinese population suffered the most. Hundreds of people died each day and by July thousands. At its peak the Cholera outbreak killed 3000 people a day in the foreing settlement, the streets were ridden with unburied bodies. Some local Chinese called it “fan sha, the foreign infection”. The pandemic spread, first going north to the Taku forts, then Tianjin where it claimed 20,000 lives in a few weeks. From there it hit Beijing, but it was not limited to this northern route, it also went south and over the Yangtze going into the interior of CHina. Zeng Guofan's HQ was hit and men began to die. 10,000 men under Zeng Guoquan at Yuhuatai became sick, 10,000 more under Bao Chaos army in southern Anhui and Bao Chao himself also became sick. 50% of Zuo Zongtangs army in Zhejiang were sick and with the massive amount of illness, the Xiang army simply could no longer continue to be on the offensive. Zeng Guofan ordered his commanders to distribute Korean ginseng to the sick troops hoping it would at the least alleviate symptoms. Over in Shanghai the British military distributed “cholera belts”, these were wide cummerbunds of flannel wrapped around the persons torso to keep it warm because the belief was the disease was caused by sweaty chills in the bowels. Another British medical officer in Beijing, did not believe the disease was the result of insanitation and instead suspected quote “the operation of certain electrochemical changes in the atmosphere on certain constitutions.” Within Nanjing it seems they fared a bit better, which is understandable as they were more rural and less crowded then places like Shanghai or Tianjin. The disease spread via the trading routes, which were pretty much closed off to the Taiping. Those Taiping around the Shanghai area however got just as smashed by the disease as the rest. The disease would petter off during the winter, but found its way to Manchuria and then Japan. For those of you who know your Bakumatsu period history, the Cholera outbreak began in Shanghai. Overall, in the region surrounding Shanghai for about 40 miles, by September it was estimated by missionaries that cholera had wiped out ⅛ of the population, a population in the several million. Zeng Guoquans position at Yuhuatai was a precarious one, even before Cholera wreaked its ugly head. Zeng Guofan was shocked by his brothers boldness to dig in so close to the heart of the rebellion. When Cholera began to steal away half of Zeng Guoquans forces, his brother dispatched reinforcements, literally everything he could spare but the Xiang army was fewer than 30,000 strong. The men at Yuhuatai held firm in their trenches, fighting off the occasional Nanjing sorties against them from the southern gate. The Cholera epidemic also gave Li Xiucheng an opportunity to breakoff the Shanghai campaign and return to Nanjing, something the Heavenly King was begging him to do. Well after a very long time of ignoring the poor heavenly king, Li Xiucheng decided in the late summer to withdrew to Suzhou where he gather 3 separate armies to form a relief expedition back to Nanjing. Each army had its own objective: one was going to attack Bao Chao in southern Anhui, one was going to attack the Xiang and Qing naval forces and logistics line and the third led by Li Xiucheng personally would attack Zeng Guoquan's force at Yuhuatai. By late September his armies were marching, with 120,000 under his immediate command. Rumors at the time talked about his force being as large as 300 to a possible 600,000 men. When Geng Guofan received reports of the Li Xiuchengs force moving back to lift the siege on Nanjing he began to frantically ship provisions and supplies to his brother, but there was simply no way he could send enough men to hold off such a goliath army. Bao Chao was busy fighting in southern Anhui and likewise Duolonga had chased Chen Yucheng north, despite receiving direct orders to turn back to help at Nanjing. It seems the Manchu commander was a bit jealous of Zeng Guofan's brother and was dissatisfied with the special treatment of the Zeng family members. So after the death of Chen Yucheng he went northwest into Shaanxi to suppress another rebellion that was going on at the time, remember there's so many simultaneous rebellions. The Dungan Rebellion was a Muslim rebellion led primarily by Hui groups in Shaanxi, Gangsu and Ningxia. It was a brutal and bloody conflict and would claim the life of Duolonga two years later. The assault upon Yuhuatai would commence on October the 13th, while Zeng Guofan was tossing as many reinforcements as he could to help his brother, but these figures were in the mere hundreds. Zeng Guofan sent letters to his brother trying to raise his morale, claiming Li Xiucheng would require incredible logistical capabilities to keep his army provisioned and perhaps it would lead to his downfall, but privately he was falling into despair. He had this to write in his diary “Last night, I thought about my brother Guoquan, facing danger in ten thousand forms. Anxiety burned my heart. I repaired to my inner chamber and tried laying out scenarios on a Go board [to distract myself]. Then I paced back and forth, circling the room. At eleven o'clock I went to bed but could not fall asleep. Sometime after three in the morning I finally slept, and had nightmares.” It is alleged, Zeng Guofan began to stop sleeping and refused any visitors while he received daily letters from his brother fanning his anxiety. In one letter dated on October 24th, Zeng Guoquan said his forces were holding the Taiping at bay after 7 days of constant attack. He also noted the enemy were using new weapons purchased from the foreigners, that fired explosive shells, “luodi kaihua pao, shells that bloom like flowers when they fall to earth”. It was two days later, Zeng Guofan learned another Taiping army of at least 100,000 led by Li Xiuchengs cousin the Attending king had left Zhejiang province to help attack the Xiang forces at Yuhuatai. The report was greatly delayed, by the time it reached Zeng Guofan, that said army had been marching for over 3 weeks. There were no letters from his brother after that. Riddled with anxiety, Zeng Guofan wondered about the fate of his brother. It would turn out his brother was hit by shrapnel from a shell, it struck his face and nearly killed him. Zeng Guoquan was still alive, but there was basically no chance he could escape Yuhuatai. Zeng Guofan pleaded with Li Hongzhang to help send reinforcements, but Li could spare none, though he did recommend sending the EVA force up river using steamships to help. Zeng Guofan was truly desperate as he allowed the EVA force to help, but this did not change the fact it would take weeks for them to get to Nanjing. In the meantime Zeng Guofan sent orders to his brother to retreat at any possible moment the enemy left an opening to flee. His brother refused, and while this sounds like a bit crazy, in reality Zeng Guoquans forces were dishing terrible casualties to the Taiping. The defenses at Yuhaitai were firm with heavy walls and trenches. Each time the Taiping launched an attack several thousand of them paid for it while Zeng Guoquans men faced casualties in the hundreds. While Li Xiucheng's sappers mined under the outer walls of Yuhaitai, the defenders frantically fed the cannons and fired their matchlocks at the Taiping. The defenders tried their best to gauge where the sappers were digging to breach their tunnels before they got under the walls, but just incase they began to build secondary walls in the interior. Zeng Guofan was so afraid for his brother, he even wrote to his eldest son Jize, in Hunan province asking him to leave home for the first time to come and join him at his HQ in Anqing. Yet Zeng Guoquan managed to hold on, his men wrecked the Taiping tunnels before they could breach his walls. The Xiang force on Yuhaitai survived 45 days of attacks and Li Xiucheng finally broke off the attack on November 26st, absolutely incredible. It turns out Zeng Guofans words of comfort to his brother proved true, Li Xiuchengs logistics failed him. Li Xiucheng was forced to use stores from Nanjing and this began to threaten the city, alongside this the army he sent to attack the Xiang/Qing naval forces failed. Winter was coming and Li Xiuchengs men didnt not have proper winter attire nor equipment. Thus he began to send parts of his army back to Jiangsu and Zhejiang while he took the rest to Nanjing hoping to launch an attack later to dislodge the Yuhaitai force. Zeng Guofan did not give up trying to get his brother to abandon Yuhaitai, insisting that the preservation of his army was more important than maintaining the position. Yet Guoquan kept refusing to budge. Well as Guofan kept worrying about his brother Guoquan, something indeed would occur, but to his other brother Guobao. The younger brother had taken 5000 men to help support Guoquan at Yuhaitai. He had sworn vengeance upon the Taiping whom killed his brother Zeng Guohua in 1858. Zeng Guoquan sent a letter to Zeng Guofan that their brother had fallen gravely ill, he had typhoid. On the morning of january 11th, Zeng Guofan got another letter stating Guohua had died. Back in the Shanghai front the rambunctious Ward had taken a bullet to his stomach on September 21st and died an apparently very agonizing and slow death the same night of 1862 while in Ningbo. Ward had been campaigning in conjunction with Li Hongzhang's troops taking advantage of Li Xiucheng's massive pull out of the region. In Ward's dying breath he apparently demanded money and declared Wu Xu and Yang Fang, the two juggernaut financial backers in Shanghai owed him 140,000 taels in back pay. He threatened that his family back home would press upon them to make good on their debts. Things began to crumble for the EVA forces after Ward's death, Li Hongzhang began to advise who should take up the mantle of command. One notable prospect was the North Carolinian Henry Burgevine, whom was favored by Admiral Hope and Frederick Bruce. Both Brits of course were keen to have the EVA commander be an American since it certainly took the limelight off their nation. Burgevine was said to be a model southerner type, gallant, charming, but he also loved his alcohol and had a terrible temper. During the fall of 1862, Burgevine led the EVA to drive the Taiping out of a few towns on the outskirts of Shanghai and by winter the 30 mile radius was met. Burgevine was butting heads however with undue payments from Yang Fang, several months worth. When Li Hongzhang ordered him to take the EVA forces to Nanjing to help Zeng Guoquan, Burgevine refused. It was obvious as to why, being closer to Nanjing greatly risked his and the EVA forces lives and there would be less chance of plundering. Yang Fang then refused to make good on his debts to the EVA force unless they complied with going to Nanjing and apparently Burgevine blew a gasket. On January the 4th of 1863, Burgevine showed up to Yang Fang's house with a few bodyguards and punched the man in the face, robbing him of 40,000 silver dollars before fleeing to Songjiang to pay his men. This led Li Hongzhang to place a bounty over the man's head of 50,000 taels. Well needless to say Burgevine disappeared rather quickly, leaving Frederick Bruce to need to find a new commander. This time Bruce wanted to avoid finding any more filibuster, cowboy types and to find someone more professional, more honorable, who would be more accountable. Thus obviously no Americans were going to fit that role, haha, and Bruce reluctantly had to look towards his fellow Brits. Bruce eventually found, a rather famous name today, but back then he was a young British officer in the Royal Engineers named Charles Gordon. You may have heard his more famous title as “Chinese Gordon”, he was very much akin to Lawrence of Arabia, similar stories. Gordon was painfully british looking, with an awesome mustache might I add in his defense. Fun fact one of his grandfathers owned a ship that was ransacked during the Boston Tea Party, go USA. One of my sources state he was quote “religiously asexual, never married, and had as early as age fourteen expressed a wish that he were a enuch. He also happened to speak with a pronounced lisp”. There were several allegations to suggest he was gay, seemingly based on the fact he did a lot of charitable work for male youth and that he had a fondness for handsome young men. Honestly if you look him up you will find a wide array of bizarre theories, some suggesting he was a homosexual who was so repressed by his Christian faith that he channeled his frustration into being the perfect soldier. One British historian, Paul Mersh suggested he was not a homosexual, but had Asperger syndrome and this made it extremely difficult for him to express emotions towards women. I have to say that is a wild theory, but I personally don't know enough about the man, nor am I in any way his biographer to say much about this fascination on his sexuality. I will say one thing though as a general rule, when you find older historians, those writing lets say up to the mid 20th century, making excuses as to why some figure was not gay, key words “oh he was just very good friends with so and so”, usually its because the figure was gay, haha. Sigh we have come a long way in the world and there is a lot to be said about prejudices of the past and some that still linger, but anyways. Gordon inherited a very demoralized force in march of 1863. There were 3000 Chinese soldiers left after many desertions, alongside 30 pieces of artillery and 2 paddle steamers. Gordon unlike his 2 predecessors, was very willing to work closely with Li Hongzhang. He took a leave of absence from the Royal Engineers so he could serve under the Qing, therefore allowing him to campaign outside the 30 mile radius of Shanghai. After a brief period of training he began his campaign by joining the Qing commander Cheng Xueqi to march into Jiangsu province and reclaim lost territory to the Taiping. Gordon's smaller force became the spearhead driving up the waterways to take walled cities by surprise by bashing them with artillery, while Cheng Xueqi's larger army came in to swarm everywhere they struck. By the summer of 1863, their combined forces were approaching Suzhou. All was going great for Li Hongzhang and Charles Gordon, but then came a familiar face to disrupt things, Burgevine. Burgevine showed up to Beijing backed up by the US minister Anson Burlingame, trying to claim back his role as the commander of the EVA forces. Burlingame was able to lobby on his behalf and got Prince Gong to agree to the matter, but Li Hongzhang wanted nothing to do with the ill tempered man who punched Yang Fang in the face. Burgevine showed up to Shanghai with an imperial commissioner instructing Li Hongzhang to put him back in charge, but it is alleged by Li Hongzhang that the letter Prince Gong had sent was more of a suggestion rather than direct order. Regardless, Li Hongzhang was not going to play ball and to get away with not having to take back Burgevine Li Hongzhang simply left on campaign with Gordon to attack Suzhou without taking Burgevine. Well the ill tempered Burgevine got riled up again and quickly made his way into Shanghai where he rallied up 70 foreign mercenaries, many of whom had served Ward but were discharged. He took all these men and stole one of the EVA steamers and they made their way up the waterway to Suzhou to join the Taiping. Burgevine began training the Taiping in Suzhou how to defeat Gordon's forces and when the battle commenced it seemed the rebels had the upper hand. Burgevine at one point went out at night over to Gordons camp to try and get the man to quit his position, something Gordon allegedly considered because he was having a rough time with the logistics of the EVA force. Regardless while Burgevine looked like he might turn the tides for the Taiping, another event occurred that would give the Qing a distinct edge, Captain Osborn showed up on September 1st to take command of the war fleet. Now what is interesting about the situation was that Prince Gong envisioned using the new naval forces to hit the Taiping along the rivers and then be employed as a patrol force for the eastern coast. But someone else had different ideas about the use of these naval units, Zeng Guofan. Prince Gong had planned to use multiethnic crews, sailors from Shandong, gunners from Hunan and Manchu for marines. Well Zeng Guofan thought the new naval forces would be better employed as an addition to his own naval forces. He began to advise against mixing ethnic groups, because it might cause disunity. He advised instead that all crews should be Hunanese, hmmmm. Thus the squadron of steam powered gunships would be absorbed into his fleet of Long Dragons, Fast Crabs and sampans. With such a fleet Zeng Guofan would control the entire Yangtze River system. And here emerges the balance of power swinging within the Qing Dynasty. This general with a large amount of autonomy was quasi dictating against the Qing central government. When Captain Osborn arrived he found an official letter from Prince Gong informing him that a Hunanese Admiral would be serving as the new fleets commander in chief, Osborn had just been demoted to assistant commander. Furthermore the letter stated the fleet would take orders from Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang. Osborn went to Beijing to protest these changes, but Prince Gong refused to budge on the matter. In fact rumors began to spread that Prince Gong had no choice in the matter, because Zeng Guofan quote “threatened to shut off all the supplies to the Imperial Government”. Osborn was furious “I came here to serve the Emperor, and under him the Regent, not to be the servant of mere provincial authorities.” Osborn resigned, while refusing to surrender control of the fleet to Prince Gong. Then came a real tense situation for Anson Burlingame, because the Confederates had envoys in China who sought to purchase the fleet for themselves so they could use it to fight the Union. Anson Burlingame lobbied hard to make sure this did not occur and in the end the fleet was sold at a loss back to India and then to Britain. Meanwhile while Gordon was facing the decision to step down at the behest of Burgevine, he decided instead to counter by convincing Burgevine to defect back to the Qing side. Burgevines frequent visits to Gordon were drawing suspicion from his Taiping comrades and his drunken ill tempered behavior did not help his cause too much. Apparently Burgevine really pissed off one Taiping commander, who had sent funds to purchase western guns and ammunition through Burgevines contacts only to find cargo of Brandy showing up. Not only was Burgevine getting on the Taiping's nerves, he also drew ire from his western comrades. On on occasion a western officer brought up Burgevines drinking problem only to have Burgevine fire a shot through the mans cheeks. Thus on October 15th, in the midst of an assault upon Suzhou by Gordons men, several of Burgevines officers defected, forcing Burgevine to do the same. Burgevine was exiled from China, as per the terms of his amnesty, but would show back up later on trying to raise another militia. No one knows for sure how, but Burgevine was captured by Qing soldiers and somehow ended up drowning in a river tied in chains. Local authorities said he had some sort of accident aboard a boat that capsized, but we all know that is not true. With Burgevine gone, a major obstacle had been overcome for the campaign against Suzhou. Despite this, the battle for Suzhou remained a stalemate by November. The Taiping commander of Suzhou was Tan Shaoguang, he also held the title of “Wang Mu, Esteemed King”, the son in law of Li Xiucheng. He wanted to defend Suzhou to the bitter end, but it turns out many of his subordinate commanders did not feel the same way. On November 28th, one of his subordinates secretly met with Chen Xueqi, promising to give up Suzhou peacefully while getting rid of Tan Shaoguang and his loyal officers. The man's name was Gao Yongkuan whom held the title of “receiving king” though by this point every commander was being given these titles. He offered to open the gates of Suzhou, but was very fearful of being caught by Tan Shaoguang. Gordon and Chen Xueqi agreed with Gao to take the city with minimal bloodshed. On the morning of December 4th, Tan Shaoguang held a banquet and during a speech he was stabbed by Gao Yongkuans group of mutineers and had his head cut off and sent to Cheng Xueqi. The gates of Suzhou were opened and Gordon with his EVA forces were the first to enter the city peacefully. Gordon spoke with the mutineer commanders and they all shaved their heads ready to surrender, grateful that Gordon kept his word to not slaughter them. Li Hongzhang showed up by boat to take control over the city with his personal guard and this is where things turned dark. Musket fire could be heard, and Gordon went to investigate finding Cheng Xueqi outside the walls of Suzhou looking very uneasy. Gordon asked him what was going on and Cheng replied that the Taiping commanders never showed up to surrender. Gordon rode back into the city to see what was going on, finding Qing forces looting the city. Gordon suspected this was the work of Cheng Xueqi who must be deceiving him, so he hunted down Li Hongzhang for answers. Yet he could not find Li Hongzhang, nor the Taiping commanders, he went back to Cheng Xueqi who simply told him he had no idea what was going on. Now the sources are mirky on this one. One thing to take note is that Cheng Xueqi was a Taiping defector himself, thus it gives some plausibility for his side of the story. Cheng Xueqi was said to be seen weeping on the ground as he sent a western officer to send a message to Gordon. The message was an apology, stating he did what he did because he had to follow Li Hongzhangs orders. Gordon eventually found the remains of the Taiping commanders, he had this to say of the scene. “The hands and bodies were gashed in a frightful way and cut down the middle, the receiving king's body was partially buried.” Gordon was livid, he had promised these men their safety and Li Hongzhang brutally executed them. To this breach of his honor, Gordon renounced his service under Li Hongzhang and this spread to the foreing community like wildfire. This spelled the end of military cooperation between Britain and the Qing dynasty. The British parliament fell back upon the policy of neutrality, but allowed for the defense of Shanghai. Ironically, by the time Britain had finally reached its decision to go back to neutrality, their assistance was basically no longer needed. The situation in the interior of China was becoming quite horrid. Zeng Guofan wrote in his diary on June 8th “Everywhere in southern Anhui they are eating people”. It was not the first note of cannibalism from his diary entries and not to be the last. He carried on to write it was not new news that human flesh was being eaten, but the price for said flesh had gone up considerably. The price per ounce had gone up four times that which it was sold at the year prior. Cannibalism was found in Jiangsu province as well. Northern Anhui was a wasteland reported Bao Chao who was desperately trying to scout for a supply line for the drive upon Nanjing. Yet as absolutely horrifying as the situation was in central china, it did benefit the Qing, because the Taiping depended on the peasants amongst them, and the famine was creating internal conflict. As Zeng Guofan put it in his diary about the situation of the Taiping around Nanjing. “Campaigning in a region with no people, the rebels will be like fish out of water. In a countryside devoid of cultivation, they will be like birds on a mountain with no trees.” On June 13th, Zeng Guoquan finally seized the stone fort atop Yuhuatai. Having control of it meant Zeng Guoquan was able to shut Nanjing's southern gate. The west and northern gates of Nanjing open onto the Yangtze River and their defense laid in these large Taiping forts across the mile wide Yangtze corridor to the city. On June 30th, the Xiang navy attacked these forts in a intense bombardment battle. The Taiping fort shore batteries fired back upon the Xiang, causing 2000 casualties, but in the end the Xiang forces were able to take the forts, slaughtering their defenders. Having taken the forts, the Xiang forces now controlled the Yangtze River northwest of Nanjing. Before the Yangtze River way was closed, Li Xiucheng had left in February of 1863, 3 months after failing to defeat Zeng Guoquan. He took his force into northern Anhui, searching for a supply line for Nanjing. Much like Bao Chao, he found a wasteland and his troops suffered immensely. They were starving, forced to eat grass while facing the Xiang forces who were better provisioned. When word spread that Zeng Guoquan took the fort atop Yuhaitai, Li Xuicheng immediately headed back to Nanjing, managing to cross the river just 10 days before the northern Taiping forts fell. He estimated the campaign into northern Anhui cost him 100,000 men. Yet as soon as he returned to the capital he had to leave yet again because Li Hongzhang was attacking Suzhou and Zuo Zongtang was attacking Hangzhou. Nanjing's western gate was shut because of Xiang dominance along the Yangtze and its southern gate was shut because of Zeng Guoquans dominance over Yuhaitai. With this in mind Zeng Guofan turned his attention to the remaining easternand northern gates. He sent Bao Chao to lay siege to the Shence Gate, the primary northern inland gate. But Bao Chao faced a terrible epidemic. Simultaneously there were troubles breaking out in southern Anhui and Jiangxi provinces, so he sent Bao Chao to quell them. Meanwhile Zeng Guoquans forces expanded their position at Yuhaitai, seizing 10 bridges and mountain passes allowing them to control the supply roads southeast of Nanjing. By November Zeng Guoquans focus were blocking the eastern approach to the city. The eastern gate to Nanjing was still open and 2 large forts defended atop a mountain that edged towards the city. The mountain was known as the Dragon's shoulder and its fort was the Fortress of Heaven, to its bottom was the Fortress of Earth. By December the eartern gate and the Shence gate were the only points of entry still under Taiping control, out of Nanjing's 23 mile circumference. 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 Qing coalition lost their foreign support, but it seems it was no longer needed anyways. Zeng Guoquans gambit payed off brilliantly and now the great city of Nanjing was finally under siege, it was only a matter of time for the end.
Last time we spoke Emperor Xianfeng died at the ripe age of 30 having spent a life smoking opium with his harem. Now the Qing dynasty was in the hands of his 5 year old son, but in reality henceforth until its collapse the Qing dynasty would actually to be controlled by the infamous Empress Dowager Cixi. Hong Rengan received a military defeat at Tongcheng and it seems he would never psychologically recover from it. Li Xiucheng went on the offensive and performed a grand eastern campaign taking multiple provinces. Zeng Guofan needed a new army created and chose his student Li Hongzhang to command it. The Anhui army was formed and it looked like the Qing side was going to win this civil war after all. The only thing that might turn the tide back for the Taiping was that ever sought after foreign support. #33 This episode is The Taiping Rebellion part 10: The Ever Victorious Army 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. Meanwhile back in Nanjing, Hong Rengan's life was becoming more and more miserable. He lost at Anqing and his rivals used his absence to take away his authority in the capital. His continued efforts at gaining western support was going nowhere, in fact it was earning him embarrassment. The foreign relations to the Taiping had become poisoned due a large part to the eastern campaign led by Li Xiucheng. Many of the foreign missionaries stopped visiting Nanjing and soon that direct line of communication that Hong Rengan cherished had slipped away. Shanghai was bracing itself for what it believed was a Taiping offensive against the city and Hong Rengan could do little to nothing to stop Li Xiucheng. As for Zeng Guofan, he knew Shanghai was extremely wealthy and must be protected from the Taiping, but Nanjing was simply more important and he could not launch two enormous campaigns simultaneously against both. Zeng Guofan elected to focus on Nanjing and perhaps once Li Hongzhang had built up his Anhui army he could deal with Shanghai. For Shanghai, it looked certain the Taiping would soon attack, and the Qing had no assurances from the foreigners that they would help defend the city. They had no one to turn to, then our old friend the filibuster wannabe Frederick Townsend Ward. Despite Britain's attempts to stop the mercenary leader, he was still going strong with his HQ at Songjiang. He only had 68 foreign mercenaries left because of the constant harassment from the Taiping and British, but he did have some Napoleon field guns and a promise form his Qing benefactors that if he took Qingpu he would be rewarded handsomely. Way back when we talked about how Ward's ragtag group failed to take Qingpu from the Taiping and they attempted 4 more times with disastrous results. They just kept using the same strategy over and over, blast the gates with artillery, storm the walls and hope the Qing military followed through. Ward's defeats were brutal and he lost a third of his force for his efforts. The foreign community of SHanghai had zero sympathy for the filibuster, he was just a source of embarrassment. But then the American civil war broke out and a rumor emerged about a group of Californians purchasing the vessel, Neva and that it was a confederate ship now being run by none other than Ward. According to these rumors, the Neva was outfitted with guns stolen from US munitions stored in Shanghai and this said vessel was firing up Union merchant ships going around the Chinese coast. The United States only had a single warship in China at the time, the USS Saginaw which hunted the so called Neva. When they finally caught the Neva, the so called guns it held were actually whiskey, it was just a merchant ship, but still the rumors persisted raising Ward as this legendary figure. Now this was all awkward as hell in Shanghai, the american population was overwhelmingly pro union northerners, while the British were more pro confederacy. The American merchants were dependent on the British warships to protect their business and this caused all sorts of conflict. During one particularly bad incident, the Trent incident of 1862 in which a US captain chased down and boarded the British steamer Trent trying to arrest two confederate diplomats, if you know the story you know the story haha. Long story short it was the confederates trying to go to Britain to make their case and the Union illegally arrested them, anyways this led Admiral Hope to get his naval forces at Shanghai to seize the homes, vessels and assets of the American community. This led to a rumor, Ward was going to pre emptively attack Hope's force. The entire American community in Shanghai thought they might go to war with Britain yet again, but this never came to be. Meanwhile during all that chaos, the very real threat, the Taiping began to appear on the horizons of Shanghai on January 11th. The alarms all sounded when smoke emerged due north of the city and a new wave of refugees began pouring in. The smoke began to get closer and closer prompting the foreign community to hold emergency meetings to plan a defense. The Americans, British and French put aside their quarrels and banded together to man the walls. The threat was extremely real, one member of the community had been captured and interrogated by the Taiping about the city defenses and this man reported that he saw the rebels were carrying British and German muskets and that there appeared to be an Arab military advisor and a small group of European mercenaries in their ranks. Then a force of around 3000 Taiping branding muskets seized the town of Wusong just 10 miles north of the city. One British captain reported witnessing the battle and said the Taiping were quite astonishing, very well organized and equipped far better than the Qing seemed to be at the battle of Peiho. Li Xiucheng did not want to smash Shanghai into pieces, he wanted to do everything possible to take it mostly intact. Thus his strategy was to surround the city and bring her to her knees. Beginning in January, 5 Taiping armies each numbering in the thousands to tens of thousands began surrounding Shanghai at a distance of several miles each. Soon a propaganda campaign emerged between Songjiang and Shanghai, with written notices stating the Taiping would ensure the safety and protection of all those who joined their side. As for the foreign community, Li Xiucheng warned them to stay out of the conflict, and that anyone caught giving aid to the Qing “will be like a flying moth dashing into the fire, seeking his own extirpation.” Thus Shanghai was under siege and the communications to inland places were severed. Admiral Hope sent word to Hong Kong asking for reinforcements and the consul of Canton relayed the dire news back to Britain. The new wave of refugees brought far too many mouths to the city. 80,000 or so Taiping surrounded Shanghai and word was that more would be coming from Suzhou by the end of the month. The main defensive body for the foreign community were British and French troops who manned the walls, alongside 200 volunteers, some police and a contingent of Punjabi infantry. In an unusual fashion, on January the 26th, snow began to fall, now do remember Shanghai lays in a subtropical zone rarely seeing temperatures below freezing. By the time the Taiping began to fully encircling Shanghai there was about 2 feet of snow in the area and this had a paralyzing effect in the lower Yangtze region. By the end of January the eastern seaboard froze. The weather would break in early February, but the Taiping were delayed greatly by all of this. The Taiping found an unexpected resistance at Songjiang, Ward's force. Now after losing so many battles, Ward had stopped simply recruiting westerners, he now began training Chinese instead. He had a minimal staff of American and European officers overseeing the training of his Chinese forces and because of the payment differences, they Chinese were paid a tenth of what the westerns were paid, he had a pretty large force under him. Ward taught his Chinese soldiers how to respond to english commands and standard bugle calls. The men were outfitted with european style uniforms, typically blue jackets for artillery men and green jackets for infantry. They were trained in the western fashion and equipped with cutting edge weaponry, British enfield rifles, some Prussian made rifles and the odd American rifle or pistol here or there. But the Taiping were also getting their hands on some western weaponry. One report in 1862 showed a ship was caught smuggling 300 cannons, 100 cases of small arms and 50 tons of ammunition to the Taiping from Singapore. Another report indicated the Taiping at Wusong had been supplied with nearly 3000 muskets, 800 pieces of artillery and 18,000 cartridges, a dangerous amount to be sure. On February the 3rd, Wards new militia fought the Taiping managing to hold out at Songjiang against a force of 20,000 rebels. Their success was largely due to hidden artillery batteries they had placed outside the town which surprised the rebels during their approach, gunning down over 2000 men before their commander called for a retreat. Wards men managed to capture 700 Taiping alive and shipped them back to Shanghai in chains. Two days after the battle, Ward went on the offensive attacking a Taiping outpost halfway between Songjiang and Qingpu forcing the garrison commander to pull out. This was the first time the Shanghai gentry funded private army had any real success and this prompted them to rename the force to give it more inspiration, and thus it Wards militia became known as the famous “Ever Victorious Army” (EVA). Many of you may have heard of this force if you are American, its probably one of the very few things known about the Taiping rebellion in the west to be honest. The EVA force took orders from Wu Xu, their main benefactor, who by no means trusted his General Ward. Ward and the westerners continuously plundered where they went, despite Wu Xu pleading for them not to. In order to try and secure some form of loyalty from Ward, one of the wealthiest backers, the banker Yang Fang married his daughter off to Ward. The Chinese women had been betrothed to another, but the man died before the wedding making her unmarriageable within the Chinese culture. It was a mutual arrangement, for Ward he could pressure his wife to push the backers to pay up and for the backers they could pressure Ward to remain loyal. Now after the snowstorm dissipated, and I refer to it as a snowstorm simply because my source does, but as a Canadian if you think 2 feet of snow is a storm wow haha. Admiral Hope and Rear admiral Auguste Leopold Protet signed a joint agreement on February 13th to defend Shanghai from the Taiping based on Hope's 30 mile radius idea. They formed a land force to take out into the field against the Taiping, although the British parliament had made it clear to Hope he was not to break neutrality unless it was to save the lives of British subjects. Hope as you can imagine disregarded the orders. Their force was not very large, 900 French and 650 British soldiers, some sailors as a reserve and 200 civilian volunteers including Americans. The Qing forces in Shanghai were around 10,000 strong. Hope had no…well hope to match the Taiping out in the field, but he believed he could hold the walls. If he wanted to perform any action out in the field he simply needed more men, and take a wild guess who he went to. Oh yes the man he tried to arrest on countless occasions, the wild filibuster Ward. Since Ward now was recruiting Chinese rather than trying to steal away westerners, and given his recent military victories, Admiral Hope decided to form an alliance with Ward. Ward had zero interest in the defense of Shanghai, but Hope enticed him with gunships that could move his men to hit Taiping towns along the riverways, un gagnon gagnon. Frederick Bruce approved the alliance of convenience, but stressed while they could perhaps drive the Taiping out of the immediate area, they had to allow the Qing forces to actually push further and to garrison towns taken. Zeng Guofan upon hearing of all of this, disapproved and did not think it would prove fruitful. But he had no large cards to play in the east, and if the EVA held Shanghai, well that would be just dandy. And when Wards men won the battle for Songjiang on february 20th, zeng Guofan begrudgingly sent word to Beijing that it was in the dynasty's best interests to allow the bizarre foreign mercenary force to continue its work in Shanghai and even Ningbo if they could get there. But he also strongly warned them not to let the EVA forces campaign further inland, especially not against Nanjing. If foreigners were to help defeat Nanjing, what might they demand as a reward for such deeds. Now give the Eva would be augmenting the Shanghai area, now Zeng Guofan felt perhaps he could dedicate some forces there, afterall if he could grab Shanghai it would be an enormous boost to his power. He approached the Gentry of Shanghai and they found common ground. They sought further protection and Zeng sought funding for his campaign against Nanjing. Thus Zeng Guofan tossed an army to try and break the siege of Shanghai, if they were successful that said army could later be used to cut off Nanjing. Another enormous benefit of this arrangement was Zeng Guofan obtaining what Hong Rengan so desperately desired. The Shanghai backers, nominally Wu Xu formed a contract with a British firm, Mackenzie, Richardsons & company to use their steamships. Now Zeng Guofan could move his forces unimpeded down river to Shanghai aboard British steamers. The Taiping could not fire upon the ships because of the Union Jack and in just 3 round trips, 6500 of Li Hongzhangs new Anhui forces were encamped in Shanghai ready for campaigning. Li Hongzhang then assumed his role as governor of the province and by proxy became the leader of the Shanghai backers, while Wu Xu would retain control over the EVA forces. Meanwhile, with Shanghai under Li Hongzhang's oversight, Zeng Guofan and both his brothers Zeng Guoquan and Guobao began a march towards Nanjing. Shanghai was under siege, albeit from quite a distance, still this had an enormous effect on its economy, its very lifeblood. The price of rice went up 50%, flour and firewood doubled, but the Taiping were not attacking the walls, not yet at least. Joint operations between the EVA and foreign defenders began on a small scale in mid february with an assault upon High Bridge, 8 miles away from Shanghai proper. Ward had 600 men while Hope and Protet brought 500. The battle was a quick one, with only a single Frenchman killed before the Taiping fled the town. Then on April the 23rd a rather fateful action occurred at Ningbo. A taiping commander received a promotion, now General Fan and in his honor they fired a 10am salute from the cannons facing the river. The guns apparently were not well aimed as a handful of projectiles went across the river and hit the French gunship l'etoile as it was passing by. Admiral Hope and Protet used the situation to dispatch their forces led by Captain Roderick Dew aboard Encounter to retaliate against Ningbo. However when Dew got to Ningbo the Taiping profusely apologized and stated they wanted to remain under friendly terms and would make sure it never happened again. Hope and Protet were not at all content with this and sent word to demand the Taiping take down all the guns on the eastward facing wall of Ningbo. They were given 24 hours to comply or else the British would do it themselves. Well the Taiping refused to comply, because they obviously needed said cannons where they were to defend against the Qing, but they offered to take away the gunpowder from said cannons and to only provide it back if the Qing attacked. Then on May 5th a large group led by the disposed Ningbo gentry, got together a group of 150 small armed boats led by some pirates and peasants to come up the river to attack Ningbo and as they did so they asked the British and French for aid. Just as a mere coincidence their point of attack was the same eastern wall. Thus the British and French invited the motley group to their side of the river. Then Captain Dew sent word to the Taiping “If you fire the guns or muskets from the battery or walls opposite the Settlement, on the advancing Imperialists, thereby endangering the lives of our men and people in the foreign Settlement, we shall then feel it our duty to return the fire, and bombard the city.” It would turn out this was all a planned scheme go figure. The motley group began approaching Ningbo, but then positioned itself in such a way as to push the European gunships between them and the city. Accounts differ, by the Europeans state one of the Taiping cannons fired first upon the Encounter killing 2 crewmen. It is also alleged that the person operating said cannon was actually a servant of one of the Shanghai gentry backers. Then the British and French ships began to bombard Ningbo before the combined allied party stormed the eastern wall. The motley group were actually the last to storm the city, leaving most of the bloody work to the europeans. According to an eyewitness account “in a few hours did more damage than the rebels did in the whole of the five months that they had possession, chopping off the heads of the unlucky rebels that he caught.” The British press went right to work demonizing the Taiping, a lot of which was based on witness accounts from specific men responsible for trying to break the neutrality stance of Britain. There was also a need to create a narrative to control China in general. Britain had turned its attention squarely to asia since the American civil war had broken much of their trade. The Times declare “the only route to Great Britain's economic survival lay down the path of the Taipings Annihilation”. The Times carried on stating the tea market was being ruined allegedly by the Taiping, and to compensate Britain would have to raise the tax rate on tea to preserve revenue. This would bring hardship to the tea drinking working class of Britain who were already suffering from the textile depression. Thus the stance of neutrality was hurting the good people of Britain, boy oh boy do you see the parallels to today's politics. The warmongers won the day and Britain's government's hands were tied, thus Britain was dragged into a proxy war with the Taiping. The European coalition, EVA, the Qing and Li Hongzhangs Anhui army were now an allied front embarking on a large campaign to push the Taiping out of the Shanghai region. The beginnings of the campaign were largely successful as a result of the superior firearms, by May 16th a combined force left Shanghai and Songjiang marched upon Qingpu. They bombarded the town for 2 hours using 40 artillery pieces, including a 68 pounder and 4 giant 110 pound naval armstrong guns. Its gates were blown to splinters and 3500 of Wards Chinese EVA troops stormed the town as “god save the queen” was blasted by the military band. 4 days later Admiral Protet led an assault upon South Bridge which lay due south of Songjiang and was shot right through the heart by a Taiping sniper. His death enraged the French who took out their vengeance upon the nearby town of Zhelin where they massacred 3000 civilians, including women and children before raising it to the ground. While the allied force proved very capable at seizing walled cities, holding them was another matter entirely. They simply did not have enough manpower to hold everything they took. After taking Qingpu, Li Xiucheng sent a large force from Suzhou to hit Songjiang, since the EVA force was absent. Ward turned back to hit Songjiang with 2000 EVA troops, leaving 1500 to garrison Qingpu, which fell under a siege to more Taiping. The garrison of 1500 men held out for a month, but ultimately were forced to torch the city and make their escape. In the summer of 1862, the British and French handed over a group of Taiping prisoners over to Qing forces and according to an eyewitness sat by idly while the Qing performed horrible atrocities. Here is part of the harrowing account: “A young female, apparently about eight months pregnant, who never uttered a groan or sigh at all the previous cruelties she had endured from the surrounding mob, had her infant cut out of her womb, and held up in her sight by one of its little hands, bleeding and quivering; when, at the sight, she gave one heartrending, piercing screech that would have awakened pity in a tiger, and after it had been in that state dashed on her breast, she, with a last superhuman effort, released her arms from those holding her down, and clasped her infant to her bleeding heart, and died holding it there with such force that they could not be separated, and were thus thrown together on the pile of other carcasses. Another young woman among the prisoners awaiting her turn to be disembowelled, with a fine boy of ten months old crowing and jumping in her arms, had him snatched suddenly away from her, and flung to the executioner, who plunged the ruthless knife into his tender breast before his mother's eyes. Infants but recently born were torn from their mother's breasts, and disembowelled before their faces. Young strong men were disembowelled, mutilated, and the parts cut off thrust into their own mouths, or flung among the admiring and laughing crowd of Chinamen.“May God forgive England for the part she is taking in this war” The foreign press ran rampant stories of the horror and brutality, many still trying to stop their nations from taking an active role in China. Others pointed out the savagery to be a justification for colonizing China. Admiral Hope's vision of creating a 30 mile radius around Shanghai proved impossible. The allied coalition did not have enough men to garrison the places they took from the rebels and given the gruesome events at Qingpu and the death of Protet, Hope was forced to toss the towel. Soon the forces pulled back to the walls of Shanghai and Hope was replaced by Rear Admiral Augustus Leopold Kuper. Captain Dew likewise was reprimanded for his part in the escalations to war. Ward could not be reprimanded of course, but his EVA force was left to fight on its own, something he did not mind too much as the British and French forces often stopped his men from plundering. While things were going badly for Shanghai, Zeng Guofan was enjoying an amazing campaign. Duolonga's cavalry were harassing Chen Yucheng in northern Anhui for him to flee to Luzhou. From Luzhou Chen Yucheng had an extremely bold strategy, he began calling upon Taiping forces and Nian groups to launch a four pronged campaign going north through Henan and Shaanxi provinces with the ultimate goal of hitting Beijing. Three of the four armies marched north as planned early in 1862, but Chen Yucheng found himself stuck in Luzhou, under a siege by the forces of Duolonga and the Xiang army. His communication to the other 3 armies were cut off and his provisions were dwindling. On may 13th, he took 4000 men and broke out of the siege trying to flee north, but Duolonga's cavalry force gave quick pursuit. Chen Yucheng headed for the city of Souzhou which one of the army groups had been sent to attack. The army was led by Miao Peilin, someone Chen Yucheng had gotten to defect during the siege of Anqing. Chen Yucheng reached Shouzhou before Duolonga's cavalry cut him to pieces, much to his relief. But as he entered the city, Miao Peilin was nowhere to be found. It turns out, because of the severing of communication, Chen Yucheng had no idea that Miao Peilin had been defeated at Shouzhou already back on April 25th, his entire army surrendered to the Qing. Miao had turned back over to the other side, once a defector always a defector as they say. A large reason he was allowed to defect back was because he promised to deliver to the Qing a Taiping general, ie: Chen Yucheng. Chen Yucheng was taken prisoner and before he was executed in June of 1862 he had this to say to his captors. “It is Heaven's will that has brought me here, and there is nothing that can be said of my past. I have long enjoyed the reputation of a victorious commander, but now I would prefer to look to the future. For the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to lose me, one single man, it will be as if the mountains and the rivers of the kingdom have been reduced by half. I bear a great debt of gratitude to my Heavenly Dynasty and will not surrender. The general of a defeated army cannot beg for his life. But as for the four thousand men I command, they are veterans of a hundred battles, and I do not know whether they are still alive. You can cut me to pieces for the crimes I have committed, but this has nothing to do with them.” And so the Brave King was dead. The death of Chen Yucheng and the preoccupation of Li Xiucheng with the Shanghai front left Nanjing vulnerable. The Taiping garrisons along the Yangtze river between Anqing and Nanjing would have no hope for reinforcements from the north nor the east, and Zeng Guoquan was on the march towards the Taiping capital. As Zeng Guoquan advanced, Taiping garrisons simply abandoned their outposts and forts, setting fire to their stockades before fleeing. It was an absolute disaster for the Taiping. They had always known the Qing forces would strike Nanjing from Anqing, but they never expected it to come this soon. By late May, Zeng Guoquans forces were reaching the Nanjing outskirts. Zeng Guoquan first seized an important junction in the riverway that controlled Nanjing's moat. Then on May 30th, he attacked a small hill just outside the southern gate of Nanjing. The hill was known as Yuhuatai “terrace of flowering rain”, and it held a fort at its top. While Nanjing had been so heavily fortified, people literally said it was impenetrable, it did have vulnerabilities and Yuhuatai was one of them. The hill was over 300 feet high, around a mile across and about a half mile away from Nanjing southern gate. From atop the hill one could peer into Nanjing, the perfect base of operations one would want when sieging such a grand city. Zeng Guoquan had 20,000 men with naval support to provision him. Zeng Guoquan dug in and began to send word back to his brother asking him to help procure western arms. Zeng Guofan was surprisingly not impressed with western arms. He wrote about how he found them quite finicky, overly complicated and prone to breaking down after 20-30 shots. He wrote back to his brother ‘the way to achieve victory is to be found in men, not in arms. Bao Chao has no foreign guns and no foriegn powder, yet he repeatedly achieves great victories. He Chun and Zhang Guoliang had foreign cannons with their Green standard force's siege of Nanjing in 1860, but they did not prevent their defeat. A true beauty doesn't fuss over pearls and jade, and a great writer needs no more than brush and ink. If a general is truly skilled at war, why should he go grasping for foreign weapons?””. Despite his views on the matter, Zeng Guoquan's persistent pleas eventually led him to purchase foreign arms from agents at Canton and Shanghai. Still Zeng Guofan insisted the foundation of their armies should rely on Jingalls, bird guns, Chinese made cannons and the good old sword and spear. One thing Zeng Guofan did realize though was the dramatic advantage of steamships. While in Anqing in 1862 he purchased a small steamship from Shanghai and gathered all the Qing scientists and engineers he could to the city to try and reverse engineer it. The ship soon broke down and none were able to repair it. But by the summer one engineer managed to build a working prototype steam engine and a year later Anqing would create a 28 foot long steamer. Meanwhile Prince Gong was also enthralled by the power of the steam engine and was trying to procure the purchase of some ships from Britain. While Britain wanted to keep the facade of neutrality going, especially after the Shanghai embarrassment, the idea of selling steamships to the Qing was an interesting one. If they provided ships, perhaps Britain's interests in China could be secured simply by protecting major waterways like the Yangtze. Prince Gong found a agent to try to get the ships, one Horatio Nelson Lay. Lay went to work approaching Captain Sherard Osborn, the captain of the Furious during the second opium war. He offered the captain a 4 year contract stating the man would take orders only from the Qing emperor and no other in China. These orders would go first to Lay, who would take up residence in Beijing. Now a nit picky piece of information here. Unlike the civil war in America, where Britain granted belligerent status to the confederates, in China no such recognition was ever made. This was because the British parliament wanted to officially remain neutral. But because there was no official belligerent status for the Taiping, this meant they were not protected by Britain's foreign enlistment act, which prevented the selling of things like, gunships to any party that was at war with a nation Britain had friendly relations with, ie: the Qing. Thus Britain was free to sell gunships to the Qing to be used against the Taiping. Ironically at the same time Lay was trying to procure a naval force from Britain, so was James Bulloch of the Confederate states of America. Lay would find success whereas James would find failure. Now there were some hiccups for Lay when it came to the foreign enlistment act. It was forbidden for British subjects to enlist in the national militaries of foreign states, thus captain Osborn would require special permission from the crown. But wouldn't you know it, in August of 1862 the foreign enlistment act was suspended suddenly and parliament went into recess over the entire summer and would only reconvene in february. Thus Lay and Osborn were able to serve the Qing and were allowed to hire British crews for the ships. Four months later, Lord Palmerston's government issued a second order making it lawful for any British officer to enlist in the service of the Qing emperor to quote “to serve the said Emperor in any military, warlike, or other operations, and for that purpose to go to any place or places beyond the seas, and to accept any commission, warrant, or other appointment from or under the said Emperor, and to accept any money, pay, or reward for their services.” There was one twist to all of this, anyone who served the Qing would have to resign or take a leave of absence from the Royal Navy. As you can imagine this meant that anyone who took the job would go unregulated and be unaccountable for their behavior, basically they were becoming much like Ward's mercenaries. By the time february came, all the work could not be undone, though the Tory's tried to reverse everything accusing Palmerston and the Whigs for getting Britain directly involved in the Chinese civil war. The entire thing was lambasted by multiple presses in Britain who pointed out rightfully, that Britain's finances were tied to the Qing paying reparations, and if the Taiping toppled the Qing the money might stop flowing. The first 3 vessels to be sent to China were the Mohawk, Jasper and Africa, renamed the Pekin, Amoy and China. The rest of the ships would be freshly constructed and it would take roughly a year to get them all over there. It was to be 7 gunships and one store vessel, they would range from men-of-war to smaller steamers that could traverse shallow riverways. They would carry around 40 guns and a crew of 400. Interestingly the Qing had never before required a naval ensign, so Lay helped them invent one, a green and yellow ensign with a dragon in the middle. The ships lacked the latest iron armoy, but this was insignificant as the Taiping had no decent artillery to hit them. The fleets flagship, the Kiang-soo was a 241 footer that could reach 19 knots, a very fast ship for its day. The fleet was called the Anglo-Chinese expedition, though many Historians refer to it as the Lay-Osborn flotilla. Though for the common Chinese people who were witnessing their weak imperial government's willingness to pay foreign mercenaries to win their battles, they deemed it the Vampire Fleet. The year of 1863 would prove very fruitful for the Qing forces. 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. It seems the rest of the world were now allied against the Taiping. Zeng Guoquan made an extremely bold attack upon Yuhuatai ushering in the deathrows of the Taiping capital. What could the Taiping do to stop it.
One freezing January night, in 1949, thousands of people fled China in search of a better life in Taiwan. Only hours later, under cover of darkness, the ship carrying them struck another vessel leaving more than 1500 passengers and crew to fend for themselves in open water. Follow us on social: https://twitter.com/mc_lotta https://twitter.com/handsomemaster2 Are you a FIRST Member and need your Private RSS feed for this show? Go here: bit.ly/FIRSTRSS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Last time we spoke the Qing dynasty was looking dreadful. More and more peoples were flocking to the Taiping, as the European forces were humiliating the Qing government. Yet the more independent figure of Zeng Guofan and his Xiang army was making headway with its siege of Anqing, so much so it forced the shield king to depart from Nanjing to meet the enemy on the field. The foreign community had not completely lost its faith in the Taiping and sent envoys to see what relations could be made. Then the grand pincer attack of the Taiping kings failed horribly and they were unable to stop the Xiang army from capturing Anqing. Nanjing was now threatened yet again and it seemed no headway was being made with the foreigners to earn their support. Can the Taiping come back from such defeats? #32 This episode is The Taiping Rebellion part 9: Li Hongzhang and the Anhui Army 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. On August 22nd of 1861, Emperor Xianfeng died at the age of 30. The probable cause of his death was tuberculosis, but many romanticize it as him dying of shame and disgrace, never returning to Beijing. I think his rampant abuse of opium may have contributed also. Zeng Guofan received the news on September 14th and had this to write “Heaven has collapsed, the earth is split open. My emperor, from the time he came to the throne until today, over the course of twelve years, never knew a day when he wasn't consumed by worry over our dangers. Now Anqing is finally conquered, and the longhairs have begun to weaken. It looks as if the war has reached a turning point. But my emperor did not live long enough to hear the report of victory, so his dejection and melancholy will follow him into eternity. What a terrible agony that is for me, and for all of his ministers.” Xianfeng had died after just 11 years of rule and to make matters worse, the throne was supposed to go from father to son, but Xianfeng was notably infertile. In spite of spending almost his entire time with a harem of 18 concubines and wives for years, Xianfeng had managed to only father one son. This son in 1861 was 5 years of age. Hong Rengan began to preach and boast about the situation. “Xianfeng left behind a little demon who is several years old and will find it difficult to continue the demon rule. This is precisely the time for us to seize the opportunity to uphold Heaven, and render ourselves not unworthy in our role as heroes of the world.” Confidence in the dynasty was crumbling, many of the elites within Beijing began to compare the previous Qing emperors' reigns to the current situation. Yet while many of these elites lamented about how the dynasty was in decay, none offered any remedy to the situation, much like our politicians today ahah. As much as Beijing was in disarray, the Taiping were in no position to march upon it, afterall they had just lost Anqing. However the death of Xianfeng reinfigerated the Taiping nonetheless. Chen Yucheng and the remnants of his battered army were cut off in northern Anhui while Li Xiucheng was marching east into Zhejiang province. Zhejiang at this time held around 26 million people and Li Xiucheng planned to conquer the province and gain further independence from Hong Rengan. Hong Rengan did not want Zhejiang province, well at least not at this time, what he wanted was for the Taiping to consolidate and take back Anqing. Control over the Yangtze region was the key to his strategy of consolidating a southern empire and for that Anqing was a major component. He began to beg Li Xiucheng sending letters from Nanjing to turn his army back around to smash Zeng Guofan. “the Yangtze has been described as a serpent, with its head at Hubei, its body in Anhui, and its tail in Jiangnan. We don't have Hubei, and if we let go of Anhui as well, the serpent will be sundered, and the tail won't survive for long on its own.” To all of this Li Xiucheng simply replied that Anqing was a hopeless cause and that he would not leave Zhejiang. Hong Rengan was livid, but what could he really do. Now the way Hong Rengan described the Yangtze as a serpent, was something Zeng Guofan also ascribed to. Both men understood the enormous advantage Wuchang and Anqing presented; they both controlled vast regions of agriculture. But along the eastern coast, particularly the port cities held enormous wealth and this is what attracted Li Xiucheng to Zhejiang. As a result of him taking forces into Zhejiang, now the overall momentum of the Taiping strategy skewed to the east. Hong Rengan had changed after his military disaster at Tongcheng. He was more bitter, angry that the foreigners would not support their cause. And the second he had left Nanjing, the Hong brothers had done everything they could to belittle him. One major thing they did was take away the need for Hong Rengans seal to forward information to the Heavenly Kings, thus taking the mediator monopoly from him. This also came at a time Hong Xiuquan's son was older and sitting in on important meetings, learning the ropes. The Heavenly son was gradually becoming more important than Hong Rengan, he was no longer the undisputed second in command of the movement. Despite this, Hong Rengan still remained in charge of foreign relations and much of the administration of Nanjing. While Hong Rengan was out of Nanjing, a ton of setbacks had occurred. The worst were the demands imposed upon the Taiping by Admiral Hope and Parkes, that the Taiping must stay at least 30 miles away from Shanghai and other treaty ports such as Hankou and Wuchang. The new 5 year old heir to the Qing dynasty was the son of one of Xiangfeng's concubines, a pretty Manchu woman named Yehonala. She gave birth to the boy at the age of 20 and since he was the sole male this made her status rise as she was the mother of a soon reigning emperor, a rank that compared to that of being the wife of the emperor. Her title became known as Empress Dowager, and she is quite infamous in modern Chinese history, her name since becoming the Empress Dowager became Cixi. She is often compared to Queen Victoria, as both would be the most powerful women of the 19th century. When Xianfeng died, he issued an edict naming his 8 closest Manchu advisers as regents for his son. Traditionally when a new emperor was too young to rule, power was entrusted to regents or family members until the emperor became old enough. With the boy being 5 years of age, the regents could expect to rule over the empire for at least a decade, not a bad gig. Many of these regents hated the Europeans and dreamed of breaking the treaties. Yet Prince Gong, who many thought was too soft on the foreigners, sought a plan to appease the foreigners by creating a office of foreign affairs, so that in the meantime all the strength of the Qing empire could be brought down upon the Taiping. Now the only check to the powers of the new regents was the pair of Empress Dowagers, Cixi and the Xianfengs widow . Before his death he had given them each an imperial seal. While all edict would be composed by the regents, the Dowager empresses would hold veto powers using their seals. The widow proved compliant to the regents from the offset, but Cixi did not follow the regents without question. She began to assert her independence and threatened to withhold approval for some of the regents' policy decisions, creating a tension between the 8 male regents and the mother of the emperor. The tensions came to a head in late October when Xianfeng's remains were finally brought back to Beijing. In the grand funeral procession, 124 bearers carried the dead Emperor and at their head was Sushun the top ranking regent. The two dowager empresses traveled with a forward party escorting the young emperor in a closed palaquin. The empresses would have a single day in the capital before Sushun would get there and they quickly went to work. The empresses met with Prince Gong immediately, using their private guards to thwart some of the other regents who were with them from preventing the audience. Some of the regents even tried to stop the boy emperor from meeting with Prince Gong, but Prince Gong had become quite popular in Beijing, having been the only one who stayed to do anything to help the city when the foreigners attacked, thus the population, and more importantly the Beijing guards stopped the regents forces. It also turns out Cixi had spent weeks secretly meeting with Prince Gongs brother at the hunting retreat in Rehe and they formed a plan. Prince Gong accompanied the empresses into Beijing making sure the regents were nowhere near them. Then Prince Gong read out an edict in the emperors name using the empress dowagers seals, charging Sushun and the other regents of treason, who could have seen that one coming. A detachment of Manchu guards led by Prince Gongs brother rode out to confront Sushun, arresting him and the other regents. They were accused of causing a war with Britain and France by misleading the late Emperor Xianfeng with treacherous advice. They were blamed for the kidnapping of Harry Parkes and other envoys, breaking faith with the foreign community and provoking Elgin to march on the capital. They also prevented the emperor against his will from returning to Beijing and faked the Emperor's will to make them regents, this is some real game of thrones shit right here. The trail was quick, as you would imagine, and within a week the regents were found guilty of all charges, gasp. 5 of them were striped of their rank and banished to the western frontier. The 3 most powerful regents, Sushun, Duanhua and Zaiyuan were sentenced to death, but in display of compassion, Cersei Lanister, I mean Empress Dowager Cixi, no idea how I mixed up those two figures, I see what you did Mr. George R Martin, Cixi granted Zaiyuan and Duanhua the privilege of strangling themselves with silk, but it turned out to be a symbolic gesture as they were hung in a dungeon. For Sushun who proved to be her true rival, he was beheaded in public on November 8th in a cabbage market. Now edicts proclaims empress dowager Cixi would quote “should in person administer the government and by assisted by a counselor or counselors, to be chosen from among the princes of the highest order, and immediately allied to the throne”. Thus Empress Dowager Cixi with Prince Gong as her chief adviser became the new ruler of the Qing dynasty. Now coming back to a point I made quite awhile back, I think during the first episode of the series, Karl Marx predicted in 1853 that the Taiping rebellion would cripple British trade in China and he was quite wrong, at least initially. Ironically, the civil war severed the internal trade networks within China causing merchants to dramatically look to external trade thus booming British trade. Figures rose about 30 percent from 1860-1861, but then another large event unfolded, another civil war, this time in America. Britain was thus trapped between two large civil wars. British commerce relied heavily upon both these nations. The United States, aka King Cotton in the south, provided the cotton for British textiles, which they sold in the far east. ¾'s of Britain cotton came from the US south and because of the tricky political situation now Britain could not afford to deal with those southerners lest they get caught up in the civil war. Now until the cotton dried up from the US, Britain was able to undersell the Chinese domestic cotton market, but with the outbreak of the war, the prices rose too high and now the Chinese were not buying their stuff. British exports dropped dramatically, causing textile factories to shut down. Cotton was just one part of the conundrum, because alongside it, the Americans consumed around 2/3rd of the green tea purchased by British merchants from China. Thus the British tea and textile trade was being torn to bits. There was one gleaming light of hope however. The new treaty ports in China offered some new opportunities. The British could trade between the ports, especially those along the Yangtze river. Hell the internal trade networks were shattered as a result of the civil war, but the British enjoyed steamship power along the rivers and the ability to go freely from port to port. Now Britain sought profit, to do so they needed to expand the Chinese markets, and this meant doing some business with the Taiping who held some of the good ports. Until now Britain had avoided open relations with the Taiping. Now on May 13th of 1861 Britain announced recognition of the confederacy meaning Britain would treat the south as a separate government contending for power and not a lawless rebellion. This meant Britain could loan money and purchase arms and supplies for the Confederacy. To the merchants in China this seemed to be the ideal situation that should be adopted there. Many called for treating the Taiping the same as the confederacy, hell the confederacy was recognized after mere months, while the Taiping had been around for 10 years. The house of commons debated the matter and after long a tedious back and forths it was decided the neutrality stance must be sustained, given however that the Taiping did not hinder British trade within the provinces they controlled. Meanwhile Li Xiucheng's army was running rampant in Zhejiang province, taking the capital of Hangzhou in December of 1861 after over 8 weeks of siege. The city had 2.3 million inhabitants and it proved quite easy to starve them out. Li Xiucheng had his men fire arrows with messages into the city stating the people would not be harmed and would be given the choice to join the Taiping or be left to leave freely. As one Qing commander at Hangzhou put it “Because the Loyal King issued orders not to harm the people, the people didn't help fight against him … Thus, none of the people suffered at the hands of the longhairs, and they all turned around and blamed the Imperials for their afflictions.” Thus the Manchu garrison burnt themselves alive while Qing officials slit their throats, but the common people went unmolested, nice for a change. It also seems Li Xiucheng took notice of the horrifying atrocities performed by Zeng Guofan at Anqing and wanted to earn the high ground with the commoners by pointing out how terrible the Manchu were. He even let the Manchu and Qing officials in Hangzhou go free, though as I said many took the alternative path of suicide. Hangzhou was the capital and lynchpin of Zhejiang province, an enormous blow to the Qing. But there was another city that was significant, Ningbo, a treaty port, on the other side of Hangzhou bay, and just due south of Shanghai. To go from Ningbo to Hangzhou by land was around 200 miles, roughly double the distance of that by ship. The Qing forces at Shanghai hoped Ningbo's close proximity would mean the foreigners might defend the city as well. But Bruce stamped that down pretty quick sending word to the consul of Ningbo that if the Taiping were to attack, the BRitish would not get involved. He also told Admiral hope “I do not think we can take upon ourselves the protection of Ningpo, we should not display British naval power near that city lest we get compromise ourselves in this civil contest”. Admiral Hope seems to have seen things differently as upon learning in may of 1861 that the Taiping were going to march on Ningbo, he dispatched Captain Roderick Dew in the 14 gunship Encounter to dissuade the rebels. Captain Dew was also told to try and make contact with any Taiping commanders nearest to Shanghai and to relay the same type of messages Parkes had when it came to Hankou. “Point out to the commander that the capture and destruction of the town of Ningpo would be extremely injurious to British trade and that he should desist from all hostile proceedings against the town. Don't commit yourself to the necessity of having recourse to force, but do remind him of what took place last year at Shanghai”. After giving the veiled threat to the Taiping Captain Dew went into Ningbo and told the Qing officials to mount every possible defense they could. Dew was told by Hope that under no circumstances could he open fire on the Taiping, it really was just a bluff. But Hope also asked Dew to investigate Ningbo and figure out the quote “amount of auxiliary european force which you think sufficient for its defense”. It seems the real politik at play was this. Both Admiral Hope and Frederick Bruce were planning ahead for what they assumed would be a major policy change. Both men expected their government to change its mind and wanted to be ready at a whims notice to defend any British interests from the Taiping. But in essence as you can see their actions were also drawing in conflict with the Taiping, the old self fulfilling prophecy. Both men did not want to see the Qing overthrown by the Taiping, because they seemed the worse choice as far as trade was concerned. All the customs duties from treaty ports were being used by the Qing to pay the reparations to the British for the second opium war, ahaaaaa there it really is. If the Taiping took a port, well the British could expect no return, but to prop up the Qing meant an endless cash flow. Nonetheless the Taiping represented a large threat, the British simply did not have enough forces to defend all their interests for the meantime they had to play a sort of ballet between the Taiping and Qing. Captain Dew ended up bringing 12 large cannons from the British armory at Shanghai and installed them on Ningpo's walls, figuring if it was not British manning them, well that didnt breach neutrality. But low and behold the Qing officials did not lift a finger to help defend the city, and why would they, if they made the situation worse perhaps the British would become more involved. When the Taiping approached Ningpo, the city emptied, well all those who could flee did. On November 26th the Taiping were 30 miles off from Ningpo and by December 2nd just a days march when the British sent a party to parley with them. The British pleaded for the Taiping to give the city one more week before assaulting it and they agreed to this for some unknown reason. On december 9th, 60,000 Taiping advanced in 2 columns towards the city gates as Taiping naval units rowed over to scale the walls from the sea. It was a relatively peaceful conquest as just about all Qing officials had fled prior. Of course the usual looting was done, but very little murders were performed. The French, American and British officials came to Ningpo to talk to the Taiping demanding they respect their trade privileges and the Taiping commanders agreed enthusiastically offering to execute anyone who dared lift a finger on any foreigner. Thus for the Taiping this was an incredible victory and one step closer to establishing good relations with the foreigners. 1862 was a year of many unknowns for China, both Beijing and Nanjing were re-forming themselves and no one could accurately predict how the war would go. Zeng Guofan was building up his Xiang army now using Anqing as an HQ. His power base was now Anhui province. To the east, Li Xiucheng controlled Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, nearly a quarter of China's yearly income came from these combined territories. After grabbing Ningbo, the only logical step forward was, Shanghai. It was a gleaming gem, unbelievable revenues could be earned by its control. The past 2 years had shown Li Xiucheng that the British simply would not pay the Taiping proper recognition nor respect and so he sought to finally do something about it. Li Xiucheng began to prepare his army to return to Shanghai, this time not so lightly armed. Li XIucheng was never one to believe the foreigners could have ever been won over in the first place and now Hong Rengan's authority was widely diminished in Nanjing, as for out here in the east it was honestly Li Xiucheng's show. As for the British, Ningbo seemed to not be trading much at all since the Taiping came, Anqing had fallen to Zeng Guofan and all the meanwhile Bruce was sending reports back home of endless Taiping atrocity stories whenever they took cities, most were fabricated. Bruce was trying to make parliament see that the stance of neutrality would eventually lead to the death of British trade. Harry Parkes also traveled back to Britain who would have a lot to say to the public about his time in China, his mistreatment afterall was the rationale for the burning of the summer palace. The very last deed he performed before sailing off was a last ditch attempt to stop the Taiping from approaching Shanghai, which they refused. In fact the negotiations had gone so terribly, one of Admiral Hope's commanders threatened to attack the rebels if they dared come near Shanghai. Back to Zeng Guofan, he finally had Anqing, but now he faced the daunting need for more and more men. By taking Anqing he now gained the vast territory around it, holding tens of millions of people spreading towards the east. The Taiping still controlled many towns in northern Anhui and Chen Yucheng was in full retreat going downstream towards Nanjing. Everything east of Nanjing was pretty much a hopeless cause. Zeng Guofan's men were exhausted, they spent basically a year besieging Anqing, many wanted to go back home, morale was low. Zeng Guofan began to rebuild in Anqing using his own men as laborers. Under his direction they rebuilt the confucian academy and examination hall, repaired the walls and restored the markets. Next he set up relief stations to help the famine stricken population and helped them restore the agricultural output of the region. He also sent his brother Guoquan back to their homelands of Hunan to recruit another 6000 Hunanese soldiers, because the next push was going to be against Nanjing. Now Zeng Guofan was taking a bit of a risk sending his brother to do such a thing. There was a coup going on in Beijing, the Cixi Cersei Lannister one I spoke of, he did not know what the outcome was going to be from said coup and his actions could be judged as anti Qing since he was gaining more and more power independently from Beijing. Zeng Guofan already had a growing number of critics within Beijing who saw him as a growing threat to the central government. Thus he simply dispatched word back to the capital stating he needed to gather as many forces as he could to be able to march upon Nanjing to ride the dynasty of the Taiping menace. But this was all a facade, in order to actually defeat Nanjing, it had to be strangled from supplies, similar to ANqing. Yet Chen Yucheng loomed around in northern Anhui, and he was still yet to consolidate all of southern Anhui. He would need to take vast territory in southern Anhui towards Hangzhou in Zhejiang province and this would require colossal forces. But a strategy formed in his mind, he envisioned 3 separate armies attacking in unison: one from Anqing going east downriver to Nanjing; another led by Zuo Zongtang would march through Jiangxi into Zhejiang to smash Hangzhou; the last would march through Jiangsu and fight towards Suzhou and then Nanjing. But such feats required vast amounts of men, and he was beginning to think his homelands of Hunan were being drained dry of youthful men. Thus he cast aside his conservative methods for the first time and began to cast a wider net, he was going to trust a non Hunanese man to help him in his endeavors, one of my favorite figures in modern Chinese history, Li Hongzhang. Li Hongzhang was 38 years old at this time, a scholar from Anhui province and he was asked to help form a new provincial militia that could supplement Zengs Hunanese one. Just like Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang was a Hanlin scholar, an elite who scored top of the examination system. He was 11 years younger to Zeng Guofan, his father literally passed the Jinshi examination in Beijing in the same group as Zeng Guofan in 1838. The two men became close early on, when Li arrived in Beijing in 1844, fresh from passing his provincial examination, it was Zeng Guofan who agreed to serve as his teacher to help prepare him for the Jinshi, which he passed with distinction in 1847. They were tied by friendship through Li's father, making Zeng Guofan something like an uncle to him, but even more than that, Zeng Guofan was his teacher and mentor. Within the Confucian culture, a student and teacher were akin to a son and father. Despite such close ties, it took Zeng Guofan a long time to come to the point where he would trust Li Hongzhang with his own army. Zeng Guofan knew the man was brilliant, he also knew he was ambitious. Li's older brother served on Zeng Guoan's staff, but when Li Hongzhang came to Zeng Guofan's military HQ in Hunan in 1858 looking for employment he was turned away. He was not just turned away, he was literally ignored for over a month. Yes Li spent a month hanging around until he got so frustrated he demanded Zeng Guofan given him a answer, which Zeng did, through an aid with some sarcasm he said to Li “perhaps the Hunan army was a bit to shallow a beach in which to harbor so large a ship as Li”. What Zeng was doing and would continue to do for a few years was to break Li's arrogance. He did this by various means, such as having guards drag Li literally out of bed if he ever overslept. Zeng was trying to toughen the man up, to test his grit. Li for his part hung in there, trying to convince Zeng of his loyalty and humility. They got in fights of course and this led Li to leave for a time, but by 1862 their relationship was solid and Zeng either through his trust in the man or in desperation entrusted him with basically being his second. Now there were some negatives to all of this. Zeng Guofan had very experienced military commanders at this point, much more experiences than Li Hongzhang, but Zeng Guofan was a scholar more than anything else and he valued Li Hongzhangs hanlin scholarship above all else. In early 1862, Li Hongzhang began to form a regional militia using the same model as the Xiang army, which would be known as the Anhui army. He performed the same type of recruitment scheme, going first to his home district, forming companies of troops from the same homes to serve officers who they had connections to. Several thousand Anhui commoners were brought to Anqing by February to begin training under the guidance of veteran officers of the Xiang army. This new army would have the same structure, same training and for all intensive purposes was a mirror image of the Xiang army. The only real difference was that Li Hongzhang took orders from Zeng Guofan whom was supposed to be taking orders from Beijing but was increasingly becoming more and more independent. Empress Dowager Cixi and Prince Gong basically had no choice, but to allow Zeng Guofan his autonomy, because he was proving to be one of the very few commanders capable of dealing defeats to the Taiping. In November they issued edicts appointing Zeng Guofan as the governor-general and imperial commissioner of Anhui, Jiangsu and Jiangxi alongside military control over Zhejiang. This was some pretty crazy stuff, he basically controlled 4 of the richest and most densely populated provinces. Zeng Guofan received the news of his new appointments at the same time as the news of what occurred during the coup, he was pretty surprised to say the least. Control over Zhejiang was a miserable part of the news, as it was literally being attacked with Hangzhou and Ningbo falling. He was a bit overwhelmed by it all and wrote in his diary “This power is too great, my stature will be too high, and my undeserved reputation has outgrown itself. This terrifies me to the extreme.” Despite his anxiety over it all, Zeng Guofan set to work and basically ordered his subordinates to perform a complete takeover of the civil administration of eastern China. Zeng Guofan's top subordinates became the individual governors of each province under him with Li Hongzhang receiving Jiangsu, Zuo Zongtang Zhejiang and two other proteges taking Jiangxi and Anhui. Now Zeng Guofan was able to redirect tax revenue from the provinces under his control, meaning he could hire and supply more troops. 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. Emperor Xianfeng was dead and Empress Dowager Cixi was in charge. Zeng Guofan was making a ton of progress, but there simply was not enough men so he had his student Li Hongzhang form a new Anhui army.
Last time we spoke The foreign community of Shanghai did not take the Taiping advances lightly and fired upon the rebels as they approached the great port city. The filibuster Frederick Townsend Ward created a foreign mercenary team to fight the rebels with pretty mixed results. Hong Rengan tried to smooth things over with the foreigners to earn their support, but nothing was going the Taiping's way. Meanwhile Zeng Guofan was building up his Xiang army, falling into despair at the prospect that Beijing might be captured by foreigners. Yet this did not stop Zeng Guofans resolve to take Anqing, a major stepping stone to seize Nanjing. It seems Hong Rengans grand strategy was falling apart as a result of the foreign community, could he turn things around before Zeng Guofan crushed his plans? #31 This episode is The Taiping Rebellion part 8: The Fall of Anqing 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. When the Taiping generals and officers were around things went relatively well for the populaces that came in contact with the Taiping assaults. However as the Taiping armies moved onwards, large groups of bandits followed in their wake, many Taiping secretly amongst them. They would plunder, rape and murder, the usual as it were. Horrible atrocities were common, one account from Xiangshan county in Zhejiang province had a recently groom disemboweled before 12 bandits raped his bride and killed her as well. In the same province one story told that “there were those who would cut open the stomach and drink the blood, and others who chopped off the four limbs. Some would dig out the heart and eat it…my pen cannot bear to write this”. They would carry off women to rape and young boys to be made into future conscripts. Often the Taiping vanguards if they could not find Qing officials, they would kill citizens of a city and dress up their corpses in Qing official attire, to invigorate the rest of the army. Heads went on stakes, placards were nailed to them. The violence between the Qing and Taiping was becoming indistinguishable. But as so often in China, alongside the horror, taxes were collected, crops were grown, new officials were appointed, life simply went on. The frank truth about this time period, is the Chinese commoners did not care who was in charge whether it be Taiping or Qing, they simply wanted the damn fighting to end so they could carry on with their lives, they just wanted some order and to be able to provide for their families. Facing so many new territorial gains and countless differing population under their control the Taiping established agreements with local leaders, such as the gentry class who were willing to play ball. Thus a lot of these territories held a lot of autonomy, that is if they paid taxes and made sure not to help the Qing. There was an interesting element of class struggle going on as well. Where the Qing ruled, the wealthy landowner gentry class or scholars generally called the shot. But where the Taiping ruled, you could join their ranks, no matter what class you came from and move up the social ladder. Real control still lay outside the Taiping's grasp. Though the Qing were weakened by the European victory of them and even with the Emperor literally fleeing the capital, the mandate of heaven still remained and as long as it did, those loyal to it would resist the rebels. Hong Rengan and Li Xiucheng did not agree on a great many things, but one thing they certainly saw eye to eye on was the need to consolidate the fertile southern provinces, to take what was once the old Ming empire and use it to starve the Qing in the north. By autumn of 1860, Li xiucheng was forced to leave his command in the eastern provinces, to come to relieve Anqing from Zeng Guofan's siege. Hong Xiuquan actually sent orders for Li Xiucheng to march north to hit Beijing again now that it was weakened, but he refused, ironically similar to how Zeng Guofan refused Emperor Xianfeng. Instead Li Xiucheng insisted he should go west into Jiangxi and Hubei provinces, were several hundreds of thousands of people could be recruited into the Taiping ranks. He would use these men to lift the Anqing siege and this all meant a clash with Zeng Guofan in Qimen. Before Li Xiucheng left Nanjing for his campaign he told the citizens ‘if Anqing can be held, there is no need to worry, but if it is not firm, the capital will not be secure, everyone needs to start stockpiling food”. In 1861 Hong Rengan took to the field under orders from the heavenly king, to help relieve Anqing. It was the first time he commanded an army, he himself had never really fought in a battle before. All the way over in Beijing, Prince Gong was begging Emperor Xianfeng to return to the capital, hell the war was over, the foreign barbarians had left, the sovereign was needed in the capital to reassure the people. Yet Xianfeng refused to go back to Beijing, he was furious that Pring Gong agreed to allow foreign envoys to be in Beijing, he could not be around them. Thus Xianfeng stayed at his hunting retreat with his empress and harem of concubines, busying himself by ordered his staff to make improvements to what had become his new home. Prince Gong meanwhile was received terrible reports from Zeng Guofan about difficult situation at Anqing. Prince Gong understood the Taiping menace was akin to a disease in ones inner organs, they were the most urgent problem the dynasty had to deal with, the foreigners were actually a secondary threat when compared. Thus he decided to do what was ever necessary to appease the foreigners while everything should be directed at defeating the Taiping. Once the rebellion was over then they could do something about all the foriegn encroachment. At the same time he wondered if it was time for the Qing to seek aid from the foreigners to quell the Taiping. Russia unlike the others, was free from the obsession of neutrality and had been hassling Qing officials to offer direct military aid. The Russians also offered shipping aid, suggesting they could coordinate with the Americans to bring southern rice to Tianjin by ocean routes. The Russians were the oddball out when it came to foreign powers in China. They were still angry about the Crimean War and while the Americans British and French fought tooth and nail for maritime trade rights, Russia alone shared a land border with the Qing, one that was thousands of miles long. The Russians saw the enormous opportunity a weak Qing government offered them, they could perhaps expand their territory or develop cross border trade. Thus the Tsar sent representatives who offered Xianfeng rifles as early as 1857, and during the negotiations in Tianjin in 1858 they went a step further offering military advisors. All they asked was for a little control over the territory north of the Amur river, which was in the Manchu homelands. As you can imagine Xianfeng didn't like that deal and said no, but then in 1860 when the Europeans defeated the Qing and forced them to sign the treaty of Tianjin, the Russian diplomat, Nikolai Pavlovich Ignatiev managed to negotiate a secret Sino-Russian treaty on the side. Ignatiev said he would help the Qing to not be toppled by the other Europeans, if Prince Gong granted Russia control over the north region of the Amur river, an area 300,000 miles large, that was bigger than Korea. The Russians offered a gift of rifles and 400 russians aboard steam powered gunships to coordinate with the Qing military and attack Nanjing. Prince Gong took the offer seriously and pressed the question over to many high ranking Qing officials, one of which was Zeng Guofan. There was a ton of bickering amongst those in support of the deal and those against, Zeng Guofan was one of those for it. Zeng argued Russian and China had no real qualms between another, and it was not unprecedented to accept such help, the previous dynasty after all accepted help from the Dutch to fight the Taiwan rebels in the 17th century. But Zeng Guofan also argued what he needed was not naval forces, no they needed land forces, there was simply no route by which to advance on Nanjing otherwise. He advised modifying the offer to such means. Zeng Guofan finished by arguing what they really needed was to improve their own technological abilities, so they would not need external help in the future. “If we study how they make their cannons and ships, it will be of great benefit to us in the long run.” In the end Xianfeng agreed to taking 10,000 rifles and 8 cannons from the Russians, but declined naval services. In february of 1861 Admiral Hope sailed up the Yangtze river to see if relations could be opened with the Taiping without permission from the British government. The government back home was bickering over the civil war issue, many demanded Britain must remain neutral, a few thought it would be a good idea to help the Qing defeat the rebels, they did after all have a treaty with them and expected the weakened dynasty to pay up, and a select few thought the Taiping cause might be just. Regardless Admiral Hope was enroute to Nanjing with a small squadron of gunboats and it took them two weeks to navigate 200 miles up the river to Nanjing. They were the largest foreign party to visit Nanjing and their lead negotiator was none other than the racist nutcase Harry Parkes. They reached Nanjing on February 24th, missing Hong Rengan who had left in early February to help Anqing. On march 1st, Harry Parkes explained the British sought trade along the Yangtze river as was their right under the new treaty they signed with the Qing. Regardless of which side held control over the river banks, Britain wanted to sail freely and they intended to leave a 6 gun paddle frigate, the Centaur in Nanjing to protect British subjects who might visit the city. The Taiping officials relayed the messages to Hong Xiuquan and he sent word back warning his followers not to allow the British to leave their gunboat, he could simply not allow this. Apparently Parkes had a screaming match with the officials saying “he must have another vision!”. And somehow this led to the Taiping agreeing, then Parkes warned them if they attacked Zhenjiang or Jiujiang, both under Qing control, they had best not harm any British subjects or property. In return he promised British forces would not interfere nor harm Taiping. After this apparently the officials just kept pestering Parkes for weapons and he had this to write about it all “The rebels want arms it is the same … on the side of the Imperialists, opium and arms, opium and arms, is the one cry we hear from mandarins, soldiers, and people, at every place we have yet come to.” Admiral Hope meanwhile observed the Taiping and concluded they were a destructive force that should be kept at arms length. He deduced “a period of anarchy, indefinite in duration in China, in which the commercial towns of the empire will be destroyed, and its most productive provinces laid waste.” To this end Hope urged that a 30 mile radius around Shanghai be defended to prevent the Taiping from entering the city. By the end of March, Parkes demanded the Taiping not approach Shanghai with a 2 days march of the city or any other treaty port. Hong Xiuquan agreed to not let his forces within 30 miles of Shanghai, but made no promises for the other cities. Admiral Hope told the Taiping officials, Britain would put an end to any renegade British subjects helping the Qing as mercenaries, but would ask the same be done for the Taiping side. Speaking about those foreign mercenaries on the Taiping side, a British representative named Robert Forrest was sent from Shanghai in march of 1861 to go to Nanjing to investigate if and who were aiding the Taiping. It turns out there were around a hundred or so foreign men working as mercenaries for them. They were the same group of men that had been led by Savage before his death, now their leader was a man named Peacock. On the other side, the British consul reported they had caught 13 members of Frederick Townsend Ward's mercenary men at Songjiang and one of them said he had another 82 men under his command. 29 of these men were royal navy deserters. By May 19th, Ward was caught and arrested as he was trying to recruit more men in Shanghai. Since he was an American, the only person with jurisdiction over him was the US consul. When Ward was questioned the man said he was no longer American and now a subject of the Qing emperor. He was even engaged to a Chinese woman, though that would prove to be a quick ruse. On top of that the provincial governor of Shanghai happened to be a patron of Ward and produced papers proving his Qing citizenship. All of this was so convincing the US consul refused to prosecute Ward and he was set free to keep luring more foreigners into the service of the Qing. There was no real legal basis to go after Ward and a very frustrated Admiral Hope simply grabbed the man and locked him up on his flagship. But Ward jumped out a window and swam away. Now back to the Anqing front, Zeng Guofan had begun his campaign against the fulcrum point to Nanjing in the summer of 1860. The city was the domain of the Brave king, Chen Yucheng. In the spring of 1860 he decamped with the bulk of his army to help Li Xiucheng break the Qing siege of Nanjing, leaving behind a garrison of around 20,000 to hold the city of Anqing. The garrison were unseasoned recruits mostly from Hunan and Hubei provinces. Zeng Guofan took advantage of Chen Yucheng's sortie by sending his brother with 10,000 men through the Jixian pass to prod Anqing. Anqing did not flinch, their defenses were quite strong and they were very well provisioned. Initially Zeng Guofans siege of Anqing was of little concern to the Taiping leadership. They knew the city was strong enough to hold out and took their time to gradually send a relief force in september of 1860. However, this was also part of Hong Rengans strategy's second phase. After consolidating the southern reaches of the Yangtze east of Nanjing, he directed the Taiping forces upstream. Once it became very apparent the foreigners in Shanghai would not sell steamships to them, which Hong Rengan was depending on to get the forces to hit Wuchang, he opted to simply march overland to capture the city. After the fall of Suzhou, Chen Yucheng and Li Xiucheng formed a massive pincer operation against Wuchang. Chen Yucheng would take a 100,000 strong army around the north through Anhui while simultaneously breaking the siege of Anqing in early winter en route to Wuchang. Li Xiucheng would mirror this by going south of the great river hitting Zeng Guofans HQ in Qimen alone the way and send his forces to smash Zeng Guoquan at Anqing before marching on Wuchang. Now Zeng Guofan had staked just about all his forces on the siege of Anqing, he only had a defensive garrison at Qimen of 3000 troops. All of his troops were in danger of being cut off from their supplies and reinforcements. Cheng Yucheng went through Anhui recruiting some Nian rebels who help create feint attacks to confuse the Qing as to where they were marching. Eventually in late november his army turned south to hit Anqing, but between them lay the Taiping held city of Tongcheng and alongside it Chen Yucheng ran right into an enormous Qing cavalry force of 20,000 men led by the Manchu general Duolonga. Duolonga had been sent by Zeng Guofan to protect the approach of Anqing from its north and the cavalry force proved a major obstacle to the Taiping. Chen Yucheng was forced to take his men to Tongcheng for its walls protection and had to abandon his march upon Anqing. Remember the Taiping were rather weak when it came to cavalry, it was one of the few advantages the Qing held over them. Thus a force of 20,000 Qing cavalry was quite a force to be reckoned with. Chen Yucheng held Tongcheng against the Qing through the winter and decamped in March around the same time Hong Rengan left Nanjing. He led his force northwest beyond the range of the Qing cavalry and then turned sharply southwest to rush over to Wuchang. Along the way his men had to smash several Qing militia forces while a Qing cavalry detachment tried to cut their way off. But by march 17th of 1861 Chen Yuchengs men got to Huangzhou on the Yangtze's northern bank just 50 miles downstream from Wuchang. There his men surprised the Qing garrison of 2000 men slaughtering them all. By capturing Huangzhou, Chen Yucheng had the perfect base of operations to attack Hankou and then Wuchang. Meanwhile in Qimen, Zeng Guofan was anxious about the Taiping advances that seemed to be converging. The attending King, cousin to Li Xiucheng had captured Xiuning, 30 miles to his immediate east. He dispatched Bao Chao to take back the city while he was receiving news his brother Guoquan was not doing well at Anqing. Then terrible news came on November 26th, Li Xiuchengs entire army was approaching from the north. Zeng Guofan quickly dispatched riders to call for help, but his nearest forces had left with Bao Chao to take back Xiuning and Li Xiuchengs forces had appeared directly between them. All he could do was send a letter to his brother at Anqing stating “the rebels are only 15 miles from my Headquarters, just a stones throw and there are no obstacles to stop them….All we can do now is study our defenses and, when they come, try to hold out until someones comes to help us”. However Li Xiucheng did not immediately attack Qimen, he had no idea of the HQ's strength and paused to gather intel. This pause allowed Bao Chao to come sweeping in with his cavalry to smash into the Loyal King's army who were exhausted from their long march. Bao Chao's force was much smaller so he continuously harassed the Taiping army, but never fully dedicated his army to a full battle. Li Xiucheng simply took his men and marched into Jiangxi as per the pincer plan. Despite Li Xiucheng moving on, 3 smaller Taiping forces were still harassing Zeng Guofan and he suspected this was a feint to mask an offensive against Anqing. His HQ were severed off from their supply routes because of the Li Xiuchengs cousin, thus he had to disband his HQ and tried to march east, only to be attacked and pushed right back to Qimen. Meanwhile Chen Yucheng awaited Li Xiucheng's forces to meet up with him at Hankou, but he was in a bit of a situation. Hankou was a new treaty port for the British and it just so happened Admiral Hope's expedition was on its way back from Nanjing. Harry Parkes showed up to pay a visit warning the Taiping not to cause any harm to the treaty port. Chen Yucheng spoke with Parkes, talking about the plan to take Hankou and Wuchang. Parkes had gone past these cities and knew they were weakly defended and because some British subjects were there stated this. “I commanded his caution in this respect and advised him not to think of moving on Hankou because they could not take the city without seriously interfering with British commerce”. Thus Parkes basically threatened Chen Yucheng, that he would face the same fate as Li Xiucheng had at Shanghai. Chen Yucheng tried to negotiate, stating his forces would absolutely make sure not to hinder the British, but Parkes was adamant and Chen Yucheng was forced to agree not to advance on the city. Now Chen Yucheng had no idea what to do, so he sent word back to Nanjing asking for instructions and thus the opportunity to smash Hankou was slipping away. The Qing cavalry that was chasing him across Anhui province made it to Wuchang sounding the alarm forcing him to dig in at Huangzhou. It would take months for Nanjing to give Chen Yucheng a message back and in the meantime Wuchang and Hankou would be heavily reinforced. Downriver at Anqing the siege had reached its 8th month. Zeng Guoquans trench lines surrounded the city with sequences of walls and moats about 2 miles from Anqing's walls. It was like an extra fortified wall around Anqing that defended against anyone coming out of the city or coming to relieve it. Zeng Guoquan even had riverine units blockading Anqing from receiving aid via the river, but there was a major flaw in this, foreign ships. At Anqing's southern gate, foreign steamships could drop anchor and unload food or weapons at very inflated prices for the people of Anqing. If Zeng Guoquan tried to stop them it violated the treaty of Tianjin, which the Taiping were trying to abide by to win over western support. And alongside this, believe it or not a small market emerged between the besiegers and besieged. Zeng Guofan had not dished out the payroll for over 9 months, forcing the besiegers to seek salaries elsewhere, thus many began to smuggle food into Anqing for money. War can be quite silly at times. Back to Li Xiucheng, his army moved past Qimen in December and made its way through southern Anhui to see if Zeng Guoquan would back off of Anqing. Li Xiucheng also sent forces into Jiangxi and Hubei where hundreds of thousands of possible new recruits lay for the plucking. Slowly but surely, his army made its way to Wuchang to meet up with Chen Yucheng's army, but he was expected by April and he missed this deadline. By April most of his army was still in Jiangxi province, more than 200 miles away from the assembly point. By early May his forces got to the city of Ruizhou, 150 miles from Wuchang. But instead of carrying on, the citizens of Ruizhou begged him to stay and Li Xiucheng found himself doing so as he likewise recruited another 300,000 followers over the course of a few weeks. Now as incredible as it sounds, for him to gain so many, these were all untrained forces, given weapons yes, but not exactly trustworthy. Zeng Guofan understood this and he understood that such an army had a large mouth to feed. Li Xiucheng would only arrive to Wuchang in June, 2 months late for the expected rendezvous. He expected Chen Yucheng to be in Hankou ready to launch an assault on Wuchang, but soon learnt his colleague had left and worse yet, he never took Hankou. By this point, Wuchang had enjoyed 3 full months of warning of the impending Taiping armies and had called up reinforcements. With such vast numbers of untrained men, Li Xiucheng did not dare approach Wuchang too close and set camp on the outskirts of its county. Chen Yucheng had left a garrison at Huangzhou to coordinate with Li Xiucheng, but when Li arrived in the area the river was being controlled by Zeng Guofans navy making it impossible to communicate with Huangzhou. In desperation Li Xiucheng turned to the British consul at Hankou to deliver a message to Huangzhou. The British consul kept that letter as a souvenir and did not deliver it. With no reply from Chen Yucheng, and with no idea where or what he was doing, Li Xiucheng had basically no options left when it came to Wuchang. He could not remain where he was, his new forces were untested and he did not believe they could take Wuchang. He received word Bao Chao was coming from the east to attack him and he knew such veteran troops could do carnage to his green forces. Thus at the end of June he abandoned the western campaign and took his goliath sized army into Hubei. Bao Chao tried to pursue him, but Li Xiucheng had a good headstart and made his way over land and sea eventually moving through southern ANhui and then into Zhejiang. With Li Xiucheng failing to show up in time, Chen Yucheng had to act on his own. He received no further instructions from Nanjing about whether or not to attack Hankou so he decided to leave a garrison at Huangzhou and took his forces downriver to hit Anqing. On April 27th he made it to the Jixian pass with 30,000 troops easily scaring off the quite outnumbered Xiang troops there. Then he began the process of building fortifications outside Zeng Guoquans fortified encirclement…basically it was a fort, covered by another fort, covered by now another fort, infortception? So now there were 2 rings surrounding Anqing, meanwhile Chen Yucheng managed to sent rafts with supplies across the river to Anqing. After 3 days of trying to break through parts of Zeng Guoquans walls, Duolonga's pursuing force had gotten between his forces and the nearest Taiping held city of Tongcheng. This threatened Chen Yuchengs supply and communications line to Nanjing and without Li Xiucheng it seemed he would be unable to break Zeng Guoquans defensive lines. Thus Chen Yucheng looked like he was going to have to depart, but then on May 1st, a Taiping army 20,000 strong showed up led by Hong Rengan at Tongcheng. By May 6th, Hong Rengan sent scouts to meet up with Chen Yucheng, but they were beaten back savagely by Duolonga's cavalry force. It was at this point Chen Yucheng made a grave mistake. He left 12,000 men behind to hold the encirclement defenses and withdrew with the rest of his men northwards to strike at Duolonga's cavalry in coordination with Hong Rengan from the north. On May 24th the two Taiping armies attacked Duolonga in 3 columns, 2 from the north and 1 from the south, but a Qing spy had revealed this strategy to Duolonga. Duolonga set up an ambush, using a detachment of cavalry going around Chen Yuchengs forces rear, falling upon the men and sending them into a rout. Soon Chen Yucheng's army was running to Tongcheng receiving massive casualties in the process. The rout also severed Chen Yucheng from his 12,000 men back at the encirclement of Anqing, leaving them helpless without leadership nor possible reinforcements. As for Hong Rengan, it was his first foray into military command and it would effectively be his last. At the same time Hong Rengan's army was receiving its defeat, the Heavenly King was hosting a visit from Harry Parkes and was greatly unnerved by it wishing for Hong Rengan to return to Nanjing to deal with such matters. Thus an order was sent out for him to return and he did so. Chen Yuchengs blunder left 12,000 men in a terrible situation, 4000 were manning the Jixian pass and around 8000 were at Waternut Lake with only the supplies they had brought with them. They outnumbered Zeng Guoquans encirclement forces, but only by a bit and now the Qing would smash them. Zeng Guofan had ordered Bao Chao to help ferry his army across the Yangtze river to get over to his brother to help. The day after Chen Yucheng had fled to Tongcheng, Zeng Guofan and his brother's armies swept over the Jixian Pass force, breaking them within a week. On June 7th, the Taiping at Jixian Pass surrendered, Bao Chao's men killed 3000 of them. Then they went on to smash the Taiping at Waternut Lake, eventually defeating them by July 7th. 8000 Taiping surrendered, handing in 6000 foreign rifles, 8000 long spears, 1000 jingalls, 800 Ming dynasty matchlocks and 2000 horses, a very nice haul. Zeng Guoquan had no idea what to do with all the prisoners, a force almost as large as his own who were very dangerous. One of his battalion commanders suggested they just kill them all and he made a suggested plan. They could open the gates of the camp and let the prisoners in 10 at a time so they could be beheaded in batches, “in half a day, we could be done”. What a monster. Zeng Guoquan didnt have the stomach for such a thing and left it all to the said commander who by his own accounts oversaw the butchering of 8000 POW's in the course of a single day. Apparently they started at 7am, and were done by sun down, my god. It seems Zeng Guoquan was deeply troubled by the slaughter and I don't blame him. Despite the great victory, the siege of Anqing still ground on as Bao Chao and Zeng Guoquan smashed Taiping relief forces. It was the foriegn ships bringing provisions into the city that was making the difference. Zeng Guofan tried to send word to the British to stop making deliveries, but they kept ignoring his messages. By mid July he was fed up after finding out a foreign ship had unloaded nearly 200 tons of rice to Anqing, so he sent a complaint to Beijing. It seems his complaint worked like a charm, Prince Gong sent word to Bruce on July 18th protesting the British help of the Taiping at Anqing, demanding Qing forces be allowed to search every ship that went to the city. Thus Bruce halted any British ships from going to Anqing and in the late summer Zeng Guofan began to receive captured letters from Anqing defenders indicating they were finally running out of food. Chen Yucheng tried one last time to try to lift the siege at Anqing, taking the remnants of his battered army along with the survivors of Hong Rengans he marched in a long northern sweep around Duolonga's forces to get to the Jixian Pass where his force reoccupied the defenses they had made there. Chen Yucheng planned for all out offensive leading him to perform a desperate mission to rescue his family from Anqing by river while Zeng Guofan's navy fired upon any and all ships departing from the city. August saw a symphony of gun and cannon fire with Taiping waves of men throwing themselves against Zeng Guoquans encirclement, row upon row of them pouring out from Anqing and from Chen Yucheng. The dead piled up against the defensive works on either side as the living clambering over them to try and kill the gunners atop. Then on the night of september 3rd, with the sound of guns, cannons and blades sundering the landscape, all went quiet as Chen Yucheng tossed the towel at last. He burnt the stockade at Jixian Pass to the ground and left Anqing to suffer its fate to the Qing. Most of the defenders managed to escape Anqing during the battle, escaping through some tunnels made underneath Zeng Guoquans encirclement. The burning of the Jixian Pass stockades provided a decent distraction, though there is evidence that the great escape of so many Taiping was actually an arrangement made by a Qing commander. In exchange for handing over Anqing without a fight they perhaps let the Taiping defenders go. Regardless, all the civilians remained in Anqing alongside some poor defenders chained to the wall mounted cannons. The Xiang forces entered the city unopposed on September 5th. The depths of horror found within the city would leave a long last nightmare. After the foreign ships were banned form bringing provisions, the inhabitants of Anqing ate all the food, then the animals including rats, until nothing was left, all except for one thing. The Xiang forces found out while all the food had run out, the markets were still open for business, the business of selling human flesh, at around half a tael per catty, or 38 cents a pound. Around 16,000 people were left alive in the city. Zeng Guofan wrote to his brother asking what they should do with the people “When we conquer the city, the proper thing to do will be to kill a lot of people. We shouldn't let compassion lead us to err in the grand scheme of things. What do you think?” There are differing accounts of the slaughter, one states Zeng Guofans officers first separated the women and children from those being killed, another states all were treated the same. 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. Zeng Guofan finally captured the great city of Anqing, a stepping stone to taking Nanjing. The Taiping pincer strategy failed utterly and now they were left in disarray. Can the Taiping come back from these defeats?
Last time we spoke Hong Rengan, the cousin of the heavenly king made a long pilgrimage to get to Nanjing. When Hong Rengan finally made it to Nanjing, the heavenly king rejoiced and began showering him with titles. Hong Rengan soon became the Shield King, but this drew jealousy and resentment from the Loyal king Li Xiucheng. Hong Rengan quickly went to work restructuring the movement, making dramatic improvements and began a campaign to win over foreign support. A grand strategy was formed to break the encirclement of Nanjing and it succeeded in a grand fashion, bringing the Taiping closer to Shanghai where a large foreign community awaited. However rumors spread that the Taiping wished to attack Shanghai creating fear amongst the foreigners they sought to ally with. Could Hong Rengang turn the tides in favor for the Taiping? #30 This episode is The Taiping Rebellion part 7: Ward's Mercenaries & the Battle for Shanghai 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. Shanghai was not a typical Chinese city, it had a complicated division of jurisdictions such as the international city with each nation having its own military force and each foreign citizen was liable only to their nations authorities. Trading vessels came and left, exchanging not only cargoe but crews from all around the world. People from all walks of life came to Shanghai and much like Mos Eisley, “you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy”. Now in 1860, just 12 miles due west of Shanghai a group of irregular military men began to run drills in a muddy little village. There were around 200 Europeans and Americans in a unit, wearing a hodgepodge of uniforms. Some wore red coats and dark pants, typical British marine getup, other blue jackets with white bell bottoms, that of french sailors, others tattered fabrics of merchant crews. For weapons, many had colt revolvers others sharp repeating rifles and the reason they drilled was to capture the Taiping held town of Songjiang, 10 miles further away from Shanghai. Alongside Qingpu, Songjiang was a strategic walled town and a necessary stepping stone for one to invade Shanghai from Hangzhou or Suzhou. The motley crew of mercenaries were being paid for by a banker named Yang Fang at the incredibly high rate of 100 dollars per month per man. On top of their handsome salaries these men were promised rewards of a hundred thousand dollars if their unit was able to defeat the Taiping garrison at Songjiang alongside anything they could loot. The commander of this unit was an American named Frederick Townsend Ward. He was 29 years old, from Salem Massachusetts and had deep black eyes and a thatch of unruly raven like hair worn long over his ears. Wards army was modeled on the so called filibusters, those American soldiers who frolicked in latin america in the 19th century. Ward was not drawn just by money but also the dream of establishing a new state to govern. Ward had been frustrated during his military career, he had failed to gain admission to West Point in 1846 and spent a year at Norwich university, a private military college in Vermont, without even graduating. His real military training came informally, in central america in 1852 when he enlisted with the infamous William Walker who led a small army of Americans to fight a civil war in Nicaragua to overthrow its government with the intent to form a new Yankee state. Ward fought hard for Walker, but left his camp to form his own, while Walker conquered Nicaragua and installed himself president in 1856. It was a short lived state to be sure, 4 years later the British captured Walker and arrested him for breaking neutrality laws. Meanwhile Ward traveled to Shanghai to launch his own venture against the Taiping, while his former mentor was executed by firing squads in Honduras. The Taiping-Qing civil war was a fantastic opportunity for a would be filibuster and initially ward came to china to join the rebels and overthrow the Manchu. However upon making it to Shanghai, making contact with the Taiping proved difficult. Ward first found work aboard a french steamer named Confucius, hired by some wealthy Chinese merchants to protect them against Yangtze pirates. Eventually Ward and the captain of the Confucius found themselves employed by local military authorities, thus Ward ended up selling his sword to the Qing. They saw in him some leadership qualities and had him begin recruiting Europeans, Americans and Filipinos to create a mercenary force to defend the region outside Shanghai. His army was strictly illegal, a complete violation of the neutrality laws. His force of mostly deserters could not even be treated for wounds in Shanghai lest they be arrested. Despite the small size of his force, the practically mythical belief in western arms being vastly superior led many of their enemies to simply surrender upon seeing a causasian opponent. Wards army was meant to be a spearhead for a 10,000 strong Qing force that followed behind it as they invaded garrisoned cities. Wards unit attacked Songjiang in april of 1860 and it did not go very well. With zero artillery to blast open the gates, Wards planned to sneak over the city walls under the cover of darkness using scaling ladders. Ward's men got so shit face drunk before their daring attack, that all their singing and swearing alarmed Songjiangs defenders when they approached. As they tried to climb, the Taiping cut them to pieces. After the failure ward sent men to purchase artillery pieces in Shanghai, managing to grab 2 pairs of half ton Napoleon field guns and Ward also procured a ton more men. Now he attacked Songjian again in July, this time with 500 troops, a great many being Filipino's. Under the cover of a fog, and less drunk the artillerymen bombarded the gate of Songjiang with 12 pound shells as the unit stormed the city. This assault proved to be a worse disaster than the last one. When they got through the outer gate, the found out the inner gate was undamaged. Thus Ward and his men were stuck in the wall, they couldn't get past the inner gate and could not bring their Napoleon cannons across the moat to hit it. The Taiping defenders were above them tossing stinkpots filled with burning sulfur all night long. Ward's men managed to budge the inner gate a couple of feet using bags of gunpowder, but they were being fired upon all the while. If it was not for their repeating rifles being so effective at close range, they probably would have not survived the night. Luckily they survived the night and soon their Qing backup showed up at dawn forcing the Taiping garrison to flee. Most of Wards 500 men were dead and all by 27 survivors were severely wounded. It was a terrible victory, but the city was theirs and Ward set up his new HQ in a Confucian temple. With Songjiang as a base, he regrouped, recruited and set up a new offensive for August the 1st to hit Qingpu 10 miles northwest. It did not go well, turns out the Taiping in Qingpu had managed to assemble their own type of Ward army led by an English coastal pirate named Savage who rangled up several of his comrades along the Taiping to man some big guns. Wards Qing backup army also did not show up and during the fighting Ward took a bullet right through both of his cheeks. Wards extremely drunk lieutenant tossed the new recruits, made up of mostly greeks and italians to throw themselves at the walls of Qingpu again 2 weeks after the first failed attack, this time with the Qing backup showing up, but all they managed to do was stir up a Taiping garrison now reinforced to a whopping 50,000 men led by Li Xiucheng himself. Li led a surprise flanking attack that routed the Ward army, not only winning the battle for Qingpu but also threatening Songjiang as Li Xiucheng chased them all the way there. The Taiping harassed Songjians gates for over 2 weeks and the only saving grace for Ward was the fact Savage was alongside the Taiping and he got shot dead. As we have seen, not all the foreigners were so hostile to the Taiping, Ward initially and Savage were willing to sell their swords to them. And in early july of 1860 as Ward had been preparing his attack on Songjiang, a small boat left Shanghai for the interior carrying 5 British and American missionaries who sought to contact the Taiping in Suzhou. One of them was Joseph Edkins and friend to James Legge, who was trying to find out if Hong Rengan had made it to Nanjing. The group ran into some Taiping units who told them Hong Rengan was the prime minister of Nanjing. The group were mortified when they got to Suzhou seeing the savagery committed there and as Griffith John described of seeing the ruined temples ““It is common to see the nose, chin, and hands cut off. The floors of these buildings are bestrewn with relics of helpless gods. Buddhist and Daoist, male and female. Some are cast into the canals, and are found floating down the stream mingled with the debris of rifled houses and the remains of the dead.” Li Xiucheng was in Suzhou at the time and he invited the missionaries for an audience. It was not a long meeting, but the missionaries found the man to be gentle, intelligent and he kept his soldiers well disciplined. They found themselves in agreement when it came to religious doctrine, but the missionaries knew the merchants of Shanghai cared for only one thing. Thus hey asked Li Xiucheng if he would allow the silk trade to continue under Taiping rule and Li Xiucheng replied that was exactly what the Taiping sought. Thus the group returned to Shanghai and countless newspapers in SHanghai began to publicize pro Taiping accounts. Edkins declared “They are revolutionists in the strictest sense of the term; both the work of slaughter and of plunder are carried on so far as is necessary to secure the end. These are evils which necessarily accompany such a movement, and are justifiable or otherwise in so far as the movement itself is so.” The idea the Taiping would be a state friendly to the west gained momentum. At the end of July, Edkins and Griffith returned to Suzhou for a second visit upon letters of invitation from Li Xiucheng and Hong Rengan. This time they found an even warmer welcome, with Hong Rengan present draped in silk robes wearing an embroidered gold crown. Hong Rengan insisted they do not kowtow nor kneel as this was not the western fashion, but instead give him a hearty handshake, and he dismissed servants so they could talk informally. They talked of old times like old friends about missionary work, they prayed and sang hymns and talked of China's future. Hong Rengan said for his part all he wanted was to lead the Taiping towards a correct understanding of Christianity. The missionaries were delighted by all of this, a man they knew and worked with was in the seat of power and he wanted to bring real christianity to China. By November nearly all of the major missionary organizations in England joined together to sent a letter to the foreign minister calling for Britain to continue its strict policy of neutrality. In many ways the veil of the Taiping had finally been lifted and there gleamed a chance perhaps at some western support. Now let us not forget, while the Taiping forces were launching this massive campaign to break the siege of their capital, the Qing were dealing with another campaign, the second opium war. Lord Elgin was writing back to Britain all the while and he had some interesting points to make. In one letter to Lord Russel in July of 1860 he wrote “We might annex the Empire if we were in the humour to take a second India into hand, or we might change the Dynasty if we knew where to find a better.” According to Putyatin, Elgin had privately said in his presence “Britain should recognize as Chinese Emperor one of the leaders of the rebel movement assuming he would agree to the favorable conditions of the Tianjin treaty.” He argued that it could give Britain the desired trade concessions, end conflict and perhaps prevent future wars. He took it a step further saying “if the capital of China were moved nearer to our military presence like Nanking … England could control the Chinese Empire with four gunboats.Let the north disappear or form a separate government, we don't have any trade interests there.” Meanwhile his brother Bruce was anxious that the Taiping would still march on Shanghai. The two events were simultaneous, the war in the north with Elgins coalition marching upon Beijing and the loomed threat in Shanghai. Luckily for Bruce, Elgin showed up to Shanghai on June 29th of 1860 with a fleet of French and British gunboats. Bruce sighed with relief, surely his brother would look out for their interests in Shanghai. Yet the coalitionary forces had no intention of helping Bruce defend Shanghai, they were going to depart shortly to head north and hit Beijing. They departed and left a scant defensive force of a couple gunboats and some stray divisions of Sikh soldiers. The foreign community of Shanghai lamented they had been abandoned in their hour of need. Despite the work of the missionaries to present Hong Rengan as a friend and not foe, Bruce did not buy it. He assumed the missionaries were being duped, like he had been at the hands of the Qing. Despite his opinions of the Manchu, Bruce told those around him they were still the legitimate authority in China. Many tried to change Bruce's mind on the matter of the Taiping, but none succeeded. In july of 1860 Bruce was brought a sealed letter addressed to the representatives of the US, France and Britain from Li Xiucheng. Bruce apparently refused to even open it. Then he received another letter, this time from Hong Rengan, but Bruce again refused to open it. These letters were fatally important, in the first Li Xiucheng notified the foreign authorities that the Taiping were on they way to Shanghai and intended to take possession of the Chinese held section of the city. He stated the Taiping had no quarrel whatsoever with their “foreign brethren” and pledged no harm to them nor their property. Any Taiping who harmed a foreigner would be put to death and he hoped the foreign representatives would call upon their people to stay indoors and hoist yellow flags above their doors to signify they were foreigners in said homes. In the later afternoon of August 17th, the sky to the west of Shanghai suddenly grew dark with smoke. The next morning saw fleeing Qing soldiers rushing to the Shanghai gates pursued by Taiping cavalry. The British let in a few Qing in before they destroyed the bridge going across the moat. The Taiping advance guard surged forward as suddenly the British and French opened fire with their artillery. Alongside this, the Taiping were fired upon by a hodgepodge of differing muskets, rifles and such. The Taiping force was small, just a few thousand men, lightly armed with a few notable foreign mercenaries with them. The British and French gunners atop the walls, watched the Taiping hide behind buildings and other structures, with clear baffled faces. None of them shot back, then one Taiping detachment tried to advance forward waving Qing flags they had stolen, but they were shot at. Next another detachment rushed forward waving an enormous black flag that the Taiping used to drive reluctant troops with. One very lucky shell lobbed from half a mile smashed right in the middle of the unit flattening the flag bearer into the ground. In a bewildered disarray the Taiping ran into houses for cover, but the wall artillerymen kept firing at them. As the night came upon them, word spread that Qing forces within Shanghai were executing Taiping POW's, prompting the British to demand they be surrendered over to them unmolested. Then the French frustrated it seems by the Taiping using all the houses for cover decided to simply start blowing them down with artillery. The next morning, French troops marched through the city firing their muskets at will. One eye witness reported to the North-China Herald “French soldiers were rushing frantically among the peaceful inhabitants of the place, murdering men, women and children, without the least discrimination. One man, was stabbed right through as he was enjoying his opium-pipe. A woman who had just given birth to a child, was bayoneted without the faintest provocation. Women were ravished and houses plundered by these ruthless marauders without restraint”. Another eye witness estimated the French left tens of thousands of Chinese homeless in the course of defending against 3000 lightly armed Taiping. The Taiping force retreated, but the suburbs of Shanghai burned for days as the Europeans claimed victory. The Taiping attack on Shanghai honestly did more to build sympathy for their cause, the news paper ran rampant stories about how the europeans fired upon a group who called themselves brethren and did not fight back. Now we have not talked about a key player in all of this for awhile. On October 16th of 1860, General Zeng Guofan was in his HQ in Qimen of Anhui province sick out of his mind. He was vomiting heavily, suffering some bad heart palpitations, had a bad case of insomnia, just not doing all that great. At lunch he received a message that the emperor had fled to his hunting grounds in Manchuria and that the British and French armies were literally a few miles from Beijing. There was nothing he could do, he apparently broke down in tears feeling helpless. Zeng Guofan was stuck fighting a protracted rear action campaign against the farthest Taiping stronghold up the Yangtze river. Zhang Guoliang and He Chun were both dead, the siege camps around Nanjing were shattered. He knew he could do nothing to stop the european march on Beijing so he pulled himself together and focused on a task he actually could do something about. Up until 1860, Zeng Guofan's Xiang army on the Yangtze played only a supporting role in the overall Qing campaign. Zhang Guoliang and He Chun's blockade of Nanjing was much more of a focus compared to that of Zeng Guofans offensives. Yet when victory seemed within grasp, Hong Rengan's daring plan was unleashed. The Taiping broke out of the encirclement and ran rampant marching east. In the leadership vacuum that ensued, Zeng Guofan's time had finally come. In June of 1860 Emperor Xianfeng appointed him as the governor general of Anhui, Jiangsu and Jiangxi the provinces most ravaged by the civil war. By late august the emperor named him imperial commissioner in charge of the military affairs in those 3 provinces and the new commander in chief of the Qing dynasty's forces in the Yangtze river valley. Boy oh boy the Chinese love bestowing so many titles on one person, that tradition just keeps living on. The frustrations of having to constantly provide for his Xiang army was beginning to ease as the desperate emperor had no one else to turn to. After years of scrambling to make his army's ends meet, while the Green Standard army enjoyed full funding and support, now Zeng Guofan was in charge of both military and civil administrations for the primary theater of war. His years of service had shown him how ineffective the bureaucrats of the Qing government could be, how inexperienced and self-gratifying they could be, and he would not tolerate them to affect his campaign. He had refused orders in 1859 to chase down Shi Dakai into sichuan, and now in 1860 he was given new orders to abandon his campaign in Anhui and to rush over to instead protect Suzhou and Shanghai. He offered instead the excuse he did not have the forces necessary to help at the moment and would stay put where he was finishing his campaign. The strategy he was performing was one of encirclement. Now back in 1859 Zeng Guofan tried to explain to the Qing court that the dynasty was not facing one kind of rebel force, but rather 2. The roving bandits constantly moving, and the pretender bandits, those who actually sought to attack Beijing and take the dragon throne. Shi Dakai, the Nian rebels and numerous vagabond armies on horseback were roving bandits. The only way to fight roving bandits was to hold a position and try to blunt their momentum. But for the pretender bandits the most important being the Taiping with their capital in Nanjing, you could only defeat them by “severing their branches and leaves”. What he meant by this was you had to cut off their foraging armies, ie: their logistics, before crushing them. He pointed out that the Green stand army had failed to encircle Nanjing completely, there had always been a single pathway open. He argued Nanjing must be completely encircled and once that was met the Qing forces could gradually conquer the fortified cities along the Yangtze one by one. He sought to begin with the Brave Kings base of operations, Anqing in Anhui province. Anqing had been under Taiping control since 1853, and was the farthest stronghold up the Yangtze. It protected both the river and land approaches to Nanjing and thus was a major choke point. As long as it stood, the Taiping in Nanjing could not be properly sieged, Anqing had to be crushed. Now this was not going to be any simple task, in 1860 Zeng Guofan had a force of 60,000 men while the Rebels had vastly more. Zeng Guofan could not contend with them in the open field. His intelligence reports indicated the Taiping were using irregular formations known as “crab formations”. This was a cluster of troops in the middle (the crabs body) and 5 lines reaching out on either side that could rapidly reconfigure itself as 2 columns, 4 columns or a crosslike configuration of 5 phalanxes, depending on the enemy. There was also the “hundred birds formation”, in which a large division would disintegrate into small clusters of 25 soldiers, each roaming freely, making it impossible for their enemies to figure out how large their force was. Then there was “crouching tiger”, usually applied to hill terrains where 10,000 troops would hide close to the ground in total silence and then ambush their enemy as they passed through a valley, suddenly leaping up like a tiger. To defeat these innovative rebels, would require manipulation of the battlefield. In every engagement Zeng described the situation as being either a host or guest. The host always enjoyed the advantage, such as being defenders of a wall city. The same situation could be said of a fortified camp. If two armies were to meet in the open field, it was the first army to reach the site of battle that would be the host. Now having the weaker army, Zeng tried to ensure the Taiping would always be the guest, by trying to lure them into attacking his defensive works or if failing that to try and provoke them to make the first move. To that end he got his men to build up fortified camps always in close proximity to the Taiping in the hopes of drawing them in to make the first move. In June of 1860, when the Taiping were focused on their eastern campaign, Zeng Guofan had moved into Anhui from the west with his brother Zeng Guoquan who began a siege of Anqing. Guoquan had 10,000 Hunanese forces who pitched a camp near Anqing's walls, building high earth walls with 20 foot wide moats. The idea was simple, they protected their fronts to the city and their backs from Taiping relief forces. For further protection against relief forces, a 20,000 strong Manchu cavalry unit led by Duolonga was set up in Tongcheng, 40 miles north of Anqing while Zeng Guofan led naval forces to blockade the Yangtze river just a few miles below the city. In late July, Zeng took the rest of his forces, 30,000 men into the mountains south of Anhui where he formed his HQ in Qimen, which is in a valley around 60 miles southeast of Anqing. However the summer of 1860 changed everything as the new war with the Europeans in the north erupted. Beijing sent orders on October 10th instructing him to send his best field commander, Bao Chao along with 3000 troops to help Prince Seng's banner forces fight the Europeans in the north, but Zeng Guofan believed without these men who would not be able to hold the encirclement of Anqing. It would take Bao Chao until January to reach the area of Beijing, far too late to be of help, thus Zeng reasoned it was useless. Alongside that, if the Taiping were allowed to break out of Anqing they could march upon Wuchang and threaten Hunan again. So Zeng cleverly sent word back to the Emperor asking him to choose another commander to come help in the north, and that message would take 2 weeks to get over to Beijing over 800 miles away thus earning him at least another 4 weeks time. October was quite depressing and cold for Zeng Guofan. The Taiping in Anqing apparently had plentiful stores and could wait quite long for reinforcements. One of his most beloved commanders holding a garrison in the nearby town of Huizhou was overrun by Taiping raiders and reports indicated there were many Taiping forces encircling his base of Qimen. Then on November 6th, he received a letter from a colleague in the north, stating the Europeans had successfully invaded Beijing and burnt down the summer palace . Zeng wrote in his diary “I have no words to describe the depths of this pain,”. The eight banner army lost to the Europeans and now he was all alone commanding a breaking army, all he had left was this damn Anqing campaign. We will come back to the plight of Zeng Guofan soon, but now we will be venturing back to the Shanghai situation. On August 21st, 2 days after his men were sent back from the walls of Shanghai by European grapeshot and shells, the Loyal King Li Xiucheng wrote a very angry letter to the British and American consuls there. “I came to Shanghai to make a treaty in order to see us connected together by trade and commerce. I did not come for the purpose of fighting with you.” Li Xiucheng accused the French of setting up a trap, stating a few of them had come to Suzhou earlier that year inviting the Taiping over to Shanghai to establish relations. He could not believe the French would be deluded by the Qing demons and betray them. He said he heard reports of the Qing sending large amounts of money to the French to defend Shanghai and it seemed they were sharing that money with the Americans and British since they opened fire on his men! He went on to say the event could be forgiven, in the case of his fellow protestants, but not the French, oh no there would be a day of reckoning for them when the Taiping took control of China. Yet he finished his angry letter swallowing his pride and said the Taiping still sought friendly relations with their christian brethren. Though it was a letter from Li Xiucheng, in reality it was sentiment sent by Hong Rengan, whose entire strategy depended on gaining support from the British and Americans in Shanghai. They needed to buy steamships to control the Yangtze river. Yet Li Xiucheng hated Hong Rengan and began to talk within his inner circle about how foolish Hong Rengan was thinking the foreigners would ever help them. The unexpected conflict with them at Shanghai proved his point and thus a rift was widening more so between the 2 leaders. Hong Rengan for his part, blamed Li Xiucheng and not the foreigners, stating they must have heard of Li's belligerent attitude towards them before he showed up and thus they assumed he was going to attack. Despite the 2 men's bickering, they both knew Shanghai needed to be secured for its rich financial stores and to be a point of which the Taiping could purchase weapons from the west. It was now up to Hong Rengan to smooth things over with the foreigners. A letter was sent to the foreigners of Shanghai stating they wanted to open up trade and that they had vast amounts of teas, silks and other desired goods. It asked why not make a treaty, perhaps with the United States? John Griffith went over to Nanjing and returned to Shanghai in December with an edict from the Heavenly King written in imperial vermillion ink on yellow satin, welcoming foreign missionaries to take up residence in Nanjing. An interesting gesture, given the British were so obsessed with having the same in Beijing only to be continuously thwarted by the Qing court. However the missionaries were reluctant to go, because no formal communications had been established between Nanjing and Shanghai, thus to go meant they would be at the mercy of the rebels. On December the 2nd, Lord Elgin returned to Shanghai in triumph after marching upon Beijing and getting Prince Gong to sign the treaty. He quickly learnt from his brother how the Taiping threatened the city. But the treaty had been signed with the Qing and the letters from Hong Rengan and the HEavenly king suggested the Taiping wanted no hostilities with the foreigners at Shanghai. Thus everyone expected no further conflict to occur and the European coalitionary forces that had marched on Beijing were disbanded and sent home. By the end of December, half the British forces were already returning to India and Britain with the others being stationed in Hong Kong, Tianjin and the Taku forts, just incase Beijing decided not to meet their end of the treaty terms yet again. As for Shanghai, by the end of 1860, just 1200 British soldiers were left for the city and Elgin argued they were far too many. Elgin spent a good month in Shanghai before leaving China. Though his work with Beijing was over, he did have one last task before leaving, he wanted to gauge the possibility for Britain to form relations with the Taiping. The Taiping at this time controlled the riverway and thanks to the new treaty with the Qing, trade was finally open for business. Elgin was not too pleased to hear about the supposed defense that his brother erected against the Taiping. He was even more disgusted to find out about the damage caused by the French to the outer suburbs and population of Shanghai. Elgin tried to counsel his younger brother that the Taiping were not necessarily all bad, he said “as bad as the imperials and Taiping both are, the rebels might provide a brighter future. From what I have seen of the regions under their control, they exhibit honesty and power”. He also rebuked his brothers refusal to read the Taiping letters warning not to accede to any Qing requests for Britain to avoid contact with the rebels. “it will never do to come under any obligation not to communicate with them on the Yangtze. It would be wrong in principle … and impossible in practice.” When winter came Elgin had to leave China, he had no time to make another voyage up the Yangtze, so he left orders for Rear admiral Hope to pay a visit to Nanjing to investigate if there might be a basis for relations between the rebels and Britain. Elgin knew it was a delicate situation, they had after all just signed a treaty with the Taipings enemy, thus he added a private note to Hope “at any rate it is clear that we must not become partisans in this civil war”. For his part General Hope after defeating the Manchu, was quite open to forming relations with the Taiping. Meanwhile the Taiping were consolidating their control over China's wealthy eastern province of Jiangsu. By September they controlled every county around Shanghai except for this under the protection of the foreigners. They were capitalizing on the people losing faith in the Manchu. They would make such proclamations as “The emperor of the Qing is the emperor of a lost country, and his ministers are all the ministers of a lost country. They extended their control over Jiangnan which encompassed the confluence of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui. Within Jiangsu province they held the capital, Suzhou along with the major cities of Wuxi and Danyang. They held Anqing, the capital of Anhui, and in Zhejiang they had the major trading city of Ningbo. 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 Rengans efforts to gain foreign support were falling to pieces. Zeng Guofan was building up his army hoping to capture Anqing, a major stepping stone to take Nanjing. Who was going to win the battle for the east?
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