God's Chinese Son (30 page)

is nowhere specified—they will "be sent back to their native place in
⁴³
peace.

The North King expresses regret that doctors have not responded in the past to Taiping pleas, but hopes now that the higher rank and cash payments will be sufficient inducements. "None should hide their talents," for they were given to them by God "for benefit of all mankind."
⁴⁴
Enough doctors are attracted by these or other means at least to staff the hospitals for the seriously ill—known, so as not to discourage the patients, as "institutes for the able-bodied"—and to provide some basic medical care in each of the sixty zones into which the Heavenly City has been divided. Others are assigned to the neighboring garrison towns, to help those wounded in combat.
⁴⁵

The Heavenly Capital needs fitting palaces for the kingdom's rulers. Part of the Taiping plan is implemented here, in that all those with skills at carpentry, masonry, and decoration are called to pool their skills and labor to create the palaces. Ten thousand people work for six months on the splendid palace built for their Heavenly King, ten times grander than the former magistrate's residence in Yongan. This palace rises on the site of the former governor-general's mansion, at the center of the northern side of the main residential city.
⁴⁶
After the first few days of the occupa­tion, the leaders move into the main city, using what is still salvageable from the old buildings in the ravaged Manchu citadel to decorate their grand new palaces. When Hong's almost completed palace complex acci­dentally burns down, in late 1853, as many more hands—some from Nan­jing and some from neighboring provinces—are recruited to rebuild among the ruins, and to decorate the walls and pillars with the colorful paintings of birds, animals, and mountain scenery that the leaders seem to value most.
⁴⁷

Much of the energy and cost for building goes not into palaces but into defense of the Heavenly Capital, or the newly conquered or reconquered towns that lie beyond. Within Nanjing, the great city gates are at first cleared of the obstructions and the sacks of earth put there by Qing troops in their fruitless defense. But within a few days, under the constant threat of counterattacks by government forces, the gateways are reinforced with stone, and the passageways through them narrowed so that only one file of people at a time can pass through; the gates themselves are repaired, and additional gates built in front of or behind the existing ones, so that one leaf at a time can be opened without rendering the whole defensive system vulnerable. Emplacements for cannon—two per gate—are con­structed, and special encampments reinforced with palisades for the gun­ners and the other troops on gate duty. At intervals across the city, and beyond the walls in the forward defensive encampments, wooden watch- towers are raised, to a height of thirty or even forty feet. Here veteran soldiers stand the watches, supplied with colored flags to make the signals that can warn from which direction any demon attacks are launched.
⁴⁸

The smaller towns nearby—though lacking Nanjing's mighty walls and gates—are defended with a care designed to give even the largest demon army pause; the houses near the city walls are burned or torn down to remove the possibility of cover, and the open spaces crisscrossed with ditches, palisades, and felled trees with obtruding branches. Whole areas are honeycombed with small round holes, a foot across and two feet deep, lightly camouflaged with grass or straw, so that any rapid movement or transportation of heavy loads is impossible. Between these barriers lie fields of sharpened bamboo stakes, their spikes four inches or so above the ground, so sharp they rip bare feet and go through any shoe, so close together that only by moving slowly one step at a time can one pass through them. Tens of thousands of such stakes are made and sharpened by the civilian populations of the occupied towns, working as ordered through the nights. Where stone for walls is lacking, the doors and floors of all the city houses have been commandeered and fastened in serried rows to two high lines of posts, five feet or so apart, and the space between them filled with pounded earth.
⁴⁹

Beyond the walls of the heavenly havens, in the land the Taipings pray will soon become the Earthly Paradise, the war is one of guile and cruelty. Just as the demons find it hard to pierce walls so defended, so the heavenly troops are cautious when they venture forth to cities abandoned by the enemy. The Taiping troops are warned by their commanders, "The demons sometimes bury gunpowder and shot under the ground and cam­ouflage it with straw, fresh earth, or bamboo leaves. Sometimes they con­ceal a bow and arrow so that anyone coming in contact with it releases the arrow. Sometimes they conceal spikes or iron nails under wooden bars, or sometimes they dig pits." Umbrellas, apparently abandoned on the ground, conceal shot and gunpowder in their handles, which are trig­gered when the umbrella is opened. Precious objects lying on the ground are linked to fuses and explode when one picks them up. Even innocent- looking documents may contain concealed arrows or explosives that fire or erupt when the document is opened. Such demon tricks "cannot be detected by the eye," the troops are told. Anticipation and wariness are the only methods of defense.
^s
"

Secure for now behind the stakes and walls and ditches, with the watch­ers in their towers around him, and his women at his side, Hong Xiuquan surveys his kingdom. He knows that the naming of all under Heaven is now within his personal purview. It is his royal writing brush that con­tains all things, all mysteries. As once the vocabulary of China's children was learned from the
Thousand Character Essay,
which gave the essence of the language to those who had mastered their "Three Character Classic," so now the subjects of the Heavenly King will learn from Hong's own "Imperially Written Tale of a Thousand Words" not only the history of their origins but the very words with which to phrase them:

Our Great Lord God

Is One. There is no other.

In the beginning He showed his skills,

Creating Heaven and earth.

When the myriad things were all

complete

He gave life to men on earth,

Dividing lightness and darkness

So day and night came in succession.

Sun and moon each shone their light,

Stars and constellations formed an order.

The winds reached to the four directions,

Fierce and harsh they blew.

Far off, the clouds gathered

And rain fell from the void.

After the flood waters ebbed away

God in compassion made a Covenant:

Never again to send such a deluge—

The rainbow would stand as His sign.

He slew the devils, wiped out the demons,

Thunder crashed and lightning struck.
⁵¹

Now that Hong's name is in the rainbow, he partakes both of God's wrath and of His mercy. The proof of this, for the Heavenly King, is in the present:

The capital is established near Zhong Mountain;

The palaces and thresholds are brilliant and shining;

The forests and gardens are fragrant and flourishing;

Epidendrums and cassia complement each other in beauty.

The forbidden palace is magnificent;

Buildings and pavilions a hundred stories high.

Halls and gates are beautiful and lustrous;

Bells and chimes sound musically.

The towers reach up to the sky;

Upon altars sacrificial animals are burned.

Cleansed and purified, We fast and bathe.

We are respectful and devout in worship,

Dignified and serene in prayer.

Supplicating with fervor,

Each seeks happiness and joy.

The uncivilized and border peoples offer tribute,

And all the barbarians are submissive.

No matter how vast the territory,

All will eventually be under our rule.
⁵²

There are three large foreign ships moored off the Shanghai waterfront as the Heavenly King enters his Earthly Para­dise: the
Hermes,
the
Cassini,
and the
Susquehanna.
The first is British, the second French, the third American. Over the weeks preceding and immediately following Nanjing's fall, the local Qing officials have been asking the foreigners to intervene, to help maintain law and order in the Yangzi valley, or failing that at least to guard the Shang­hai gates with reliable troops and suppress piracy on the river. Far from their home government's reassuring presence, each of the ships' com­manders has to decide whether to intervene or not, and if so to what extent.
¹
As the French captain of the
Cassini
puts it in a journal entry, in such a situation "one can either perform a real service or commit stupid mistakes."
²

Over their shared dinners on one another's vessels, the captains and the consuls of the three nations discuss far into the night their national strate­gies and feasible options, and whether or not to summon their missionaries from other towns to find shelter under their guns in Shanghai.
³
Rumors of every kind about the atrocities committed in Nanjing swirl through the countryside, and Shanghai is filled with terrified inhabitants—the mere appearance of four long-haired rebels in one neighboring market town sets off a stampede of fear in which twenty-seven Chinese are trampled to death.
⁴
The British and Americans pledge themselves to form a defen­sive militia and to dig trenches and gun emplacements at strategic points around their own settlement areas, though they differ on how to approach the crisis: the British land seventy sailors in early April, and put them in a fortified house on the edge of Soochow Creek, while the Americans decide not to send men ashore until disaster actually happens, though they do make exceptions for the members of their ship's band, who charm all assembled at the theater with their spirited renderings of "The Young Reefer" and "Harlequin Golden Lily." As for the French captain, he decides to land his men only if the life of the French consul is threatened.
⁵
When in late April 1853 the British plenipotentiary, Sir George Bon- ham, gives orders to sail the
Hermes
to Nanjing, it is to the chagrin of the captain of the American vessel, which has just run aground attempting the same feat. Bonham is egged on by the most influential British mer­chants in Shanghai, worried over the total disruption of all commerce, but also by simple human curiosity.' The few items of information that the Westerners have gathered on the Taiping over the previous two years, drawn mainly from the period of the Taiping's occupation of Yongan, have been vague and contradictory, blurring the lines between the secret societies and the God-worshipers, muddling the names of the Taiping leaders, and attempting to ascertain if they are really Christians or not.
⁸
In Canton, Issachar Roberts, prompted to recollection by Hong Xiuquan's victories, now underplays his refusal to give Hong baptism, and writes in a local newspaper that Hong Xiuquan, during their period of study together, had "maintained a blameless deportment." Roberts recalls Hong clearly enough to give the first physical description of the Heavenly King recorded by a Westerner: "He is a man of ordinary appearance, about five feet four or five inches high; well built, round faced, regular featured, rather handsome, about middle age, and gentlemanly in his manners." Hong may have made his name as a "destroyer of idolatry," writes Rob­erts, but seems now to act "something in the capacity of a prophet" and appears to be "struggling for religious liberty."
⁹

The question, to the British especially, whose trading interests and investments in Shanghai's buildings, docks, and trade are estimated already at around twenty-five million pounds sterling, is whether the Tai­ping offer greater chances for current stability and future expansion of trade than the reigning Qing.
¹⁰
For the time being, as Bonham writes to the Foreign Office from Shanghai on the eve of Hong's entrance into Nanjing, he has decided "not to interfere in any shape in favour of the Chinese Government, as I feel confident that any such interference on my part could only prolong the struggle."
¹¹
The need to imprint this stance of British neutrality firmly on the Taiping mind by a personal visit is uppermost in Bonham's mind, since at least one wealthy American mer­chant has already leased one of his vessels to the Qing forces, as have several Portuguese traders in Macao, while the Qing intendant in Shang­hai has also been buying up on his own initiative any foreign vessels that he can find.
¹²

The British consul's own interpreter, T. T. Meadows, who tries to keep abreast of all the latest news or rumors on the Taiping, concurs that for­eign interference on behalf of the Qing would "only have the effect of prolonging hostilities and anarchy for an indefinite period"; while if the British stayed on the sidelines, it was "highly probable" that the whole of China's southern provinces and the Yangzi valley would be solidified by the Taiping "under the rule of a purely Chinese dynasty as one internally strong State."
¹³
At the same time the interpreter Meadows, making a reconnaissance trip on his own across country to the banks of the Yangzi, and coordinating his observations with the reports of his own personally dispatched "Chinese messengers" and his Chinese-language teacher, con­cludes that the Taiping forces consist of thirty to forty thousand original "long hair" insurgents and their eighty thousand to one hundred thousand later additional recruits and "pressed men." They are, as a rule, "puritani­cal and even fanatic," punishing rape, adultery, and opium smoking with death, placing their women in separate buildings, and with "the whole army pray[ing] regularly before meals."
¹⁴

As a result of these various baffling reports, Bonham feels "unwilling to rest" until he has personally ascertained "the intentions of the insurgents towards foreigners." The task will be difficult, perhaps dangerous, because the Qing officials have taken their own initiative by spreading proclama­tions that "the ships of the barbarian volunteers" are all now on the Qing side, and that the British are all "filled with a strong feeling of common hatred to the rebels" and themselves ready to pay all the necessary expenses needed to "exterminate" the Taiping.
¹⁵

The departure of the British armed steamship
Hermes
for Nanjing on April 22, 1853, is thus a scouting expedition that might or might not become the basis of policy formation. But rapidly it also becomes some­thing else, a battle for dignity. Sir George Bonham has many responsibili­ties and many titles: he is superintendent of foreign trade, governor of Hong Kong, and the minister plenipotentiary to China of the British crown. But Hong Xiuquan is the Heavenly King presiding over the Celes­tial Capital. In the delicate balance of prestige and power, while it is cer­tainly all right for the interpreter Meadows and even perhaps the
Hermes'
s captain, E. G. Fishbourne, to meet with lower-ranking Taiping officials, for Bonham only a meeting with Hong Xiuquan himself or one of the other "kings" will permit a conversation between equals to take place. The Taiping response on April 28 to Sir George Bonham's request for such a high-level meeting is not encouraging:

Commands are hereby issued to the brethren from afar that they may all understand the rules of ceremony.

Whereas God the Heavenly Father has sent our Sovereign down on earth, as the true Sovereign of all nations in the world, all people in the world who wish to appear at his Court must yield obedience to the rules of ceremony. They must prepare representations, stating who and what they are and from whence they come, after previous presentation of which only can audience be accorded them. Obey these commands.
¹⁶

Bonham's response, delivered orally to the Taiping, is preordained: the "improper mode" of the document and the "very objectionable manner" in which it was written could not be accepted; "it was further stated to them in plain terms that productions of this nature could not for an instant be tolerated by the British authorities."
¹⁷

As the interpreter Meadows elaborates in a conversation with the Heav­enly King's brother-in-law Lai,

. . . while the English had, for 900 years, adored the Great Being whom he called the Heavenly Father, they on earth acknowledged allegiance to but one Lord, the Sovereign of the British Empire; and that, under no circum­stances whatsoever, would they for an instant admit fealty to any other, though they were quite prepared to recognize as the Sovereign of the Chi­nese whomsoever the Chinese themselves might choose or submit to as such.
¹⁸

Bonham, using the "boisterous" weather on the Yangzi as his excuse, but in fact fearing that some "difficulties in the way of ceremonial" might precipitate a quarrel with the Taiping leaders, stays on the
Hermes,
expressing his willingness to meet there personally with any of the subor­dinate Taiping kings. When they send Hong Xiuquan's brother-in-law Lai, Bonham stays on his ship and communicates in writing only, reas­serting both Britain's neutrality in the current conflict, and reminding the Taiping leaders of the provisions of the Nanjing treaty of 1842—to which the British intend to adhere—and their firm determination to defend their property in Shanghai should any Taiping troops decide to attack that city. In the event, Bonham never goes ashore in Nanjing.

The interpreter Meadows, however, and Captain Fishbourne, do go ashore, and are well received and permitted to travel some distance within the walls. They are also granted lengthy interviews by the North King and the Wing King in a residence in the northern part of the city, not far from where the
Hermes
rides at anchor. After initial attempts to intimidate the two men—they are marched between double rows of Taiping retain­ers, ordered to kneel, remove their swords, stand while the officials remain seated, and to watch as the guides who had led them this far are publicly beaten for their daring—the interpreter Meadows responds to the North King's question whether he worshiped "God the Heavenly Father" by repeating his response that "the English had done so for eight or nine hundred years," and the atmosphere at once changes.
¹
'' As Meadows then records his conversation with the leader who first sheltered Hong Xiu­quan six years before in the hills to the east of Thistle Mountain:

He stated that as children and worshippers of one God we were all brethren; and after receiving my assurance that such had long been our view also, inquired if I knew the "Heavenly Rules" (Teen teaon). I replied that I was most likely acquainted with them, though unable to recognize them under that name, and, after a moment's thought, asked if they were ten in number. He answered eagerly in the affirmative. I then began repeating the substance of the first of the Ten Commandments, but had not proceeded far before he laid his hand on my shoulder in a friendly way, and exclaimed, "The same as ourselves! the same as ourselves!" while the simply observant expression on the face of his companion disappeared before one of satisfaction as the two exchanged glances. He then stated, with reference to my previous inquiry as to their feelings and intentions towards the British, that not merely might peace exist between us, but that we might be intimate friends.
²⁰

To Captain Fishbourne, the Taiping he meets seem "clever, decided, and determined" but also "civil and good-humored." They accept the Bibles (both English- and Chinese-language versions) that he offers them with a grave and moving gratitude, and look thoughtfully through copies of the
Illustrated London News
that he gives them, and are delighted when he says they can take copies home with them. Taiping visitors gaze in admiration through the spyglass that he demonstrates for them, and clam­ber up the ship's rigging or examine the ship's steam boilers and engines when Fishbourne at times allows them on board the
Hermes.
The Taiping are pleased to see the Westerners wear their hair long, like themselves, and one brave youth even takes off Sir George Bonham's top hat to see if the plenipotentiary himself has the same hairstyle as the rest. Informal trade flourishes, the Taiping trading jade and silver for the crewmen's two-edged swords, and offering to trade silver for musical boxes.
²¹

Despite the formalism of the initial Taiping document on Britain's sub­servient status, the apparent sincerity and openness of the Taiping troops and officers they encounter seems to lull the British into a sense that all is moving calmly in the direction of mutual understanding. They spend their time working on their diplomatic statements and collecting copies of all the Taiping publications they can find—amassing twelve in all.
²²
Accordingly the reply to their diplomatic initiatives that they receive on board the
Hermes
on May 2—hand-delivered by the Heavenly King's brother-in-law Lai—leaves them dumbfounded. The missive is signed with the names of Yang Xiuqing, East King, using his fully panoply of titles, and of the West King, Xiao Chaogui (no Westerners are yet aware that Xiao died in combat at Changsha eight months before). As translated rapidly for Bonham by the interpreter Meadows, Yang's message reads: