God's Chinese Son (39 page)

Moving back upriver, west of Nanjing, Shi Dakai rallies the troops loyal to him, along with the troops of other disaffected generals and the forces of various Triad organizations. Shi is the most popular of all the Taiping commanders, despite his youth, and is able to consolidate a force of close to one hundred thousand men in all. With this huge force at his back, and the river to give him mobility, he turns his tracks once more to Nanjing, telling his Heavenly King that only the heads of Wei and Qin can satisfy him now. Alerted to this newest danger, North King Wei dispatches General Qin to block Shi's march, blows up the hallowed porcelain tower to deny Shi's artillery a commanding height from which to shell the city, and lays plans to imprison Hong Xiuquan. But before Wei can complete his plans, Hong assembles his own loyal elite bodyguard of troops, and has Wei killed, sending Wei's head to Shi. Qin is killed soon after, lured back to the city by a ruse.
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Placated by these events, though they hardly compensate for the loss of his family and his closest friends,

Shi enters Nanjing again in pomp and majesty, to a hero's welcome, in December 1856.

Almost as Shi arrives, the Irishman and one of his companions decide the time has come to depart. They have seen enough. "Finding matters at sixes and sevens," as he tells his interlocutor Reynolds, "and beheading the order of the day, we thought it best to leave these rebels to themselves."
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The two mercenaries dress themselves in Chinese clothes and reach Shanghai ten days later after a risky journey by wheelbarrow, on foot, and in a rented boat, helped and sometimes fleeced by local peasant guides. Entering Shanghai, they find to their complete bewilderment that it is only December 20, 1856. The impact of their experiences has distorted all their sense of time: "So completely had we lost all dates, that we imagined the year of 1857 had advanced to about February."
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Never for a moment, now that Yang is safely slaughtered, does Hong fail publicly to revere him. In proclamations for the remaining years of the Taiping kingdom, Yang's role as Voice of God and Comforter is remembered, his princely title of East King always used. One of Yang's brothers, who somehow survives the killing, is honored and enfeoffed in the nobility.
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And though Yang's sons have all met their fate, Hong gives his own second son, Tian- you, to be the East King's posthumous adopted son, to keep Yang's family line alive. So that Jesus, too, can have his line maintained on earth as well as through his heavenly children, Hong also names his eldest son, Tiangui, the Taiping heir apparent, to be Jesus' adopted son.
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These grandchildren of God are joined by the two surviving sons of the dead West King, Xiao Chaogui. The two boys merit inclusion in this select group since Xiao, married to one of the Heavenly King's female cousins, had been awarded the title of Heavenly Brother-in-law, and hence Xiao's two sons can be seen as nephews to Jesus and to Hong Xiuquan, and grand­children to God. Given special recognition in view of their father's heroic death, these two sons of Xiao are regularly invoked first among all the family in the state documents issued by Hong Xiuquan.
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Besides creating from among the children and the dead this inner core of relatives linked directly by marriage or descent to the Divinity, in the crisis of trust and confidence that follows the murderous months of 1856 Hong turns back to the adults of his own immediate family for solace and support. The two men he feels he most can trust are his own two elder brothers, Hong Renfa and Hong Renda. In 1850 they and their families made the hazardous journey from Guanlubu to join him in Thistle Moun­tain, and since those days they have campaigned at his side and served him loyally in his court. With only Shi Dakai left alive of the original five subordinate kings, Hong seeks to swell the numbers again by promoting his brothers to make up the lack, and he names Renfa as "Peace King" and Renda as "Blessings King." Lest this seem a slight to Shi Dakai, he raises Shi's title at the same time from "Wing King"—which always bore a slightly peripheral air when contrasted to the basic compass points of the earlier kings—to "Righteous King." When Shi unexpectedly declines the new honor, Hong is in a quandary, and takes what seems to be a diplomatic course: Shi is left with his "Wing King" title, to which Hong adds the title of "Lightning of the Holy Spirit" to match that once held by Yang, while the two brothers are transferred to a new order of nobility just below the kingly level.
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The compromise pleases no one. Shi resents the power still given to Hong's brothers, whom he believes to be incompetent. The brothers resent Shi's status as the lone survivor of the earlier order, and do everything they can to undercut his power. Thus although for almost half a year, in 1857, Shi more or less runs the region of Nanjing, it is a solitary and lonely kind of rule, with all his family gone: he is reported to live "in seclusion" and not to receive oral messages but only petitions in writing. These he answers during the night, having his staff affix his responses next morning on the wall outside his residence.
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In the later recollections of a Taiping general familiar with this period in Nanjing, "When the Wing King returned to the Capital, the whole court recommended that he take over the govern­ment and the people welcomed this; but the Sovereign was not pleased and would only employ [his brothers] the Peace Prince and the Blessings Prince. ... The people at court were very displeased at the Sovereign for using these two men. They had neither talent nor planning ability; but they were versed in the Heavenly Doctrines and in no way disagreed with the Heavenly King's ideas." According to this same general, Li Xiucheng, it was the brothers' "suspicions and obstruction" that "forced" Shi to leave Nanjing, a defection that left "no one in charge at court.'"'

Shi Dakai departs peacefully from Nanjing in the summer of 1857, taking his most loyal troops with him. Whatever his personal animosity toward Hong's brothers may be, he does not put it into clear words, and his loyalty to his Heavenly King does not seem to have been affected by their behavior. The manifesto that Shi posts in the cities through which he passes gives as his reason for leaving his desire to continue with the campaign in the west and expand Taiping power there, "in order to repay the Sovereign's grace and kindness." The real reason is phrased by Shi in an elliptical form that would doubtless be clear to those who knew the full story, but would have left all others in the dark:

Shi, of the Heaven-ordained Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Lightning of the Holy

Spirit, Commanding General of the Entire Army, and Wing King:

I regret my lack of talent or wisdom,

And thus being unworthy of the favor shown me by the Heavenly Kingdom.

But, having vowed to express my loyalty and integrity,

My humble heart has but one purpose:

Above, that I may face August Heaven;

Below, that I may bear witness to the men of old.

Last year, amidst the disaster and turbulence,

I hurried in anguish back to the Capital.

Confident that my unwavering loyalty

Would be clearly understood by my Holy Ruler.

However, things were not quite so,

And imperial edicts were issued one after another.

Dark suspicions abounded on all sides,

How can my own brush record them all?

Because of this, I am determined to exert my utmost,

To lead a military campaign and reemphasize my sincerity.

I shall endeavor to reward those who walk with God,

In order to repay the Sovereign's grace and goodness.'

With Shi Dakai's departure—he was never to return—Hong is in a predicament. "Morale declined and there was no unified policy," in Gen­eral Li's words. "Each went his own way. The Sovereign did not place complete confidence in anyone. He had been frightened by the East, North and Wing Kings, and dared not trust other ministers, but placed all his trust in members of his own clan."
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Yet the Qing forces are unable to take advantage of these inherent weaknesses in the Taiping ranks. With their main besieging camps around Nanjing smashed in the 1856 campaigns, and with their own morale and finances at a low ebb, the Qing also face two new distractions: one is the growth of a second major rebellion, this time in northern China, that of the Nian, which severs communication lines to the south and makes any coordinated assault on the Taiping almost impossible. The other is the slow drift of the Qing and British once again into a state of open warfare over the problems of residence of foreign merchants in Can­ton, the levels of tariffs to be imposed on foreign goods, and the stationing of a permanent diplomatic representative in Peking. Just as the Nian bring an end to the regular use of the Grand Canal as a supply route to the north, British sea power severs the last main lines of contact on the sea, effectively leaving the local regional commanders in the south and center of China to formulate their own strategies to deal with the Taiping.
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The financial records from the treasuries of Emperor Xianfeng's own imperial household show the incredible straits to which the Qing court is reduced: suspending orders for the silks and porcelain that are such a conspicuous proof of imperial glory, canceling both wedding and funeral stipends for the Manchu Banner troops and their families, melting down "golden" bells—assays proved these to be only three-tenths gold, five- tenths silver, and two-tenths copper by volume—to make into small gold ingots of five to fifteen ounces with which to buy food and essential sup­plies, and melting bronze ritual vessels and Buddhist statues to make coins. The court also forces contributions by rank and seniority from all officials, reduces staff in selected government departments to economize on salaries, and cancels all repairs to palace buildings.
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By 1857 some Imperial Banner families have reached starvation levels of a few pounds of relief grain a month, and the emperor allows his Banner soldiers to found their own banks and rice stores in an attempt to shield military personnel from the effects of the dramatically increasing prices.
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Even so the Qing armies might have been able to crush the Taiping altogether, at this time of disarray, had it not been for the Qing leaders' reiterated insis­tence that all the veteran Taiping troops from the Guangxi days would be executed if captured, with no exceptions. This meant that even those wavering in their loyalty to the Heavenly King had every incentive not to give up the fight.
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"The clan" in which general Li feels that Hong places "all his trust" includes not only Hong's brothers, Renfa and Renda, his sister, and the family of his senior earthly wife, Lai. There are also the eight sons of his eldest brother, and the two sons of his second elder brother. Hong himself as two other young sons besides the two who have been named the adopted sons of Jesus and of Yang Xiuqing, and as many as eight daugh­ters by various consorts, many of whom are married—though following Chinese practice several of these marriages are arranged ones among chil­dren, who have not yet reached puberty and begun to live together.
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There are also dozens of cousins from the Hong family in Guanlubu and other areas of Guangdong and Guangxi, many of whom trekked to This­tle Mountain to join Hong Xiuquan in the beginning of his movement, or fled their homes later when Qing troops moved in on Hong's ancestral home to destroy the family gravesites and arrest or blackmail any living relatives they could find. Commencing in 1856 and 1857, these men are named by Hong to honorific titles in the newly established category of the Taiping "Imperial Clan."
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In regulating the numbers of wives for his most senior associates, Hong Xiuquan has shown himself broad-minded: the East and West Kings were each allowed eleven (though whether in fact or as a posthumous honor is not made clear); the junior kings and Hong's own brothers could have six; senior officials three, middle-rank officials two, and junior officials and the common people one each. As Hong explains to those who might feel frustration at this system: "Don't be jealous. The Heavenly Father made Adam, and linked him with Eve. This at first was right, there was one man and one wife." But later, when God and Jesus descended to earth, "by their grace it was given to me to increase the number of wives." There would be no retroactive punishments for those who, carried away by the ending of the marital intercourse prohibitions in 1855, had in their enthusiasm exceeded the quotas due to them by rank: "Those who before this Edict have exceeded their allowance (or who have more than one) I shall overlook it."
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Freed by the murder of the East King from obtrusive scrutiny of his palace affairs, the Heavenly King can now run the extended family of his palace women in any way he chooses. Hong's palace complex in the heart of Nanjing is a universe in its own right. In the imperial palaces of China's rulers, the administrative duties and much of the service for the emperor and his women were performed by eunuchs, while non-castrated males were restricted to the outer edges of the court, beyond the inner gates, where they staffed the regular bureaus and defended the palace walls. The Taiping employ no eunuchs, so Hong's inner palaces are run entirely by the women themselves, under his general supervision. The approximately two thousand women working there are divided into three main catego­ries—the female ministers and bureaucrats; the female maids and attendants; and the women of Hong's immediate family, from his mother, mother-in-law, and senior consort Lai, to the many other consorts he has drawn into his chambers on the long road from Thistle Mountain to his Celestial Kingd om. According to his son Tiangui, Hong Xiuquan had eighty-eight such consorts in Nanjing.
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Hong's son Tiangui, nine years old by Chinese reckoning in 1857, is considered too old by his father to stay any longer within the inner palace. He is given four wives of his own, and sent to live with them in the outer palace, forbidden even to see his own mother or sisters. But yearning for their company Tiangui sometimes, when his father is preoccupied with court business, manages to slip back into the palace, and visit with them.
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Tiangui, like his brothers and sisters, is bound by the stern rules their father has drawn up for their behavior, and made them learn by heart: at four, the boys are no longer allowed close contact with their older sisters; at seven, they can no longer sleep in their mothers' or other consorts' beds; they must also stay ten feet or more away from their sisters, and learn to bathe themselves; by nine they should not even see their grandmothers. Their sisters' separation from their brothers is similar: after five, they must never be touched by their brothers, and after nine they stay entirely with the women and are not meant to see even their younger brothers any more.
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In the Eden from which he has just banished his son, Hong Xiuquan creates the rules of order for his women of all ranks and classes. The rules are at once meticulous and intimate, spread ruminatively across five hundred stanzas of Hong's discursive verse.
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'' There shall be no weeping in this garden, no long faces, and no raised and angry voices like dogs barking. No one will be jealous.
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A perfect order will prevail, as each woman sees to the task assigned her in the duty rosters;
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there will be no leaving the precincts without permission, roll calls will be taken when the gong sounds once, the palace will be locked at night, and night inspectors make their rounds.
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Hong does not like the noisy use of gongs and drums, for all loud and sudden noises are upsetting to him, although they have their role in sounding the hours and rhythms of the day. But he likes to hear the fuller, deeper sounds of an organ, which has been found in the city and taken to his palace, where it is kept under lock and key when not in use.
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And most of all he enjoys the gentle, plaintive music of the plucked string
Qin;
to him, this is the truest sound of the Kingdom of Heavenly Peace, and he orders that
Qin
music sound through the palace every evening from twilight until after midnight, and that all the palace women practice their music when they are not attending to their other duties.
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