No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
In spite of over 14 years of activity—most of which was of a military nature—hardly any Taiping military despatches have survived or, if they have, they remain to be discovered. The only copy of this rare example, published here for the first time, is in the Public Record Office (series 682, No. 275/A3). It was amongst the documents found in the office of the Governor-General of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, on the occasion of the British capture and occupation of Canton in 1858. There is no means of knowing how accurately it was copied; on the other hand, there is no reason to question its authenticity or accuracy.
1 Tseng Shui-yuan came from Wu-hsüan-hsien, Hsün-chou in Kwangsi. He had received some education and served as a village teacher before the Taiping rising. He was introduced to the Pai Shang-ti Hui ‘God-worshippers Society’ by Feng Yün-shan and after the rising became a court official responsible for the drafting of Hung Hsiu-ch'üan's edicts. In this post he was constantly at the side of Hung Hsiu-ch'üan and Yang Hsiu-ch'ing. At the time when this letter was written Tseng Shui-yuan seems to have taken precedence over the other two signatories. Before the attack on Ch'ang-sha both Tseng and Lin Feng-hsiang were yü-lin shih-wei 
or Imperial Guards, while Li was a tsung-chih 
, General Controller, an office of the 10th grade. In the 9th month of Hsien Feng 2 (October–November 1852) Tseng Shui-yuan was promoted to shen-hou fu-shih-wei 
, which probably gave him equivalence to the 8th grade, while Lin and Li were promoted to chiang-chün 
, Commanders, with 9th grade rank. However, it is impossible to be sure of Tseng Shui-yuan's seniority because some confusion exists as to the grading of the various shih-wei. See Li Ch'un, T'ai-p'ing T'ien-kuo chih-tu ch'u-t'an, Peking, 1963, p. 134, n. 2; Chien Yu-wen, T'ai-p'ing T'ien-kuo tien-chih k'ao, Hong Kong, 1957, I, 86; Chieh-hao, Hsieh, Chin-ling-sheng nan-chi-lueh, p. 708Google Scholar in vol. rv of the eight-volume corpus of historical material T'ai-p'ing T'ien-kuo, Shanghai, 1952.Google Scholar Tseng Shuiyuan was subsequently given military rank (chiang-chün), when he began to hold military command, but he apparently retained his civil rank, which held a higher grading than the military. In 1854, by which time he was a ch'eng-hsiang 
, State Minister, he was cashiered and even imprisoned for a military failure. The following year, when the same thing happened again, his younger brother in his resentment deserted the Taipings, and the unfortunate Tseng Shui-yuan was executed on suspicion of treachery. His tomb was discovered near Nanking in 1953; the inscription indicates that he was posthumously vindicated. See Te-chien, Chang (comp.), Tsei-ch'ing hui-tsuan, chüan 2, pp. 56, 57Google Scholar in T'ai-p'ing T'ien-kuo, III, Shanghai, 1952Google Scholar; Erh-kang, Lo, T'ai-p'ing T'ien-kuo shih-kao, Peking, 1957, 345, 346.Google Scholar
2 Lin Feng-hsiang. For biographical details see Hummel, A. W. (ed.), Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing period, Washington, D.C., 1, 1943, 508, 509Google Scholar and Te-chien, Chang, op. cit., 52.Google Scholar
3 This is an error for Li K'ai-fang. See Hummel, op. cit., loc. cit.; Te-chien, Chang, op. cit., 53Google Scholar, calls him Li Lai-fang.
4 Historians, following Chang Te-chien, op. cit., chüan 3, have considered that since the appointment of the various kings at Yung-an earlier the same year, the T'ien Wang (Hung Hsiu-ch'üan) was acclaimed wan sui ‘ten thousand years’, the Tung Wang (Yang Hsiu-ch'ing) chiu-ch'ien sui ‘nine thousand years’, the Pei Wang (Wei Ch'ang-hui) liu-ch'ien sui ‘six thousand years’, and the I Wang (Shih Ta-k'ai) wu-ch'ien sui ‘five thousand years’. See Ch'un, Li, op. cit., 116Google Scholar, and Yu-wen, Chien, T'ai-p'ing T'ien-kuo tien-chih t'ung-k'ao, Kowloon, 1958, I, 61.Google Scholar This does not seem to have been the case.
5 The Hsi Wang (Western King) Hsiao Ch'ao-kuei had led an expedition to take Ch'ang-sha, provincial capital of Hunan province, with only a few thousand men. Anon, Yüeh-fei fan Hu-nan chi-lüeh (in T'ai-p'ing T'ien-kuo shih-liao ts'ung-pien chien-chi edited by T'ai-p'ing T'ien-kuo li-shih po-wu-kuan. Peking, 1958, I), 63Google Scholar, gives the number of men as ‘more than 3,000’; Yu-wen, Chien, T'ai-p'ing T'ien-kuo ch'üan-shih, 1, 420Google Scholar, puts it at only 2,000 men. They left Ch'en-chou 
on 26 August 1852 (HF 2/7/12) and reached Ch'ang-sha without meeting any resistance at all (Anon., op. cit., 36), since the government commanders expected a Taiping attack by way of Lei-yang 
and Heng-chou 
, which were consequently defended by government troops (see Ch'in-ting cMao-p'ing Yüeh-fei fang-lüeh [abbr. Fang-lüeh], 1872, Taiwan reprint, 1965, chüan 16, pp. 30b, 31a, 17b, 18a, b). Ch'ang-sha itself had a government garrison of only 2,000 troops (ibid., chüan 16, p. 25b). K'ai-yün, Wang, Hsiang-chün chih, 1886, 1, 36Google Scholar, gives ‘two or three thousand troops and some braves 
’.
6 Yü-hsien is in Ch'ang-sha prefecture. The Taipings occupied it on 2 September 1852 (HF 2/7/19) and left it on 7 September (HF 2/7/24) (Fang-lüeh, chüan 16, p. 16a).Google Scholar
7 Li-ling (this should be 
) is a hsien in Ch'ang-sha prefecture. T'ing-i, Kuo, T'ai-p'ing T'ien-kuo shih-shih jih-chih, Shanghai, 1946Google Scholar, following the official record, gives the date of the Taiping arrival at Li-ling as 7 September (HF 2/7/24).
8 The Taiping term for gunpowder was 
. (See, for instance, Ts'ang-lang K'ou-t'u 
(Pseud), Chieh-yü hui-lu 
in T'ai-p'ing T'ien-kuo shih-liao ts'ung-pien chien-chi, II, 160Google Scholar; Te-chien, Chang, op. cit., chüan 8, p. 243Google Scholar (in Ta, Hsiang and others (ed.), T'ai-p'ing T'ien-kuo, III)Google Scholar is wrong in stating that it was a secret term for tobacco.)
9 This was at Shih-ma-p'u 
(Anon., op. cit., 64)Google Scholar which was held by 2,000 Green Standard troops from Shensi province under Sian Brigade General Fu-ch'eng (see Fang-lüeh, chüan 16, pp. 34b, 35a).Google Scholar When the Taipings approached Miao-kao-feng 
, where they established their headquarters, there was a battle which lasted four hours (see Fang-lüeh, chüan 16, pp. 15b, 16a, 25b–26b, 34b, 35a).Google Scholar
10 ‘Imp’ 
was the Taiping term originally applied to ‘false gods’, but subsequently used for all Ch'ing officials and troops.
11 Anon., op. cit., 64Google Scholar, records that the government troops were caught unawares and suffered 600 dead, while 500 ‘braves’ fled. Another source gives the Ch'ing force as 3,000 Green Standard troops and 280 ‘braves’, of whom 1,700 men and 90 officers were killed (see Ju-chao, Li, Ching-shan yeh-shihGoogle Scholar (in Ta, Hsiang and others (ed.), T'ai-p'ing T'ien-kito, III, 4).Google Scholar
12 Earthworks outside the city had not been completed and buildings in the suburbs, which could serve as cover and firing points for the attackers had not been destroyed, as was usual when a siege was threatened (Anon., op. cit., 63).Google Scholar
13 The date on which Hsiao Ch'ao-kuei was wounded is discussed by T'ing-i, Kuo, op. cit., 188–91.Google Scholar Kuo, who was of course unaware of the existence of this despatch, compared several sources of government provenance and concluded that the day was 11 or 12 September (HF 2/7/28 or 29); Jen Yu-wen repeated Kuo's discussion and favoured 12 September (Yu-wen, Chien, op. cit., 423–5).Google Scholar
14 i.e. Jesus Christ, whose younger brother Hung Hsiu-ch'üan, the Taiping leader claimed tobe.
15 The Taiping court and army headquarters were in Ch'en-chou, which had been taken on 17 August (HF 2/7/3) with inside help from secret society members. It was a prosperous town and an important communication centre between Kwangtung and southern Hunan; the Taipings stayed there for more than a month, besieged and surrounded by armies under the command of Ho Ch'un, which had followed them from Kwangsi at a discreet distance (see Fang-lüeh, chüan 15, pp. 32a, bGoogle Scholar; and Anon, op. cit., 63).Google Scholar In the event, the main Taiping army, rather than a reinforcement, set out from Ch'en-chou on 25 September (HF 2/8/12) according to official sources (Ting-i, Kuo, op. cit., 1, 192)Google Scholar or on 28 September according to the author of Yüeh-fei fan Hu-nan chi-lüeh, 64.Google Scholar The T'ien Wang accompanied the army.
16 The Taipings had not originally intended to take Ch'üan-chou, but a gunner on the town wall fired on a yellow palanquin as it went by, and the occupant, Feng Yün-shan was mortally wounded. Because of this a terrible vengeance fell on Ch'üan-chou: for having wounded Feng and for resisting the Taiping attack, the whole population of the town is said to have been put to the sword when the town fell on 3 June 1852 (HF 2/4/16).
17 It is not known on what day Hsiao died, but it was clearly after 22 September, the date of this despatch.
18 In spite of the words ‘Jen Tzu 2nd year of T'ai-p'ing T'ien-kuo’ this despatch clearly does not use the Taiping calendar. This is shown, first, by the fact that if it referred to the Taiping calendar the statement that ‘on the 24th of this month … we set out from Yü-hsien’ would make no sense; secondly, by the fact that all verifiable dates fit with the lunar calendar; and thirdly, by the fact that the despatch ends with the words ‘not 8th month intercalary’— a statement which would have been superfluous if the Taiping calendar was being used, since the Taipings did not use an intercalary month. Curiously enough, there was no intercalary month in that year anyway.
The Taiping solar calendar devised by Feng Yün-shan, is usually considered to have officially come into force after 3 February 1852, the first day of the first month of the second Taiping year (HF 1/12/14). I have no explanation as to why it was not used in this despatch.