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The difficulty of operating in a region which possessed few roads, and which was only rendered at all accessible by the West River or Sikiang, had led the Chinese authorities, much engaged as they were about the foreign question, to postpone those vigorous measures, which, if taken at the outset, might have speedily restored peace and stamped out the first promptings of revolt.
An island named after the hyacinth lies in midstream two miles from the entrance to the Fatshan Channel, which joins the main course of the Sikiang a few miles above the town of that name.
The summer of 1850 witnessed a great accession of energy on the part of the rebels in Kwangsi, which may perhaps have been due to the death of the Emperor Taoukwang. The important town of Wuchow on the Sikiang, close to the western border of Kwantung, was besieged by a force reported to number 50,000 men.
My belongings looked rather formidable as they lay heaped up on the deck of the Sikiang, of the Est Asiatique Français line, but, after all, there was only a moderate supply of stores, such as tea, jam, biscuit, sugar, cereals, tinned meats and tinned milk, together with a few enamelled iron dishes and the cook's stew-pans, all packed in wooden boxes.
The war dragged on in the Sikiang valley during two years, but the tide of success had certainly set in the main against the Imperialists, as was shown by the scene of operations being transferred to the northern side of that river.
Its trade would be increased very greatly were the navigation of the Yangtse rendered easier and safer, thus facilitating the establishment of effective steam communication not only to Chungking, but as far as Suifoo. The natural channel of trade between Hongkong and southwestern China is the Sikiang, or West River.
When on a trip up the Sikiang or West River from Canton to Wuchow, I observed many junks fitted with what may be described as an adjustable cut-water or bow-board.
The whole of the country south of the Sikiang, with the strong military station of Nanning, fell into their hands, and they prepared in the early part of the year 1851 to attack the provincial capital Kweiling, which commanded one of the principal high roads into the interior of China.
He was dropped into my waiting sampan as his ship, homeward bound to Calcutta from Kobe, came into her moorings, and we climbed up the side of the Sikiang not fifteen minutes before she was off. All's well that ends well. We were safe on board, and I had secured a gay little comrade in my solitary journeying, while before Jack lay a glorious run of two thousand odd miles.
Two leaders named Chang assumed the style of royalty; other bands appeared in the province of Hoonan as well as in the southern parts of Kwantung, but they all collected by degrees on the Sikiang, where they placed an embargo on merchandise, and gradually crushed out such trade as there had been by that river. Their proceedings were not restricted to the fair operations of war.
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