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The appointment of any English officer would have led to some improvement in the direction of the Chinese Imperial forces assembled for the suppression of the Taeping rebellion; but the nature of the operations to be carried out, which were exclusively the capture of a number of towns strongly stockaded and protected by rivers and canals, rendered it specially necessary that that officer should be an engineer.
Then, after old "Taeping" had succumbed to too much "Digger's Rest," and Finnerty now Peter Grattan Finnerty, Esq., Member of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland had left the Flat and become the champion of the "struggling white miner" in the House at a salary of £300 a year, came bad times, for the alluvial became worked out; and in parties of twos and threes the old hands began to leave, heading westward across the arid desert towards the Gilbert and the Etheridge Rivers, dying of thirst or under the spears of the blacks by the way, but ever heedless of what was before when the allurements and potentialities of a new field lay beyond the shimmering haze of the sandy horizon.
For the first time since the revolt of Wou Sankwei, the Manchus were brought face to face with a danger threatening their right of conquest; yet on the eve of the Taeping Rebellion all Hienfung could think of to oppose his foes with was fine words as to his shortcomings and lavish promises of amendment.
In August they were at Yungan, where 16,000 men were ranged under the banner of the Heavenly King, and for a moment Tien Wang may have thought of making a dash on Canton. Respect for Wurantai's military capacity induced him to forego the adventure, and at Yungan, where he remained until April 1852, the Taeping leader made his final arrangements for his march northwards.
The situation at Quinsan was full of peril, for although Burgevine had thrown away a chance, by taking a roundabout instead of a direct route to Soochow, of striking a decisive blow before Gordon could get back, the Taeping leader, Mow Wang, had not been so negligent, and his operations for the recovery of several places taken by Gordon in the last few days of his command were on the point of success, when that officer's return arrested the course of his plans.
This was, however, stopped by Gordon, who then went into the city to the house of Nar Wang, another Taeping leader, whom he wished also to gain over.
By the end of March 1862 the Chinese Government had sufficiently carried out its obligations to admit of the withdrawal of the force at Tientsin, and General Staveley transferred the troops and his quarters from that place to Shanghai, where the Taeping rebels were causing the European settlement grave anxiety, and what seemed imminent peril.
The true origin of the Triads is not to be assigned, but there seems reasonable ground for the suspicion that they were connected with the discontented monks of a Buddhist monastery which had been suppressed by the Government. Between them they seem to have formed the inception of what became the famous Taeping rebellion.
It is worthy of note that his own bodyguard was mainly composed of Taeping prisoners, and some of the most faithful of them had been the bearers of the Snake banners of the rebel Wangs.
The suppression of the piratical confederacy of the Bogue was the first occasion of that employment of European force, which was carried to a much more advanced stage during the Taeping rebellion, and of which we have certainly not seen the last development. One of the last acts of Taoukwang's reign showed to what a depth of mental hesitation and misery he had sunk.
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