28
STEPHEN UHALLEY, JR.
and justify their active support of the attack on the city. This then is what happened on the morning of May 10th. According to the Ch'ing official, Hsü Yao-kuang, the provocative shots were fired at a foreign vessel and actually killed two foreigners.36 Dew jumped to the conclusion or feigned to believe that it was the Taipings who had done the firing, and immediately joined in the fight. Dew's own account is nonchalant, noting merely that the Taiping guns were silenced and that he then went to dinner at noon. At 2 p.m. storming parties mounted the walls, and at 5 p.m., after all opposition had ceased, the "Governor” (probably the tao-t'ai) and Ch'ing soldiers landed from their junks. Dew turned the city over to the Manchu official and withdrew his men.37 The disposition of the Ch'ing troops during this attack is implicit in this report, but another unofficial source was more explicit, reporting that the Chinese allies could not be made to move toward the walls, so that in the end, even the actual breaching of them had to be undertaken by foreign troops.38 Obviously, under the circumstances of such an attack by Ch'ing forces, the Taipings had little alternative but to return fire toward foreign vessels which were interspersed among or in close proximity to the pirate fleet, both as the action began and as it continued.
After a determined resistance, and after both of their generals, Huang and Fan, had been badly wounded, the Taipings retired from the city. The contrast between what happened during the retaking of the city at this point and the record of the Taiping seizure of the city several months earlier is interesting. It will be recalled how universal had been the favorable comments regarding the bloodless Taiping takeover. As for this latest occupation, the report of the correspondent for the China Mail speaks eloquently: "The rebels retreated through the west gate; the pirates then entered the city and began the work of destruction, and in a few hours did more damage than the rebels did in the whole of the five months that they had possession." The same account goes on to speak of the executions and the tortures that were perpetrated over the next couple of days, and notes specifically that the British Consul's Chinese servant was "one of the principal murderers and torturers of the poor fellows found in the city."39 Cheng A-fu was subsequently given the status of a petty official in Ningpo, as a reward for his service.40
28
STEPHEN UHALLEY, JR.
and justify their active support of the attack on the city. This then is what happened on the morning of May 10th. According to the Ch'ing official, Hsü Yao-kuang, the provocative shots were fired at a foreign vessel and actually killed two foreigners.36 Dew jumped to the conclusion or feigned to believe that it was the Taipings who had done the firing, and immediately joined in the fight. Dew's own account is nonchalant, noting merely that the Taiping guns were silenced and that he then went to dinner at noon. At 2 p.m. storming parties mounted the walls, and at 5 p.m., after all opposition had ceased, the "Governor” (probably the tao-t'ai) and Ch'ing soldiers landed from their junks. Dew turned the city over to the Manchu official and withdrew his men.37 The disposition of the Ch'ing troops during this attack is implicit in this report, but another unofficial source was more explicit, reporting that the Chinese allies could not be made to move toward the walls, so that in the end, even the actual breaching of them had to be undertaken by foreign troops.38 Obviously, under the circumstances of such an attack by Ch'ing forces, the Taipings had little alternative but to return fire toward foreign vessels which were interspersed among or in close proximity to the pirate fleet, both as the action began and as it continued.
After a determined resistance, and after both of their generals, Huang and Fan, had been badly wounded, the Taipings retired from the city. The contrast between what happened during the retaking of the city at this point and the record of the Taiping seizure of the city several months earlier is interesting. It will be recalled how universal had been the favorable comments regard- ing the bloodless Taiping takeover. As for this latest occupation, the report of the correspondent for the China Mail speaks eloquently: "The rebels retreated through the west gate the pirates then entered the city and began the work of destruction, and in a few hours did more damage than the rebels did in the whole of the five months that they had possession." The same account goes on to speak of the executions and the tortures that were perpetrated over the next couple of days, and notes speci- fically that the British Consul's Chinese servant was "one of the principal murderers and torturers of the poor fellows found in the city."39 Cheng A-fu was subsequently given the status of a petty official in Ningpo, as a reward for his service.40
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