RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1971
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/z029vt43g
THE TAIPINGS AT NINGPO:

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF A FORGOTTEN EVENT

STEPHEN UHALLEY, JR.*

The occupation of the important treaty-port city of Ningpo in Chekiang province by Taiping revolutionaries from December 1861 to May 1862 constitutes a fascinating and significant page of history. That it has been by and large overlooked in Western historical memory of the Taiping period by no means detracts from this assertion. Rather, such neglect is merely additional testimony to a faulty historiographical tradition. For a curiosity about the event is natural, and the significance of the occupation is self-evident. There are three main reasons for this. First of all, the occupation enabled the largely land-locked Taipings to realize at last their ambition of gaining access to the sea, an especially urgent matter after they had been denied this objective by the British and French at Shanghai. Secondly, the occasion gave the revolutionaries an opportunity to demonstrate in practice what they had long proclaimed verbally, that foreigners had no reason to fear Taiping political authority in an area where foreign lives and interests were exposed. Finally, despite obvious indications of Taiping success on both of these points the entire experience seems only to have helped galvanize foreign opposition to the Taiping movement. This too would seem to call for a closer look at the event.

The Taipings had been in possession of much of the Chekiang hinterland for many months. When they finally decided to take Ningpo in late 1861, they did so with surprising swiftness, and painlessly. To the disappointment of the British, who had helped in making plans for the defense of the city against the Taipings, there was in fact no military opposition. British Admiral James

*The author, a former editor of and contributor to this journal, is a Senior Specialist at the East-West Center and Visiting Associate Professor of History in the Asian Studies Program at the University of Hawaii for 1970-71. This article is based upon a paper delivered at the 28th International Congress of Orientalists in Canberra, Australia on January 9, 1971 and on material from a forthcoming book, Revolutionary Taiping China and the West. The author acknowledges with gratitude the suggestions made by Professor Jen Yu-wen for improving the original paper.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1975
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/j0995146d
344

BOOK REVIEWS

States. After thirty years in the insurance business, rising to be president of Continental Insurance Agency, he retired six years ago to devote himself to research on the Chinese in Hawaii.

He has put into this book, not a compendium of dry historical facts, but readable stories of the Chinese pioneers, their livelihood, their customs, and the help they received from the missionaries. Many of these stories are told interestingly as excerpts from biographies and autobiographies.

As we enjoy the blessings of multi-racial Hawaii with its richness of economic plenty and social well-being, let us remember the gnarled old men among us and their forebears who made this possible. As the Chinese say, "When drinking water, think of the source."

15 July 1975

WILLIAM C. W. LEE

Footnote: Mr. Lee was former editor of the Hawaii Chinese Journal. He is a journalism graduate of University of Missouri, had done newspaper work in Shanghai, and is now retired in Los Angeles.

THE TAIPING REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT, by JEN YU-WEN, New Haven & London, Harvard University Press, 1973, xxiii, 616, ill., US$19.50.

Writing nearly 30 years ago in his biography of Tso Tsung-t'ang, a leading protagonist in the last campaigns against the Taipings, W. L. Bales commented on this period as follows:-

A complete and impartial study of this great uprising and its many ramifications has not yet been made, either in a foreign language or in the Chinese. The extraordinary amount of material in Chinese that is available for such a study has doubtless been the main reason why no foreigner has attempted or is likely to attempt the sifting of such a mass for a comprehensive and critical study. As for the Chinese, they probably will make such a study in time and have in fact already done a great deal in that direction.

Much has been written on this great subject in the intervening period, but without doubt, Mr. Jen is the first scholar to produce the comprehensive and critical study mentioned in the above paragraph. He has in fact devoted a lifetime of study to the Taiping
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q
NOTES ON FRIENDS AND RELATIVES OF TAIPING LEADERS 119

point to Feng as the more active leader in the movement's initial phases. An account given of him by a deserter from the Taiping army and a former member of Gützlaff's Chinese Christian Union, published in The Hong Kong Register, 27 September, 1853, states that when he met Feng in Kwangsi, they recognized each other as fellow members of the Union. According to the account, Feng had studied under Gützlaff. I have carefully gone over the rather detailed reports Gützlaff sent back to Germany reporting the activities of the Chinese Christian Union, hoping that he might have mentioned Feng, but I was unable to find him named. Gützlaff, however, does report trips made by his workers into Kwangsi, where they preached and distributed tracts. These reports were published in the Calwer Missionsblatt and Gaihan's Berichte.

When Hung Hsiu-ch'uan left Roberts and Canton in the late spring of 1847, he travelled to Kwangsi in search of Feng, arriving there in August. In the Journal of Roberts published in the Southern Baptist Missionary Journal, vol. 2, no. 10 (March 1848), under date of 25 June, 1847, Roberts states that two of his followers were appointed to visit the inquirer Hung in a different province.

Several efforts were initiated to bring the families and followers of the Taiping leaders to Kwangsi from Kwangtung, but the plans were frustrated by the authorities. Some were caught and imprisoned, others scattered and fled. The friends and relatives of the leaders of the Taipings were rooted out of their native districts and at the same time cut off from the troops of the Rebellion as it advanced from Kwangsi to Nanking. Some appear to have had branches of their clan settled in Hsin-an District, adjacent to Hong Kong. Many of the people moved in and out of Hong Kong. These movements left traces in the reports and records of the Missions, but they are not complete enough to provide a comprehensive account.

The various adventures and travels of Hung Jen-kan before he reached Nanking in 1856 are documented in the writings of Jen Yu-wen. For an English language account see his The Taiping Revolutionary Movement (New Haven, 1973). A few additional details are provided by missionary archival sources.

In 1852, Hung Jen-kan was brought to Hong Kong by a young tailor from Lilong (Li-lang) in Hsin-an District. He was the grandson of a clansman of Hung, who had befriended Jen-kan in his wanderings. The grandson Fung (Hung?) Sen1 had been under
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1976
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/hq382988q
134

CARL T. SMITH

Missionary Society did it. In one of Jen-kau's confessional statements, Chalmers was named the donor. Now it is clear that the money was given him only through Chalmers. Jen-kau probably did not know that Legge and Chalmers continued to support his family till the end of 1859.

With reference to Legge's belief in Jen-kau's compromising practice of polygamy, my view is that Legge was induced to such opinion by the allegation of Joseph Edkins, another missionary who had visited Jen-kau in Soochow and started to make such charge upon his return to Shanghai. R. J. Forrest, a British vice-consul and a close associate of Jen-kau whose private life was well-known to him, made an emphatic refutation on this charge. (This apologia is quoted in my book The Taiping Revolutionary Movement, p358). Jen-kau was fully exonerated.

(4) Hung Kuei-yüan (洪貴元) (alias K'uei-hsiu 魁秀)

I am personally grateful to Carl Smith who had finally found out, with documentary evidence, the whereabouts of Hung K’uei-hsiu, the eldest son of Jen-kau. Years ago I was told that he had migrated to America (U.S.A.). I did not stop my long search for his descendants even as late as 1964-65 when I made my last trip to the U.S. Of course, I failed in my efforts because he and his family settled down in Demerara, British Guiana instead of North America, as ascertained by Mr. Smith. I wish someone would be interested enough to pick up the thread and look up his descendants there.
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RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n
230

NOTES AND QUERIES

Liang-ssu-ma (梁司馬) each in command of 25 soldiers, all under the command of a Centurion (Tsu-chiang † †). (5) Chien Chiang, the Chekiang literatus, never joined up with the Taipings, but later enlisted in Lei I-hsien's (†) headquarters in 1853 near Yang-chow. He was shortly afterwards executed by Lei after proposing the Li-kin system of taxation. (6) Lo Ta-kang at the beginning of the uprising was appointed a Chun-Shuai (軍帥) and never appointed Wang (king) or Great General.

(7) There were no other two Los each with title of Wang and Assistant General,

(8) Yang Hsiu-ch'ing was East King (東王), not Assistant Councillor. He was the number two man in the Tai-Ping-Tien-Kuo next only to the Heavenly King, while Feng Yun-Shan was the number four in rank.

(9) The Taiping forces were organized into five main armies, Central, Front, Rear, Left and Right, and was not divided into left and right wings.

(10) Concerning religious faith, the deserter knew nothing about the distinguishing features of Taiping Christianity, but reechoed a superficial doctrinization very vaguely recalled from Gützlaff's teaching.

For general references to the above historical facts, see my book The Taiping Revolutionary Movement (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1973) relevant chapters.

Thus, it can easily be seen that this ex-member of Gützlaff's Chinese Union, aside from being ignorant of Feng's death, did not know the personnel, itinerary, enrolment numbers, titles, organizational structure, and the Christian religion of the Taipings. In other words, we may reasonably presume that he had never joined up with the Taipings. But his return to Hong Kong with such a false report in 1853 did create a sensation, and provided a seemingly firm ground for general belief in the fable of Feng's relation with Gützlaff. Even the editor of the Register proclaimed "it worthy of credit". Readers generally still ignorant of Taiping affairs of course, took both the account and the connection as bona-fide fact. Clarke states (p. 164) that the first Anglican Bishop of Victoria, George Smith, publicized being informed by a Union Member that Tien-Teh-Wang and Feng Yun-Shan were identical and that Feng had been a member of the Union. He also consulted with Robert
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