Events in the Taeping Rebellion

LIBRARY ANNEX 2 CHARLES WILLIAM WASON COLLECTION CHINA AND THE CHINESE THE GIFT OF CHARLES WILLIAM WASON CLASS OF 1876 1918 Cornell University Library DS 759.H16 Events in the Taeping Rebellion / 3 1924 023 126 729 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023126729 EVENTS IN THE TAEPING REBELLION I'ORTRAIT OF GENERAL CHARLES GORDON C EVENTS IN THE TAEPING REBELLION BEING REPRINTS OF MSS. COPIED BY GENERAL GORDON, C.B. IN HIS OWN HANDWRITING WITH MONOGRAPH, INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES BY A. EGMONT HAKE AUTHOR OF 'THE STORY OF CHINESE GORDON,' AND EDITOR OF GENERAL GORDON'S JOURNALS AT KHARTOUM, ETC. WITH PORTRAIT AND MAP LONDON : W. H. ALLEN AND CO. Ltd. 13 WATERLOO PLACE iluiligfrtrs to tfje InSiB ©ffice 1891 All rights resm-ved EDITOR'S NOTE I WISH to tender my sincere thanks to Mr. Val Prinsep for his kindness in allowing me to repro- duce his famous portrait of General Gordon, as well as to the Officers of the Chatham Mess, whose pro- perty it is. I would also express my gratitude to Major Story for the contribution of his Reminis- cences of the Taeping Rebellion. I may add that the design for the cover of this work is a facsimile reproduction of the visiting-card used by General Gordon during his sojourn in China, the syllables of . and that the symbols represent two his name. A. E. H. — GORDON AS LEADER OF MEN A MAN of average height—about five feet nine, with brown curly hair and luminous blue eyes—eyes that looked you through and through, and summed you up at a glance ; eyes that told you of a stronger will than yours ; eyes that seemed to read your very soul, and wring from you the truth. His manner impressive, gentle, even tender, except when he was roused or angry, and then sternness and invincibility itself. Humorous, too, in a manner quaint, boyish, and peculiarly his own, and with a wit that was plea- sant to all ; cruel and offensive to none. A sweetness of disposition which made him beloved wherever terrible, it made him he went ; a wrath so feared. A man for whom the honours of this world had blame of men was a plea- no charm ; to whom the sure, and their praise a pain ; a man who had the hero's courage, the statesman's wisdom, the prophet's foresight and faith—a wondrous personality ; a com- B GORDON AS LEADER OF MEN pound of many natures, each one in living contrast with the other, but all subdued to one magnificent this and noble purpose, the benefaction of his kind ; man, who lived and who died for humanity—this strange and potent compound of tenderness and passion, of petulance and magnanimity, of humility and daring, of boyish cheeriness and apostolic zeal, of perfect charity and irresistible command, of loftiest pride and most ungrudging self-privation, this living embodiment of striking contradictions, this world of warring elements, this human paradox, is — Charles Gordon. Now, we should mark these qualities, not for their own sakes, nor out of curiosity, but with a view to noting the manner in which they are turned to account under difficulties ; the varied and peculiar felicity with which they are adapted to circum- stances ; the success, unparalleled, with which they shape events, determine the course of great wars, and arrest and change the destinies of mighty em- pires. Wherever Gordon is, there is not only a hero and a leader of men ; there is a character, a personality, unique in human history. (His was no fugitive and cloistered virtue, unex- ercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees his adversaries, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland must be run for, not without dust and heat.) A cadet in the schools, a subaltern in the trenches before Sebastopol, his personality — the GORDON AS LEADER OF MEN virtue that is in him—shines out splendidly con- spicuous. We shall see him, grown to man's estate, bamboo in hand, and with the inevitable cigar, leading his little army against the fierce and desperate hordes of China's Heavenly King, heedless of danger, con- temptuous of death, but full of mercy and loving- kindness for the fallen ; we shall see him saving the oldest Empire in the world from ruin, then lavishing his pay upon his soldiers, and declining all honours and rewards. We shall see him avoid the praise of men, the felicitations of his equals, take up his abode among the poor, and devote himself, body and soul, with the same energy of magnanimity to the needs of ragged urchins snatched from the gutter, to the comfort of the sick, the palsied, and the blind. We shall see him in the Soudan ministering, in his own person, to the needs of the pariahs of his race, the children of a thousand years of bondage, yet in the pressing affairs of State and war still thinking of the lads in England he loved to guide. We shall see him again, alone and unarmed, riding into the camp of Suleiman, the robber chief, and his 3000 despera- does, and by the magic of his presence and his. voice thrilling his would-be assassins to his will. We shall see him again and again face to face with death, but ever victorious in the whole armour of God, sweeping away slavery from the land of slaves, stamping out rebellion, and relieving almost alone ! GORDON AS LEADER OF MEN the beleaguered garrisons of the Soudan. And we shall see him, last of all—alone at Khartoum—beat- ing back the black hosts of the Mahdi, and perform- ing, day after day, month after month, such prodigies of skill and valour as make his whereabouts the cynosure of the world and his safety a prime interest of civilised humanity, despairing not for himself, but for the faithful few who with him are doomed to die ; despairing for the deserted land he hoped to save, but trusting in the God with whom he soon will find his home. It is no rare thing for the boy to forerun and anticipate the man. Character is born with us ; we are statesmen and heroes—or the opposite—from our cradle upwards. Lord Beaconsfield at twenty played at being prime minister of England, and Charlie Gordon played at soldiers, made caves in the garden, and was an adventurer in savage lands long before he had let go his mother's apron. He was born to govern and command, and he gave proof of that spirit of domina- tion which was his helpmate in life while he was yet a cadet at Woolwich. The youngsters of that generation were a good deal less bookish and a good deal more, let us say, spontaneous than the youngsters of to-day. Gordon was as brisk and fond of fun as any. He was unruly and his officer corrected him. He tore the epaulets from his shoulders and flung them at his senior's feet Now this trivial incident has a good deal more GORDON AS LEADER OF MEN significance than we might at first suppose ; it illus- trates a most important element of Gordon's success, viz. personality, for, as we shall see, it was not so much by force of arms, or skill in the great art of war, that Gordon vanquished his enemies, quelled his own mutinous troops, mastered the slave-hunters, and moulded to his will the dusky tribes of the Soudan. No, it was by sheer force of personality. His whole career, in fact, is one long triumph of individuality; and, looked at from this point of view, must have an abiding interest for all people and all time. As a subaltern in the Crimea it was his personality which at once placed him above his comrades and captured the attention of his officers. He always knew more of the enemy's movements than any one in the trenches. Where difficult or danger- ous work was going on there was Gordon ; alert, contemplative, actor and spectator in one, almost playfully dodging the shot and shell ; schooling himself for war in the midst of suffering, danger, and privation ; snatching at any and every chance that should help to make him a soldier, and working out a system of tactics of his own. To his genius twelve months in the trenches before Sebastopol were as twelve years. As he proved before long, he was already fit to command an army, and perform his part in what is after all the great work of the world, the leadership of men, the deliverance of nations, the salvation of humanity. GORDON AS LEADER OF MEN When Todleben had dismantled his defences, and the Russian war was over, Gordon, young as he was,—scarce four and twenty—was chosen as the man best fitted to act as Deputy-Commissioner in Bessarabia and Armenia for the demarcation of the new Turco-Russian frontier—no insignificant post. It was in the performance of this duty, in semi- barbarous lands, that he learned the nature of those wandering tribes over whom, for the rest of his life, he exercised an influence unequalled, save by the achievement of the Carthaginian Hannibal. While he was thus schooling his faculties for greater work, that work was making ready to his hand. A vast rebellion—a rebellion such as the world, old as she is, has rarely seen and suffered—had taken hold of the immemorial Empire of China, and steadily and surely was eating out the heart of the most ancient and enduring of Time's inventions, a civilisation counting its ages not by centuries, but by thousands of years.

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