Meantime the Taiping rebels advanced to Ningpo, the defence of which Mr Bruce had refused to sanction, and they captured the city on December 9, 1861, after engaging not to do so. The leaders there were interviewed by the French Admiral Protêt and the English Captain Corbett with a view to gaining a comprehension of their plans, and "to prevent the atrocities of which they have hitherto been guilty, and to endeavour to effect an arrangement by which trade can be conducted from the town. The French Rear-Admiral Protêt will act in concert with me," wrote Admiral Hope to Corbett, December 7.
After the capture of the city the admiral instructed Captain Corbett that if the rebels wished to levy any duties, he was to see that in amount they did not exceed those stipulated in the imperial tariff. Arrangements were also made by the three treaty Powers for the protection of foreign life and the safety of the foreign quarter. The position was, however, a very difficult one, as the rebels had no idea of order or of keeping faith. Indeed the problem of protecting British subjects while observing Lord Russell's neutrality instructions was fast becoming impossible, for the conventions made with the Taiping authorities in Nanking were disregarded by them, and Shanghai itself was threatened.
The admiral's conception of what was required for the protection of British interests was all the while undergoing steady development, and in January he wrote that Kiukiang and Hankow had become as essential to our trade as Shanghai. Writing a month later, he pressed his plans still more definitely upon the Admiralty. "On every occasion," he said on February 21, 1862, "on which I have reported the state of Shanghai since my return here, it has been my duty to bring the devastation and atrocities committed by the rebels in its immediate vicinity very prominently under their Lordships' notice. These proceedings have been conducted at a distance much too close to be consistent with the respect due to the occupation of the town by French and English forces, or to leave its supplies of provisions and native trade unaffected."
The tension was at length relieved by the relaxation of Earl Russell's restrictions. He had already said that "it might be expedient" to protect the treaty ports, and that he was "of opinion that we ought to defend Shanghai and Tientsin as long as our forces [the garrison left from the Peking campaign] occupied these ports." But now, on March 11, 1862, he took a more practical view of the whole situation, and issued her Majesty's commands that "Admiral Hope should not only defend Shanghai and protect the other treaty ports, but also the British flag and the Yangtze, and generally that British commerce is to have the aid of her Majesty's ships of war."
During the winter of 1861-62 matters had become very critical in Shanghai. The rebel chiefs sent an intimation to the foreign consuls that it was their intention to capture the town, and they proceeded to burn the villages and ravage the country on both sides of the river within gun-shot of the military lines. Special local measures of defence were adopted by the residents, and fugitives in thousands flocked into the only asylum where their lives were safe. The pressure of these events led to yet more definite action on the part of Sir James Hope, who perceived that the effective defence of Shanghai and its sources of supply involved aggressive movements against the rebels in order to drive them out of all the places they occupied within the thirty-mile radius. In all these proceedings the admiral went hand in hand with his French colleague, and with the commanders of the French and British military forces. An agreement signed by the four on February 13, 1862, settled the immediate question of the defence of the city of Shanghai. An appeal to the British Minister completed his conversion to a "forward policy." "I strongly recommend," wrote the admiral on February 22, "that the French and English commanders should be required by yourself and M. Bourboulon to free the country from rebels within a line"—specified; and the reply was as hearty and free from ambiguity as could be wished: "We can no more suffer Shanghai to be taken by famine or destroyed by insurrection than we can allow it to be taken by assault; and it requires but little experience in China to be assured that the effect of remaining on a strict defensive within the walls is to convince our assailants that we are unable to meet them in the field."
The plan of campaign was settled in an agreement signed by Sir James Hope, Admiral Protêt, and Brigadier Staveley, April 22, 1862, and was carried out to the letter during the early summer and the autumn following. At an early period of the operations Admiral Protêt was killed: his loss was deeply lamented, most of all by his British colleague, with whom relations of exceptional intimacy had sprung up. "The extent to which I enjoyed his confidence and regard will ever prove a source of unmingled satisfaction to me," wrote Sir James Hope on the day of the admiral's death, May 17, 1862, himself at the time confined to his cabin by wounds.
The rebel forces in Ningpo, who had been on their good behaviour for a short time, became aggressive and insulting, even going the length of offering rewards for foreign heads in the good old mandarin fashion. It is well to remember that even in their unkempt condition, and with everything to gain from the goodwill of foreigners, the Taiping rebels lacked nothing of the most arrogant of Chinese assumptions. The pretensions of the chief far exceeded those of the Emperors of China. The Taipings required foreigners to be subject to their jurisdiction, and they habitually applied derogatory terms to foreign countries. Such things were regarded much as the eccentricities of a lunatic might be. Nevertheless they were a faithful reflex of what is rooted in the Chinese mind.
The position of foreigners and the foreign ships there having thus been rendered intolerable, the city was recaptured from the rebels by Commander Roderick Dew in the same month—a brilliant feat of arms. After the capture he wrote: "In the city itself, once the home of half a million of people, no trace or vestige of an inhabitant could be seen.... The canals were filled with dead bodies and stagnant filth." The recapture of Ningpo was the beginning of an Anglo-Franco-Chinese campaign against the rebels in Chêkiang which was carried on simultaneously with that round Shanghai.
It is needless to follow in detail the operations which culminated two years later in the final suppression of the Taiping rebellion; but the relations which grew up between the British and French commanders on the one side, and the Chinese military forces which were being organised on the other, were so fruitful in results as to merit their being held in particular remembrance. Though the history has been many times written, it may still not be considered supererogatory to trace some of the points of contact between the native and foreign motives and plans of action, and the evolution of the defensive idea which was the product of the combination.
The Taiping rebellion had devastated the central and southern provinces many years before the Chinese Government roused itself to a serious effort to resist it. The movement of repression originated with the Governor-General of the Hu provinces, whose chief lieutenant and successor was Tsêng Kwo-fan, Governor-General of Kiangnan at the time of which we now speak. His brother, Tsêng Kwo-chuan, the Governor of Chêkiang province, was the military leader, and Li Hung-chang, the most capable and energetic of them all, was governor of the province of Kiangsu. The imperialist forces had been gradually closing on Nanking, and it was thought probable that this hemming-in process forced the rebels to seek outlets and new feeding-grounds in the populous districts of Kiangsu and Chêkiang. The rebels had enlisted a number of foreigners in their ranks, and made great efforts to supply themselves with foreign arms and ammunition, for which purpose, among others, communication with the sea was most important for them. Li, futai (governor), also began to enlist foreigners and raise a special corps, drilled and armed in foreign fashion, and led by foreign officers. The foreign agent in this enterprise on the imperialist side was Frederick Ward, to whom Mr Bruce referred in May 1861 as "a man called Ward, an ex-Californian fillibuster." Within a year Mr Bruce wrote, "In the Chinese force organised and led by Mr Ward I see the nucleus of a military organisation which may prove most valuable in the disturbed state of China." The truth is, "Ward's force," which became known by its high-flown Chinese title of the "Ever-Victorious Army," was seized on from its origin by Sir James Hope, whose encouragement and support were essentially serviceable to it in its early days. The admiral treated Ward as a comrade, fighting by his side, and thus giving the new levy a military status. While the Chinese troops were yet raw he co-operated with them by capturing positions from the rebels and trusting Ward's men to hold them, on the assurance of their leader that they were equal to that duty. Ward himself was an unpretentious, cool, and daring man, reckless of his own life. During his brief campaign he was riddled with bullets, one of which entering his mouth destroyed the palate and impaired his speech, and before long the fatal missile reached its mark. He was succeeded in the command by his second, Burgevine, who, though a good soldier, lacked Ward's tact and moderation, and got into trouble with his paymasters, to whom he used violence and threats. He was deposed from the command by Governor Li, which brought about a serious crisis, for the disciplined force of foreigners and Chinese was left without a head. In this emergency Li applied to the British authorities for the loan of an officer to command the disciplined force. The responsibility of the British representatives, naval and military, became thus extended to finding a suitable Englishman to replace Burgevine. Their first selection was Captain Holland, R.M., who held the post for a short time, and was succeeded by Captain C. G. Gordon, R.E.