As for the story of the Kan-wang's capture, there are several contradictory and apparently authentic statements: one by a certain Patrick Nellis, who personally saw the chief and talked with him at Hoo-chow (subsequent to the fall of Nankin), where it seems that he proceeded with an escort to communicate the loss or abandonment of the capital, and concert measures for the evacuation of Hoo-chow-foo as well.[79]
Besides the above reports, others were promulgated by the Mandarins, in which they defeated different Ti-ping armies en route for the south, killing thousands and tens of thousands of rebels and capturing many chiefs, among them the Shi-wang, who, singularly enough, still managed to be in command of the Ti-pings near Amoy, until within the last few months, when he retired to join other leaders farther inland. Confessions were produced which professed to be written by the penitent rebel leaders in their dungeons, while awaiting their turn to be disembowelled, or "cut into a thousand pieces"—a pleasing prospect, of course likely to make the destined victims suddenly feel inspired with love and respect for the benevolent Manchoos, whom they had so vigorously opposed all their lives! Among these seemingly fabricated confessions only one is worthy of any attention, and that is a lengthy composition, entitled, "The autographic deposition of Chung-wang, the faithful king, at his trial after the capture of Nankin." Were it not for the known mendacity of the Mandarins, and their particular addiction to forging documents of this sort in order to lessen the prestige of the revolution by representing its principal leaders as in their merciless power, there would be little doubt but that the one in question was genuine. In 1852, previous to the capture of Nankin by the Ti-pings, the Imperial authorities concocted an article they named the "Confession of Tien-teh," pretending that it was the deposition of the leader of the rebellion, whom they falsely declared was their prisoner. It is quite probable that the "Chung-wang's deposition" is of similar truthlessness, and was made up by some prisoner of note (who may have been pardoned in consequence), and the cunning writers attached to the Governor-General of the two Kiang, Tseng-kwo-fan. Still it must be admitted that many portions of the alleged deposition bear not only the impress of truth (in so far as historical events, data, &c., are concerned), but expressions closely resembling the well known sentiments of the great Ti-ping general; so that if, as we trust, he was not the author, some one pretty intimately acquainted with him must have been. However, some facts tending to support the theory (for there is no direct proof in any case except the Shi-wang's movements subsequent to the fall of Nankin) of the Chung-wang's escape, will be given in the course of our narrative.
Having noticed the Imperialist reports, it is now necessary to give the following digest of the events referred to, and which may be depended upon as the only possible version to be derived from the existing and attainable sources of information:—
It is known that when the Chung-wang became convinced England was determined to persist in prosecuting hostilities against his people, and likewise felt their inability to cope with the foreign power, he at once decided upon the best military movement under the circumstances—namely, an entire abandonment of all accessible possessions, and a retreat into the interior, where British hostility could not reach them, and where no Manchoo forces could either prevent their operations, restrain their consequent reinforcement, or impede their future progress.
Before parting with the Chung-wang, I was myself present at several councils when the above plan was discussed, and unanimously agreed to by every chief present. But one impediment prevented the Commander-in-Chief from acting with his usual brilliancy of conception and wonderfully successful rapidity of execution; it was the Tien-wang, who refused even to listen to any proposal to abandon his capital.
Different people will view this ruinous obstinacy of the Ti-ping king in various ways. Some will look upon it as sheer, downright folly; others, as the useless, fanatical sacrifice of a bigot; while some may consider that that great, heroic, noble-minded man, having once established the capital of his dominions and the centre of his religio-political movement at Nankin, did right and gloriously in meeting death rather than turning backwards on the grand path. If we ascribe to the Tien-wang motives partaking equally of the three traits—nobleness, fanaticism, and rashness—we shall probably be pretty near the truth.
At all events, the Tien-wang passionately refused to entertain the only plan by which the existence of the Ti-ping power, and the perpetuation of his dynasty, seemed possible. All the court officers, cabinet ministers, and other high authorities of Nankin, were blindly subservient to the will of their king, and equally infatuated with his religious and temporal command. Besides, many of those about him were of the Hung family, and, being nearly related to their chief, not only followed implicitly his wishes, but jealously formed themselves into a clique about him, to the prejudice and exclusion of other more capable and independent officers. All the fighting Wangs were outside the capital, and incessantly engaged with the enemy; few troops were in garrison, while many thousands of helpless non-combatants daily diminished the stores of the failing granaries; and if the multitudinous besieging army, encamped and fortified all round the devoted city, had been animated with the slightest particle of courage or military spirit, they might easily have captured it many months before it eventually fell through starvation, or was evacuated by the troops.
The Chung-wang, after his separation from myself at Wu-see, proceeded direct to Nankin viâ Chang-chow-foo. His only object was to save the king and his own family (living with his aged mother, whom he loved with excessive filial tenderness), by inducing them to leave the untenable city. He, alone, proposed the unpalatable manœuvre to the Tien-wang, whose severe displeasure he had already incurred, being punished in various ways—by deprivation of titles, refusal of audience, accusation of disloyalty, &c. How the time (December, 1863, to 19th July, 1864) was passed, from the arrival of the Chung-wang to the fall of the capital, unless the professed "autographic deposition" be true, or the garrison really abandoned the city and escaped, will probably never be known to history. Either, as the "deposition" states, the whole city petitioned against the departure of the renowned commander, or he personally elected to remain, rather than desert his king in the hour of death and darkness, even though such calamity might have been avoided but for the fatal perverseness of the monarch; perhaps both causes operated to confine him to useless inactivity within the walls of the doomed city—inevitably doomed, and encircled by the numberless siege works of the enemy as with a band of impenetrable steel.
How the poor people, fated by the passive stubbornness of their rulers, must have gathered together round their great warrior, as men will rally about a tower of strength; how the unnumbered thousands of helpless non-combatants must have rejoiced at the presence of him whose very name was an army, a bulwark to his people, and a terror to the enemy; how bitterly must the brave, energetic soldier have grieved and chafed at the unnecessarily-incurred annihilation, and growing horrors of the siege, which should have been avoided; but, alas! how could one great man, without means, save a people, a sacred cause, and a city invested by 100,000 savage foemen?
Loyalty and filial duty brought the "faithful prince" to Nankin; the same motives bound him there to await destruction, when his presence in the field—at the head of his own army, left under command of his cousin, the Shi-wang—would have proved invaluable, and would surely have placed the Ti-pings in a much better position than they occupied at the close of the year 1865.