Although during my previous visit I had seen amply sufficient to undeceive me as to the wickedly false allegations of Ti-ping devastations, &c., still I was hardly prepared for the flourishing state in which I found the settled territory of the revolutionists. I knew that the export of silk within the current year (1861) had already increased to upwards of 20,000 bales more than during the corresponding period of last year (when till May the districts were under Imperialist rule); but then I imagined the great increase might be due to the wish of holders to realize. I found, upon the contrary, that the improvement was entirely due to the Ti-ping occupation. In less than two years the districts under Ti-ping jurisdiction had produced silk representing a sum of not less than £3,000,000 per annum more than previously! At each of the many villages and at every peasant's cot, the happy-looking people were engaged tending their silkworms for winter, reeling the last cocoons, or tilling their fields.
Great as the prosperity of the country seemed, there was something even more gratifying and interesting in the changed appearance and disposition of the people. All the unfavourable characteristics of the Manchoo-oppressed Chinese had vanished, and their natural character was manifested in a way which illustrated their candour, hospitality to foreigners, and native good temper.
After a twelve days' journey, the later part of the time in large canal boats, we arrived within a day's march of Hang-chow. Leaving the water route, we disembarked our horses and set forward in the direction of the provincial capital, guided by the continual booming of heavy guns. Upon reaching the crest of some high ground, the city lay before us in the clear frosty air of a fine December morning. But, as we find the case every day, the beauty of nature was marred by the passions and strife of mankind. The extensive city was in flames in several quarters, and the dense columns of smoke shrouded as with a pall the slaughter taking place beneath. As we rode forward through the beautiful neighbouring country, we were enabled gradually to discern dark masses of troops rushing forward against the city amid the constant roar of artillery and the rattling crash of smaller arms. It was evident that we had arrived at the moment of a grand assault by the Ti-ping forces.
As our soldiers each declared that the Chung-wang's head-quarters were to the west of the city, we made a considerable detour in that direction. We had not proceeded far when a disorderly crowd came in sight, hurrying away from the city. Directly they observed my party, the greater number turned off and precipitately fled in another line of retreat. As those who stood their ground were making ready with spears and gingalls to give us a warm reception, and as we were not out like a parcel of knights errant seeking adventure and fighting from pure love, we wisely followed those who ran away, and succeeded in catching one of the hindermost, to question as to the state of affairs in the city. At first the man was terribly frightened, and we could make nothing of him; then he became still more alarmed, and we found out all we wished. His fear was the usual one accompanying the flight of disorganized undisciplined troops, which with Chinese becomes a wild panic; not because the men fear death, for no people can meet it with the stolidity and callousness with which they will suffer execution and torture, but from the simple fact that they are not sufficiently disciplined to know how to be killed in an orderly manner on the field of battle. They see a chance of escape, and on one taking it the whole follow like a flock of sheep.
Having ascertained from our prisoner, who with his friends were all Imperialist soldiery from the garrison of Hang-chow, that the Ti-pings had just captured the city, we set him at liberty, and then galloped for the west gate. On the way we passed many fugitives fleeing in every direction. Upon reaching the rear of the Ti-ping lines of circumvallation, we found them almost denuded of troops, the few remaining being fully occupied in guarding prisoners. We soon found the Commander-in-Chief's head-quarters, but no Chung-wang was there. The scanty number of soldiers on guard were in a great state of excitement about the success of the siege, and we managed to elicit from them that the Chung-wang had entered the city with his whole force, and was now engaged attacking the Tartar quarter, an imperium in imperio, city within city, being protected by its own walls, and with a central citadel towering above all. Leaving the women in a house protected by the main guard, with the remainder of my party I rode towards the city. Upon entering by the nearest gate, we found the streets unoccupied, except by the bodies of the slain; but the noise of battle guided us to the spot where living men were busily engaged increasing the number of the dead and dying.
Hang-chow, cut off from all communication with the outside world, every line of supply severed by the besiegers, and famine raging among the unfortunate garrison and inhabitants, fell to the investing army upon the 29th of December, 1861. Early on that day the Chung-wang had commenced a grand assault, conducted upon each gate of the city. After a fiercely contested fight, the assaulting columns having gained some advantages at the south and east gates, the Chinese portion of the defenders at those points surrendered, probably induced to take that step by the very short rations to which they had been reduced. When the gates had been given up, the Ti-ping troops poured into the city with such ardour that the Tartar bannermen were quickly driven within their inner defence. Hundreds of the miserable citizens of the provincial capital were starved to death during the siege, hundreds more, with their families, committed suicide. The nature of war in China has usually been so merciless, and the conduct of victorious troops at the capture of a city so outrageous, that in many cases during the civil war, and the wars with Great Britain, the people, probably imbued with a dread of these consequences, have committed wholesale suicide when they were not in the slightest danger of being molested.
I managed to find the Chung-wang just in time to join the last attack upon the inner or Tartar city. The Commander-in-Chief, surrounded by his officers, received myself and friends with evident signs of satisfaction. His men had just been repulsed by the Manchoo troops, who were fighting with the greatest bravery and determination. The Ti-pings had eight or nine pieces of artillery turned against the wall of the inner city; but these were established in one position, firing point blank upon the rampart, so that when the assaulting parties moved forward the guns became useless. I instantly advised the Chung-wang to move two or three guns away upon each flank, so as to enfilade the parapet and protect the advance of his stormers. This was quickly done, and upon joining the leaders of the next assault, we had the satisfaction to find it successful. The Tartar bannermen retreated to the citadel in the centre of their city, fighting to the very last, assisted by their women, who fought with them like men, and one of whom inflicted a severe spear-wound upon Ling-ho, a Ti-ping general, when he would have saved her life. The greater portion of the Chinese troops garrisoning Hang-chow were captured, but the Manchoos fell almost to the last man. Their loss during the capture of the city was very great, and when at length they were driven into their citadel, Luy, their general, blew the remnant into the air, the entire Tartar force, men, women, and children, perishing in the ruins.
After the capture of Hang-chow, the anti-Ti-pings, who were in the habit of howling over Ti-ping atrocities, though oblivious to those of the Manchoo, indulged their distorted though vivid imaginations by inveighing against such indiscriminate slaughter. It is true that a great loss of life occurred, but not a man fell except in battle, neither were any non-combatants killed except by starvation or their own hands. It is a singular fact that those who have been loudest to exclaim against Ti-ping cruelty, have always delighted in Imperialist barbarities and success, the words being synonymous.
When the last note of conflict had died away, and the Chung-wang had fixed his head-quarters within the city, I broached the subject of his daughter's presence and her attachment to my friend. The time was propitious, for it was the moment of a great triumph, and I suppose it had put the Ti-ping generalissimo into an immensely good and benevolent frame of mind, for he simply expressed his intention to take her back to Nankin, and settle the affair upon our return to that city. In the evening Cum-ho waited upon her father, having taken up her quarters with the rest of our feminine fellow travellers in a house close to the large building occupied by himself and staff.
On the morning of the first day of the new year, a large body of the army was dispatched in the direction of Shanghae, under the command of the Shi-wang, with orders to occupy every town and village up to the walls of that port, and then to open negotiations with the British and other authorities, who had so unjustly assumed to themselves the right of holding a Chinese city for the Manchoo against the Chinese patriots. During the next few weeks the Chung-wang busied himself establishing the different offices of Ti-ping Government in Hang-chow, and completing his plans for the occupation and retention of the remainder of the provinces of Kiang-su and Che-kiang. At length the Commander-in-Chief, seldom more than a month in any city (during his remarkably energetic and rapid conduct of the Ti-ping operations), took his departure for Nankin, there to mature further tactics as to the mode of prosecuting the war against the Manchoo, and also to consult with his king the Tien-wang, and receive further commands.