"J. C. S."
Placing the Manchoo, Sing, in charge of Tait-san, General Gordon moved forward to reconnoitre Quin-san, the next Ti-ping city in the direction of Soo-chow, the provincial capital. After establishing a large Imperialist army in a stockaded position close to its walls, he returned with his own force to Soong-kong, the head-quarters, for the purpose of obtaining from General Brown, at Shanghae, further supplies of H. B. Majesty's shot and shell, preparatory to bombarding the city. When all the necessary munitions of war had been received from the British arsenals, Gordon returned to his allies outside the east gate of Quin-san.
The garrison, upon the arrival of Gordon's troops, sallied forth upon them in strong force, but after a desperate attempt to come to close quarters were driven back by the artillery with much loss. Now, unfortunately for the Ti-pings, the scientific knowledge of their enemy led him to investigate the strategic and defensive position of Quin-san with unmistakable perception of its weak points. He quickly discovered that the place was so situated as to possess but one line of retreat or supply, in consequence of the numerous small lakes, Imperialist outposts, and broad creeks in every other direction. Consequently, instead of directly attacking the city, Gordon moved his army, supported by the steamer Hyson and a large fleet of well-armed gunboats, against its only line of communication, a road constructed along the bank of a wide creek leading to Soo-chow. This movement was no sooner perceived by the garrison of Quin-san, than, finding their position rendered perfectly untenable, they commenced to evacuate the city as fast as possible. Refugees from Tait-san and the surrounding country had increased the number of inhabitants considerably, and, as at many places their only line of retreat was but a few feet broad, with deep creeks on either side, and continual narrow bridges spanning the numerous canals intersecting the country with a perfect maze of water, their escape from the city occupied the entire day, and their long thin line stretched for miles along this narrow road. The rush of the panic-stricken people was so great that the Ti-ping troops became inextricably mingled with and confused among them.
A few miles from Quin-san the Hyson and the gunboats came upon the fugitives where their line of retreat was intersected by the creek, up which the vessels were advancing; their progress, however, was for some time arrested by a couple of stockades, into which a few soldiers managed to throw themselves, and by an obstruction presented by a strong row of stakes driven firmly across the creek. During the delay, the Hyson's European officers amused themselves by an incessant fire of grape and canister poured among the helpless people seeking to escape almost in front of the muzzle of her 32-pounder bow gun. Gordon, in his report to General Brown,[48] after noticing the "well-cultivated" appearance of the country, states that the Hyson continued this murderous work for "over three hours," at the expiration of which time he arrived with his troops and drove the defenders from their stockades. Immediately upon this, the Hyson, as Gordon states, "overhauled the rebels and followed them slowly up. The creek was positively jammed up with their boats, and at the bridge at Edin the crush was awful." Now, how those who directed the fire of shell and mitraille from the Hyson managed to avoid injuring the women and children, who constituted a great proportion of the people contained in the boats, does not appear.
When the unfortunates had been leisurely followed up and ceaselessly attacked until they reached the vicinity of Soo-chow, and the protection afforded by its garrison, the steamer turned about and slowly ran back. The report, continuing from this point, states:—
"All this time rebel stragglers had been dropping into the Soochow road from all parts, and the Hyson had to continue her work all the way back, sometimes being so close on masses of rebels that she had to resort to some measure to get clear of them, and so adopted the novel expedient of using her steam whistle, which, singular as it may appear, had the desired effect.... Mounted men would try and gallop by the steamer not six yards from her; others positively rode or tried to ride past when she was alongside the road. The grape and canister must have told fearfully, owing to their numbers.... We had not ceased shelling until 2.30 a.m."
At least nine-tenths of the wretched people who thus perished under the orders of General Gordon—who, by the way, seems to have become very quickly imbued with the "Chinese character" prophesied by the British minister at Pekin—were non-combatants. The manner in which British officers dealt destruction to their victims during twenty hours, with absolute impunity to themselves, would be too revolting to be credible, but for its plain avowal by Major Gordon, R.E., himself. This almost unparalleled proceeding is merely the prototype of many other atrocities perpetrated by the Anglo-Manchoo legion and its Imperialist allies. During all the operations against the Ti-pings, and all the terrible consequences following the fall of their cities, can Major Gordon say how many were peaceful inhabitants, whose only fault was the fact that they were inmates of a town captured and held by the revolutionists? Fully nine-tenths of the Ti-ping killed and wounded, so vain-gloriously, were only guilty of submission to the de facto Power; the remainder were bonâ fide Ti-ping soldiers, whose only crime was their endeavour to expel the foreign and oppressive dynasty, and to establish the Christian faith, the persecution of the first converts to which caused their revolution.
Thousands of the people who fled before the ceaseless shelling from the Hyson had never seen a steamer before; even the few who had, like all Chinese, were greatly awed by the supposed qualities of the "fiery dragon ship;" thus, the shrieking of the steam whistle, the dashing noise of her paddles, the flaming appearance of her funnel, and the fearful effect of her artillery fire, must have thrown them into the wildest consternation. Other steam gunboats, similar to the Hyson, were shortly added to the flotilla attached to Gordon's force, and ever afterwards their appearance threw the Ti-pings into confusion, and proved more effective than a great army in the field. The dread inspired by the steamers was always fatal to every Ti-ping position they attacked, and not without cause. They were each protected by iron mantlets, proof against musketry fire, which was all they had to resist, and carried a heavy bow gun and another at the stern. If the garrison of any stockade attempted to resist them, their artillery soon battered down the defences or shelled the defenders, and then came a massacre similar to that attending the evacuation of Quin-san. The whole country between Shanghae and Soo-chow is low, marshy, and cut up by innumerable creeks, canals, dykes, and lakes, the only roads being a few narrow causeways built along the sides of the principal creeks; therefore, whenever the garrison of a stockade was driven out, their only line of retreat was along the bank of a creek, up which a steamer could follow them for miles, and pour in deadly discharges of grape and canister at a distance of only a few feet.
It has been estimated that the Ti-ping loss during the evacuation of Quin-san and the subsequent route was not less than 3,000. Gordon's force lost 2 killed and 5 drowned!