"On the 28th of April 1862 Captain Gordon left the Peiho and arrived at Shanghai on 3rd of May, and at once dropped into the command of a district with the charge of the engineer part of an expedition about to start, with the intention of driving the rebels out of a circuit of thirty miles from Shanghai."
By the end of March 1862 the Chinese Government had sufficiently carried out its obligations to admit of the withdrawal of the force at Tientsin, and General Staveley transferred the troops and his quarters from that place to Shanghai, where the Taeping rebels were causing the European settlement grave anxiety, and what seemed imminent peril. The Taepings, of whose rebellion some account will be given in the next chapter, were impelled to menace Shanghai by their own necessities. They wanted arms, ammunition, and money, and the only means of obtaining them was by the capture of the great emporium of foreign trade. But such an adventure not merely implied a want of prudence and knowledge, it could only be attempted by a breach of their own promises. When Admiral Hope had sailed up the Yangtsekiang and visited Nanking, he demanded and received from Tien Wang, the Taeping king or leader, a promise that the Taeping forces should not advance within a radius of thirty miles of Shanghai. That promise in its larger extent had soon been broken, and an attack on Shanghai itself, although unsuccessful, crowned the offences of the rebels, and entailed the chastisement a more prudent course would have averted. Without entering into the details here that will be supplied later on, it will suffice to say that in January 1862 the Taepings advanced against Shanghai, burning all the villages en route, and laid irregular siege to it during more than six weeks. Although they suffered several reverses, the European garrison was not in sufficient strength to drive them away, and a general anxiety prevailed among the European community when the arrival of General Staveley altered the posture of affairs.
Before Gordon arrived two affairs of some importance had taken place. At Wongkadza, a village twelve miles west of Shanghai, General Staveley obtained a considerable success, which was, however, turned into a disaster by the disobedience of his orders. The Taepings had retired to some stronger stockades, and General Staveley had ordered the postponement of the attack until the next day, when the trained Chinese troops, carried away by their leaders' impetuosity, renewed the assault. The result was a rude repulse, with the loss of nearly 100 men killed and wounded. The next day the stockades were evacuated, and within another week the fortified villages of Tsipu and Kahding were also taken. It was at this point that Gordon arrived from Tientsin, and reached the scene of action just as the arrangements for attacking the important village of Tsingpu were being completed.
That the Taepings were not contemptible adversaries, at least those under their redoubtable leader Chung Wang, was shown by their attempting to destroy Shanghai by fire, even while these operations were in progress. The plot nearly succeeded, but its promoters were severely punished by the summary execution of 200 of their number. The force assembled for the attack on Tsingpu assumed almost the dimensions of an army. General Staveley commanded 1,429 British troops with twenty guns and mortars, in addition to a naval brigade of 380 men and five guns. There was also a French contingent of 800 men and ten guns, under Admiral Protet. At Tsingpu Gordon specially distinguished himself by the manner in which he reconnoitred the place, and then placed and led the ladder parties after two breaches had been pronounced practical. The Taepings fought well, but the place was carried, and the Chinese auxiliaries killed every one they found with arms in their hands. Commenting on Gordon's part in this affair, General Staveley wrote in his official despatch:—
"Captain Gordon was of the greatest use to me when the task of clearing the rebels from out of the country within a radius of thirty miles from Shanghai had to be undertaken. He reconnoitred the enemy's defences, and arranged for the ladder parties to cross the moats, and for the escalading of the works; for we had to attack and carry by storm several towns fortified with high walls and deep wet ditches. He was, however, at the same time a source of much anxiety to me from the daring manner he approached the enemy's works to acquire information. Previous to our attack upon Tsingpu, and when with me in a boat reconnoitring the place, he begged to be allowed to land in order better to see the nature of the defences; presently, to my dismay, I saw him gradually going nearer and nearer, by rushes from cover to cover, until he got behind a small outlying pagoda within 100 yards of the wall, and here he was quietly making a sketch and taking notes. I, in the meantime, was shouting myself hoarse in trying to get him back, for not only were the rebels firing at him from the walls, but I saw a party stealing round to cut him off."
A letter from Gordon gives an interesting account of the two subsequent affairs at Nanjao, where Admiral Protet was killed, and at Cholin, where the Taepings suffered a severe but, as it proved, not a decisive defeat.
"On going through the village a Chang-mow (rebel leader) came out of a house rubbing his eyes, evidently having been taking a siesta; he was horrified, and bolted, but was soon caught, and the sailors had much difficulty in saving his life from the villagers, who flew upon and would have killed him. Poor man! he had such a nice costume when taken, but in five minutes afterwards you would scarcely have known him; all his finery, and even more, had been taken from him. The small force encamped and entrenched themselves 900 yards from Cholin, much to the surprise and anger of the garrison. They came down in force on the next morning with no end of banners. Upon the principle that inquiring minds should not be balked, they were allowed to come pretty close, but then the poor things received a check, and the beautiful silk banners were furled up and carried back to the town.
"The next day General Staveley sent us word to come back, since he would attack Nanjao first, but as there were nearly 1000 villagers depending upon our protection and crowding round our camp, I was sent back with an armed party, and Captain Willes remained in front of the town. I went back by a different road and came on the General four miles from Nanjao. We marched on, and halted near the town, which was reconnoitred during the night, and the guns placed in position by 5 p.m. On the 17th we opened fire at seven, and attacked the place. Here Admiral Protet was killed; he was among 500 men, and was the only one struck. The town was a wretched affair, and a good many Chang-mows escaped. These Chang-mows are very funny people; they always run when attacked. They are ruthlessly cruel, and have a system of carrying off small boys under the hope of training them up as rebels. We always found swarms of these boys who had been taken from their parents (whom the rebels had killed) in the provinces.
"I saved one small creature who had fallen into the ditch in trying to escape, for which he rewarded me by destroying my coat with his muddy paws in clinging to me. I started soon after the attack for Cholin, and got there on the 18th. The rebels had made a sortie since my departure, and had got into a pretty mess. Willes let them come up and then advanced on them; over sixty were killed, and several taken prisoners. The General then came. We got our guns in position during the night, opened fire next morning, and assaulted at seven. The place was miserable and poor. The Armstrong guns, which enfiladed one face, did great execution."
The fruits of these successes were lost by the signal overthrow and practical annihilation of a large Chinese army at Taitsan. One of General Staveley's detachments was cut off, and with his communications threatened he found himself compelled to abandon Kahding, and to retire towards Shanghai. Tsingpu had also to be abandoned, and the garrison suffered some loss in effecting its retreat. Of the first results of General Staveley's campaign there thus remained very little, and it was only in the autumn that these places were retaken, and the campaign against the Taepings in the Shanghai districts continued with varying fortune throughout the remainder of the year 1862 and the early months of 1863.
While these military events were in progress Major Gordon, who was raised to the rank of Major in the army in December 1862 for his services in China, had been trusted with the congenial task, and one for which he was pre-eminently well suited, of surveying and mapping the whole of the region for thirty miles. This work, necessary in itself for many reasons, proved of incalculable value to him in the operations which he eventually undertook and carried out to a successful issue against the rebels. His own letters show how thoroughly he fulfilled his instructions, and how his surveys ended in his complete mastery of the topography of the region between the Grand Canal, the sea, and the Yangtsekiang:—