CHINESE AND TARTAR MANDARINS.

347

of each other's power and influence. The first represented the Tartar element in the Chinese Government, while the latter was the acknowledged head of the native Chinese Mandarins. The opposition between these two great parties in the Chinese state has not of late years been of a serious kind-not anymore so than that between the Conservatives and Liberals in England-but it has been sufficient to affect the course of events. Sankolinsin and Tseng Kwo-fan were both warriors rather than statesmen, and perhaps specially on that account took the lead of their respective parties; for the recent course of events in the Flowery Land has had the effect of giving military Mandarins a higher position than that which they usually hold. In one important respect the Chinaman had an advantage over the Tartar, having to do with the Tai-pings, who could be suppressed, while the latter had to deal with the demands of Foreign nations, which the whole power of China would have been unable to resist. So, while Tseng was reaping glory in 1860 by his operations on the Yangtsze, the Tartar prince had to face defeat at the hands of the allies, and never quite recovered his former cheerfulness and prestige. He was always afraid that the Southern leader was attaining a height of glory which would overshadow the power and influence of the Imperial house, and even went so far as to procure the issue of an edict from Peking which degraded Tseng Kwo-tsung, the military commandant at Nanking, and ordered Tseng Kwo-fan himself to proceed to the capital to explain his conduct. This edict, however, was openly disregarded, and any further conflict between the two great fighting men of China was put an end to by the death of Sankolinsin in 1865, and by the want of success in his operations. The Peking Government were not inclined to say much more on the subject

to Tseng Kwo-fan, who had despatched a body of his picked troops to the north of Nganhwui, to protect that province and Hoopeh from invasion. Indeed, the Peking Government, sinking all minor points of difference, at once ordered Tseng Kwo-fan and Lí Futai to move all their available forces upon the Nien-fei, who were now commanded by leaders of some note-namely, Shung, a son of concubine-loving Shung Pow, who had been compelled to strangle himself the year before; Miao, who, when a Tai-ping, had made peace with the Imperialists by betraying to them the Heroic King; and Chang, a son of the notorious Chang Lo-hing.

The position of affairs demanded prompt action, for in Shantung they had advanced to Kiachow; in Chili' they were not far from Powting, where the Tai-pings had been arrested in 1853, and even Chiu fu in Shantung, the birthplace of Confucius, had fallen into their hands, and they had there destroyed the temple of the sage, which was considered the most sacred and magnificent in China. After the death of Sankolinsin, his son, the Pao Wang, defended the city of Tsinan with 30,000 Mongol cavalry, and there awaited the arrival of the experienced troops of Tseng Kwo-fan, who had been appointed Generalissimo of all the Imperial troops in China. The movement of the Nien-fei, however, collapsed at this moment without much necessity for fighting. They evacuated the entire province of Shantung, and proceeding into Shansi, a large body of them were swept away by a sudden inundation of the Yellow River, while the remainder retreated through Shensi to join the Mohammedan Rebels in Kansuh. The parties of the Nien-fei who had entered Chili were now easily cut up by the Tartar cavalry, and a new outbreak which took place in the end of this year was easily suppressed by a

1

OPERATIONS AGAINST THE NIEN-FEI.

349

portion of the garrison at Nanking, with European drilled artillery which were ordered to proceed against them. Early in the year 1866, marauders again made their appearance on the banks of the Yellow River, and established themselves for a time in some districts to the north of that stream. In the south of Shantung also they reappeared, but were put down there by a Mandarin called Puan, who had served along with Colonel Gordon. In the spring some of them pushed down south into Kiangsoo by forced marches, and a circuitous route along the seaboard, where there were no troops to oppose them, and assembled in imposing numbers at Tungtai. Tseng Kwo-fan, who advanced against them at this place, concentrated his troops round them very carefully, but the brigands managed to give him the slip. During the same year marauders of a similar kind threatened Hankow in the very centre of China, having been joined by some Imperialist regiments, whose pay was in arrear; but these latter were easily brought back to allegiance, on which the Rebels dispersed and returned to their homes. In the beginning of 1867, Nien-fei were again reported to be ravaging the country between the Yangtsze and the Yellow River, while others of them had reappeared on the confines of Shantung and Honan, where they managed to slip out of the toils of our old friend Governor Lí, now a Chetai. It requires, however, a close scrutiny of such reports, and of the sources through which they come, to know what value to attach to them. Contrary to a usually received opinion, Mr Wade, who of all Europeans is probably best acquainted with such papers, has said that, for some reason known only to Chinamen, the reports on contemporary affairs in the 'Peking Gazette' always set out the worst view of the case, without any conceal

ment, and it is possible to get at the true story of events in China, when we have these documents, or when the intelligence comes through Foreigners of sufficient intelligence and knowledge of the country to enable them to discriminate; but without such aids, it is impossible to know what value to attach to the innumerable reports which come every mail from that country, some of which are the pure invention of unscrupulous persons, while others are the joint handiwork of young Foreigners who enliven their exile by abundant gossip, and of their Chinese hangers-on, who take a peculiar pleasure in stuffing them with startling stories. A very few months ago Lí contrvied to hem them up in the Shantung peninsula, and crushed them almost entirely. Still it may be assumed without rashness, that there are yet a good many Nien-fei or robber hands left in existence in China, and that they will continue to give trouble for some years.

Of perhaps still more importance than the Nien-fei, are the Mohammedan Rebels of the north-west of China; for they really aim at something like political separation, and gave a good deal of trouble to the Celestial Empire in the year 1862. The relationship between China and Mohammedanism began at a very early period; for so early as the reign of the Kalif Walid, about 708, an embassy was sent to China by way of Kashgar, and on a tablet in the Mohammedan Hiang Fang, or "Echoing Tomb," at Canton, it is stated that there were disciples of the Prophet settled in Shensi in the reign of the Emperor Wu-tsung, 842. In one Chinese native work, the statistics of Kwangchau, it is even stated that Mohammed himself sent a maternal uncle to trade with China in the sixth year of the Hegira. Be that as it may, we know that in the ninth century Wahab and

THE MOHAMMEDANS IN CHINA.

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Abuzaid, the Arabian travellers, wrote an account of the Flowery Land; and about 1330, Ibn Batuta found wealthy Moslem merchants in all the great Chinese cities. The Arabs do not seem to have had any difficulty in getting on with the easy-going Celestials, and it was not till Mohammedanism got some hold over the rough tribes of the north-west frontier, that it began to cause trouble. As that frontier of the empire now expanded, now contracted, according to the vigour and good fortune of the Government, the Mohammedans in that region were naturally left in some dubiety as to how far it was necessary or expedient to acknowledge the Emperor. Hence they have every now and then shown a disposition to rise, and in 1827 Jehangir caused the Government some anxiety by his insurrectionary move

ment.

There are small communities of Mohammedans at Canton, Tientsin, Peking, and scattered elsewhere over China; but most of these have become Celestialised, though not to the same extent as the Jews who established themselves in the Empire many centuries ago, and who, while retaining a few rules of the Pentateuch, have lost all the other peculiarities of their race and faith. In the recent disordered state of the Flowery Land, and weakened condition of the Imperial Government, it was to be expected that the adherents of a creed so cruel, proselytising, and uncompromising as that of El-Islam, would try to assert themselves and to throw off the rule of a Government which, while it tolerates all forms of religion, will allow no interference with the Celestial Emperor's sacred function in matters of the state. The wonder is that so fanatical a set should for so long have held in complete abeyance the command of their Prophet, that those who will not accept the faith should be