His mission was to root out Demons and Manchus from the face of
the earth, and to establish Taiping, the reign of eternal peace.
In the meantime, retiring into the depths of his palace, he left
the further conduct of earthly operations to his lieutenants,
upon whom he bestowed the title of 'Wangs' (kings), while he
himself, surrounded by thirty wives and one hundred concubines,
devoted his energies to the spiritual side of his mission. The
Taiping Rebellion, as it came to be called, had now reached its
furthest extent. The rebels were even able to occupy, for more
than a year, the semi-European city of Shanghai.
But then the tide turned. The latent forces of theEmpire
gradually
asserted themselves. The rebels lost ground, their armies were
defeated,
and in 1859 Nankin itself was besieged, and the Celestial King
trembled
in his palace. The end seemed to be at hand, when there was a
sudden
twist of Fortune's wheel. The war of 860, the invasion of China
by
European armies, their march into the interior, and their
occupation of
Peking, not only saved the rebels from destruction, but allowed
them to
recover the greater part of what they had lost. Once more they
seized upon the provinces of the delta, once more they menaced
Shanghai. It was clear that the Imperial army was incompetent,
and the Shanghai merchants determined to provide for their own
safety as best they could.
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