While
These Events Were In Progress In The Region North Of Nankin, The Taepings
Had Been Carrying Their Arms Up The Yangtsekiang As Far As Ichang, And
Eastward From Nankin To The Sea.
These efforts were not always successful,
and Tien Wang's arms experienced as many reverses as successes.
The
important city of Kanchang, the capital of the province of Kiangsi, was
besieged by them for four months, and after many attempts to carry it by
storm the Taepings were compelled to abandon the task. They were more
successful at Hankow, which they recovered after a siege of eighty days.
They again evacuated this town, and yet once again, in 1855, wrested it
from an imperial garrison.
The establishment of Taeping power at Nankin and the rumor of its rapid
extension in every direction had drawn the attention of Europeans to the
new situation thus created in China, and had aroused opposite opinions in
different sections of the foreign community. While the missionaries were
disposed to regard the Taepings as the regenerators of China, and as the
champions of Christianity, the merchants only saw in them the disturbers
of peace and the enemies of commerce. To such an extent did the latter
anticipate the ruin of their trade that they petitioned the consuls to
suspend, if not withhold, the payment of the stipulated customs to the
Chinese authorities. This proposed breach of treaty was emphatically
rejected, and the consuls enjoined the absolute necessity of preserving a
strict neutrality between the Taepings and the imperial forces.
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Page 422 of 704
Words from 114567 to 114821
of 191255
