The Devil Soldier (26 page)

In supplying and equipping his new corps, Ward worked not only through the various business channels he had established and expanded during the previous year but also through his brother, Harry. Since his arrival in Shanghai late in 1859, Harry Ward had set up business in conjunction with his father in New York as Ward and Company and had journeyed back and forth to the United States on various trading missions. Nothing he had yet undertaken, however, could have matched the lucrative possibilities of acting as a “purchasing agent” for his brother’s new army. Harry Ward was able, during the late summer of 1861, to buy, through his father, a large supply of “good percussion firelocks, in very good order,” along with “two batteries of field pieces and a supply of field ammunition.” But far more important, the younger Ward engineered the purchase, in September, of the eighty-one-ton river steamer
Cricket
, at a cost of $25,000.

The acquisition of the
Cricket
, first in a line of river steamers that Frederick Ward assembled during the coming year, marked a threshold moment in the development of the corps. The thousands of waterways—from rivers to manmade canals—that crisscrossed Kiangsu offered tremendous possibilities for rapid military movement, far more than the roads that ran over the often unreliable ground of the province. And while both the Taipings and the imperialists made use of the waterways for transportation, employing thousands of small boats, neither side had yet integrated this extensive network into their overall tactical and strategic planning. But by the fall of 1861 Ward had begun to see
that the rivers and canals represented their own area of engagement: By heavily arming river steamers, he could make such vessels a method not only of transporting troops
to
a given battlefield but also of bringing firepower—in the form of heavy artillery mounted on moving platforms aboard the steamers—to bear on a battle
from
the water. Suddenly it was possible to see the topography of the province in a new light. The concentration of force was no longer inhibited by water but facilitated by it; indeed, the waterways became parts of rather than boundaries to the battle map, and the cities and towns located at key junctures—which had traditionally controlled the waterways—were revealed as vulnerable to attack from those same avenues.

This was more than just a new emphasis on increased mobility; it was an expansion of the theater of operations. The Taipings had long hoped to achieve such an expansion themselves: The acquisition of river steamers was one of the goals that had first brought the Chung Wang to the gates of Shanghai. But access to the ships fell to Ward instead, and his instinctive knowledge of how to use them meant that the
Cricket
and her dozen or so sister ships would soon play a decisive role. The final element in this plan was the hiring of American commanders who had worked on similar craft in the United States and whose experience with conditions much like those in Kiangsu was far greater than that of other Westerners.

During the long months of training and tactical innovation that followed the creation of his new corps, Ward also placed heightened emphasis on the need for reliable intelligence. His bitter experiences with jealous Manchu commanders who refused to share what information they possessed concerning Taiping troop strengths and movements caused Ward to address this problem in a characteristically personal fashion: by himself infiltrating and scouting rebel-held territory. Ward made these journeys, generally, in the guise of a Western hunter or trader who had secured safe passage from the local Taiping commanders. Among the few personal documents belonging to Ward that made their way back to the United States and have survived to this day are
two passes from such commanders, ordering the soldiers of the Heavenly Kingdom not to harm or interfere with the movements of the
unnamed “foreigner” who bore them. It is entirely plausible that Ward, exploiting the continued Taiping reluctance to molest Westerners, coolly applied for and received these passes himself; at any rate, he did, on such journeys, gain vital firsthand information concerning positions he would shortly attack. As always, he did so without apparent concern for the very gruesome fate that would have awaited him had his identity been discovered. In addition to such adventurous sorties, Ward made use of an expansive network of spies, who infiltrated not only the rebel camps but those of the imperial armies as well as the foreign settlements in Shanghai. Before long he had reliable ears throughout Kiangsu.

What Dr.
Macgowan called the “secret work” of building the new corps at Sung-chiang continued through the fall of 1861. Late in the year, Admiral Sir James Hope returned from a trip to Japan to find Shanghai full of rumors about the activities of Ward and his officers. According to Dr. Macgowan, the ever-aggressive admiral went to assess the situation in Sung-chiang personally. His real purpose may once again have been to halt Ward’s activities altogether: Despite their partial peacemaking earlier in the year, there was still ill feeling between Ward and Hope, which would not be fully erased for several months. Ward was known to harbor resentment over his treatment at British hands, and it is therefore natural that when he learned of Hope’s approach, he

ordered the Europeans at once to hide themselves, whilst he arranged matters so as to give the Admiral a befitting military reception with his drilled men, who were attired in foreign costume. Sir James was altogether surprised and gratified at the sight of natives so well disciplined. He desired Ward to call his officers from their hiding places—for he knew that the colonel himself could not have accomplished so much, without assistance. All officers and men were then ordered on parade, where they went through a course of easy infantry evolutions; after which Admiral Hope not only praised them, but promised Colonel Ward his cordial support in the new undertaking.

Ward took the admiral’s praise and promises with a grain of salt; innate distrust of the British, bolstered by the London government’s
contacts with the American Confederacy as well as Ward’s own experiences in China, temporarily ruled out any other reaction. Yet there were sound reasons for accepting Hope’s vow at face value, for not only had the British position on the Taipings already moved significantly toward condemnation by the time of this visit but London’s attitude toward Ward’s activities had also shifted. As far back as August—just a month after Frederick Bruce had reported “with satisfaction” that the Foreign Arms Corps had been disbanded—Lord
Russell had written Bruce to say that since the Manchus were more likely to ensure Chinese stability and prosperity than the Taipings, London would not oppose the entrance of British subjects into an “Imperial Legion of Foreigners,” should Peking wish it. Of course, Peking did not yet wish it, and Russell’s statement was an informal one. But events were moving quickly, and, as Dr. Macgowan noted, “The time, long predicted, when interference with the Taipings would be considered necessary, was close at hand.”

In October 1861 Anson Burlingame, who had recently been appointed American minister to China by President Lincoln, arrived in Macao. The fact that official American business in the Middle Kingdom was being conducted at the time out of the home of the mission’s charge, S. Wells Williams, indicated the less than vigorous role the United States had played in Chinese affairs in recent years. But during his years in China, Burlingame was to secure for the United States a prominent role in the affairs of the Manchu court. At the same time, he earned the personal respect and affection of China’s rulers. In laying the groundwork for this reassertion of Washington’s influence at Peking, Burlingame also struck up a friendship and correspondence with Frederick Townsend Ward, to whose activities the new minister, observing the utter chaos that ruled on both sides of the Chinese civil war, soon gave his stamp of approval.

Burlingame’s was precisely the sort of decisive character that had long been absent from American dealings with China. Born in 1820, he came from a midwestern farming family and had attended the law school at Harvard. Setting up practice in Boston, Burlingame soon gained a reputation as a powerful public speaker, an advocate of Martin Van
Buren and of the Free-Soil movement. Elected to the House of Representatives in 1854, he gained fame in 1856 for an incident that had little to do with parliamentary politics. A fellow Massachusetts representative, Charles Sumner, one day rose to give voice to violent feelings about the South and slavery and subsequently—while sitting at his desk—was savagely beaten with a cane by Preston Brooks of South Carolina.
Burlingame defended Sumner and spoke directly to Brooks’s cherished sense of Southern chivalry: “What! Strike a man when he is pinioned—when he cannot respond to a blow! Call you that chivalry? In what code of honour did you get your authority for that?”

So powerful was Burlingame’s invective that Brooks subsequently challenged his Massachusetts colleague to a duel. Burlingame agreed, naming a spot just over the Canadian border (dueling was illegal in the United States) as the site and rifles as the weapon. Brooks backed down, claiming that to get to Canada he would have to travel through “enemy” territory (the Northern states), and Burlingame came away from the affair a hero of the antislavery forces. In 1861, however, he lost a close race for reelection and was appointed ambassador to Austria. But the Austrians declined to receive Burlingame, citing his strong speeches in favor of Hungarian nationalism. Lincoln then offered Burlingame the China posting, which he accepted.

Lincoln’s secretary of state, William Seward, dispatched
Burlingame to Peking with a set of instructions that were typical of the American attitude toward China since the signing of the Treaty of Wanghia in 1844. “I think,” wrote Seward, “that it is your duty to act in the spirit which governs us in our intercourse with all friendly nations, and especially to lend no aid, encouragement or countenance to sedition or rebellion against the imperial authority. This direction, however, must not be followed so far as to put in jeopardy the lives or property of American citizens in China.” U.S. interests in China, said Seward, were “identical” with those of Britain and France—the fact that British and French interests were often confused and in conflict was not addressed: “You are, therefore, instructed to consult and cooperate with [the British and French], unless there shall be very satisfactory reasons for separating from them.”

The China that greeted Burlingame in October 1861 was a nation in which such vague instructions were likely to be of even less than usual value. At the imperial hunting lodge at Jehol, north of Peking, intrigue was gaining momentum at an alarming rate. During the summer, the Emperor Hsien-feng—aware of the disgrace he had brought on his name and dynasty through his foolish belligerence and final cowardice—had indulged in a bout of debauchery that, given his health, seemed certainly aimed at self-destruction. In July he celebrated his thirtieth birthday: an edematous, besotted grotesque, obsessed with drugs and concubines. The three princes whose advice had brought about the disaster of the Allied occupation of Peking—I, Cheng, and Su-shun—still held his ear and were angling to eliminate the voices of Prince Kung and Yehonala, the mother of Hsien-feng’s son, from the councils of government by having themselves declared regents for the young heir. They succeeded, gaining control of a hastily formed Board of Regents just before their decrepit benefactor died on August 22.

Yehonala and Hsien-feng’s first wife, Niuhuru, were created empresses dowager following the emperor’s death, Yehonala assuming the name Tz’u-hsi. But real power remained in the hands of the Board of Regents. By excluding Prince Kung—who they believed had acted treacherously in concluding treaties with the West—from crucial deliberations, I, Cheng, and Su-shun made a formidable enemy. But it was in doing the same to Tz’u-hsi that they unwittingly committed their worst mistake. Slowly, the day approached for the transfer of Hsien-feng’s coffin from Jehol to Peking, a trip during which it was rumored that the three princes intended to murder the empresses dowager and blame their deaths on mountain bandits. But they had not reckoned on Tz’u-hsi’s genuine gift for outwitting political opponents.

On October 5 the procession set out by foot, the late emperor’s golden coffin carried by no fewer than 124 bearers. Suddenly, Tz’u-hsi and Niuhuru announced that because of the difficult terrain and the severe storms that accompanied the procession, they intended to ride ahead to Peking and await the arrival of Hsien-feng’s body. Any protest that the three princes might have made was silenced by the presence of a strong detachment of the Peking Field Force, a crack unit of imperial
soldiers recently assembled by Prince Kung. The Field Force detachment that accompanied the empresses dowager to Peking was commanded by Jung-lu, a young Manchu officer who was said to have been engaged to Tz’u-hsi before her “elevation” to imperial concubine.

In Peking, the empresses were greeted by Prince Kung, who had engineered their escape after receiving a secret message from Tz’u-hsi weeks earlier. Since signing the agreements with the Western powers that had put an end to the Allied occupation of Peking, Kung had reinforced his status as China’s foremost statesman by pushing for the creation of the Tsungli Yamen, a Chinese foreign office staffed by competent bureaucrats ready and able to deal with the West on realistic terms. Clearly, Kung was the man best able to manage Chinese affairs, and Tz’u-hsi knew it. Their alliance produced immediate results.

When the three princes arrived in Peking, they were speedily arrested and charged with subverting the state, one of Confucian China’s “ten abominations,” excelled in evil only by rebellion. Specifically, they were blamed for guiding Hsien-feng down the disastrous path to war with the West. “Prince I and Prince Cheng are hereby permitted to commit suicide” read
the imperial decree on the subject. “As for Su-shun, his treasonable guilt far exceeds that of his accomplices, and he fully deserves the punishment of dismemberment and the slicing process [the death of a thousand cuts]…. But we cannot make up our minds to impose this extreme penalty, and therefore, in token of our leniency, we sentence him to immediate decapitation.”