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In the Wake of the Taipings: Some Patterns of Local Revolt in Kwangsi Province, 1850—1875

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Ella S. Laffey
Ella S. Laffey
Affiliation:
McGill University, Montreal
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Extract

The peasant unrest which marked the period 1850–1875 in China was not solely a matter of major risings such as the Taiping or Nien rebellions. These posed the most serious threat to the Ch'ing dynasty and received accordingly the lion's share of the government's attention, but the period saw an increase in more localized disturbances as well. Sometimes the harbinger of larger rebellions, sometimes their result, most often in response to purely local miseries and opportunities, local and regional unrest ranged from banditry and smash-and-grab raids on market towns to large outbreaks such as the Red Turban revolt which threatened Canton in the summer of 1854. Although there was the constant possibility that their sparks might ignite a more massive conflagration, much of this unrest was sporadic and confined, as the horizons of peasant life were confined, to a single district or to even smaller areas—market towns which lay on the outskirts of a district, particularly if the district boundary ran through hilly country, were standing invitations and encouragements to bandit gangs. Some parts of the country—the relatively prosperous, the relatively homogeneous, or those under the eyes and guns of major concentrations of governmental power—were relatively tranquil. In other areas, disorder became endemic.

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Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , February 1976 , pp. 65 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

1 Organized dissidence as well as organized crime needs an economic base. Whatever their organizational shortcomings—and the secret societies’ lack of a centralized structure was notorious—the areas where they were able to maintain themselves over long periods as local power groups of some importance were those areas where they had such a base. For example, whatever the origins and later political ambitions of the Nien, their salt-smuggling operations had a great deal to do with their continued existence in the early nineteenth century. Salt production in western Kwangtung's ‘four lower prefectures’—Kao-chou, Lei-chou, Lien-chou and Ch'in-chou— likewise helped make this area a center of Triad activity even before the opium trade stimulated what Frederic Wakeman has called an ‘alarming crescendo of both criminal and secret society activity’ after 1820. ‘The Secret Societies of Kwangtung, 1800–1856,’ in Chesneaux, Jean (ed.), Popular Movements and Secret Societies in China, 1840–1950 (Stanford, 1972), p. 30Google Scholar. Winston Hsieh has noted that this relationship held true in a later period as well. ‘Triads, Salt Smugglers, and Local Uprisings: Observations on the Social and Economic Background of the Waichow Revolution of 1911,’ in Chesneaux, , Popular Movements, pp. 158–60Google Scholar. The most detailed presentation of the situation in western Kwangtung is in Yi-faai, Laai, ‘The Part Played by the Pirates of Kwangtung and Kwangsi Provinces in the T'ai-p'ing Insurrection,’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1950)Google Scholar. For the Nien, see Chiang, Siang-tseh, The Nien Rebellion (Seattle, 1954), p. 14,Google Scholar and Teng, S. Y., The Nien Army and Their Guerrilla Warfare, 1851–1868, pp. 40–1Google Scholar. I think it probable that their base in the Yangtze Valley during a period of expansion of the river traffic helped the rise to prominence of the Elder Brother Society (Ko-lao Hui) in the late nineteenth century. I am not discounting other factors which played a role in keeping various types of secret groups alive, but where such groups were both widespread and locally powerful they needed revenues beyond those of casual plunder or extorted membership fees. In general, more attention needs to be paid to the economics of illegality and dissidence.

2 He was also known as Ssu, Wu () and Ling-yun, Wu (). He began his rebel career in 1852, and by the late 1850s held several locations in T'ai-p'ing, fu () in southwestern Kwangsi. For a more detailed outline of his career, see Ella Laffey, ‘The Making of a Rebel: Yung-fu, Liu and the Formation of the Black Flag ArmyGoogle Scholar,’ in Chensneaux, , Popular Movements, pp. 85–96Google Scholar.

3 The relationship with the Taipings was probably of Wu's own invention. See Laffey, Google Scholar, in ibid., pp. 91, 253, fn. 19.

4 There is a brief account of the suppression campaign against Ch'ung-ying, Huang in Laffey, Ella, ‘The Content of the Sino-Vietnamese Tributary Relationship in the late 19th Century,’ in Wickberg, Edgar (comp.), Historical Interaction of China and Vietnam: Institutional and Cultural Themes (Lawrence, Kansas, 1969), pp. 25–35Google Scholar.

5 SeeBouinais, A. P. A., The Lungchow Region: Its Frontier Rivers, Roads, Towns and Marts (China Maritime Customs, Special Series, 39; Shanghai, 1923),Google Scholar and Devéria, Gabriel, La frontière Sino-Annamite (Paris, 1886)Google Scholar.

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7 For a discussion of the several moves of the Liu family, see Laffey, , in Chesneaux, , Popular Movements, pp. 87–9Google Scholar. This article is based in large part on an autobiography which Liu Yung-fu dictated years later, in the early twentieth century: Liu Yung-fu li-shih ts'ao (A draft history of the career of Yung-fu, Liu), compiled by Hai-an, Huang, edited and annotated by Hsiang-lin, Lo(Taipei 1957 reprint of 1936 edition; hereafter cited as L.S.T.)Google Scholar.

8 Even the Taiping Rebellion, which did have a unifying ideology and discipline, relied on much narrower loyalties at the beginning and was thrown back on them at the very end. The Hakkas were the core of the early movement, and when the Rebellion returned to south China to die it made its last stand in the largely Hakka area of Chia-ying-chou, () in eastern Kwangtung. The families of both Hung Hsiuch'uan, the leader of the Taiping Rebellion, and of Yung-fu, Liu had come from Chia-ying-chou, Google Scholar. Franz, Michael, in collaboration with Chang, Chung-li, The Taiping Rebellion (Seattle, 1966), I: History, p. 21; L.S.T., p. 30Google Scholar.

9 ‘Fan-Ch'ing, mieh Hung’ (). ‘Hung-ping chi-shih’ (A record of the military activities of the Red Turbans), reprinted in Chin-tai-shih tz'u-liao , 1955: 3, pp. 4 127.

10 Ch'ien-chiang hsien-chih (Taipei, 1967 reprint of 1935 edition), p. 99Google Scholar. The usual emphasis on the relationship between academic degress and gentry status tends to overlook the fact that in every part of China, even the most backward, someone ran the local power structure and fulfilled at least some of the functions of the ‘gentry’. In Kiangsu and Chekiang such individuals were likelier to be men of real Confucian substance, holders of higher degrees or their close relatives, with a wide range of contacts. In Kwangsi, men who played much the same role in local affairs could well be men with much narrower horizons, lower formal degree status, and correspondingly fewer contacts.

11 A very preliminary check of Kwangsi gazetteers suggests that in the middle years of the Ch'ing there was the same broad pattern of intra-regional assignments of officials indicating a ‘tendency towards reciprocal postings in adjacent provinces’ which Otto van der Sprenkel has found for the Ming. ‘The Geographical Background of the Ming Civil Service.’ Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 4, 3 (1961), 302–36Google Scholar. If further research bears this out, then the usual picture of Kwangsi's notorious mis-government as arising almost exclusively out of the initially poor quality of the officials sent there might have to be modified in some respects—unless one is willing to assume that officials from Kwangtung or Hunan were more likely to be incompetent or corrupt than those from, say, Shansi.

12 Cushman, Richard D., ‘Rebel Haunts and Lotus Huts: Problems in the Ethnohistory of the Yao’ (unpublished Ph.D dissertation, Cornell, 1970) has a detailed study of the origins and workings of the t'u-ssu system in KwangsiGoogle Scholar.

13 Yuan, Wei, Sheng-wu chi (A record of imperial military exploits; Taipei, reprint edition, 1963), Ch. 7, 41–5aGoogle Scholar.

14 Ibid.

15 The growth of illegality and anti-governmental activity in Kwangsi is illustrated in almost overwhelming detail in four supplements to the Kuang-hsi t'ung-chih chi-yao (Essential materials on all of Kwangsi; block-print edition, Kweilin, 1899)Google Scholar: Ku-fei tsung-lu (A complete record of Kwangsi bandits), T'ang-fei tsung-lu (A complete record of bandit associations in Kwangsi), Kuang-hsi chao-chung lu (A record of loyalists in Kwangsi), and P'ing-Kuei chi-lueh (An account of the pacification of Kwangsi). Unfortunately these works were not included in the Taipei 1967 reprint of the Kuang-hsi t'ung-chih chi-yao.

16 Cushman, , ‘Rebel Haunts,’ pp. 201–5 draws attention to discrepancies between t'u-ssu in this area and actual tribal concentrationsGoogle Scholar.

17 The Vietnamese were acutely aware that Ch'ing military successes against rebels in the border country would mean more armed fugitives in Vietnam. Beginning in late 1868, the Vietnamese repeatedly requested Chinese aid in suppressing these groups. Ta-Ch'ing li-chao shin-lu (Veritable records of successive reigns of the Ch'ing dynasty), series for the T'ung-chih period (Taipei, 1964,Google Scholar reprint edition; hereafter C.S.L.-T.C.), Ch. 245, 24a–25a. By 1879, the Vietnamese king felt pressed to remind his overlord that Vietnam's mountains and rivers mingled with those of China and that the roads of the border country branched off in both directions. Communication from Tu-duc, , reproduced in Kuo-Ting-i, et al. , (eds), Chung-Fa Yueh-nan chiao-she Tang (Tsungli Yamen archives concerning relations between China, France, and Vietnam, 7 vols, Taipei, 1962. Hereafter cited as Y.N.T.), I, dcmt 58, 91–2Google Scholar.

18 There were many points where the Kwangsi-Tonkin frontier could be crossed by small bands, but only three routes suitable for larger forces, altough once a campaign was under way the Ch'ing armies usually had to leave the main roads at some point. For a description of the main routes, see Devéria, Gabriel, Histoire des relations de la Chine avec l'Annam-Vietnam du XVIe au XIXe siècle d'après les documents chinois (Paris, 1880), pp. 80–3,Google Scholar and Devéria, , La frontière Sino-Annamite, pp. 25–6, 74–5Google Scholar. Chinese documents also describe various sections of the routes; for example, a memorial by the Kwangsi governor, Ch'ang-yu, Liu, to the Grand Council in April 1875, in Y.N.T.I, dcmt 9, 18–19. Even these main roads were at some stretches primitive affairs, hardly passable unless local porters could be obtainedGoogle Scholar.

19 Yung-fu, Liu himself (L.S.T., p. 27)Google Scholar; the Cheng brothers whose band Liu joined (L.S.T., p. 31); the man Liu cousulted before crossing into Tonkin (L.S.T., p. 65); Wu Erh and Ling Kuo-chin (L.S.T., p. 32) and San, Hsiao Chang (Chen-an fu -chih , Taipei, 1967, reprint of 1892 edition, Ch. 20, 13a). All of these men were associated with Wu Yuan-ch'ing' movementGoogle Scholar.

20 Here and subsequently I have not provided citations for material which is documented in ‘Making of a Rebel.’

21 L.S.T., p. 63.

22 L.S.T., p. 74.

23 L.S.T., p. 101; C.S.L.-T.C., Ch. 302, 19b.

24 Y.N.T. I, dcmt. 7, 16; L.S.T., 134.

25 L.S.T., pp. 150–5; Y.N.T. I, dcmt 56, 85.

26 L.S.T., pp. 57, note by Lo Hsiang-lin.

27 T'ang-fei tsung-lu Ch. 5, 1a–3a.

28 C.S.L.-T.C., Ch. 235, 2b.

29 P'ing-Kuei chi-lueh, Ch. 4, 20a.

30 Yen-hsü, Hisü, Yueh-nan shih-hsi yen-ko reprinted in Hsun-cheng, Shao et al. , (eds), Chung-Fa chan-cheng (The Sino-French War, 7 vols, Shanghai, 1955), I:53Google Scholar. Hsü, who was later the first commander of the Kwangsi armies in Tonkin in the 1880s, was also with the Chinese forces in Tonkin in the 1870s.

31 L.S.T., pp. 78–100.

32 Yen-hsü, Hsü, 52Google Scholar.

33 Ibid.

34 L.S.T., pp. 103–10.

35 Y.N.T. I, dcmt I, I.

36 Ibid., dcmt 8, 18.

37 Ibid., dcmt 18, 23–4.

38 Ibid., dcmt 20, 27.

39 For example, see Dupuis, Jean, Les origines de la question du Tong-kin (Paris, 1896), pp. 93–5, 98, 99Google Scholar; Le Tonkin de 1872 à 1886 (Paris, 1910), p. 287Google Scholar; Le Tong-kin et l'intervention française (Francis Garnier et Philastre) (Paris, 1898), 236Google Scholar. According to Ernst Millot, who was Dupuis' second-in-command, Dupuis intended to use the Yellow Flags in his plans to conduct mining operations in upper Tonkin. Le Tonkin, son commerce et sa mise en exploitation (Paris, 1888), p. 69Google Scholar.

40 Y.N.T. I, dcmt 29, 44–52.

41 Dupuis, , Tonkin de 1872 à 1886, p. 450Google Scholar. Dupuis also notes they were disbanded in September of 1883, but does not state the cause. They looted, were undisciplined, committed atrocities—in September 1883, the French were still trying to win Tonkinese ‘hearts and minds’—and the French thought there were spies among them.

42 More significantly still, neither did Shih Ta-k'ai when he returned to Kwangsi after the split in the Taiping leadership. Shih would certainly have had wider horizons after his experience with the Taipings, and his presence in Kwangsi did lead to more widespread disorder there, but no unified movement emerged. See Hsing-yao, HsiehT'ai-p'ing T'ien-kuo ch'ien-hou Kuang-hsi ti fan-Ch'ing yun-tung (Anti-Ch'ing movements in Kwangsi before and after the Taiping Rebellion; Peking, 1950), pp. 193–214Google Scholar.

43 Curwen, C. A., ‘Taiping Relations with Secret Societies and with Other Rebels,’ in Chesneaux, Popular Movements, pp. 65–84Google Scholar.

44 L.S.T., 31, 47, 50, 52.

45 Hsing-yao, Hsieh, 32Google Scholar.

46 L.S.T., pp. 46–7. Liu presents his course of action as natural, and is not particularly defensive about his abandonment of Wu Erh, but he was aware that Wu might feel differently about it; he therefore took the precaution of leaving at night.

47 Simply having one's own standard was apparently not enough. Liu Yung-fu's autobiography does not refer to the men whom he personally led as his ‘army’ (chun ) until he had acquired his first base in Tonkin, well after he had dedicated his own standard. See before and after p. 72, L.S.T.

48 L.S.T., pp. 31, 32, 47, 48.

49 This is possibly one reason, although there could well be others, why gazetteer references to raids by the same bandits within a fairly short period indicate fluctuations of one or two thousand in the bandit forces. See, for example, Ch'ien-chiang hsien-chih, Ch. 4, 44b–47bGoogle Scholar. The gazetteer figures are not necessarily accurate, but most of the figures given are in the 2,000–5,000 men range, with lower figures within this range being more common than the higher ones.

50 L.S.T., p. 31.

51 L.S.T., p. 65.

52 Hsing-yao, Hsieh, p. 228, refers to Huang as an aborigine (t'u-jen ), but without identifying the tribal groupGoogle Scholar.

53 L.S.T., p. 56. Kuang-hsi Chuang-tsu wen-hsueh (Nanning, 1961), p. 171Google Scholar. With respect to kinship, when Yung-fu, Liu returned to rebel activity after recuperating from wounds received when the Cheng brothers were killed, the immediate superior whom he followed to T'ai-p'ing-fu was a cousin of the Cheng brothers. L.S.T., p. 46Google Scholar.

54 They also received aid from tribespeople who served as guides while they were in Kuei-hsun, . L.S.T., p. 57. The only place where the Black Flags apparently involved themselves in tribal politics was in the Tai country in Laos, where they backed the group led by Deo Van Tri against others who were allied with the Yellow Flags. I plan to treat the Black Flags' career in Tonkin in more detail in a biography of Liu Yung-fuGoogle Scholar.

55 Wakeman, , ‘Secret Societies,’ in Chesneaux, Popular Movements, p. 35Google Scholar.

56 P'ing-Kuei chi-lueh, Ch. 3, 11a.

57 T'ang-fei tsung-lu, Ch. 5, 1b.

58 Y.N.T. III, dcmt 780, 1663.

59 Metzger, Thomas A. ‘Chinese Bandits: The Traditional Perception Reevaluated,’ The Journal of Asian Studies, 33, 3 (05, 1974), 455–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60 L.S.T., p. 31.