Page:Eminent Chinese Of The Ch’ing Period - Hummel - 1943 - Vol. 2.pdf/234

 kung i-chi; Têng Chih-ch'êng, Ku-tung so-chi (see bibl. under ); 國朝金陵文鈔 Kuo-ch'ao Chin-ling wên-chao, 15/69a.]

2em

 WANG T'ai. See under.

 WANG T'ao 王韜, Nov. 10, 1828–?, scholar, one of the founders of modern journalism in China, was born in the town of Fu-li-chên 甫里鎭 (also given as Lu-li 甪里), Kiangsu. The eastern section of this town was under the jurisdiction of K'un-shan, the western part under Yüan-ho, in the present Wu-hsien. In 1845 Wang Tao, under the name Wang Li-pin 王利賓, became a hsiu-ts'ai in the district school of Hsin-yang, in the present K'un-shan. Thereafter, for some years, he took the name Wang Han 王瀚. He competed once for the chü-jên degree in the provincial examination at Nanking (1846) but failed, and seems not to have tried again. In February 1848 he went to Shanghai to visit his father, Wang Ch'ang-kuei 王昌桂, who was then teaching in that city. There he met, among other missionaries, Walter Henry Medhurst 麥都思 (1796–1857), of the London Missionary Society, who was then in charge of the mission press, known as Mo-hai Shu-kuan 墨海書館. After his father's death in the summer of 1849 he accepted, in the following autumn, Medhurst's invitation to become the Chinese editor for the Mission Press. Apparently he continued in this work after Medhurst left Shanghai for England in 1856. He lived in Shanghai until 1861 in close association with the mathematician,, and Kung Ch'êng (see under ); and had, as another intimate friend, the writer, Chiang Tun-fu 蔣敦復. Wang, Li, and Chiang were known as the "Three Friends of Shanghai" (海天三友). Chiang was the scholar who assisted William Muirhead 莫維廉 (1822–1900) in the translation of the latter's 大英國志 Ta Ying-kuo chih, 8 chüan, "History of England", printed in 1856 and reprinted in Japan in 1861.

In 1860 the Taiping forces, in a burst of renewed activity under, took Soochow and the territory lying toward Shanghai. In the autumn of that year Wang helped the local authorities of Chu-chai 諸翟, west of Shanghai, to organize the town's militia for defense against the Taipings. Wang records in his diary (MS in National Library of Peiping), under the date March 11, 1861, that Joseph Edkins (see under ) invited him to accompany a party of missionaries to Nanking, then the capital of the Taipings. This journey, taken in March and April 1861, is described in detail by Edkins in his Narrative of a Visit to Nanking. Apparently Wang became a friend of Liu Chao-chün 劉肇均, Taiping governor of Soochow, possibly the 'Lieu' mentioned in Edkins' Narrative as an official of Soochow whom the party met on the journey. To him Wang submitted a long document, dated the Taiping equivalent of February 3, 1862. This document he presented under the alias, Huang Wan 黃畹—using a seal carved with this name and the tzŭ, Lan-ch'ing 蘭卿, which he had used when he became a hsiu-ts'ai. The character 王 was tabooed by the Taipings, hence the surname Wang was written either as Huang 黃 or as Wang 汪. The personal name Wan he doubtless chose from its affiliation with the character Lan 蘭 in the ancient poem known as 離騷 Li-sao. The seal gives his province as Su-fu Shêng 蘇福省, the Taiping equivalent for Kiangsu. In later years Wang Tao disclaimed authorship of this document, but the penmanship and the phrasing accord with his other compositions. Wang's ostensible purpose in writing it was to submit plans for the taking of Shanghai. He proposed, among other expedients, to take the city by surprise, filling it with soldiers disguised as civilians, and ruining the trade by inducing the boatmen to desert on promise of tax-free entry elsewhere. He insisted, however, on caution, and made a great point of the power of the foreigners at the moment. He urged the Taiping leaders to press their northward conquest and deal first with the Ch'ing forces, after which the Shanghai problem would solve itself. He remarked on the Chung Wang's presence in Soochow, and expressed an ardent hope that his proposals be submitted to that leader. Naturally there is abundant flattery, and one infers that Wang Tao was currying the favor of the Taipings in the hope of obtaining a post in their régime in the event of victory. But he was scarcely a sincere partisan of their cause.

This document fell into the hands of the Ch'ing forces barely a month after its submission, and was considered of sufficient importance to be forwarded to Peking where it has recently been found in the archives and published in facsimile in the 太平天國文書 T'ai-p'ing t'ien-kuo wên- 836