Page:The Overland Monthly volume 1 issue 2.djvu/67

1868.] midons of authority had demanded a still greater levy than before, and had threatened them with the military if more than the value of their property in sum-total were not forthcoming instantly. The next day would be the last day of grace. Everything had been sold that could be disposed of; not a ring, bracelet or ornament of gold and silver had been withheld; but the sum demanded was far, very far from being made up, and the villagers saw themselves on the brink of ruin, for the soldiers of China are but bandits, and their presence is the signal for outrage and destruction without remedy.

The next day the hamlet was a heap of ruins; the crops destroyed, and the peasants, before peaceful farmers, were now desperate with a fury that nothing but vengeance could satiate. Hung, the poor scholar, now beggared in every sense but one, flung himself into the midst of the weeping and outraged crowd of his townsmen. "High Heaven!" cried he, "register this vow! We will march on to the provincial city of Yan-nynan, and either strangle the monster who has thus driven us to despair, or we will leave our bones there as a witness to Heaven of our hatred to tyranny, and as our protest against the decree that consigns the virtuous and the helpless as the victims of infamous oppression and atrocious cruelty, into the iron sand of unscrupulous power!"

Thesr words fell upon ears but too ready to listen. As these villagers sallied forth from their desecrated homes others joined them, till they reached the walls of Yan-nynan. The shock was terrific, but the mercenary soldiery met an unarmed foe, whose stern sense of wrong soon taught them how much more terrible a wronged people may become than a battle set in array. The slaughter was fearful, but the insulted peasantry completely defeated the military, and before sunset the heads of the rapacious Mandarins were hanging on the city walls in expiation of their crimes. After the first flush of victory came sober reflection. Every participant in the insurrection had forfeited his life, and only one course was open to the victorious revolutionists, and that was to face the legions of the Manchon Emperor, and either defeat them or be cut to pieces. Mr. Hung felt that he was already launched upon his irretrievable career, and boldly counselled instant action.

With the arms found in the captured city they again met the Imperial army, and so utterly routed them that after so signal a defeat, which was attributed to the incompetency of their leaders, the remnant joined the ranks of the insurgents. Then it was that Hung assumed the title "Teen-te," Heavenly Virtue, and openly avowed his purpose of overthrowing the monarch of three hundred millions of men. His victorious hordes rushed like an avalanche through the richest provinces of China, plundering the opulent cities that line the banks of the Yang-tse, till, on the nineteenth of March, 1853, just two years to a day from the capture of Yan-nynan, was proclaimed of China plain Mr. Hung, the rejected scholar and slighted aspirant for literary honors, in Nan-Kin, the ancient capital and metropolis.

The master of this important city could claim the Imperial title by a right that no Chinaman could question. It had been for ages the seat of the native dynasties. Its public buildings were, though now in decay, monuments of past splendor, dear to a people who revere nothing but age, and who dwell with an absolute passion upon the memories of the past. Its University held the highest rank for learning, and correct elegance in the issue of princely editions of the classic literature of the country. The religious monuments of this antique city were on the same scale of costly splendor. The porcelain tower, whose magnificence was de-