Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/70

52 lead one to suspect that they had more to do with serious opposition to the ruling clique than with outside events.

If Taiping sources do not throw any more light on these difficulties we may examine other sources. The chief imperialist accounts of the rebellion trace the rise of the movement to a revolutionary brotherhood started at Kout'ushan by a certain Chu Kiu-t'ao. Into this brotherhood Hung and Fêng both entered later. But afterwards they realised that their magical arts were insufficient and thereupon all went to Kwangsi, where they founded the order of God-worshippers, in the Kweip'ing district.

In 1853 Dr. Medhurst published the following note among some rebel proclamations received from the interior; "It is also reported that one revolutionary chief, called Choo-kew-taou, is superior to Hung-sew-tsuen; and it is said that at Kow-t'hou-san, when he arrived in Hoo-nan, all the revolutionary chiefs came out to receive him on their knees. They also slaughtered oxen and pigs and had a feast for three days on the occasion. This was only once reported, and not afterwards mentioned." As it stands there are some inaccuracies, because Kout'ushan was in Kwangtung, not in Hunan; therefore, if the incident occurred it must have been before the Taipings emerged from Kwangsi. Nevertheless, the scrap of evidence is of great value as showing that some other chief was equal to Hung, if not actually superior, that he was a revolutionary from the very beginning, before the societies were formed, and that he had tried to organise brotherhoods himself but with indifferent success because his superstition was not good enough. If, as we are told, this individual happened upon Hung and Fêng and found the former in possession of a belief that he had been carried to heaven to receive commission