Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/75

Rh Several years ago, when I was a priest, I was travelling over Kwang-tung, and when in the district of Hwa, became acquainted with Hung-Siú-tsuen (who is not my relative) and Fung-yun-shán, both of whom are literary persons of great talents, and the former, like me, had been unsuccessful in the examinations. He had formerly been through both the Kwáng provinces, and formed an association of reckless persons of the Triad Society. Every one of those who joined it in Kwang-tung adhered to Fung; and this was done several years, he deluding every one who joined the association to take their oaths that they would live and die with him, and exert all their efforts to assist him. They gradually increased in numbers, and it was feared that there might be a want of hearty union in some of the members; so Hung-Siú-tsuen learned magical arts and to talk with demons, and with Fung-yun-shán made up a story about a "Heavenly Father, Heavenly Brother and Jesus; narrating how the Heavenly Brother came down from heaven, and that all who would serve the Heavenly Father would then know where their best interests and profit lay; that when he sat, it was in a small hall of heaven; and when he had been put to death by men, he sat in a great hall of heaven." With these inflaming words they beguiled the members of the association, so that none of them left it; and this procedure, I was well aware, had been going on for several years.

In December, 1850, when their numbers and strength had become large, I went to Kwang-si, where I saw Hung-Siú-tsuen; he had then engaged the graduate Wei-ching, alias Wei-Chang-kwui, of Pingnan, and Siú, Yáng, and others of Kwang-tung, to go out and begin to plunder and fight the government. The members of the brotherhood willingly followed these men, giving themselves, their families and property and all to them, so that they had funds for their purposes and bought horses and engaged troops. Their hopes were now high, and they took at this time the name of the Shang-ti Association.

When I reached Kwang-si, Hung-Siú-tsuen called me his worthy brother, and honored me with the title of King Tien-teh [Celestial Virtue], and took all his lessons in the art of war from me. He called himself King Taeping [Great Peace]. Yáng