Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/83

Rh nothing hut await a chance to overthrow their influence. That chance was, however, deferred by the miraculous deliverances of the armies from some impossible situations, the final one being that very siege of Yungan from which they escaped, as they considered, only by the power of God. The capture of T'ienteh at that place deprived him of the opportunity he sought. The religious fanaticism of Hung and Yang—Hsiao having perished in the siege of Changsha shortly thereafter—delivered the movement over to a grotesque insistence on their superstition to the eventual undoing of the cause. Even Fêng, who had been associated with Chu in founding the societies and might have used his influence with Hung to guide the enterprise wisely, perished soon after they emerged from Kwangsi into Hunan.

If we are thus far correct we have the key for understanding the relation of the Triads to this movement. In Hamberg's account Hung Jin mentions the coming of Triad, chiefs with their men into the camp, their instruction in the new religion, and their unceremonious departure because of the strict discipline prevailing there. On the face of it this is more of a pretext than a reason. The confession of T'ienteh, while he himself tries to shift the relationship with them to Fêng's shoulders instead of his own, does imply that much of the strength of the Taipings came from them. Certainty is made absolute by the proclamation addressed by Yang, king of the East, to his followers in 1852 when a considerable defection of Triads was taking place. "Moreover," he says, "you valiant men are many of you adherents of the Triad Society, and have entered into a bloody compact that you will exert your united strength and talents to exterminate the Tartar dynasty." If there were large bodies of