Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/90

72 marking, "Teen tih is not even a myth; he is a pure mistake." He bases this on his conversations with Taiping rebels and on the lack of traces of suppression in their books. If we have concluded rightly that the movement had lost its real leader and a large part of its Triad following, and if those who remained were followers of the fanatical group gathered about the T'ienwang, could we expect them to admit that there had been a lost leader? And as to suppression, mention has been made of a deliberate editing of one of Tang's speeches in order to omit reference to the presence of Triads among the following. Does this not raise the presumption that a similar suppression would occur in this connection? The recent informal work on the movement does include the T'ienteh-wang in the list, though placing him in the third grade.

On the whole, therefore, we have good reason to accept the truth of his activities, and the events fit into the hypothesis that he was the real chief. An ambitious man, perhaps actually a descendant of the Ming Dynasty, attempts to get a following. Providence grants him the means of securing this instrumentality, but it is dangerous. When the hour strikes to begin the great task the elements of danger come to the front and relegate this conspirator to a subordinate place or at least force him to share the power with the fanatics, and he had to be content to bide his time. Either by accident or treachery, Hsiao, the king of the West and mouthpiece of Jesus, failed him in the sortie from Yungan; he was captured, and thus the projector of the movement perished. The movement itself now comes into the hands of the less able religious fanatics, under whom the character of leadership deteriorates. Eventually the conservative forces of the empire rally and fall in line behind the Manchu rulers to suppress this strange state. Through the religious