The statute called The Disposition of Land under the Heavenly System is virtually a written constitution, a furbelow the Manchus dispense with. That tremendous step forward is, if I may say so without undue pride, largely inspired by the American missionaries whom the Heavenly King first met in Canton and with whom he has maintained close relations since his transmogrification into an earthly divinity. The Taiping Constitution prescribes not only regulations for land tenure, which are the bedrock of the political economy of the agrarian state. It also prescribes the forms of both military and civil administration and defines the judicial and educational systems.
All the children of God are entitled by their birthright to share equitably in His blessings. All must, therefore, be provided with the essentials of a life of dignity: acres to cultivate, adequate food, sufficient clothing, and the means to purchase those things they can neither make nor grow themselves. The land is therefore apportioned according to the number of persons in each farm family and the quality of the soil, that is, its fertility and water supply. Thus every individual is in principle in possession of equal capacity to produce the fruit of the earth, but not of the land itself, which remains the communal property of all. Thus the similarity to the “communism” of the ingenious Mr. Karl Marx. In reality, the land, like all else, is actually in the possession of the rulers.
No more than any man possesses his own land does he possess any other private property aside from his clothing and the few personal articles a Chinese requires for the meager comfort to which he is inured. All other property and all agricultural produce surplus to the individual’s needs must be surrendered to the communal storehouses.
The controllers of that wealth and the first arbiters of the fate of all the Heavenly King’s subjects are the Master Sergeants, who preside over the basic social unit, which on the land consists of twenty-five families. Each such unit possesses its own church and its own communal storehouse, the twin pillars of everyone’s existence. The Master Sergeant is at once mayor, schoolmaster, pastor, treasurer, and magistrate, presiding equally over litigation and education, as well as marriages and funerals, and every Sunday shepherding his flock to the Li-pai Tang, the Hall of Worship, where men and women sit apart.
Every farmer and his wife, as well as every one of his sons and daughters above the age of fourteen, is also a Holy Soldier. The same Master Sergeant commands them in battle through the corporals appointed over each five soldiers. The hierarchy rises through captains, brigade commanders, and division commanders to the general of an army of 13,156 soldiers. The military organization is, naturally, not a perfect replica of the civilian organization, nor, of course, does each army in time of war, which is virtually constant, comprise precisely the allotted number of men. However, legions made up entirely of females are as fierce in battle as their menfolk and even more strenuously devoted to the Holy Doctrines. The Heavenly King draws his bodyguard from the hundred thousand Amazons commanded by his sister, as do many subordinate Kings. However, eunuchs are unknown, even in the extensive seraglios of the various Kings.
Some institutions, like the Females’ Camp, may appear unduly harsh, as may the fact that the normal family is permitted to exist only on the land, where it is essential for cultivation. All women not working the land or serving as soldiers are segregated in the vast Females’ Camp under stern female officers, who ensure their industrious application to tasks ranging from sewing uniforms to hammering out swords, spears, and daggers. They are prohibited on pain of death from meeting any man in private. But such as have previously had husbands may speak with them once a week through an open doorway—at a distance of at least five paces.
That strict segregation, which appears to a non-Chinese to rub against the very grain of human nature, is extended to other groups. The Taipings maintain special establishments for youths, for maidens, and for the aged, who cannot, of course, live with their nonexistent families. They are kept in austere sufficiency, for which they exchange their labor. The young people are also given tuition in the arts of reading, writing, and reckoning, as well as the Holy Doctrine.
The principle of absolute equality of the sexes touches the very heart of Taiping civilization, ruling even education and their Mandarinate. Most remarkably, women may take the civil service examinations, whose substance is not the Confucian Classics but the Holy Bible, Christian tracts, and the administrative proclamations of the Heavenly Kingdom. For that reason, the traditional literati, my young friend David notably vehement among them, deprecate the Taiping examinations as rather less than rigorous. Besides, David tells me with withering scorn, anyone may essay those examinations—even fortunetellers and conjurers.
“Give them a thousand years,” David said, “and the Taiping examinations might come up to snuff.”
“I’m glad you approve of at least one entry in the journal. But I’m afraid they won’t have a thousand years.”
“Not very damned likely, is it?”
Taipingdom [David read on] is rigorously ordered. No one exercises discretion over his own actions; there is no freedom as that term is understood in our Judeo-Christian culture. All live under stringent military discipline, both men and women, even the normally unruly boatmen and fishermen who make up the powerful Taiping Water Force. All the Holy Soldiers wear red turbans and identical regimentals, the various colors of their tunics denoting different units. In common with all military forces, variations in cut, fabric, and insignia declare different ranks. It is, nonetheless, coldly depressing to reside in a city inhabited only by those uniform beings.
Moreover, every subject of the Heavenly King carries at all times a small plaque that details his personal characteristics, as well as his assigned place in the ranks. Those “tags” are strictly checked by the guards before their holders are permitted to enter or leave the Holy City. Their holders are, therefore, scorned as “tag soldiers” by the Manchus.
Daily life is, nonetheless, enlivened by constant religious observances and festivals, which are celebrated with great fervor. Theirs is a new kind of Christianity, a totally comprehensive Christianity, perhaps never elsewhere seen except in monasteries and convents. Even the seasons and moments of joy are rigidly prescribed. The Taipings exult in order. However, for the first time in more than two millennia in China, a radically new system—a corpus of faith, morals, etiquette, political economy, and administration—does not proceed from the teachings of the Sage Confucius.
Can the Heavenly King succeed in fundamentally altering the immemorial character of the China race? I cannot now answer that quintessential question confidently. However, I believe so. Beneath such severity, however, the new spirit of the commonalty makes Taipingdom a happier realm than the Manchu domains, where ordinances of almost equal rigor go largely unenforced. The subjects of the Heavenly King toil hard, but they toil with dignity, inspired by confident hope for the future. The Taiping kingdom is an epochal turning point for the Chinese, a tremendous watershed in the long history of their race. For the first time, the people have been offered security and equality.
The Taiping realm for the first time also promises fruitful cooperation between Chinese and foreigners for their mutual benefit.
We are still discussing with receptive officials prospects for specific commodities, terms of trade, and the like. However, we can already assert with confidence …
David riffled through several pages, snorting at a passage describing the Taipings’ hopes for “amicable and mutually profitable commercial relations with our brothers in Christ after the inevitable emancipation of Shanghai.” Further comment was clearly superfluous. They were voices from another era, those confident predictions of “the imminent and certain victory of the Holy Armies.”
30th August 1856, a soft and hazy evening (David read aloud]. The South Gate is the chief portal of the Holy City, as in all Chinese capitals, since an emperor always looks upon his domains from the north, the position of supremacy. The Holy Gate of the True God, as the Taipings ca
ll that portal, was built by the Founding Emperor of the Ming Dynasty in the late fourteenth century to proclaim and guard the splendor of his new capital. No city in Europe can boast a fortification so immense. It is actually not one but four separate structures, each some forty yards in depth and more than twenty yards in height, standing one behind the other on the cliffs overlooking the swift flowing Chinhuai River. Garrisoned by more than three thousand men, the Holy Gate is primarily an impregnable fortress, rather than a means of ingress and egress.
The Taipings have for more than three years hurled back repeated Imperial attacks against the Heavenly Capital. They have strengthened the fortifications by erecting outside the city walls great entrenchments studded with pointed bamboo stakes behind high earthen banks. Except for the sparsity of artillery, only two nondescript cannon being mounted on each of the nine gates, the fortress city would be impregnable.
Not only the disciplined strength of the Holy City, but its orderly splendor, testify to the benevolent firmness of the Heavenly King’s rule. The streets are dusty at this time of the year, but both the broad boulevards and the narrow lanes are scrupulously cleansed—as they are in no city under the rule of the Manchus, who do not enforce elementary hygiene on their alien subjects. The main square behind the Holy Gate is swept clean daily and garnished with fresh banners.
Yet we have discovered disturbing undercurrents beneath the surface splendor, power, and amity of the capital of Taipingdom. The East King, who is our host, is plotting to further enlarge his already enormous powers. He is the principal soothsayer of the realm—and his claim to receive visions from the Heavenly Emperor, that is, God, is not disputed by the Heavenly King, whose authority is founded upon his own visions. However, two suns cannot shine in one sky, as the Chinese say. The East King, who is already the Vice Emperor, is determined to be the only heavenly orb.
He already holds virtually imperial state, being invariably saluted: “Live Nine Thousand Years!” Only a thousand years separate him from the Heavenly King, who receives the acclamation reserved for an emperor: “Wan Sui! Live Ten Thousand Years!” Yet the East King now demands that he also be hailed as the Lord of Ten Thousand Years.
Submitting to the East King’s demonic visions, the Heavenly King has allowed other Kings, including his own elder brother, to be flogged. He once even professed himself willing to yield his own sacred person to caning for the transgressions the seer ascribed to him, winning remission of that sentence only after repeated pleas for mercy.
However, the East King’s demand for the Imperial accolade finally awakened the Taiping Emperor from the torpid indifference to affairs of state that apparently arises from his intense concentration on spiritual affairs—and, perhaps, on his immense harem. The Heavenly King has, further, acted circumspectly since becoming aware that the soothsayer is determined to displace him. Having obeyed the summons of the East King, who was, by some Chinese conundrum, at the moment both his temporal subordinate and his spiritual superior, he stood in the soothsayer’s palace in the Park of Respectfulness, where we ourselves then lodged. The Heavenly King meekly promised that the East King would be accorded the accolade “Ten Thousand Years!” on his birthday, which falls on September 23rd, some three weeks hence. The soothsayer’s formal enthronement would bestow upon him status equal to his sovereign’s—in reality, of course, dominance.
Delighted by his easy victory, the East King allowed the Taiping Emperor to return to the Great Brilliant Palace, where further disquieting news awaited him. A repentant henchman of the would-be usurper reported that an assassin had already been chosen to slay the Heavenly King if he should at the final moment refuse to enthrone the East King.
This latter intelligence we have from a senior official, who represents himself as concerned for our safety in the event of disturbances. The same official further informed us that the Taiping Emperor had already summoned in secret the “tigers” the East King sent far from the mountain. He alluded to the folk tale of the canny prince who took possession of a valuable hill by luring away to better hunting grounds the tigers who infested it. The “tigers” are the three greatest Taiping military generals, all of whom support the Heavenly King because they have all suffered from the East King’s ruthless ambition. Two of those holy tigers have already returned to the Heavenly Capital.
“You got it almost right … for an outsider,” David observed. “But you left out so much no Chinese could make head or tail of your account. You forgot that …”
“Even Saul Haleevie hasn’t got Chinese patience. It is written for him, remember.”
2nd September 1856, a dark and ominous evening [David read again]. So much blood has flowed in the past twenty-four hours that I am at a loss where to begin this account of the fratricide in the Holy City. David and I have escaped by an undoubted miracle, though the East King’s palace has been transformed into a slaughterhouse. Of the entire household of the Taiping Prime Minister, only four men and not a single woman emerged alive from the massacre: ourselves, the senior official I dare not name, and the second son of the would-be usurper. We hid in a dusty space under the throne, watching through the folds of the draperies covering the dais. The official hurried us into that sanctuary only five minutes before the attack he knew was imminent.
“Sha Chiu-chien Sui! Sha! Sha!” I shall never forget the shrill screams that signaled the assault on the walls of the Park of Respectfulness. “Kill the Lord of Nine Thousand Years! Kill! Kill!” the Heavenly King’s soldiers chanted like demons. Each imprecation ended with the words “Tsan-mei! Tsan-mei!” meaning “Praise! Praise!”—the Taipings’ equivalent of the joyous “Alleluia” or the reverent “Amen” that closes Christian prayers elsewhere. The torrent of sound rolled ever closer to the reception chamber in which we lay. When the shouting momentarily subsided, we heard the wooden walls splinter under the pikes and axes of the soldiers loyal to the Heavenly King. We also heard the terrified screams of the East King’s female attendants.
The Holy Soldiers were initially obedient to the orders of the West King and the Prince of Yen, the “tigers” who had returned to the Holy City to defend their sovereign. The Heavenly King had charged them to kill only the usurper and his three closest confederates. The loyal troops did not, therefore, slay either the armed bodyguard or the dependents of the East King, but brushed those followers aside in their rush to the reception chamber, where the usurper stood defiant before his gilt-and-scarlet throne.
Through the drapery of the dais, I saw only the hem of his golden robe and his green cloth shoes, embroidered in the Taiping fashion with purple asters. Those blossoms alternately shone and darkened in the wavering light of the great ceiling lanterns as the East King advanced to face his enemies. Cautiously parting the drapery, I saw the tide of Holy Soldiers pour into the reception chamber around islands of ponderous ebony furniture. Their faces were twisted with hatred beneath their scarlet turbans, and they swung their swords and halberds wildly. Still the East King stood unmoving in the center of the reception chamber, his lean back erect beneath a robe embroidered with stylized unicorns and lions. The wide black trousers and orange tunics of his bodyguard curved like the horns of a water buffalo on either side of him.
The vengeful tide halted five paces from the East King, restrained by awe for the prince second in spiritual and temporal authority only to the Taiping Emperor. The East King checked his restive bodyguard with an imperative gesture of his lean hand and asked mildly why the intruders dared enter his palace.
Doubt clouded the faces of the assailants, and they glanced irresolutely at each other. Fear of the soothsayer’s supernatural powers prevailing over bloodlust, they turned toward the exit. The wavering ranks opened before two men wearing the long yellow robes of Taiping nobles. As the West King and the Prince of Yen confronted the usurper, the jewels of rank pendant from the cowls covering their heads glittered somberly in the capricious light of the candles in the ceiling lanterns. When the East King squared his shoulders
to remonstrate with the leaders of the assailants, the golden folds on the back of his robe undulated. The three great princes of the Heavenly Kingdom confronted each other for a few seconds.
A snarl distorted the pudgy features of the West King, the third in the hierarchy. He darted forward, snatching a dagger from his sash, and buried the blade in the usurper’s stomach. Scarlet blood stained the golden robe. He wrenched the dagger upward, half-disemboweling the usurper, who uttered no sound. The West King freed the dagger and allowed the corpse to crumple to the flagstones.
An appalled hush which seemed to last forever, but could actually have endured no more than twenty seconds, followed the first killing of one Holy Prince by another. Rousing themselves from their shock, the dead man’s bodyguards hurled themselves at his assassins. Their charge broke upon the intruders’ spears, and, within seconds, the melee became general.
I despised myself for cowering under the dais while women’s shrieks ended with throaty gurgles. The official and David held me fast after drawing together the draperies. In the darkness, our ears alone informed us that the slaughter continued until the early hours of the morning. Shrieks and pleas for mercy echoed under the dais. From the streets outside we heard not only screaming and clashing blades but the flat reports of firearms. The entire Holy City was caught up in a frenzy of killing and destruction.
When the official finally judged it safe, we emerged into a bloodstained dawn. The sky was streaked with crimson, while the silent courtyard of the palace was heaped with still forms, their colorful garments sodden with blood. We picked our way through the corpses to the front gate, where a brisk, though bloodless, struggle was in progress.
Seeing our arms empty, the antagonists let us pass. As men laden with loot emerged from the yellow-and-scarlet portals, others snatched baubles, furniture, and embroidered robes from their bloody hands. Only determined men united by common greed could emerge with their booty intact from the fearful scrabbling among the mute corpses.
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