A History of China (65 page)

The Taipings’ attacks on Confucianism deprived them of skilled officials who could have assisted them. Destruction of temples and shrines and repeated critiques of Confucianism alienated officials who might have sided with the rebels. Some of them had lost confidence in the Qing government because of its ineffectiveness and corruption. However, they would not join or serve a rebel group that challenged their most cherished values and social beliefs. They also suspected that the Taipings would not support a hierarchical social system, with the gentry in charge. Without such literate and skilled men, the Taipings did not have a sufficient number of able administrators who could help to establish a government with a regular tax and judicial system.

The Taipings also harmed themselves by their own fractiousness. Several of the kings considered themselves to be more competent than Hong, and Yang Xiuqing, in particular, opposed Hong’s attacks on Confucianism. Yang believed that Confucianism could be a positive force. The struggle between them ended only when Hong’s allies killed Yang in 1856. Repeated conflicts arose among the kings, leading to assassinations, pitched battles, and desertions. In addition, their inability to win over Western missionaries, diplomats, and merchants to their cause created considerable vulnerabilities. The missionaries concluded that the Taipings knew little about Christianity and represented a violent, power-seeking movement that used Christianity to justify pillaging and plundering. Western governments were determined to prop up the Qing government lest China fragment into chaos, which would harm their political and economic interests. Thus, individual Western military leaders actually assisted in the suppression of the Taipings. An American named Frederick Townsend Ward (1831–1862), who died fighting against the Taipings, and several American officers led a contingent of Chinese troops in battle against the rebels. Charles Gordon (1833–1885), a British officer who took part in the destruction of the Summer Palace in 1860 and was later killed in the Sudan, eventually commanded these soldiers, who came to be known as the “Ever Victorious Army” and helped to defeat the Taipings.

Yet fourteen years elapsed before the Qing suppressed the Taipings; only in 1864 did the government finally have sufficient manpower and resources to trounce the rebels. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, the Qing Banners had ceased to be an effective fighting force. That is, the central government’s troops had been demoralized, afflicted by corruption, and lacking an esprit de corps. The court was thus compelled to rely on local Chinese officials who, faced with inadequate, if any, support from the Manchu Banner armies, had organized their own self-defense forces. These independent militias had a vested interest in protecting their lands from what they perceived to be Taiping “bandits.” Thus, they had a stronger will to fight than the regular Manchu Banners. Zeng Guofan, an ardent and incorruptible Confucian from Hunan, organized the most renowned such personal army and was probably the most successful military commander in the anti-Taiping campaigns. Later Chinese leaders, including Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975), admired and tried (some successfully and some not nearly so) to emulate Zeng. Zeng ensured that his troops knew what was at stake in the struggle against the Taipings, which generated a real esprit de corps. By 1864, these armies and militias had crushed the Taipings, but the Qing’s difficulties had not ended.

Untold numbers of people had been killed during the battles between the Taipings and the Qing as well in the massacres that on occasion followed the fighting. Contemporary descriptions of the damage portray extraordinary devastation. Important historic sites were destroyed, leaving modern Chinese with few remainders of the past in the regions around Nanjing and the other battle sites. Both sides damaged property and land, contributing to the pauperization of the rural populations in their paths. Destruction of land led to famines, and the pollution of water and earth during the campaigns resulted in the spread of infectious and parasitic diseases. The beleaguered Qing government could do little to stem the environmental damage and the disease, and often local Chinese officials and governors, including Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, and Zuo Zongtang, had to cope with the distress. Despite their efforts, appalling conditions in many parts of the country resulted in migration both within China and to foreign countries. Many people moved to Southeast Asia, and some traveled as far away as the USA and Latin America.

The way the Taipings had been defeated reinforced, rather than erased, suspicions about the Qing’s competence and strength. The Qing, by itself, could not have crushed the rebels. Instead local militias, led by Chinese commanders, had been victorious and thus had considerable leverage in dealings with the government. These militias did not disband after defeating the Taipings and, in fact, assumed greater responsibilities in maintaining the peace in the countryside. The government was compelled to permit them to retain a tax on goods passing through their domains (known as a
likin
), which gave them funds to outfit their military forces. Their troops would need such equipment because rebel groups other than the Taipings challenged the Qing.

The northwest frontier proved to be even more unsettled, though the Qing court adopted a moderate policy. It attempted to foster the region’s economic recovery after the devastation caused by the eighteenth-century conquest and instructed its officials to avoid interference with the local people’s customs and religion. It also sought to collaborate with the
begs
, or native chiefs, in governing. However, the court was dependent on officials to implement these policies and found that it could not attract the most competent and honest personnel. Instead, many officials who traveled all the way to the relatively barren northwest, where they governed a mostly non-Chinese and Islamic population, attempted to enrich themselves. They demanded excessive taxation, allowed Chinese merchants to take advantage of the local people, and interfered with the practice of Islam.

Exploitation and anti-Muslim policies provoked disturbances and then rebellions along the northwestern border. Islamic religious leaders who maintained relations with coreligionists in central Asia and as far away as Yemen articulated a so-called New Teaching, based on a Sufi order of Islam, to galvanize the Muslim population against Qing overlordship. They advocated a loud chanting of God’s name and a return to a form of Islam untainted by foreign influences. Rebellions under their leadership erupted in 1781, 1815, 1820, and 1847, and several years elapsed before the Qing pacified each of them. The central Asian Khanate of Kokand abetted the rebels because its merchants, who profited from an illegal northwestern border trade for Chinese tea and rhubarb, resented Qing restrictions on commerce.

The most destructive rebellion erupted in 1862 in the province of Shaanxi and then spread throughout the northwest. A commercial dispute between a Muslim and a Chinese merchant, flared up, leading to disturbances and massacres in both communities. Gansu, a province west of Shaanxi, witnessed the first organized revolts. By 1864, Ya’qub Beg (1820–1877), a military commander from Kokand, had arrived and became the rebel leader. Bellicose and authoritarian, he became, through manipulation and the use of draconian punishments, the dominant figure in northwest China, particularly in the modern region of Xinjiang. Adopting the title of “Athalik Ghazi” or “Champion Father,” he set up a secret police force to ferret out dissenters to his harsh policies. He used fear of this force to induce merchants to pay for “police” protection and imposed stiff taxes on peasants. Naturally these policies alienated the populace and eventually undermined his rule. As a result, Ya’qub could not recruit many soldiers from Xinjiang and was compelled to rely on his Kokandian army, which then appeared to be an occupation force. Peasants, merchants, and other inhabitants, mostly Muslims but with some Chinese as well, suffered during Ya’qub’s rule, and this should have facilitated Qing efforts to oust him from the region.

However, the Qing faced its own problems. Only after the government crushed the Taipings in 1864 could it turn its attention to the northwest. Even then, officials were divided about policy priorities. Li Hongzhang, who ultimately defeated the Nian rebels, believed that the government had to focus on preserving and defending the central core of Chinese territory, mostly along the eastern coast. He added that Xinjiang, which had been brought under Qing control only a century earlier, was a barren and unpopulated land, and had scarcely any economic value. China, he argued, ought to use its financial resources to develop a modern navy, which would be able to avert incursions on China’s southeastern coastal areas. Zuo Zongtang, who had led troops against the Taipings, challenged Li, noting that China had never been invaded from the south or east and that nearly all raids and invasions had originated from across China’s northern frontiers. He agreed that Xinjiang was not a promising domain but argued for his own domino theory: that is, if China abandoned Xinjiang, the rebels would be emboldened to initiate incursions in the nearby core territories in China’s north and, if successful, would venture into the northeast as well. To avert this precipitous loss of territory, Zuo proposed a greater emphasis on army modernization and on recovery of Xinjiang. The court eventually supported Zuo, deciding that immediate preservation of land was more important than maritime defense.

Tsarist Russia’s expansion into central Asia complicated Zuo’s planned campaign in the northwest. In the eighteenth century, khanates in central Asia had prevented Russia from annexing the traditional heartland of the old Silk Roads, and their merchants, particularly those from Bukhara, had controlled commerce and often excluded Russian traders. The Russian government, under pressure to act on behalf of its commercial interests, gradually turned its attention to the region starting in the 1830s. By that time, both the predominantly nomadic Kazakh peoples and the various more sedentary khanates lacked unity and had not developed modern military forces or a modern economic system. Facing a fractured opposition, Russia targeted one group after another. Despite involvement in conflicts (such as the Crimean War) in other areas, Russian forces gradually defeated the Little Horde, Middle Horde, and Great Horde of Kazakhs by the late 1850s. They then moved quickly against the khan of Kokand, overwhelming Tashkent in 1865 and naming it the capital of Turkestan, the new region that supplanted the Khanate of Kokand. In 1868, they crushed the Khanate of Bukhara and occupied its major towns of Bukhara and Samarkand, and in 1873 they compelled the Khanate of Khiva to become a Russian protectorate. Russian merchants now had access, on an equal footing, to central Asian trade. The original economic objectives of expansion had been increases in commerce and incorporation of additional territory, but a new motive developed because of the civil war in the USA. Russia had been receiving most of its cotton from the US south, but the north’s blockade of the south had temporarily cut off supplies. The lesson Russia learned from this crisis was that it needed to produce its own cotton. Its newly acquired lands in central Asia seemed ideal for growing cotton, but the decision to invade those lands proved catastrophic for the vast domain.

As Russia became increasingly drawn into central Asia, it developed a greater interest in the adjacent region of Xinjiang. China’s weakness, as demonstrated in the Opium Wars, prompted Russia to capitalize on the Ya’qub Beg-led rebellion. Even before the rebellion, it had demanded opportunities for trade in Xinjiang, and the Qing, hoping to use Russia as a counterweight to Britain and France, had granted such commercial privileges, counting on the tsarist government to act as an advocate against the Western powers. This ­policy of “using barbarians to regulate barbarians,” which China had developed as early as the Han dynasty, was ineffective as long as the Qing continued to deteriorate. China simply did not have the authority to demand that Russia resist British and French encroachments. The Qing permitted Russia to trade and to station consuls in the town of Kashgar yet denied those privileges to any other foreign power. Russian traders arrived in Xinjiang, but so did geographers, adventurers, explorers, and natural scientists, some of whom may also have worked for the intelligence services. Russia accumulated a vast storehouse of information, including precise maps and descriptions of critical locations in Xinjiang.

Increasing involvement in Xinjiang prompted Russia to react to the instability resulting from Ya’qub Beg’s rebellion. Asserting that the chaos affected its central Asian lands, in 1871 the tsarist government sent troops to occupy Ili, in northern Xinjiang, but pledged that it would withdraw once the Qing restored order. The government in Beijing could not avert this brazen occupation, but Britain could voice its concerns. The British were the foreigners most distressed by the turn of events because they were engaged in a struggle with Russia known as the Great Game. Seeking to protect India, the crown jewel of the British Empire, they feared Russian expansion into central Asia. The Russian foray into Xinjiang also troubled the British because it offered the Russians a base for additional incursions into China. Yet at this point they could not argue with Russia’s premise that chaos in Xinjiang threatened Russia’s newly subjugated territories in central Asia. Lacking any counterbalance to the Russians, the Qing had no choice but to tolerate their presence in Ili. It needed to focus on suppressing Ya’qub Beg.

Zuo Zongtang, the commander in charge, recognized that victory required winning over the population (some of whom were ethnic Chinese) on his route to the northwest. Poverty and damage incurred during the various rebellions bedeviled the northwestern provinces of Shaanxi and Gansu. Some peasants had abandoned the land and others barely eked out an existence. Recognizing the parlous conditions in these provinces, Zuo was determined to foster the local economies before setting forth for the military campaign. His troops initiated irrigation projects, dug wells, planted trees, built roads and bridges, and fostered silk and cotton production. He encouraged the local population to start modern, mostly military enterprises, such as foundries and arsenals. In the late 1860s, after such economic reconstruction had begun to revive the northwestern economies, he led his troops forward. Despite the demanding desert terrain, he overcame resistance in Shaanxi by 1869 and in Gansu by 1871. Ya’qub Beg now began to show concern over his position. Having alienated the Muslim majority and the Chinese minority in Xinjiang through excessive taxation, autocratic rule, and intrusive and pervasive secret police forces, he unsuccessfully sought assistance from Britain and Turkey against Zuo. Without such foreign aid he was vulnerable, but he did not receive the foreign support. Meanwhile, Zuo used the same strategy in seeking to pacify Xinjiang as he had in Shaanxi and Gansu. After lengthy preparations, in 1876 he marched on Xinjiang and quickly captured the town of Urumchi, which had become the most important center in the region. By the following year, he had restored Qing control over nearly all of Xinjiang, and Ya’qub Beg had either committed suicide or been murdered.