Although Hienfung Became Emperor At A Time Of Great National
Distress, He Was So Far Fortunate That An Abundant Harvest,
In the year
1850, tended to mitigate it, and by having recourse to the common Chinese
practice of "voluntary contributions,
" A sufficiently large sum was raised
to remove the worst features of the prevailing scarcity and suffering. But
these temporary and local measures could not improve a situation that was
radically bad, or allay a volume of popular discontent that was rapidly
developing into unconcealed rebellion.
An imperial proclamation was drawn up by the Hanlin College in which
Hienfung took upon himself the whole blame of the national misfortunes,
but the crisis had got far beyond a remedy of words. The corruption of the
public service had gradually alienated the sympathies of the people.
Justice and probity had for a time been banished from the civil service of
China. The example of the few men of honor and capacity served but to
bring into more prominent relief the faults of the whole class. Justice
was nowhere to be found; the verdict was sold to the highest bidder. The
guilty, if well provided in worldly goods, escaped scot-free; the poor
suffered for their own frailties as well as the crimes of wealthier
offenders. There was seen the far from uncommon case of individuals
sentenced to death obtaining substitutes for the capital punishment.
Offices were sold to men who had never passed an examination, and who were
wholly illiterate, and the sole value of office was as the means of
extortion. The nation was heavily taxed, but the taxes to the state were
only the smaller part of the sums wrung from the people of the Middle
Kingdom. How was honor, or a sense of duty, to be expected from men who
knew that their term of office must be short, and who had to receive their
purchase money and the anticipated profit before their post was sold again
to some fresh and possibly higher bidder? The officials waxed rich on ill-
gotten wealth, and a few individuals accumulated enormous fortunes, while
the government sank lower and lower in the estimation of the people. It
lost also in efficiency and striking power. A corrupt and effeminate body
of officers and administrators can serve but as poor defenders for an
embarrassed prince and an assailed government against even enemies who are
in themselves insignificant and not free from the vices of a corrupt
society and a decaying age, and it was only on such that Hienfung had in
the first place to lean against his opponents. Even his own Manchus, the
warlike Tartars, who, despite the smallness of their numbers, had
conquered the whole of China, had lost their primitive virtue and warlike
efficiency in the southern climes which they had made their home. To them
the opulent cities of the Chinese had proved as fatal as Capua to the army
of the Carthaginian, and, as the self-immolations of Chapoo and
Chinkiangfoo proved to have no successors, they showed themselves unworthy
of the empire won by their ancestors.
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Page 213 of 366
Words from 110938 to 111454
of 191255
