Although The Bombardment Was Vigorous And Effective, The Loss Inflicted On The Insurgents Was Inconsiderable, Because They Had Erected An Earthwork Behind The Main Wall Of The Place, And Every Day The Triads Challenged The French To Come On To The Assault.

At last a breach was declared to be practicable, and 400 French sailors and marines were landed to carry it, while the imperialists, wearing blue sashes to distinguish them from the rebels, escaladed the walls at another point.

But the assault was premature, for, although the assailants gained the inside of the fortification, they could not advance. The insurgents fought desperately behind the earthworks and in the streets, and after four hours' fighting they put the whole imperialist force to flight. The French were carried along by their disheartened allies who, allowing race hatred to overcome a temporary arrangement, even fired on them, and when Admiral Laguerre reckoned up the cost of his intervention he found it amounted to four officers and sixty men killed and wounded. Such was the result of the French attack on Shanghai, and it taught the lesson that even good European troops cannot ignore the recognized rules and precautions of war. After this engagement the siege languished, and the French abstained from taking any further part in it. But the imperialists continued their attack in their own bungling but persistent fashion, and at last the insurgents, having failed to obtain the favorable terms they demanded, made a desperate sortie, when a few made their way to the foreign settlement, where they found safety, but by far the greater number perished by the sword of the imperialists. More than 1,500 insurgents were captured and executed along the highroads, but the two leaders of the movement escaped, one of them to attain great fortune as a merchant in Siam. The imperialists unfortunately sullied their success by grave excesses and by the cruel treatment of the unoffending townspeople, who were made to suffer for the original incapacity and cowardice of the officials themselves. At Canton, which was also visited by the Triads in June, 1854, matters took a different course. The Chinese merchants and shopkeepers combined and raised a force for their own protection, and these well-paid braves effectually kept the insurgents out of Canton. They, however, seized the neighboring town of Fatshan, where the manufacturing element was in strong force, and but for the unexpected energy of the Cantonese they would undoubtedly have seized the larger city too, as the government authorities were not less apathetic here than at Shanghai. The disturbed condition of things continued until February, 1855, when the wholesale executions by which its suppression was marked, and during which a hundred thousand persons are said to have perished, ceased.

The events have now been passed in review which marked the beginning and growth of the Taeping Rebellion, from the time of its being a local rising in the province of Kwangsi to the hour of its leader being installed as a ruling prince in the ancient city of Nankin.

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