At This Critical Moment Taoukwang Was
Seized With A Severe Illness, And His Elder Brother, Hwuy Wang, Whose
Pretensions Had Threatened The Succession, Thinking His Chance Had At Last
Come, Took Steps To Seize The Throne.
But Taoukwang recovered, and those
who had made premature arrangements in filling the throne were severely
punished.
These minor troubles culminated in the Miaotze Rebellion, the
most formidable internal war which the Chinese government had to deal with
between that of Wou Sankwei and the Taepings. From an early period the
Miaotze had been a source of trouble to the executive, and the relations
between them and the officials had been anything but harmonious. The
Manchu rulers had only succeeded in keeping them in order by stopping
their supply of salt on the smallest provocation; and in the belief that
they possessed an absolutely certain mode of coercing them, the Chinese
mandarins assumed an arrogant and dictatorial tone toward their rude and
unreclaimed neighbors. In 1832 the Miaotze, irritated past endurance,
broke out in rebellion, and their principal chief caused himself to be
proclaimed emperor. Their main force was assembled at Lienchow, in the
northwest corner of the Canton province, and their leader assumed the
suggestive title of the Golden Dragon, and called upon the Chinese people
to redress their wrongs by joining his standard. But the Chinese, who
regarded the Miaotze as an inferior and barbarian race, refused to combine
with them against the most extortionate of officials or the most unpopular
of governments.
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Page 344 of 704
Words from 93274 to 93524
of 191255
