orthodoxy by deciding a series of quarrels between the pork-sellers and the Mohammedan butchers in favour of the former. This was in 1855.
So quickly did the flame of rebellion spread that the capital was soon threatened, and the Viceroy in alarm patched up a temporary peace. Peace, however, was not to be of long duration. Changsun, the Governor of Ho Ch'ing, in co-operation with the mandarin of Li-chiang and another Chinese official, following the usual Chinese precedent, organised a general massacre of the Mohammedans for a fixed day. The plan may be said to have met with only partial success, for while several hundreds were satisfactorily disposed of, the Mohammedan population as a whole, instead of being cowed into submission, now stood by for war. The Imperial forces were defeated at Tali in 1857, while the Mohammedans at Hailung in the south, after holding on till provisions gave out, cut their way through to their comrades at Kuang-si, which became thenceforward a centre of revolution. The Imperialists soon learned that they had
