aroused the sluggish spirit of the T'ienwang, who, with the help of the two kings named above, assassinated him in 1856. But the troubles of the T'ienwang had not ended, for Wei the Northern king, aspired to the place next to the T'ienwang, and his orgies of cruelty, which extended to the slaughter of the family of the Assistant king, brought about his assassination by the combined efforts of all who had suffered from his cruelties in Nanking; and the permanent alienation of Shi Ta-k'ai, who, with his band of followers, set forth to be a knight errant, passing through Kiangsi, Hunan, Kwangsi, and eventually into Yunnan and Ssuch'uan, where he was finally captured, — the Cœur de Lion of the era.[1]
The five original wangs were practically all dead or out of favor by 1858, and Hung kept the title for members of his own family, honoring his two brothers with the title of kings and relying more and more on their support and advice.
- ↑ After the death of the Northern king, he returned to the capital for a time, but the T'ienwang became jealous of him and relied on his own brothers. Therefore the able Shi Ta-k'ai left the Celestial Court never to return. Chungwang, Autobiography, p. 8.
