'drunken swab.'"[1] That this picture must be somewhat modified to admit some excellent Tartar generals and brave soldiers, Parker himself confesses, but contends that his indictment is true in the main.
We can, indeed, scarcely exaggerate their uselessness, not only as a fighting force, but even as a defensive arm. The most striking proof of their degeneracy is found in the behavior of the Manchus when the Taipings took Nanking in 1853.[2] The garrison of paid Manchu forces at that place amounted to 5,106, indicating a total adult population of twenty or thirty thousand. The Taipings stormed the outer walls and met with some resistance from Chinese soldiers, after which they proceeded to attack the Manchus in the Tartar city within. Of this attack Meadows records:[3]
These Manchus had to fight for all that is dear to man, for the Imperial family which had always treated them well, for the honour of their nation, for their own lives and for the lives of their wives and children. This they well knew, the Heavenly Prince having openly declared the first duty of his mission to be their extermination. It might have been expected, therefore, that they would have made a desperate fight in self-defense, yet they did not strike a blow. It would seem as if the irresistible progress and inveterate enmity of the insurgents had bereft them of all
- ↑ Parker, China, p. 247.
- ↑ The account here given is taken from Meadows, The Chinese and their Rebellions, pp. 168 ff. He took care to get the exact truth on his visit to Hanking, a few weeks after his capture, but his informers were probably rebels only.
- ↑ The chief imperialist account of this event, P'ing-ting Yueh-fei Chi-lueh, II, 26, says that the Tartar city was held for two days after the outer city had fallen, and that not soldiers alone, but also women stood on the walls at various points and aided in the defence. During the Opium War the Manchus at Chinkiang resisted the British in the same desperate fashion when attacked. Loch, Narrative of Events, p. 106. This tends to throw some doubt on the indictment quoted above from Meadows, but does not prove the usefulness of the Manchu garrisons, outside the Tartar city at any rate.
