suits at home or at Canton, either as a part of the plan or because it was not yet time to admit him to the secret.
The crises of 1848, however, raised the latent question of leadership. If the movement had the visions of Hung as its basis of appeal to enter the brotherhoods, his eventual presence would be indispensable to the new nation, at least during its struggle for power, and he would have to have a position of high honor. On the other hand, if this Chu were the real organiser of the rebellion, he would expect to sit on the throne at last. This struggle for leadership appears to be the natural explanation of the momentous descents in 1848. Hung himself considered them the source of his call to government.[1] There was an issue: Who should rule in the new state, Hung the prophet or Chu the statesman? In the struggle we should expect to find Fêng and Chu working together to hold the leadership and Yang and Hsiao emphasising the religious rather than the political elements. Their visions apparently gave them so great an advantage that the others had to retire somewhat and bide their time, especially when their visions or those of men favorable to them were rejected by Hung on his arrival. Chu was compelled to compromise.
This, however, begins to seem fanciful. Where is this man Chu? Never does he appear again either in imperial or Taiping literature. But another name meets us in imperial sources, and very recently in a book purporting to come from a rebel writer.[2] Every Chinese account speaks of six instead of five minor wangs in the Taiping state as it was first constituted. The additional one is called T'ienteh-wang. But, even more significant, in the earlier days of the rebellion almost all the proclamations which
- ↑ See last chapter.
- ↑ Taiping T'ien-kuo Yeh Shi (Unofficial History of the Celestial Kingdom of Taiping, Shanghai, 1893).
