1848 Great Qing Charcoal Burners

Chapter 343 Emperor Xianfeng's Wrath

The British mission handed over three involved Indian Madras colony soldiers to the North Palace Guard, after which Aleksandr paid 3,750 taels of silver in compensation in his personal capacity.

Guo Kuntao stepped in to comfort the victim's family and handed over 750 taels of silver, which was intended as compensation, to them.

The three victim families received compensation of 150 taels and 300 taels of silver respectively.

Several hundred taels of silver, all pure silver. For ordinary people, this is a huge sum of money; it's about the same amount a middle-class family could accumulate by mortgaging their land and houses.

In 1848, Peng Gang sold all of the Peng family's fields and houses to Qiu Gusan, a wealthy Hakka family in Guixian County, who was engaged in charcoal burning in the mountains. He actually received only 232 taels of silver.

Of the three victim families, only one husband, whose wife hadn't committed suicide, muttered a complaint about why his wife didn't die, otherwise he too could have received three hundred taels of silver. The other two families were very satisfied with the compensation amount and thanked Guo Kuntao profusely: "Thank you, Your Excellency, for upholding justice for us."

"No need to thank me, thank His Highness the Northern King." Guo Kuntao glanced at the two coffins parked at the entrance of Hanyangmen Wharf and said.

"Respect the dead. Go back and properly arrange the funeral so that they can rest in peace."

“We’ll be back now. May I ask Your Honor how the foreigner who killed my daughter-in-law should be punished?” asked the father-in-law of one of the victims.

"Go back and wait for news. The county will give you and the deceased a satisfactory explanation," Guo Kuntao said.

The Northern Palace has not yet compiled and promulgated its own legal code. Currently, the law temporarily in effect under the Northern Palace's rule is the "Taiping Criminal Law," which was derived from the "Heavenly Code" and promulgated shortly after Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing established their capital in Tianjing.

However, the Taiping Criminal Law that circulated under the rule of the Northern Palace was a version revised by Liu Bingwen, Guo Kuntao and others, and approved by Peng Gang; it was not a complete copy.

For example, the Taiping Criminal Law had specific requirements for the clothing and colors of ordinary people, while the Taiping Criminal Law that was in effect under the rule of the Northern Palace did not have such requirements.

Compared to the Qing Dynasty's legal code, the Taiping Criminal Code was far more severe, often starting with the death penalty. Torture methods such as burning alive, dismemberment by five horses (or oxen), being impaled in sand, slow slicing, and public humiliation were all common practices.

Because the Taiping Criminal Law was hastily promulgated and was too crude and imperfect, if a complex criminal case could not be handled by the Taiping Criminal Law, the military and political officials under the Northern Palace would refer to the more mature and complete Qing Dynasty Code for judgment.

It wasn't just the Wuchang authorities who did this; the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom officials in Tianjing also cited relevant clauses from the Qing Code in their civil and criminal judgments, only with harsher sentencing and punishments than those in the Qing Code.

Guo Kuntao was not just making excuses for the victims' families. The Taiping Army imposed extremely severe penalties for crimes involving adultery. According to the Taiping Criminal Law, anyone who committed adultery, regardless of gender, would be beheaded and displayed to the public once captured.

Even according to the Qing Dynasty legal code, if a woman is sexually assaulted to the point of suicide, the punishment is hanging.

Regardless of which law is applied, these three soldiers from the Indian colony of Madras would all face death; the only difference would be whether their death was painful or swift.

Guo Kuntao had a good reputation as an official. After comforting the family members, he quickly persuaded the crowd gathered near Hanyangmen Wharf to disperse, and order at Hanyangmen Wharf was restored to normal.

Peng Gang successfully completed his western expedition and returned in triumph. The Taiping Army's northern expedition also reported frequent victories. In early August, they entered Shanxi from Yuanqu, at the border of Shanxi and Henan, plunging the entire southern Shanxi region into chaos.

After the Northern Expeditionary Army led by Wei Changhui, Lin Fengxiang, Li Kaifang, Ji Wenyuan and others entered Shanxi, they still moved in as if there were no people there.

In less than half a month, they swept through Jiangxian, Quwo, Linfen, and Yicheng, and finally entered the territory of Lu'an Prefecture in southeastern Shanxi. They quickly captured Changzhi, the capital of Lu'an Prefecture, and gathered their troops near Changzhi to rest and prepare for their next advance into Zhili.

Wei Changhui and his men set out from Tianjing in mid-April for the Northern Expedition. In just four months, they marched from Anhui to Henan, then from Henan into Shanxi, and all the way to southwestern Shanxi. Zhili was within reach, and their progress was remarkably rapid.

During the Northern Expedition, although there were occasional minor setbacks, such as when Zhu Xikun was ambushed by Zhou Tianjue and Li Jiaduan's Anhui soldiers at Linhuai Pass in Anhui, resulting in the loss of five or six hundred Northern Expeditionary soldiers.

Ji Wenyuan's supply train was routed by Sheng Bao's 3,000 Jilin cavalry near Zhengzhou, resulting in the loss of over 1,200 Northern Expeditionary Army soldiers and the loss of more than 1,000 shi of grain. However, overall, the Northern Expeditionary Army's advance along this route was quite smooth.

The progress was so smooth that it exceeded Wei Changhui's expectations. Along the way, there was no city that the Northern Expeditionary Army could not capture within seven days, as long as they wanted to attack it.

Apart from the Mongolian, Jilin, and Heilongjiang cavalry forces that caused some trouble after entering Henan, the rest of the Qing army was almost helpless against the swiftly shifting Northern Expeditionary Army, and there was no way to stop them.

At this time, Wei Changhui, Lin Fengxiang and others were optimistic about directly attacking the Qing devils' lair in Yanjing, believing that they could take the capital of the Manchus before the harsh winter in the north, drive the Manchu barbarians out of the pass and unify the country.

In contrast to the Taiping Army's frequent victories, the Qing government was beset by a series of bad news.

Inside the East Warm Pavilion of the Hall of Mental Cultivation in the Forbidden City.

The fragrant aroma of ambergris could not suppress Emperor Xianfeng's raging anger on his throne.

"Useless! A bunch of useless trash! Good-for-nothings!"

Suddenly, a roar like tearing silk shattered the silence in the warm pavilion. Emperor Xianfeng sprang up from his throne, wildly waving his arms and sweeping all the Duan inkstone, jade brush holder, enamel teacup, and mountain of memorials and military reports from his desk to the ground, cleaning the table.

The Emperor Xianfeng's roar and the crackling sound of porcelain shattering terrified the eunuchs and palace maids standing in the hall, who all knelt down with a thud, their heads touching the ground, their bodies trembling like leaves, not daring to even breathe.

Emperor Xianfeng was not an easily angered person who could not control his emotions, but the urgent battle reports from the front lines that had been sent over the past two months were becoming more and more explosive, and the situation was becoming increasingly unfavorable to the Qing Dynasty.

Half of Jiangnan has fallen, key towns in Hunan have suffered successive defeats, and now even Shanxi and Henan have received bad news.

The rebellion, which began only two short years ago, has already turned the Qing Dynasty upside down, and the once glorious Qing Dynasty is now showing signs of collapse.

Of the many recent setbacks, the one that Emperor Xianfeng found most difficult to accept was the defeat in Hunan and Hubei.

After reading so many memorials, Emperor Xianfeng gradually figured out the tactics of both the Taiping Rebellion and the Taiping Rebellion.

Although the Taiping Rebellion was powerful, it only controlled a handful of major cities and strategic locations along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

After the Taiping Rebellion's Northern Expeditionary Army departed, Zhou Tianjue, the governor of Anhui, not only quickly recovered the lost cities of Chuzhou, Fengyang, Huaiyuan, Mengcheng, and Bozhou within Anhui, but also last month dispatched Qin Dingsan to capture Pukou in southern Jiangsu, where the Taiping forces had weakened their defenses. This allowed them to stand across the river from the Taiping's so-called Tianjing.

The short-haired Mao were quite different. Even if they captured a county, they would leave several hundred elite short-haired soldiers to garrison it and maintain local order. The short-haired Mao's control over the occupied areas was much more stable than that of the long-haired Mao.

In June, taking advantage of the short-haired rebels' westward expedition, Chonglun and Luo Raodian assumed that the rebels' rear was undefended and launched a large-scale attack from Xiangyang to recapture Hanyang. However, the Hubei army was defeated by a detachment of the short-haired rebels as soon as it reached Hanchuan territory, and fled back to Xiangyang in disgrace. They not only failed to gain an advantage but also lost most of De'an Prefecture.

After this battle, it is now even more difficult to reach the heart of the short-haired regime, the three towns of Wuhan, and deliver a thunderous blow.

The cities occupied by the Long-haired Rebels only lost a single city, and there was still hope of recapture. But when the Short-haired Rebels occupied a city, they lost not only that city, but an entire administrative region along with it.

According to reports from Wulantai, Li Mengqun, and others, the short-haired rebels are implementing the "land to the tiller" law in the areas they occupy, distributing fields and ponds equally, which has won them the hearts of the people. Not only are they now able to collect commercial taxes in Hankou, but they have also made contact with Westerners and purchased a large number of foreign guns and cannons.

The short-haired tribes had already acquired some tax-collecting capabilities, which was what Emperor Xianfeng feared most. This is why, despite losses in several provinces including Shanxi, Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Hunan, and Hubei, Emperor Xianfeng was particularly furious about the loss in Hunan.

The fact that Hunan short-haired people can collect taxes means that they have a stable source of income, which can support their army for a long time, allowing them to maintain their fighting strength.

(End of this chapter)