Flashman Papers 3-Book Collection 4: Flashman and the Dragon, Flashman on the March, Flashman and the Tiger. George Fraser MacDonald

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СКАЧАТЬ most younger sons he didn’t feel bound to stand on his dignity.⁸ He was easy and pleasant, and when I asked him if there was a serious possibility that the Taipings might attack Shanghai, he shrugged and said there was no way of telling.

      “They’ve always wanted a major port,” says he. “It would strengthen their cause immensely to have access to the outside world. But they don’t want to attack Shanghai if they can help it, for fear of offending us and the other Powers – so Loyal Prince Lee, the ablest of the rebel generals, writes me a letter urging us to admit his armies peacefully to Shanghai and then join him in toppling the Manchoos. He argues that the Taipings are Christians, like ourselves, and that the British people are famous for their sympathy to popular risings against tyrannical rulers – where he got that singular notion I can’t think. Maybe he’s been reading Byron. What about that, Slater – think he reads Byron?”

      “Not in the original, certainly,” says the secretary.

      “No, well – he also extols the enlightened nature of Taiping democracy, and assures us of the close friendship of the Taiping government when (and if) it comes to power.” Bruce sighed. “It’s a dam’ good letter. I daren’t even acknowledge it.”

      For the life of me I couldn’t see why not. A Taiping China couldn’t help but be better than the rotten Manchoo Empire, whose friendship was doubtful, to say the least. And if we backed them, they’d whip the Manchoos in no time – which would mean the Pekin expedition was unnecessary, and Hope Grant and Flashy and the lads could all go home. But Bruce shook his head.

      “You don’t lightly overthrow an Empire that’s lasted since the Flood, to let in an untried and damned unpromising rabble of peasants. God knows the Manchoos are awkward, treacherous brutes, but at least they’re the devil we know. Oh, I know the Bishop of Victoria sees the finger of divine providence in the Taiping Rebellion, and our missionaries call them co-religionists – which I strongly suspect they’re not. Even if they were, I’ve known some damned odd Christians, eh, Slater?”

      “South America, what?” says Slater, looking glum.

      “Besides, could such people govern? They’re led by a visionary, and their chief men are pawnbrokers, clerks, and blacksmiths! Talk about Jack Cade and Wat Tyler! Lee’s the best of ’em, and Hung Jen-kan’s civilised, by all accounts – but the rest are bloody-minded savages who rule their conquered provinces by terror and enslavement. Which is no way to win a war, I’d say. They’d be entirely unpredictable, with their lunatic king liable to have a divine revelation telling him to pitch out all foreign devils, or declare war on Japan!”

      “But suppose,” I ventured, “the Taipings win, in the end?”

      “You mean,” says Bruce, looking more cherubic than ever, “suppose they look likely to win. Well, H. M. G. would no doubt wish to review the position. But while it’s all to play for, we remain entirely neutral, respecting the Celestial Emperor as the established government of China.”

      I saw that, but wondered if, in view of the possible Taiping threat to Shanghai, it mightn’t be politic to jolly along this General Lee with fair words – lie to him, like.

      “No. The Powers agree that all such overtures as Lee’s letter must be ignored. If I acknowledged it, and word reached Pekin, heaven knows what might happen to our forthcoming negotiations with the Imperial Government. They might assume we were treating with the rebels, and Grant might even have a real war on his hands. We may have to talk to the Taipings sometime – unofficially,” says he, thoughtfully, “but it will be at a time and place of our choosing, not theirs.”

      All of which was of passing interest to me; what mattered was that Elgin wasn’t due out until June, and as his personal intelligence aide I could kick my heels pleasantly until then, sampling the delights of Shanghai diplomatic society and the more robust amusements to be found in the better class native sing-songs and haunts of ill-repute. Which I did – and all the time China was stropping its dragon claws and eyeing me hungrily.

      Pleasuring apart, the time hung heavy enough for me to do some light work with the politicals of the consulate, for we maintained an extensive intelligence-gathering bandobast, and it behoved me to know about it. It consisted mostly of strange little coolies coming to the back door at night with bits of bazaar gossip, or itinerant bagmen with news from up-river, the occasional missionary’s helper who’d been through the lines at Nanking, and endless numbers of young Chinese, who might have been students or clerks or pimps – all reporting briefly or at length to swell the files of the intelligence department. It was the most trivial, wearisome rubbish for the most part – there wasn’t, alas, an An-yat-heh among the spies to cheer things up – and devilish dull for the collators, who passed it on for sifting and summary by the two Chinese supervisors whose names, I swear to God, were Mr Fat and Mr Lin. By the time they’d pieced and deduced and remembered – well, it’s surprising what can emerge from even the most mundane scraps of information.

      For example, it was the strangest thing that enabled us to foresee the end of the great siege of Nanking in April ’60. The Imperialists had huge entrenchments circling the city, and the river blockaded on both sides, but couldn’t breach the rebel defences. The Taipings, hemmed within the city, had various forces loose in the countryside, but nothing apparently strong enough to raise the siege. It was such a stalemate that a great fair had actually been established between the Imp lines and the city walls, where both sides used to meet and fraternise, and the Imps sold all manner of goods to the Taipings! They brought food, opium, women, even arms and powder, which the Taipings bought with the silver they’d found in Nanking when they captured it back in ’53.

      A ludicrous state of affairs, even for China; it took my fancy, and when one of our spies sent down particulars of the market trading, I happened to glance through it – and noted an item which seemed a trifle odd. I ain’t given to browsing over such things, you may be sure, and I wish to heaven I’d never seen this one, for what I noticed proved to be a vital clue, and set Bruce thinking earlier than he need have done, with the most ghastly consequences to myself.

“Here’s a rum thing, Mr Fat,” says I. “Why should the Taipings be buying bolts of black silk? Dammit, they spent 500 taels^a on it this week – more than they spent on cartridge. Are they expecting funerals?”

      “Most singular,” says he. “Mr Lin, have the goodness to examine the return for last week.”

      So they did – and the Taipings had bought even more black silk then. They clucked over it, and burrowed into their records, and came to an astonishing conclusion.

      Whenever the Taipings undertook any desperate military action, they invariably raised black silk flags in every company, which their soldiers were bound to follow on pain of death – they even had executioners posted in the ranks to behead any shirkers, which must have done wonders for their recruiting, I’d have thought. And when we learned presently that the black silk had been sent out of the city to two of the Taiping armies in the field – the Golden Lions of the famous Loyal Prince Lee, and the Celestial Singers under Chen Yu-cheng – it was fairly obvious that Lee and Chen were about to fall on the Imp besiegers. Which, in due course, they did, and our knowing about it in advance enabled the Hon. F. W. A. Bruce to plan and scheme most infernally, as I said. (If you wonder that the Imps didn’t realise the significance of the black silk they were selling the Taipings – why, that’s the Imperial Chinese Army for you. Even if they had, they’d likely just have yawned, or deserted.)

      I was fool enough to be mildly pleased at spotting the item – Fat and Lin СКАЧАТЬ