The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1900-10-09
AS A BAREFooTED BOY.

said that the three great men he met
on his long journey were Ii Hung
Chang, Gladstone, and Bismarck. Ii
Hung Chang in his turn greatly adj
mlred Grant and has been for fifty
years stanch champion of Americans
in his own country, so far as open
professions go. He showed Grant
many honors when the great American
soldier was on his journey around the
world. After he had gone Lii Hung
Chang, in alaking some comparisons,
said: General Grant and have sup
pressed the two greatest rebellions
known in history" He referred, on
his own part, to the great TAPPING re-
bellion, probably the greatest uprising
of its kind known to the world
LII Hung Chang is the son of Chin
csc farmer. He is rs years old and it
was in suppressing the great rebellion
of 1850 that he came to the front in
Chinese affairs. He had, in fact, little
to do with putting down his rebellious
countrymen. He skillfully persuaded
tic American leader, Frederick e.
Ward, and the English general, Cor
don,yto direct the fighting and then ap-
propriated the credit for it, writing
long dispatches to Pekin in which he
referred grandiloquently to my ever
victorious army" For thirteen years
the southern provinces had been in re-
volt Under the leadership of Hung Use
Chuen. Hung Use had failed to pass
the examinations which are required
in China for the first steps in polit-
ical advancement He fell i'll and
claimed revelation had been made to
him that he was to become the emper-
or of China. He began to proclaim his
mission, exhorting his followers to
embrace Christianity, of which he had
obtained some vague notions. With
every year the circle of his adherents
widened, but it was not until 1850 that
the needless Pekin government saw
and knew the danger that he threat
ened
Made by TaI-PinG Rebellion.
In the open rebellion that followed
the new leader won immense success
for a time. With an army unusually
well drilled for Cinnamon, Hung Use
Chuen overran several provinces,
crossed the Yang-tse and in Marking,
the old capital of the empire, was
hailed as emperor, and assumed the
style of royalty. Two columns pressed
forward toward Pekin.
At this crisis young and distin-
guished scholar, who had passed two
examinations and was among the ex-
pectants of Office, gathered together
friends and relatives in his menaced
native town, organized them into a
regiment, and fell upon the rebels
rear. His victories won him a staff
position in the imperial army and
later chief command in the field. With
the aid of foreign corps, commanded
until his death in battle by Frederick
e. Ward, an American sailor-adven-
turer and later by Lieutenant Colonel
Gordon, who was doomed to be the
victim of the Mahdi, the new Chinese
leader crushed the rebellion after a
tremendous struggle.
During one campaign he nearly fell
a victim to the not uniustifiable wrath
of Gordon. Incensed by the execution
of TAPPING chieftains to whom he had
promised immunity, the Englishman
went out to hunt Ii with a revolver,
and the frightened Chinaman barely
saved his life by hiding in a friends
house until his subordinate's anger
had cooled.
When the TAPPING rebellion ended
In 1865 Ii Hung Chang came out of it
provincial governor. With the for
eign war In which the English and
French allies, $4,000 strong, took Pc
kin and Tien-Tsin, and exacted large
concessions from the Chinese, in 1854,
Ii Hung Chang, fortunately for him
self, had nothing to do From the gov
ernorship of an outlying province Lii
was promoted in 1870 to be viceroy of
the province of Pechili, in which are
situated the imperial city of Pekin and
It's port. Tien-Tsin. Here, for twenty
1--WE years, he sat at the gates Of China,
A ~ -. A.