Adrift in Pacific and Other Great Adventures – 17 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Jules Verne
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of the population of the earth. Now, little as the Chinaman eats, he nevertheless eats; and China, even with its numerous rice-fields, and extensive cultivation of millet and wheat, does not provide enough to nourish him. Hence there are more inhabitants than can be cared for; and their only desire is to escape through some of the loopholes which the English and French cannon have made in the moral and material walls of the Celestial Empire.
This surplus has poured into North America, and principally into the State of California, but in such multitudes that Congress has been obliged to take restrictive measures against the invasion, which is rather impolitely called “the yellow pest.” As was observed, fifty million Chinese emigrants in the United States would not have sensibly diminished the population of China, and it would have brought about a blending with the Anglo-Saxon race, to the benefit of the Mongolian.
However this may be, the exodus was conducted on a large scale. These coolies, living on a handful of rice, a cup of tea, and a pipe of tobacco, and apt at all trades, met with remarkably quick success in Virginia, Salt Lake, Oregon, and, above all, the State of California, where they greatly reduced the wages of manual labor.
Companies were then formed for the transportation of these inexpensive emigrants; and there were five which had charge of the enlisting in the five provinces of the Celestial Empire, and a sixth which was stationed at San Francisco. The former shipped, and the latter received, the merchandise; while an additional agency, called the Ting-Tong, re-shipped them.
This requires an explanation.
The Chinese are very willing to expatriate themselves to seek their fortune with the “Melicans,” as they call the people of the United States, but on one condition, that their bodies shall be faithfully brought back, and buried in their native land. This is one of the principal conditions of the contract,—a sine qua non clause, which is binding on these companies with regard to the emigrant, and cannot be eluded.
Therefore the Ting-Tong—or, in other words, the Agency of the Dead, which draws its funds from private sources—is charged with freighting the “corpse steamers,” which leave San Francisco fully loaded for Shanghai, Hong-Kong, or Tien-Sing. Here was a new business, and a new source of profit, which the shrewd and enterprising Tchoung-Heou foresaw. At the time of his death, in 1866, he was a director in the Kouang-Than Company in the province of that name, and sub-director of the Treasury for the Dead in San Francisco.
Kin-Fo, having neither father nor mother, was heir to a fortune valued at four million francs, invested in stock in the Central Bank in California, and which he had the good sense to let remain there.
When he lost his father, the young heir, who was nineteen years old, would have been alone in the world, had it not been for Wang, the inseparable Wang, who filled the place of mentor and friend.
But who was this Wang? For seventeen years he had lived in the yamen at Shanghai, and was the guest of the father before he became that of the son. But where did he come from? What was his past? All these somewhat difficult questions Tchoung-Heou and Kin-Fo alone could have answered; and if they had considered it proper to do so, which was not probable, this is what one would have learned from them:—
No one is unaware that China, is, par excellence, the kingdom where insurrections last many years, and carry off hundreds of thousands of men. Now, in the seventeenth century, the celebrated dynasty of Ming, of Chinese origin, had been in power in China three hundred years, when, in 1644, the chief, feeling too weak to resist the rebels who threatened the capital, asked aid of a Tartar king.
The king, who did not need to be entreated, hastened to his assistance, drove out the rebels, and profited by the situation to overthrow him who had implored his aid, and proclaimed his own son, Chun-Tche, emperor.
From this period the Tartar rule was substituted for that of the Chinese, and the throne was occupied by Mandshurian emperors.
The two races, especially among the lower classes, gradually came together; but among the rich families of the north they did not mingle. Therefore the type still retains its characteristics, particularly in the centre of the western provinces of the empire. There the “irreconcilables” who remained faithful to the fallen dynasty took refuge.
Kin-Fo’s father was one of the latter; and he did not belie the traditions of his family, who refused to enter into compact with the Tartars. A rebellion against the foreign power, even after a rule of three hundred years, would have found him ready to join it. It is unnecessary to add that his son, Kin-Fo, fully shared his political opinions.
Now, in 1860, there still reigned that emperor, S’Hiene-Fong, who declared war against England and France,—a war ended by the treaty of Pekin on the 25th of October of the same year.
But before that date a formidable uprising threatened the reigning dynasty. The Tchang-Mao, or the Tai-ping,—the “long-haired rebels,”—took possession of Nankin in 1853, and Shanghai in 1855. After S’Hiene-Fong’s death, his son had great difficulty in repulsing the Tai-ping. Without the Viceroy Li, and Prince Kong, and especially the English Colonel Gordon, he, perhaps, would not have been able to save his throne.
The Tai-ping, the declared enemies of the Tartars, being strongly organized for rebellion, wished to replace the dynasty of the Tsing for that of the Wang. They formed four distinct armies,—the first, under a black banner, appointed to kill; the second, under a red banner, to set fire; the third, under a yellow banner, to pillage; and the fourth, under a white banner, to provision the other three.
There were important military operations in Kiang-Sou; and Soo-Choo and Kia-Hing, five leagues distant from Shanghai, fell into the power of the rebels, and were recovered, not without difficulty, by the imperial troops.
Shang-hai, which had been seriously threatened, was also attacked on the 18th of August, 1860, at the time that Gens. Grant and Montauban, commanding the Anglo-French army, were cannonading the forts of Pei-ho.
Now, at this time, Tchoung-Heou, Kin-Fo’s father, was living near Shanghai, not far from the magnificent bridge thrown across the river by Chinese engineers at Soo-Choo. He disapproved of this rebellion of the Tai-ping, since it was chiefly directed against the Tartar dynasty.
This, then, was the state of affairs when, on the evening of the 18th of August, after the rebels had been driven out of Shang-hai, the door of Tchoung-Heou’s house suddenly opened, and a fugitive, having dodged his pursuers, came to throw himself at the feet of Tchoung-Heou. The unfortunate man had no weapon with which to defend himself; and, if he to whom he came to ask for shelter had given him up to the imperial soldiers, he would have been killed.
Kin-Fo’s father was not the man to betray a Tai-ping who sought refuge in his house; and he closed the door, and said,—
“I do not wish to know, and I never shall know, who you are, what you have done, or whence you come. You are my guest, and for that reason only will be perfectly safe at my house.”
The fugitive tried to speak to express his gratitude, but scarcely had strength.
“Your name?” asked Tchoung-Heou.
“Wang.”
It was Wang indeed, saved by Tchoung-Heou’s generosity,—a generosity which would have cost the latter his life if any one had suspected that he was giving an asylum to a rebel. But Tchoung-Heou was like one of those men of ancient times with whom every guest is sacred.
A few years later the uprising of the rebels was forever repressed. In 1864 the Tai-ping chief, who was besieged at Nankin, poisoned himself to escape falling into the hands of the Imperials.
Wang, ever since that day, had remained in his benefactor’s house. He was never obliged to say any thing about his past; for no one questioned him. Perhaps they feared they might hear too much. The atrocities committed by the rebels were frightful, it was said; and under what banner Wang had served,—the yellow, red, black, or white,—it was better to remain in ignorance, and to fancy that he belonged only to the provisioning column.
Wang,