17. That there was rivalry between Lee and Jen-kan is not only possible but likely, in view of the latter's sudden ascendancy, but only Flashman suggests that it was carried as far as this. There must always be doubt about what was happening behind the scenes at this critical stage in Taiping fortunes, but while Flashman's story is plausible, and not inconsistent with later events, and while some mystery attaches to Jen-kan's role within the movement, it is only right to say that no other writer has suggested that the prime minister was actively plotting the general's downfall.
18. The expression "the almighty dollar", which now refers to American currency, was applied to the Chinese dollar in the last century.
19. Flashman does more justice than is usually shown to Frederick Townsend Ward (1831-1862). The American soldier of fortune was unlucky in being succeeded in command of the Ever-Victorious Army of mercenaries by one of the great heroes of the Victorian age, Major-General Charles George ("Chinese") Gordon, who not only crushed the Taiping Rebellion but achieved immortality by his defence of Khartoum two decades later; it was the kind of fame that overshadowed all but his most eminent contemporaries, and Ward's part in the China wars was quite eclipsed. It remains that Ward did found the Ever-Victorious Army, and after initial reverses, won several victories, in the course of which he forged the weapon which Gordon was to wield so brilliantly. No doubt Ward's reputation suffered from his unpopularity with the foreign consulates in China, particularly the British, who resented his recruitment of the soldiers and sailors who were at one time the backbone of his force; it was also feared that his activities might endanger British neutrality. Ward's biographer, Cahill, is reasonably indignant at the scant credit which the American has received in comparison to Gordon, but seems to spoil his case by overstatement; to say that Ward was "a military genius who helped change the history of China" may be defensible, but to call him Gordon's superior as an organiser, strategist, and diplomat, and "unquestionably the greatest foreign soldier who fought in the Taiping Rebellion", is perhaps to exaggerate.
Flashman's account of Ward seems fairly accurate as far as the facts of his career go. A native of Salem, Mass., he was a mate on merchant ships when he was only 16, and had military experience in Central America, Mexico, and the Crimea with the French forces (he spoke French, but not Chinese). He came to China, apparently with romantic notions of joining the Taipings; there is no record of his ever having run guns or opium, but in the spring of 1860 he was mate of a Yangtse steamship, and fought a successful action against pirates when his vessel grounded. He was later mate of an Imperial gunboat in Gough's flotilla, before forming his own private army to defend Shanghai; for the Manchus; in this he was financed by China merchants including Yang ("Takee") Fang, whose daughter he married. Flashman's account of Ward's initial battles is entirely accurate; after his second defeat at Chingpu, and the loss of Sungkiang which followed, he went to France to recuperate, returning to China and fighting with growing success (but not without controversy) until his death: he was killed leading an attack on Tse-kee, on September 21, 1862. Then came Gordon, to inherit his army, and at least one of his gestures: it is a small thing, but while it is Gordon who is remembered as the general who led his men into battle carrying only a cane, the practice seems to have originated with Ward.
He was a small man, active and wiry, with intense dark eyes and a mild, pleasant manner. Little is known of his personality except that he was cheerful and amiable, but he must have had a remarkable gift of leadership, if only to hold his little army together through its early reverses, especially the first assault on Sungkiang, when his entire force arrived in action in an advanced state of intoxication. It may well be that he was as genially eccentric as Flashman suggests; by his own account, he did once fall overboard while pursuing a butterfly, and it is a matter of record that he was carried to the second attack on Chingpu, with his five wounds heavily bandaged, in a sedan chair. (See Yankee Adventurer, by Holger Cahill, 1930; The Ever-Victorious Army, by Andrew Wilson, 1868; With Gordon in China, by Thomas Lyster, 1891; History of China, vol iii, by D. C. Boulger, 1884; Gordon in China, by S. Mossman, 1875.)
The man in the Norfolk jacket, described by Flashman, was probably Henry Burgevine (1836-65), Ward's lieutenant, who briefly commanded the Ever-Victorious Army in the interval between Ward's death and Gordon's appointment. An explosive eccentric from the American South, Burgevine had served in the Crimea, and changed sides several times during the Taiping Rebellion. He lost the command of the E.V.A. after assaulting an official for withholding his troops' pay, went over to the rebels, subsequently deserted and rejoined Gordon (with whom he seems to have been on good terms), tried to change sides again, but was arrested and subsequently met his death by drowning in mysterious circumstances.
20. French travellers to Soochow, including priests and missionaries, had assured Lee of a warm welcome in Shanghai, and since he set great store by the Christian bond between Taipings and Europeans, he advanced on the city in high hopes of a peaceful occupation, only to be thunderstruck when he was opposed. A rumour later arose that Roman Catholic priests, who detested the Taiping religion, had encouraged his advance in the hope that he and his army would be destroyed.
21. Admiral Hope's failure to force a passage at the Taku Forts on June 25, 1859, is a forgotten imperial incident; it was also probably the first occasion on which British and American servicemen fought side by side, if unofficially. Hope's gunboats came under heavy bombardment from the Chinese batteries, and one, the Plover, lost thirty-one out of her crew of forty, her commander was killed, the admiral was wounded, and the remaining nine seamen were fighting their guns against hopeless odds. It was too much for the elderly Commodore Josiah Tattnall, watching from the neutral deck of his U.S. Navy steamer Toeywhan; as a young midshipman he had fought against the British in the War of 1812; now, disregarding his country's non-belligerent status, he took a boat in under fire and offered Hope his help. Hope accepted, and Tattnall's launch brought out the British wounded; only later did he discover several of his men black with powder smoke. "What have you been doing, you rascals?" he asked, and received the reply: "Beg pardon, sir, but they were a bit short-handed with the bow gun." The old commodore made no excuses, for himself or his men, in reporting the incident to Washington. "Blood," he wrote, "is thicker than water." (See A. Hilliard Armitage, The Storming of the Taku Forts, 1896.)