The rebel general’s indecision created tremendous opportunities for anti-Taiping advances in the Shanghai region, opportunities that General Staveley could not or would not exploit. He continued to hew to the line of defending only Shanghai. Ward, for his part, had not regrouped and reorganized his force enough to undertake a major offensive. But fortunately Li Hung-chang, emboldened by his recent successes, was willing to expand his role in the fighting and ordered his commanders to effect a pincerlike attack on rebel forces in the area of Hung-ch’iao, just southwest of Shanghai. On June 18 the pincers closed, reportedly resulting in the deaths of a thousand rebels and the capture of two hundred more. That same day Li wrote to Tseng Kuo-fan, saying, “This pleases me exceedingly, since it at once changes the atmosphere of military affairs of recent years. To-day, according to intelligence from spies, the various brigands near Ssu-ching and Sung-chiang have all fled.” With his personal power consolidated, Li also felt more free to criticize the way officials such as Wu Hsü and Yang Fang were dealing with foreigners and the Ever Victorious Army: “The services of foreigners may still be required,” Li told Tseng on June 23, “but the accounting ought to be clear.” This criticism of Wu and Yang’s methods never bled over, however, into any indictment of Ward.
But if Li viewed Ward with an admirably clear and detached eye, Peking’s vision was increasingly clouded by suspicion and hostility. And by offering the prospect of a competent all-Chinese military force in Kiangsu, Li’s victories aggravated rather than eased this condition. The seed of doubt planted in the imperial clique by Hsüeh Huan’s early worries about Ward’s arrogance and ultimate ambitions had grown steadily in the ever-suspicious atmosphere of the Forbidden City. As early as May 24 an imperial edict had stated that “[t]o have the British and French attack the rebels will lead to many abuses, and even Ward has a mind unreceptive to control.” Li, by contrast, presented no such problems.
Great Britain’s growing support of the Ever Victorious Army (General Staveley’s personal misgivings notwithstanding) also accelerated the growth of suspicion in Peking. The more British representatives called for the expansion of the Ever Victorious Army, it seemed, the more determined the imperial clique became to limit that expansion. Responding to news of Prosper Giquel’s and Le Brethon de Caligny’s attempts to build a Franco-Chinese Corps in Ningpo, Admiral Hope wrote to Admiral Protet’s successor in Shanghai to say “that the object is not to have a number of separate corps there, English, French and Chinese, but that all the men drilled there should be turned over to Colonel Ward’s force, which is a Chinese force authorised by the government at Peking, and to which the troops trained by Captain Dew are attached.” Again, Hope advised Frederick Bruce to persuade the Chinese government to allow Ward to raise 2,500 men in Ningpo, but again Peking tried to avoid the issue.
The reasons for this avoidance were made clear during June. Ward knew full well that abuses had been committed by detachments of the Ever Victorious Army not under his direct control, particularly the men under Major Morton’s command in Ningpo. “I can manage my men,” Ward was later reported to have said at about this time, “but not my officers.” Dr. Macgowan echoed these sentiments, adding that the Chinese soldiers themselves—not just the Ever Victorious Army’s Western officers—were guilty of misconduct when away from Ward’s sternly watchful eye: “Ward’s legion, unfortunately, could not, in his absence, be trusted with provost duties. They could not resist preying upon the people they were expected to protect.” But Ward also knew that jealous Chinese provincial officials would exaggerate these incidents in their reports to the throne in an effort to discredit him. Prince Kung was told by local officials, for example, that Ward had gratuitously burned not only Ch’ing-p’u but Chia-ting as well—a report never corroborated. Tales of Ward’s misuse of funds for his army began to circulate among these same officials, even though it was the efficient fiscal administration of the Ever Victorious Army (as opposed to Ward’s personal finances, which were often in confusion) that remained one of the primary reasons for the unit’s success.
Rightly suspecting that Kung was being given a warped view of himself and his army, Ward wrote to the prince directly in June: a fairly serious breach of official protocol. In his memorandum, according to Kung, Ward “stressed his contribution” and requested “greater power so that he can move his army more freely.” Kung, in his reply, “delicately discouraged” Ward from similar communications in the future, and the incident only heightened the imperial clique’s suspicions. “Although Ward is serving China,” Kung pronounced, “he is still a foreigner. His nature is basically unrestrained and his heart is even harder to fathom.… I now petition the throne to order Li Hung-chang and Tso Tsung-tang [another of Tseng Kuo-fan’s talented students, who had become the new governor of Chekiang province] to watch him carefully, and to make him gradually fall under our control so that he will not ruin himself with his arrogance.”
Li Hung-chang’s victories in June offered China’s rulers hope that they would soon need neither foreign regulars nor the Ever Victorious Army; thus Hope’s continued calls for the expansion of Ward’s force and Staveley’s repeated demands that he be given men to train at Shanghai went unanswered. Enraged by all this, Frederick Bruce sent a blunt message to Prince Kung on June 28, saying that he felt compelled to “lodge a very serious complaint against those who direct the operations of the Chinese soldiers at Shanghai.”
“Your Imperial Highness is aware,” Bruce went on,
that it had been agreed between them and the allied Commanders that the latter should re-capture the cities within a certain radius of Shanghai, and that the Chinese would furnish garrisons for the places so taken.… Instead of confining themselves to the part assigned, the Chinese abandoned a strong position held by them [Chia-ting], and marched forward some 7,000 or 8,000 men to attack a town called Tai-ts’ang single-handed. The result was what might be anticipated, as long as officers are so ignorant of war as to oppose men undisciplined and badly armed, to … a large body of rebels who are wise enough to furnish their bands with better arms than those manufactured in China.… Thus the fruit of the late successes has been almost entirely lost.… I have also to report that Governor Li has only placed 300 men at the disposal of General Staveley to be drilled.… If the Imperial Government does not make sufficient efforts to justify me in stating to my Government that the retention of foreign troops in China will not be required for a lengthened period in order to preserve the Chinese towns from destruction, your Imperial Highness may depend upon it that either they will be withdrawn or the revenue of the port will be taken and applied to the payment of the force required for its protection. No Government will for long go to the expense of holding places for a foreign Government which is unable or unwilling to hold them itself.
This was a serious indictment but one that Kung, in a long-winded reply, simply sidestepped. Saying that he would review Bruce’s various points, Kung added, “As to the instruction of troops in foreign drill, the true reason why there has not been greater eagerness shown on this point, is that the expenses of the army are enormous.” And that, as far as the prince was concerned, was that.
Bruce’s threatened withdrawal of foreign troops from Shanghai did not, of course, ever come about; the port was entirely too important to British interests. But the controversy surrounding the defense of Shanghai threatened to bring military cooperation to a standstill, which would offer the Chung Wang favorable conditions for a new assault. At the end of June the antirebel forces held only Sung-chiang and Nan-ch’iao, the latter still occupied by a small Allied garrison. Taiping units had been able to move back into every other important city and town in the radius, and so long as ministers bickered in Peking and General Staveley refused to leave Shanghai, there seemed little hope that, should the rebels choose to strike again, an effective response could be mounted.
The situation, however, was salvaged in dramatic fashion in mid-July, not by British officers or imperial decrees but by the combin
ed talents of Ward and Li Hung-chang.
During the first week of July, as Ward regrouped at Sung-chiang and occasionally engaged in minor area actions, Li Hung-chang ordered his Anhwei troops to press the rebels more vigorously on the eastern, or Pootung, side of the Huang-pu River. On July 7 Li succeeded in recapturing Feng-hsien, an important town near the shores of Hang-chow Bay, and from there advanced toward the rebel stronghold of Chin-shan-wei to the southwest. Chin-shan-wei, even more than Nan-ch’iao, represented the southern key to the Pootung peninsula; if it could be wrested back from the rebels, both Shanghai and its inland trade would be that much safer.
By the end of the first week in July, Ward was ready to march south and join forces with Li. Indeed, in the wake of the Chung Wang’s withdrawal from eastern Kiangsu with his best troops (which neither Li nor Ward could have known was temporary), both imperialist commanders were beginning to look beyond the liberation of the Shanghai region and toward a linkup with Tseng Kuo-fan’s troops at Nanking. Participating in the capture of the rebel capital was a cherished goal of Ward’s: One of the items found among his personal effects after his death was a detailed map of Nanking. In a letter to Tseng on July 10—written as his own troops and those of the Ever Victorious Army were beginning joint operations in the Chin-shan-wei area—Li felt secure enough about Ward and his army to hazard proposing the project to his mentor:
Ward has more than four thousand men.… The Taotai Wu has offered the valiant services of Ward to help an assault on the Shui-hsi Gate at Hsia-kuan [in Nanking]. He would be able to sail there in a few days. As I, Hung-chang, dare not give immediate permission, you, my Teacher, may kindly send me your instruction, and ask my elder Yuan [Tseng’s brother Tseng Kuo-ch’üan] what he thinks of it.… [Ward’s] Army is like a foreign army, and Admiral Hope treats it with favour. But the men are provided with Chinese rations and money. As they have often heard of the great name of my Teacher, they will obey your orders.
For the moment, Tseng Kuo-fan was reluctant to use the Ever Victorious Army in the Nanking area. He did not rule out the possibility in the future, but he felt that Ward’s army first needed to further test and prove itself in Kiangsu. This was just as well, for in mid-July Ward had more than enough to keep him busy in the Shanghai area.
On July 16 about a thousand of Ward’s men hurried to engage a rebel column near Chin-shan-wei that had fought its way past a detachment of Li’s army in an effort to reestablish the Taiping presence in the Pootung peninsula and cut the imperialist lines of supply and retreat. Ward was able to frustrate this rebel threat before sundown on the sixteenth, and after dispensing with it he immediately coordinated with Li’s forces for a nighttime assault on Chin-shan-wei itself.
The battle plan at Chin-shan-wei was Ward’s, made during a council of war with the other imperialist commanders. Although most still regarded him as a foreigner, the Chinese officers listened and obeyed as Ward directed that Chin-shan-wei be invested on all four sides and subjected to a powerful artillery bombardment: the same basic scheme that had been used with repeated success during the thirty-mile-radius campaign. This time, however, the guns all belonged to the Ever Victorious Army, and the storming troops—though some were led by Westerners—were all Chinese. It was a signal moment.
According to Li Hung-chang, the rebel garrison in Chin-shan-wei began to withdraw from the city during the night, even before Ward’s guns had opened fire. Possibly the garrison had heard of the fate of other cities that had been subjected to pummeling by guns manufactured in the West. Or Li may well have invented this detail to downplay the importance of Ward’s participation in the battle and magnify his own role. Despite Li’s respect for Ward, it would not have been the first nor would it be the last time that such misrepresentation occurred. By all accounts, at any rate, Chin-shan-wei was in imperial hands by the morning of July 17. Ward later told Burlingame that his men were responsible for the city’s capture “although I find the Governor has credited himself and [his] troops with it, but then as they had been badly whipped the day previous to my taking it and had retreated to the rear you can imagine how much credit they really deserve.”
Ward and Li Hung-chang’s rivalry was thus in evidence once again at Chin-shan-wei, but there continued to be no real sense of bitterness about the competition. Immediately after Chin-shan-wei, Ward and Li again discussed an assault on one of Nanking’s water gates, to be made by the powerfully armed and ever more numerous river steamers of the Ever Victorious Army. Li had not yet received Tseng Kuo-fan’s thoughts on such an idea, and, on the chance that his teacher might agree, Li ordered Ward to prepare his men for the operation by moving north and seizing the port of Liu-ho, on the Yangtze. A rebel trading center occupied by Taiping troops as well as pirates working in affiliation with the Heavenly Kingdom, Liu-ho served as a base from which the rebels could harass the trade of Shanghai and Kiangsu province generally. Its recapture would involve amphibious operations, making it a logical spot to rehearse an attack on Nanking.
Ward embarked for Liu-ho from Wu-sung on July 29 with four of his steamers and, upon arriving at what he called the “piratical den,” immediately began to destroy the rebel fortifications with his mounted guns. After an extensive bombardment Ward’s infantry landed and attacked. The fighting was bitter, but the Ever Victorious Army soon gained the upper hand: The rebel defensive works were, in Ward’s own words, “destroyed completely,” and a collection of merchant vessels and captives held by the rebels were set free. Ward learned that the Taipings in Liu-ho had been planning a major raid against Ch’ung-ming Island, situated at the mouth of the Yangtze and vital to the safety of Shanghai’s trade. Like the battle for Kao-ch’iao in February, Ward’s success at Liu-ho had been particularly well-timed.
Following his return to Sung-chiang, Ward was informed of Tseng Kuo-fan’s desire that the Ever Victorious Army “try out their guns” a bit more before participating in any attack on Nanking. Tseng suggested the recapture of Ch’ing-p’u and Chia-ting, and, accordingly, Ward began to make plans for another attempt on the city that had been so troublesome to him. Li Hung-chang agreed to play a role in the assault and instructed Ward’s old associate Li Heng-sung to clear an approach to Ch’ing-p’u so that the body of the Anhwei Army could move west unimpeded. On August 5 Li Hung-chang’s troops arrived before Ch’ing-p’u’s rebuilt outer works, where they were soon joined by Ward and the Ever Victorious Army.
Before Ward had left Sung-chiang, he had received a letter from Wu Hsü reminding him that, once Ch’ing-p’u was taken, he should not allow the Ever Victorious Army to engage in any looting activities that would give ammunition to Ward’s critics in the Chinese bureaucracy. Referring to himself again as “your foolish younger brother,” Wu told Ward that “your only duty is to attack the city. As soon as the city has been taken over, give it to Colonel Cheng [one of Li Hung-chang’s officers]…. Please do not let the Ever Victorious Army enter the city, in order to avoid blame and condemnation in the future. This is most important and I beg you to give it your attention.” Wu’s admonitions were hardly necessary: Ward was only too aware, after the thirty-mile-radius campaign, of the cost of allowing troops to run wild after taking a city. In drawing up his battle plan, Ward assigned no garrisoning role to his two thousand troops; instead, they were to perform their traditional function of breaching and storming.
Li Hung-chang’s various imperialist units were assigned to the north, east, and west gates of the city. The Ever Victorious Army would launch the main attack on the southern gate, supported by Li Heng-sung’s troops. The battle began on August 7. Ward’s steamers opened fire on the Taiping defenses—the Hyson even managing to pound its way into the city moat—and the Ever Victorious Army along with the Chinese troops busied themselves destroying the rebel outworks. On the following day, Ward attacked the south gate but was repulsed. According to the Peking Gazette, the official Chinese government organ, this failure resulted from a “want of courage” on the part of the Chines
e units attacking in support of Ward. Once again frustrated by Li Heng-sung, Ward awaited the arrival of five hundred of his own men from Sung-chiang. The additional troops joined him on August 9, and Ward prepared to attack again on the tenth.
According to Forester, the Ever Victorious Army’s artillery at this latest battle of Ch’ing-p’u was commanded by an Italian colonel called Sartoli. Dr. Macgowan referred to this man as Major Tortal, but both agreed that he was, in Forester’s words, “an expert in gunnery who had gained his experience under Garibaldi.” (Whether or not Ward had met Sartoli earlier in life is unknown; it is nonetheless noteworthy that so many of Ward’s officers had served in campaigns and with leaders that Ward himself either had actually or was rumored to have been involved with.) On August 10 Sartoli’s batteries set to work on the south gate of Ch’ing-p’u again and soon effected a ten-foot breach in the walls. Ward himself then led a storming party toward the walls, although according to Dr. Macgowan it was Ward’s Filipino aide, Vincente Macanaya, who was first into the breach. Unfortunately the Italian Sartoli insisted on joining the storming party and was killed on the walls. But Ward pressed on. “The work of General Ward’s men was steady and sure,” said the Gazette, “… and under the shelter of the smoke, they scaled the wall. With firedarts [rockets] and bayonets they advanced against the Rebels and killed numbers of them. Seeing this the Imperialists rushed in a body and took possession of the city.”
Immediately, the Taipings began a hasty withdrawal through the north and west gates, where imperialist units were lying in wait. Hundreds of Taipings were killed during ensuing ambushes. These, however, were secondary actions. Even in Peking, it was clear who had pulled the laboring oar during the attack: “General Ward,” said the Gazette, “has, many times before, led his men against this city of Ch’ing-p’u …, but especially in this battle he was regardless of personal danger in leading and urging his soldiers on to the slaughter. For this he is worthy of our highest praise.” In reporting the battle to Tseng Kuo-fan, Li Hung-chang similarly gave the lion’s share of the credit to Ward, describing his comrade as leading “his men forward while at the same time, he kept firing with rockets and guns. Most of the outrageous brigands on the walls fell and our troops made an assault to get in.” Ward himself summed up the action to Burlingame by saying simply, “I took Ch’ing-p’u in fine style by breaching and storming.”