China by Edward Rutherfurd (historical books to read TXT) 📕

dead. They’d carried his body back and brought him with them out of the town that night. Then carried him all the way back to Nanjing.

He should have died, with the great wound that he had. But Nio was tough.

And so General Li, his commander, had made it his personal mission to bring Nio back to life.

For many weeks, Nio had lain in the Heavenly Kingdom, being tended by the best physicians the city had. His wound had slowly healed without infection. But he was very weak. He couldn’t walk. He didn’t even seem to want to talk. He just lay on his bed like a pale ghost.

And General Li wasn’t having it. If Nio had lost heart, then he was going to get it back for him. “You know,” he remarked as he sat by Nio’s bed one day, “everything’s going our way. Lord Elgin has arrived in Hong Kong. He’ll certainly have got the message you left. And he’s on the way to Beijing with eighteen thousand men. Even if he doesn’t join forces with us yet, he’s going to humiliate the emperor. That’s what we need. Meanwhile, I’m going to strike up to Shanghai. Do exactly what we planned. The garrison’s not large. The barbarians will stand aside. We’ll take the port, buy those iron ships, and this rotting old empire will fall to bits. Would you like to see that?”

He stared through his glasses at Nio’s face and thought he detected a faint smile. “I’ll tell you what,” he cried, “I’ll bring you with me to Shanghai. You can watch us take the place. That’ll put heart into you. We’ll enter Shanghai together.”

And so it was that, on a sunny August day, Nio was brought on a stretcher, with General Li’s Taiping army, to the walls of Shanghai.

—

“Put him in a chair,” said General Li. “Let him watch.” The day was not too hot. “A little sun will do him good.” He put an orderly in charge of him. “Put a hat on him if the sun’s too much.”

“Yes, sir,” the orderly said.

General Li had taken every precaution. Though he had no doubt that the message would have been given to the foreign communities months ago, by the British authorities at Hong Kong, he had caused fresh instructions to be printed in both Chinese and English and delivered to the gates of the foreign concessions this very last night. They knew they had only to put yellow flags on their buildings and they would not be harmed. He wasn’t even going to enter the foreign quarters for the time being. Just the old Chinese fort.

And there it was, in plain view. A modest enclosure near the broad water’s edge.

Would the Chinese troops even fight? Not if they had any sense.

So with their red-and-yellow banners streaming, to the sound of gongs and drums, the Taiping troops marched towards the gate of the old Chinese fort. The wall of the British concession lay on one side of them. It was only eight or ten feet high.

The Chinese defenders of the old fort had thrown up an emplacement for cannon in front of their gates. But Chinese gunnery held few fears for the seasoned Taiping troops. They’d probably fire a token volley and give up.

General Li went forward with his men. He glanced back once, towards Nio in his chair. When Nio saw Shanghai as a Taiping port; when he witnessed the foreign merchants living cheerfully under the rule of their Taiping fellow Christians; above all, when those iron ships, which would smash the Manchu forces and bring the emperor down, were moored off the Shanghai waterfront, then Nio would come back into the land of the living.

The thought pleased General Li very much.

It was just at that moment that the firing began. First, a salvo from the cannon by the gates. A deadly salvo of grapeshot that ripped great red gashes in the lines of fluttering yellow flags.

General Li frowned. Those did not sound like Chinese cannon.

A perfectly directed second salvo, canister shot this time, punched through the advancing Taiping column.

Those were British guns and gunners. Li was sure of it. What were they doing there?

Before he could even work it out, all along the British concession wall appeared lines of men armed with modern British rifles pouring in a terrible fusillade onto the Taiping flank. Now firing started from the Chinese fortress wall as well. Flintlocks mostly. But when they did hit, they did awful damage.

The Taiping troops were so astonished that they stopped. They’d been given strict instructions to respect the British, who were on their side. Even cunning General Li stopped and stared in horror.

“Retreat!” he ordered. They were sitting ducks where they were. Few of the men heard the command. They hesitated. Another volley of canister shot from the cannon battery. The British were pouring in their fire from the walls. Shots were coming from the other concessions, too.

The Taiping troops, realizing they were in a horrible trap, began to fall back. General Li fell back with them.

But why had the British turned suddenly into enemies? It made no sense. They were making war on the emperor, too. Was there something they still didn’t like about the Taiping version of Christianity? Nothing wrong with it as far as General Li knew. Was this to do with opium? Had they cut a deal with the emperor?

He had no idea. But he must regroup the men and call off the assault. That was the first thing. He must save his men.

For the next half hour he had no time to think of anything else.

Neither the British nor the Chinese came out from behind their walls. That was something. He was able to draw up his men at a safe distance.

But if he did not know how or why, one thing was certain: The game had changed. All his hopes and plans were in ruins. And those of the Heavenly King.

And of Nio, of course.

Nio. Was he