Sung Ching-Shih and His Black Flag Army

SUNG CHING-SHIH AND HIS BLACK FLAG ARMY Benjamin Yang Harvard University The Grand Canal runs southwards and the Yellow River runs eastwards; these two trunk water routes of North China meet at the Liao-ch'eng district in western Shantung province. During the Ch'ing dynasty, this district had a different name — Tung-ch'ang prefecture. On March 29, 1861, people in Tung-ch'ang were celebrating a traditional holiday, Boddhisattva Kuan-yin's birthday. Though the celebration included some religious ceremonies, what mainly interested most of the commoners was the marketing festivals that were held in certain villages and towns. The village of Pai-t'a-chi # }k fo in Kuan-hsien county was one of these marketing places. After the daytime business dealings a band of peddlers, craftsmen, hay-traders, and cart pullers withdrew from Pai-t'a-chi market to the nearby county seat, seemingly to stay overnight. But at midnight they took out all sorts of weapons — daggers buried among the vegetables and spears hidden beneath the carts — and dashed towards the county jail, where one of their comrades was being held for trial. They slew the guards and warden on duty, broke up the grilled holding rooms and set all the prisoners free. Then the excited crowd rushed to the county yamen, torches in their hands. The magistrate Chu Jui-kuo was wise enough to have fled in fright, but his office buildings were soon set on fire. This author wishes to thank the following scholars who have read the manuscript and made valuable comments and suggestions: Elizabeth Perry of the University of Washington, Philip Huang of the University of California, Susan Naouin of the University of Pennsylvaniaj and John Fairbank of Harvard University. Amidst the smoke and flames burst out thundering shouts of the intruders: "Revolt! Revolt! Revolt!" After looting the money in the treasury for themselves and dispersing the grain in the granary to the masses, the rebels, led by their chief Sung Ching-shih £ ? \i , left Kuan-hsien city for their home town in the neighbouring county of T'ang-i, recruiting followers all the way. The rebellion initiated by Sung Ching-shih expanded with amazing speed. According to official documents, the participants in the Kuanhsien jailbreak on March 29 numbered about seventy. The next day when the rebels, or the Black Flag Army ^, Af i- as they named themselves later on, reached Ch 'ing-shui-chi 'i jj'·*ß? 5X/S C*#J* ***· „ m· U«* «a .; Shantung Province •¡KL* *HM \ %»* Ot. Border! *##* - « if ^- « ;* Tillage & Town River sa* Frov. Border Canal WESTERH SHANTOTG, ca. 1860e 11 earlier than Sung. Yang P'eng-ling was a swordplayer and a friend of Sung Ching-shih; but more than that, he was the son of Yang T'ai \%¡ $ , 9 the master of the White Lotus society for the whole Kuan-hsien area. No sooner had Yang P'eng-ling returned from the jailbreak on March 29 than he and his father and some other White Lotus leaders in neighbouring countries began to plot their own uprisings in response to the new situation. Throughout April 1861 uprisings sponsored by the White Lotus broke out and spread rapidly in the Tung-ch'ang area. In government reports and, to a certain extent, in reality, the White Lotus and Sung Ching-shih became one and the same rebellion. On April 4, the county seat of Kuan-hsien was recaptured and that of Shen-hsien was taken by the rebels; on April 8, Kuan-t'ao was lost; on April 12, Ch'iu-hsien; on April 13, Kuan-ch'eng; April 14, Yang-ku; April 19, T'ang-i; April 26, Ch'aoch 'eng.... By the end of the month about ten counties had fallen into the hands of the rebels, and in these counties "no government soldiers could be found and no government officials were known living or dead." The total of the rebels jumped from twenty or thirty thousand to about fifty thousand from March to April, while Sung Ching-shih' s ranks at the same time swelled from three or four thousand to about seven thousand. Among the several major causes relating to the explosive development of...