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Westerners. And, despite missionary pleas for indulgence of the rebels, the apparently blasphemous elements of the Taiping religion (primarily the T’ien Wang’s repeated references to the Supreme Lord as his “Heavenly Father” and to Christ as his “Heavenly Elder Brother”) became sources of deep concern in the settlements. But England and France were at war with China in other parts of the empire, and if a Taiping victory meant an end to Manchu corruption and obstinacy, it might be desirable. Thus few foreigners saw any reason in 1860 to abandon the policy of neutrality that had been their approach to China’s difficulties throughout the decade of rebellion—provided, of course, that the Chung Wang promised not to harm Western residents or interfere with their commerce.
    But this calm resolve began to erode with the arrival of ever more alarming reports from the field. In the beginning of June news of rebel movements around Ch’ang-chou finally reached the coast. The North China Herald ’s correspondent put “the rebels now between Nankingand Ch’ang-chou at 140,000 (!) divided into seven large columns. This, with all the division and subtraction invariably to be applied to returns of the kind in China, still leaves it to be inferred that the Nanking garrison did break out in considerable strength.” From the city of Hangchow, conquered by the rebels, came tales of butchered Buddhist priests and general devastation: “Accurate statistics are difficult to obtain in such cases, but the reports generally concur in the statement that from fifty to seventy thousand lives were lost in a few days; and it is still more sad to think that a large proportion of these were suicides.”
    Such reports—accompanied by mounting rumors that Taiping spies were at work in Shanghai, preparing the city for conquest—had an alarming enough effect on the foreigners in Shanghai; their effect in the Chinese city and among imperial officials was devastating. Suspected rebel agents were captured in mounting numbers and dealt with summarily, as the Herald reported: “There have been many executions in the city during the week; the victims are said to be rebels. That they are obnoxious to the authorities from that or some other cause there is no doubt. On the bridge a short way up the Soochow Creek there are some twenty heads suspended. A most disgusting spectacle placed there to inspire terror into the minds of the dreaded rebels.” At length, knowing the exact value of the few imperial troops remaining in the region, the Chinese governors of Shanghai appealed to the British and French to land troops from their warships and garrison the city.
    The same Chinese government that was at war with England and France in other parts of the empire was asking for Allied help in Shanghai: It was a paradox not uncharacteristic of the rulers of China and certainly typical of the men who held effective power in the port of Shanghai. The imperial governor of Kiangsu,Hsüeh Huan, would ordinarily have exercised authority from Soochow, but he was now attempting to direct affairs in what little of the province he still controlled from the coast. Hsüeh had long experience dealing with both rebels and foreigners—he was the imperial commissioner for the five treaty ports—and it was widely rumored in the foreign settlements that his plan was to set the second group against the first. The “cunning commissioner,” as the Herald called him, was “a rising man, and it will be themaking of him if … he can induce the barbarian commanders-in-chief to help exterminate the enemies of the Emperor, and to retake Soochow.”
    But a cardinal rule in the Chinese bureaucracy was not to acknowledge involvement in such schemes unless and until they succeeded. Hsüeh Huan therefore shielded himself by placing immediate responsibility for involving the Westerners in anti-Taiping activities on the shoulders of one of his most talented subordinates:Wu Hsü,