Public Appeal (Text)

Public Appeal by the combined lineage in the nineteenth day of the first month in the second year of Tongzhi reign period (1863)

            We submit this appeal based on the facts. [Bearing in mind your majesty’s] grace we humbly ask you to show pity on us. This event is closely related to our residential area. We reside in a secluded valley where the farming fields are scarce, and earn our livings by bamboo and wood forestry and collecting  kindling and firewood.

            From the twenty-third day of the fourth month of the xinchou year (1861), the rebels from Guangdong Province[1] harassed and occupied the [Wuyi]. In our residential area, three villages with the same surname, all belonging to the same lineage, immediately assembled the adult men, and planned to expel the rebels. Unfortunately, when we approached the county walls we were defeated. Seven people died: He Shencai, Qixian, Fuqian, Binghua, Liansong, Shehe, and Weitian. The next day, we assembled all the local men in Danan and Xiaonan area, and tried to expel the rebels once again, but were defeated.

            The rebels then went out of the county seat, killing everyone they encountered and burning every house they saw. We prudently guarded our residential area day and night. The rebels came irregularly, and thus we defended ourselves irregularly. On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, before daybreak, the rebels arrived en masse. From morning to the noon we fought hard and expelled them. 

            People of our residential area set up barricades at Tajiao,Yue Brook, and Lianshan, fifteen li away from the county seat. On the twenty-third day of the same months, the rebels arrived en masse again, with a great numbers of guns and canons. Our residential area only had several tens of guns for hunting animals and birds which the men could use for the defense. Between the morning and afternoon, we killed more than 10 rebels, and many more were injured. When our villager He Fugao was killing a rebel he did not take precautions, and was killed together with He Ruji by the rebels’ canon, . Later we tightened our guard, and strengthened our defenses. The expense was beyond our capacity to afford.

            On the fourteenth day of the second month of the renxu year (1862), the rebels arrived en masse from all four directions. They did not pass the barricades, but advanced through the mountain behind the upper village (Shangzhai). Lacking provisions and being exhausted, our people fled for their lives emptyhanded from the top of the mountain. The rest were captured. The situation was too miserable to be described in words. The rebels occupied our village for four days. Day and night they carried off our property unlead we were cleaned out. The crimes they committed are beyond description.

Fortunately, on the thirteenth day of this new spring, a government army arrived in our area, and the rebels fled in the night. All the remaining residents celebrated their new lease on life but they recalled the past with pangs in the heart. If we do not receive Your Majesty’s pity, how will the living survive and how can the dead rest in peace? Therefore we have no choice but to submit our appeal.

Comments by County Magistrate Wang:

For the militia of  this village to kill the rebels they deserve praise. Later, defended themselves from the enemy and thus suffered quite a few injuries and deaths of the male members of the militia; for this they especially deserve pity. I am respectfully waiting for you to collect the cases and report them to the Governor for special relief on a case by case basis.

Drafted by [He] Weixian