At last a revolutionary party sprang up among this
deluded people, claiming that their own Government was showing too much
favor to foreign religions and foreign machines. The Government did not
put down this revolt. Some said that it did not have the power and that
the provinces were practically independent of the central authority.
Others whispered that the Imperial Court secretly favored the rebels.
However this may be, the Fencers, as the rebels were called from their
skill with the native sword, succeeded without much difficulty in
getting possession of the imperial city and imprisoning the foreign
embassies and legations in the enclosure of the Anglian Embassy. The
Imperial Court meanwhile fled to a distant city and left the entire
control of the situation in the hands of the Fencers. The peril of the
legations was extreme. They were cut off completely from the coast,
which was many miles distant, and the foreign newspaper correspondents
amused themselves by sending detailed accounts of the manner in which
they had been tortured and murdered. The principal men among the
Porsslanese assured the Powers that the legations were safe, but they
were not believed. A great expedition was organized in which all the
great Powers took a part. The forts near the sea were stormed and
taken. The intermediate city of Gin-Sin was besieged and finally fell,
and the forces advanced to the gates of the Capital.
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