Serious disorders also broke out in the islands of Formosa and Hainan. In the former the rebellion was only put down by a judicious manipulation of the divisions of the insurgent tribes; but the settlement attained must be pronounced so far satisfactory that the peace of the island was assured. In Hainan, an island of extraordinary fertility and natural wealth, which must some day be developed, the aboriginal tribes revolted against Chinese authority, and massacred many of the Chinese settlers, who had begun to encroach on the possessions of the natives. Troops had to be sent from Canton before the disorders were suppressed, and then Hainan reverted to its tranquil state, from which only the threat of a French occupation during the Tonquin war roused it. These disorders in different parts of the empire were matched by troubles of a more domestic character within the palace. In 1831 Taoukwang's only son, a young man of twenty, whose character was not of the best, gave him some cause of offense, and he struck him. The young prince died of the blow, and the emperor was left for the moment without a child. His grief was soon assuaged by the news that two of his favorite concubines had borne him sons, one of whom became long afterward the Emperor Hienfung. At this critical moment Taoukwang was seized with a severe illness, and his elder brother, Hwuy Wang, whose pretensions had threatened the succession, thinking his chance had at last come, took steps to seize the throne. But Taoukwang recovered, and those who had made premature arrangements in filling the throne were severely punished. These minor troubles culminated in the Miaotze Rebellion, the most formidable internal war which the Chinese government had to deal with between that of Wou Sankwei and the Taepings. From an early period the Miaotze had been a source of trouble to the executive, and the relations between them and the officials had been anything but harmonious. The Manchu rulers had only succeeded in keeping them in order by stopping their supply of salt on the smallest provocation; and in the belief that they possessed an absolutely certain mode of coercing them, the Chinese mandarins assumed an arrogant and dictatorial tone toward their rude and unreclaimed neighbors. In 1832 the Miaotze, irritated past endurance, broke out in rebellion, and their principal chief caused himself to be proclaimed emperor. Their main force was assembled at Lienchow, in the northwest corner of the Canton province, and their leader assumed the suggestive title of the Golden Dragon, and called upon the Chinese people to redress their wrongs by joining his standard. But the Chinese, who regarded the Miaotze as an inferior and barbarian race, refused to combine with them against the most extortionate of officials or the most unpopular of governments. Although they could not enlist the support of any section of the Chinese people, the Miaotze, by their valor and the military skill