As far back as the year 1830 there had been symptoms of disturbed popular feeling in Kwangsi, the most southern province of China adjacent to Tonquin. The difficulty of operating in a region which possessed few roads, and which was only rendered at all accessible by the West River or Sikiang, had led the Chinese authorities, much engaged as they were about the foreign question, to postpone those vigorous measures, which, if taken at the outset, might have speedily restored peace and stamped out the first promptings of revolt. The authorities were more concerned at the proceedings of the formidable secret Association, known as the "Triads," than at the occurrences in Kwangsi, probably because the Triads made no secret that their object was the expulsion of the Manchus and the restoration of the old Ming dynasty. The true origin of the Triads is not to be assigned, but there seems reasonable ground for the suspicion that they were connected with the discontented monks of a Buddhist monastery which had been suppressed by the Government. Between them they seem to have formed the inception of what became the famous Taeping rebellion. The summer of 1850 witnessed a great accession of energy on the part of the rebels in Kwangsi, which may perhaps have been due to the death of the Emperor Taoukwang. The important town of Wuchow on the Sikiang, close to the western border of Kwantung, was besieged by a force reported to number 50,000 men. The governor was afraid to report the occurrence, knowing that it would carry his own condemnation and probable disgrace; and it was left for a minor official to reveal the extent to which the insurgents had carried their depredations. Two leaders named Chang assumed the style of royalty; other bands appeared in the province of Hoonan as well as in the southern parts of Kwantung, but they all collected by degrees on the Sikiang, where they placed an embargo on merchandise, and gradually crushed out such trade as there had been by that river. Their proceedings were not restricted to the fair operations of war. They plundered and massacred wherever they went. They claimed to act in the name of the Chinese people; yet they slew all they could lay hands upon, without discrimination of age or sex.