By promises of large rewards and appointments to lucrative offices when the Manchus should be got rid of, the collusion of a number of the eunuchs was secured; and on a given day some four hundred rebels, disguised as villagers carrying baskets of fruit in which arms were concealed, collected about the gates of the palace.

Some say that one of the leaders was betrayed, others that the eunuchs made a mistake in the date; at any rate there was a sudden rush on the part of the conspirators, the guards at the gates were overpowered, every one who was not wearing a white feather was cut down, and the palace seemed to be at the mercy of the rebels.

The latter, however, were met by a desperate resistance from the young princes, who shot down several of them, and thus alarmed the soldiers.

Assistance was promptly at hand, and the rebels were all killed or captured.

Immediate measures were taken to suppress the Society, of which it is said that over twenty thousand members were executed, and as many more sent in exile to Ili.
Not one, however, of the numerous secret societies, which from time to time have flourished in China, can compare for a moment either in numbers or organization with the formidable association known as the Heaven and Earth Society, and also as the Triad Society, or Hung League, which dates from the reign of Yung Cheng, and from first to last has had one definite aim,--the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty.
The term "Triad" signifies the harmonious union of heaven (q.d.