Page:Chinese account of the Opium war (IA chineseaccountof00parkrich).pdf/69

 extravagantly and dissolutely that he decided to remove his head-quarters to Kia-hing [Kashing]. Here he and one of his advisers both had an identical dream, to the effect that the foreigners had swarmed on board their ships, and had left in a panic; which fitted in exactly with a piece of intelligence, reported from Ningpo that very day, to the effect that the foreigners were getting their arms on board the ships. This filled them both with a desire to fight at once; and the whole party, suites included, proceeded to Hangchow, where the second adviser, T'ÊHISHUN, was placed in charge, whilst YIKKING, with his fellow dreamer WÊNWEI, went to Shao-hing city.

Now there had been a great deal of snow during the winter, followed by heavy rains, so that all the stock of fire-boats and the fuel collected was out of condition and useless. Notwithstanding the prayers of everyone that he would postpone the attack for at least a fortnight, YIKKING obstinately refused to wait, and fixed the 15th of March, 1842, as the date for the recovery of the occupied cities in full force, thus ignoring the previously agreed upon arrangement about guerilla fighting. The enemy, hearing of those preparations, naturally prepared themselves too: the foreign officers all went on board, leaving only a few hundred men in charge of the large guns on the city wall, to deal with any army advan-