Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/101

Rh els told Mr. Meadows shortly after this that they died like hleating sheep, begging on their knees for mercy.

Forthwith a difference of opinion arose as to whether they should proceed northward or stay where they were. The T'ienwang, and possibly the Tungwang (Yang), were for an immediate march to Honan. By advancing at once they could avoid any danger from General Hsiang Yung, the imperial commissioner, who, after a short delay at Wuchang, where he arranged the affairs of that place, had set out to follow the rebels, only to be held up by a lack of boats at Kiukiang. Could they only secure themselves along the Yellow River, the Taipings would be in a favorable position to attack the eapital. From this sound plan they were dissuaded by the opinion of a mere boatman, who set forth the attractions of Nanking as a capital and emphasized the difficulties in Honan, persuading the T'ienwang to establish his "Heavenly Capital" there.

It might then have been possible for the Taipings to secure Peking with great ease. Yet this boatman may well have voiced a natural unwillingness on the part of the rank and file to proceed very far north of the Yangtse River. That stream has long formed the natural boundary between the people of North and South China. After travelling a few miles from its banks the atmosphere becomes decidedly different; you are entering the North. The river is more of a boundary than Mason and Dixon's line in the United States. Thus far we have seen the Taipings, in their progress from Kwangsi to Nanking, move like a gala procession, welcomed in spite of their bizarre religious ideas as deliverers from Manchu bondage. The moment they should cross the river and plunge into the northern provinces it would be quite otherwise. They would be strangers in the enemy's country. Few would be