Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/102

82 their recruits; more stubborn would be the resistance from government and populace. The old sailor correctly expressed the misgivings of his people.

This is not to defend the final decision of the T'ienwang, for with a little more daring he could have made a clean sweep of it. The North was almost as unsettled as the South. The Nien rebels, who later became so great a source of annoyance and anxiety to the authorities, were already commencing their raids; the turbulent Moslems of the northwest frontier were not far from revolt. A little resolution and daring, a wise set of adjustments with these restless groups, and the objective would have been reached, the Manchus hurled from power. One cannot help reflecting that the whole course of history might have been altered if either T'ienteh or Feng had been alive at this hour.

The resourcefulness of the Taipings was not too greatly occupied with the establishment of the Celestial Capital to prevent reaching out for the vital strategic centers of Chinkiang and Yangchow, the former a commanding site at the intersection of the Grand Canal with the Tangtse Eiver, the latter on the canal about twenty-five or thirty miles away, both together controlling that vital artery through which flowed the supplies of tribute grain to the capital. Lin Hung-ch'iang was put in command of the expedition that set forth for this purpose. Taking Chinkiang on March 30, he left Lo Ta-kang there, while he pressed on to the capture of Yangchow, which fell on April 1, 1853. Some time was given to strengthening their hold on these two places by securing P'ukow, a town opposite Nanking, and the stretch of country between there and Yangchow.

Meanwhile Hsiang Yung had been delayed five weeks