Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/166

146 destined eventually to reorganise the military forces and suppress the rebellion.

For several years Tsêng had wished to get home for a visit, but his poverty and the loss of opportunity to win promotion had prevented him from doing so. True, he had had visits from some of the members of the family, and for some time Kuo-ch'üan had lived with him in Peking, but he had a great desire to be in the quiet countryside with his relatives and old friends. The opportunity came when, in July, 1852, he received appointment as examiner in Kiangsi, and secured a sixty days' leave of absence to make the visit to his home. While he was on the road from Peking to Kiangsi, the news met him that his mother had died on the twenty-eighth of July. Inexorable custom demanded that he give up the appointment and retire at once for a period of mourning; Tsêng therefore started at once for Hunan with the intention of remaining at home twenty-seven months.

At Wuchang (September 26) he learned that Changsha was undergoing the long siege from the Taiping rebels. He therefore avoided that city, leaving the river at Siangyin and passing through Ninghsiang. On October 6 he was at home. His mother was buried on the twenty-fifth of that month. Tsêng remained at home until the rebels had left Changsha and were far down the river on the way to Nanking.