Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/170

150 of hundreds and even thousands of their volunteers for service outside the province at a time when they were so needed at home to protect their own villages from marauders. These bandits were moving unchecked over the country and until they were suppressed it would be difficult to persuade the men or the officials to leave Hunan thus unguarded.

In still another quarter Tsêng felt pressure, for the imperial government was urgently calling for haste in drilling and sending out these men to meet the Taipings, who were by this time a national danger. Tsêng could not disregard either this or the local feeling; yet he sought to find a way in which to meet the well-founded desires of both sides. In a memorial of March 24, he laid before the emperor the wisdom and necessity of first destroying the bandits in Hunan. In addition to those calling themselves "T'ien Ti Hui," who had for the most part joined the Taipings or represented their cause in Hunan, there were many other brotherhoods with curious names, such as "United Sons," "Red and Black," "Halfpenny," "One Sniff of Perfume." Such societies gradually formed themselves into large bands which entered the hilly regions to become dangerous outlaws, particularly in the southeastern and southwestern parts of the province. The authorities, though perfectly aware of their existence, dared not put them down, since they had been allowed to flourish unchecked so long that they were too formidable. They differed somewhat in their purposes, some having religion, others fraternal obligations, and still others robbery as their motive.

These dangerous societies had recently been