Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/173

Rh militia, but on the sixth of September a second riot broke out between these two groups, which Tsêng asked the general to settle by martial law. This was not done, and two nights later the regulars of the offending division set out to attack T'a Chi-pu, who had command of a portion of Tsêng's men, and who barely got away with his life by hiding in the grass behind his house. Having burned the house, this lawless company set out to attack Tsêng Kuo-fan himself. The governor, hearing of the uproar, went on foot to the scene and persuaded the soldiers to desist from their purpose.

Long before this occurrence Tsêng had thought that it might be well to drill his own forces in different places, and this untoward incident led him to carry out the idea. He moved his headquarters to Hengchow and distributed his new soldiers among the various towns along the eastern and southern borders of Hunan to suppress bandits and guard against a possible invasion of Taiping rebels from Kiangsi.

In his memorial of the fifteenth of September Tsêng explains his move, giving as his reasons the depredations of the local rebels, which compelled him to distribute his forces for effective police duty, and the desirability of his being closer to the different scenes of trouble than was possible at Changsha. There were four roads by which rebels might enter the province from Kiangsi — one through P'ingkiang, which connected with the strategic city of northwestern Kiangsi named Ining; a second through Ch'aling, and Yu-hsien, leading to Kian; a central road to Shuichow, passing through Liuyang, and a fourth way to Yuanchow and P'inghsiang through Liling. He had sent no troops to P'ingkiang, because that road was somewhat roundabout, but was guarding the