Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/186

164 Yochow that he twice attempted to commit suicide by throwing himself into the water, but he was each time rescued by his friends. This was providential in view of the great successes at Siangtan three days later — successes that proved to be more than a gleam of hope, for they were the dawn of another day, because at last the Taipings had met their match and suffered a signal defeat without the intervention of Tartar tribesmen.

In spite of this victory Tsêng now passed through some of the bitterest days of his life, openly flouted by the officials in Changsha. He found dishonesty and crookedness on all sides, and was troubled by some of his own generals. We have already recorded the dishonesty of Wang Hsin, who with the aid of Tso Tsung-tang, had magnified a slight skirmish into a great victory. But he was also embarrassed by the action of members of his own family. His second brother, Kuo-hwang, came to the city and quarrelled with Tsêng. In a letter home he writes: "Of late because my own temper has been too violent, causing me to be inharmonious with men, much has not been accomplished in managing affairs. But the temper of my brother Têng has recently been still more violent and he is unable to lighten any burden for me, but on the contrary multiplies for me many shameful words and causes of quarrel. If there is an extra man in the army we cannot perceive his value; if the house is short a single individual we can feel his loss. Henceforth Tèng-huo and the rest of [my] younger brothers are not to come to the camp, but remain at home teaching the growing generation, giving themselves in part to cultivating the fields and in part to study, rising before day,