Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/188

166 thick walls, surrounded by a moat eight feet wide and six feet deep and by a shallower ditch having sharpened bamboo stakes at the bottom. (3) The entire force had not been kept together. He had at Yochow less than a half of his five thousand, the rest being scattered. A total army of ten thousand in one place would have enabled him to withstand the siege. (4) He should have arrested and dealt strictly with persons whose acts were suspicious, and not have been indulgent.

The victories at Siangtan partly disarmed his critics, and even mitigated the severity of the emperor, who remitted the punishment due for failure at Yochow and Tsingkong, rejoiced at the news from Siangtan, and indulged the hope that repairs would soon be effected and the expedition once more go forward to the threatened regions of Hupeh, Kiangsi, and Anhui.

In these defeats and the subsequent experiences at Changsha, we discover some of the limitations of Tsêng as well as his points of excellence. With no experience or training as a soldier, he showed complete lack of skill in the technique of carrying out military operations. In fact, he did not attempt again actually to lead his troops into action, save where, through some unforeseen peril, he was compelled to fight his way out of difficult situations. He did not lack character and displayed a certain element of genius; first, in the patience and perseverance with which he endured what to many a man would be an unbearable loss of prestige and opposition; second, in his ability to select able commanders, for we shall see that his little army brought forth men who in later years rose through their merit to high position in military and civil government; and third, in his clear thinking and power to grasp the far-reaching implications of any situation, thus