Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/202

180 Jaochow. On March 16 the flotilla was ordered to attack the rebels at K'angshan while Lo Tse-nan led seven thousand men from Nanchang to the east of the lake in the hope of recovering some of the fallen cities, T'a Chi-pu still remaining in charge of the siege at Kiukiang. The support of these forces, which were now completely detached from Hunan, Tsêng asked the emperor to lay as a charge upon the governor of Kiangsi, aided by the provinces of Fukien and Chekiang. A new force of five thousand was also requested to be recruited by Yuan Chia-san. By this time the Taiping control of the roads was so complete that Tsêng's memorials had to be sent northwest through Hunan to Kingchow in Hupeh. Tsêng realised his own danger, and likewise the possibility that the rebels might advance from their base in Wuchang to the attack of his home province, Hunan. In that contingency it might be necessary for T'a Chi-pu and himself to go back to defend their own homes.

Again we are brought face to face with Tsêng's great difficulty, money, or its lack, and practically nothing else. His thirteen thousand soldiers were as good as any of the Taipings and could easily encounter and defeat superior numbers; they were scarcely equal, however, to the hordes that came in waves up the Yangtse. His disaster at Kiukiang had been due in the last analysis to lack of funds, and at that moment he was unable to advance because through poverty he could not get enough men to carry on warfare on a suitable scale, with forces for attack, with reserves enough in the camps, and with large garrisons to hold the captured cities. With men