Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/206

184 the emperor was persuaded rather to permit Lo Tse-nan to press on towards Wuchang, with the hope that he might help drive the rebels from Hupeh and open the river to Hukow as soon as possible.

The work of clearing the lake region had progressed well during the summer and early fall. But no sooner was that accomplished than the rebels from Kwangtung, who had so frightened the governor of Hunan a few weeks before, left Hunan and entered Kian-fu, south of Nanchang. They were reinforced by the Assistant king, Shi Ta-k'ai, who gathered the rebels from the regions of Hupeh which were being made untenable for them by Lo Tse-nan, and took city after city in western Kiangsi, until by Christmas, 1855, practically all the towns in the four prefectures of Shuichow, Lingkiang, Yuanchow, and Kian had fallen. The Assistant king was supposed to be leading an army of 100,000 men, and the forces of the governor were far from able to cope with so powerful and skillful an adversary. Tsêng, on his part, saw but one course open to him, namely, to gather all his forces from the regions of Kiukiang, Hukow, and the Lake districts to Nanchang, there to stand on the defensive with Lo Tse-nan to hold the road to Hupeh and prevent the rebels from attacking in the rear. His messages could now go only through Chekiang. He was practically cut off.

The year 1855 thus ended in gloom. Tsêng was in effect a prisoner at Nanchang; Wuchang and Kiukiang were in rebel hands, and the control of the river from Nanking to Kingkow was theirs also. On the other hand, the Hunan reinforcements at Kingkow, while not yet strong enough to take the offensive, were able to prevent the insurgents from passing them and entering Hunan. Shi Ta-k'ai was in western Kiangsi to be sure, but he was not