Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/214

192 — they lost the chance of the hour and permitted the Taipings to be reorganised under the two surpassingly able leaders who now came forward. It is possible that the imperialists were incapable of taking any but a contemptuous view of the rebels and might not have been able to see the advantage of a policy of conciliation in any case. Their proclamations always refer to the insurgents in terms of the utmost disrespect, and attribute their successes mainly to the incompetence of the imperialist generals.

A proclamation of March 25, 1856, is very characteristic. After contrasting the inefficiency of the forces in central China with those Mongol armies that had checked and driven back the northern expedition, and after threatening to bring on additional tribesmen to quell the rebels along the Yangtse, the emperor indulges in the confident boast: "We conceive that it would not be difficult with one roll of the drum to take those wretched vagabonds and sweep them from the face of the earth." So long as the imperial proclamations thus bombastically underrated the movement (however tremblingly the brush in exalted hands framed the bold words) there was little hope of any compromise. The Taipings who might otherwise have made indirect overtures could not under these circumstances look for much mercy after submission.

Meanwhile what of Tsêng Kuo-fan and affairs in Kiangsi? At the end of 1855 he was in isolation at Nanchang, his soldiers were several months in arrears of pay, and communications were cut with the outside world. Shi Ta-k'ai, aided by men from Kwangtung, had overrun all the southern and southeastern portions of the province, while the rebels were in possession of the lake districts and the tea regions to the east. During the year 1856 a