Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/215

Rh throng of local malcontents who had banded themselves together under the designation Piench'ien Hui (Halfpenny Association), eventually numbering about 50,000, joined the Taipings, secretly. They added to Tsêng's perplexities through the capture of many cities and the ravaging of many districts.

In contemplating this situation Tsêng memorialised the emperor, proposing a defensive programme: concentration of his own forces at Nanchang; the occupation of T'ungch'en by Lo Tse-nan, to insure communications with Hunan and Hupeh and guard Nanchang; and the reinforcement of his forces by Cheketenpu, who was to secure the four northeastern prefectures which alone furnished revenues to the imperialists. The emperor was utterly dissatisfied with so meager a programme and in two edicts suggested that mere reverses and numbers of the adversary were not fatal, and that Tsêng should devise measures whereby Kiangsi was not merely to be defended but delivered from the enemy. No appropriations accompanied these mandates. But provincial finances had been strengthened in Chekiang, Hupeh, and Hunan by the adoption of the likin tax during 1855-1856, and it was being put into effect in Ssuch'uan, Kwangtung, and Kwangsi.

One day Tsêng was surprised and delighted when P'eng Yu-ling walked into Nanchang, after having travelled in disguise and on foot all the way from Hengchow, a distance of about two hundred and fifty miles. His accession was timely, for Tsêng, himself no gifted tactician, was particularly helpless in the face of such mandates as those from Peking, some of his best generals and naval commanders having been lost through death or separation.