Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/230

Rh of the land and water forces under Yang Tsai-fu, Li Shou-pin, and P'eng Yu-ling. The wall was blown up and they entered through the breach. The slaughter of the enemy was terrible, seventeen thousand of them being put to death in the capture of the city.

The insurgents had expected to march down both banks of the Yangtse to the relief of Nanking, which was being oppressed by the loyal troops, but were prevented by this and other reverses. In particular, the Yingwang, Ch'eng Yu-ch'en, in a raid through Anhui to Hupeh, was opposed at Mach'en, in northeastern Hupeh, by the combined forces of Sheng Pao, Hu Lin-yi, and others, and compelled to withdraw to Taihu, Anhui. This defeat forced the Chungwang to halt at Ch'uchow. He himself hurried on, but left his men with an officer at that place and they were soon compelled to retire before the imperialists. Thus none of the relieving armies got to Nanking.

In October, 1858, a council of their generals was held at Ts'ungyang, Anhui, where they agreed that the Yingwang and the Chungwang should converge on Ch'uchow. These operations were entirely successful. At Wuyi they met armies sent by Tehsinga and Sheng Pao and defeated them. At Shaotien Chang Kuo-liang was also repulsed and pursued to P'ukow, opposite Nanking, where Tehsinga was stationed. The latter was then attacked and overcome, with a loss of ten thousand men, and the rebels were once more in communication with their capital.

But this defeat of imperial armies did not terrify the government so much as the reports from Chekiang, where Shi Ta-k'ai was running amok. General Ho Chun