Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/234

Rh were from Shi Ta-k'ai's army and he himself with his main host might be just behind.

Tsêng's command now numbered about twelve thousand men, exclusive of his brother's force. By the middle of November he was able to move on to his headquarters at Kiench'ang and settle there. Incessant rains, however, prevented his sending forces over the mountain roads into Fukien, and a pestilence that broke out in the camp caused a loss of about a thousand men. Reinforcements, however, came from his brother and from Li Han-chang, which brought his strength back to the original point. Tsêng Kuo-ch'üan moved to the border of Hunan to guard his native province, and the number that actually reached Fukien was very small.

The center of war now shifted to Anhui, where the rebels gained a noteworthy victory. The imperialists, under Li Shou-pin, had made rapid progress, capturing in succession Hwangmei, Susung, T'aihu, Kienshan, Ship'ai, T'ungech'en, and Shuch'en, and laying siege to Sanho, where Tsêng's brother Kuo-fah had joined them. But, as has already been narrated, the rebels had succeeded in driving away the imperialists from about Nanking, and were ready to push them out of western Anhui. The Yingwang was attacked by the combined Hunan forces on November 16 with every prospect of success. But just before defeat overtook the rebels, the Chungwang appeared and inflicted on the Hunanese a crushing blow which shattered them utterly. Six thousand of the best Hunan soldiers fell, Tsêng Kuo-fah being among the killed, and the commander, Li Shou-pin, committed suicide in order not to outlive the disgrace. The surviving members of the defeated army and the regulars under Tuhsinga, who had been carrying on the siege of Anking,