Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/237

214 city, but only after hard fighting. It fell on July 13, 1859, and the rebels retired to Anhui.

The presence of Shi Ta-k'ai in Hunan, where he had gone through several districts and captured Yungchow-fu on April 11, thence proceeding to lay siege to Paok'ing, threw the province into great consternation. The officials feared that Changsha itself might be attacked before long, and with the help of the gentry began to put it into a state to withstand a siege. Rumor credited the enemy chieftain with several hundred thousand followers and asserted that his encampment stretched out for thirty miles. From places as far distant as the Hupeh-Anhui border and from Kiangsi Hunanese were hurriedly summoned to Paok'ing; regulars, 'braves,' and country volunteers all joined the ranks. As a climax to several battles on successive days, this improvised army joined the besieged from within the city in a concerted attack on the former rebel king and defeated him, July 26. After some hesitation as to the direction he would take, Shi Ta-k'ai withdrew into Kwangsi.

These alarms in Hunan did not leave Tsêng's army unaffected. Many of his men were from the very region where Shi had been operating, or from near-by places, and they naturally desired to go home. Applications for leave were so numerous that strenuous measures had to