Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/239

216 between him and the rest of the Taiping rebels. In case they should be mistaken and Shi Ta-k'ai did attempt the mountain passes into Ssuch'uan, the danger was not as imminent as that which threatened the imperialists in Anhui, where conditions from their standpoint could not be much worse. A large portion of the province was laid waste, the people had left their occupations, the fields in some parts were dried up and in others flooded, and the two imperialist armies under Ung T'ung-shu and Sheng Pao were far apart and unable to come together. The only feasible plan of campaign was to attack the province from the borders of Hupeh, according to the plans of Li Shou-pin a year earlier, plans that had failed because his men had been too few.

The details of his proposal were worked out with Hu Lin-yi on the way back from Wuchang. Two southern sections were to march near the river, the first under Tsêng through Susung and Ship'ai towards Anking, the other led by Tolunga and Pao Ch'ao to T'ungch'eng, passing through T'aihu and Chishan. Similarly two northern sections were to be organised, the first to be led by Hu Lin-yi through Yingshan and Hoshan to Shuch'eng, the second by Li Shao-i through Shangch'eng and Luhan to Lüchow. These plans could only be carried out in case the forces which had gone back to Hunan, those of Hsiao Ch'i-chiang and Chang Yun-lan, should be made available once more at the front.

The divisions under Hu Lin-yi and Tsêng Kuo-fan attained their objectives in due time. Tolunga and Pao Ch'ao, in the T'aihu and Chishan region, were attacked by the Yingwang, who had effected a juncture with two chiefs of the Nien rebels, Chang Lo-hsing and Kung