Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/240

Rh Hsia-tsu, thus putting at his disposal a hundred thousand men. Reinforcements were hurried forward from Tsêng's and Hu Lin-yi's commands and after a battle of two days, February 16 and 17, at the Hsiaoch'i Station, Hupeh, the rebels were defeated. The generals then proceeded to capture T'aihu and Chishan and finally reached their goal.

In the north of the province Yuan Chia-san, who had been appointed an imperial commissioner and charged with the suppression of the Nien rebels along the Hwai River, won a victory over them, gaining the Linghwai Pass and Fêngyang-hsien. A Hunan army from Kiangsi also captured Kienchow, an old Taiping base in southern Anhui, on February 14. These various successes were most gratifying to the government and led them to hope for further conquests.

But reinforcements from Hunan did not come. Hsiao Ch'i-chiang, whose arrival was greatly desired, received a mandate ordering him to proceed to Ssuch'uan with his five thousand men, since the pressure on Anhui had been lightened. That so necessary a force should have been sent to the west at this critical moment shows how completely the emperor's advisers lived from day to day and followed a policy of improvisation. Moreover, it helps us to understand why it required so long to put down the rebellion.

Towards the end of February appeared the fruits of an undue parsimony in sending reinforcements. A series of defeats in southern Anhui delivered six districts in