Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/243

220 June 2. Turning towards Hangchow the Chungwang then captured Wukiang and Kashing (June 5). Chang Yu-liang there attempted to besiege him, but to no avail. The viceroy's army fled to Shanghai — for which the viceroy was cashiered. The governor had been killed in the defence of Soochow.

Tsêng Kuo-fan received the appointment as acting viceroy of the Two Kiang with the rank of president of the Board of War, and was urged to make the recovery of the lost cities his first aim. Earlier mandates had laid on him the burden of sending troops to Hupeh to repel a threatened invasion of the Yingwang from Anking. Tsêng, however, thought that the suggestion urging him to move his army to Shanghai was not to be entertained. In a dispatch dated June 21 he outlined his own conception of sound strategy, which, though far less spectacular, promised more permanent results. (1) Obviously without the reduction of Anking, Nanking could not be taken. To take it, the armies now converging on it must