Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/248

Rh not move from one position until the area behind him was safe. This policy had kept him in Nanchang for many dangerous and tedious months while Kiangsi was overrun, but it resulted in his finally securing the requisite numbers of new levies. It now held him at Keemun in the same way, for despite the fact that there were larger armies under him now, both north and south of the river, they could no more be broken into small divisions and hurried hither and thither to meet sudden emergencies than they could in earlier crises. For if they were to be dispatched to various places where rebels had appeared or were threatening to appear, the Taipings would be able, unopposed, to march to their rear and seize and hold the provinces of Kiangsi, Hupeh, and Hunan, which formed the military and economic heart of the nation. At all costs these three provinces must be held, for, in the imagery of the Kanwang, they formed the head of the serpent and the rich coast provinces the tail; the head must be preserved, whatever the fate of the tail. If Tsêng moved from above Anking to the coast he felt that it would be an invitation for the Taipings to move from Nanking up the river and settle themselves above the imperialists, thus occupying the most strategic portion of the country.

As the authorities at Peking had each time accepted the reasoning of Tsêng, realising its soundness, so they did now. Nevertheless, their support of his policy was to be subjected to the test of disaster before it eventually justified itself, for Ihsien was captured by the rebels on December 1. They were driven from this place the following day by Pao Ch'ao and Chang Yun-lan, but the success was only temporary. On December 15 Kienteh and Tungliu fell into enemy hands, and gradually they