Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/261

238 areas, in which the objective should be to surround the rebels on all sides and gradually close in on Nanking, which should be besieged by his brother, Kuo-ch'üan. These three areas were Chekiang under Tso Tsung-tang, Kiangsu under Li Hung-chang, operating from Shanghai with Soochow as his objective, and eastern Kiangsi and Anhui under his own command. Tso Tsung-tang had already set out for Chekiang.

Meanwhile, on November 20, Tsêng received an imperial mandate conferring on him the supreme military command of the four provinces Kiangsu, Anhui, Kiangsi, and Chekiang, whose governors and other officials must obey his orders. Tso Tsung-tang was to hasten to Chekiang. In the modest disclaimer required by etiquette, Tsêng pointed out that his apparent successes at Anking had been due in large measure to the aid received from Hu Lin-yi and Tolunga, and that at the present moment he was far from being able to send the needed forces to Shanghai, and was in no manner fit to assume the supreme direction of operations in four provinces. He prayed that Tso Tsung-tang be granted full power in Chekiang.

While this message was being written, affairs were going from bad to worse in the last-named province. The Chungwang and the Shiwang were both there, and there is reason to believe that they had foreign officers in their employ who may have had something to do with conspicuous successes, as they probably did with the adoption by the Chungwang in the following year of foreign rifles which wrought such havoc to the armies of the younger General Tsêng at Nanking. They captured