Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/263

240 places the Chinese should bring in foreign aid and be defeated they would become a laughing-stock to the world; if, on the contrary, they should be victorious one could not foretell what complications or disputes might arise. Even in the case of the treaty ports a careful understanding must be reached beforehand.

In February, 1862, the matter again came to Tsêng's attention when word reached him that the authorities at Shanghai had arranged with England and France for the defence of Shanghai, with the probability that the foreign soldiers would later be used to retake Soochow. This fait accompli did not remove the uneasiness from Tsêng's mind, because, as he made clear to the emperor, unless such foreign soldiers were inclined to virtue they might become a danger within the state, not content after the war to disband quietly with the gratitude of those whom they had delivered, but insisting on staying to seize a share in China's inheritance.

Still again the question was raised when the gentry of Kiangsu and Chekiang sent a delegation to Peking to urge that the proffered aid from the British and French be accepted. The foreign ministers had similarly received petitions from their nationals asking that the neutrality heretofore observed give place to a policy of direct intervention. The imperial thought wavered between suspicion of the foreign motives and inclination to grant the petitions of the gentry in the distracted provinces. The opinion of Tsêng Kuo-fan and Tuhsinga was desired after they should have made an investigation of the facts in the case.

For the third time Tsêng took exactly the same ground he had previously taken. If foreign soldiers, with comparatively slight Chinese aid, were now to drive out the rebels from those provinces, the guest-soldiers,