Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/267

244 thus pacifying northern Kiangsu. In Chekiang Taichow was retaken. With foreign aid Ningpo was also captured.

Nothing seemed more probable than the speedy end of the war. But Tsêng Kuo-fan, having slowly and with the greatest difficulty brought these forces to concentrate on Nanking, was unwilling to risk everything on a single throw. If he gathered all his available men before Nanking the rebels outside might once more scatter out and make it necessary to do the work all over again. He therefore adopted an "anaconda policy," gradually closing in on the rebels from three directions as described above, while his brother at Nanking slowly strangled that city.