Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/283

260 various generals who might have been summoned to the aid of General Tsêng were held back by strategic considerations and Ch'en Hsueh-ch'i alone was available. On the plea that the campaigns in Kiangsu would suffer by his withdrawal, the younger Tsêng declined the aid of General Ch'en, though his critics suspect that he was jealous of his own prestige. This refusal was embarrassing to Tsêng Kuo-fan, who had already applied for his help. Yet he made the most of it and wrote to Li Hung-chang not to send Ch'en, or if he had already done so, to allow him to fight one or two battles and then return.

Li Hung-chang then offered Burgevine and the small force already known as the "Ever Victorious Army." At first Tsêng declined its aid, but finally agreed to receive it on two conditions: first, that this force should not be stationed too near the Chinese force, but should fight at Hsiakwan or Kiufu Island below the city, or at some point above; and second, that if Nanking should be captured, Burgevine's men were not to loot promiscuously, but all the booty was to be brought together, half to be forwarded to Peking and half to be divided among the various troops. Burgevine's force might be permitted a double share. In any event a clear-cut agreement was necessary to prevent future dissensions and misunderstandings among the armies. In a letter to Kuo-ch'üan, Tsêng advised making the best of these men when they arrived, not permitting them, however, to come into close contact with the other troops. "Burgevine's command," he adds, "are called 'foreign soldiers' but in reality they are Kwangtung and Ningpo men. They are disdainful, extravagant, utterly coarse, and their maintenance is very expensive. Your army should under no circumstances be in the same place with them. At every point within the