Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/298

Rh lest he rebel. Tsêng also stationed both Anhui recruits and Hunan veterans at points opposite and above Nanking. South of that city the rebel strength was still imposing. On December 27, 1862, they had penetrated westward as far as Keemun, which, however, they could not hold. To the southeast, Yenchow was captured early in 1863 by Tso Tsung-tang, and Changshu by Li Hung-chang.

Far away in Ssuch'uan the Assistant king, Shi Ta-k'ai, was defeated and captured at Shuchow on January 31, 1863. For some time he had wandered at will over that enormous province, defeating the official troops in many engagements. When they brought against him approximately a hundred thousand men, chiefly militia (a number almost equal to his own following), he was overpowered and withdrew into Yunnan. On January 9, 1863, he was reported at Sunglin with five or six thousand of his guard, after having appeared at various places in the interior of Yunnan and even in some districts of Kweichow. The officials hastened to surround him; he was attacked, wounded, and eventually captured. Carried in triumph to Chengtu, the provincial capital, where he composed his 'diary,' he was put to death a month later with two thousand of his followers. Thus perished the last of the original wangs who had followed the T'ienwang from Kiangsi. For several years he had been detached from the main body of the Taipings and become a vagabond adventurer, but among the heroes of that period his name stands out from the others and stories and legends in great profusion cluster about this wandering knight.