Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/308

Rh About the first of April some four thousand women were sent out of the city in the hope that they could secure food from the imperialists, the supplies doled out by the Chungwang having come to an end. In this crisis the T'ienwang had won the contempt of his followers when they laid the case before him, by suggesting that the starving folk live on "sweet dew," by which he meant the natural products of the earth. "In concert with others," records the Chungwang, "I then represented that such was not a fit article for food, upon which the T'ien-wang observed, 'Bring some here and after preparing it I will partake of some first.' No one, however, complying with this he gathered several herbs from his own palace garden and having made them up into a ball, he sent the ball outside with orders to the people to prepare their food in like manner."

While Nanking thus grew weaker, General Ch'en took Kiahsing (Kashing) on March 20, but was himself wounded and died at Soochow a little later. Tso Tsung-tang's combined Franco-Chinese forces recaptured Hangchow on March 31, its defenders escaping to Huchow. The great mass of rebels then made good their retreat into Kiangsi as planned, despite desperate resistance. Reinforcements were sent to the Poyang region and Kiukiang. About the same time the Nienfei and Taipings were defeated in Fanch'eng, Hupeh, and driven back into Honan.

This retreat of the rebels into Kiangsi soon made its effect felt on the likin revenues on which Tsêng depended for support. From his dispatches asking for aid we are able to learn how his armies were chiefly supported. Hunan, through a special bureau and the grant of half her likin taxes, was doing all she could and her