Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/317

294 provinces of Fukien and Kwangtung kept a careful watch for them.

In Chekiang Tso Tsung-tang, with the aid of Li Hung-chang and the French contingent, captured the last great stronghold of the rebels, Huchow, on the twenty-eighth of August, and on the following day the capture of Anchi-hsien completed the pacification of that province.

The young T'ienwang, who, through the loyalty of the Chungwang, eluded the imperialist vigilance at the fall of Nanking, arrived in Kwangteh, Anhui, August 8, and there received a great welcome from his fellow rebels. With the fall of that city on August 30 he was compelled to flee to the hills in Ningkuo. On the first of September the fugitive Taipings from Huchow and Kwangteh escaped towards Huichow, the prefecture in the southern tip of Anhui, where they were met and defeated by Liu Sung-shan. Tso Tsung-tang likewise extinguished a band of them in the districts of Changhwa and Shunan, September 3, and other groups suffered a similar fate during that month. All the defeated bands of rebels, including their young T'ienwang, were met by combined Chekiang and Kiangsi forces in Kwanghsin prefecture and again overthrown. The T'ienwang, who had slipped away from the battle field, was pursued and captured by Hsi Pao-t'ien, October 25, and sent to Nanch'ang where he was beheaded. By the end of October all the Taipings in Kiangsi were driven into Fukien and Kwangtung.