Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/319

 CHAPTER XIV

THE NANKING VICEROYALTY; THE NIEN REBELS

the scattered Taipings, some of them in remote places in southeastern China and others across the ocean in the United States, we find Tsêng with much satisfaction taking up the duties of a viceroy in the capital of his late enemies. As noted in the last chapter, he was greatly disappointed to find none of the treasure that rumor had stored in Nanking. Without it, however, he managed to make the necessary repairs to the viceroy's yamen and to set up civil government where for many years martial law had prevailed. Among his first cares was the pleasant task of restoring the examinations which had been so long suspended. His Hunan soldiers were disbanded in part and the others scattered under independent commands, doubtless with the thought which he had on a number of occasions expressed to his brother, that after the capture of Nanking they must subside a little lest they remain too powerful and become the targets for intrigue and opposition.

If there was no more trouble to be feared from the Taiping rebellion, the Nien rebels were more powerful than ever. They absorbed the northern and western bands of scattered Taipings and became a serious menace in