Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/389

366 the outlines of their faith, while unlimited opportunities for loot kept their armies full. Leadership, however, declined steadily and internal quarrels detached their best captains from the cause. In 1858 new generals of real genius came to the fore, notably the Chungwang and the Yingwang, under whom the waning rebellion gained new life.

Such political, religious, and intellectual weakness on the part of the Taipings would have led to their early downfall had the Chinese government been strong and united. But the earlier rulers of the Manchu Dynasty had made such unity impossible by parcelling out the civil and military power so as to frustrate anti-dynastic uprisings, like that of the famous Wu San-kwei, against whom K'anghsi had so desperate a struggle. Local autonomy was fostered, and the system of government so exaggerated this localism that it became impracticable to mobilise considerable armies. Moreover, the central government had no steady revenues apart from the contribution of the provinces, and the provinces did not furnish enough to support national armies. Governors were therefore unwilling to meet the expenses necessary to equip and maintain strong forces for imperial needs. These handicaps made it all but impossible for Tsêng Kuo-fan to raise armies at all, because he had nothing but high-sounding titles which did not command the needed funds. The governor of Hunan, and somewhat later the governor and viceroy of Hupeh, did give him a measure of support, but it was not until towards the end of the rebellion that his position as viceroy of the Two Kiang, with Li Hung-chang and Tso Tsung-tang as governors under him — both of them his protégés, — provided him with the money needed to increase his levies sufficiently to bring the rebels to bay. When Tsêng Kuo-ch'üan marched to Nanking to begin the siege he had but