Page:Tseng Kuo Fan and the Taiping Rebellion.djvu/97

Rh Meanwhile the imperialists gathered at Taochow and compelled the Taipings to remove to Ch'enchow, an important town on the highway between Canton and the north, which they took on August 16, Kweiyang having capitulated the day before. The T'ienwang and most of the force remained there, while Hsiao Ch'ao-kwei, the Western king, pressed on with a small force, the "battalion of death," to capture Changsha which he believed to be unprepared and easily assaulted.

Here eighty-one days were fruitlessly spent. The early death of Hsiao, the Western king, who was killed by a cannon shot fired from the city walls, made it necessary for Hung and Yang to hurry down trith their entire force. It is a curious circumstance that the governor who defended the city at the end of, the siege, Lo Ping-chang, was also a native of Hwahsien, which produced the T'ienwang. The imperialists gradually moved down the river, and again had the chance to crush the rebellion if they had only possessed soldiers who could fight like those of Kiang Chung-yuan. Three times during November (the tenth, thirteenth, and twenty-ninth) the rebels sprung mines, twice breaking down the city wall, only to be repulsed when they tried to enter through the breach.

Their supplies of salt and oil now being exhausted, with the enemy encamped all about, no alternative was left but to abandon the siege and move on. Before leaving, the T 'ienwang "at the south gate inaugurated his government seal, and was styled 'wan-sui'; his wife was styled 'niang-niang.' He appointed kings of the East,