June 2.[1] Turning towards Hangchow the Chungwang then captured Wukiang and Kashing (June 5).[2] Chang Yu-liang there attempted to besiege him, but to no avail.[3] The viceroy's army fled to Shanghai — for which the viceroy was cashiered. The governor had been killed in the defence of Soochow.
Tsêng Kuo-fan received the appointment as acting viceroy of the Two Kiang with the rank of president of the Board of War, and was urged to make the recovery of the lost cities his first aim.[4] Earlier mandates had laid on him the burden of sending troops to Hupeh to repel a threatened invasion of the Yingwang from Anking. Tsêng, however, thought that the suggestion urging him to move his army to Shanghai was not to be entertained. In a dispatch dated June 21[5] he outlined his own conception of sound strategy, which, though far less spectacular, promised more permanent results. (1) Obviously without the reduction of Anking, Nanking could not be taken.[6] To take it, the armies now converging on it must
- ↑ Ibid., pp. 33 f.; P'ing-ting Yueh-fei Chi-lueh, IX, 16 ff. The latter does not mention the capture of Wusih, which is mentioned in Dispatches, XI, 44a.
- ↑ Chungwang, Autobiography, p. 35; P'ing-ting Yueh-fei Chi-lueh, IX, 20a.
- ↑ Chungwang, Autobiography, p. 35. Chang Yu-liang had been kept out of Hangchow and was unable to use it as a base because of the depredations of his soldiers there in March, and had to remain in the open country.
- ↑ Nienp'u, VI, 17. These orders all arrived before June 17.
- ↑ Dispatches, XI, 43-46a.
- ↑ It is interesting to note that on the other side the same argument was being urged on the Taipings to make them stand firm at Anking. At a gathering of the military officers in his palace at Nanking the Chungwang said: "Soochow being now our own, there is no fear of a siege from below, but if besieged from above the siege is sure to be a formidable one. The previous siege (the sixth) was by Chang Kuo-liang and Ho Chun's forces, but the seventh will be undertaken by General Tsêng and is sure to be carried on with vigor. With an able commander at the head of the army, and the [Hunan] men being inured to hardships, and in addition having
