thrown around the others to ward off attacks or to protect the flanks of their own battling footmen. These footmen wielded heavy pikes with deadly effect.[1]
For many years Tsêng and his generals had been in constant fear lest they join the Taipings in Hupeh or Anhui, giving the latter sufficient strength to overcome the imperialists. After the defeat of Senkolintsin by the Allies in 1860 that Mongol prince had been commissioned to disperse these Nien rebels, only to meet his death in an ambuscade, May 18, 1865. This reverse made them so dangerous[2] that a hurried mandate summoned Tsêng Kuo-fan to Shantung to direct operations against them.[3]
This command came as a blow to one who, after several years of hard, uncertain warfare, had achieved victory and was settled down to the reward of a peaceful rule in a quiet capital. He well understood what a task was before him. He was without many soldiers, whether Hunanese or Anhui men. The Nien rebels were strong in cavalry where he had none. Months of preparation would be required to strengthen his army and secure cavalry, and when all this was done as many as thirteen bases of operation would have to be occupied, stretching across a thousand li. These matters he set forth in his first memorial (of May 29) adding that he was not very well and preferred not to head so great an undertaking.[4] This memorial was merely the polite refusal etiquette demanded. On the same day he wrote home saying that he intended starting towards the end of the Chinese moon
- ↑ Nienp'u, X, 11a. Home Letters, June 4, 1866, and January 27, 1867.
- ↑ Ibid., X, 5b. It is probable that they were now reinforced by many of the defeated Taipings and other malcontents.
- ↑ Ibid., X, 6b.
- ↑ Nienp'u, X, 7, 8. One reason why Anhui men were preferred those from Hunan was that they were better inured to the cold and could subsist on a wheat ration. Home Letters, October 29, 1859.
