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In this respect he differed materially from his Chinese colleague, General Ching, who was most restless and enterprising, but his ill-directed energy produced no result, and even assisted the enemy's plans. At this juncture the Taeping hero Chung Wang arrived from Nanking with reinforcements, and imparted a new vigour to the defence.
He mentions the story of an English gentleman at Shanghai who at the time of the Taeping attack met his Chinese servant carrying home the heart of a rebel, which he intended to eat to make him brave. There is a certain amount of truth in the theory that the quality of food does affect the mind and body.
"Further than the eye could penetrate in the misty morning stretched the grizzled walls of Soochow, a city celebrated for ages in the history of China for its size, population, wealth, and luxury, but now stripped of its magnificence, and held by an army of Taeping banditti against the Imperial forces.
If we consider his strategy as being thus fettered by the Chinese officials Li Hung Chang and General Ching, whose first object was not so much the overthrow of the Taeping Government as the expulsion of the Taepings from the province for which they were responsible, it will be admitted that nothing could be better than his conception of what had to be done, and how it was to be effected.
The Taeping cause might have been resuscitated by this signal victory if Tien Wang had only shown himself able to act up to the great part he assumed, but not merely was he incapable of playing the part of either a warrior or a statesman, but his petty jealousy prevented his making use of the undoubted ability of his lieutenant Chung Wang, who after the greatest of his successes was forbidden to re-enter Nankin.
Two further descriptions by men who served under him at Gravesend in the interval between the Taeping War and the first mission to the Soudan will suffice to complete the personal impressions that may help the reader to form some idea of the appearance of General Gordon. The first is from the pen of Mr W. E. Lilley, who brought out a special volume on Gordon at Gravesend.
The provisions they had stored up for their own use were distributed among the starving peasants of the surrounding country. Gordon himself saved the lives of the female relatives of the Taeping Wang, who had wished to hold out, not however, it should in fairness be stated, from the official Chinese, but from the Taepings who had surrendered.
Irritated by this treatment, the Triads took their sudden and secret departure from the Taeping camp, and hastened to make their peace with the imperialists. Of these Triads one chief, named Chang Kwoliang, received an important command, and played a considerable part in the later stages of the struggle.
Gordon at once hastened back to Liyang, where he left a strong garrison, and taking only 1000 men, half of whom were the irregular Taeping contingent raised at Liyang itself, proceeded by forced marches to Wusieh. As the late Sir George Chesney well said, it is impossible to decide whether the temerity or the confidence of the young wounded commander was the more calculated to excite wonder.
These internal dissensions threatened to break up the Taeping confederacy, and no doubt they would have done so but for the appearance of the most remarkable man associated with the movement, and one of the most heroic figures in China's history.
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