The Rebels,
Disheartened By These Successive Defeats, Rallied At Cholin, Where They
Prepared To Make A Final Stand.
The allied force attacked Cholin on May
20, and an English detachment carried it almost at the point of the
bayonet.
With this achievement the operations of the English troops came
for the moment to an end, for a disaster to the imperial arms in their
rear necessitated their turning their attention to a different quarter.
The troops summoned from Ganking had at last arrived to the number of five
or six thousand men; and the Futai Sieh, who was on the point of being
superseded to make room for Li Hung Chang, thought to employ them before
his departure on some enterprise which should redound to his credit and
restore his sinking fortunes. The operation was as hazardous as it was
ambitious. The resolution he came to was to attack the city and forts of
Taitsan, a place northwest of Shanghai, and not very far distant from
Chung Wang's headquarters at Soochow. The imperialist force reached
Taitsan on May 12, but less than two days later Chung Wang arrived in
person at the head of 10,000 chosen troops to relieve the garrison. A
battle ensued on the day following, when, notwithstanding their great
superiority in numbers, the Taepings failed to obtain any success. In this
extremity Chung Wang resorted to a stratagem. Two thousand of his men
shaved their heads and pretended to desert to the imperialists. When the
battle was renewed at sunrise on the following morning this band threw
aside their assumed character and turned upon the imperialists.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 517 of 704
Words from 140590 to 140859
of 191255
