CHAPTER IX
TAIPING DISSENSIONS AND IMPERIAL DISAPPOINTMENTS
Outwardly the Taiping cause was never brighter than during the last half of 1855. Within, however, jealousies and dissensions were approaching the point of danger, and were destined soon to tear into shreds the unity of Taipingdom, robbing it of the Eastern and Northern kings and sending Shi Ta-k'ai off to become a knight errant who led his followers against many a city in useless enterprise, far away to the very borders of Tibet.
With their armies all went well. Every strategic point in the middle Yangtse was in their hands. They had met the threat of annihilation in 1855, had held Kiukiang and Hukow in an iron grasp, while they poured in waves across Anhui, up the river, and into the province of Kiangsi. The pitiably small force under Tsêng and his generals, even with the recruits added to the number, were far from being sufficient. But trouble long brewing in the Taiping ranks came to a climax during 1856 in the arrogance and assumptions of the Eastern king. He will be remembered as the man who spoke in the name of God the Father, who later applied to himself the terms Comforter and Holy Ghost. His usurpations had gone so far that he virtually made himself dictator in Nanking, using his divine pretensions to ride roughshod over the other "kings" and even to control the T'ienwang.
