e
they still held Yesing and Liyang, which enabled them to maintain
communication, although by a roundabout route. Gordon determined to
begin his campaign by attacking these two places, when the severance
would be complete.

Yesing, on the north-west corner of the lake, was the first object of
attack. Liyang is about fifty miles further inland than that town. The
Taepings at Yesing were not dreaming of an attack when Gordon, at the
head of his force, suddenly appeared before its walls. He found the
surrounding villages in a most appalling state of distress, the
inhabitants living on human food. The town was well surrounded by
ditches and stockades, and Gordon felt compelled to reconnoitre it
most carefully before deciding on his plan of attack. While engaged in
this work his ardour carried him away, and he was nearly captured by
the enemy. It was one of the narrowest of his many escapes during the
war, and went far to justify the reputation he had gained of having a
charmed life. A very striking instance of his narrowly escaping a
premature end had occurred during the siege of Soochow itself, when
the marvellous fifty-three-arch bridge at Patachiaou was destroyed.
One evening Gordon was seated smoking a cigar on one of the damaged
parapets of the bridge, when two shots fired by his own men struck the
stone-work close by him. He got down at the second shot, and entered
his boat. Hardly had he done so when the bridge collapsed with a
tremendous crash, nearly smashing his boat and killing two men. In all
the engagements, except when confined to his boat, Gordon always led
the attack, carrying no weapons, except a revolver which he wore
concealed in his breast, and never used except once, against one of
his own mutineers, but only a little rattan cane, which his men called
his magic wand of Victory. A graphic picture was drawn by one of his
own officers of this unarmed leader in the breach of an assaulted
position urging on his men by catching them by the sleeve of their
coats, and by standing indifferent and unresisting in the midst of the
thickest fire. Gordon long afterwards admitted that during the whole
of these scenes he was continuously praying to the Almighty that his
men should not turn tail. In the varied and voluminous annals of war
there is no more striking figure than this of human heroism combined
with spiritual fervour.

The attack on Yesing lasted several days, as, owing to the manner in
which the country