He was just
thirty.
In eighteen months, he told Li Hung Chang, the business would be
finished; and he was as good as his word. The difficulties before
him were very great. A vast tract of country was in the
possession of the rebels-- an area, at the lowest estimate, of
14,000 square miles with a population of 20,000,000. For
centuries this low-lying plain of the Yangtse delta, rich in silk
and tea, fertilised by elaborate irrigation, and covered with
great walled cities, had been one of the most flourishing
districts in China. Though it was now being rapidly ruined by the
depredations of the Taipings, its strategic strength was
obviously enormous. Gordon, however, with the eye of a born
general, perceived that he could convert the very feature of the
country which, on the face of it, most favoured an army on the
defence-- its complicated geographical system of interlacing
roads
and waterways, canals, lakes and rivers-- into a means of
offensive warfare. The force at his disposal was small, but it
was mobile. He had a passion for map-making, and had already, in
his leisure hours, made a careful survey of the country round
Shanghai; he was thus able to execute a series of manoeuvres
which proved fatal to the enemy. By swift marches and counter-
marches, by sudden attacks and surprises, above all by the
dispatch of armed steamboats up the circuitous waterways into
positions from which they could fall upon the enemy in reverse,
he was able gradually to force back the rebels, to cut them off
piecemeal in the field, and to seize upon their cities.
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