The battalions of Chao's troops came on from Changteh to Yiyang. They have left one battalion there, and the other mine are making for Changsha. These are the men who have driven Tang from Changteh and Ho from the Tzu river. Indeed, the three brigades which came into the city are all defeated troops. Some of them may not have actually smelt powder; but all of them have abandoned positions to the "enemy." It looked an unusually fine piece of strategy to gather these retreated men right at the capital. Chao's reputation as a General still stands at the head of ai] Hunan soldiers and it seemed quite likely that Tan, advancing for the first time into Hunan without Chao as his right-hand man, might have different success from that which he previously enjoyed all the time that Chao led the Ist division.
Just now, it still looks as if Tan were able to come out top in an inter-provincial struggle. But if he does, there will still be the problem, what will the northerners do?
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.