ore Gordon captured Taitsan, it will be remembered, he was on his
way to attack the city of Quinsan. Having accomplished his purpose of
assisting his allies, the Imperial troops, he reverted to his original
object. He wanted to leave Taitsan to be held by the Imperialists, and
at once to march on Quinsan; but owing to the want of discipline in his
army, he was unable to do this. His men had taken a large amount of
loot from Taitsan, and were anxious to dispose of it, and their young
General, much against his will, had to accept the inevitable. With an
army such as that which Gordon had under his control, it does not do to
draw tight the reins of discipline too suddenly. It had for a long time
been in a lax condition, and Gordon saw that he must gain the men's
confidence before sharply asserting his authority. With an army well in
hand, the right thing would have been to follow up his victories
immediately, so that the enemy should not have time to recover
themselves. But instead of being able to go on at once from Taitsan to
Quinsan, he had to return to headquarters, and there wait till the end
of May, reorganising and making preparations. So bad was the discipline
among his officers, that just before he started for Quinsan, all the
majors commanding regiments resigned, simply because he promoted his
commissary-general, an English officer named Cooksby, to the rank of
colonel. This step was taken because Gordon found that disputes were
always occurring about rations and quarters between the
commissary-general and the regimental commanders. As the latter had,
and the former had not, military rank, the commissary was in an awkward
position. Gordon therefore decided that, the commissary being one of
his most important staff officers, he ought not only to have military
rank, but that his rank should be of a superior kind. It is worthy of
note that in this respect Gordon was just twenty years ahead of the War
Office authorities, for it was not till the year 1884 that commissariat
officers in the English army were accorded military rank. The amusing
part of the outbreak of insubordination amongst Gordon's majors was,
that though they resigned their commissions, they asked that they might
be allowed for the sake of loot to accompany the expedition to Quinsan.
Gordon accepted the resignations, but declined to let the majors take
part in his expedition. But he had to yield this point; for on the
following day, when the "fall in" s