Yangshuo

— On December 10, 1851 the court issued a seemingly self-confident and boastful edict,¹¹ in which it stated that Yung-an was being surrounded by imperial troops under Saishanga, who had been stationed at Yangshuo 陽朔 ; it announced, with reference to the Taiping movement, that "this wriggling little band of wretches has now become as a wandering ghost at the bottom of a caldron; whenever the day is selected it can immediately be crushed with a single blow"; and it promised that ample funds for suppressing the Taipings would be forthcoming as long as they were needed.