Thou hellish Dog, Depart, or I will amand, ablegate, and send thee to some vast and horrid Desert.

Their retreat to Ying-shang was part of a new plan to turn westward into Honan province along the route taken in February by Ch’en Te-ts’ai, who had tried to capture Hsin-ts’ai with the help of a local Nien force and afterward gone farther west past Ch’üeh-shan to lay siege to Nan-yang beginning March 10th.]

Grouped in the center of the hall were about two hundred men, all armed with sabers, — men of every age, and height and swarthiness, from stout, blue-bearded veterans to youths yet in their teens […]

All the world's a ſtage, / And all the men and women, merely Players