On November 26th, the rebels, under General Ling Chang, attacked the strong hill forts above Nanking with determination. There was much firing of heavy guns from the river also, as the new navy of fifteen small vessels came up. Dogged charges were made across the open and up the zigzag of Purple Hill. The rebel losses were tremendous, and Chang the Second, of the imperialists, proved himself as grim a defense fighter as he was a ruthless leader of massacre. The rebel attack under General Ling Chang was brilliant and reckless. Who will sing the feats of the new Chinese arms,--yes, the Chinese, who the world said would never make soldiers, even if they had a great cause at heart. The fighting was not as magnificently solid and desperate as Pickett’s gray charge at Gettysburg, the Cuirassiers’ wild ride into the valley of death at Waterloo, Linievitch’s grim defense of Putiloff Hill, the shouting sweep of Oku’s dwarf Japanese up Nanshan Heights, or the silent plunge of Oyama’s ranks into the Liaoyang valley, or against the black Mukden lines. It was as determined, daring and brilliant, however, as any land engagement in the South African or Spanish-American Wars, and far braver and stronger than the theatrical engagements, with air-ship accessories, of the Italy-Tripoli War. The world’s critics must now change their criterions. A strong cause WILL make a strong battle anywhere the world over, no matter what the color of the soldier, or the cut or tint of his battle flag. The fighting now closed in on Nanking, the old capital of the Mings, the high-water city of the Taiping rebellion, and the rebels had a great deal to avenge, and a great deal to gain. To fail in the attack on Nanking meant a tremendous setback to the rebellion. Few reinforcements could come, for the fighting was in half a dozen provinces, and along a broken front extending from Chingtu to Hankau and Nanking, 1,000 miles, with railway transport service, foreign ammunition, money and sympathy, favoring the imperialists; and sea and river transport, and the sympathy of the British and American peoples favoring the rebels, who, of course, had no navy worth counting as yet.