With the next day came the news that the Imperialists had encamped at Soho (river of the So family), a town nearer to Seng-teh's birthplace than was his present residence; seldom visited, however, by the inhabitants of the Yang Family Pavilion, in consequence of a former lawsuit between them and one of the chief clans there.

Wishing his “son-in-law” to become a “heaven soldier” as soon as possible, Nieh Shen-seng took him and his horse across about a mile of lake, then by a road a few miles further, and gained an interview with the commander, Yang Ch'ang-sz (Ch'ang, as in Wuchang, means splendour; Sz is the name of a classical river). Their conversation was most entertaining to the two parties concerned. Each bedizened the other with polite phrases. A verbatim report, even if possible in the grossly ordinary words of our unideal language, would be voted very tedious by the reader. From such tedium, therefore, he shall be magnanimously spared.

This commander being related to all the known and unknown generals of the day, Seng-teh's fortune was made, his horse accepted as a present, and the youth decked out in a red coat with a broad blue border. He would rise in the ranks under the commander's special smile.