Twice. Then Alawia burned all the government books containing tax accounts and followed it with the whips used to bring those who delayed paying taxes. He gathered a group of prominent nationalists and their sheikhs, visited the hospital, the armory (Terskhana), and the prisons, and released many of the imprisoned after confirming the innocence of most of them. This endeared him to the hearts of the people and earned him their love. He claimed he had achieved his goal and fulfilled his duty. On the twenty-second of the same month, he sent a large part of the Khartoum garrison to Egypt. His intention was to keep the Egyptian soldiers and leave only a garrison of Sudanese soldiers in Khartoum. He relied on evacuating Sudan immediately, so he requested that Zubair Pasha be sent to him to leave him as governor in Sudan after him, but his request was not fulfilled. Not long after, Gordon saw that what he had faced from the enemy and the tranquility was not enough, as the two houses returned to their previous state of aggression and bloodshed. So he wrote to England suggesting the necessity of breaking the Mahdi's power before evacuating Sudan, saying that if the Mahdi conquered Khartoum, he would cross into the borders of Egypt and disturb the Egyptian government for a long time, so he must be defeated to secure its borders. He requested from the English government to provide him with one hundred thousand pounds for this purpose, in addition to what he had previously received, and to send two thousand Indian soldiers to Wadi Halfa and an officer to Dongola to pretend he was coming to inspect suitable locations for the arrival of incoming armies. He suggested leaving Suakin and Massawa. Gordon had previously sent Colonel Stewart with a friendly message to the tribes living on the shores of the Red Sea, accompanied by a delegation and ten Sudanese soldiers on two steamers. The locals welcomed them until they reached the town.