The Project Gutenberg eBook, China and the Manchus, by Herbert Allen Giles This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: China and the Manchus Author: Herbert Allen Giles Release Date: August 15, 1999 [eBook #2156] Release date of this revision: May 10, 2013 Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHINA AND THE MANCHUS*** E-text prepared by John Bickers and Dagny and revised by David Widger, Kuwehe, Judith Wirawan, Juliet Sutherland, Tony De Vita, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) Cover A NÜ-CHÊN TARTAR (14th Century) A NÜ-CHÊN TARTAR (14th Century) CHINA AND THE MANCHUS BY HERBERT A. GILES, M.A., LL.D. Professor of Chinese in the University of Cambridge, and sometime H.B.M. Consul at Ningpo CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. The Nü-chêns and Kitans 1 II. The Fall of the Mings 14 III. Shun Chih 28 IV. Kʽang Hsi 40 V. Yung Chêng and Chʽien Lung 52 VI. Chia Chʽing 61 VII. Tao Kuang 69 VIII. Hsien Fêng 81 IX. Tʽung Chih 98 X. Kuang Hsü 106 XI. Hsüan Tʽung 121 XII. Sun Yat-sen 129 List of Works Consulted 141 Index 142 ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAP A Nü-chên Tartar (14th Century) Frontispiece A Kitan Tartar (14th Century) facing page 2 Sketch Map of the Far East at end NOTE It is impossible to give here a complete key to the pronunciation of Chinese words. For those who wish to pronounce with approximate correctness the proper names in this volume, the following may be a rough guide:— a as in alms. ê " u in fun. i " ie in thief. o " aw in saw. u " oo in soon. ü " u in French, or ü in German. ŭ " e in her. ai " aye (yes). ao " ow in cow. ei " ey in prey. ow " o (not as ow in cow). ch " ch in church. chih " chu in church. hs " sh (hsiu=sheeoo). j " in French. ua and uo " wa and wo. The insertion of a rough breathing ʽ calls for a strong aspirate. CHAPTER I THE NÜ-CHÊNS AND KITANS The Manchus are descended from a branch of certain wild Tungusic nomads, who were known in the ninth century as the Nü-chêns, a name which has been said to mean "west of the sea." The cradle of their race lay at the base of the Ever-White Mountains, due north of Korea, and was fertilised by the head waters of the Yalu River. In an illustrated Chinese work of the fourteenth century, of which the Cambridge University Library possesses the only known copy, we read that they reached this spot, originally the home of the Su-shên tribe, as fugitives from Korea; further, that careless of death and prizing valour only, they carried naked knives about their persons, never parting from them by day or night, and that they were as "poisonous" as wolves or tigers. They also tattooed their faces, and at marriage their mouths. By the close of the ninth century the Nü-chêns had become subject to the neighbouring Kitans, then under the rule of the vigorous Kitan chieftain, Opaochi, who, in 907, proclaimed himself Emperor of an independent kingdom with the dynastic title of Liao, said to mean "iron," and who at once entered upon that long course of aggression against China and encroachment upon her territory which was to result in the practical division of the empire between the two powers, with the Yellow River as boundary, Kʽai-fêng as the Chinese capital, and Peking, now for the first time raised to the status of a metropolis, as the Kitan capital. Hitherto, the Kitans had recognised China as their suzerain; they are first mentioned in Chinese history in A.D. 468, when they sent ambassadors to court, with tribute. Turning now to China, the famous House of Sung, the early years of which were so full of promise of national prosperity, and which is deservedly associated with one of the two most brilliant periods in Chinese literature, was founded in 960. Korea was then forced, in order to protect herself from the encroachments of China, to accept the hated supremacy of the Kitans; but being promptly called upon to surrender large tracts of territory, she suddenly entered into an alliance with the Nü-chêns, who were also ready to revolt, and who sent an army to the assistance of their new friends. The Nü-chên and Korean armies, acting in concert, inflicted a severe defeat on the Kitans, and from this victory may be dated the beginning of the Nü-chên power. China had indeed already sent an embassy to the Nü- chêns, suggesting an alliance and also a combination with Korea, by which means the aggression of the Kitans might easily be checked; but during the eleventh century Korea became alienated from the Nü-chêns, and even went so far as to advise China to join with the Kitans in crushing the Nü-chêns. China, no doubt, would have been glad to get rid of both of these troublesome neighbours, especially the Kitans, who were gradually filching territory from the empire, and driving the Chinese out of the southern portion of the province of Chihli. A KITAN TARTAR (14th Century) A KITAN TARTAR (14th Century) For a long period China weakly allowed herself to be blackmailed by the Kitans, who, in return for a large money subsidy and valuable supplies of silk, forwarded a quite insignificant amount of local produce, which was called "tribute" by the Chinese court. Early in the twelfth century, the Kitan monarch paid a visit to the Sungari River, for the purpose of fishing, and was duly received by the chiefs of the Nü-chên tribes in that district. On this occasion the Kitan Emperor, who had taken perhaps more liquor than was good for him, ordered the younger men of the company to get up and dance before him. This command was ignored by the son of one of the chiefs, named Akutêng (sometimes, but wrongly, written Akuta), and it was suggested to the Emperor that he should devise means for putting out of the way so uncompromising a spirit. No notice, however, was taken of the affair at the moment; and that night Akutêng, with a band of followers, disappeared from the scene. Making his way eastward, across the Sungari, he started a movement which may be said to have culminated five hundred years later in the conquest of China by the Manchus. In 1114 he began to act on the offensive, and succeeded in inflicting a severe defeat on the Kitans. By 1115 he had so far advanced towards the foundation of an independent kingdom that he actually assumed the title of Emperor. Thus was presented the rare spectacle of three contemporary rulers, each of whom claimed a title which, according to the Chinese theory, could only belong to one. The style he chose for his dynasty was Chin (also read Kin), which means "gold," and which some say was intended to mark a superiority over Liao (=iron), that of the Kitans, on the ground that gold is not, like iron, a prey to rust. Others, however, trace the origin of the term to the fact that gold was found in the Nü-chên territory. A small point which has given rise to some confusion, may fitly be mentioned here. The tribe of Tartars hitherto spoken of as Nü-chêns, and henceforth known in history as the "Golden Dynasty," in 1035 changed the word chên for chih, and were called Nü-chih Tartars. They did this because at that date the word chên was part of the personal name of the reigning Kitan Emperor, and therefore taboo. The necessity for such change would of course cease with their emancipation from Kitan rule, and the old name would be revived; it will accordingly be continued in the following pages. The victories of Akutêng over the Kitans were most welcome to the Chinese Emperor, who saw his late oppressors humbled to the dust by the victorious Nü-chêns; and in 1120 a treaty of alliance was signed by the two powers against the common enemy. The upshot of this move was that the Kitans were severely defeated in all directions, and their chief cities fell into the hands of the Nü-chêns, who finally succeeded, in 1122, in taking Peking by assault, the Kitan Emperor having already sought safety in flight. When, however, the time came for an equitable settlement of territory between China and the victorious Nü-chêns, the Chinese Emperor discovered that the Nü-chêns, inasmuch as they had done most of the fighting, were determined to have the lion's share of the reward; in fact, the yoke imposed by the latter proved if anything more burdensome than that of the dreaded Kitans. More territory was taken by the Nü-chêns, and even larger levies of money were exacted, while the same old farce of worthless tribute was carried on as before. In 1123, Akutêng died, and was canonised as the first Emperor of the Chin, or Golden Dynasty. He was succeeded by a brother; and two years later, the last Emperor of the Kitans was captured and relegated to private life, thus bringing the dynasty to an end. The new Emperor of the Nü-chêns spent the rest of his life in one long struggle with China. In 1126, the Sung capital, the modern Kʽai-fêng Fu in Honan, was twice besieged: on the first occasion for thirty-three days, when a heavy ransom was exacted and some territory was ceded; on the second occasion for forty days, when it fell, and was given up to pillage. In 1127, the feeble Chinese Emperor was seized and carried off, and by 1129 the whole of China north of the Yang-tsze was in the hands of the Nü-chêns. The younger brother of the banished Emperor was proclaimed by the Chinese at Nanking, and managed to set up what is known as the southern Sung dynasty; but the Nü-chêns gave him no rest, driving him first out of Nanking, and then out of Hangchow, where he had once more established a capital. Ultimately, there was peace of a more or less permanent character, chiefly due to the genius of a notable Chinese general of the day; and the Nü-chêns had to accept the Yang-tsze as the dividing line between the two powers. The next seventy years were freely marked by raids, first of one side and then of the other; but by the close of the twelfth century the Mongols were pressing the Nü-chêns from the north, and the southern Sungs were seizing the opportunity to attack their old enemies from the south. Finally, in 1234, the independence of the Golden Dynasty of Nü-chêns was extinguished by Ogotai, third son of the great Genghis Khan, with the aid of the southern Sungs, who were themselves in turn wiped out by Kublai Khan, the first Mongol Emperor to rule over a united China. The name of this wandering people, whose territory covers such a huge space on the map, has been variously derived from (1) moengel, celestial, (2) mong, brave, and (3) munku, silver, the last mentioned being favoured by some because of its relation to the iron and golden dynasties of the Kitans and Nü-chêns respectively. Three centuries and a half must now pass away before entering upon the next act of the Manchu drama. The Nü-chêns had been scotched, but not killed, by their Mongol conquerors, who, one hundred and thirty-four years later (1368), were themselves driven out of China, a pure native dynasty being re-established under the style of Ming, "Bright." During the ensuing two hundred years the Nü-chêns were scarcely heard of, the House of Ming being busily occupied in other directions. Their warlike spirit, however, found scope and nourishment in the expeditions organised against Japan and Tan-lo, or Quelpart, as named by the Dutch, a large island to the south of the Korean peninsula; while on the other hand the various tribes scattered over a portion of the territory known to Europeans as Manchuria, availed themselves of long immunity from attack by the Chinese to advance in civilization and prosperity. It may be noted here that "Manchuria" is unknown to the Chinese or to the Manchus themselves as a geographical expression. The present extensive home of the Manchus is usually spoken of as the Three Eastern Provinces, namely, (1) Shêngking, or Liao- tung, or Kuan-tung, (2) Kirin, and (3) Heilungchiang or Tsitsihar. Among the numerous small independent communities above mentioned, which traced their ancestry to the Nü-chêns of old, one of the smallest, the members of which inhabited a tract of territory due east of what is now the city of Mukden, and were shortly to call themselves Manchus,—the origin of the name is not known,—produced, in 1559, a young hero who altered the course of Chinese history to such an extent that for nearly three hundred years his descendants sat on the throne of China, and ruled over what was for a great portion of the time the largest empire on earth. Nurhachu, the real founder of the Manchu power, was born in 1559, from a virile stock, and was soon recognised to be an extraordinary child. We need not linger over his dragon face, his phœnix eye, or even over his large, drooping ears, which have always been associated by the Chinese with intellectual ability. He first came into prominence in 1583, when, at twenty-four years of age, he took up arms, at the head of only one hundred and thirty men, in connection with the treacherous murder by a rival chieftain of his father and grandfather, who had ruled over a petty principality of almost infinitesimal extent; and he finally succeeded three years later in securing from the Chinese, who had been arrayed against him, not only the surrender of the murderer, but also a sum of money and some robes of honour. He was further successful in negotiating a treaty, under the terms of which Manchu furs could be exchanged at certain points for such Chinese commodities as cotton, sugar, and grain. In 1587, Nurhachu built a walled city, and established an administration in his tiny principality, the even-handed justice and purity of which soon attracted a large number of settlers, and before very long he had succeeded in amalgamating five Manchu States under his personal rule. Extension of territory by annexation after victories over neighbouring States followed as a matter of course, the result being that his growing power came to be regarded with suspicion, and even dread. At length, a joint attempt on the part of seven States, aided by two Mongol chieftains, was made to crush him; but, although numerical superiority was overpoweringly against him, he managed to turn the enemy's attack into a rout, killed four thousand men, and captured three thousand horses, besides other booty. Following up this victory by further annexations, he now began to present a bold front to the Chinese, declaring himself independent, and refusing any longer to pay tribute. In 1603, he built himself a new capital, Hingking, which he placed not very far east of the modern Mukden, and there he received envoys from the Mongolian chieftains, sent to congratulate him on his triumph. At this period the Manchus, whose spoken words were polysyllabic, and not monosyllabic like Chinese, had no written language beyond certain rude attempts at alphabetic writing, formed from Chinese characters, and found to be of little practical value. The necessity for something more convenient soon appealed to the prescient and active mind of Nurhachu; accordingly, in 1599, he gave orders to two learned scholars to prepare a suitable script for his rapidly increasing subjects. This they accomplished by basing the new script upon Mongol, which had been invented in 1269, by Baschpa, or ʽPhagspa, a Tibetan lama, acting under the direction of Kublai Khan. Baschpa had based his script upon the written language of the Ouigours, who were descendants of the Hsiung-nu, or Huns. The Ouigours, known by that name since the year 629, were once the ruling race in the regions which now form the khanates of Khiva and Bokhara, and had been the first of the tribes of Central Asia to have a script of their own. This they formed from the Estrangelo Syriac of the Nestorians, who appeared in China in the early part of the seventh century. The Manchu written language, therefore, is lineally descended from Syriac; indeed, the family likeness of both Manchu and Mongol to the parent stem is quite obvious, except that these two scripts, evidently influenced by Chinese, are written vertically, though, unlike Chinese, they are read from left to right. Thirty-three years later various improvements were introduced, leaving the Manchu script precisely as we find it at the present day. In 1613, Nurhachu had gathered about him an army of some forty thousand men; and by a series of raids in various directions, he further gradually succeeded in extending considerably the boundaries of his kingdom. There now remained but one large and important State, towards the annexation of which he directed all his efforts. After elaborate preparations which extended over more than two years, at the beginning of which (1616) the term Manchu (etymology unknown) was definitively adopted as a national title, Nurhachu, in 1618, drew up a list of grievances against the Chinese, under which he declared that his people had been and were still suffering, and solemnly committed it to the flames,—a recognised method of communication with the spirits of heaven and earth. This document consisted of seven clauses, and was addressed to the Emperor of China; it was, in fact, a declaration of war. The Chinese, who were fast becoming aware that a dangerous enemy had arisen, and that their own territory would be the next to be threatened, at length decided to oppose any further progress on the part of Nurhachu; and with this view dispatched an army of two hundred thousand men against him. These troops, many of whom were physically unfit, were divided on arrival at Mukden into four bodies, each with some separate aim, the achievement of which was to conduce to the speedy disruption of Nurhachu's power. The issue of this move was certainly not expected on either side. In a word, Nurhachu defeated his Chinese antagonists in detail, finally inflicting such a crushing blow that he was left completely master of the situation, and before very long had realised the chief object of his ambition, namely, the reunion under one rule of those states into which the Golden Dynasty had been broken up when it collapsed before the Mongols in 1234. CHAPTER II THE FALL OF THE MINGS It is almost a conventionalism to attribute the fall of a Chinese dynasty to the malign influence of eunuchs. The Imperial court was undoubtedly at this date entirely in the hands of eunuchs, who occupied all kinds of lucrative posts for which they were quite unfitted, and even accompanied the army, nominally as officials, but really as spies upon the generals in command. One of the most notorious of these was Wei Chung-hsien, whose career may be taken as typical of his class. He was a native of Su-ning in Chihli, of profligate character, who made himself a eunuch, and changed his name to Li Chin-chung. Entering the palace, he managed by bribery to get into the service of the mother of the future Emperor, posthumously canonised as Hsi Tsung, and became the paramour of that weak monarch's wet-nurse. The pair gained the Emperor's affection to an extraordinary degree, and Wei, an ignorant brute, was the real ruler of China during the reign of Hsi Tsung. He always took care to present memorials and other State papers when his Majesty was engrossed in carpentry, and the Emperor would pretend to know all about the question, and tell Wei to deal with it. Aided by unworthy censors, a body of officials who are supposed to be the "eyes and ears" of the monarch, and privileged to censure him for misgovernment, he gradually drove all loyal men from office, and put his opponents to cruel and ignominious deaths. He persuaded Hsi Tsung to enrol a division of eunuch troops, ten thousand strong, armed with muskets; while, by causing the Empress to have a miscarriage, his paramour cleared his way to the throne. Many officials espoused his cause, and the infatuated sovereign never wearied of loading him with favours. In 1626, temples were erected to him in all the provinces except Fuhkien, his image received Imperial honours, and he was styled Nine Thousand Years, i.e. only one thousand less than the Emperor himself, the Chinese term in the latter case being wan sui, which has been adopted by the Japanese as banzai. All successes were ascribed to his influence, a Grand Secretary declaring that his virtue had actually caused the appearance of a "unicorn" in Shantung. In 1627, he was likened in a memorial to Confucius, and it was decreed that he should be worshipped with the Sage in the Imperial Academy. His hopes were overthrown by the death of Hsi Tsung, whose successor promptly dismissed him. He hanged himself to escape trial, and his corpse was disembowelled. His paramour was executed, and in 1629, nearly three hundred persons were convicted and sentenced to varying penalties for being connected with his schemes. Jobbery and corruption were rife; and at the present juncture these agencies were successfully employed to effect the recall of a really able general who had been sent from Peking to recover lost ground, and prevent further encroachments by the Manchus. For a time, Nurhachu had been held in check by his skilful dispositions of troops, Mukden was strongly fortified, and confidence generally was restored; but the fatal policy of the new general rapidly alienated the Chinese inhabitants, and caused them to enter secretly into communication with the Manchus. It was thus that in 1621 Nurhachu was in a position to advance upon Mukden. Encamping within a mile or two of the city, he sent forward a reconnoitring party, which was immediately attacked by the Chinese commandant at the head of a large force. The former fled, and the latter pursued, only to fall into the inevitable ambush; and the Chinese troops, on retiring in their turn, found that the bridge across the moat had been destroyed by traitors in their own camp, so that they were unable to re-enter the city. Thus Mukden fell, the prelude to a series of further victories, one of which was the rout of an army sent to retake Mukden, and the chief of which was the capture of Liao-yang, now remembered in connection with the Russo-Japanese war. In many of these engagements the Manchus, whose chief weapon was the long bow, which they used with deadly effect, found themselves opposed by artillery, the use of which had been taught to the Chinese by Adam Schaal, the Jesuit father. The supply of powder, however, had a way of running short, and at once the pronounced superiority of the Manchu archers prevailed. Other cities now began to tender a voluntary submission, and many Chinese took to shaving the head and wearing the queue, in acknowledgment of their allegiance to the Manchus. All, however, was not yet over, for the growing Manchu power was still subjected to frequent attacks from Chinese arms in directions as far as possible removed from points where Manchu troops were concentrated. Mean-while Nurhachu gradually extended his borders eastward, until in 1625, the year in which he placed his capital at Mukden, his frontiers reached to the sea on the east and to the river Amur on the north, the important city of Ning-yüan being almost the only possession remaining to the Chinese beyond the Great Wall. The explanation of this is as follows. An incompetent general, as above mentioned, had been sent at the instance of the eunuchs to supersede an officer who had been holding his own with considerable success, but who was not a persona grata at court. The new general at once decided that no territory outside the Great Wall was to be held against the Manchus, and gave orders for the immediate retirement of all troops and Chinese residents generally. To this command the civil governor of Ning-yüan, and the military commandant, sent an indignant protest, writing out an oath with their blood that they would never surrender the city. Nurhachu seized the opportunity, and delivered a violent attack, with which he seemed to be making some progress, until at length artillery was brought into play. The havoc caused by guns at close quarters was terrific, and the Manchus fled. This defeat was a blow from which Nurhachu never recovered; his chagrin brought on a serious illness, and he died in 1626, aged sixty-eight. Later on, when his descendants were sitting upon the throne of China, he was canonised as Tʽai Tsu, the Great Ancestor, the representatives of the four preceding generations of his family being canonised as Princes. Nurhachu was succeeded by his fourth son, Abkhai, then thirty-four years of age, and a tried warrior. His reign began with a correspondence between himself and the governor who had been the successful defender of Ning-yüan, in which some attempt was made to conclude a treaty of peace. The Chinese on their side demanded the return of all captured cities and territory; while the Manchus, who refused to consider any such terms, suggested that China should pay them a huge subsidy in money, silk, etc., in return for which they offered but a moderate supply of furs, and something over half a ton of ginseng (Panax repens), the famous forked root said to resemble the human body, and much valued by the Chinese as a strengthening medicine. This, of course, was a case of "giving too little and asking too much," and the negotiations came to nothing. In 1629, Abkhai, who by this time was master of Korea, marched upon Peking, at the head of a large army, and encamped within a few miles from its walls; but he was unable to capture the city, and had finally to retire. The next few years were devoted by the Manchus, who now began to possess artillery of their own casting, to the conquest of Mongolia, in the hope of thus securing an easy passage for their armies into China. An offer of peace was now made by the Chinese Emperor, for reasons shortly to be stated; but the Manchu terms were too severe, and hostilities were resumed, the Manchus chiefly occupying themselves in devastating the country round Peking, their numbers being constantly swelled by a stream of deserters from the Chinese ranks. In 1643, Abkhai died; he was succeeded by his ninth son, a boy of five, and was later on canonised as Tʽai Tsung, the Great Forefather. By 1635, he had already begun to style himself Emperor of China, and had established a system of public examinations. The name of the dynasty had been "Manchu" ever since 1616; twenty years later he translated this term into the Chinese word Chʽing(or Tsʽing), which means "pure"; and as the Great Pure Dynasty it will be remembered in history. Other important enactments of his reign were prohibitions against the use of tobacco, which had been recently introduced into Manchuria from Japan, through Korea; against the Chinese fashion of dress and of wearing the hair; and against the practice of binding the feet of girls. All except the first of these were directed towards the complete denationalisation of the Chinese who had accepted his rule, and whose numbers were increasing daily. So far, the Manchus seem to have been little influenced by religious beliefs or scruples, except of a very primitive kind; but when they came into closer contact with the Chinese, Buddhism began to spread its charms, and not in vain, though strongly opposed by Abkhai himself. By 1635 the Manchus had effected the conquest of Mongolia, aided to a great extent by frequent defections of large bodies of Mongols who had been exasperated by their own ill-treatment at the hands of the Chinese. Among some ancient Mongolian archives there has recently been discovered a document, dated 1636, under which the Mongol chiefs recognised the suzerainty of the Manchu Emperor. It was, however, stipulated that, in the event of the fall of the dynasty, all the laws existing previously to this date should again come into force. A brief review of Chinese history during the later years of Manchu progress, as described above, discloses a state of things such as will always be found to prevail towards the close of an outworn dynasty. Almost from the day when, in 1628, the last Emperor of the Ming Dynasty ascended the throne, national grievances began to pass from a simmering and more or less latent condition to a state of open and acute hostility. The exactions and tyranny of the eunuchs had led to increased taxation and general discontent; and the horrors of famine now enhanced the gravity of the situation. Local outbreaks were common, and were with difficulty suppressed. The most capable among Chinese generals of the period, Wu San-kuei, shortly to play a leading part in the dynastic drama, was far away, employed in resisting the invasions of the Manchus, when a very serious rebellion, which had been in preparation for some years, at length burst violently forth. Li Tzŭ-chʽêng was a native of Shensi, who, before he was twenty years old, had succeeded his father as village beadle. The famine of 1627 had brought him into trouble over the land-tax, and in 1629 he turned brigand, but without conspicuous success during the following ten years. In 1640, he headed a small gang of desperadoes, and overrunning parts of Hupeh and Honan, was soon in command of a large army. He was joined by a female bandit, formerly a courtesan, who advised him to avoid slaughter and to try to win the hearts of the people. In 1642, after several attempts to capture the city of Kʽai-fêng, during one of which his left eye was destroyed by an arrow, he at length succeeded, chiefly in consequence of a sudden rise of the Yellow River, the waters of which rushed through a canal originally intended to fill the city moat and flood out the rebels. The rise of the river, however, was so rapid and so unusually high that the city itself was flooded, and an enormous number of the inhabitants perished, the rest seeking safety in flight to higher ground. By 1644, Li Tzŭ-chʽêng had reduced the whole of the province of Shensi; whereupon he began to advance on Peking, proclaiming himself first Emperor of the Great Shun Dynasty, the term shun implying harmony between rulers and ruled. Terror reigned at the Chinese court, especially as meteorological and other portents appeared in unusually large numbers, as though to justify the panic. The Emperor was in despair; the exchequer was empty, and there was no money to pay the troops, who, in any case, were too few to man the city walls. Each of the Ministers of State was anxious only to secure his own safety. Li Tzŭ-chʽêng's advance was scarcely opposed, the eunuch commanders of cities and passes hastening to surrender them and save their own lives. For, in case of immediate surrender, no injury was done by Li to life or property, and even after a short resistance only a few lives were exacted as penalty; but a more obstinate defence was punished by burning and looting and universal slaughter. The Emperor was now advised to send for Wu San-kuei; but that step meant the end of further resistance to the invading Manchus on the east, and for some time he would not consent. Meanwhile, he issued an Imperial proclamation, such as is usual on these occasions, announcing that all the troubles which had come upon the empire were due to his own incompetence and unworthiness, as confirmed by the droughts, famines, and other signs of divine wrath, of recent occurrence; that the administration was to be reformed, and only virtuous and capable officials would be employed. The near approach, however, of Li's army at length caused the Emperor to realise that it was Wu San- kuei or nothing, and belated messengers were dispatched to summon him to the defence of the capital. Long before he could possibly arrive, a gate of the southern city of Peking was treacherously opened by the eunuch in charge of it, and the next thing the Emperor saw was his capital in flames. He then summoned the Empress and the court ladies, and bade them each provide for her own safety. He sent his three sons into hiding, and actually killed with his own hand several of his favourites, rather than let them fall into the hands of the One-Eyed Rebel. He attempted the same by his daughter, a young girl, covering his face with the sleeve of his robe; but in his agony of mind he failed in his blow, and only succeeded in cutting off an arm, leaving the unfortunate princess to be dispatched later on by the Empress. After this, in concert with a trusted eunuch and a few attendants, he disguised himself, and made an attempt to escape from the city by night; but they found the gates closed, and the guard refused to allow them to pass. Returning to the palace in the early morning, the Emperor caused the great bell to be rung as usual to summon the officers of government to audience; but no one came. He then retired, with his faithful eunuch, to a kiosque, on what is known as the Coal Hill, in the palace grounds, and there wrote a last decree on the lapel of his coat:—"I, poor in virtue and of contemptible personality, have incurred the wrath of God on high. My Ministers have deceived me. I am ashamed to meet my ancestors; and therefore I myself take off my crown, and with my hair covering my face, await dismemberment at the hands of the rebels. Do not hurt a single one of my people!" Emperor and eunuch then committed suicide by hanging themselves, and the Great Ming Dynasty was brought to an end. Li Tzŭ-chʽêng made a grand official entry into Peking, upon which many of the palace ladies committed suicide. The bodies of the two Empresses were discovered, and the late Emperor's sons were captured and kindly treated; but of the Emperor himself there was for some time no trace. At length his body was found, and was encoffined, together with those of the Empresses, by order of Li Tzŭ-chʽêng, by-and-by to receive fit and proper burial at the hands of the Manchus. Li Tzŭ-chʽêng further possessed himself of the persons of Wu San-kuei's father and affianced bride, the latter of whom, a very beautiful girl, he intended to keep for himself. He next sent off a letter to Wu San-kuei, offering an alliance against the Manchus, which was fortified by another letter from Wu San-kuei's father, urging his son to fall in with Li's wishes, especially as his own life would be dependent upon the success of the mission. Wu San-kuei had already started on his way to relieve the capital when he heard of the events above recorded; and it seems probable that he would have yielded to circumstances and persuasion but for the fact that Li had seized the girl he intended to marry. This decided him; he retraced his steps, shaved his head after the required style, and joined the Manchus. It was not very long before Li Tzŭ-chʽêng's army was in full pursuit, with the twofold object of destroying Wu San-kuei and recovering Chinese territory already occupied by the Manchus. In the battle which ensued, all these hopes were dashed; Li sustained a crushing defeat, and fled to Peking. There he put to death the Ming princes who were in his hands, and completely exterminated Wu San-kuei's family, with the exception of the girl above mentioned, whom he carried off after having looted and burnt the palace and other public buildings. Now was the opportunity of the Manchus; and with the connivance and loyal aid of Wu San-kuei, the Great Chʽing Dynasty was established. Li Tzŭ-chʽêng, who had officially mounted the Dragon Throne as Emperor of China nine days after his capture of Peking, was now hotly pursued by Wu San-kuei, who had the good fortune to recover from the rebels the girl, who had been taken with them in their flight, and whom he then married. Li Tzŭ-chʽêng retreated westwards; and after two vain attempts to check the pursuers, his army began to melt away. Driven south, he held Wu-chʽang for a time; but ultimately he fled down the Yang-tsze, and was slain by local militia in Hupeh. Li was a born soldier. Even hostile writers admit that his army was wonderfully well disciplined, and that he put a stop to the hideous atrocities which had made his name a terror in the empire, just so soon as he found that he could accomplish his ends by milder means. His men were obliged to march light, very little baggage being allowed; his horses were most carefully looked after. He himself was by nature calm and cold, and his manner of life was frugal and abstemious. CHAPTER III SHUN CHIH The back of the rebellion was now broken; but an alien race, called in to drive out the rebels, found themselves in command of the situation. Wu San-kuei had therefore no alternative but to acknowledge the Manchus definitively as the new rulers of China, and to obtain the best possible terms for his country. Ever since the defeat of Li by the combined forces of Chinese and Manchus, it had been perfectly well understood that the latter were to be supported in their bid for Imperial power, and the conditions under which the throne was to be transferred were as follows:—(1) No Chinese women were to be taken into the Imperial seraglio; (2) the Senior Classic at the great triennial examination, on the results of which successful candidates were drafted into the public service, was never to be a Manchu; (3) Chinese men were to adopt the Manchu dress, shaving the front part of the head and plaiting the back hair into a queue, but they were to be allowed burial in the costume of the Mings; (4) Chinese women were not to adopt the Manchu dress, nor to cease to compress their feet, in accordance with ancient custom. Wu San-kuei was loaded with honours, among others with a triple-eyed peacock's feather, a decoration introduced, together with the "button" at the top of the hat, by the Manchus, and classed as single-, double-, and triple-eyed, according to merit. A few years later, his son married the sister of the Emperor; and a few years later still, he was appointed one of three feudatory princes, his rule extending over the huge provinces of Yünnan and Ssŭch'uan. There we shall meet him again. The new Emperor, the ninth son of Abkhai, best known by his year-title as Shun Chih (favourable sway), was a child of seven when he was placed upon the throne in 1644, under the regency of an uncle; and by the time he was twelve years old, the uncle had died, leaving him to his own resources. Before his early death, the regent had already done some excellent work on behalf of his nephew. He had curtailed the privileges of the eunuchs to such an extent that for a hundred and fifty years to come,—so long, in fact, as the empire was in the hands of wise rulers,—their malign influence was inappreciable in court circles and politics generally. He left Chinese officials in control of the civil administration, keeping closely to the lines of the system which had obtained under the previous dynasty; he did not hastily press for the universal adoption of Manchu costume; and he even caused sacrificial ceremonies to be performed at the mausolea of the Ming Emperors. One new rule of considerable importance seems to have been introduced by the Manchus, namely, that no official should be allowed to hold office within the boundaries of his own province. Ostensibly a check on corrupt practices, it is probable that this rule had a more far-reaching political purport. The members of the Han-lin College presented an address praying him (1) to prepare a list of all worthy men; (2) to search out such of these as might be in hiding; (3) to exterminate all rebels; (4) to proclaim an amnesty; (5) to establish peace; (6) to disband the army, and (7) to punish corrupt officials. The advice conveyed in the second clause of the above was speedily acted upon, and a number of capable men were secured for the government service. At the same time, with a view to the full technical establishment of the dynasty, the Imperial ancestors were canonised, and an ancestral shrine was duly constituted. The general outlook would now appear to have been satisfactory from the point of view of Manchu interests; but from lack of means of communication, China had in those days almost the connotation of space infinite, and events of the highest importance, involving nothing less than the change of a dynasty, could be carried through in one portion of the empire before their imminence had been more than whispered in another. No sooner was Peking taken by the One-Eyed Rebel, than a number of officials fled southwards and took refuge in Nanking, where they set up a grandson of the last Emperor but one of the Ming Dynasty, who was now the rightful heir to the throne. The rapidly growing power of the Manchus had been lost sight of, if indeed it had ever been thoroughly realised, and it seemed quite natural that the representative of the House of Ming should be put forward to resist the rebels. This monarch, however, was quite unequal to the fate which had befallen him; and, before long, both he himself and his capital were in the hands of the Manchus. Other claimants to the throne appeared in various places; notably, one at Hangchow and another at Foochow, each of whom looked upon the other as a usurper. The former was soon disposed of, but the latter gradually established his rule over a wide area, and for a long time kept the Manchus at bay, so hateful was the thought of an alien domination to the people of the province in question. Towards the close of 1646, he too had been captured, and the work of pacification went on, the penalty of death now being exacted in the case of officials who refused to shave the head and wear the queue. Two more Emperors, both of Imperial Ming blood, were next proclaimed in Canton, one of whom strangled himself on the advance of the Manchus, while the other disappeared. A large number of loyal officials, rather than shave the front part of the head and wear the Manchu queue, voluntarily shaved the whole head, and sought sanctuary in monasteries, where they joined the Buddhist priesthood. One more early attempt to re-establish the Mings must be noticed. The fourth son of a grandson of the Ming Emperor Wan Li (died 1620) was in 1646 proclaimed Emperor at Nan-yang in Honan. For a number of years of bloody warfare he managed to hold out; but gradually he was forced to retire, first to Fuhkien and Kuangtung, and then into Kueichou and Yünnan, from which he was finally expelled by Wu San-kuei. He next fled to Burma, where in 1661 he was handed over to Wu San-kuei, who had followed in pursuit; and he finally strangled himself in the capital of Yünnan. He is said to have been a Christian, as also many of his adherents; in consequence of which, the Jesuit father, A. Koffler, bestowed upon him the title of the Constantine of China. In view of the general character for ferocity with which the Manchus are usually credited, it is pleasant to be able to record that when the official history of the Ming Dynasty came to be written, a Chinese scholar of the day, sitting on the historical commission, pleaded that three of the princes above mentioned, who were veritable scions of the Imperial stock, should be entered as "brave men" and not as "rebels," and that the Emperor, to whose reign we are now coming, graciously granted his request. In the year 1661 Shun Chih, the first actual Emperor of the Chʽing dynasty, "became a guest on high." He does not rank as one of China's great monarchs, but his kindly character as a man, and his magnanimity as a ruler, were extolled by his contemporaries. He treated the Catholic missionaries with favour. The Dutch and Russian embassies to his court in 1656 found there envoys from the Great Mogul, from the Western Tartars, and from the Dalai Lama. China, in the days when her civilization towered above that of most countries on the globe, and when her strength commanded the respect of all nations, great and small, was quite accustomed to receive embassies from foreign parts; the first recorded instance being that of "An-tun" = Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, which reached China in A.D. 166. But because the tribute offered in this case contained no jewels, consisting merely of ivory, rhinoceros-horn, tortoise-shell, etc., which had been picked up in Annam, some have regarded it merely as a trading enterprise, and not really an embassy from the Roman Emperor; Chinese writers, on the other hand, suggest that the envoys sold the valuable jewels and bought a trumpery collection of tribute articles on the journey. By the end of Shun Chih's reign, the Manchus, once a petty tribe of hardy bowmen, far beyond the outskirts of the empire, were in undoubted possession of all China, of Manchuria, of Korea, of most of Mongolia, and even of the island of Formosa. How this island, discovered by the Chinese only in 1430, became Manchu property, is a story not altogether without romance. The leader of a large fleet of junks, traders or pirates as occasion served, known to the Portuguese of the day as Iquon, was compelled to place his services at the command of the last sovereign of the Ming dynasty, in whose cause he fought against the Manchu invaders along the coasts of Fuhkien and Kuangtung. In 1628 he tendered his submission to the Manchus, and for a time was well treated, and cleared the seas of other pirates. Gradually, however, he became too powerful, and it was deemed necessary to restrain him by force. He was finally induced to surrender to the Manchu general in Fuhkien; and having been made a prisoner, was sent to Peking, with two of his sons by a Japanese wife, together with other of his adherents, all of whom were executed upon arrival. Another son, familiar to foreigners under the name of Koxinga, a Portuguese corruption of his title, had remained behind with the fleet when his father surrendered, and he, determined to avenge his father's treacherous death, declared an implacable war against the Manchus. His piratical attacks on the coast of China had long been a terror to the inhabitants; to such an extent, indeed, that the populations of no fewer than eighty townships had been forced to remove inland. Then Formosa, upon which the Dutch had begun to form colonies in 1634, and where substantial portions of their forts are still to be seen, attracted his piratical eye. He attacked the Dutch, and succeeded in driving them out with great slaughter, thus possessing himself of the island; but gradually his followers began to drop off, in submission to the new dynasty, and at length he himself was reported to Peking as dead. In 1874, partly on the ground that he was really a supporter of the Ming dynasty and not a rebel, and partly on the ground that "he had founded in the midst of the waste of waters a dominion which he had transmitted to his descendants, and which was by them surrendered to the Imperial sway,"—a memorial was presented to the throne, asking that his spirit might be canonized as the guardian angel of Formosa, and that a shrine might be built in his honour. The request was granted. Consolidation of the empire thus won by the sword was carried out as follows. In addition to the large Manchu garrison at Peking, smaller garrisons were established at nine of the provincial capitals, and at ten other important points in the provinces. The Manchu commandant of each of the nine garrisons above mentioned, familiar to foreigners as the Tartar General, was so placed in order to act as a check upon the civil Governor or Viceroy, of whom he, strictly speaking, took precedence, though in practice their ranks have always been regarded as equal. With the empire at peace, the post of Tartar General has always been a sinecure, and altogether out of comparison with that of the Viceroy and his responsibilities; but in the case of a Viceroy suspected of disloyalty and collusion with rebels, the swift opportunity of the Tartar General was the great safeguard of the dynasty, further strengthened as he was by the regulation which gave to him the custody of the keys to the city gates. Those garrisons, the soldiers of which were accompanied by their wives and families, were from the first intended to be permanent institutions; and there until quite recently were to be found the descendants of the original drafts, not allowed to intermarry with their Chinese neighbours, but otherwise influenced to such an extent that their Manchu characteristics had almost entirely disappeared. In one direction the Manchus made a curious concession which, though entirely sentimental, was nevertheless well calculated to appeal to a proud though conquered people. A rule was established under which every Manchu high official, when memorializing the throne, was to speak of himself to the Emperor as "your Majesty's slave," whereas the term accepted from every Chinese high official was simply "your Majesty's servant." During the early years of Manchu rule, proficiency in archery was as much insisted on as in the days of Edward III with us; and even down to a few years ago Manchu Bannermen, as they came to be called, might be seen everywhere diligently practising the art—actually one of the six fine arts of China—by the aid of which their ancestors had passed from the state of a petty tribal community to possession of the greatest empire in the world. The term Bannerman, it may here be explained, is applied to all Manchus in reference to their organization under one or other of eight banners of different colour and design; besides which, there are also eight banners for Mongolians, and eight more for the descendants of those Chinese who sided with the Manchus against the Mings, and thus helped to establish the Great Pure dynasty. One of the first cares to the authorities of a newly-established dynasty in China is to provide the country with a properly authorized Penal Code, and this has usually been accomplished by accepting as basis the code of the preceding rulers, and making such changes or modifications as may be demanded by the...