E-text prepared by John Bickers and Dagny
and revised by David Widger, Kuwehe, Judith Wirawan, Juliet Sutherland,
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[Illustration: 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. K'ANG HSI                                      40

      V. YUNG CHÊNG AND CH'IEN LUNG                     52

     VI. CHIA CH'ING                                    61

    VII. TAO KUANG                                      69

   VIII. HSIEN FÊNG                                     81

     IX. T'UNG CHIH                                     98

      X. KUANG HSÜ                                     106

     XI. HSÜAN T'UNG                                   121

    XII. SUN YAT-SEN                                   129

         LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED                       141

         INDEX                                         142




ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAP

   A NÜ-CHÊN TARTAR (14_th Century_)        _Frontispiece_

   A KITAN TARTAR (14_th 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            as u in fun.
     i            as ie in thief.
     o            as aw in saw.
     u            as oo in soon.
     ü            as u in French, or ü in German.
     [)u]         as e in her.
     ai           as aye (yes).
     ao           as ow in cow.
     ei           as ey in prey.
     ow           as o (not as ow in cow).
     ch           as ch in church.
     chih         as chu in church.
     hs           as sh (hsiu = sheeoo).
     j            as in French.
     ua and uo    as wa and wo.

     The insertion of a rough breathing ' 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,
K'ai-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.

[Illustration: 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
K'ai-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 phoenix 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 'Phagspa, 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. Meanwhile
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 T'ai 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 T'ai 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 _Ch'ing_(or Ts'ing), 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 Tz[)u]-ch'êng 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
K'ai-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 Tz[)u]-ch'êng 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 Tz[)u]-ch'êng'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 Tz[)u]-ch'êng 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 Tz[)u]-ch'êng,
by-and-by to receive fit and proper burial at the hands of the
Manchus.

Li Tz[)u]-ch'êng 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 Tz[)u]-ch'êng'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 Ch'ing
Dynasty was established.

Li Tz[)u]-ch'êng, 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 Tz[)u]-ch'êng retreated westwards; and after
two vain attempts to check the pursuers, his army began to melt away.
Driven south, he held Wu-ch'ang 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 Ss[)u]ch'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 Ch'ing
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 _Anton_inus, 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 spirit of the times. It is
generally understood that such was the method adopted under the first
Manchu Emperor. The code of the Mings was carefully examined, its
severities were softened, and various additions and alterations were
made; the result being a legal instrument which has received almost
unqualified admiration from eminent Western lawyers. It has, however,
been stated that the true source of the Manchu code must be looked
for in the code of the T'ang dynasty (A.D. 618-905); possibly both
codes were used. Within the compass of historical times, the country
has never been without one, the first code having been drawn up by a
distinguished statesman so far back as 525 B.C. In any case, at the
beginning of the reign of Shun Chih a code was issued, which
contained only certain fundamental and unalterable laws for the
empire, with an Imperial preface, nominally from the hand of the
Emperor himself. The next step was to supply any necessary additions
and modifications; and as time went on these were further amended or
enlarged by Imperial decrees, founded upon current events,--a process
which has been going on down to the present day. The code therefore
consists of two parts: (1) immutable laws more or less embodying
great principles beyond the reach of revision, and (2) a body of
case-law which, since 1746, has been subject to revision every five
years. With the publication of the Penal Code, the legal
responsibilities of the new Emperor began and ended. There is not,
and never has been, anything in China of the nature of civil law,
beyond local custom and the application of common sense.

Towards the close of this reign, intercourse with China brought about
an economic revolution in the West, especially in England, the
importance of which it is difficult to realize sufficiently at this
distant date. A new drink was put on the breakfast-table, destined to
displace completely the quart of ale with which even Lady Jane Grey
is said to have washed down her morning bacon. It is mentioned by
Pepys, under the year 1660, as "tee (a China drink)," which he says
he had never tasted before. Two centuries later, the export of tea
from China had reached huge proportions, no less an amount than one
hundred million _lb._ having been exported in one season from Foochow
alone.




CHAPTER IV

K'ANG HSI


The Emperor Shun Chih was succeeded by his third son, known by his
year-title as K'ang Hsi (lasting prosperity), who was only eight
years old at the time of his accession. Twelve years later the new
monarch took up the reins of government, and soon began to make his
influence felt. Fairly tall and well proportioned, he loved all manly
exercises, and devoted three months annually to hunting. Large bright
eyes lighted up his face, which was pitted with smallpox.
Contemporary observers vie with one another in praising his wit,
understanding, and liberality of mind. He was not twenty when the
three feudatory princes broke into open rebellion. Of these, Wu
San-kuei, the virtual founder of the dynasty, who had been appointed
in 1659, was the chief; and it was at his instigation that his
colleagues who ruled in Kuangtung and Fuhkien determined to throw off
their allegiance and set up independent sovereignties. Within a few
months, K'ang Hsi found vast portions of the empire slipping from his
grasp; but though at one moment only the provinces of Chihli, Honan,
and Shantung were left to him in peaceable possession, he never lost
heart. The resources of Wu San-kuei were ultimately found to be
insufficient for the struggle, the issue of which was determined
partly by his death in 1678, and partly by the powerful artillery
manufactured for the Imperial forces by the Jesuit missionaries, who
were then in high favour at court. The capital city of Yünnan was
taken by assault in 1681, upon which Wu San-kuei's son committed
suicide, and the rebellion collapsed. From that date the Manchus
decided that there should be no more "princes" among their Chinese
subjects, and the rule has been observed until the present day.

Under the Emperor K'ang Hsi a re-arrangement of the empire was
planned and carried out; that is to say, whereas during the Mongol
dynasty there had only been thirteen provinces, increased to fifteen
by the Mings, there was now a further increase of three, thus
constituting what is known as the Eighteen Provinces, or China
Proper. To effect this, the old province of Kiangnan was divided into
the modern Anhui and Kiangsu; Kansuh was carved out of Shensi; and
Hukuang was separated into Hupeh and Hunan. Formosa, which was
finally reconquered in 1683, was made part of the province of
Fuhkien, and so remained for some two hundred years, when it was
erected into an independent province. Thus, for a time China Proper
consisted of nineteen provinces, until the more familiar "eighteen"
was recently restored by the transfer of Formosa to Japan. In
addition to the above, the eastern territory, originally inhabited by
the Manchus, was divided into the three provinces already mentioned,
all of which were at first organized upon a purely military basis;
but of late years the administration of the southernmost province, in
which stands Mukden, the Manchu capital, has been brought more into
line with that of China Proper.

In 1677 the East India Company established an agency at Amoy, which,
though withdrawn in 1681, was re-established in 1685. The first
treaty with Russia was negotiated in 1679, but less than ten years
later a further treaty was found necessary, under which it was agreed
that the river Amur was to be the boundary-line between the two
dominions, the Russians giving up possession of both banks. Thus
Ya-k'o-sa, or Albazin, was ceded by Russia to China, and some of the
inhabitants, who appear to have been either pure Russians or
half-castes, were sent as prisoners to Peking, where religious
instruction was provided for them according to the rules of the
orthodox church. All the descendants of these Albazins probably
perished in the destruction of the Russian college during the siege
of the Legations in 1900. Punitive expeditions against Galdan and
Arabtan carried the frontiers of the empire to the borders of Khokand
and Badakshan, and to the confines of Tibet.

Galdan was a khan of the Kalmucks, who succeeded in establishing his
rule through nearly the whole of Turkestan, after attaining his
position by the murder of a brother. He attacked the Khalkas, and
thus incurred the resentment of K'ang Hsi, whose subjects they were;
and in order to strengthen his power, he applied to the Dalai Lama
for ordination, but was refused. He then feigned conversion to
Mahometanism, though without attracting Mahometan sympathies. In 1689
the Emperor in person led an army against him, crossing the deadly
desert of Gobi for this purpose. Finally, after a further expedition
and a decisive defeat in 1693, Galdan became a fugitive, and died
three years afterwards. He was succeeded as khan by his nephew,
Arabtan, who soon took up the offensive against China. He invaded
Tibet, and pillaged the monasteries as far as Lhasa; but was
ultimately driven back by a Manchu army to Sungaria, where he was
murdered in 1727.

The question of the calendar early attracted attention under the
reign of K'ang Hsi. After the capture of Peking in 1644, the Manchus
had employed the Jesuit Father, Schaal, upon the Astronomical Board,
an appointment which, owing to the jealousies aroused, very nearly
cost him his life. What he taught was hardly superior to the
astronomy then in vogue, which had been inherited from the Mongols,
being nothing more than the old Ptolemaic system, already discarded
in Europe. In 1669, a Flemish Jesuit Father from Courtrai, named
Verbiest, was placed upon the Board, and was entrusted with the
correction of the calendar according to more recent investigations.

Christianity was officially recognized in 1692, and an Imperial edict
was issued ordering its toleration throughout the empire. The
discovery of the Nestorian Tablet in 1625 had given a considerable
impulse, in spite of its heretical associations, to Christian
propagandism; and it was estimated that in 1627 there were no fewer
than thirteen thousand converts, many of whom were highly placed
officials, and even members of the Imperial family. An important
question, however, now came to a head, and completely put an end to
the hope that China under the Manchus might embrace the Roman
Catholic faith. The question was this: May converts to Christianity
continue the worship of ancestors? Ricci, the famous Jesuit, who died
in 1610, and who is the only foreigner mentioned by name in the
dynastic histories of China, was inclined to regard worship of
ancestors more as a civil than a religious rite. He probably foresaw,
as indeed time has shown, that ancestral worship would prove to be an
insuperable obstacle to many inquirers, if they were called upon to
discard it once and for all; at the same time, he must have known
that an invocation to spirits, coupled with the hope of obtaining
some benefit therefrom, is _worship_ pure and simple, and cannot be
explained away as an unmeaning ceremony.

Against the Jesuits in this matter were arrayed the Dominicans and
Franciscans; and the two parties fought the question before several
Popes, sometimes one side carrying its point, and sometimes the
other. At length, in 1698, a fresh petition was forwarded by the
Jesuit order in China, asking the Pope to sanction the practice of
this rite by native Christians, and also praying that the Chinese
language might be used in the celebration of mass. K'ang Hsi
supported the Jesuits in the view that ancestral worship was a
harmless ceremony; but after much wrangling, and the dispatch of a
Legate to the Manchu court, the Pope decided against the Jesuits and
their Imperial ally. This was too much for the pride of K'ang Hsi,
and he forthwith declared that in future he would only allow
facilities for preaching to those priests who shared his view. In
1716, an edict was issued, banishing all missionaries unless excepted
as above. The Emperor had indeed been annoyed by another
ecclesiastical squabble, on a minor scale of importance, which had
been raging almost simultaneously around the choice of an appropriate
Chinese term for God. The term approved, if not suggested, by K'ang
Hsi, and indisputably the right one, as shown by recent research, was
set aside by the Pope in 1704 in favour of one which was supposed for
a long time to have been coined for the purpose, but which had really
been applied for many centuries previously to one of the eight
spirits of ancient mythology.

In addition to his military campaign, K'ang Hsi carried out several
journeys of considerable length, and managed to see something of the
empire beyond the walls of Peking. He climbed the famous mountain,
T'ai-shan, in Shantung, the summit of which had been reached in 219
B.C. by the famous First Emperor, burner of the books and part
builder of the Great Wall, and where a century later another Emperor
had instituted a mysterious worship of Heaven and Earth. The ascent
of T'ai-shan had been previously accomplished by only six Emperors in
all, the last of whom went up in the year 1008; since K'ang Hsi no
further Imperial attempts have been made, so that his will close the
list in connexion with the Manchu dynasty. It was on this occasion
too that he visited the tomb of Confucius, also in Shantung.

The vagaries of the Yellow River, named "China's Sorrow" by a later
Emperor, were always a source of great anxiety to K'ang Hsi; so much
so that he paid a personal visit to the scene, and went carefully
into the various plans for keeping the waters to a given course.
Besides causing frequently recurring floods, with immense loss of
life and property, this river has a way of changing unexpectedly its
bed; so lately as 1856, it turned off at right angles near the city
of K'ai-fêng, in Honan, and instead of emptying itself into the
Yellow Sea about latitude 34°, found a new outlet in the Gulf of
Peichili, latitude 38°.

K'ang Hsi several times visited Hangchow, returning to Tientsin by
the Grand Canal, a distance of six hundred and ninety miles. This
canal, it will be remembered, was designed and executed under Kublai
Khan in the thirteenth century, and helped to form an almost unbroken
line of water communication between Peking and Canton. At Hangchow,
during one visit, he held an examination of all the (so-called)
B.A.'s and M.A.'s, especially to test their poetical skill; and he
also did the same at Soochow and Nanking, taking the opportunity,
while at Nanking, to visit the mausoleum of the founder of the Ming
dynasty, who lies buried near by, and whose descendants had been
displaced by the Manchus. Happily for K'ang Hsi's complacency, the
book of fate is hidden from Emperors, as well as from subjects,--

   All but the page prescribed, their present state

and he was unable to foresee another visit paid to that mausoleum two
hundred and seven years later, under very different conditions, to
which we shall come in due course.

The census has always been an important institution in China. Without
going back so far as the legendary golden age, the statistics of
which have been invented by enthusiasts, we may accept unhesitatingly
such records as we find subsequent to the Christian era, on the
understanding that these returns are merely approximate. They could
hardly be otherwise, inasmuch as the Chinese count families and not
heads, roughly allowing five souls to each household. This plan
yields a total of rather over fifty millions for the year A.D. 156,
and one hundred and five millions for the fortieth year of the reign
of K'ang Hsi, 1701.

No record of this Emperor, however brief, could fail to notice the
literary side of his character, and his extraordinary achievements in
this direction. It is almost paradoxical, though absolutely true,
that two Manchu Emperors, sprung from a race which but a few decades
before had little thought for anything beyond war and the chase, and
which had not even a written language of its own, should have
conferred more benefits upon the student of literature than all the
rest of China's Emperors put together. The literature in question is,
of course, Chinese literature. Manchu was the court language, spoken
as well as written, for many years after 1644, and down to quite
recent times all official documents were in duplicate, one copy in
Chinese and one in Manchu; but a Manchu literature can hardly be said
to exist, beyond translations of all the most important Chinese
works. The Manchu dynasty is an admirable illustration of the old
story: conquerors taken captive by the conquered.

At this moment, the term "K'ang Hsi" is daily on the lips of every
student of the Chinese language, native or foreign, throughout the
empire. This is due to the fact that the Emperor caused to be
produced under his own personal superintendence, on a more extensive
scale and a more systematic plan than any previous work of the kind,
a lexicon of the Chinese language, containing over forty thousand
characters, with numerous illustrative phrases chronologically
arranged, the spelling of each character according to the method
introduced by Buddhist teachers and first used in the third century,
the tones, various readings, etc., etc., altogether a great work and
still without a rival at the present day.

It would be tedious even to enumerate all the various literary
undertakings conceived and carried out under the direction of K'ang
Hsi; but there are two works in particular which cannot be passed
over. One of these is the huge illustrated encyclopædia in which
everything which has ever been said upon each of a vast array of
subjects is brought into a systematized book of reference, running to
many hundred volumes, and being almost a complete library in itself.
It was printed, after the death of K'ang Hsi, from movable copper
types. The other is, if anything, a still more extraordinary though
not such a voluminous work. It is a concordance to all literature;
not of words, but of phrases. A student meeting with an unfamiliar
combination of characters can turn to its pages and find every
passage given, in sufficient fullness, where the phrase in question
has been used by poet, historian, or essayist.

The last years of K'ang Hsi were beclouded by family troubles. For
some kind of intrigue, in which magic played a prominent part, he had
been compelled to degrade the Heir Apparent, and to appoint another
son to the vacant post; but a year or two later, this son was found
to be mentally deranged, and was placed under restraint. So things
went on for several more years, the Emperor apparently unable to make
up his mind as to the choice of a successor; and it was not until the
last day of his life that he finally decided in favour of his fourth
son. Dying in 1723, his reign had already extended beyond the Chinese
cycle of sixty years, a feat which no Emperor of China, in historical
times, had ever before achieved, but which was again to be
accomplished, before the century was out, by his grandson.




CHAPTER V

YUNG CHÊNG AND CH'IEN LUNG


The fourth son of K'ang Hsi came to the throne under the year-title
of Yung Chêng (harmonious rectitude). He was confronted with serious
difficulties from the very first. Dissatisfaction prevailed among his
numerous brothers, at least one of whom may have felt that he had a
better claim to rule than his junior in the family. This feeling
culminated in a plot to dethrone Yung Chêng, which was, however,
discovered in time, and resulted only in the degradation of the
guilty brothers. The fact that among his opponents were native
Christians--some say that the Jesuits were at the bottom of all the
mischief--naturally influenced the Emperor against Christianity; no
fewer than three hundred churches were destroyed, and all Catholic
missionaries were thenceforward obliged to live either at Peking or
at Macao. In 1732 he thought of expelling them altogether; but
finding that they were enthusiastic teachers of filial piety, he left
them alone, merely prohibiting fresh recruits from coming to China.

These domestic troubles were followed by a serious rebellion in
Kokonor, which was not fully suppressed until the next reign; also by
an outbreak among the aborigines of Kueichow and Yünnan, which lasted
until three years later, when the tribesmen were brought under
Imperial rule.

A Portuguese envoy, named Magalhaens (or Magaillans), visited Peking
in 1727, bearing presents for the Emperor; but nothing very much
resulted from his mission. In 1730, in addition to terrible floods,
there was a severe earthquake, which lasted ten days, and in which
one hundred thousand persons are said to have lost their lives. In
1735, Yung Chêng's reign came to an end amid sounds of a further
outbreak of the aborigines in Kueichow. Before his death, he named
his fourth son, then only fifteen, as his successor, under the
regency of two of the boy's uncles and two Grand Secretaries, one of
the latter being a distinguished scholar, who was entrusted with the
preparation of the history of the Ming dynasty. Yung Chêng's name has
always been somewhat unfairly associated by foreigners with a bitter
hostility to the Catholic priests of his day, simply because he
refused to allow them a free hand in matters outside their proper
sphere. Altogether, it may be said that he was a just and
public-spirited ruler, anxious for his people's welfare. He hated
war, and failed to carry on his father's vigorous policy in Central
Asia; nevertheless, by 1730, Chinese rule extended to the Laos
border, and the Shan States paid tribute. He was a man of letters,
and completed some of his father's undertakings.

Yung Chêng's successor was twenty-five years of age when he came to
the throne with the year-title of Ch'ien Lung (or Kien Long =
enduring glory), and one of his earliest acts was to forbid the
propagation of Christian doctrine, a prohibition which developed
between 1746 and 1785 into active persecution of its adherents. The
first ten years of this reign were spent chiefly in internal
reorganization; the remainder, which covered half a century, was
almost a continuous succession of wars. The aborigines of Kueichow,
known as the Miao-tz[)u], offered a determined resistance to all
attempts to bring them under the regular administration; and although
they were ultimately conquered, it was deemed advisable not to insist
upon the adoption of the queue, and also to leave them a considerable
measure of self-government. Acting under Manchu guidance, chiefs and
leading tribesmen were entrusted with important executive offices;
they had to keep the peace among their people, and to collect the
revenue of local produce to be forwarded to Peking. These posts were
hereditary. On the death of the father, the eldest son proceeded to
Peking and received his appointment in person, together with his seal
of office. Failing sons or their children, brothers had the right of
succession.

In 1741 the population was estimated by Père Amiot, S.J., at over one
hundred and fifty millions, as against twenty-one million households
in 1701.

In 1753 there was trouble in Ili. After the death of Galdan II., son
of Arabtan, an attempt was made by one, Amursana, to usurp the
principality. He was, however, driven out, and fled to Peking, where
he was favourably received by Ch'ien Lung, and an army was sent to
reinstate him. With the subsequent settlement, under which he was to
have only one quarter of Ili, Amursana was profoundly dissatisfied,
and took the earliest opportunity of turning on his benefactors. He
murdered the Manchu-Chinese garrison and all the other Chinese he
could find, and proclaimed himself khan of the Eleuths. His triumph
was short-lived; another army was sent from Peking, this time against
him, and he fled into Russian territory, dying there soon afterwards
of smallpox. This campaign was lavishly illustrated by Chinese
artists, who produced a series of realistic pictures of the battles
and skirmishes fought by Ch'ien Lung's victorious troops. How far
these were prepared under the guidance of the Jesuit Fathers does not
seem to be known. About sixty years previously, under the reign of
K'ang Hsi, the Jesuits had carried out extensive surveys, and had
drawn fairly accurate maps of Chinese territory, which had been sent
to Paris and there engraved on copper by order of Louis XIV. In like
manner, the pictures now in question were forwarded to Paris and
engraved, between 1769 and 1774, by skilled draughtsmen, as may be
gathered from the lettering at the foot of each; for instance--_Gravé
par J. P. Le Bas, graveur du cabinet du roi_ (Cambridge University
Library).

Kuldja and Kashgaria were next added to the empire, and Manchu
supremacy was established in Tibet. Burma and Nepal were forced to
pay tribute, after a disastrous war (1766-1770) with the former
country, in which a Chinese army had been almost exterminated;
rebellions in Ss[)u]ch'uan (1770), Shantung (1777), and Formosa
(1786) were suppressed.

Early in the eighteenth century, the Turguts, a branch of the Kalmuck
Tartars, unable to endure the oppressive tyranny of their rulers,
trekked into Russia, and settled on the banks of the Volga. Some
seventy years later, once more finding the burden of taxation too
heavy, they again organized a trek upon a colossal scale. Turning
their faces eastward, they spent a whole year of fearful suffering
and privation in reaching the confines of Ili, a terribly diminished
host. There they received a district, and were placed under the
jurisdiction of a khan. This journey has been dramatically described
by De Quincey in an essay entitled "Revolt of the Tartars, or Flight
of the Kalmuck Khan and his people from the Russian territories to
the Frontiers of China." Of this contribution to literature it is
only necessary to remark that the scenes described, and especially
the numbers mentioned, must be credited chiefly to the perfervid
imagination of the essayist, and also to certain not very trustworthy
documents sent home by Père Amiot. It is probable that about one
hundred and sixty thousand Turguts set out on that long march, of
whom only some seventy thousand reached their goal.

In 1781, the Dungans (or Tungans) of Shensi broke into open
rebellion, which was suppressed only after huge losses to the
Imperialists. These Dungans were Mahometan subjects of China, who in
very early times had colonized, under the name of Gao-tchan, in
Kansuh and Shensi, and subsequently spread westward into Turkestan.
Some say that they were a distinct race, who, in the fifth and sixth
centuries, occupied the Tian Shan range, with their capital at
Harashar. The name, however, means, in the dialect of Chinese
Tartary, "converts," that is, to Mahometanism, to which they were
converted in the days of Timour by an Arabian adventurer. We shall
hear of them again in a still more serious connexion.

Eight years later there was a revolution in Cochin-China. The king
fled to China, and Ch'ien Lung promptly espoused his cause, sending
an army to effect his restoration. This was no sooner accomplished
than the chief Minister rebelled, and, rapidly attracting large
numbers to his standard, succeeded in cutting off the retreat of the
Chinese force. Ch'ien Lung then sent another army, whereupon the
rebel Minister submitted, and humbled himself so completely that the
Emperor appointed him to be king instead of the other. After this,
the Annamese continued to forward tribute, but it was deemed
advisable to cease from further interference with their government.

The next trouble was initiated by the Gurkhas, who, in 1790, raided
Tibet. On being defeated and pursued by a Chinese army, they gave up
all the booty taken, and entered into an agreement to pay tribute
once every five years.

The year 1793 was remarkable for the arrival of an English embassy
under Lord Macartney, who was received in audience by the Emperor at
Jehol (= hot river), an Imperial summer residence lying about a
hundred miles north of Peking, beyond the Great Wall. It had been
built in 1780 after the model of the palace of the Panshen Erdeni at
Tashilumbo, in Tibet, when that functionary, the spiritual ruler of
Tibet, as opposed to the Dalai Lama, who is the secular ruler,
proceeded to Peking to be present on the seventieth anniversary of
Ch'ien Lung's birthday. Two years later, the aged Emperor, who had,
like his grandfather, completed his cycle of sixty years on the
throne, abdicated in favour of his son, dying in retirement four
years after. These two monarchs, K'ang Hsi and Ch'ien Lung, were
among the ablest, not only of Manchu rulers, but of any whose lot it
has been to shape the destinies of China. Ch'ien Lung was an
indefatigable administrator, a little too ready perhaps to plunge
into costly military expeditions, and somewhat narrow in the policy
he adopted towards the "outside barbarians" who came to trade at
Canton and elsewhere, but otherwise a worthy rival of his
grandfather's fame as a sovereign and patron of letters. From the
long list of works, mostly on a very extensive scale, produced under
his supervision, may be mentioned the new and revised editions of the
Thirteen Classics of Confucianism and of the Twenty-four Dynastic
Histories. In 1772 a search was instituted under Imperial orders for
all literary works worthy of preservation, and high provincial
officials vied with one another in forwarding rare and important
works to Peking. The result was the great descriptive Catalogue of
the Imperial Library, arranged under the four heads of Classics
(Confucianism), History, Philosophy, and General Literature, in which
all the facts known about each work are set forth, coupled with
judicious critical remarks,--an achievement which has hardly a
parallel in any literature in the world.




CHAPTER VI

CHIA CH'ING


Ch'ien Lung's son, who reigned as Chia Ch'ing (high felicity--not to
be confounded with Chia Ching of the Ming dynasty, 1522-1567), found
himself in difficulties from the very start. The year of his
accession was marked by a rising of the White Lily Society, one of
the dreaded secret associations with which China is, and always has
been, honeycombed. The exact origin of this particular society is not
known. A White Lily Society was formed in the second century A.D. by
a certain Taoist patriarch, and eighteen members were accustomed to
assemble at a temple in modern Kiangsi for purposes of meditation.
But this seems to have no connexion with the later sect, of which we
first hear in 1308, when its existence was prohibited, its shrines
destroyed, and its votaries forced to return to ordinary life.
Members of the fraternity were then believed to possess a knowledge
of the black art; and later on, in 1622, the society was confounded
by Chinese officials in Shantung with Christianity. In the present
instance, it is said that no fewer than thirty thousand adherents
were executed before the trouble was finally suppressed; from which
statement it is easy to gather that under whatever form the White
Lily Society may have been originally initiated, its activities were
now of a much more serious character, and were, in fact, plainly
directed against the power and authority of the Manchus.

Almost from this very date may be said to have begun that turn of the
tide which was to reach its flood a hundred years afterwards. The
Manchus came into power, as conquerors by force of arms, at a time
when the mandate of the previous dynasty had been frittered away in
corruption and misrule; and although to the Chinese eye they were
nothing more than "stinking Tartars," there were not wanting many
glad enough to see a change of rule at any price. Under the first
Emperor, Shun Chih, there was barely time to find out what the new
dynasty was going to do; then came the long and glorious reign of
K'ang Hsi, followed, after the thirteen harmless years of Yung Chêng,
by the equally long and equally glorious reign of Ch'ien Lung. The
Chinese people, who, strictly speaking, govern themselves in the most
democratic of all republics, have not the slightest objection to the
Imperial tradition, which has indeed been their continuous heritage
from remotest antiquity, provided that public liberties are duly
safeguarded, chiefly in the sense that there shall always be equal
opportunities for all. They are quick to discover the character of
their rulers, and discovery in an unfavourable direction leads to an
early alteration of popular thought and demeanour. At the beginning
of the seventeenth century, they had tired of eunuch oppression and
unjust taxation, and they naturally hailed the genuine attempt in
1662 to get rid of eunuchs altogether, coupled with the persistent
efforts of K'ang Hsi, and later of Ch'ien Lung, to lighten the
burdens of revenue which weighed down the energies of all. But
towards the end of his reign Ch'ien Lung had become a very old man;
and the gradual decay of his powers of personal supervision opened a
way for the old abuses to creep in, bringing in their train the usual
accompaniment of popular discontent.

The Emperor Chia Ch'ing, a worthless and dissolute ruler, never
commanded the confidence of his people as his great predecessors had
done, nor had he the same confidence in them. This want of mutual
trust was not confined to his Chinese subjects only. In 1799,
Ho-shên, a high Manchu official who had been raised by Ch'ien Lung
from an obscure position to be a Minister of State and Grand
Secretary, was suspected, probably without a shadow of evidence, of
harbouring designs upon the throne. He was seized and tried,
nominally for corruption and undue familiarity, and was condemned to
death, being allowed as an act of grace to commit suicide.

In 1803 the Emperor was attacked in the streets of Peking; and ten
years later there was a serious outbreak organized by a secret
society in Honan, known as the Society of Divine Justice, and
alternatively as the White Feather Society, from the badge worn by
those members who took part in the actual movement, which happened as
follows. An attack upon the palace during the Emperor's absence on a
visit to the Imperial tombs was arranged by the leaders, who
represented a considerable body of malcontents, roused by the wrongs
which their countrymen were suffering all over the empire at the
hands of their Manchu rulers. By promises of large rewards and
appointments to lucrative offices when the Manchus should be got rid
of, the collusion of a number of the eunuchs was secured; and on a
given day some four hundred rebels, disguised as villagers carrying
baskets of fruit in which arms were concealed, collected about the
gates of the palace. Some say that one of the leaders was betrayed,
others that the eunuchs made a mistake in the date; at any rate there
was a sudden rush on the part of the conspirators, the guards at the
gates were overpowered, every one who was not wearing a white feather
was cut down, and the palace seemed to be at the mercy of the rebels.
The latter, however, were met by a desperate resistance from the
young princes, who shot down several of them, and thus alarmed the
soldiers. Assistance was promptly at hand, and the rebels were all
killed or captured. Immediate measures were taken to suppress the
Society, of which it is said that over twenty thousand members were
executed, and as many more sent in exile to Ili.

Not one, however, of the numerous secret societies, which from time
to time have flourished in China, can compare for a moment either in
numbers or organization with the formidable association known as the
Heaven and Earth Society, and also as the Triad Society, or Hung
League, which dates from the reign of Yung Chêng, and from first to
last has had one definite aim,--the overthrow of the Manchu dynasty.

The term "Triad" signifies the harmonious union of heaven (_q.d._
God), earth, and man; and members of the fraternity communicate to
one another the fact of membership by pointing first up to the sky,
then down to the ground, and last to their own hearts. The Society
was called the Hung League, because all the members adopted Hung as a
surname, a word which suggests the idea of a cataclysm. By a series
of lucky chances the inner working of this Society became known about
fifty years ago, when a mass of manuscripts containing the history of
the Society, its ritual, oaths, and secret signs, together with an
elaborate set of drawings of flags and other regalia, fell into the
hands of the Dutch Government at Batavia. These documents, translated
by Dr G. Schlegel, disclose an extraordinary similarity in many
respects between the working of Chinese lodges and the working of
those which are more familiar to us as temples of the Ancient Order
of Free and Accepted Masons. Such points of contact, however, as may
be discoverable, are most probably mere coincidences; if not, and if,
as is generally understood, the ritual of the European craft was
concocted by Cagliostro, then it follows that he must have borrowed
from the Chinese, and not the Chinese from him. The use of the square
and compasses as symbols of moral rectitude, which forms such a
striking feature of European masonry, finds no place in the
ceremonial of the Triad Society, although recognized as such in
Chinese literature from the days of Confucius, and still so employed
in the every-day colloquial of China.

In 1816 Lord Amherst's embassy reached Peking. Its object was to
secure some sort of arrangement under which British merchants might
carry on trade after a more satisfactory manner than had been the
case hitherto. The old Co-hong, a system first established in 1720,
under which certain Chinese merchants at Canton became responsible to
the local authorities for the behaviour of the English merchants, and
to the latter for all debts due to them, had been so complicated by
various oppressive laws, that at one time the East India Company had
threatened to stop all business. Lord Amherst, however, accomplished
nothing in the direction of reform. From the date of his landing at
Tientsin, he was persistently told that unless he agreed to perform
the _kotow_, he could not possibly be admitted to an audience. It was
probably his equally persistent refusal to do so--a ceremonial which
had been excused by Ch'ien Lung in the case of Lord Macartney--that
caused the Ministers to change their tactics, and to declare, on Lord
Amherst's arrival at the Summer Palace, tired and wayworn, that the
Emperor wished to see him immediately. Not only had the presents, of
which he was the bearer, not arrived at the palace, but he and his
suite, among whom were Sir George Stanton, Dr Morrison, and Sir John
Davis, had not received the trunks containing their uniforms. It was
therefore impossible for the ambassador to present himself before the
Emperor, and he flatly refused to do so; whereupon he received orders
to proceed at once to the sea-coast, and take himself off to his own
country. A curious comment on this fiasco was made by Napoleon, who
thought that the English Government had acted wrongly in not having
ordered Lord Amherst to comply with the custom of the place he was
sent to; otherwise, he should not have been sent at all. "It is my
opinion that whatever is the custom of a nation, and is practised by
the first characters of that nation towards their chief, cannot
degrade strangers who perform the same."

In 1820 Chia Ch'ing died, after a reign of twenty-five years,
notable, if for nothing else, as marking the beginning of Manchu
decadence, evidence of which is to be found in the unusually restless
temper of the people, and even in such apparent trifles as the
abandonment of the annual hunting excursions, always before carried
out on an extensive scale, and presenting, as it were, a surviving
indication of former Manchu hardihood and personal courage. He was
succeeded by his second son, who was already forty years of age, and
whose hitherto secluded life had ill-prepared him for the difficult
problems he was shortly called upon to face.




CHAPTER VII

TAO KUANG


Tao Kuang (glory of right principle), as he is called, from the style
chosen for his reign, gave promise of being a useful and enlightened
ruler; at the least a great improvement on his father. He did his
best at first to purify the court, but his natural indolence stood in
the way of any real reform, and with the best intentions in the world
he managed to leave the empire in a still more critical condition
than that in which he had found it. Five years after his accession,
his troubles began in real earnest. There was a rising of the people
in Kashgaria, due to criminal injustice practised over a long spell
of time on the part of the Chinese authorities. The rebels found a
leader in the person of Jehangir, who claimed descent from one of the
old native chiefs, formerly recognized by the Manchu Emperors, but
now abolished as such. Thousands flocked to his standard; and by the
time an avenging army could arrive on the scene, he was already
master of the country. During the campaign which followed, his men
were defeated in battle after battle; and at length he himself was
taken prisoner and forwarded to Peking, where he failed to defend his
conduct, and was put to death.

The next serious difficulty which confronted the Emperor was a
rising, in 1832, of the wild Miao tribes of Kuangsi and Hunan, led by
a man who either received or adopted the title of the Golden Dragon.
At the bottom of all the trouble we find, as usually to be expected
henceforward, the secret activities of the far-reaching Triad
Society, which seized the occasion to foment into open rebellion the
dissatisfaction of the tribesmen with the glaring injustice they were
suffering at the hands of the local authorities. After some initial
massacres and reprisals, a general was sent to put an end to the
outbreak; but so far from doing this, he seems to have come off
second best in most of the battles which ensued, and was finally
driven into Kuangtung. For this he was superseded, and two
Commissioners dispatched to take charge of further operations. It
occurred to these officials that possibly persuasion might succeed
where violence had failed; and accordingly a proclamation was widely
circulated, promising pardon and redress of wrongs to all who would
at once return to their allegiance, and pointing out at the same time
the futility of further resistance. The effect of this move was
magical; within a few days the rebellion was over.

We are now reaching a period at which European complications began to
be added to the more legitimate worries of a Manchu Emperor. Trade
with the Portuguese, the Spaniards, the Dutch, and the English, had
been carried on since the early years of the sixteenth century, but
in a very haphazard kind of way, and under many vexatious
restrictions, bribery being the only effectual means of bringing
commercial ventures to a successful issue. So far back as 1680, the
East India Company had received its charter, and commercial relations
with Chinese merchants could be entered into by British subjects only
through this channel. Such machinery answered its purpose very well
for a long period; but a monopoly of the kind became out of date as
time went on, and in 1834 it ceased altogether. The Company was there
for the sake of trade, and for nothing else; and one of its guiding
principles was avoidance of any acts which might wound Chinese
susceptibilities, and tend to defeat the object of its own existence.
Consequently, the directors would not allow opium to be imported in
their vessels; neither were they inclined to patronize missionary
efforts. It is true that Morrison's dictionary was printed at the
expense of the Company, when the punishment for a native teaching a
foreigner the Chinese language was death; but no pecuniary assistance
was forthcoming when the same distinguished missionary attempted to
translate the Bible for distribution in China.

The Manchus, who had themselves entered the country as robbers of the
soil and spoliators of the people, were determined to do their best
to keep out all future intruders; and it was for this reason that,
suspicious of the aims of the barbarian, every possible obstacle was
placed in the way of those who wished to learn to speak and read
Chinese. This suspicion was very much increased in the case of
missionaries, whose real object the Manchus failed to appreciate, and
behind whose plea of religious propagandism they thought they
detected a deep-laid scheme for territorial aggression, to culminate
of course in their own overthrow; and already in 1805 an edict had
been issued, strictly forbidding anyone to teach even Manchu to any
foreigner.

From this date (1834), any British subject was free to engage in the
trade, and the Home Government sent out Lord Napier to act as Chief
Superintendent, and to enter into regular diplomatic relations with
the Chinese authorities. Lord Napier, however, even though backed by
a couple of frigates, was unable to gain admission to the city of
Canton, and after a demonstration, the only result of which was to
bring all business to a standstill, he was finally obliged in the
general interest to retire. He went to Macao, a small peninsula to
the extreme south-west of the Kuangtung province, famous as the
residence of the poet Camoens, and there he died a month later. Macao
was first occupied by the Portuguese trading with China in 1557;
though there is a story that in 1517 certain Portuguese landed there
under pretence of drying some tribute presents to the Emperor, which
had been damaged in a storm, and proceeded to fortify their
encampment, whereupon the local officials built a wall across the
peninsula, shutting off further access to the mainland. It also
appears that, in 1566, Macao was actually ceded to the Portuguese on
condition of payment of an annual sum to China, which payment ceased
after trouble between the two countries in 1849.

The next few years were employed by the successors of Lord Napier in
endeavours, often wrongly directed, to establish working, if not
harmonious, relations with the Chinese authorities; but no
satisfactory point was reached, for the simple reason that recent
events had completely confirmed the officials and people in their old
views as to the relative status of the barbarians and themselves.

It is worth noticing here that Russia, with her conterminous and
ever-advancing frontier, has always been regarded somewhat
differently from the oversea barbarian. She has continually during
the past three centuries been the dreaded foreign bogy of the
Manchus; and a few years back, when Manchus and Chinese alike fancied
that their country was going to be "chopped up like a melon" and
divided among western nations, a warning geographical cartoon was
widely circulated in China, showing Russia in the shape of a huge
bear stretching down from the north and clawing the vast areas of
Mongolia and Manchuria to herself.

Now, to aggravate the already difficult situation, the opium question
came suddenly to the front in an acute form. For a long time the
import of opium had been strictly forbidden by the Government, and
for an equally long time smuggling the drug in increasing quantities
had been carried on in a most determined manner until, finally, swift
vessels with armed crews, sailing under foreign flags, succeeded in
terrorizing the native revenue cruisers, and so delivering their
cargoes as they pleased. It appears that the Emperor Tao Kuang, who
had sounded the various high authorities on the subject, was
genuinely desirous of putting an end to the import of opium, and so
checking the practice of opium-smoking, which was already assuming
dangerous proportions; and in this he was backed up by Captain Elliot
(afterwards Sir Charles Elliot), now Superintendent of Trade, an
official whose vacillating policy towards the Chinese authorities did
much to precipitate the disasters about to follow. After a serious
riot had been provoked, in which the foreign merchants of Canton
narrowly escaped with their lives, and to quell which it was
necessary to call out the soldiery, the Emperor decided to put a
definite stop to the opium traffic; and for this purpose he appointed
one of his most distinguished servants, at that time Viceroy of
Hukuang, and afterwards generally known as Commissioner Lin, a name
much reverenced by the Chinese as that of a true patriot, and never
mentioned even by foreigners without respect. Early in 1839, Lin took
up the post of Viceroy of Kuangtung, and immediately initiated an
attack which, to say the least of it, deserved a better fate.

Within a few days a peremptory order was made for the delivery of all
opium in the possession of foreign merchants at Canton. This demand
was resisted, but for a short time only. All the foreign merchants,
together with Captain Elliot, who had gone up to Canton specially to
meet the crisis, found themselves prisoners in their own houses,
deprived of servants and even of food. Then Captain Elliot undertook,
on behalf of his Government, to indemnify British subjects for their
losses; whereupon no fewer than twenty thousand two hundred and
ninety-one chests of opium were surrendered to Commissioner Lin, and
the incident was regarded by the Chinese as closed. On receipt of the
Emperor's instructions, the whole of this opium, for which the owners
received orders on the Treasury at the rate of £120 per chest, was
mixed with lime and salt water, and was entirely destroyed.

Lin's subsequent demands were so arbitrary that at length the English
mercantile community retired altogether from Canton, and after a
futile attempt to settle at Macao, where their presence, owing to
Chinese influence with the Portuguese occupiers, was made unwelcome,
they finally found a refuge at Hongkong, then occupied only by a few
fishermen's huts. Further negotiations as to the renewal of trade
having fallen through, Lin gave orders for all British ships to leave
China within three days, which resulted in a fight between two
men-of-war and twenty-nine war-junks, in which the latter were either
sunk or driven off with great loss. In June, 1840, a British fleet of
seventeen men-of-war and twenty-seven troopships arrived at Hongkong;
Canton was blockaded; a port on the island of Chusan was subsequently
occupied; and Lord Palmerston's letter to the Emperor was carried to
Tientsin, and delivered there to the Viceroy of Chihli. Commissioner
Lin was now cashiered for incompetency; but was afterwards instructed
to act with the Viceroy of Chihli, who was sent down to supersede
him. Further vexatious action, or rather inaction, on the part of
these two at length drove Captain Elliot to an ultimatum; and as no
attention was paid to this, the Bogue forts near the mouth of the
Canton river were taken by the British fleet, after great slaughter
of the Chinese. In January, 1841, a treaty of peace was arranged,
under which the island of Hongkong was to be ceded to England, a sum
of over a million pounds was to be paid for the opium destroyed, and
satisfactory concessions were to be made in the matter of official
intercourse between the two nations. The Emperor refused
ratification, and ordered the extermination of the barbarians to be
at once proceeded with. Again the Bogue forts were captured, and
Canton would have been occupied but for another promised treaty, the
terms of which were accepted by Sir Henry Pottinger, who now
superseded Elliot. At this juncture the British fleet sailed
northwards, capturing Amoy and Ningpo, and occupying the island of
Chusan. The further capture of Chapu, where munitions of war in huge
quantities were destroyed, was followed by similar successes at
Shanghai and Chinkiang. At the last-mentioned, a desperate resistance
was offered by the Manchu garrison, who fought heroically against
certain defeat, and who, when all hope was gone, committed suicide in
large numbers rather than fall into the hands of the enemy, from
whom, in accordance with prevailing ideas and with what would have
been their own practice, they expected no quarter. The Chinese
troops, as distinguished from the Manchus, behaved differently; they
took to their heels before a shot had been fired. This behaviour,
which seems to be nothing more than arrant cowardice, is nevertheless
open to a more favourable interpretation. The yoke of the Manchu
dynasty was already beginning to press heavily, and these men felt
that they had no particular cause to fight for, certainly not such a
personal cause as then stared the Manchus in the face. The Manchu
soldiers were fighting for their all: their very supremacy was at
stake; while many of the Chinese troops were members of the Triad
Society, the chief object of which was to get rid of the alien
dynasty. It is thus, too, that we can readily explain the assistance
afforded to the enemy by numerous Cantonese, and the presence of many
as servants on board the vessels of our fleet; they did not help us
or accompany us from any lack of patriotism, of which virtue Chinese
annals have many striking examples to show, but because they were
entirely out of sympathy with their rulers, and would have been glad
to see them overthrown, coupled of course with the tempting pay and
good treatment offered by the barbarian.

It now remained to take Nanking, and thither the fleet proceeded in
August, 1842, with that purpose in view. This move the Chinese
authorities promptly anticipated by offering to come to terms in a
friendly way; and in a short time conditions of peace were arranged
under an important instrument, known as the Treaty of Nanking. Its
chief clauses provided for the opening to British trade of Canton,
Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo, and Shanghai, at which all British subjects
were to enjoy the rights of extra-territoriality, being subject to
the jurisdiction of their own officials only; also, for the cession
to England of the island of Hongkong, and for the payment of a lump
sum of about five million pounds as compensation for loss of opium,
expenses of the war, etc. All prisoners were to be released, and
there was a special amnesty for such Chinese as had given their
services to the British during the war. An equality of status between
the officials of both nations was further conceded, and suitable
rules were to be drawn up for the regulation of trade. The above
treaty having been duly ratified by Tao Kuang and by Queen Victoria,
it must then have seemed to British merchants that a new and
prosperous era had really dawned. But they counted without the
ever-present desire of the great bulk of the Chinese people to see
the last of the Manchus; and the Triad Society, stimulated no doubt
by the recent British successes, had already shown signs of unusual
activity when, in 1850, the Emperor died, and was succeeded by his
fourth son, who reigned under the title of Hsien Fêng (or Hien Fong =
universal plenty).




CHAPTER VIII

HSIEN FÊNG


Hsien Fêng came to the throne at the age of nineteen, and found
himself in possession of a heritage which showed evident signs of
going rapidly to pieces. His father, in the opinion of many competent
Chinese, had been sincerely anxious for the welfare of his country;
on the other hand, he had failed to learn anything from the lessons
he had received at the hands of foreigners, towards whom his attitude
to the last was of the bow-wow order. On one occasion, indeed, he
borrowed a classical phrase, and referring to the intrusions of the
barbarians, declared roundly that he would allow no man to snore
alongside of his bed. Brought up in this spirit, Hsien Fêng had
already begun to exhibit an anti-foreign bias, when he found himself
in the throes of a struggle which speedily reduced the European
question to quite insignificant proportions.

A clever young Cantonese, named Hung Hsiu-ch'üan, from whom great
things were expected, failed, in 1833, to secure the first degree at
the usual public examination. Four years later, when twenty-four
years of age, he made another attempt, only, however, to be once more
rejected. Chagrin at this second failure brought on melancholia, and
he began to see visions; and later on, while still in this depressed
state of mind, he turned his attention to some Christian tracts which
had been given to him on his first appearance at the examination, but
which he had so far allowed to remain unread. In these he discovered
what he thought were interpretations of his earlier dreams, and soon
managed to persuade himself that he had been divinely chosen to bring
to his countrymen a knowledge of the true God.

In one sense this would only have been reversion to a former
condition, for in ancient times a simple monotheism formed the whole
creed of the Chinese people; but Hung went much further, and after
having become head of a Society of God, he started a sect of
professing Christians, and set to work to collect followers, styling
himself the Brother of Christ. Gradually, the authorities became
aware of his existence, and also of the fact that he was drawing
together a following on a scale which might prove dangerous to the
public peace. It was then that force of circumstances changed his
status from that of a religious reformer to that of a political
adventurer; and almost simultaneously with the advent of Hsien Fêng
to the Imperial power, the long-smouldering discontent with Manchu
rule, carefully fostered by the organization of the Triad Society,
broke into open rebellion. A sort of holy war was proclaimed against
the Manchus, stigmatized as usurpers and idolaters, who were to be
displaced by a native administration, called the T'ai P'ing (great
peace) Heavenly Dynasty, at the head of which Hung placed himself,
with the title of "Heavenly King," in allusion to the Christian
principles on which this new departure was founded.

"Our Heavenly King," so ran the rebel proclamations, "has received a
divine commission to exterminate the Manchus utterly, men, women, and
children, with all idolaters, and to possess the empire as its true
sovereign. For the empire and everything in it is his; its mountains
and rivers, its broad lands and public treasuries; you and all that
you have, your family, males and females alike, from yourself to your
youngest child, and your property, from your patrimonial estates to
the bracelet on your infant's arm. We command the services of all,
and we take everything. All who resist us are rebels and idolatrous
demons, and we kill them without sparing; but whoever acknowledges
our Heavenly King and exerts himself in our service shall have full
reward,--due honour and station in the armies and court of the
Heavenly Dynasty."

The T'ai-p'ings now got rid of the chief outward sign of allegiance
to the Manchus, by ceasing to shave the forepart of the head, and
allowing all their hair to grow long, from which they were often
spoken of at the time--and the name still survives--as the
long-haired rebels. Their early successes were phenomenal; they
captured city after city, moving northwards through Kuangsi into
Hunan, whence, after a severe check at Ch'ang-sha, the provincial
capital, the siege of which they were forced to raise, they reached
and captured, among others, the important cities of Wu-ch'ang,
Kiukiang, and An-ch'ing, on the Yang-tsze. The next stage was to
Nanking, a city occupying an important strategic position, and famous
as the capital of the empire in the fourth and fourteenth centuries.
Here the Manchu garrison offered but a feeble resistance, the only
troops who fought at all being Chinese; within ten days (March, 1853)
the city was in the hands of the T'ai-p'ings; all Manchus,--men,
women, and children, said to number no fewer than twenty
thousand,--were put to the sword; and in the same month, Hung was
formally proclaimed first Emperor of the T'ai P'ing Heavenly Dynasty,
Nanking from this date receiving the name of the Heavenly City. So
far, the generals who had been sent to oppose his progress had
effected nothing. One of these was Commissioner Lin, of opium fame,
who had been banished and recalled, and was then living in retirement
after having successfully held several high offices. His health was
not equal to the effort, and he died on his way to take up his post.

After the further capture of Chinkiang, a feat which created a
considerable panic at Shanghai, a force was detached from the main
body of the T'ai-p'ings, and dispatched north for no less a purpose
than the capture of Peking. Apparently a fool-hardy project, it was
one that came nearer to realization than the most sanguine outsider
could possibly have suspected. The army reached Tientsin, which is
only eighty miles from the capital; but when there, a slight reverse,
together with other unexplained reasons, resulted in a return (1855)
of the troops without having accomplished their object. Meanwhile,
the comparative ease with which the T'ai-p'ings had set the Manchus
at defiance, and continued to hold their own, encouraged various
outbreaks in other parts of the empire; until at length more
systematic efforts were made to put a stop to the present impossible
condition of affairs.

Opportunity just now was rather on the side of the Imperialists, as
the futile expedition to Peking had left the rebels in a somewhat
aimless state, not quite knowing what to do next. It is true that
they were busy spreading the T'ai-p'ing conception of Christianity,
in establishing schools, and preparing an educational literature to
meet the exigencies of the time. They achieved the latter object by
building anew on the lines, but not in the spirit, of the old. Thus,
the Trimetrical Classic, the famous schoolboy's handbook, a veritable
guide to knowledge in which a variety of subjects are lightly touched
upon, was entirely rewritten. The form, rhyming stanzas with three
words to each line, was preserved; but instead of beginning with the
familiar Confucian dogma that man's nature is entirely good at his
birth and only becomes depraved by later environment, we find the
story of the Creation, taken from the first chapter of Genesis.

By 1857, Imperialist troops were drawing close lines around the
rebels, who had begun to lose rather than to gain ground. An-ch'ing
and Nanking, the only two cities which remained to them, were
blockaded, and the Manchu plan was simply to starve the enemy out.
During this period we hear little of the Emperor, Hsien Fêng; and
what we do hear is not to his advantage. He had become a confirmed
debauchee, in the hands of a degraded clique, whose only contribution
to the crisis was a suggested issue of paper money and debasement of
the popular coinage. Among his generals, however, there was now one,
whose name is still a household word all over the empire, and who
initiated the first checks which led to the ultimate suppression of
the rebellion. Tsêng Kuo-fan had been already employed in high
offices, when, in 1853, he was first ordered to take up arms against
the T'ai-p'ings. After some reverses, he entered upon a long course
of victories by which the rebels were driven from most of their
strongholds; and in 1859, he submitted a plan for an advance on
Nanking, which was approved and ultimately carried out. Meanwhile,
the plight of the besieged rebels in Nanking had become so unbearable
that something had to be done. A sortie on a large scale was
accordingly organized, and so successful was it that the T'ai-p'ings
not only routed the besieging army, but were able to regain large
tracts of territory, capturing at the same time huge stores of arms
and munitions of war. These victories were in reality the death-blow
to the rebel cause, for the brutal cruelty then displayed towards the
unfortunate people at large was of such a character as to alienate
completely the sympathy of thousands who might otherwise have been
glad to see the end of the Manchus. Among other acts of desolation,
the large and beautiful city of Soochow was burnt and looted, an
outrage for which the T'ai-p'ings were held responsible, and
regarding which there is a pathetic tale told by an eye-witness of
the ruins; in this instance, however, if indeed in no others, the
acts of vandalism in question were committed by Imperialist soldiers.

It is with the T'ai-p'ing rebellion that we associate _likin_, a tax
which has for years past been the bugbear of the foreign merchant in
China. The term means "thousandth-part money," that is, the
thousandth part of a _tael_ or Chinese ounce of silver, say one
_cash_; and it was originally applied to a tax of one _cash_ per tael
on all sales, said to have been voluntarily imposed on themselves by
the people, as a temporary measure, with a view to make up the
deficiency in the land-tax caused by the rebellion. It was to be set
apart for military purposes only--hence its common name "war-tax";
but it soon drifted into the general body of taxation, and became a
serious impost on foreign trade. We first hear of it in 1852, as
collected by the Governor of Shantung; to hear the last of it has
long been the dream of those who wish to see the expansion of trade
with China.

Tsêng Kuo-fan was now (1860) appointed Imperial War Commissioner as
well as Viceroy of the Two Kiang (= provinces of Kiangsi and Kiangsu
+ Anhui). He had already been made a _baturu_, a kind of order
instituted by the first Manchu Emperor, Shun Chih, as a reward for
military prowess; and had also received the Yellow Riding Jacket from
the Emperor Hsien Fêng, who drew off the jacket he was himself
wearing at the time, and placed it on the shoulders of his loyal and
successful general. In 1861 he succeeded in recapturing An-ch'ing and
other places; and with this city as his headquarters, siege was
forthwith laid to Nanking.

The Imperialist forces were at this juncture greatly strengthened by
the appointment, on Tsêng's recommendation, of two notable men, Tso
Tsung-t'ang and Li Hung-chang, as Governors of Chehkiang and Kiangsu
respectively. Assistance, too, came from another and most unexpected
quarter. An American adventurer, named Ward, a man of considerable
military ability, organized a small force of foreigners, which he led
to such purpose against the T'ai-p'ings, that he rapidly gathered
into its ranks a large if motley crowd of foreigners and Chinese, all
equally bent upon plunder, and with that end in view submitting to
the discipline necessary to success. A long run of victories gained
for this force the title of the Ever Victorious Army; until at length
Ward was killed in battle. He was buried at Sungkiang, near Shanghai,
a city which he had retaken from the T'ai-p'ings, and there a shrine
was erected to his memory, and for a long time--perhaps even
now--offerings were made to his departed spirit. An attempt was made
to replace him by another American named Burgevine, who had been
Ward's second in command. This man, however, was found to be
incapable and was superseded; and in 1863 Major Gordon, R.E., was
allowed by the British authorities to take over command of what was
then an army of about five thousand men, and to act in co-operation
with Tsêng Kuo-fan and Li Hung-chang. Burgevine shortly afterwards
went over to the rebels with about three hundred men, and finally
came to a tragic end.

Gordon's appointment to the work which will always be associated with
his name, was speedily followed by disastrous results to the
T'ai-p'ings. The Ever Victorious troops, who had recently been
worsted in more than one encounter with their now desperate enemies,
began to retrieve their reputation, greatly stimulated by the regular
pay which Gordon always insisted upon. Towards the close of the year,
the siege of Soochow ended in a capitulation on terms which Gordon
understood to include a pardon for the eight T'ai-p'ing "princes"
engaged in its defence. These eight were hurriedly decapitated by
order of Li Hung-chang, and Gordon immediately resigned, after having
searched that same night, so the story goes, revolver in hand, for Li
Hung-chang, whose brains he had determined to blow out on the spot.
The Emperor sent him a medal and a present of about £3,000, both of
which he declined; and Imperial affairs would again have been in a
bad way, but that Gordon, yielding to a sense of duty, agreed to
resume command. Foreign interests had begun to suffer badly; trade
was paralysed; and something had to be done. Further successes under
Gordon's leadership reduced the T'ai-p'ings to their last extremity.
Only Nanking remained to be captured, and that was already fully
invested by Tsêng Kuo-fan. Gordon therefore laid down his command,
and was rewarded with the title of Provincial Commander-in-Chief, and
also with the bestowal of the Yellow Riding Jacket. A month or so
later (July, 1864), Nanking was carried by storm, defended bravely to
the last by the only remaining "prince," the Heavenly King himself
having taken poison three weeks beforehand. This prince escaped with
the new king, a boy of sixteen, who had just succeeded his father;
but he was soon caught and executed, having first been allowed time
to write a short history of the movement from the T'ai-p'ing point of
view. The boy shared his fate. The Imperial edicts of this date show
clearly what a sense of relief came over the Manchu court when once
it could be said definitively that the great rebellion was over. On
the other hand, there were not wanting some foreigners who would have
liked to see the Manchus overthrown, and who severely blamed the
British Government for helping to bolster up a dynasty already in the
last stage of decay; for it seems to be an indubitable fact that but
for British intervention, the rebellion would ultimately have
succeeded in that particular direction.

During a great part of the last eight years described above, an
ordinary observer would have said that the Manchus had already
sufficient troubles on hand, and would be slow to provoke further
causes of anxiety. It is none the less true, however, that at one of
the most critical periods of the rebellion, China was actually at war
with the very power which ultimately came to the rescue. In 1856 the
Viceroy of Canton, known to foreigners as Governor Yeh, a man who had
gained favour at the Manchu court by his wholesale butchery of real
and suspected rebels, arrested twelve Chinese sailors on board the
"Arrow," a Chinese-owned vessel lying at Canton, which had been
licensed at Hongkong to sail under the British flag, and at the same
time the flag was hauled down by Yeh's men. Had this been an isolated
act, it is difficult to see why very grave consequences need have
followed, and perhaps Justin M'Carthy's condemnation of our Consul,
Mr (afterwards Sir Harry) Parkes, as "fussy," because he sent at once
to Hongkong for armed assistance, might in such case be allowed to
stand unchallenged; but it must be remembered that Yeh was all the
time refusing to foreigners rights which had been already conceded
under treaty, and that action such as Parkes took, against an
adversary such as Yeh, was absolutely necessary either to mend or end
the situation. Accordingly, his action led to what was at first an
awkward state of reprisals, in which some American men-of-war joined
for grievances of their own; forts being attacked and occupied, the
foreign houses of business at Canton being burned down, and rewards
offered for foreigners' heads. In January, 1857, an attempt was
actually made in Hongkong to get rid of all foreigners at one fell
stroke, in which plot there is no doubt that the local officials at
Canton were deeply implicated. The bread was one day found to be
poisoned with arsenic, but so heavily that little mischief was done.
The only possible end to this tension was war; and by the end of the
year a joint British and French force, with Lord Elgin and Baron Gros
as plenipotentiaries, was on the spot. Canton was captured after a
poor resistance; and Governor Yeh, whose enormous bulk made escape
difficult, was captured and banished to Calcutta, where he died. On
the voyage he sank into a kind of stupor, taking no interest whatever
in his new surroundings; and when asked by Alabaster, who accompanied
him as interpreter, why he did not read, he pointed to his stomach,
the Chinese receptacle for learning, and said that there was nothing
worth reading except the Confucian Canon, and that he had already got
all that inside him. After his departure the government of the city
was successfully directed by British and French authorities, acting
in concert with two high Manchu officials.

Lord Elgin then decided to proceed north, in the hope of being able
to make satisfactory arrangements for future intercourse; but the
obstructive policy of the officials on his arrival at the Peiho
compelled him to attack and capture the Taku forts, and finally, to
take up his residence in Tientsin. The lips, as the Chinese say,
being now gone, the teeth began to feel cold; the court was in a
state of panic, and within a few weeks a treaty was signed (June 26,
1858) containing, among other concessions to England, the right to
have a diplomatic representative stationed in Peking, and permission
to trade in the interior of China. It would naturally be supposed
that Lord Elgin's mission was now ended, and indeed he went home; the
Emperor, however, would not hear of ratifications of the treaty being
exchanged in Peking, and in many other ways it was made plain that
there was no intention of its stipulations being carried out. There
was the example of Confucius, who had been captured by rebels and
released on condition that he would not travel to the State of Wei.
Thither, notwithstanding, he continued his route; and when asked by a
disciple if it was right to violate his oath, he replied, "This was a
forced oath; the spirits do not hear such."

By June, 1859, another Anglo-French force was at the mouth of the
Peiho, only to find the Taku forts now strongly fortified, and the
river staked and otherwise obstructed. The allied fleet, after
suffering considerable damage, with much loss of life, was compelled
to retire, greatly to the joy and relief of the Emperor, who at last
saw the barbarian reduced to his proper status. It was on this
occasion that Commander Tatnell of the U.S. navy, who was present,
strictly speaking, as a spectator only, in complete violation of
international law, of which luckily the Chinese knew nothing at that
date, lent efficient aid by towing boat-loads of British marines into
action, justifying his conduct by a saying which will always be
gratefully associated with his name,--"Blood is thicker than water."

By August, 1860, thirteen thousand British troops, seven thousand
French, and two thousand five hundred Cantonese coolies, were ready
to make another attempt. This time there were no frontal attacks on
the forts from the seaward; capture was effected, after a severe
struggle, by land from the rear, a feat which was generally regarded
by the Tartar soldiery as most unsportsmanlike. High Manchu officials
were now hurriedly dispatched from Peking to Tientsin to stop by fair
promises the further advance of the allies; but the British and
French plenipotentiaries decided to move up to T'ung-chow, a dozen
miles or so from the capital. It was on this march that Parkes, Loch,
and others, while carrying out orders under a flag of truce, were
treacherously seized by the soldiers of Sêng-ko-lin-sin, the Manchu
prince and general (familiar to the British troops as "Sam
Collinson"), who had just experienced a severe defeat at the taking
of the Taku forts. After being treated with every indignity, the
prisoners, French and English, numbering over thirty in all, were
forwarded to Peking. There they were miserably tortured, and many of
them succumbed; but events were moving quickly now, and relief was at
hand for those for whom it was not already too late. Sêng-ko-lin-sin
and his vaunted Tartar cavalry were completely routed in several
encounters, and Peking lay at the mercy of the foreigner, the Emperor
having fled to Jehol, where he died in less than a year. Only then
did Prince Kung, a younger brother of Hsien Fêng, who had been left
to bear the brunt of foreign resentment, send back, in a state too
terrible for words, fourteen prisoners, less than half the original
number of those so recently captured. Something in the form of a
punitive act now became necessary, to mark the horror with which this
atrocious treatment of prisoners by the Manchu court was regarded
among the countrymen of the victims. Accordingly, orders were given
to burn down the Summer Palace, appropriately condemned as being the
favourite residence of the Emperor, and also the scene of the
unspeakable tortures inflicted. This palace was surrounded by a
beautiful pleasance lying on the slope of the western hills, about
nine miles to the north-west of Peking. Yüan-ming Yüan, or the
"Bright Round Garden," to give it its proper name, had been laid out
by the Jesuit fathers on the plan of the Trianon at Versailles, and
was packed with valuable porcelain, old bronzes, and every
conceivable kind of curio, most of which were looted or destroyed by
the infuriated soldiery.

The ratification of the Treaty of Tientsin (1858) was now completed,
and before the end of the year the allied forces were gone, save and
except garrisons at Tientsin and Taku, which were to remain until the
indemnity was paid.




CHAPTER IX

T'UNG CHIH


On the death of the Emperor, a plot was concocted by eight members of
the extreme anti-foreign party at Court, who claimed to have been
appointed Regents, to make away with the Empress Dowager, the
concubine mother, known as the Western Empress, of the five-year-old
child just proclaimed under the title of Chi Hsiang (good omen), and
also the late Emperor's three brothers, thus securing to themselves
complete control of the administration. Prince Kung, however, managed
to be "first at the fire," and in accordance with the Chinese
proverb, was therefore "first with his cooking." Having got wind of
the scheme, in concert with the two Empresses Dowager, who had
secured possession of the Emperor, he promptly caused the
conspirators to be seized. Two of them, Imperial princes, were
allowed to commit suicide, and the others were either executed or
banished, while Prince Kung and the two Empresses formed a joint
regency for the direction of public affairs, after changing the style
of the reign from Chi Hsiang to T'ung Chih (united rule).

The position of these two Empresses was a curious one. The Empress
Dowager _par excellence_--for there is only one legal wife in
China--had no children; a concubine had provided the heir to the
throne, and had in consequence been raised to the rank of Western
Empress, subordinate only to the childless Eastern Empress. Of the
latter, there is nothing to be said, except that she remained a
cipher to the end of her life; of the concubine, a great deal has
been said, much of which is untrue. Taken from an ordinary Manchu
family into the palace, she soon gained an extraordinary influence
over Hsien Fêng, and began to make her voice heard in affairs of
State. Always on the side of determined measures, she had counselled
the Emperor to remain in Peking and face the barbarians; she is
further believed to have urged the execution of Parkes and Loch, the
order luckily arriving too late to be carried out. For the next three
years the Regents looked anxiously for the final collapse of the
T'ai-p'ings, having meanwhile to put up with the hateful presence of
foreign diplomats, now firmly established within the Manchu section
of the city of Peking. No sooner was the great rebellion entirely
suppressed (1864), than another rising broke out. The Nien-fei, or
Twist Rebels, said to have been so called because they wore as a
badge turbans twisted with grease, were mounted banditti who, here
to-day and gone to-morrow, for several years committed much havoc in
the northern provinces of China, until finally suppressed by Tso
Tsung-t'ang.

Turkestan was the next part of the empire to claim attention. A son
and successor of Jehangir, ruling as vassal of China at Khokand, had
been murdered by his lieutenant, Yakoob Beg, who, in 1866, had set
himself up as Ameer of Kashgaria, throwing off the Manchu yoke and
attracting to his standard large numbers of discontented Mahometans
from all quarters. His attack upon the Dunganis, who had risen on
their own account and had spread rebellion far and wide between the
province of Shensi and Kuldja, caused Russia to step in and annex
Kuldja before it could fall into his hands. Still, he became master
of a huge territory; and in 1874 the title of Athalik Ghazi,
"Champion Father," was conferred upon him by the Ameer of Bokhara. He
is also spoken of as the Andijani, from Andijan, a town in Khokand
whence he and many of his followers came. Luckily for the Manchus,
they were able to avail themselves of the services of a Chinese
general whose extraordinary campaign on this occasion has marked him
as a commander of the first order. Tso Tsung-t'ang, already
distinguished by his successes against the T'ai-p'ings and the
Nien-fei, began by operations, in 1869, against the Mahometans in
Shensi. Fighting his way through difficulties caused by local
outbreaks and mutinies in his rear, he had captured by 1873 the
important city of Su-chow in Kansuh, and by 1874 his advance-guard
had reached Hami. There he was forced to settle down and raise a crop
in order to feed his troops, supplies being very uncertain. In 1876
Urumtsi was recovered; and in 1877 Turfan, Harashar, Yarkand, and
Kashgar. At this juncture, Yakoob Beg was assassinated, after having
held Kashgaria for twelve years. Khoten fell on January 2, 1878. This
wonderful campaign was now over, but China had lost Kuldja. A Manchu
official, named Ch'ung-hou, who was sent to St Petersburg to meet
Russian diplomats on their own ground, the main object being to
recover this lost territory, was condemned to death on his return for
the egregious treaty he had managed to negotiate, and was only spared
at the express request of Queen Victoria; he will be mentioned again
shortly. His error was afterwards retrieved by a young and brilliant
official, son of the great Tsêng Kuo-fan, and later a familiar figure
as the Marquis Tsêng, Minister at the Court of St James's, by whom
Kuldja was added once more to the Manchu empire.

The year 1868 is remarkable for a singular episode. The Regents and
other high authorities in Peking decided, at whose instigation can
only be surmised, to send an embassy to the various countries of
Europe and America, in order to bring to the notice of foreign
governments China's right, as an independent Power, to manage her
internal affairs without undue interference from outside. The
mission, which included two Chinese officials, was placed under the
leadership of Mr Burlingame, American Minister at Peking, who, in one
of his speeches, took occasion to say that China was simply longing
to cement friendly relations with foreign powers, and that within
some few short years there would be "a shining cross on every hill in
the Middle Kingdom."

Burlingame died early in 1870, before his mission was completed, and
only four months before the Tientsin Massacre threw a shadow of doubt
over his optimistic pronouncements. The native population at Tientsin
had been for some time irritated by the height to which, contrary to
their own custom, the towers of the Roman Catholic Cathedral had been
carried; and rumours had also been circulated that behind the lofty
walls and dark mysterious portals of the Catholic foundling hospital,
children's eyes and hearts were extracted from still warm corpses to
furnish medicines for the barbarian pharmacopoeia. On June 21, the
cathedral and the establishment of sisters of mercy, the French
Consulate and other buildings, were pillaged and burnt by a mob
composed partly of the rowdies of the place and partly of soldiers
who happened to be temporarily quartered there. All the priests and
sisters were brutally murdered, as also the French Consul and other
foreigners. For this outrage eighteen men were executed, a large
indemnity was exacted, and the superintendent of trade, the same
Manchu official whose subsequent diplomatic failure at St Petersburg
has been already noticed, was sent to France with a letter of apology
from the Emperor.

In 1872 T'ung Chih was married, and in the following year took over
the reins of government. Thereupon, the foreign Ministers pressed for
personal interviews; and after much obstruction on the part of the
Manchu court, the first audience was granted. This same year saw the
collapse of the Panthays, a tribe of Mahometans in Yünnan who, so far
back as 1855, had begun to free themselves from Chinese rule. They
chose as their leader an able co-religionist named Tu Wên-hsiu, who
was styled Sultan Suleiman, and he sent agents to Burma to buy arms
and munitions of war; after which, secure in the natural fortress of
Ta-li, he was soon master of all western Yünnan. In 1863 he repulsed
with heavy loss two armies sent against him from the provincial
capital; but the end of the T'ai-p'ing rebellion set free the whole
resources of the empire against him, and he remained inactive while
the Imperialists advanced leisurely westwards. In 1871 he tried
vainly to obtain aid from England, sending over his son, Prince
Hassan, for that purpose. The following year saw the enemy at the
gates of Ta-li, and by and by there was a treacherous surrender of an
important position. Then a promise of an amnesty was obtained at the
price of Tu's head, and an enormous indemnity. On January 15, 1873,
his family having all committed suicide, the Sultan passed for the
last time through the crowded streets of Ta-li on his way to the camp
of his victorious adversary. He arrived there senseless, having taken
poison before setting forth. His corpse was beheaded and his head was
forwarded to the provincial capital, and thence in a jar of honey to
Peking.

His conqueror, whose name is not worth recording, was one of those
comparatively rare Chinese monsters who served their Manchu masters
only too well. Eleven days after the Sultan's death, he invited the
chief men of the town to a feast, and after putting them all to
death, gave the signal for a general massacre, in which thirty
thousand persons are said to have been butchered.

In 1874 the Japanese appear on the scene, adding fresh troubles to
those with which the Manchus were already encompassed. Some sailors
from the Loo-choo Islands, over which Japanese sovereignty had been
successfully maintained, were murdered by the savages on the east
coast of Formosa; and failing to obtain redress, Japan sent a
punitive expedition to the island, and began operations on her own
account, but withdrew on promises of amendment and payment of all
expenses incurred.




CHAPTER X

KUANG HSÜ


In 1875 the Emperor T'ung Chih died of smallpox, and with his death
the malign influence of his mother comes more freely into play. The
young Empress was about to become a mother; and had she borne a son,
her position as mother of the baby Emperor would have been of
paramount importance, while the grandmother, the older Empress
Dowager, would have been relegated to a subordinate status.
Consequently,--it may now be said, having regard to subsequent
happenings,--the death of the Empress followed that of her husband at
an indecently short interval, for no particular reason of health; and
the old Empress Dowager became supreme. In order to ensure her
supremacy, she had previously, on the very day of the Emperor's
death, caused the succession to be allotted, in utter violation of
established custom, to a first cousin, making him heir to the Emperor
Hsien Fêng, instead of naming one of a lower generation who, as heir
to T'ung Chih, would have been qualified to sacrifice to the spirit
of his adopted father. Thus, the late Emperor was left without a son,
and his spirit without a ministrant at ancestral worship, the only
consolation being that when a son should be born to the new Emperor
(aged four), that child was to become son by adoption to his late
Majesty, T'ung Chih. Remonstrances, even from Manchus, were soon
heard on all sides; but to these the Empress Dowager paid no
attention until four years afterwards (1879), on the occasion of the
deferred funeral of the late Emperor, when a censor, named Wu K'o-tu,
committed suicide at the mausoleum, leaving behind him a memorial in
which he strongly condemned the action of the two Empresses Dowager,
still regarded officially as joint regents, and called for a
re-arrangement of the succession, under which the late Emperor would
be duly provided with an heir. Nothing, however, came of this
sacrifice, except promises, until 1900. A son of Prince Tuan, within
a few months to espouse the Boxer cause, was then made heir to his
late Majesty, as required; but at the beginning of 1901, this
appointment was cancelled and the spirit of the Emperor T'ung Chih
was left once more unprovided for in the ancestral temple. The first
cousin in question, who reigned as Kuang Hsü (= brilliant
succession), was not even the next heir in his own generation; but he
was a child of four, and that suited the plans of the Empress
Dowager, who, having appointed herself Regent, now entered openly
upon the career for which she will be remembered in history. What she
would have done if the Empress had escaped and given birth to a son,
can only be a matter of conjecture.

In 1876 the first resident Envoy ever sent by China to Great Britain,
or to any other nation, was accredited to the Court of St James's.
Kuo Sung-tao, who was chosen for the post, was a fine scholar; he
made several attempts on the score of health to avoid what then
seemed to all Chinese officials--no Manchu would have been sent--to
be a dangerous and unpleasant duty, but was ultimately obliged to
proceed. It was he who, on his departure in 1879, said to Lord
Salisbury that he liked everything about the English very much,
except their shocking immorality.

The question of railways for China had long been simmering in the
minds of enterprising foreigners; but it was out of the question to
think that the Government would allow land to be sold for such a
purpose; therefore there would be no sellers. In 1876 a private
company succeeded in obtaining the necessary land by buying up
connecting strips between Shanghai and Woosung at the mouth of the
river, about eight miles in all. The company then proceeded to lay
down a miniature railway, which was an object of much interest to the
native, whose amusement soon took the form of a trip there and back.
Political influence was then brought to bear, and the whole thing was
purchased by the Government; the rails were torn up and sent to
Formosa, where they were left to rot upon the sea-beach.

The suppression of rebellion in Turkestan and Yünnan has already been
mentioned; also the retrocession of Kuldja, which brings us down to
the year 1881, when the Eastern Empress died. Death must have been
more or less a relief to this colourless personage, who had been
entirely superseded on a stage on which by rights she should have
played the leading part, and who had been terrorized during her last
years by her more masterful colleague.

In 1882 there were difficulties with France over Tongking; these,
however, were adjusted, and in 1884 a convention was signed by
Captain Fournier and Li Hung-chang. A further dispute then arose as
to a breach of the convention by the Chinese, and an _état de
représailles_ followed, during which the French destroyed the Chinese
fleet. After the peace which was arranged in 1885, a few years of
comparative tranquillity ensued; the Emperor was married (1889), and
relieved his aunt of her duties as Regent.

Japan, in earlier centuries contemptuously styled the Dwarf-nation,
and always despised as a mere imitator and brain-picker of Chinese
wisdom, now swims definitively into the ken of the Manchu court. The
Formosan imbroglio had been forgotten as soon as it was over, and the
recent rapid progress of Japan on Western lines towards national
strength had been ignored by all Manchu statesmen, each of whom lived
in hope that the deluge would not come in his own time. So far back
as 1885, in consequence of serious troubles involving much bloodshed,
the two countries had agreed that neither should send troops to Korea
without due notification to the other. Now, in 1894, China violated
this contract by dispatching troops, at the request of the king of
Korea, whose throne was threatened by a serious rebellion, without
sufficient warning to Japan, and further, by keeping a body of these
troops at the Korean capital even when the rebellion was at an end. A
disastrous war ensued. The Japanese were victorious on land and sea;
the Chinese fleet was destroyed; Port Arthur was taken; and finally,
after surrendering Wei-hai-wei (1895), to which he had retired with
the remnant of his fleet, Admiral Ting, well known as "a gallant
sailor and true gentleman," committed suicide together with four of
his captains. Li Hung-chang was then sent to Japan to sue for peace,
and while there he was shot in the cheek by a fanatical member of the
Soshi class. This act brought him much sympathy--he was then
seventy-two years old; and in the treaty of Shimonoseki, which he
negotiated, better terms perhaps were obtained than would otherwise
have been the case. The terms granted included the independence of
Korea, for centuries a tribute-paying vassal of China, and the
cession of the island of Formosa. Japan had occupied the peninsula on
which stands the impregnable fortress of Port Arthur, and had
captured the latter in a few hours; but she was not to be allowed to
keep them. A coalition of European powers, Russia, Germany, and
France--England refused to join--decided that it would never do to
let Japan possess Port Arthur, and forced her to accept a money
payment instead. So it was restored to China--for the moment; and at
the same time a republic was declared in Formosa; but of this the
Japanese made short work.

The following year was marked by an unusual display of initiative on
the part of the Emperor, who now ordered the introduction of
railways; but in 1897 complications with foreign powers rather gave a
check to these aspirations. Two German Catholic priests were
murdered, and as a punitive measure Germany seized Kiaochow in
Shantung; while in 1898 Russia "leased" Port Arthur, and as a
counterblast England thought it advisable to "lease" Wei-hai-wei. So
soon as the Manchu court had recovered from the shock of these
events, and had resumed its normal state of torpor, it was rudely
shaken from within by a series of edicts which peremptorily commanded
certain reforms of a most far-reaching description. For instance, the
great public examinations, which had been conducted on much the same
system for seven or eight centuries past, were to be modified by the
introduction of subjects suggested by recent intercourse with Western
nations. There was to be a university in Peking, and the temples,
which cover the empire in all directions, were to be closed to
religious services and opened for educational purposes. The Manchus,
indeed, have never shown any signs of a religious temperament. There
had not been, under the dynasty in question, any such wave of
devotional fervour as was experienced under more than one previous
dynasty. Neither the dreams of Buddhism, nor the promises of
immortality held out by the Taoist, seem to have influenced in a
religious, as opposed to a superstitious sense, the rather Boeotian
mind of the Manchu. The learned emperors of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries accepted Confucianism as sufficient for
every-day humanity, and did all in their power to preserve it as a
quasi-State religion. Thus, Buddhism was not favoured at the expense
of Taoism, nor _vice versa_; Mahometanism was tolerated so long as
there was no suspicion of disloyalty; Christianity, on the other
hand, was bitterly opposed, being genuinely regarded for a long time
as a cloak for territorial aggression.

To return to the reforms. Young Manchus of noble family were to be
sent abroad for an education on wider lines than it was possible to
obtain at home. This last was in every way a desirable measure. No
Manchu had ever visited the West; all the officials previously sent
to foreign countries had been Chinese. But other proposed changes
were not of equal value.

At the back of this reform movement was a small band of earnest men
who suffered from too much zeal, which led to premature action. A
plot was conceived, under which the Empress Dowager was to be
arrested and imprisoned; but this was betrayed by Yüan Shih-k'ai, and
she turned the tables by suddenly arresting and imprisoning the
Emperor, and promptly decapitating all the conspirators, with the
exception of K'ang Yu-wei, who succeeded in escaping. He had been the
moving spirit of this abortive revolution; he was a fine scholar, and
had completely gained the ear of the Emperor. The latter became
henceforth to the end of his life a person of no importance, while
China, for the third time in history, passed under the dominion of a
woman. There was no secret about it; the Empress Dowager, popularly
known as the Old Buddha, had succeeded in terrorizing every one who
came into contact with her, and her word was law. It was said of one
of the Imperial princes that he was "horribly afraid of her Majesty,
and that when she spoke to him he was on tenter-hooks, as though
thorns pricked him, and the sweat ran down his face."

All promise of reform now disappeared from the Imperial programme,
and the recent edicts, which had raised premature hope in this
direction, were annulled; the old régime was to prevail once
more. The weakness of this policy was emphasized in the following
year (1899), when England removed from Japan the stigma of
extra-territorial jurisdiction, by which act British defendants, in
civil and criminal cases alike, now became amenable to Japanese
tribunals. Japan had set herself to work to frame a code, and had
trained lawyers for the administration of justice; China had done
nothing, content that on her own territory foreigners and their
lawsuits, as above, should be tried by foreign Consuls. One curious
edict of this date had for its object the conferment of duly graded
civil rank, the right to salutes at official visits, and similar
ceremonial privileges, upon Roman Catholic archbishops, bishops, and
priests of the missionary body in China. The Catholic view was that
the missionaries would gain in the eyes of the people if treated with
more deference than the majority of Chinese officials cared to
display towards what was to them an objectionable class; in practice,
however, the system was found to be unworkable, and was ultimately
given up.

The autumn of this year witnessed the beginning of the so-called
Boxer troubles. There was great unrest, especially in Shantung, due,
it was said, to ill-feeling between the people at large and converts
to Christianity, and at any rate aggravated by recent foreign
acquisitions of Chinese territory. It was thus that what was
originally one of the periodical anti-dynastic risings, with the
usual scion of the Ming dynasty as figure-head, lost sight of its
objective and became a bloodthirsty anti-foreign outbreak. The story
of the siege of the Legations has been written from many points of
view; and most people know all they want to know of the two summer
months in 1900, the merciless bombardment of a thousand foreigners,
with their women and children, cooped up in a narrow space, and also
of the awful butchery of missionaries, men, women, and children
alike, which took place at the capital of Shansi. Whatever may have
been the origin of the movement, there can be little doubt that it
was taken over by the Manchus, with the complicity of the Empress
Dowager, as a means of getting rid of all the foreigners in China.
Considering the extraordinary position the Empress Dowager had
created for herself, it is impossible to believe that she would not
have been able to put an end to the siege by a word, or even by a
mere gesture. She did not do so; and on the relief of the Legations,
for a second time in her life--she had accompanied Hsien Fêng to
Jehol in 1860--she sought safety in an ignominious flight. Meanwhile,
in response to a memorial from the Governor of Shansi, she had sent
him a secret decree, saying, "Slay all foreigners wheresoever you
find them; even though they be prepared to leave your province, yet
must they be slain." A second and more urgent decree said, "I command
that all foreigners, men, women, and children, be summarily executed.
Let not one escape, so that my empire may be purged of this noisome
source of corruption, and that peace may be restored to my loyal
subjects." The first of these decrees had been circulated to all the
high provincial officials, and the result might well have been
indiscriminate slaughter of foreigners all over China, but for the
action of two Chinese officials, who had already incurred the
displeasure of the Empress Dowager by memorializing against the Boxer
policy. These men secretly changed the word "slay" into "protect,"
and this is the sense in which the decree was acted upon by
provincial officials generally, with the exception of the Governor of
Shansi, who sent a second memorial, eliciting the second decree as
above. It is impossible to say how many foreigners owe their lives to
this alteration of a word, and the Empress Dowager herself would
scarcely have escaped so easily as she did, had her cruel order been
more fully executed. The trick was soon discovered, and the two
heroes, Yüan Ch'ang and Hsü Ching-ch'êng, were both summarily
beheaded, even although it was to the former that the Empress Dowager
was indebted for information which enabled her to frustrate the plot
against her life in 1898.

Now, at the very moment of departure, she perpetrated a most brutal
crime. A favourite concubine of the Emperor's, who had previously
given cause for offence, urged that his Majesty should not take part
in the flight, but should remain in Peking. For this suggestion the
Empress Dowager caused the miserable girl to be thrown down a well,
in spite of the supplications of the Emperor on her behalf. Then she
fled, ultimately to Hsi-an Fu, the capital of Shensi, and for a year
and a half Peking was rid of her presence. In 1902, she came back
with the Emperor, whose prerogative she still managed to usurp. She
declared at once for reform, and took up the cause with much show of
enthusiasm; but those who knew the Manchu best, decided to "wait and
see." She began by suggesting intermarriage between Manchus and
Chinese, which had so far been prohibited, and advised Chinese women
to give up the practice of footbinding, a custom which the ruling
race had never adopted. It was henceforth to be lawful for Manchus,
even of the Imperial family, to send their sons abroad to be
educated,--a step which no Manchu would be likely to take unless
forcibly coerced into doing so. Any spirit of enterprise which might
have been possessed by the founders of the dynasty had long since
evaporated, and all that Manchu nobles asked was to be allowed to
batten in peace upon the Chinese people.

The direct issue of the emperors of the present dynasty and of their
descendants in the male line, dating from 1616, are popularly known
as Yellow Girdles, from a sash of that colour which they habitually
wear. Each generation becomes a degree lower in rank, until they are
mere members of the family with no rank whatever, although they still
wear the girdle and receive a trifling allowance from the government.
Thus, beggars and even thieves are occasionally seen with this badge
of relationship to the throne. Members of the collateral branches of
the Imperial family wear a red girdle, and are known as Gioros, Gioro
being part of the surname--Aisin Gioro = Golden Race--of an early
progenitor of the Manchu emperors.

As a next step in reform, the examination system was to be
remodelled, but not in the one sense in which it would have appealed
most to the Chinese people. Examinations for Manchus have always been
held separately, and the standard attained has always been very far
below that reached by Chinese candidates, so that the scholarship of
the Manchu became long ago a by-word and a joke. Now, in 1904, it was
settled that entry to an official career should be obtainable only
through the modern educational colleges; but this again applied only
to Chinese and not to Manchus. The Manchus have always had wisdom
enough to employ the best abilities they could discover by process of
examination among the Chinese, many of whom have risen from the
lowest estate to the highest positions in the empire, and have proved
themselves valuable servants and staunch upholders of the dynasty.
Still, in addition to numerous other posts, it may be said that all
the fat sinecures have always been the portion of Manchus. For
instance, the office of Hoppo, or superintendent of customs at Canton
(abolished 1904), was a position which was allowed to degenerate into
a mere opportunity for piling a large fortune in the shortest
possible time, no particular ability being required from the holder
of the post, who was always a Manchu.

Then followed a mission to Europe, at the head of which we now find a
Manchu of high rank, an Imperial Duke, sent to study the mysteries of
constitutional government, which was henceforth promised to the
people, so soon as its introduction might be practicable. In the
midst of these attractive promises (1904-5) came the Russo-Japanese
war, with all its surprises. Among other causes to which the Manchu
court ascribed the success of the Japanese, freedom from the opium
vice took high rank, and this led to really serious enactments
against the growth and consumption of opium in China. Continuous and
strenuous efforts of philanthropists during the preceding half
century had not produced any results at all; but now it seemed as
though this weakness had been all along the chief reason for China's
failures in her struggles with the barbarian, and it was to be
incontinently stamped out. Ten years' grace was allowed, at the end
of which period there was to be no more opium-smoking in the empire.
One awkward feature was that the Empress Dowager herself was an
opium-smoker; the difficulty, however, was got over by excluding from
the application of the edict of 1906 persons over sixty years of age.
Whatever may be thought of the wisdom of this policy, which so far
has chiefly resulted in the substitution of morphia, cocaine, and
alcohol, the thoroughness and rapidity with which it has been carried
out, can only command the admiration of all; of those most who know
China best.




CHAPTER XI

HSÜAN T'UNG


The health of the Emperor, never very good, now began to fail, and by
1908 he was seriously ill; in this same year, too, there were signs
that the Empress Dowager was breaking up. Her last political act of
any importance, except the nomination of the heir to the throne, was
to issue a decree confirming the previous promise of constitutional
government, which was to come into full force within nine years. Not
many weeks later the Emperor died (November 14), the Empress Dowager
having already, while he lay dying, appointed one of his nephews, a
child barely three years old, to succeed him, in the vain hope that
she would thus enjoy a further spell of power until the child should
be of age. But on the following day the Empress Dowager also died; a
singular coincidence which has been attributed to the determination
of the eunuchs and others that the Emperor should not outlive his
aunt, for some time past seen to be "drawing near the wood," lest his
reforming spirit should again jeopardize their nefarious interests.

The Regency devolved upon the Emperor's father, but was not of very
long duration. There was a show of introducing constitutional reform
under the guise of provincial and national assemblies intended to
control the government of the empire; but after all, the final power
to accept or reject their measures was vested in the Emperor, which
really left things very much as they had been. The new charter was
not found to be of much value, and there is little doubt that the
Manchus regarded it in the light of what is known in China as a
"dummy document," a measure to be extolled in theory, but not
intended to appear in practice. Suddenly, in September 1911, the
great revolution broke out, and the end came more rapidly than was
expected.

It must not be imagined that this revolution was an inspiration of
the moment; on the contrary, it had been secretly brewing for quite a
long time beforehand. During that period a few persons familiar with
China may have felt that something was coming, but nobody knew
exactly what. Those who accept without reservation the common
statement that there is no concealment possible in a country where
everybody is supposed to have his price, and that due notice of
anything important is sure to leak out, must have been rather
astonished when, without any warning, they found China in the throes
of a well-planned revolution, which was over, with its object gained,
almost as soon as the real gravity of the situation was realized. It
is true that under the Manchus access to official papers of the most
private description was always to be obtained at a moderate outlay;
it was thus, for instance, that we were able to appreciate the inmost
feelings of that grim old Manchu, Wo-jen, who, in 1861, presented a
secret memorial to the throne, and stated therein that his loathing
of all foreigners was so great that he longed to eat their flesh and
sleep on their skins.

The guiding spirit of the movement, Sun Yat-sen, is a native of
Kuangtung, where he was born, not very far from Canton, in 1866.
After some early education in Honolulu, he became a student at the
College of Medicine, Hongkong, where he took his diploma in 1892. But
his chief aim in life soon became a political one, and he determined
to get rid of the Manchus. He organized a Young China party in
Canton, and in 1895 made an attempt to seize the city. The plot
failed, and fifteen out of the sixteen conspirators were arrested and
executed; Sun Yat-sen alone escaped. A year later, he was in London,
preparing himself for further efforts by the study of Western forms
of government, a very large reward being offered by the Chinese
Government for his body, dead or alive. During his stay there he was
decoyed into the Chinese Legation, and imprisoned in an upper room,
from which he would have been hurried away to China, probably as a
lunatic, to share the fate of his fifteen fellow-conspirators, but
for the assistance of a woman who had been told off to wait upon him.
To her he confided a note addressed to Dr Cantlie, a personal friend
of long standing, under whom he had studied medicine in Hongkong; and
she handed this to her husband, employed as waiter in the Legation,
by whom it was safely delivered. He thus managed to communicate with
the outer world; Lord Salisbury intervened, and he was released after
a fortnight's detention.

Well might Sun Yat-sen now say--

   "They little thought that day of pain
    That one day I should come again."

More a revolutionary than ever, he soon set to work to collect funds
which flowed in freely from Chinese sources in all quarters of the
world. At last, in September 1911, the train was fired, beginning
with the province of Ss[)u]ch'uan, and within an incredibly short
space of time, half China was ablaze. By the middle of October the
Manchus were beginning to feel that a great crisis was at hand, and
the Regent was driven to recall Yüan Shih-k'ai, whom he had summarily
dismissed from office two years before, on the conventional plea that
Yüan was suffering from a bad leg, but really out of revenge for his
treachery to the late Emperor, which had brought about the latter's
arrest and practical deposition by the old Empress Dowager in 1898.

To this summons Yüan slily replied that he could not possibly leave
home just then, as his leg was not yet well enough for him to be able
to travel, meaning, of course, to gain time, and be in a position to
dictate his own terms. On the 30th October, when it was already too
late, the baby Emperor, reigning under the year-title Hsüan T'ung
(wide control), published the following edict:--

"I have reigned for three years, and have always acted
conscientiously in the interests of the people, but I have not
employed men properly, not having political skill. I have employed
too many nobles in political positions, which contravenes
constitutionalism. On railway matters someone whom I trusted fooled
me, and thus public opinion was opposed. When I urged reform, the
officials and gentry seized the opportunity to embezzle. When old
laws are abolished, high officials serve their own ends. Much of the
people's money has been taken, but nothing to benefit the people has
been achieved. On several occasions edicts have promulgated laws, but
none of them have been obeyed. People are grumbling, yet I do not
know; disasters loom ahead, but I do not see.

"The Ss[)u]ch'uan trouble first occurred; the Wu-ch'ang rebellion
followed; now alarming reports come from Shansi and Hunan. In Canton
and Kiangsi riots appear. The whole empire is seething. The minds of
the people are perturbed. The spirits of our nine late emperors are
unable properly to enjoy sacrifices, while it is feared the people
will suffer grievously.

"All these are my own fault, and hereby I announce to the world that
I swear to reform, and, with our soldiers and people, to carry out
the constitution faithfully, modifying legislation, developing the
interests of the people, and abolishing their hardships--all in
accordance with the wishes and interests of the people. Old laws that
are unsuitable will be abolished."

Nowhere else in the world is the belief that Fortune has a wheel
which in the long run never fails to "turn and lower the proud," so
prevalent or so deeply-rooted as in China. "To prosperity," says the
adage, "must succeed decay,"--a favourite theme around which the
novelist delights to weave his romance. This may perhaps account for
the tame resistance of the Manchus to what they recognized as the
inevitable. They had enjoyed a good span of power, quite as lengthy
as that of any dynasty of modern times, and now they felt that their
hour had struck. To borrow another phrase, "they had come in with the
roar of a tiger, to disappear like the tail of a snake."

On November 3, certain regulations were issued by the National
Assembly as the necessary basis upon which a constitution could be
raised. The absolute veto of the Emperor was now withdrawn, and it
was expressly stated that Imperial decrees were not to over-ride the
law, though even here we find the addition of "except in the event of
immediate necessity." The first clause of this document was confined
to the following prophetic statement: "The Ta Ch'ing dynasty shall
reign for ever."

On November 8, Yüan Shih-k'ai was appointed Prime Minister, and on
December 3, the new Empress Dowager issued an edict, in which she
said:

"The Regent has verbally memorialized the Empress Dowager, saying
that he has held the Regency for three years, and his administration
has been unpopular, and that constitutional government has not been
consummated. Thus complications arose, and people's hearts were
broken, and the country thrown into a state of turmoil. Hence one
man's mismanagement has caused the nation to suffer miserably. He
regrets his repentance is already too late, and feels that if he
continues in power his commands will soon be disregarded. He wept and
prayed to resign the regency, expressing the earnest intention of
abstaining in the future from politics. I, the Empress Dowager,
living within the palace, am ignorant of the state of affairs but I
know that rebellion exists and fighting is continuing, causing
disasters everywhere, while the commerce of friendly nations suffers.
I must enquire into the circumstances and find a remedy. The Regent
is honest, though ambitious and unskilled in politics. Being misled,
he has harmed the people, and therefore his resignation is accepted.
The Regent's seal is cancelled. Let the Regent receive fifty thousand
_taels_ annually from the Imperial household allowances, and
hereafter the Premier and the Cabinet will control appointments and
administration. Edicts are to be sealed with the Emperor's seal. I
will lead the Emperor to conduct audiences. The guardianship of the
holy person of the Emperor, who is of tender age, is a special
responsibility. As the time is critical, the princes and nobles must
observe the Ministers, who have undertaken a great responsibility,
and be loyal and help the country and people, who now must realize
that the Court does not object to the surrender of the power vested
in the throne. Let the people preserve order and continue business,
and thus prevent the country's disruption and restore prosperity."




CHAPTER XII

SUN YAT-SEN


On January 1, 1912, Sun Yat-sen entered the republican capital,
Nanking, and received a salute of twenty-one guns. He assumed the
presidency of the provisional government, swearing allegiance, and
taking an oath to dethrone the Manchus, restore peace, and establish
a government based upon the people's will. These objects
accomplished, he was prepared to resign his office, thus enabling the
people to elect a president of a united China. The first act of the
provisional government was to proclaim a new calendar forthwith,
January 1 becoming the New Year's Day of the republic.

On January 5 was issued the following republican manifesto:--

"To all friendly nations,--Greeting. Hitherto irremediable
suppression of the individual qualities and the national aspirations
of the people having arrested the intellectual, moral, and material
development of China, the aid of revolution was invoked to extirpate
the primary cause. We now proclaim the consequent overthrow of the
despotic sway of the Manchu dynasty, and the establishment of a
republic. The substitution of a republic for a monarchy is not the
fruit of transient passion, but the natural outcome of a
long-cherished desire for freedom, contentment, and advancement. We
Chinese people, peaceful and law-abiding, have not waged war except
in self-defence. We have borne our grievance for two hundred and
sixty-seven years with patience and forbearance. We have endeavoured
by peaceful means to redress our wrongs, secure liberty, and ensure
progress; but we failed. Oppressed beyond human endurance, we deemed
it our inalienable right, as well as a sacred duty, to appeal to arms
to deliver ourselves and our posterity from the yoke to which we have
for so long been subjected. For the first time in history an
inglorious bondage is transformed into inspiring freedom. The policy
of the Manchus has been one of unequivocal seclusion and unyielding
tyranny. Beneath it we have bitterly suffered. Now we submit to the
free peoples of the world the reasons justifying the revolution and
the inauguration of the present government. Prior to the usurpation
of the throne by the Manchus the land was open to foreign
intercourse, and religious tolerance existed, as is shown by the
writings of Marco Polo and the inscription on the Nestorian tablet at
Hsi-an Fu. Dominated by ignorance and selfishness, the Manchus closed
the land to the outer world, and plunged the Chinese into a state of
benighted mentality calculated to operate inversely to their natural
talents, thus committing a crime against humanity and the civilized
nations which it is almost impossible to expiate. Actuated by a
desire for the perpetual subjugation of the Chinese, and a vicious
craving for aggrandizement and wealth, the Manchus have governed the
country to the lasting injury and detriment of the people, creating
privileges and monopolies, erecting about themselves barriers of
exclusion, national custom, and personal conduct, which have been
rigorously maintained for centuries. They have levied irregular and
hurtful taxes without the consent of the people, and have restricted
foreign trade to treaty ports. They have placed the _likin_ embargo
on merchandise, obstructed internal commerce, retarded the creation
of industrial enterprises, rendered impossible the development of
natural resources, denied a regular system of impartial
administration of justice, and inflicted cruel punishment on persons
charged with offences, whether innocent or guilty. They have connived
at official corruption, sold offices to the highest bidder,
subordinated merit to influence, rejected the most reasonable demands
for better government, and reluctantly conceded so-called reforms
under the most urgent pressure, promising without any intention of
fulfilling. They have failed to appreciate the anguish-causing
lessons taught them by foreign Powers, and in process of years have
brought themselves and our people beneath the contempt of the world.
A remedy of these evils will render possible the entrance of China
into the family of nations. We have fought and have formed a
government. Lest our good intentions should be misunderstood, we
publicly and unreservedly declare the following to be our promises:--

"The treaties entered into by the Manchus before the date of the
revolution, will be continually effective to the time of their
termination. Any and all treaties entered into after the commencement
of the revolution will be repudiated. Foreign loans and indemnities
incurred by the Manchus before the revolution will be acknowledged.
Payments made by loans incurred by the Manchus after its commencement
will be repudiated. Concessions granted to nations and their
nationals before the revolution will be respected. Any and all
granted after it will be repudiated. The persons and property of
foreign nationals within the jurisdiction of the republic will be
respected and protected. It will be our constant aim and firm
endeavour to build on a stable and enduring foundation a national
structure compatible with the potentialities of our long-neglected
country. We shall strive to elevate the people to secure peace and to
legislate for prosperity. Manchus who abide peacefully in the limits
of our jurisdiction will be accorded equality, and given protection.

"We will remodel the laws, revise the civil, criminal, commercial,
and mining codes, reform the finances, abolish restrictions on trade
and commerce, and ensure religious toleration and the cultivation of
better relations with foreign peoples and governments than have ever
been maintained before. It is our earnest hope that those foreign
nations who have been steadfast in their sympathy will bind more
firmly the bonds of friendship between us, and will bear in patience
with us the period of trial confronting us and our reconstruction
work, and will aid the consummation of the far-reaching plans, which
we are about to undertake, and which they have long vainly been
urging upon our people and our country.

"With this message of peace and good-will the republic cherishes the
hope of being admitted into the family of nations, not merely to
share its rights and privileges, but to co-operate in the great and
noble task of building up the civilization of the world.

"SUN YAT-SEN,
_President_."

The next step was to displace the three-cornered Dragon flag, itself
of quite modern origin, in favour of a new republican emblem. For
this purpose was designed a flag of five stripes,--yellow, red, blue,
white, black,--arranged at right angles to the flagstaff in the above
order, and intended to represent the five races--Chinese, Manchus,
Mongols, Tibetan, Mussulmans--gathered together under one rule.

On February 12, three important edicts were issued. In the first, the
baby-emperor renounces the throne, and approves the establishment of
a provisional republican government, under the direction of Yüan
Shih-k'ai, in conjunction with the existing provisional government at
Nanking. In the second, approval is given to the terms under which
the emperor retires, the chief item of which was an annual grant of
four million _taels_. Other more sentimental privileges included the
retention of a bodyguard, and the continuance of sacrifices to the
spirits of the departed Manchu emperors. In the third, the people are
exhorted to preserve order and abide by the Imperial will regarding
the new form of government.

Simultaneously with the publication of these edicts, the last scene
of the drama was enacted near Nanking, at the mausoleum of the first
sovereign of the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1368-1644). Sun Yat-sen, as
provisional first president, accompanied by his Cabinet and a
numerous escort, proceeded thither, and after offering sacrifice as
usual, addressed, through a secretary, the following oration to the
tablet representing the names of that great hero:--

"Of old the Sung dynasty became effete, and the Kitan Tartars and
Yüan dynasty Mongols seized the occasion to throw this domain of
China into confusion, to the fierce indignation of gods and men. It
was then that your Majesty, our founder, arose in your wrath from
obscurity, and destroyed those monsters of iniquity, so that the
ancient glory was won again. In twelve years you consolidated the
Imperial sway, and the dominions of the Great Yü were purged of
pollution and cleansed from the noisome Tartar. Often in history has
our noble Chinese race been enslaved by petty frontier barbarians
from the north. Never have such glorious triumphs been won over them
as your Majesty achieved. But your descendants were degenerate, and
failed to carry on your glorious heritage; they entrusted the reins
of government to bad men, and pursued a short-sighted policy. In this
way they encouraged the ambitions of the eastern Tartar savages
(Manchus), and fostered the growth of their power. They were thus
able to take advantage of the presence of rebels to invade and
possess themselves of your sacred capital. From a bad eminence of
glory basely won, they lorded it over this most holy soil, and our
beloved China's rivers and hills were defiled by their corrupting
touch, while the people fell victims to the headsman's axe or the
avenging sword. Although worthy patriots and faithful subjects of
your dynasty crossed the mountain ranges into Canton and the far
south, in the hope of redeeming the glorious Ming tradition from
utter ruin, and of prolonging a thread of the old dynasty's life,
although men gladly perished one after the other in the forlorn
attempt, heaven's wrath remained unappeased, and mortal designs
failed to achieve success. A brief and melancholy page was added to
the history of your dynasty, and that was all.

"As time went on, the law became ever harsher, and the meshes of its
inexorable net grew closer. Alas for our Chinese people, who crouched
in corners and listened with startled ears, deprived of power of
utterance, and with tongues glued to their mouths, for their lives
were past saving. Those others usurped titles to fictitious clemency
and justice, while prostituting the sacred doctrines of the sages:
whom they affected to honour. They stifled public opinion in the
empire in order to force acquiescence in their tyranny. The Manchu
despotism became so thorough and so embracing that they were enabled
to prolong their dynasty's existence by cunning wiles. In Yung
Chêng's reign the Hunanese Chang Hsi and Tsêng Ching preached
sedition against the dynasty in their native province, while in Chia
Ch'ing's reign the palace conspiracy of Lin Ching dismayed that
monarch in his capital. These events were followed by rebellions in
Ss[)u]-ch'uan and Shensi; under Tao Kuang and his successor the
T'ai-p'ings started their campaign from a remote Kuangsi village.
Although these worthy causes were destined to ultimate defeat, the
gradual trend of the national will became manifest. At last our own
era dawned, the sun of freedom had risen, and a sense of the rights
of the race animated men's minds. In addition the Manchu bandits
could not even protect themselves. Powerful foes encroached upon the
territory of China, and the dynasty parted with our sacred soil to
enrich neighbouring nations. The Chinese race of to-day may be
degenerate, but it is descended from mighty men of old. How should it
endure that the spirits of the great dead should be insulted by the
everlasting visitation of this scourge?

"Then did patriots arise like a whirlwind, or like a cloud which is
suddenly manifested in the firmament. They began with the Canton
insurrection; then Peking was alarmed by Wu Yüeh's bomb (1905). A
year later Hsü Hsi-lin fired his bullet into the vitals of the Manchu
robber-chief, En Ming, Governor of Anhui. Hsiung Chêng-chi raised the
standard of liberty on the Yang-tsze's banks; rising followed rising
all over the empire, until the secret plot against the Regent was
discovered, and the abortive insurrection in Canton startled the
capital. One failure followed another, but other brave men took the
place of the heroes who died, and the empire was born again to life.
The bandit Manchu court was shaken with pallid terror, until the
cicada threw off its shell in a glorious regeneration, and the
present crowning triumph was achieved. The patriotic crusade started
in Wu-ch'ang; the four corners of the empire responded to the call.
Coast regions nobly followed in their wake, and the Yang-tsze was won
back by our armies. The region south of the Yellow River was lost to
the Manchus, and the north manifested its sympathy with our cause. An
earthquake shook the barbarian court of Peking, and it was smitten
with a paralysis. To-day it has at last restored the government to
the Chinese people, and the five races of China may dwell together in
peace and mutual trust. Let us joyfully give thanks. How could we
have attained this measure of victory had not your Majesty's soul in
heaven bestowed upon us your protecting influence? I have heard say
that triumphs of Tartar savages over our China were destined never to
last longer than a hundred years. But the reign of these Manchus
endured unto double, ay, unto treble, that period. Yet Providence
knows the appointed hour, and the moment comes at last. We are
initiating the example to Eastern Asia of a republican form of
government; success comes early or late to those who strive, but the
good are surely rewarded in the end. Why then should we repine to-day
that victory has tarried long?

"I have heard that in the past many would-be deliverers of their
country have ascended this lofty mound wherein is your sepulchre. It
has served to them as a holy inspiration. As they looked down upon
the surrounding rivers and upward to the hills, under an alien sway,
they wept in the bitterness of their hearts, but to-day their sorrow
is turned into joy. The spiritual influences of your grave at Nanking
have come once more into their own. The dragon crouches in majesty as
of old, and the tiger surveys his domain and his ancient capital.
Everywhere a beautiful repose doth reign. Your legions line the
approaches to the sepulchre; a noble host stands expectant. Your
people have come here to-day to inform your Majesty of the final
victory. May this lofty shrine wherein you rest gain fresh lustre
from to-day's event, and may your example inspire your descendants in
the times which are to come. Spirit! Accept this offering!"

We are told by an eye-witness, Dr Lim Boon-keng, that when this
ceremony was over, Sun Yat-sen turned to address the assembly. "He
was speechless with emotion for a minute; then he briefly declared
how, after two hundred and sixty years, the nation had again
recovered her freedom; and now that the curse of Manchu domination
was removed, the free peoples of a united republic could pursue their
rightful aspirations. Three cheers for the president were now called
for, and the appeal was responded to vigorously. The cheering was
taken up by the crowds below, and then carried miles away by the
thousands of troops, to mingle with the booming of distant guns."




LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED


The _I yü kuo chih_ (costumes of strange nations). Circa 1380.

The _Tung hua lu_ (a history of the Manchus down to A.D. 1735). 1765.

The _Shêng wu chi_ (a history of the earlier wars under the Manchu
dynasty). 1822.

_A History of China_, by REV. J. MACGOWAN, 1897.

_A History of the Manchus_, by REV. J. ROSS, 1880.

_The Chinese Repository._

_The Chinese and their Rebellions_, by T. T. MEADOWS, 1856.

Pamphlets issued by the T'ai-p'ings, 1850-1864.

_The Times_, 1911-12.

_The London and China Telegraph_, 1911-12.




INDEX


Abkhai, 18, 20;
  death of, 19

Aisin Gioro, 118

Akutêng, 4;
  death of, 6

Alabaster, Mr, 93

Albazin, 42

Amherst, Lord, 66

Amiot, Père, 42

Amoy, 42;
  taken, 77

Amur, River, 17;
  as boundary, 42

Amursana, 55

Ancestral worship, 44

An-ch'ing, 86

Andijani, 100

Anglo-French expedition, 93;
  the second, 94

Annam, 58

Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius, 33

Arabtan, 43

Archery, 37

"Arrow" case, the, 92

Artillery, 17

Assemblies, national and provincial, 122

Athalik Ghazi, 100

Audience, the first, 103


Badakshan, 43

Bannermen, 37

Banzai, 15

Baschpa, 11

Baturu, 88

"Blood thicker than water," 95

Bogue Forts taken, 77

Bokhara, Ameer of, 100

Boxers, the, 115

British fleet arrives, 76

"Brother of Christ," the, 82

Burgevine, 89

Burlingame mission, the, 102

Burma, 32, 56

"Button," the, 29


Cagliostro, 66

Calendar, the, 43;
  European adopted, 129

Camoens, 73

Cantlie, Dr, 124

Canton, riot at, 75;
  foreign houses burnt at, 93;
  captured, 93

Cantonese serve on British men-of-war, 78

Catalogue of Imperial Library, 59

Catholic missionaries, 33;
  rank accorded to, 114

Census, the, 48

Chapu taken, 77

Chi Hsiang, 98

Chia Ching, 61

Chia Ch'ing, 61;
  attacked in streets of Peking, 64;
  died, 68

Ch'ien Lung, 54;
  pictures of his victories, 55;
  abdicates, 59

Chihli, 3

Chin dynasty, 4

China proper, 41

"China's sorrow," 47

Chinese language, death for teaching to foreigners, 71

Chinkiang taken, 77;
  captured by T'ai-p'ings, 85

Ch'ing (or Great Pure) dynasty, 20;
  established, 28

Chino-Japanese war, 110

Christianity, 44;
  oppressed, 52;
  forbidden, 54;
  opposed, 112

Ch'ung-hou, 101;
  condemned to death, 101;
  letter of apology to France, 103

Chusan occupied, 77

Cochin-China, 58

Co-hong system, 66

Coinage debased, 86

Concordance, K'ang Hsi's, 50

Concubine thrown down well, 117

Confucian Classics, 59

Confucius, tomb of, 46

Constantine of China, the, 32

Court, flight of the, 116

Cycle, Chinese, 51


Dalai Lama, the, 33, 43

Davis, Sir J., 67

De Quincey, 57

Divine Justice Society, 64

Dominicans, 45

"Dummy Documents," 122

Dungans, 57

Dutch, the, embassy, 33;
  in Formosa, 35

Dwarf-nation, the, 109

Dynastic Histories, 59


Earthquake, 53

East India Company, 42, 67;
  policy of, 71

Edict, against missionaries, 45;
  for slaughter of all foreigners, 116;
  nullification of, 116;
  by baby Emperor, 125

Eighteen provinces, 41

Eleuths, 55

Elgin, Lord, 93, 94

Elliot, Captain, 74;
  retires to Hongkong, 76

Emperor, Chinese, carried off, 6

Empress, suspicious death of, 106

Empress, Eastern, 98;
  death of, 109

Empress, Western, _see_ Empress Dowager

Empress Dowager, _coups d'état_, 98, 113;
  plot to get rid of, 113;
  flees, 116;
  death of, 121

Encyclopædia, K'ang Hsi's, 50

Eunuchs, 14; army of, 15;
  restrictions on, 29;
  oppression by, 63

Ever Victorious Army, 89

Ever-White Mountains, 1

Examinations, established, 20;
  in poetical skill, 47;
  system, 112;
  to be changed, 118

Extra-territoriality, 79, 114


Feudatory princes, 29, 40;
  no more Chinese, 41

Flag, the Dragon, 133;
  the republican, 134;
  of truce, violated, 95

Formosa, 34, 56;
  ceded to Japan, 41, 42;
  Japanese land on, 105;
  republic in, 111

Fournier, Captain, 109

France, and Tongking, 109

Franciscans, 45


Galdan, 43

Galdan II., 55

Gao-tchan, 57

Genghis Khan, 7

German priests murdered, 111

Ginseng, 19

Gioros, 118

God, the term for, 46

Golden Dragon, the, 70

Golden dynasty, 5

Gordon, Major, 89;
  resigns, 90;
  resumes command, 90

Grand Canal, the, 47

Great Mogul, 33

Great Wall, the, 17

Gros, Baron, 93

Gurkhas, 58


Han-lin College, presents address, 30

Hangchow, 6, 31, 47

Harashar, 57

Hassan, prince, 104

Heaven and Earth Society, 65

Heavenly city, the, 84

Heavenly dynasty, the, 83

Heavenly king, the, 83;
  death of, 91

Heilungchiang, 8

Hingking, 10

Hongkong, ceded, 77

Hoppo, the, 119

Hsi Tsung, 14

Hsien Fêng, 80, 81;
  death of, 96

Hsiung-nu, 11

Hsü Ching-ch'êng, executed, 117

Hsüan T'ung, deposed, 134;
  allowance of four million taels, 134

Hung Hsiu-ch'üan, 81

Hung League, 65

Huns, 11


Ili, 55

Immorality of foreigners, 108

Intermarriage prohibited, 37;
  proposed between Manchus and Chinese, 117

Iquon, 34


Japan, 8;
  and Korea, 110;
  war with China, 110

Japanese, 104

Jehangir, 69

Jehol, 58;
  Emperor flees to, 96, 115

Jesuits, 45, 52; make maps, 56


K'ai-fêng, 2;
  siege of, 22

Kalmucks, 43;
  the trek of the, 56

K'ang Hsi, 40;
  leads army, 43;
  as traveller, 46;
  and literature, 49;
  family troubles of, 50;
  death of, 51

K'ang Yu-wei, 113

Kashgaria, 56, 69;
  Ameer of, 100

Khalkas, 43

Khokand, 43

Kiaochow, seized by Germany, 111

Kien Long, 54

Kin dynasty, 4

Kirin, 8

Kitans, 1

Koffler, A., S.J., 32

Kokonor, rebellion in, 53

Korea, 3;
  conquest of, 19;
  and Japan, 110

Kotow, the, 67

Koxinga, 34;
  canonized, 35

Kuan-tung, 8

Kuang Hsü, 106, 107;
  married, 109;
  informally deposed, 113;
  death of, 121

Kublai Khan, 7, 47

Kueichow, etc., aborigines of, 53

Kuldja, 56;
  annexed by Russia, 100;
  regained by Marquis Tsêng, 101

Kung, Prince, 96;
  his _coup d'état_, 116;
  joint regent with Empresses Dowager, 98

Kuo Sung-tao, 108


Laos tribes, 4

Lexicon, K'ang Hsi's, 49

Lhasa, 43

Li Chin-chung, 14

Li Hung-chang, 89;
  treachery of, 90;
  wounded by assassin, 110

Li Tz[)u]-ch'êng, 21;
  loses an eye, 22;
  defeated, 26;
  death of, 26

Liao dynasty, 2, 4

Liao-tung, 8

Liao-yang, 17

Likin, 87

Lim Boon-keng, Dr, 139

Lin, Commissioner, 75;
  destroys opium, 75;
  cashiered, 76;
  further career of, 84;
  death of, 85

Loch, Mr, captured, 95

Long-haired rebels, 84

Loo-choo islands, 104


Macao, 73;
  occupied by Portuguese, 73

Macartney, Lord, 58

Magalhaens, 53

Mahometans, 43;
  discontented, 100;
  crushed by Tso Tsung-t'ang, 101

Mahometanism, tolerated, 112

Man born good, 86

Manchuria, 8

Manchus, the, origin of, 1;
  etymology of name, 8;
  their script, 10;
  name as a title, 12;
  archers, 17;
  religion of, 20, 112;
  established as a dynasty, 29;
  garrisons, 36;
  language spoken at court, 49;
  literature, 49;
  bravery of soldiers, 77;
  England and the dynasty, 91;
  they monopolize fat posts, 110;
  to travel, young, 113;
  standard of education of, 118;
  indictment of rule of, 130

Miao-tz[)u], the, 54;
  how pacified, 70

Mings, the, dynasty of, 8;
  Emperor commits suicide, 24;
  attempts to restore, 31, 32;
  the Tombs, 47 (also under _K'ang Hsi_);
  dynastic history of, 53

Mongolia, conquest of, 19

Mongols, the, 7;
  derivations of name, 7;
  recognize Manchu supremacy, 21

Morrison, Dr R., 67;
  his dictionary, 71;
  his Bible, 72

Mukden, 8; capture of, 16


Nanking, 6;
  treaty of, 79;
  captured by T'ai-p'ings, 84;
  captured from T'ai-p'ings, 91

Nan-yang, 32

Napier, Lord, 72;
  his death, 73

Napoleon, his opinion, 67

National Assembly, 127

Nepal, 56

Nestorians, the, 11;
  Tablet, 44

Nien-fei, 99

"Nine Thousand Years," 15

Ningpo, taken, 77

Ning-yüan, siege of, 17

Nurhachu, 9; death of, 18

Nü-chêns, 1

Nü-chih, 5


Oath, written in blood, 18;
  a forced, 94

Ogotai, 7

"Old Buddha," 135

One-eyed rebel, 24

Opaochi, 2

Opium, prohibited, 74;
  smuggled 74;
  smoking of prohibited, 120;
  exception to include Empress Dowager, 120

Ouigours, 11


Palmerston, Lord, 76

Panshen Erdeni, 58

Panthays, the, 103

Parkes, Mr, 92;
  captured, 95

Peacock's feather, 29

Peking, 2, 5;
  attack on, 19;
  captured, 24;
  surrendered, 96

Penal Code, the, 37

'Phagspa, 11

Pope, the, and ancestral worship, 45

Population, 48, 55

Port Arthur, captured by Japanese, 110;
  "leased" to Russia, 111

Ports, five opened to trade, 79

Portuguese mission, 53

Pottinger, Sir Henry, 77

Provinces, number of, 41

Ptolemaic system, 44


Quelpart, 8

Queue, the, 17;
  strictly enforced, 31;
  T'ai-p'ings cut off the, 83


Railway, the Woosung, 108

Railways, ordered by edict, 111

Reform, edicts, 111;
  Empress Dowager pretends to favour, 117;
  constitutional, 122;
  again promised, 127

Regent, the, resigns, 127

Republic, the, authorized by Manchus, 134

"Revolt of the Tartars," 57

Revolution, the, 122

Ricci, 44

Russia, embassy from, 33;
  fear of, 73;
  war with Japan and its influence, 119


"Sam Collinson," 96

Schaal, Adam, 17, 43

Schlegel, Dr, 66

Secret Societies, 61, 65;
  their lodges, 66

Sêng-ko-lin-sin, defeated, 96

Shan States, 54

Shanghai, taken, 77

Shêngking, 8

Shimonoseki, treaty of, 110

Shun, dynasty, 22

Shun Chih, 29;
  death of, 33

Siege of the Legations, 115

"Slave" and "servant," 37

"Slay" changed to "protect," 117

Society of God, the, 82

Soochow, burnt by Imperialists, 87;
  capitulated, 90

Stanton, Sir George, 67

Su-shên tribe, the, 1

Succession violated, rule of, 106

Suleiman, sultan, 103

Summer palace, 67;
  burnt, 96;
  built on plan of Trianon, 97

Sun Yat-sen, 123;
  kidnapped in London, 123;
  enters Nanking, 129;
  elected first President, 129;
  manifesto by, 129;
  visits tomb of first Ming Emperor, 134;
  announces fall of Manchus, 135

Sungari, river, 3

Sungaria, 43

Sungs, dynasty of, 2;
  Southern, 6

Syriac, 11


T'ai-p'ings, the dynasty, 83;
  manifesto, 83;
  successes, 84;
  advance on Peking, 85;
  slaughter of princes, 90;
  last prince and king murdered, 91;
  end of rebellion, 91

T'ai-shan, ascent of by K'ang Hsi, 46

T'ai Tsu, 18

T'ai Tsung, 20

Taku, forts taken, 94;
  repulse at, 95;
  captured, 95

Ta-li, 103;
  treacherously surrendered, 104

Tan-lo, 8

Tao Kuang, 69;
  death of, 80

Tartar general, 36

Tashilumbo, 58

Tatnell, Commander, 95

Tea, 39;
  mentioned by Pepys, 39;
  export from Foochow, 39

Tibet, 43, 56, 58

Tientsin, reached, 76;
  Treaty of, 94;
  ratification refused, 94;
  ratified, 97;
  massacre, 102

Timour, 57

Tobacco prohibited, 20

Tongking and France, 109

Torture of prisoners, 96

Trade, European, 71

Treaty with Russia, 42

Triad Society, 65

Trimetrical Classic, 86

Tsai Tsê's mission, Duke, 119

Tsêng Kuo-fan, 86

Tsêng, the Marquis, 101

Tsitsihar, 8

Tso Tsung-t'ang, 89;
  his campaign in Central Asia, 101

Tu Wên-hsiu, 103;
  death of, 104

T'ung Chih, 98;
  married, 103;
  died, 106

Turguts, 56

Turkestan, 43, 57

Twist Rebels, 99

Types, movable, 50


Unicorn appears, 15

University for Peking, 112


Verbiest, 44

Viceroy, the, 36


Ward, and his troops, 89;
  death of and shrine to, 89

Wei Chung-hsien, 14

Wei-hai-wei, captured by Japanese, 110;
  "leased" to England, 111

Western Empress, 98

White Feather Society, 64

White Lily Society, 61

Wo-jen, his wish, 123

Wu-ch'ang, 27

Wu K'o-tu, 107

Wu San-kuei, 21, 23;
  joins the Manchus, 26;
  his conditions, 28;
  his rebellion, 40;
  death of, 41


Ya-k'o-sa, 42

Yakoob Beg, 100;
  assassinated, 101

Yang-tsze, the, 6

Yeh, Governor, 92;
  captured and exiled, 93

Yellow girdles, 118

Yellow riding jacket, 88;
  given to Gordon, 91

Yellow river, 2;
  changes its bed, 47

Young China party, 123;
  plot to seize Canton, 123

Yüan Ch'ang, executed, 117

Yüan-ming-yüan, 96

Yüan Shih-k'ai, 124;
  appointed Prime Minister, 127

Yung Chêng, 52;
  his hostility to missionaries, 53;
  his death and character, 53


[Illustration: Sketch Map of the Far East]