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CHAP. PAGE

LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED 141

INDEX 142

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. ? as u in fun. i as ie in thief. o as aw in saw. u as oo in soon. ? as u in French, or ? in German. as e in her. ai as aye . ao as ow in cow. ei as ey in prey. ow as o . ch as ch in church. chih as chu in church. hs as sh . j as in French. ua and uo as wa and wo.

The insertion of a rough breathing ' calls for a strong aspirate.

THE N?-CH?NS AND KITANS

The Manchus are descended from a branch of certain wild Tungusic nomads, who were known in the ninth century as the N?-ch?ns, 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.

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 N?-ch?ns, who were also ready to revolt, and who sent an army to the assistance of their new friends. The N?-ch?n and Korean armies, acting in concert, inflicted a severe defeat on the Kitans, and from this victory may be dated the beginning of the N?-ch?n power. China had indeed already sent an embassy to the N?-ch?ns, 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 N?-ch?ns, and even went so far as to advise China to join with the Kitans in crushing the N?-ch?ns. 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.

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.

The victories of Akut?ng over the Kitans were most welcome to the Chinese Emperor, who saw his late oppressors humbled to the dust by the victorious N?-ch?ns; 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 N?-ch?ns, 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 N?-ch?ns, the Chinese Emperor discovered that the N?-ch?ns, 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 N?-ch?ns, and even larger levies of money were exacted, while the same old farce of worthless tribute was carried on as before.

In 1123, Akut?ng 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 N?-ch?ns spent the rest of his life in one long struggle with China. In 1126, the Sung capital, the modern K'ai-f?ng 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 N?-ch?ns. 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 N?-ch?ns 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 N?-ch?ns 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 N?-ch?ns 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 N?-ch?ns 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.

Three centuries and a half must now pass away before entering upon the next act of the Manchu drama. The N?-ch?ns had been scotched, but not killed, by their Mongol conquerors, who, one hundred and thirty-four years later , 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 N?-ch?ns 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, Sh?ngking, or Liao-tung, or Kuan-tung, Kirin, and Heilungchiang or Tsitsihar.

Among the numerous small independent communities above mentioned, which traced their ancestry to the N?-ch?ns 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 the term Manchu 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.

THE FALL OF THE MINGS

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-y?an being almost the only possession remaining to the Chinese beyond the Great Wall. The explanation of this is as follows.

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.

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-ch'?ng 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-f?ng, 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.

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-ch'?ng 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-ch'?ng, by-and-by to receive fit and proper burial at the hands of the Manchus.

Li Tz-ch'?ng 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-ch'?ng'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-ch'?ng, 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-ch'?ng 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.

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:-- No Chinese women were to be taken into the Imperial seraglio; 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; 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; 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 Y?nnan and Ssch'uan. There we shall meet him again.

The new Emperor, the ninth son of Abkhai, best known by his year-title as Shun Chih , 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 to prepare a list of all worthy men; to search out such of these as might be in hiding; to exterminate all rebels; to proclaim an amnesty; to establish peace; to disband the army, and 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 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 Y?nnan, 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 Y?nnan. 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.

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.

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 ; 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: immutable laws more or less embodying great principles beyond the reach of revision, and 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.

K'ANG HSI

The Emperor Shun Chih was succeeded by his third son, known by his year-title as K'ang Hsi , 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 Y?nnan 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.

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-f?ng, 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?.

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