THE FALL OF THE MING DYNASTY.
267
the Babylonians seems to support strongly
the correctness of the statement that Baby-
THE FALL OF THE MING DYNASTY.*
The authority on which I am principally
dependent for my narrative, is a book en-
titled ' The story of the year Chia Shen ' (sc.
the year A. D. 1644, the last year of the
Ming Dynasty). Its writer, who was at the
time residing in Peking, escaped from the
city only four days before the Emperor's
death and remained in hiding for a month,
after which he ventured to return again.
He hud thus personal knowledge of many of
the facts that he recounts.
The Peking government was already re-
duced to extreme weakness when 'Ch'ung
; Cheng, the last Ming Emperor, ascended the
throne in A. D. 16'27. Within two years of
his accession to the throne, the first great Man-
chu invasion of China took place. For several
months the Tartar armies wandered round
Peking, not attempting an assault on the
city, but harrying the country at their will
and approaching so near as to encamp in
the Nan Hai-tzu or Southern Hunting Park,
just outside the walls. Till the conquest,
they never again made so formidable an incur-
eion. But every year they burst through
the passes at some point or other and pill-
aged a portion of Northern China. During
this period they repeatedly tried to assure
the Emperor of their desire for peace, and
to set forth to him the grievances of which
they complained. It is hard to say how
far they were sincere. With their powerful
army, which they supported by plunder,
and with rich China lying helpless at their
feet, one can see no reason why they
should have preferred peace to war. But,
* Read before the Oriental Society of Peking,
on 3rd February, 1888.
lonian astrology was accepted at the same
time in ancient India and in ancient China.
JOSEPH EDKINS,
anyhow, their proposals were safe from all
chance of acceptance. Either their letters
were not forwarded to Peking, or, if they
were, the Emperor thought it beneath him
to give a reply. This irrational pride in the
midst of extreme wea'kness has a curious
parallel just two hundred years later in the
behaviour of the Manchu Emperors of China
towards western nations.
But it was from the West not the East
that destruction was to come to Peking.
Li Tzu-ch'eng, also known aa Li Ch'uang
or Ch'uang Wang, the subverter of the
dynasty, was born in Shensi in 1606. He
was the son of a village headman, a man of
some little property. When he was not
more than twenty years old, his father died,
and he became headman in his turn. In
1627 there was a failure of the harvest from
drought. It was the young headman's duty
to collect the land tax of his village. The
farmers could not pay, but the authorities
granted no remission to the collector. He
spent all his own money and borrowed more,
but still could not free himself. Pressed on
the one hand by the authorities, on the
other by one of his creditors, who unfortun-
ately belonged to an influential family, he
lost hope, ran away from home and turned
brigand. He was a tall, powerful man,
with short, bushy hair, a small, aquiline
nose and yellow teeth. In his more famous
days, the loss of one eye from an arrow-
wound gave him a peculiarly forbidding
aspect.
In 1629, with a small body of followers,
he joined the standard of Kao Ying-bsiang,
a powerful robber chief, who was ravaging
268 THE C H I N A REVIEW.
Shensi far and wide. They remained to-
gether till 1636, when Kao Ying-hsiang was
defeated and captured by the Imperial troops.
Li Tzu-ch'eng escaped with a few com-
panions across the frontier into Szechuan
and lay concealed there. While thus hiding,
he availed himself of his leisure to Improve
his education, which had originally been
neglected. There are recorded of him in
his later days a few remarks in classical
language, which are still read with a smile
of approval by Chinese men of letters. For
instance, he was told one day that a certain
very distinguished scholar wished to desert
the old dynasty and take service under him ;
upon which he sarcastically quoted a line
from the classics, the Chinese equivalent of
our ' dulce et decorum est pro patria mori,'
and suggested the gentleman should show
his ability by writing an essay on that
In the following year he emerged from
his retreat and essayed to join Chang Hsien-
Chang, who was ensconced, with several
other chiefs, in the tract of Northern Hupei,
which lies south of the Han River and near
the Szechuan frontier. This country, which
is composed of a tangled mass of mountains,
is said at the present day to be so difficult
of access that its only trade consists in live
pigs ; as nothing that requires carrying will
pay the cost of conveying it to a distant
market. Chang Hsien-chung is still remem-
bered with horror in western China. His
name is a household word to thousands
upon thousands who never heard of Li Tzu-
ch'eng, though he never attained to a posi-
tion nearly so high as that momentarily
held by the latter. All the brigand chiefs of
.the time were cruel, but in wanton savagery
none approached Chang Hsien-chung. On
one occasion, at Ma-ch'eng Hsien, He cut off
the feet of the women and made a heap of
them, and because his favourite mistress
had more beautiful feet than any, he added
hers to crown the pile. At Wu-ch'ang Fu
he lighted an incense stick and bade the
inhabitants flee the city before the stick
burnt down. As soon as it was extinguish-
ed, he gave the word of command. His men
charged the struggling mass with which the
streets were choked, driving those they did
not slay into the Yangtse close by. So great
was the slaughter, that the waters of the
river were strewn with corpses as far as
three hundred miles below. In Szechuan he
depopulated the country to such a degree,
that the majority of the present inhabitants
of the province are said to be the descend-
ants of immigrants since his day.
Li Tzu-ch'eng, finding that Chang Hsien-
chung displayed an unfriendly disposition
towards him, separated and concealed him-
self once more. In 1640, at the head of a
small party of desperate men, he crossed
into Eastern Hupei and Honan, From this
moment his career was one of almost un-
interrupted success, He was soon in com-
mand of an army superior to anything
which could be brought against it. Chang
Hsien-chung was now glad to enter into an
alliance with him, as his flank and rear
were thus protected from any movement of
the imperial forces. In 1641 he was strong
enough to commence the first of his famous
' sieges of Kai-feng Fu ; and though he fail-
ed to take the town, he defeated two armies
in the field. At the beginning of 1642 he
again invested the place, but was called
away by the advance of Sun Fu-t'ing with
an army from T'ung Kuan. Sun Fu-t'ing,
one of the ablest servants of the Emperor,
•was the officer who, when Governor of Shensi,
had defeated and captured Li Tzu-ch'eng's
old leader Kao ying-hsiang. He had after-
wards been removed to the eas'ern frontiers,
in order that he might take, command
against the Manchus ; but meeting with the
ill success which befel all the Chinese
generals who were opposed to them, he was
degraded and cast into prison. The Em-
peror now restored him to his rank and sent
him to quell the storm which was threaten-
ing from the West. Sun Fu-t'ing, at the
head of the sorry army which he had been
able to gather together, marched south-
 THE FALL OF THE MING DYNASTY.
wards in the direction of Hsiang-yang Fu.
Li Tzu-ch'e'ng, with the rapidity and energy
which seem to have been hisprincipal charac-
teristics, at once raised the siege of K'ai-
feng and hurried to meet the enemy. They
encountered each other near Hsiang-yang,
and Sun Fu-t'ing suffered a terrible defeat.
His army was scattered in all directions,
the soldiers throwing away their weapons
in their flight. From this moment the fate
of the Ming Dynasty was virtually sealed.
Li Tzu-ch'eng lost no time in returning
to -K'ai-feng and recommencing the siege.
Several armies were ordered to march to the
relief of the beleaguered town. Those who
ventured within reach were instantly crush-
ed. The others hovered at a safe distance
or remained on the opposite bank of the
Yellow River. Assault after assault was
made upon the doomed city, but every at-
tack was repulsed by the inhabitants, who
from the greatest to the lowest were
animated' with the highest spirit of courage
and endurance. In any people which thought
more of martial glory than the Chinese do,
the heroism of the defenders of K'ai-feng
Fu would remain, as long as the nation
existed, a favourite theme for story-tellers
and writers of ballads. At last, after four
months of incredible hardships, compared
by Pere Mailla in his history with the siege
of Jerusalem, when provisions had risen to
the price of more than their weight of gold,
and cannibalism had become an ordinary
practice, the wall was washed down by a
flood of water from the Yellow River and
thus the city fell. It is said that the river
bank was purposely cut through by the
besieged, in order to drown the camps of
their enemy ; but that the latter, which were
on higher ground, escaped, while the un-
fortunate town-folk were overwhelmed.
Though tens of thousands of rebels had
fallen in the three sieges of K'ai-feng, re-
cruits were continually pouring in to fill
their places. If the Imperial forces had
the good fortune at any moment to break
up the ranks of some of the lesser chiefs,
269
the scattered brigands immediately flocked
to the standard of Li.
Under Li Tzu-ch'eng's orders were about
a dozen rebel chiefs, each at the head of his
own army, but glad to be the lieutenant of
so powerful a man. Jealousies however
were not unknown. One chief was seized
by Li at a banquet. Another suspected
treachery and declined the invitation given
to him. Next morning at daw.n the tram-
pling of hoofs was heard in his camp. Li,
who had ridden in at the head of twenty
horsemen, seized him and beheaded him
instantly in his tent. Li's lieutenants or
allies now held the country as far west as
Ichang, where an army was threatening
Western Hunan. Chang Hsien-chung was
over-running Southern Ilupei and Northern
Hunan. It was at about this period that
he massacred the inhabitants of Wu-ch'ang
Fu in the manner described above.
Encouraged by his uninterrupted career
of success, Li Tzu-ch'ing now began to take
serious measures for permanently establish-
ing his power. Instead of pillaging and de-
serting towns which he captured, he placed
garrisons within their walls. He organized
his army on a regular system, transforming
the old chiefs into Lieutenants General. He
styled himself Generalissimo; and though
he did not assert, still he received with
evident gratification the suggestion, that he
should assume a loyal title. His next
move was to march northwards towards
Shensi, Sun Fu-t'ing, after his defeat, had
returned to T'ung Kuan, where he was
occupied in forming a new army out of
such materials as he could collect toge-
ther. T'ung Kuan, which guards the chief
road to Peking from the west, lies close
to the great bend in the Yellow River, near
the meeting place of the boundaries of the
three provinces of Shansi, Shensi and Ho-
nan. It is at once a stronghold and the
most important strategical point in North
West China. Sun Fu-Ling was unwilling
to leave such a fortress unguarded and was
equally loth to expose his unformed army
270 THE CHINA R E V I E W .
in the open field. But pressed by orders
from Peking and taunted for his caution by
the Governor of Shensi, in the middle of the
a u t u m n be advanced from his position to
encounter the rebels. His distinguished re-
putation made his army more feared than it
deserved to be. Li Tzu-ch'eng wrote for
assistance to Chang Hsien-chung, using the
common Chinese phrase, ' w h e n the lips are
gone the teeth are cold,' that is to say, if
Li were destroyed, Chang would be in dan-
ger. The latter acceded to the request and
sent a reinforcement of 10,000 picked men.
In the first encounter the Imperialist
troops bore down the enemy, who are said
however to have been merely the feeblest
and most worthless of their troops, pur-
posely placed in front. Sun Fu-t'ing pres-
sed on till he found himself in front of the"
earth-works, behind which lay the main
body of the rebels. Three days of heavy rain
prevented the transport of his provisions. A
line of carts, which stretched half across the
province, was struggling in the deep mud,
but none or almost none reached the unfor-
tunate army. The men were starving, but
the General dared not retreat to the neigh-
bourhood of his supplies. For such a move-
ment in the face of the enemy must instan-
taneously become a hopeless rout.
At length the rebels attacked. At the
first sound of their approach, the Imperialist
army broke and fled, each man pitching
away his arms. Sun Fu-t'ing hurried back
to T'ung Kuan, hoping to be able to reform
his troops under the protection of the walls
of the fortress. But the rebels entered at
the same moment as the fugitives, disguised
it is said as Imperialist troops. He turned
towards the provincial capital, Si-an Fu;
but before he could reach it, Li Tzu-ch'eng,
•who seemed never to lose an instant, had
already taken it without meeting with any
serious resistance.
The victorious rebel rested at Si-an Fa
till the end of the year. In the meantime
his troops completed the subjugation of
the province, and commenced over-running
Shansi. On the first day of the new year,
the year chia sheu (or A, D. 1644), he
assumed the title of Yung Ch'ang as the
first Emperor of the Ta Shun Dynasty.
When the news of the loss of T'ung Kuan
reached Peking, a general named Yu Ying-
kuei was despatched to take command of
the forces in the West with the title of
Commander-in-chief. The old officer repre-
sented in vain that it was useless to send
him, unless he were supplied with the
necessary funds. On reaching Shansi, he
was afraid to face the rebels and fell back
steadily as they advanced. New-year's day
was a sad day in Peking. The Emperor
received his principal Ministers and drank
tea with them. They represented to him
that the State treasuries and granaries were
exhausted, and there was no resource left
except His Majesty's privy purse. The
Emperor, with tears in his eyes, replied that
he was ashamed to speak of the privy purse,
—that is to say, it was empty also. On the
9th of the month a despatch was received
by the Board of War, which, on being open-
ed, proved to be a cartel of defiance from Li
Tzu-ch'eng, announcing that on the 10th of
the 3rd month he would appear to do battle
for the Empire. His calculations were not
far wrong. Within a week of the designa-
ted day, his armies were descried from the
walls of Peking. The bearer of the letter
had received it from a man at Cho Chou,
who pretended to be a Government courier
and to have fallen sick there on the way.
Instead of being given the reward of ten
taels which he expected, the unfortunate
man was promptly beheaded.
On the same day, as a final effort
to oppose the progress of the rebels, Li
Chien-t'ai, a Secretary of State, was
despatched to Shansi, his native province,
where he said he could raise an army
and hold the enemy in check. The Emperor
feasted him on the city wall beneath the
tower which stands above the central gate,
and then, amidst a violent storm of wind
and dust, escorted him a mile on his
 THE FALL OF THE MING DYNASTY.
journey. It must be seldom that such an
act of condescension as this has been per-
formed by a Chinese monarch. Five thou-
sand soldiers accompanied Li Chien-t'ai,
but after a day or two, more than half of
them deserted. He journeyed slowly by
stages of ten miles a day, instead of hurry-
ing to Tai-yuan Fu, as he was urged to do
by those who foresaw that with the loss of
Shansi all hope for Peking vanished also.
For all the good it did, the expedition rnight
as well never have been despatched. Pere
de Mailla, in explanation of the difference
between the General's promises and his per-
formances, says that it was at an earlier
period, before Shansi was over-run, that he
had volunteered his services; when there
was really reason to hope that, with his
immense wealth and numerous family con-
nections, he might raise an army powerful
enough to defend the province. But now
his home was captured, his riches gone, and
it was beyond his power to effect anything-.
After this, a general apathy fell upon the
Peking Government. It must have been
manifest to all that the enemy would short-
ly be at their gates. The only possible plan
which offered any hopes of resisting him
•would have been to withdraw all the
armies from Shan-hai Kuan and the Man-
churian frontier, and assemble them at
Peking. This would have left the north
open to the ravages of the Tartars, but it
might have saved the Emperor and the
capital; and, in any case, the country could
have been harried little worse than it was
yearly, in spite of the presence of the gar-
risons. Orders to bring up troops were in-
deed sent later to the frontier ; but not till
it was too late for them to reach Peking be-
fore its fall. Six precious weeks thus pass-
ed away, in which the only measure taken
was to despatch eunuchs to all the prin-
cipal camps, not to take command of the
troops, but with the title of ' military in-
spectors' to act as spies upon the generals.
European history affords more than one
example of the ill results of allowing any
271
Civil Commissioners to be present as a check
upon the Commander of an army in the
field. We may therefore judge what would
be the effect of placing in such a position
men like the ignorant and faithless slaves
of the palace.
Near the end of the second month, the
Emperor was counselled by his principal
Ministers to quit Peking and establish him-
self at Nanking instead. This advice was
proffered several times, and was met as re-
gularly with an unflinching refusal- The
Emperor would not desert what he consider-
ed his post, nor set the example of running
away. He looked upon the makers of the
suggestion as little better than traitors,
asking them scornfully where were their
former professions of loyalty, and whether
he had not one faithful servant left to help
him bear his woes. Notwithstanding that
one may sympathize with this firm resolve,
one cannot but admit that the advice was
sound. Peking was doomed, beyond possi-
bility of preservation. If the Emperor
went down in its fall, all hope of his dynas-
ty was lost. The robbers from the West
and the foreigners from the East would
fight it out between them for the lordship
of the whole country, and to one of the two
it must come. If the Emperor retired
southwards, his retreat meant at least a
temporary partition of the land; but still
he would not have been without hopes of
recovering what he had lost; or, at the worst,
he and his successors might have reigned
for many generations, as former dynasties
had done, over a wide kingdom in the
south, after losing hold upon the North. It
is needless to dwell long upon speculations
as to what might have been ; but it is cer-
tain that the conquest of South China would
have presented a very different task to the
Manchus, had there still existed an un-
doubted and acknowledged Emperor, whom
all recognized as the rightful lord. When
it became plain that the Emperor could
not be induced to quit Peking, it was
suggested to him to send his eldest son to
272 THE CHINA REVIEW.
Nanking to establish a Government there.
But to this proposal he returned the same
answer as to the former one.
The third month of the year, the last of the
Ming Empire, commenced. A period of fast-
ing was proclaimed and the officers of the Go-
vernment were ordered to purify their lives;
but they went on feasting and wine-drink-
ing, as though it were a time of profound
peace. An enquiry was made as to the
amount of funds in the treasury. It was
found to be eighty thousand taels. This
the Emperor directed to be retained for the
defence of the city in case of siege, and not
to be touched for any other purpose what-
ever. At the same time various expedients
were tried to obtain money. Certain pri-
soners, officials of rank, were released on
the payment of considerable sums. An
appeal was made to persons of wealth, and
promotions or honorary portals were pro-
mised to those who would contribute. A
few gave liberally, one man alone subscrib-
ing twenty thousand taels. But the
majority grudged parting with the spoils
they had amassed in the service of the State.
The total sum collected was Tls. 200,000.
It is specially recorded that an old country-
man, living just outside the Chang-i men,
brought four hundred taels, the savings of
his whole life, and paid it into the treasury.
Meanwhile Li Tzu-ch'eng was advancing
from Shansi by two routes. Part of his
forces took the main or Southern road by
Pao-ting Fu. The remainder marched by
a more northerly line past Ta-t'ung Fu and
Hsuan-hua Fu, where there were strong-
holds, which it was not safe to leave un-
taken. The northern army was the first to
approach the Capital. On the 9th of the
month Hsiian-hua was captured. On the
14th Chu-yung Kuan, with its well-known
gate-way in the middle of the Nankow
Pass, shared the same fate, the General in
command fleeing, and the eunuch ' Inspec-
tor,' Tu Hsun by name, joining the rebels.
There now remained no obstacle between
the enemy and the walls of Peking, Two
days later their advanced guard was al-
ready plundering the suburbs, while from
the walls their fires were seen at night
studding the whole country between Sha-ho
and the Western Hills. On the 17th the
Hsi-chih Men, or North West Gate, was
attacked unsuccessfully. The troops on the
walls were scanty in number and suffered
terribly from hunger, no one seeming to
care for them. By the Emperor's orders a
large body of eunuchs-from the Palace was
sent to swell their number.
In the course of the day the revolted
eunuch, Tu Hsun, was admitted into the
city, being pulled up over the walls with a
rope. He was received privately by the
Emperor in the presence of the principal
Secretary of State, Wei Tsao-te. He brought
a proposal that Li Tzu-ch'eng should be re-
cognized as king of north-west China and
be given a subsidy of a million taels, upon
which he would retire to Honan. The
eunuch strongly urged the acceptance of
the agreement. On the one hand he point-
ed out the impossibility of successful re-
sistance, and on the other he dwelt upon the
accession of strength which the Empire
would receive from the support of so power-
ful an. adherent. Li would give his assis-
tance as an ally against the Manchus, but
he could not take orders from the Em-
peror or be summoned as a vassal to
court. The Emperor, too agitated to re-
main seated, stood up and leant upon the
back of his chair. He asked the opinion
of Wei, but the old servant bent his head
and spoke not a single word. Tu Hsun
was at length dismissed with the promise
that a reply should be sent, and was let
down over the wall. As soon as they were
alone, the Emperor again addressed Wei
Tsao-te, who merely continued to kneel in
silence. The Emperor, vexed and wearied,
pushed over the chair on which he was
leaning and withdrew into an inner apart-
ment.
Next morning the Ping-tse Men was
attacked, and the General in command
 THE FALL OF THE MING DYNASTY.
slain. The Chang-i Men, the "West Gate of
the Southern City, was opened through the
treachery of the eunuchs in charge and the
enemy thus admitted began to attack the
northern city from the south. The Em-
peror did not appear till late, when he went
to the top of Prospect Hill, where he could
see how the city was surrounded. As even-
ing drew on, he held a long conference with
Wei Tsao-te, after which he gave orders for
sending away the three Princea into places
of concealment. Then, nerving himself
with a few cups of wine, he went into the
inner apartments and slew the female
members of his family with his own hand ;
the Empress, at his command, having first
put an end to her own life. When this
Spartan deed was done, he went with the
eunuch Wang Ch'eng-en to the house of
the latter. There he changed his Imperial
robes for private dress, and, escorted by a
few hundred eunuchs, he endeavoured to
make his escape from the city. First he
tried the Ch'i-hua Men, or East Gate; but
it was barred against him and could not be
opened. The same fate awaited him at the
Ha-ta Men. Finally he attempted to force
his way out at the Ch'ien Men. But the
guards, not knowing who he was and
suspecting treachery, fired upon him from
the wall. In despair, he ceased to make
any further effort and returned to the
palace, which was by this time entirely
deserted, even its' doors being left unguard-
ed. After wandering through the empty
halls, he ascended Prospect Hill and com-,
mitted 'suicide by hanging himself upon a
tree. One man alone had kept him com-
pany, the eunuch Wang Ch'eng-en, whose
lifeless body was found next day near that
of his master.
The Emperor Ch'ung Cheng has always
been regarded with sympathy by Chinese
historians. He was a man of good disposi-
tion, industrious and of fair abilities, and
in his character and his fate he reminds one
strongly of the unfortunate Louis XVI of
France. He suffered for the faults of his
273
predecessors. He himself would never have
brought his kingdom to ruin. But, inde-
cisive and wavering by nature, he lacked
the steadfastness and energy to arrest the
Empire on the downward course along which
it was rushing with rapidly increasing velo-
city. It was the want of money which was
the direct cause of the overthrow of the
dynasty. Had funds been forthcoming, men
would easily have been found to withstand
the armies of Li Tzu-ch'eng. Not to speak
of other localities, the towns and villages
near Peking contained thousands of retired
soldiers, who had fought, and sometimes
fought well, against the Manohus, and who
were ready to take up arms again, if they
could see any prospect that they would be
recompensed for their services, instead of
being left, as in their past experience, with-
out pay and without reward. The want of
money came, one need hardly say, from
peculation and maladministration. The sil-
ver which should have been paid into the
treasuries of the State found its way into
the pockets of the Mandarins instead. There
were of course honourable exceptions, as
there always have been in China, but the
mass of the servants of the Government
were hopelessly corrupt. But worthless as
were the regular Mandarins, they were still
superior to the eunuchs of the Palace.
Ignorant, uneducated, without homes and
families, these creatures were unfitted to
the last degree for positions of trust or
difficulty. Yet Ch'ung Cheng, even more
than his predecessors, deliberately followed
the policy of placing in their hands an ever-
increasing amount of power and authority.
Perhaps he trusted them because they were
the persons with whom he was in most
familiar intercourse, or perhaps he foolishly
thought that those who had no ties to bind
them to others, would be more likely to be
faithful to himself. At any rate, what-
ever was the cause of his infatuation,
the unfortunate monarch lived long en-
ough to discover that no one deserted
him so treacherously or welcomed his
274 THE CHINA REVIEW,
enemy so shamelessly as did his own
eunuchs.
At daylight next morning the attack on
the city was resumed with vigour, and in a
very short time all the gates had been taken
or surrendered. Li Tzu-ch'eng entered on
horseback and proceeded straight to the
Palace, at the portals of which three hun-
dred eunuchs were assembled to welcome
him. His first acts were to forbid on pain
of death that any of the inhabitants should
be molested, and he instituted a search for
the late Emperor, whose fate was not yet
known. He next proceeded to examine the
contents of the treasuries. The very small
quantity of gold and silver that they con-
tained was a cause of great surprise and
disappointment. For he had hoped to find
sufficient funds both for the immediate needs
of the government and for the distribution
of a largesse to his troops. He was soon
impelled by the want of money to resort to
means of raising it which brought great
opprobrium on his rule.
When a day or two had passed, notice
was given to all the officers of the late
government to report themselves at the
palace at a given hour. The roll being
called, a small number were retained for
service and the remainder rejected with
much contumely. Of the latter class a large
number were handed over to the mercies of
Li's generals, in order that they might be
made to disgorge the plunder, which they
were supposed to have amassed at the ex-
pense of the State. In the case of most of
them, doubtless, the supposition was perfect-
ly correct. Those who were unable or un-
willing to produce the large sums demanded
from them were punished and tortured
without pity. Some wealthy merchants,
and other persons who had been secretly
denounced to the government from private
spite, were subjected to treatment of a
similar nature. Li remonstrated with his
generals for their excessive cruelty, which
was creating great odium ; but they laughed
at him for his pains and told him not to
trouble himself with trifles. The torturing
went on for nearly a month, till he finally
released those who survived and were still in
confinement. Li's principal general, Li
Tsung-min, brought much discredit on the
Government. He used to ride into the
palace to see his master in private dress,
and transacted public business in his quar-
ters with a cup of wine at his side and his
arm round a girl's waist. There was a good
deal of distress in the city, provisions of all
kinds being requisitioned for the use of tha
troops. It does not seem that there was
any general ill-treatment of the population ;
but a certain number of families committed
suicide, in most cases, rather in anticipation
of danger than on account of actual cruelty.
Still, isolated instances of outrage were not
rare, and the public execution of soldiers
for plundering was a daily spectacle at the
palace gates.
When the two younger sons of the Em-
peror fled from the palace, on the night
before the capture of the city, they took
refuge with a nobleman, named Chou Kuei,
the husband of one of the Imperial Prin-
cesses. A day or two afterwards they were
surrendered by him to Li Tzu-ch'eng, who
treated them kindly, conversed with them
on several occasions and promised to confer
a small principality on each of them. Their
elder brother, the heir apparent, left the
palace on the same night as they did. But
he separated from them, and his fate was
never ascertained with certainty. Several
months afterwards, when the Emperor Shun
Chih was on the throne, a boy came secretly
to the house of Chou Kuei and introduced
himself as the Prince, He was unhesita-
tingly recognized by the Princess, but was
declared an impostor by her husband and
delivered by him to the Manchu authorities.
A special commission investigated the case
with great care, but seemed unable to come
to a decided conclusion. The boy disap-
peared quietly from view. The Chinese
historian refrains cautiously from any di-
rect expression of opinion, but seems cer-
 THE FALL OF THE MING DYNASTY.
tainly to lean towards a belief in the genuine-
ness of the pretension. Judging, however,
as well as I can from his narrative, I am
inclined to think the case is merely a Chi-
nese parallel to the stories of Perkin War-
beck and Lambert Simnel.
The organization of the Government was
carried on busily in Peking. New titles
were invented for the principal boards and
departments. There were literary examina-
tions, to which candidates thronged. Mo-
ney was coined with the superscription
' Yung-ch'ang.' Officers were sent south-
ward, some to collect funds, and others to
occupy permanent posts. The latter, how-
ever, were required to leave their families
in Peking as hostages for their fidelity.
An Imperial crown was tried on by Li Tzu-
ch'eng. At first it was too small, and when
altered was too big, and it made his head
ache every time he wore it. On days when he
had leisure, he indulged his love of athletic
exercises by practising archery in the palace
grounds. About the middle of the month,
after repeated urgings and several postpone-
ments, a date was fixed for his formal in-
stallation on the throne; but before the
day arrived, he had set out from Peking to
march against a new enemy.
At this moment the only spot in North-
China which still held out against the con-
queror of the capita], was the little tract
near Shan-kai Kuan on the Manchurian
frontier, where the end of the Great Wall
runs down to the sea. This territory was
occupied by the army of Wu San-kuei, an
officer already of some distinction, and des-
tined afterwards to become the most re-
nowned man in all China. It is said that
he had actually determined to give his ad-
hesion to Li Tzu-ch'eng and had started for
Peking with that intention, when he turned
back furious on hearing that a favourite
concubine, a beauty from Soochow whom he
had bought for -a large sum of money, had
been seized and appropriated by one of Li's
generals in Peking. This story, however,
may very possibly have been an invention
275
of later days, after he had fallen into dis-
favour, when anything to his discredit
would be favourably received.
The authorities I have consulted contain
great and irreconcilable differences in the
accounts they give of the short war between
Li Tzu-ch'eng and Wu San-kuei.
The Sheng-wu-chi, or military history of
the Manchu Emperors, is the source to which
one naturally turns for information. But
we must remember the Chinese saying that
the true history of a dynasty is never pub-
lished till it has ceased to reign, a remark
which would perhaps be peculiarly applic-
able to the work just mentioned. I have
therefore shrunk from attempting to de-
scribe the campaign in detail. Suffice it to
say that Wu San-kuei, justly considering
his army not to be a match for that of his
enemy, sought the aid of the Manchus,
without intending to do more than to use
them as allies. The Manchus swore friend-
ship with him and induced him to make his
men shave their heads in order that they
might be distinguishable from the other
Chinese. In the thick of a fight between
the two Chinese armies, the Tartars fell
upon the flank of Li Tzu-ch'eng, whose
men fled, terrified by the unexpected attack
and the strange appearance of the new foe.
A day or two later Li re-entered Peking,
followed by his draggled and weary cavalry.
The pursuit had been so hot that none of
the infantry were able to escape. Swift as
was the flight, the rumour of defeat had
travelled yet more rapidly, and reached
Peking before Li's return. The Generals
whom he had left in command were more
energetic or more skilled in the art of war,
than those who had charge of the city un-
der the late Emperor. Immediately they
heard the report, they had begun to prepare
for the defence of the town by pulling down
the houses outside the walls which masked
the approaches to the gates.
But though Li had still a very large
army in Peking or its immediate neigh-
bourhood, be did not make any attempt
276 THE CHINA REVIEW.
to hold the city. He had lost heart
and determined to retreat westward. His
treasure waggons were sent off and pre-
parations made for his departure. He took
a savage revenge upon his conqueror Wu
San-kuei, by murdering all the members of
the latter's household in Peking. The sol-
diers, sullen and refusing to be controlled,
plundered and ravished as they pleased.
The ceremony of coronation was hastily
performed; and then, on the 29th of the
month, just forty days after his victorious
entry into Peking, he turned his back for
ever on the scene of his hopes which a short
time before had appeared to be actually
realized. He had not gone far when he
was told that the people were killing the
stragglers who had remained behind in the
city. He was on the point of returning to
take vengeance, but he heard that Wu San-
kuei had already occupied the town. He
was pursued by that General as far as the
neighbourhood of Cheng-ting Fu, a few
days' journey to the south-west of Peking,
where a drawn battle, one of exceeding
fierceness, was fought. Next morning nei-
THE MARITIME WARS OF THE MANCHUS.
I.—CHINA S FIRST NAVAL EXPERIENCES.
After the Manchu grand-duke Polo's sub-
jugation of Che Kiang in 1646; the flight
of the Ming regent Prince Lu BS to Chu-
san; the crushing of Prince T'ang J||?
in Fu Kien ; and the surrender of Cheng
Chih-lung jSlt jS? §g. the Manchu armies
returned norm, leaving garrisons in certain
commanding spots. The piratical career of
Cheng Ch'eng-kung Ifjj' ~nj, Koxinga the
son, and Cheng Ts'ai 4f£ ; and Cheng Lien
B£&, the nephews of Cheng Chih-lung, be-
gan from this date. Prince Lu had fled in
ther party seems to have cared to recom-
mence the fight. Wu San-kuei returned to
Peking, where he found the young Manchu
Emperor, Shun Chih, already seated on the
throne. Li Tzu-ch'eng withdrew, for the
time unmolested, to Shensi; hut, attacked
there next year, he retreated to Hsiang-
yang, and thence fled to southern Hupei,
where he was slain by the local militia.
There can be but very little doubt, I im-
agine, that it was for the good of China that
Li Tzu-ch'eng was defeated at Shan-hai
Kuan. He was a man certainly of vigour
and energy and apparently much superior
by nature to those who surrounded him.
The infusion of new blood into the ad-
ministration, which would have accompanied
his accession to throne, could not have fail-
ed to be an improvement on the effete and
incapable Government of the Mings. But
there is little likelihood that he or his de-
scendants would have equalled in kingly
qualities the earlier monarehs of the Man-
chu Dynasty, into whose hands the empire
fell when it dropped from the grasp which
had clutched it for a moment.
T. L. BULLOCH.
the first instance to Chusan or Weng-chou
Isffi
?i4 y™Vit ^(the island to which in ancient
times King Koutsien of Yueh had thought
of exiling King Fuch'a of Wu), and thence
he was escorted to Amoy, or Chung-tso So,
FJ1 -^ fiff, by Cheng Ts'ai and Cheng
Lien ; but Cheng Ch'eng-kung, who then
occupied Amoy, having in mind the feud
between his late master Prince T'ang and
the Prince Lu, declined to receive the lat-
ter, who accordingly transferred his court
to Ch'ang-yuan ^| ^g, A number of
Fn Kien cities hereupon declared for the
Mings, on which a new attack by the