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FALL OF THE CAPITAL.

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reason for Li Tseching to delay the advance on Pekin, where by this time confusion and terror reigned supreme.

Tsongching, the Emperor, hastily summoned all his ministers and officers to consult with him how the Empire was to be saved and in what way they might yet be able to extricate themselves from their perilous position. Likintai, who still kept the field although he had not yet struck a blow, sent the advice that the Emperor should at once withdraw to Nankin and renew the war in the valley of the Kiang. This counsel was not merely the most sensible, but it was the only advice. that could have been given by a conscientious man under the circumstances. Yet it was not followed. The fatuity not so much of the Emperor as of his ministers was extraordinary and unparalleled. They came to the conclusion, after much wrangling, that the Emperor should not leave Pekin, and that they would all await there the progress of events. Well might Tsongching exclaim that it was the folly of his ministers which was responsible for the destruction of the Empire. A trust in Providence may be classed among the virtues, but in great crises it will hardly condone supineness or inaction. The councillors of the Ming could devise no remedy for the situation, nor did they take any energetic measures towards placing Pekin in a fit state to sustain a long siege. Almost before they had realized that Li Tseching would not hesitate to attack the Imperial city, they found that their own troops could not be trusted, and that there were traitors in their very midst. The tyranny and incapacity of the eunuchs and other Court officials had disgusted the people and the army, and in the hour of need there were none on whose fidelity the unhappy ruler could rely.

Li Tseching pitched his tent before one of the western. gates of Pekin, and sent an envoy to Tsongching demanding the surrender of his throne. If we are to form an opinion from the indignation shown by the Emperor at this request, we shall be justified in assuming that Tsongching only then understood the gravity of his position. He was still hesitating as to the course most becoming to his dignity, when the news was brought him that the guards of one of the city gates had deserted their post, and opened a way for the insurgents.

Then he saw that all was lost, and that his last chance of personal safety lay in immediate flight. In this moment of extreme peril the thought of Empire became subordinate to considerations of personal security.

Tsongching summoned round him in the palace the members of his family and the most faithful of his servants, and having called for wine, filled a goblet and passed it round. Then turning to his attendants he entrusted to their charge his sons, whom he desired them to convey with all despatch to their mother's kinsmen. He next exclaimed to his wife, "All is lost for us," and she, with the fortitude worthy of her race and her position, retired to her apartments where she hanged herself. Tsongching finally addressed his daughter, a girl of some fifteen summers, "Why were you born of a father so unfortunate as I am?" and with the words he drew his sword and struck her to the ground. She recovered from her wound and escaped. By his order, all the wives, princesses, and women of the palace were slain to save their honour; while he, to whom some faint hope of attaining a place of refuge still remained, hurried off to see if he could not make his escape from the city. Followed by a few guards, he sped from one gate to another; but wherever he turned his steps he found that the rebels were in front and in possession of all the avenues by which he could alone gain the outside country.

Baffled at all points, Tsongching retraced his steps to the palace, ignorant apparently of the fact that the brave Li Kweiching with a small body of troops was resolutely defending one part of the town. All had left the palace, whither it was feared that the conqueror would first make his way, and when Tsongching sounded the gong to summon his courtiers there was no reply. The Emperor then withdrew to the Wansui hill, a favourite spot of his beyond the north wall of the palace, and, having written out his last protest against the iniquity of his advisers and the harshness of fortune, he hung himself with his own girdle. One eunuch, more faithful than his class, shared these final perils and his master's death. With Tsongching disappeared the last ruler of the line of the Mings, and the end presents all the dramatic features that

WITH A SIGH OF RELIEF.

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comport with the fall of a great reigning family and with the dissolution of an empire. When Tsongching completed the last act in his sad history the condition of the country was such as to discourage all but the most fervent believer in its destinies. It might well have been with a sigh of relief that the last Ming Emperor, generally recognized as such, shook off the trammels of such a world as he had found it.

While these events were in progress in the interior of the palace, Li Tseching was fast making himself master of the capital. One officer, Li Kweiching, alone disputed for a time its possession with him, but he was soon overcome by superior numbers and taken prisoner. Brought into the presence of his conqueror, who praised his courage, he was invited to take service under the new Emperor; and this he consented to do on condition that Tsongching's body was given honourable burial, and that the surviving members of the Ming family were spared. Li Tseching granted him all his requests; but, at the funeral of the Emperor, Li Kweiching was seized with qualms of conscience and, sooner than serve under a rebel, committed suicide. Then Li Tseching, disappointed at the loss of an officer from whom he had expected useful aid, gave vent to his natural passions. The ancestral temple of the Mings was plundered and laid level with the ground, and all who had any connection with that family were summarily executed. Thus speedily ended the siege and capture of Pekin, and the city which had defied Taitsong and his Manchus passed, after a few days' attack, into the hands of a rebel, whose origin was most ignoble and whose principal object appears to have been plunder. For a time it seemed as if there was no force in the country capable of coping with his, and that he was the virtual master of China.

While most of northern China had fallen into the hands of the rebel Li Tseching, there still remained in the undisturbed possession of the Ming the strip of territory embracing part of Pechihli and Leaousi and extending to the Manchu border. Here the fortresses Ningyuen and Shanhaikwan offered an effectual bar to the invader, and the skilful general Wou Sankwei preserved the peace with an iron hand. In the moment of his extreme peril Tsongching had at last

yielded to the advice of those who had urged him to summon to the defence of the capital the troops stationed on the north-eastern frontier; and Wou Sankwei had been ordered to evacuate Ningyuen, leave a sufficient garrison at Shanhaikwan, and march in all haste with his remaining troops to Pekin. Wou Sankwei had little more than completed half the necessary arrangements when the news reached him that Pekin had fallen into the hands of Li Tseching, and that the last of the Ming emperors had been slain. There remained for a faithful subject and soldier no master to assist, but only one to avenge. Li Tseching made overtures and sent lavish promises to Wou Sankwei for his support, but they were all rejected. Placed between two opponents Wou Sankwei had only a choice of evils, but he decided that it was preferable to ask the aid of the Manchus in chastising a rebel than to become a partner in the crime of placing the Empire at the mercy of a robber like Li Tseching.

The Manchus themselves, to whom the main interest in the story again turns, had watched with feelings of delight the retirement of the Chinese from the fortress which had baffled them for so many years; and Wou Sankwei's troops had not long quitted Ningyuen when their place was taken by Manchus sent across the Leaou. It was thus made evident that, although these Tartars had lost their prince and were under the nominal rule of a boy, they had not given up their old ambition, and also that they were as resolute as ever to take advantage of every symptom of declining vigour on the part of the Chinese. There was, therefore, no room for Wou Sankwei to flatter himself that the Manchus would remain passive while he tried conclusions with the robber Li. They were evidently determined to make the most of his embarrassments; and he could not hope to resist their attack on Shanhaikwan with the few troops that he could spare for its defence, should he undertake an active campaign against Li Tseching.

The Chinese general did not waste time in coming to a decision. The situation was urgent, and he at once sent off a letter to the Manchu court requesting it to send an army to join his in putting down Li's rebellion, and in restoring

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peace and tranquillity to the Empire. The request was at once granted, for the Manchus saw at a glance that their opportunity had arrived. The man, who, more than any other, had kept them out of China during these later wars, had sent them an invitation to enter that country as his friends and as the champions of the oppressed. Not merely did they thus obtain his services and those of his brave troops, but they also gained an easy and bloodless possession both of the Great Wall, and of the two principal and only remaining fortresses constituting the famous Quadrilateral which had alone prevented their conquering those northern provinces of China that they had so frequently plundered. and devastated under their leader Taitsong. Wou Sankwei's letter was barely perused before orders were given for the march to Shanhaikwan of those of their troops who were already in the field, and for the immediate assembly of the whole fighting force of the nation. It was no longer for a mere marauding expedition, or for a trying and unsuccessful siege, that the summons went forth to the Manchus to gather round the banners of their chiefs. The campaign for which they were called to arms was one presenting every likelihood of success for the conquest of China, and in the towns and camps of these Tartars and their allies the cry was raised with a common voice, "To Pekin!"

The first brunt of the fighting fell upon Wou Sankwei and his small but veteran force; for when he heard that a Manchu contingent was on the march to join him he delayed no longer, but set out for Pekin. Li Tseching, who remained in the capital to enjoy the power and dignity which he had won, sent a portion of his army to meet Wou Sankwei, under an officer whose instructions were to negotiate rather than to fight. Against this corps Wou marched with all rapidity, and the superior discipline of his men combined with his own skilful dispositions turned the fortunes of the day in his favour. As is always the case with a body of men who are subjected to none of the restraints of a severe discipline, the instant Li's men, although accustomed to victory by a series of unbroken successes, found that the day was going against them, they lost all heart and broke into hopeless

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