expect from your courage and experience? Already I can see myself master of all the provinces of this great Empire. Do not think that I am ambitious solely for my own ends to possess those vast estates. I desire them only in order to give peace to the many peoples who have suffered much during these later years, and also to reward your zeal and services." After this formal and solemn assumption of the governing power in China by the young Manchu prince, the activity of the Manchus increased, and several armies were sent south to subject the provinces, and to bring the whole Chinese racè under his authority. For some time no serious opposition was encountered, as the disruption of Li's forces entailed the surrender of all the territory north of the Hoangho. But at Nankin, and in the provinces south of the Yangtsekiang, an attempt had been made, and not unsuccessfully, to set up a fresh administration under one of the members of the prolific Ming family. Fou Wang, a grandson of Wanleh, was placed on the Dragon throne of southern China in this hope, but his character did not justify the faith reposed in him. He thought nothing of the serious responsibility he had accepted, but showed that he regarded his high station merely as an opportunity for gratifying his own pleasures. There is little or no doubt that if he had shown himself worthy of his station he might have rallied to his side the mass of the Chinese nation, and Wou Sankwei, who had shown some signs of chafing at Manchu authority, might have been won back by a capable and sympathetic sovereign. But notwithstanding the ability of Fou Wang's minister, Shu Kofa, who strove to repair the errors of his master, the new Ming power at Nankin did not prosper. Wou Sankwei cautious not to commit himself, rejected the patent of a duke, and the money gifts sent him by Shu Kofa, while Ama Wang, on his side, sought to gain over Shu Kofa by making him the most lavish promises of reward. But that minister proved as true to his sovereign as Wou Sankwei did to the Manchu. The result of the long correspondence between them was nil, but it showed the leaders of the Manchus in very favourable colours, as wishing to avert the horrors of war, and to simplify the surrender of provinces which could not be held against them. When Ama Wang discovered that there was no hope of gaining over Shu Kɔfa, and thus paving his way to the disintegration of the Nankin power, he decided to prosecute the war against the surviving Ming administration with the greatest activity.

While these preparations were being made to extend the Manchu conquest over central China, all was confusion at Nankin. Jealousies between the commanders, none of whom possessed much merit or experience, bickerings among the ministers, apathy on the part of the ruler, and bitter disappointment and disgust in the ranks of the people, all combined to precipitate the overthrow of the ephemeral throne that had been erected in the Southern capital. Ama Wang waited patiently to allow these causes of disintegration time to develop their full force, and to contribute to the ruin of the Mings, but in the winter of 1644-5 he decided that the right moment to strike had come. Shu Kofa made some effort to oppose the Manchu armies, and even assumed the command in person, although he was only a civilian, but his troops had no heart to oppose the Manchus, and the devices to which he resorted to make his military power appear more formidable were both puerile and ineffective. Yet one passage may be quoted to his credit if it gave his opponent an advantage. It is affirmed on good authority that he could have obtained a material advantage if he

would only have flooded the country, but he "refused to do so on the ground that more civilians would perish than Manchus, and he said, ‘First the people, next the dynasty."" The sentiment was a noble one, but it was too severe a crisis to admit of any sentiment, especially when fighting an up-hill battle, and Shu Kofa, soon realising that he was not qualified to play the part of a great soldier, resolved to end his existence. He took shelter with a small force in the town of Yangchow, and when he heard that the Manchus were entering the gate, he and his officers committed suicide. The Chinese lamented and were crushed by his death. In him they saw the last of their great men, and, no doubt, they credited him with a higher capacity even than he possessed. Only a military genius of the first rank could have saved the Mings, and Shu Kofa was nothing more than a conscientious and capable civil mandarin, ignorant of war. His fortitude could only be measured by his indifference to life, and by his resolve to anticipate the fall of his sovereign as soon as he saw it to be inevitable.

Fou Wang speedily followed the fate of his faithful minister, for when the Manchus marched on Nankin, he abandoned his capital, and sought safety in flight. But one of his officers, anxious to make favourable terms for himself with the conqueror, undertook his capture, and coming up with him when on the point of entering a junk to put to sea, Fou Wang had no alternative left between an ignominious surrender and suicide. He chose the latter course, and throwing himself into the river was drowned, thus ending his own career, and the Ming dynasty in its southern capital of Nankin. The Manchus established themselves in that city, and reinstated all the Chinese officials, who agreed to shave their heads and recognise the Tartar authority. This was now obligatory on all, and even the great Wou Sankwei, who had invited the Manchus into China, had to submit to this operation. Kangchow shared the same fate as Nankin, but the Manchus sullied their success there by executing a Ming prince with whom they had negotiated for the peaceful surrender of the place. After establishing themselves on the Great River, the Manchus encountered little or no serious opposition in subduing the provinces south of it. In Fuhkien one scion of the Ming family attempted to make a stand, and, aided by a piratical chieftain, named Ching Chelong, he was not altogether unsuccessful, at least wherever it was possible to employ his ships. But the military success of the Manchus continued unchecked in the thickly populated provinces of Kiangsi, Kiangsu and Chekiang. The army of the Fuhkien confederacy was routed in the one battle it ventured to engage in, and the Manchu cavalry, operating in small bodies, occupied towns at a considerable distance from the main army, and compelled the Chinese to shave their heads in token of surrender. At Soochow, a place with a large population, a thousand Manchu horse were threatened by a large Chinese force, and as the town had not surrendered, the Tartars seemed placed at a great disadvantage, when their commander, coming to a prompt resolution, ordered every Chinaman in the place to shave his head, or lose it without an hour's delay. Cowed by this act of resolution, neither the Chinese citizens nor the Chinese force outside ventured on any further hostilities.

Meantime dissension further weakened the already discouraged Chinese forces. The pirate Ching Chelong, who was the mainstay of the Ming cause, cherished the hope that he might place his own family on the throne,

and he endeavoured to induce the Ming prince to recognise his son, Koshinga, as his heir. Low as he had fallen, it is to the credit of this prince that he refused to sign away the birthright of his family. Ching was bitterly chagrined at this refusal, and after detaching his forces from the other Chinese he at last came to the resolution to throw in his lot with the Manchus. He was promised honourable terms, but the Tartars seem to have had no intention of complying with them, so far at least as allowing him to retain his liberty. For they sent him off to Pekin, where he was kept in honourable confinement, notwithstanding his protests and promises, and the defiant threats of his son Koshinga. In preserving his life he was more fortunate than the members of the Ming family, who were hunted down in a remorseless manner and executed with all their relations on capture. The only place that offered any resistance to the Manchus was the town of Kanchow, on the Kan river, in Kiangsi. The garrison defended themselves with desperate valour during two months, and a council of war was held amid much anxiety, to consider whether the siege should be abandoned. Bold counsels prevailed, and the Manchu chiefs exclaimed, "Up to this our arms have been uniformly victorious, but if we fail before this place the courage of the Chinese will revive, and the reputation which we have gained by so many glorious expeditions will be diminished. We shall have to take care also that something does not happen beyond the failure of the matter we have immediately in hand. Let us, therefore, rather ask for fresh troops to replace those we have lost, and let us collect cannon of a larger calibre than those we have hitherto employed in this siege. We shall then very soon see success crown our perseverance in having refused to abandon an enterprise which it is necessary for the glory of our nation to sustain, if we do not wish to lose in a moment the fruït of our success and the honour of our arms." The Manchus returned to the attack, and had the satisfaction of carrying the town by assault, when the garrison were put to the sword.

The relics of the Chinese armies gathered for a final stand in the city of Canton, but unfortunately for them the leaders were still divided by petty jealousies. One Ming prince proclaimed himself Emperor at Canton, and another in the adjoining province of Kwangsi. Although the Manchus were gathering their forces to overwhelm the Chinese in their last retreat, they could not lay aside their divisions and petty ambitions in order to combine against the national enemy, but must needs assail one another to decide which should have the empty title of Ming Emperor. The Manchus had the satisfaction of seeing the two rivals break their strength against each other, and then they advanced to crush the victor at Canton. Strong as the place was said to be, it offered no serious resistance, and the great commercial city of the south passed into the hands of the race who had subdued the whole country from Pekin to the Tonquin frontier. At this moment the fortune of the Manchus underwent a sudden and inexplicable change. Two repulses before a fortress south-west of Canton, and the disaffection of a large part of their Chinese auxiliaries, who clamoured for their pay, seem to have broken the strength of the advanced Manchu army. A wave of national antipathy drove the Tartars out of Canton and the southern provinces, but it soon broke its force, and the Manchus returning with fresh troops speedily recovered all they had lost, and by placing stronger garrisons in the places they occupied consolidated their hold on southern China. Although the struggle between the Man

chus and their new subjects was far from concluded, the conquest of China as such may be said to have reached its end at this stage, and we may fitly conclude by reproducing what was formerly written as to its significance and causes. How a small Tartar tribe succeeded after fifty years of war in imposing its yoke on the sceptical, freedom-loving, and intensely national millions of China will always remain one of the enigmas of history. We have traced the course of these campaigns, but even while venturing to indicate some of the causes of their success, we must still come to the conclusion that the result has exceeded what would at any time during the struggle have been thought to be credible. The military genius of Wou Sankwei, the widely prevalent dissensions among the people, and the effeteness of the reigning house on the one hand, and the superior discipline, sagacity, and political knowledge of the Tartars on the other, are some of the principal causes of the Manchu success that at once suggest themselves to the mind. But in no other case has a people, boldly resisting to the end and cheered by occasional flashes of victory, been subjected after more than a whole generation of war, with a despised and truly insignificant enemy in the durable form in which the Manchus trod the Chinese under their heel, and secured for themselves all the perquisites and honour accruing to the governing class in one of the richest and largest empires under the sun. The Chinese were made to feel all the bitterness of subjection by the imposition of a hated badge of servitude, and that they proved unable to succeed under this aggravation of circumstances, greatly increases the wonder with which the Manchu conquest must ever be regarded. But the most significant feature of the Manchu conquest is that it provides a durable proof of the possibility of China being conquered by a small but determined body of men. Once Wou

Sankwei had opened the door to the foreigner, the end proved easy, and was never in doubt. The Chinese were subjugated with extraordinary ease, and the only testimony to their undiminished vitality has been the quiet and silent process by which the conquerors have been compelled to assimilate themselves to the conquered.

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CHAPTER X.

THE FIRST MANCHU RULER.

WHILE the Manchu generals and armies were establishing their power in southern China the young Emperor Chuntche, under the direction of his prudent uncle, the regent Ama Wang, was setting up at Pekin the central power of a ruling dynasty. In doing so little or no opposition was experienced at the hands of the Chinese, who showed that they longed once more for a settled government; and this acquiescence on the part of the Chinese people in their authority no doubt induced the Manchu leaders to adopt a far more conciliatory and lenient policy towards the Chinese than would otherwise have been the case. Ama Wang gave special orders that the lives and property of all who surrendered to his lieutenants should be scrupulously respected. This moderation was only departed from in the case of some rebels in Shensi, who, after accepting, repudiated the Manchu authority, and laid close siege to the chief town of Singan, which held a garrison of only 3,000 Manchus. The commandant wished to make his position secure by massacring the Chinese of the town, but he was deterred from taking this extreme step by the representations of a Chinese officer, who, binding himself for the good faith of his countrymen, induced him to enrol them in the ranks of the garrison. They proved faithful and rendered excellent service in the siege; and when a relieving Manchu army came from Pekin the rebels were quickly scattered and pursued with unflagging bitterness to their remotest hiding places.

In the adjoining province of Shansi another insurrection temporarily upset Manchu authority, but it was brought about by an outrage of a Manchu prince. In 1649 Ama Wang sent an embassy to the principal khan of the Mongols, with whom it was the first object of the Manchus to maintain the closest friendly relations, in order to arrange a marriage between Chuntche and a Mongol princess. The mission was entrusted to a Manchu prince, who took up his residence at Taitong, in Shansi, a place still held by a Chinese garrison under an officer named Kiangtsai. The Manchu prince and his attendants behaved in a most arrogant and overbearing manner, and at last their conduct culminated in an outrage which roused the indignation of the Chinese populace, and converted a loyal city into a hostile centre. The daughter of one of the most influential citizens of Taitong was being led through the streets in honour of her wedding day when several of the ambassador's associates broke into the procession and carried off the bride. The Chinese were shocked at this outrage, and clamoured for the prompt punishment of its perpetrators. The governor, Kiangtsai, supported the demand of the citizens, but, unfortunately, the Manchu prince was indifferent to the Chinese indignation, and