which he had conquered. At first he endeavoured to do this through the native chiefs, to whom he gave patents as khans. This may be described as the system on which Mongolia was and is still governed, but it did not work well in Jungaria, where the petty chiefs still aspired to independence. A succession of risings, or, more accurately, of acts of insubordination, led to severe reprisals on the part of the Chinese, and at last it was resolved to take over the whole administration and to place Chinese officials in all the civil posts. But another step was seen to be necessary to give stability to the Chinese administration, and that was the annexation of Kashgaria. The overthrow of Amursana had led to the conquest of only Jungaria and the Ili region. The great region of Little Bokhara or Eastern Turkestan, known to us now under the more convenient form of Kashgaria, was still ruled by the Khoja Barhanuddin, who had been placed in power by Amursana, and it afforded shelter for all the disaffected, and a base of hostility against the Chinese. Barhanuddin himself showed no disposition to make his submission to the Chinese, or to offer to Keen Lung that formal tender of submission which was expected and which would have been becoming. For the Chinese ruler held that the conquest of the kingdom of the Eleuths carried with it the proper subordination, if not the open surrender, to him of the territory of its vassals. Even if Tchaohoei had not reported that the possession of Kashgaria was essential to the military security of Jungaria, there is no doubt that sooner or later Keen Lung would have proceeded to extreme lengths with regard to Barhanuddin. The Chinese even went so far as to accuse the Khoja of ingratitude to them, but there seems little or no justification for their contention that they had placed him on the throne. They were fully warranted, however, in treating him as an enemy when he seized an envoy sent to his capital by Tchaohoei and executed him and his escort. This outrage precluded all possibility of an amicable arrangement, and the Chinese prepared their fighting men for the invasion and conquest of Kashgaria. March," wrote Keen Lung, "against the perfidious Mahomedans who have so insolently abused my favours; avenge your companions who have been the unhappy victims of their barbarous fury."

The details of this campaign have been preserved with greater accuracy and verisimilitude than is customary in Chinese wars. The Chinese crossed the frontier in two bodies, one under the command of Tchaohoei, the other under that of Fouta. Any resistance that Barhanuddin and his brother attempted was speedily overcome; the principal cities, Kashgar and Yarkand, were occupied, and the ill-advised princes, lately rejoicing in all the conviction of security, were compelled to seek their personal safety by a precipitate flight. The two brothers fled over the Pamir to Badakshan, but the chief of that country caused them to be slain, and sent their heads as a peace offering to the Chinese. Fouta pursued the relics of the Khoja force wherever they were to be encountered, and it is said that the only member of the ruling family to escape was a boy named Sarimsak, who was the ancestor of the Khoja adventurers who at different times during the present century put forward their pretensions to the throne of Kashgar. The conquest and annexation of Kashgaria completed the task with which Tchaohoei was charged, and it also realised Keen Lung's main idea by setting up his authority in the midst of the turbulent tribes who had long disturbed the Empire, and who first learnt peaceful pursuits as his subjects. The Chinese commanders followed up this decided success by the

despatch of several expeditions into the adjoining states, of which the precise course has not been preserved, but which must at least have been attended with success, as they gave rise to the superstition among the Mahomedans that "the Chinese conquest of the whole world would one day herald its destruction." The ruler of Khokand was either so much impressed by his neighbour's prowess, or, as there is much reason to believe, experienced himself the weight of their power by the occupation of his principal cities, Tashkent and Khokand, that he hastened to recognise the authority of the Emperor and to enrol himself among the tributaries of the Son of Heaven. The tribute he bound himself to pay was sent without a break for a period of half a century. The Kirghiz chiefs of low and high degree imitated his example, and a firm peace was thus established from one end of Central Asia to the other. The administration was divided between Chinese and native officials, and if there was tyranny, the people suffered rather from that of the Mahomedan Hakim Beg than that of the Confucian Amban.

With one other striking incident this description of the conquest of Central Asia may be ended. When Tse Wang Rabdan was at the height of his fame he formed a design to seize the territory of the Tourguts, but their chief, Ayouka, foiled his plan by fleeing with his tribe into Russian territory, where, after many wanderings, they were assigned a home in the Government of Orenburg, between the Yaik and the Volga. They had resided there more than half a century when Keen Lung's lieutenants appeared in Central Asia as conquerors. A report of the Chinese victories seems to have reached them in their new home on the Caspian, and to have revived the memory of their birthplace. At the same time Keen Lung caused the intimation to be conveyed to them that he would be glad to welcome them back to their own country. Nothing might have come of these representations but that the exactions of the Russian tax-gatherers happened at the moment to be particularly excessive, and an official insult offered their chief, Oubacha, the great-grandson of Ayouka, added fuel to the smouldering flame of their dissatisfaction with their lot as Russian subjects. Then they came to a mighty resolution to return to their original home and to claim the protection of the Chinese ruler. Towards the close of the year 1770 they gathered in their flocks, collected their belongings, and set out to the number of several hundred thousand for their original home. The journey from the Yaik to the Ili occupied eight months, but it was unopposed, as the Russian forces were too few and scattered. The Tourguts again became the faithful subjects or dependents of the Bogdo Khan, the name given the Emperor of China by the Calmucks or the Russians.

The return of the Tourguts, ten years after the close of active campaigning in Kashgaria, came as if to ratify the wisdom of Keen Lung's Central Asian policy. The sneers and doubts of the timid or the incapable had been silenced long before by the prowess and success of Tchaohoei, but, ten years of peace and prosperity had placed in still clearer light than military triumphs the advantages of the able and far-seeing policy of Keen Lung. A strong frontier had been secured; the hostile and semi-hostile peoples and tribes of Mahomedan Turkestan had been overawed and converted into peaceful subjects; the reputation of China had been extended to the furthest bounds of the Asiatic continent; and the monarch who had conceived the grand scheme of conquest and seen how to carry it out, had

crowned the glory and durability of his achievements by showing that he knew when and where to stop. Keen Lung himself said, "There is no cause to blush when we know how to be contented, nor is anything to be feared when we can desist from a course at the proper moment." In the boundless wastes and intricate passages of the Pamir, in the dizzy heights and impracticable passes of the Hindoo Koosh and the Kara Tau, he had found the perfection of a frontier. His own immediate territory, the rich provinces of China, was rendered secure against aggression by the strong position he occupied on either side of the Tian Shan in the remote Central Asian region, three thousand miles distant from his capital. His policy was vindicated by results. He could say that he had effected a complete and durable remedy of an evil that up to his time had been dealt with for many centuries only by half-measures and by compromise.

Keen Lung was engaged in many more wars than those in Central Asia. On the side of Burmah he found his borders disturbed by nomad and predatory tribes not less than in the region of Gobi. These clans had long been a source of annoyance and anxiety to the Viceroy of Yunnan, but the weakness of the courts of Ava and Pegu, who stood behind these frontagers, had prevented the local grievance becoming a national danger. But the triumph of the remarkable Alompra, who united Pegu and Burmah into a single state, and who controlled an army with which he effected many triumphs, showed that this state of things might not always continue, and that the day would come when China might be exposed to a grave peril from this side. The successors of Alompra inherited his pretensions if not his ability, and when the Chinese called upon them to keep the borders in better order or to punish some evildoers, they sent back a haughty and unsatisfactory reply. Sembuen, the grandson of Alompra, was king when Keen Lung ordered, in the year 1768, his generals to invade Burmah, and the conduct of the war was entrusted to an officer in high favour at Court, named Count Alikouen, instead of to Fouta, the hero of the Central Asian war, who had fallen under the Emperor's grave displeasure for what, after all, appears to have been a trifling offence. The course of the campaign is difficult to follow, for both the Chinese and the Burmese claim the same battles as victories, but this will not surprise those who remember that the Burmese Court chroniclers described all the encounters with the English forces in the wars of 1829 and 1853 as having been victorious. The advance of the Chinese army, estimated to exceed 200,000 men, from Bhamo to Ava shows clearly enough the true course of the war, and that the Chinese were able to carry all before them up to the gates of the capital. Count Alikouen did not display any striking military capacity, but by retaining possession of the country above Ava for three years he at last compelled the Burmese to sue for peace on humiliating terms. The King of Burmah is said to have been so irritated by the poltroonery of his general in concluding this ignominious, but probably inevitable, treaty, that he sent him a woman's dress. But he did not dare to repudiate the arrangement, and the Chinese army only retired after having obtained the amplest reparation for the wrong originally inflicted on a Chinese subject, and a formal recognition on the part of the ruler of Ava of the supremacy of the Emperor of China. Thus was Burmah added to the long list of the tribute bearers to Pekin, and though the tie has been denied in our time on the strength of the Court annals of Burmah, there is no doubt that it existed, and in a certain form it has been perpetuated under the clauses of the Convention of Pekin of 1886.

The savage and independent Miaotze tribes of the provinces of Kwei. chow and Szchuen were the next to incur the imperial wrath, and as these people formed and still form an imperium in imperio, it is clear that the great Chinese ruler did not coerce them in the same complete manner as he did his other opponents. Yet, after a hard and dubious struggle, he obtained over them a more signal success than had been gained by any of his predecessors. The Miaotze were by nature averse to agricultural pursuits and chafed at the restraints of a settled life. Their courage and rude capacity for war enabled them to hold and maintain a position of isolation and independence during those critical periods which had witnessed the disintegration of the empire and the transfer of power from one race to another. Each successive conquest had passed over the face of the country without disturbing their equanimity or interfering with their lot. The Miaotze remained a barbarous people, living within the limits of the Empire but outside its civilisation, and the representatives of some pre-historic race of China. Their turbulence was, moreover, generally provoked by some exceptionally tyrannical act on the part of the Chinese mandarins with whom they were brought into contact. In the year 1771, immediately on the close of the Burmese war, the Miaotze broke forth from their mountain fastnesses and committed many acts of hostility within Chinese territory. The local Chinese forces were unable to cope with these highlanders, and their successes compelled the Emperor to take up the subject in a serious manner, and to send a large army to bring them to reason. The Miaotze

of Szchuen formed the principal object of Keen Lung's resentment. They occupied two large settlements known from the names of streams as the Great and Little Golden River districts, and a large army was collected for the express purpose of conquering this region, and placed under the command of Akoui, one of the noblest members of the Manchu race. When Akoui reached the scene of war, he found that the rashness of a Chinese officer had involved the destruction of a brigade, and he at once devoted himself to preparing for a difficult campaign in such a way that the result could not be rendered doubtful. Having collected the necessary supplies, Akoui delivered his attack on the Little Golden River district, which he occupied after inflicting no slight loss on the Miaotze. He made his new possession the base for an attack on the more important Great Golden River district, which proved a far more arduous undertaking. Sonom, the chief of the Miaotze, had made the most strenuous preparations for defence, and refused to listen to any terms of peace, and even the women took up arms and became combatants. The campaign proved slow, although the result was never in doubt. The narrowness of the few passes, the natural strength of fortresses built on the summit of mountains and protected on several sides by precipices, and the impossibility of effectually utilising their superior numbers, all contributed to retard a decisive result; but notwithstanding all these obstacles, the Chinese steadily approached Sonom's chief stronghold of Karai. At this place the whole Miaotze population had collected, but when Sonom saw that resistance was impossible he offered to surrender on the condition that all lives were spared. Akoui replied that he had no authority to grant such terms, and as Sonom would not trust the clemency of the Emperor, the siege went on. When Keen Lung heard of this he sent orders that all lives might be spared, and thereupon Sonom surrendered, and the Great Golden river passed into the imperial possession. The Miaotze of Kweichow, who are still more or less

independent, awed by the fate of their kinsmen, gave hostages for their good conduct and no longer disturbed the Chinese in their possessions. Unfortunately for his reputation, Keen Lung marred his victory by a gross breach of faith. The brave Sonom and his family were executed within the palace at Pekin, and the other Miaotze prisoners were exiled to Ili. The reasons for this breach of faith, the only one alleged against Keen Lung, are unknown, but charity would induce us to say that they must have been weighty, although the only ground alleged is that the Chinese regarded the Miaotze as only half human. Honours were showered on Akoui, who was raised from the Red Girdle to the imperial Yellow Girdle, and Fouta, the hero of the Pamir, was disgraced for disparaging the new commanderin-chief, under whom, however, he had served in a subordinate capacity. For some unknown reason Keen Lung was not sympathetic to this officer, who, for what seems a trifling fault, was publicly executed, thus ending a career that promised to be of the most glorious.

In previous chapters the growth of China's relations with Tibet has been traced, and especially under the Manchu dynasty. The control established by Kanghi after the retirement of the Jungarian army was maintained by both his successors, and for fifty years Tibet had that perfect tranquillity which is conveyed by the expression that it had no history. The young Dalai Lama, who fled to Sining to escape from Latsan Khan, was restored, and under the name of Lobsang Kalsang pursued a subservient policy to China for half-a-century. In the year 1749 an unpleasant incident took place through a collision between the Chinese ambans and the Civil Regent or Gyalpo, who administered the secular affairs of the Dalai Lama. The former acted in a high-handed and arbitrary manner, and put the Gyalpo to death. But in this they went too far, for both the lamas and the people strongly resented it, and revolted against the Chinese, whom they massacred to the last man. For a time it looked as if the matter might have a very serious ending, but Keen Lung contented himself with sending fresh ambans and an escort to Tibet, and enjoining them to abstain from undue interference with the Tibetans. But at the same time that they showed this moderation the Chinese took a very astute measure to render their position stronger than ever. They asserted their right to have the supreme voice in nominating the Gyalpo, and they soon reduced that high official, the Prime Minister of Tibet, to the position of a creature of their own. The policy was both astute and successful. The Tibetans had welcomed the Chinese originally because they saved them from the Eleuth army, and provided a guarantee against a fresh invasion. But the long peace and the destruction of the Eleuth power had led the Tibetans to think less of the advantage of Chinese protection, and to pine for complete independence. The lamas also bitterly resented the assumption by the ambans of all practical authority. How long these feelings could have continued without an open outbreak must remain a matter of opinion; but an unexpected event brought into evidence the unwarlike character of the Tibetans, and showed that their country was exposed to many dangers from which only China's protection could preserve them. In Kanghi's time the danger had come from Ili; in the reign of Keen Lung it came from the side of Nepaul.

As a general rule the mighty chain of the Himalaya has effectually separated the peoples living north and south of it, and the instances in history are rare of any collision between them. Of all such collisions the