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CHAPTER XXIX.

THE MING DYNASTY (continued).

THE accession of Gintsong's son, Suentsong, to the throne was not attended by any event of importance. For the time the clashing of arms had ceased throughout the land, and no more formidable contest presented itself for decision than a wordy war between the lettered classes of the nation. Yet that in its way was serious enough, and might have been fraught with grave consequences, because the grievances of a class so powerful as the literary body in China always has been, constituted a subject to which no ruler could be indifferent. The matter came home to every family in the kingdom and affected their worldly interests very closely. In the competitive examinations held throughout the country, students from the southern provinces carried everything before them, and threatened to monopolize all the honours. Not content with restricting their sphere of activity to their own. native districts, they ventured beyond them, and were beginning to gain many of the prizes in the schools and academies of the north. Suentsong promptly answered the numerous petitions addressed to him on this subject by appointing a Commission of Inquiry, which found an easy and efficacious remedy by restricting competitors for literary honours to their native districts. The whole official and literary body was divided into three principal classes, one confined to the north, another to the centre, and the third to the south.

This difficulty happily solved, another presented itself in the discontent and ambition of the Emperor's uncle, Kaohin,

who had been created Prince of Han, but whose ideas soared above a provincial governorship. In a short time he adopted a menacing attitude towards his nephew, and, making extensive military preparations, boasted that he held the Empire as much at his mercy as his father the Prince of Yen had done in the days of Kien Wenti. But Suentsong showed courage and capacity; and, assuming the command of his army person, marched against his rival. The promptitude of his measures paralyzed the plans of Kaohin, and none thought of resisting a monarch who showed that he knew so well how to claim his rights and to assert his authority. Before it was generally realized in the country that Kaohin meditated revolt, he was under conveyance to a state prison at Pekin.

The latest Chinese province, Tonquin, proved anything but an easily governed possession. The hill-tribes and a large section of the settled inhabitants were in a constant ferment, and the Chinese garrison was kept continually on the alert and under arms. This state of things soon grew intolerable, and it became a question whether the province should be abandoned, or whether recourse should be had to extreme measures in order to stamp out the national disaffection. After several of his detached corps had been cut in pieces by the mountaineers, the governor sent urgent messages to request reinforcements, saying that without prompt aid he would be unable to maintain his position. On the receipt of this bad news a council was held by the Emperor in the palace, when, after anxious deliberation, it was decided to withdraw the Chinese garrison. Changfoo alone, who had gained his reputation by its conquest, was averse to its surrender, but his advice was either ignored or over-ruled. Thus came to an end in A.D. 1428, after the brief space of ten years, the direct exercise of Chinese authority in Tonquin. The significance of the event was further enhanced by the deposition of the Prince left on the throne by Suentsong's lieutenant, and by the elevation to supreme power of an intriguing minister and popular leader. Notwithstanding this flagrant violation of the agreement upon which he had withdrawn his troops, Suentsong did not conceive it to be prudent to renew his grandfather's interference in the affairs

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of this state. The conquest of Tonquin had not indeed been attended with much difficulty, but its retention and administration had been only effected at the cost of a great effort. There was nothing in its position to repay the bloodshed it entailed, and Suentsong was wise to relax his hold upon it at the first opportunity and with the least affront to his personal dignity.

The tranquillity of Suentsong's life was no more disturbed by foreign wars, and the internal affairs of his country continued prosperous and raised no ground for anxiety. But in one respect he shocked the national sentiment, although he appears to have been led to do so by the desire of considering the necessities of the state. Shortly after his accession, he had proclaimed his principal and at that time favourite wife Empress, but time went on without his having an heir. This naturally caused considerable disappointment to a monarch desirous of retaining the throne in his own immediate descendants, and when one of his other wives presented him with a son the Empress's fall in his affections was assured. The child was proclaimed Heir Apparent with all the solemnity due to the auspicious occasion, and his mother was elevated to the rank of Empress, from which rank the Emperor's first wife was deposed. This unusual step, contrary to established rules, was received with murmurs on the part of the people, but the Emperor would not be diverted from his path. He might, perhaps, have been less determined on the subject had he known that the boy was not his. A substituted child, if we may accept the authority of the Emperor Keen Lung, was thus put in the place of the heir to the Chinese Empire.

Suentsong seems to have varied the monotony of reigning by periodical expeditions into the region north of China, which partook of the double character of the chase and the foray. During these he succeeded in inflicting some punishment upon the nomad tribes, and exhibited capacity in the conduct of irregular warfare by the manner in which he surprised the scattered forces of his opponent. A reign of assured internal peace and much national prosperity was brought suddenly to a conclusion in 1435. Suentsong showed

during his reign of ten years the possession of many of the kingly virtues, and during his leisure hours he cultivated the Muses with attention and success. This amiable prince left the throne to the son whose doubtful birth he had hailed with such delight eight years before.

As Yngtsong, the new Emperor, was only a child of eight years of age, it was necessary that some one should assume the active responsibility of authority during his tender years; and, as is usual under such circumstances, the opportunity was afforded the princesses of the reigning family to put themselves forward and assert their rights in the matter. The strongest willed and the most influential among them did not, however, prove to be the wife who had successfully imposed upon the late Emperor, and who had thereby obtained the supreme position in the palace; but it turned out to be Changchi, Suentsong's mother. Her son was hardly dead when she seized the reins of power, and, proclaiming herself Regent, gained over the adherence of the most influential of the ministers by taking them into her confidence and by forming them into a council. This new governing body consisted of five members, who acted in co-operation with the Empress Regent. They possessed their offices, however, by her favour, and they appear to have been as little able to resist the tact of her advances as to oppose the schemes and policy which she propounded. They served as a useful screen for her ambition, and in bidding her grandson follow their example and accept their advice, she knew she was really directing him so as to best promote her own ends.

Her desire to exercise the authority of ruler being thus easily attained and gratified, it was only natural that she should look about to discern what persons there were who might threaten her undisturbed tenure of the position she had usurped, and whom she might count her friends and whom her enemies. Among the latter, as she conceived, none was more formidable and more to be dreaded than the eunuch Wangchin, who had gained a great ascendency over the young Emperor Yngtsong; and with the promptitude of an unscrupulous mind she resolved to compass his death. Before the assembled ministers and in the presence of the whole

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court, she denounced him as an enemy of the state, and as one whose crimes rendered him deserving of death. But the young Emperor implored that the life of his favourite might be spared, and all present supported what he asked as a personal favour. The Empress felt constrained to yield, but she warned Wangchin that on the next occasion he must expect no mercy. She little thought at the time that she would never again have so much as the inclination to decree his punishment.

The exact character of Wangchin's crime is not known, but probably he possessed no fault greater or more disastrous in its consequences than his incapacity. Having thus been marked out in a public manner as the enemy, and consequently as the object also of the Empress Regent's resentment, he set himself to the task, difficult though it was, of removing the insecurity of his position by ingratiating himself into her good graces. In this he succeeded beyond his hopes, and in a degree that might appear to be incredible, although we know how much a handsome face, a ready tongue, and a plausible address may accomplish. Within three years after the scene described, Wangchin had not only gained a seat on the council, but his influence was allpowerful with the Empress Regent. She, who had been his bitterest, indeed, so far as we may judge, his only foe, was now his warmest friend and stanchest supporter. Without him nothing was done, and the Empress practically resigned to him the functions of authority.

The consequences of this diversion of the ruling power from the hands of the Empress and her council into those of this ambitious individual proved most disastrous and unfortunate, for his incapacity was boundless. Having displaced the experienced ministers of the Empire, he advanced to the front rank of the official service creatures of his own, but all had to retain office by humouring his whims and obeying his commands. The administration of the country was carried on after a certain fashion without any evil consequences becoming apparent, but when Wangchin selected his favourites or his creatures for commands in the army he imperilled both his reputation and the national interests by inviting defeat.

VOL. I.

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