our remarks on Keen Lung's relations with his alien subjects may be brought to an appropriate conclusion. It is the custom in China that the Emperor alone has the power of life and death in his hands. No capital punishment can be awarded, save under exceptional circumstances, by any one except the sovereign in person, and in Keen Lung's reign this privilege and duty were practically exercised. Crowds of prisoners were sent every month to Pekin to have their fate decided by the Emperor in consultation with his most intimate advisers. Neither Keen Lung nor his two predecessors shirked the onerous and responsible task they had in this respect to perform; and, so far as can be judged, they all appear to have conscientiously striven to mete out impartial justice in every case. Keen Lung, by the testimony of all beholders, was conspicuous not only for his justice but for the mercy with which he tempered it. None but the very worst cases received the punishment of death, and, indeed, with the existence of so convenient a place of transportation as Ili, it is not surprising to learn how common a form of punishment enforced banishment to that district became during this period. Keen Lung devoted himself with unsurpassed assiduity to the innumerable subjects that demanded his attention, and he gave up even the night-time to the proper discharge of public business. He began the work of the day at an early hour, a course of proceeding to be attributed partly to the custom of the East, and partly to the active habits he had acquired from long practice, but which astonished those who saw him act with an energy unusual at his advanced age. The most important questions of State were often decided at a midnight council, and most of the ordinary business of administration had been accomplished before the first meal of the day. Among numerous other subjects to which Keen Lung devoted his attention was one that had long baffled both the ingenuity and the resources of the Chinese Emperor-the proper control of the course of the river Hoangho. His attention seems to have been drawn the more forcibly to this question by the aggravation it had caused to the suffering of the people, to whose misfortunes from famine were added th Al fir en to n f THE HOANGHO. 731 those from the inundations of this great river. To the general Akoui, whose overthrow of the Miaotze had secured him the first place among Chinese soldiers and statesmen, Keen Lung entrusted, in the year 1780, a task that he hoped might serve to celebrate his reign by the achievement of a feat to which none of his predecessors could lay claim. The Emperor's final instructions were published in the form of an edict, so that the nation was taken beforehand into his confidence as to the magnitude of his designs and the excellence of his intentions. "My intention," said he, "is that this work should be unceasingly carried on in order to secure for the people a solid advantage, both for the present and in the time to come. Share my views, and in order to accomplish them forget nothing in the carrying out of your project, which I regard as my own, since I entirely approve of it, and the idea which originated it was mine. For the rest, it is at my own charge, and not at the cost of the province, that I wish all this to be done. Let expenses not be stinted. I take upon myself the consequence, whatever it may be. I have no other instructions to give you. Despatch!" Akoui had, before receiving this marked encouragement from the Emperor, instituted some preliminary inquiries into the matter, and had come to the conclusion that it would be quite feasible to resist the encroachments of the river and to prevent its further ravages. Having received an emphatic promise of support from the Emperor, Akoui devoted himself to the great task which he had undertaken, and in due course he was able to notify to the throne that his efforts, supported by the Viceroy of Honan and the board appointed to control the waters of the realm, had been crowned with success. But although the ravages committed by this river in flood-time have been much less during the last hundred years than at any previous epoch, the present state of the Hoangho leaves much to be desired. And this great river is practically useless for navigation. Keen Lung, as has been said, abdicated in favour of his son in the year 1796, and survived that event almost exactly three years. His reign forms the most important epoch in modern Chinese history, for it marked what was long thought to be the prime of Manchu power, and it certainly beheld the thorough and complete consolidation of the Tartar authority. Its exceptional brilliance was enhanced and rendered the more conspicuous, not only by a succession of unsurpassed military exploits, but also by a series of literary and administrative achievements unequalled in Tartar, if not in Chinese, history. His attention to his people's wants, and his zeal in promoting what he thought were their best interests, showed that he desired to appear in their eyes as the paternal ruler, which is the salient characteristic of a Chinese Emperor. That he was almost completely successful in realizing his objects there can be little doubt, and it was by general consent more than by palace flattery that the title of Magnificent was attached to his name. Certainly the magnitude of his exploits, as well as the splendour of his court, justified its application to his name and rendered it appropriate.* Keen Lung had abdicated because he would not consent to his reign figuring in history as being of longer duration than that of his grandfather Kanghi. He also had ruled throughout a complete cycle, and the events of these two long and important reigns mark out a period of almost unprecedented achievement in the annals of any country. In no case that can be called to mind had a greater exploit been successfully performed and satisfactorily maintained. The authority of the Manchus, which appeared likely to be overthrown and obliterated before the vigorous onslaught of the *This Emperor has been described in the following sentences by a European missionary who had frequent opportunities of seeing and conversing with him :-"This prince is tall and well-built. He has a very gracious countenance, but capable at the same time of inspiring respect. If in regard to his subjects he employs great severity, I believe it is less from the promptings of his character, than from the necessity which would otherwise not render him capable of keeping within the bounds of dependence and duty two Empires so vast as China and Tartary. Therefore, the greatest tremble in his presence. On all the occasions when he has done me the honour to address me, it has been with a gracious air that inspired me with the courage to appeal to him in behalf of our religion. . . . He is a truly great prince, doing and seeing everything for himself" ("Lettres Edifiantes," tom. xxiv. p. 110). CH as es ar P f PINNACLE OF MANCHU POWER. 733 Chinese commander Wou Sankwei, had been triumphantly asserted; and the sovereignty of the Emperor had been established and made good over remote tributary kingdoms and indifferent vassals. The Emperor Kanghi had accomplished a great deal, but he also left much either undone or for those who came after him to complete. Keen Lung, on the other hand, succeeded in everything he undertook, and his success was never partial, but decided and unequivocal. Those who succeeded to his throne had but to retain what he had won, to maintain intact the authority he exercised, to be able to boast with truth that they swayed the destinies of the most wonderful Empire of a homogeneous race that the world had seen since that of Rome. When Keen Lung released his hold upon the sceptre the Manchu power had reached its pinnacle. A warrior race, supported by the indomitable courage of a great people, and by the unlimited resources of one of the most favourably situated of countries, had been able to set up its unquestioned authority throughout the Middle Kingdom and the dependencies, which from a remote period were included under the vague and uncertain term of tributaries. From that post of vantage, and by means of those powerful elements of support, it had succeeded in establishing its undisputed supremacy throughout Eastern Asia, from Siam to Siberia and from Nepaul to Corea. There remained no military feat for the loftiest ambition to accomplish when the aged Keen Lung retired into private life, leaving the responsibilities and anxieties of power to his son and his descendants. Well for those later rulers of the Manchu race would it have been if they could have retained peaceful and undisturbed possession of the great Empire to which they succeeded; but a long period of decadence was to follow this century and a half of unexampled vigour and capacity. With the disappearance of the great Keen Lung the stern qualities necessary to the preservation of a widely-extended sway take their departure from Chinese history. With his death the vigour of China reaches a term, and, just as the progress had been consistent and rapid during the space of one hundred and fifty years, so now will its downward course be not less marked and unequivocal, until in the hour of apparent dissolution the Empire will find safety in the valour and probity of an English officer. But the respite secured by the genius of Gordon has profited China but little through the blindness and lethargy of the ruling powers at Pekin. END OF VOL. I. LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, |