Long years of misgovernment in China produced their natural result. Evils stalked abroad while worthless emperors spent their days in luxury at home. The land ceased to be governed, local rebellions broke out in a dozen quarters, and the Manchu invasion was but one event in the series of difficulties that environed the weakened throne. From the midst of these small rebellions emerged a large one before which the Ming dynasty trembled to its fall. Its leader, Li Tseching, was a peasant's son, who had chosen the military career and quickly gained renown as a daring horseman and skilful archer. In 1629 he appeared as a member of a band of robbers, who were defeated by the troops, Li being one of the few to escape. A year afterwards we hear of him as high in rank in a rebel band almost large enough to be called an army. The leader dying after a few years, Li succeeded him in command.
His progress to power was rapid, cunning and duplicity aiding him, for often when in a dangerous situation he escaped by pretending a desire to come to terms with the authorities. Other rebels rose, won victories, and sank again; but Li held his own and steadily grew stronger, until, in 1640, he was at the head of an army of nearly half a million of men and in a position to aspire to the throne of Peking itself. Town after town fell into his hands, frightful outrages being perpetrated in each, for Li was a brigand in grain and merciless at heart. The efforts of the emperor to overthrow him proved futile, the imperial army being sent against him in four divisions, which he attacked and defeated in detail. The court had learned nothing from the failure of similar tactics in the war with Noorhachu. After this pronounced success Li laid siege to Kaifong, an important city which had once been the capital of China. He was twice repulsed, but a third time returned to the siege, finally succeeding through a rise in the Hoang-ho, which washed away the defences of the city, drowned thousands of its people, and left it at the mercy of the besieging troops.
Li's next effort was made against the city of Tunkwan, the most formidable of Chinese fortresses. Situated in the mountains between the provinces of Honan and Shensi, it was strong by position, while the labor of centuries had added enormously to its strength. Here fortune aided him, his army following into the city a fugitive force which had been beaten outside. By this time the rebel chief had made himself so dreadful a record by the massacres and outrages committed in conquered cities that terror began to fill the minds of garrisons, and towns and cities opened their gates to him without venturing resistance.
No longer a mere rebel chief, but master of more than a third of China, and feared through all the rest, Li now assumed the title of emperor, and, capturing every stronghold as he advanced, began his march upon Peking, then a scene of unimaginable terror and confusion. The emperor, who had hesitated to flee, found flight impossible when Li's great army invested the capital. Defence was equally impossible, and the unhappy weakling, after slaying all the women of the palace, ended the career of the Ming dynasty by hanging himself. Li was quickly master of the city, where the ancestral temple of the Mings was plundered and levelled with the ground, and all the kinsmen of the royal family he could seize were summarily put to death. Thus was completed the first phase of a remarkable career, in which in a few years the member of a band of robbers became master of the most populous empire of the earth. The second phase was to be one of a decline in fortune still more rapid than had been the growth of the first. And with it is connected the story of the Manchu invasion and conquest of China.
We have seen in the preceding tale how the heroic Chungwan held the fortress of Ningyuen against all the efforts of Noorhachu, the Manchu chief. After his death Wou Sankwei, a man of equal valor and skill, repelled Taitsong and his Manchus from its walls. This city, with the surrounding territory, was all of Northern China that had not submitted to Li, who now made earnest efforts by lavish promises to win Wou over to his side. But in the latter he had to deal with a man who neither feared nor trusted him, and to whose mind it seemed preferable that even the Tartars should become lords of the empire than that it should be left to the mercy of a brutal robber like Li Tseching.
Wou's position was a delicate and difficult one. The old dynasty was at an end. Those loyal to it were powerless. He had no means of his own enabling him to contend against the great force of Li. He must surrender or call in foreigners to his aid. In this dilemma he made overtures to the Manchus, asking their aid to put down the rebellion and restore tranquillity to the empire,—seemingly with the thought that they might be dispensed with when no longer of use.
Not for a moment did the Manchu leaders hesitate to avail themselves of the promising offer. The man who for years had stood resolutely in the way of their invasion of China was now voluntarily stepping from their path, and even offering them his aid to accomplish their cherished project. The powerful fortresses which had defied their strength, the Great Wall which in Wou's hands might have checked their progress, had suddenly ceased to be obstacles to their advance, and throughout the camps and towns of the Tartars an enthusiastic response was made to the inspiriting cry of "On to Peking!"
Wou Sankwei did not wait for their coming. Li had sent a strong force to meet him, with instructions either to negotiate or to fight. Wou chose the latter, and delivered battle with such energy and success that more than twenty thousand of the opposing force were laid in death upon the field, no quarter being given to the flying host. News of this perilous reverse roused Li to vigorous action. Knowing nothing of the approach of a Tartar army, he imagined that he had only Wou with whom to deal, and marched against him in person with sixty thousand men, the pick of his victorious army.
This large force, perhaps three times the number that the loyal leader could put in the field, reached Wou's station on the river Lanho before the vanguard of the Manchus had appeared. It was obviously Wou's policy to defer the action, but Li gave him no opportunity, making at once an impetuous attack, his line being formed in the shape of a crescent, with the design of overlapping the flanks of the foe. Skilled and experienced as Wou was, the smallness of his force made him unable to avoid this movement of his enemy, who, from a hill where he had taken his station to overlook the battle, had the satisfaction of seeing the opposing army completely surrounded by his numerous battalions. Wou and his men fought with desperate courage, but it was evident that they could not long hold out against such odds. Fortunately for them, at this critical moment a strong Manchu corps reached the field, and at once made a furious charge upon the nearly victorious troops. This diversion caused a complete change in the situation. Li's troops, filled with terror at the vigorous and unexpected assault, broke and fled, pursued by their foes with such bloodthirsty fury that thirty thousand of them were slain. Li escaped with a few hundred horsemen from the disastrous field which was to prove the turning-point in his career.
The delayed Manchus soon after appeared in numbers, and Wou lost no time in following up his signal success. Peking was quickly reached, and there, on the eastern ramparts, the victor was greeted with the spectacle of his father's head on the wall, Li having thus wreaked what vengeance he could upon his foe. It was an unwise act of ferocity, since it rendered impossible any future reconciliation with his opponent.
Li made no effort to defend the city, but fled precipitately with all the plunder he could convey. Wou, marching round its walls, pressed hard upon his track, attacking his rear-guard in charge of the bulky baggage-train, and defeating it with the slaughter of ten thousand troops. Li continued to retreat, collecting the garrisons he had left in various cities as he fled, until, feeling strong enough to hazard another battle, he took his stand near the city of Chingtung. Wou did not hesitate to attack. Eighty thousand Manchus had joined him, and abundant Chinese levies had raised his forces to two hundred thousand men. The battle was fierce and obstinate, Li fighting with his old skill and courage, and night closed without giving either party the victory. But under cover of the darkness the rebel leader, having lost forty thousand men, including some of his ablest officers, deemed it necessary to resume his retreat.
The remainder of Li's career may be briefly told. Wou followed him with unyielding persistency, fighting at every opportunity and being always the victor in these encounters. This rapid flight, these repeated defeats, at length so discouraged the rebel troops that on Li's making a final stand they refused to fight, and insisted on coming to terms with their pursuer. Finding that all was at an end, Li fled to the neighboring mountain region with a small body of men, and there returned to the robber state from which he had emerged. But his foe was implacable; pursuit was kept up, his band lost heavily in various encounters, and at length, while on a foraging trip in search of food, he was surprised in a village by a superior force. A sharp combat followed, in which Li was the first to fall, and his head was carried in triumph to the nearest mandarin.
Thus ended the career of a remarkable man. Whatever the Chinese thought of the Manchus, they could not but detest the cruel bandit whom they supplanted, and who, but for their aid and the courage of a single opponent, would have placed himself upon the throne of China.
Wou Sankwei, having rid himself of his great enemy, now became anxious for the departure of his allies. But he soon found that they had no intention of leaving Peking, of which they were then in full control. At their head was Taitsong's young son, still a child, yet already giving evidence of much sagacity. His uncle, Prince Dorgan,—or Ama Wang (Father Prince), as his nephew called him,—was made regent, and hastened to proclaim the youth emperor of China, under the name of Chuntche. Every effort was made to obtain the support of Wou Sankwei: honors and titles were conferred upon him, and the new government showed such moderation and sound judgment in dealing with the people as to win him to its support,—especially as no Chinese candidate for the throne appeared whose ability promised to equal that of the young Manchu prince.
The Manchus, indeed, were far from being rulers of the kingdom as yet. They held only a few provinces of the north, and a prince of the late native dynasty had been set up in the south, with his capital at Nanking. Had he been a capable ruler, with qualities suited to call Wou Sankwei to his support and enlist the energies of the people, the tide of Manchu conquest would very probably have been stayed. But he proved worthless, and Nanking was soon in the hands of his foes, its officials being spared, but required to shave their heads,—the shaved head and the pigtail of the modern Chinaman being the badge of submission to Tartar supremacy.
A succession of new emperors was set up, but all met the same fate, and in the end the millions of China fell under the Manchu yoke, and the ancient empire was once more subjected to Tartar rule. The emperor Chuntche died young, and his son, Kanghi, came to the throne when but nine years of age. He was destined to reign for more than sixty years and to prove himself one of the best and greatest of the emperors of China.
We cannot close without a mention of the final events in the career of Wou Sankwei, to whom China owed her Manchu dynasty. Thirty years after he had invited the Manchus into the country, and while he was lord of a large principality in the south, he was invited by the emperor to visit Peking, an invitation which he declined on the plea of old age, though really because he feared that Tartar jealousy of his position and influence lay behind it.
Envoys were sent to him, whom he treated with princely courtesy, though he still declined to visit the court, and plainly stated his reasons. The persistence of the emperor at length drove him into rebellion, in which he was joined by others of the Chinese leaders, and for a time the unwisdom of Kanghi in not letting well enough alone threatened his throne with disaster. One by one, however, Wou's allies were put down, until he was left alone to keep up the war. The Manchus hesitated, however, to attack him, knowing well his great military skill. But disunion in his ranks did what the Tartar sword could not effect. Many of his adherents deserted him, and the Chinese warrior who had never known defeat was brought to the brink of irretrievable disaster. From this dilemma death extricated him, he passing away at the head of his men without the stigma of defeat on his long career of victory. In the end his body was taken from the tomb and his ashes were scattered through the eighteen provinces of China, to testify that no trace remained of the man whom alone the Manchus had wooed and feared.
In looking upon a modern map of the empire of China, it will be seen to cover a vast area in Asia, including not only China proper but the wide plains of Mongolia and the rock-bound region of Thibet. Yet no such map could properly have been drawn two hundred years ago. Thibet, while a tributary realm, was not then a portion of China, while the Mongolian herdsmen were still the independent warriors and the persistent enemies of China that they had been from time immemorial. It is to the Manchu emperors that the subjection of these countries and their incorporation in the Chinese empire are due. To-day the far-reaching territory of the steppes, the native home of those terrible horsemen who for ages made Europe and Asia tremble, is divided between the two empires of China and Russia, and its restless hordes are held in check by firm and powerful hands, their period of conquest at an end.
It was to two of the Manchu monarchs, Kanghi and Keen Lung,—whose combined reigns covered more than a hundred and twenty years,—that the subjection of these long turbulent regions was due, enabling China to enter the nineteenth century with the broad territorial expanse now marked on our maps. The story of how the subjection of the nomads came about is a long one, much too long for the space at our command, yet a brief synopsis of its leading events will prove of interest and importance to all who desire to follow the successive steps of Chinese history.
Kanghi, the second Manchu emperor, and one of the greatest of the rulers of China, having completed the conquest of the Chinese themselves, turned his attention to the nomadic hordes who threatened the tranquillity of his reign. He was one of their own race, a man of Tartar blood, and many of the desert tribes were ready to acknowledge his supremacy, among them the Khalkas, who prided themselves on direct descent from Ghengis and his warriors, but had lost all desire to rule the earth and were content to hold their own among the surrounding tribes. They dwelt on those streams which had watered the birthplace of the Mongol tribe, and their adhesion to the Manchu cause kept all the Mongols quiet.
But west of these dwelt another nomad race, the Calmucks, divided into four hordes, of which the Eleuths were by no means content to yield to Chinese or Manchu control. Their independence of spirit might have been of little importance but that it was sustained by an able and ambitious leader, who not only denied Kanghi's supremacy but disputed with him the empire of the steppes.
Galdan was the younger son of the most powerful chief of his tribe. Full of ambition, and chafing at the subordinate position due to his birth, he quarrelled with some of his brothers and killed one of them. Being forced to flee, he made his way to Thibet, where he sought to obtain admission to the ranks of the Buddhist clergy, but was refused by the Dalai Lama on account of his deed of blood. But on his return to the tents of his tribe he found himself in a new position. His crime was forgotten or condoned, and the fact that he had dwelt in the palace and under the holy influence of the Dalai Lama, the supreme religious power in Buddhist Asia, gave him a high standing among his fellow-tribesmen. The influence thus gained and his boldness and ruthlessness completed the work he had in mind. The ruling khan was deposed, all members of his family whose hostility was feared by Galdan were slain, and he found himself at the head of the tribe, whose members were terrified into submission.
His thirst for power now showed itself in encroachments upon the lands of neighboring clans. The Manchus were at that time embarrassed by the rebellion of Wou Sankwei, and the opportunity seemed excellent for an invasion of the district of the Khalkas, firm friends of the Manchu power. He also sent troops towards the Chinese frontier, fear of whom forced many of the tribesmen to cross the border and seek the emperor's aid. Kanghi could then only give them lands within his realm, being too much occupied at home to be able to do more than send spies into the steppes. From these he learned that Galdan had built up a formidable power and that he evidently had in view the subjection of all the tribes.
Kanghi, anxious to settle these difficulties amicably, spent a number of years in negotiations, but his rival showed as much ability in diplomacy as in the field, and succeeded in masking his designs while he was strengthening his position and preparing for open hostilities. Finally, with an army of thirty thousand men, he invaded the country of the Khalkas, and in 1690 took his first open step of hostility against China, by arresting the envoys who had been sent to his camp. This insult put an end to all Kanghi's efforts to maintain peace. The diplomatic movements were followed by a display of military energy and activity, and the whole northern army, consisting of the eight Manchu Banners, the forty-nine Mongol Banners, and a large force of Chinese auxiliaries, was set in motion across the steppes.
Meanwhile Galdan, alarmed by the hostility he had provoked, sought to make an alliance with the Russians, an effort which brought him hollow promises but no assistance. Without waiting for the coming of all his foes, he made a vigorous attack on the Chinese advance force and drove it back in defeat, remaining master of the field. Yet, recognizing that the enemy was far too strong for him, he sent an envoy to Peking, offering concessions and asking for peace. The emperor listened, but the army pushed on, and an attack in force was made upon the Eleuth camp, which was located at the foot of a mountain, between a wood and a stream. The post was a strong one, and the Eleuths fought stubbornly, but they were too greatly outnumbered, and in the end were put to flight, after having inflicted severe loss on their foes, an uncle of the emperor being among the slain. Galdan now, finding that the war was going against him, offered fealty and obedience to the emperor, which Kanghi, glad to withdraw his army from its difficult position in the desert, accepted, sending the chieftain a letter of forgiveness. Thus ended the campaign of 1690.
It was a truce, not a peace. Galdan's ambition remained unsatisfied, and Kanghi put little confidence in his promises. He was right: the desert chief occupied himself in sowing the seeds of dissension among the hordes, and in 1693, finding the Dalai Lama his opponent, took the step of professing himself a Mohammedan, in the hope of gaining the assistance of the Mussulman Tartars and Chinese. Yet he kept up negotiations with the Dalai Lama, with the purpose of retaining the Buddhist support. Meanwhile conflicts between the tribes went on, and in 1695 Kanghi, incensed at the constant encroachments of the ambitious chief, which failed to sustain his peaceful professions, resolved to put an end to the trouble by his complete and irretrievable overthrow.
The despatch of a large army into the recesses of Central Asia was a difficult and hazardous enterprise, yet it seemed the only means of ending the strained situation, and by 1696 a large force was got ready for a protracted desert war, the principal command being given to a frontier soldier named Feyanku, who in the preceding troubles had shown marked ability.
On the eve of the great national holiday of China, the Feast of Lanterns, the imperial court reviewed a section of the army, drawn up in military array along the principal street of Peking. The emperor, surrounded by the principal functionaries of the government, occupied a throne on a raised platform from which the whole scene could be surveyed, while strains of martial music filled the air. The culminating scene in the ceremony took place when Feyanku approached the throne, received on his knees from the emperor's hand a cup of wine, and retired down the steps, at whose foot he quaffed the wine amid the shouts of thousands of spectators. This ceremony was repeated with each of the subordinate generals, and then with the lower officers of the army, ten at a time. Success being thus drunk to the army, Feyanku left the capital to assume the active command in the field, while Kanghi, bent on complete success, set to work to recruit in all haste a second army, which he proposed to command himself.
The whole force raised was an immense one, considering the character of the country to be traversed and the limited resources of the enemy. It marched in four divisions, of which that under Feyanku numbered about thirty-five thousand men. Despite the great distance to be traversed, the desert-like condition of much of the country, and the fact that deficiency of resources cost thousands of lives and forced many detachments to retreat, a powerful force at length reached the borders of Galdan's territory. After a march of more than three months' duration Feyanku pitched his camp near the sources of the Tula, his army being reduced to twelve thousand available men. These were placed in a fortified position within the Mongol camping-ground of Chowmodo.
Meanwhile how was Galdan engaged? He had sought, but in vain, to win the alliance of a powerful Mongol tribe, and had conducted fruitless negotiations with the Russians of Siberia. His only remaining hope lay in the desert barrier which lay between him and his great enemy, and this vanished when the Chinese army made its appearance in his territories, though its success had been gained at a frightful loss of life. The situation of the desert chief had become desperate, his only hope lying in an attack on the advance body of the Chinese before it could be joined by the other detachments, and while exhausted by its long march across the desert of Gobi. He therefore made a rapid march and vigorously assailed the Chinese intrenchments at Chowmodo.
In the interval the Chinese commanders had found themselves in a perilous position. Their supplies had run low, they could not be replenished in that situation, farther advance had become impossible, and it seemed equally impossible to maintain their position. Retreat seemed their only means of extricating themselves from their dilemma, and the question of doing so was under discussion when the sudden assault of Galdan happily relieved Feyanku from a situation which threatened the loss of his military renown. Of the battle that followed we know only that Feyanku remained on the defensive and sustained Galdan's attacks for three hours, when he gave the signal for a charge. The wearied Eleuths soon broke before the determined onset, a disordered flight began, and Galdan, seeing that the day was lost, fled with a small body of followers, leaving his camp and baggage to the victors and two thousand of his men dead on the field.
This victory ended the war. Kanghi, on hearing of it, returned to Peking, having sent word to Feyanku to pursue Galdan with unrelenting vigor, there being no security while he remained at large. The recent powerful chief was now at the end of his resources. He fled for safety from camp to camp. He sent an envoy to Peking with an abject offer to surrender. He made new overtures to the Russians, and sought in a dozen ways to escape from his implacable enemies. But Feyanku kept up the pursuit, ceasing only when word came to him that the fugitive was dead. Anxiety, hardships, chagrin, or, as some say, the act of his own hand, had carried off the desert chief, and relieved the emperor of China from the peril and annoyance which had so long troubled him.
In Galdan died a man who, under more fortunate circumstances, might have emulated some of the famous Tartar chiefs, a warrior of the greatest skill, courage, and daring, a "formidable enemy" to the Chinese empire, and one who, had the government of that empire been as weak as it proved strong, might have gathered all the nomads under arms and overthrown the dynasty.
A few words must suffice to end the story of the Eleuths. The death of Galdan did not bring them to submission, and years afterwards we find them hostile to Chinese rule, and even so daring as to invade Thibet, which Kanghi had added to his empire, they taking its central city of Lhassa, and carrying to the steppes a vast wealth in spoil. Eventually they were subjected to Chinese rule, but before this took place an event of much interest occurred. The Tourguts, an adjoining Kalmuck tribe, were so imperilled by the enmity of the Eleuths that they took the important resolution of migrating to Russia, marching across the Kirghiz steppes and becoming faithful subjects of the czar, who gave them a new abiding-place on the banks of the Volga. Many years afterwards, in 1770, this tribe, inspired by a strong desire to return to their own home, left the Volga and crossed Asia, despite all efforts to check their flight, until they reached again their native soil. For the interesting story of this adventurous flight see Volume VIII.
During the past two and a half centuries the great empire of China has been under foreign rule, its emperors, its state officials, its generals and trusted battalions, being of Tartar blood, and the whole nation being forced to wear, in the shaved head and pigtail of every man from the highest to the lowest, a badge of servitude. The firm position gained by the Manchu dynasty was largely due to the ability of two emperors, Kanghi and Keen Lung, who stamped out the spirit of rebellion in China, added Thibet to the empire, and conquered Mongolia, subduing those restless tribes which for so many centuries had been a sword in the side of the great empire of the East. Their able administration was aided by their long reigns, Kanghi being on the throne for sixty-one years, while Keen Lung abdicated after a reign of sixty years, that he might not take from his esteemed grandfather the honor of the longest reign. Keen Lung died three years afterwards, in 1799, thus bringing up the history of China almost to the opening year of the nineteenth century. His eventful life was largely devoted to the consolidation of the Tartar authority, and was marked by brilliant military exploits and zeal in promoting the interests of China in all directions. It is our purpose here to tell the story of one of the famous military exploits of his reign.
The conquest of Thibet had brought the Chinese into contact with the bold and restless hill-tribes which occupy the region between China and India. South of the Himalaya range there existed several small mountain states, independent alike of Mogul and of British rule, and defiant in their mountain fastnesses of all the great surrounding powers. Of these small states the most important was Nepal, originally a single kingdom, but afterwards divided into three, which were in frequent hostility with one another. West of Nepal was a small clan, the Goorkhas, whose people were noted for their warlike daring. It is with these that we are here concerned.
In 1760 the king of Bhatgaon, one of the divisions of Nepal, being threatened by his rival kings, begged aid from the Goorkha chief. It was readily given, and with such effect as to win the allies a signal triumph. The ease of his victory roused the ambition of Narayan, the leader of the Goorkhas, and by 1769 the three kings of Nepal were either slain or fugitives in India and their country had fallen under the dominion of its recently insignificant and little-considered neighbor.
The Goorkhas differed essentially from the Nepalese in character. They despised commerce and disliked strangers. War was their trade, and their aggressions soon disturbed conditions along the whole Himalaya range. The flourishing trade which had once existed between India and Thibet by way of Nepal was brought to an end, while the raids of the dominant clan on neighboring powers excited general apprehension. Twenty years after their conquest of Nepal the incursions of the Goorkhas into Thibet became so serious as to demand the attention of the Chinese emperor, though no decided action was taken for their suppression. But in 1790 an event occurred that put a sudden end to this supine indifference.
The temples and lamasaries of Thibet were widely believed to contain a great store of wealth, the reports of which proved highly alluring to the needy and daring warriors of the Goorkha clan. The Chinese had shown no disposition to defend Thibet, and this rich spoil seemed to lie at the mercy of any adventurous band strong enough to overcome local opposition. In consequence, the Goorkhas prepared for an invasion in force of the northern state, and, with an army of about eighteen thousand men, crossed the Himalayas by the lofty passes of Kirong and Kuti and rapidly advanced into the country beyond.
The suddenness of this movement found the Thibetans quite unprepared. Everything gave way before the bold invaders, and in a short time Degarchi, the second town of the state, fell into their hands. This was the residence of the Teshu Lama, ranking next to the Dalai in authority, and possessed the vast lamasary of Teshu Lumbo, rich in accumulated wealth, which fell into the hands of the invaders. A farther advance would undoubtedly have given them the chief city of Lhassa, since the unwarlike population fled in terror before their advance, but their success at Degarchi had been so great as to check their march, many weeks being spent in counting their spoil and subduing the surrounding country.
Meanwhile urgent petitions were sent to Peking, and the old emperor, aroused to the necessity for prompt and decisive action, gave orders that all available troops should at once be despatched to Lhassa and vigorous preparations made for war. Within a few months a Chinese army of seventy thousand men, armed with several pieces of light artillery, had reached Thibet, where the Goorkhas, alarmed by the numbers of their opponents, made hasty preparations for a retreat. But their spoil was so abundant and bulky as to delay their march, and the Chinese, who were well commanded, succeeded in coming up with them before they had crossed the mountain passes. The movements of the Chinese commander were so skilfully made that the retreat of the Goorkhas without a battle for the safety of their treasures became impossible.
Sund Fo, the Chinese general, according to the usual practice of his people, began by the offer of terms to the enemy, these being the surrender of all their spoil and of a renegade lama whose tale of the wealth of Thibet had led to the invasion. Probably also pledges for better conduct in future were demanded, but the proud chief of the Goorkhas haughtily refused to accept any of these conditions and defied his foes to do their worst. Of the battle that followed nothing is known except its result, which was the defeat and hasty retreat of the invaders, much of whose baggage was left behind.
The Chinese do not seem to have suffered greatly, to judge from the promptness of their pursuit, which was made with such rapidity that the Goorkhas were overtaken and again defeated before they had reached the Kirong pass, they being now obliged to abandon most of their baggage and spoil. The pursuit continued with an energy remarkable for a Chinese army, the Goorkhas, bold as they were by nature, growing demoralized under this unlooked-for persistence. Every encounter resulted in a defeat, the forts which commanded the mountain passes and defiles were taken in succession by Sund Fo's army, and he still pressed relentlessly on. At a strong point called Rassoa the Goorkhas defended for three days a passage over a chasm, but they had grown faint-hearted through their successive defeats, and this post too fell into the hands of their enemy.
The triumphs of the Chinese had not been won without severe loss, both in their frequent assaults upon mountain strongholds and a desperate foe, and from the passage of the snow-clad mountains, but they finally succeeded in reaching the southern slopes of the Himalayas with an effective force of forty thousand men. Khatmandu, the Goorkha capital, lay not far away, and with a last effort of courage and despair the retreating army made a stand for the defence of the seat of their government.
Their position was a strong one, their courage that of desperation, and their valor and resolution so great that for a time they checked the much stronger battalions of their foes. The Chinese troops, disheartened by the courage with which the few but brave mountaineers held their works, were filled with dismay, and might have been repulsed but for the ruthless energy of their leader, who was determined at any cost to win. Turning the fire of his artillery upon his own troops, he drove them relentlessly upon the foe, forcing them to a charge that swept them like a torrent over the Goorkha works. The fire of the guns was kept up upon the mingled mass of combatants until the Goorkhas were driven over a precipice into the stream of the Tadi that ran below. By this decisive act of the Chinese commander many of his own men were slain, but the enemy was practically annihilated and the war brought to an end.
The Goorkhas now humbly solicited peace, which Sund Fo was quite ready to grant, for his own losses had been heavy and it was important to recross the mountains before winter set in. He therefore granted them peace on humiliating terms, though these were as favorable as they could expect under the circumstances. Any further attempt at resistance against the overwhelming army of their foes might have ended in the complete destruction of their state. They took an oath to keep the peace with Thibet, to acknowledge themselves vassals of China, to send an embassy with tribute to Peking every five years, and to restore all the plunder taken from Teshu Lumbo.
Of the later history of the Goorkhas some words may be said. Their raids into India led to a British invasion of their country in 1814, and in 1816 they were forced to make peace. The celebrated Jung Bahadur became their ruler in 1846 through the summary process of killing all his enemies, and in 1857, during the Indian mutiny, he came with a strong force to the aid of the British, whose friend he had always remained. In more recent wars the Goorkhas have proved themselves among the bravest soldiers in the Indian army, and in the late war with the hill-tribes showed an intrepidity which no part of the army surpassed. The independence of their state is still maintained.
For four or five thousand years China remained isolated from the rest of the civilized world, its only relations being with the surrounding peoples of its own race, notably with the Tartars of the steppes. Then, in the nineteenth century, the wall of isolation suddenly broke down, and it was forced to enter into relations of trade and amity with Europe and America. This revolution did not come about peacefully. The thunder of cannon was necessary to break down the Chinese wall of seclusion. But the result seems likely to prove of the greatest advantage to the so-called Celestial Kingdom. It has swung loose from its moorings in the harbor of conservatism, and it is not safe to predict how far it will drift, but it is safe to say that a few years of foreign war have done as much for it as hundreds of years of peace and isolation.
From time to time in the past centuries Europeans made their way to China. Some were priestly envoys, some missionaries, some, as in the case of the Polos, traders. Afterwards came the Jesuit missionaries, who gained an important standing in China under the early Manchu emperors, and were greatly favored by the emperor Kanghi. After his death a change took place, and they were gradually driven from the land.
The first foreign envoy reached China from Russia in 1567. Another came in 1653, his purpose being to establish freedom of trade. A century later a treaty was made establishing a system of overland trade between Russia and China, and since then a Russian missionary station has existed in Peking. In 1516 came the first vessel to China under a European flag, a Portuguese trader. Others followed, and trade began through Canton and other ports. But the foreign traders soon began to act rather as pirates than as peaceful visitors, and in the end the Chinese drove them all away. About the middle of the sixteenth century a foreign settlement was begun at Macao, on an island near the southeast boundary of the empire, and here the trade grew so brisk that for a time Macao was the richest trading-mart in Eastern Asia. But so hostile were the relations between the Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch, and so brigand-like their behavior, that the Chinese looked upon them all as piratical barbarians, and intercourse did not grow.
The English had their own way of opening trade relations. A fleet under Captain Weddell came to Canton in 1637, and, as the Chinese fired upon a watering boat, attacked and captured the forts, burnt the council-house, carried off the guns from the forts, and seized two merchant junks. About fifty years afterwards they were accorded trading privileges at Canton and Ning-po.
To England, indeed, is due the chief credit of opening up China to the world, though the way in which it was done is not much to England's credit. This was by the famous—or infamous—opium war. But in another way England was the first to break through the traditional ceremonies of the Chinese court. All who approached the emperor's throne, foreign ambassadors as well as Chinese subjects, were required to perform the kotow, which consisted in kneeling three times before the emperor, or even before his empty throne, and each time bowing the head until the forehead three times touched the marble flooring. This was done by the Russians and the Dutch, but the Earl of Macartney, who came as English ambassador in 1792, refused to perform the slavish ceremony, and was therefore not permitted to see the emperor, though otherwise well received.
The first event of importance in the nineteenth century, that century so vital in the history of China, was the hoisting of the American flag at Canton in 1802, which marked the beginning of American trade with the Celestial empire. From this time the trade of Canton rapidly grew, until it became one of the greatest commercial cities of the world, while its mercantile activity gave employment to millions of natives in all parts of the empire in preparing articles of commerce, particularly tea. It was also of great importance to the imperial government from the revenue it furnished in the way of duty and presents. It is of interest to note, however, that the emperor and his court looked upon these presents as the payment of tribute, and the nations that sent them, unknown to themselves, were set down as vassals of the Chinese crown.
We have now an important feature of the Chinese trade to record. Opium was a favorite article of consumption in China, and its use there had given rise to an important industry in British India, in the growth of the poppy. In the year 1800 the emperor, perceiving the growing evil in the use of opium by his people, issued an edict forbidding its introduction into China. This did not check the trade, its only effect being to convert legitimate into smuggling traffic. The trade went on as briskly as before, the smugglers being openly aided by venal officials not only at Canton but at other points along the coast. By 1838 the disregard of the law, and the quantity of opium smuggled into the empire by small boats on the Canton River, had become so great that the Peking government determined to take more active steps for the suppression of the illicit trade. At this time there were more than fifty small craft plying on the river under the English and American flags, most of them smugglers. Some of these were seized and destroyed, but as the others were then heavily manned and armed the revenue officers declined to interfere with them, and the contraband trade went briskly on.
At length the difficulty reached a climax. Arrests and punishments for the use of opium became common throughout the empire, three royal princes were degraded for this practice, a commissioner with large powers was sent from Peking to Canton, and the foreigners were ordered to deliver up every particle of opium in their store-ships and give bonds to bring no more, on penalty of death. As a result, somewhat more than one thousand chests were tendered to the commissioner, but this was declared to be not enough, and that official at once took the decisive measure of cutting off the food-supply from the foreign settlement. This and other active steps brought about the desired result. Captain Elliot, the British superintendent of commerce, advised a complete delivery of all opium under British control, and before night more than twenty thousand chests of the deleterious drug were surrendered into his hands, and were offered by him to the commissioner the next day.
News of this event was sent to Peking, and orders came back that the opium should be all destroyed; which was done effectively by mixing it with salt water and lime in trenches and drawing off the mixture into an adjacent creek. Care was taken that none should be purloined, and one man was executed on the spot for attempting to steal a small portion of the drug. Thus perished an amount of the valuable substance rated at cost price at nearly eleven million dollars.
We have described this event at some length, as it led to the first war between China and a foreign power. The destruction of the opium deeply offended the British government, and in the next year (1840) Captain Elliot received an official letter to the effect that war would be declared unless China should pay for the goods destroyed. As China showed no intention of doing so, an English fleet was sent to Chinese waters in the summer of 1841, whose admiral declared a blockade of the port of Canton, and, on July 5, bombarded and captured the town of Ting-hai. Various other places were blockaded, and, as the emperor rejected all demands, the fleet moved upon Canton, taking the forts along the river as it advanced. In the end, when an attack had become imminent, the authorities ransomed their city for the sum of six million dollars.
But the emperor did not know yet the strength of the power with which he had to deal, and still continued silent and defiant. The fleet now sailed northward, capturing in succession Amoy, Chin-hai, and Ning-po. Cha-pu was the next to fall, and here the Manchu Tartars for the first time came into conflict with the English. When defeated, great numbers of them killed themselves, first destroying their wives and children. The forts at the mouth of the Yang-tse-Kiang were next taken. Here the governor-general took care to post himself out of danger, but in a grandiloquent despatch declared that he had been in the hottest of the fight, "where cannon-balls innumerable, flying in awful confusion through the expanse of heaven, fell before, behind, and on every side, while in the distance were visible the ships of the rebels standing erect, lofty as mountains. The fierce daring of the rebels was inconceivable; officers and men fell at their posts. Every effort to resist the onset was in vain, and a retreat became inevitable."
The result was the capture of Shanghai. The British now determined on a siege of the important city of Nanking, the ancient capital of China. The movement began with an attack on Chin-Kiang-fu, the "Mart-river city." Here a fierce assault was made, the Manchu garrison resisting with obstinate courage. In the end, of the garrison of four thousand only five hundred remained, most of the others having killed themselves. This victory rendered the capture of Nanking certain, its food-supply was already endangered by the English control of the river, and the authorities gave way. The emperor was now convinced that further resistance was hopeless, and the truce ended in a treaty of peace, the Chinese government agreeing to pay twenty-one million dollars indemnity, to open to British trade and residence the ports of Canton, Amoy, Foo-Chow, Ning-po, and Shanghai, and to cede to the English the island of Hong-Kong, with various minor stipulations.
This war, which was fought with the discreditable purpose of forcing upon China an injurious drug against her will, had nevertheless several very useful results. Other European nations hastened to claim the same privileges of trade that were given the English, and in 1844 a commercial treaty was signed between China and the United States, in the conduct of which a favorable disposition towards Americans was shown. The eventual result was the breaking down of the barriers of intolerance which had been so long maintained, that ancient and self-satisfied government being at last forced to throw open its gates for the entrance of the new ideas of international amity and freedom of commerce.
But much had still to be done before these desirable results could be fully achieved. Hostile relations were not yet at an end, annoying restrictions being placed on the promised intercourse. In 1856 a native vessel flying the British flag was seized by the Chinese, who refused to apologize to the British for the act. As a result, the city of Canton was bombarded and the forts were destroyed. A warlike demonstration was decided upon by Great Britain and France, the first result being the total destruction of the Chinese fleet and the capture of Canton. A revision of the former treaty and the concession of greater privileges were demanded, which China, warned by the lesson of the opium war, found itself obliged to grant.
The English and French, however, refused to treat at Canton, as the Chinese desired, but sailed to the mouth of the Pei-ho, the port of Peking, up which stream their fleets proceeded to the city of Tien-tsin. Here arrangements for a new treaty of commerce and the opening of new ports were made, Russia and the United States taking part in the negotiations. But on proceeding to the mouth of the Pei-ho in 1859 to ratify the treaty, the river was found to be obstructed and the forts strongly armed. The American and Russian envoys were willing to go to Peking overland, in accordance with the Chinese request, but the British and French determined to force their way up the stream and to take as many soldiers with them as they pleased. They attacked the forts, therefore, but, to their disgust, found themselves defeated and forced to withdraw.
This repulse could have but one result. It gave the Chinese for the first time confidence in their ability to meet the foreigner in war. It humiliated and exasperated the English and French. They determined now to carry the war to the gates of Peking and force the Chinese to acknowledge the supremacy of the nations of the West.
The events of this war we can give only in outline. In the summer of 1860 a new attack was made on the Taku forts, troops being landed to assail them in the rear, in which direction no arrangement for defence had been made. As a result the forts fell, a large body of Tartar cavalry, which sought to stop the march of the allies with bows, arrows, and spears, being taught a lesson in modern war by the explosion of shells in their ranks. The capture of the forts left the way clear for a march on the capital, which was at once made, and on the 5th of October, 1860, a European army first came within view of this long-hidden and mysterious city.
The "sublime" emperor, the supreme head of the great realm of China and its hundreds of millions of people, dwells in a magnificence and seclusion unknown to the monarchs of other lands. His palace enclosure within the city of Peking, the "Purple Forbidden City," as it is called, covers over half a square mile of ground, and is surrounded by a wall forty feet high and more than forty feet thick. Within this sacred enclosure the Chinese ideas of beauty and magnificence have been developed to the fullest extent, and the emperor resides in unapproachable grandeur and state. Outside the city, a few miles to the north, lies the Summer Palace, another locality on which the Celestial architects and landscape artists have exhausted their genius in devising scenes of beauty and charm, and which is similarly walled in from the common herd. Beyond the Great Wall, on the borders of Tartary, exists another palatial enclosure, the hunting and pleasure grounds of the emperor, in the midst of an immense forest abundantly stocked with game. To the latter his supreme majesty made his way with all haste on hearing of the rapid approach of the English and French armies. In truth, the great monarchs of the Manchu dynasty had passed away, and the feeble reigning emperor lacked the courage to fight for his throne.
On the 5th of October, 1860, the allied armies of England and France approached the Celestial capital, the officers obtaining their first view of its far-stretching wall from the tops of some grass-grown brick-kilns. On the next day the march was resumed, the French force advancing upon the Summer Palace, where it was hoped the emperor would be found, the English directing their course towards the city, where a Tartar picket was driven in and preparations were begun for an assault in force.
The Summer Palace was found in charge of some three hundred eunuchs, whom Prince Kung, who had left in all haste the evening before, had ordered to make a gallant defence. But the entrance gave way before the impetuous assault of the French, a few of the defenders fell dead or wounded, and the remainder beat a hasty retreat, leaving the grand entrance to the Yuen-ming-yuen, the famous imperial residence, in the hands of the daring and disrespectful "barbarians."
Into the grand reception-hall, which none had heretofore entered except in trembling awe, the irreverent foreigners boldly made their way, their spurred heels ringing on the broad marble floor before the emperor's sacred throne, their loud voices resounding through that spacious hall where silence and ceremony so long had reigned supreme, as the awed courtiers approached with silent tread and voiceless respect the throne of the dreaded Brother of the Sun and Moon.
"Imagine such a scene," says Swinhoe. "The emperor is seated on his ebony throne, attired in a yellow robe wrought over with dragons in gold thread, his head surmounted with a spherical crown of gold and precious stones, with pearl drops suspended round on light gold chains. His eunuchs and ministers, in court costume, are ranged on either side on their knees, and his guard of honor and musicians drawn up in two lines in the court-yard without. The name of the distinguished person to be introduced is called out, and as he approaches the band strikes up. He draws near the awful throne, and, looking meekly on the ground, drops on his knees before the central steps. He removes his hat from his head, and places it on the throne floor with its peacock feather towards the imperial donor. The emperor moves his hand, and down goes the humble head, and the forehead strikes on the step three times three. The head is then raised, but the eyes are still meekly lowered, as the imperial voice in thrilling accents pronounces the behest of the great master. The voice hushed, down goes the head again and acknowledges the sovereign right, and the privileged individual is allowed to withdraw. The scene described is not imaginary, but warranted by the accounts of natives.
"How different the scene now! The hall filled with crowds of a foreign soldiery, and the throne floor covered with the Celestial emperor's choicest curios, but destined as gifts for two far more worthy monarchs. 'See here,' said General Montauban, pointing to them. 'I have had a few of the most brilliant things selected to be divided between the Queen of Great Britain and the Emperor of the French!'"