Historical Tales Volume Xii Part 18

In 1618 the Manchus crossed their southern frontier and boldly set foot on the soil of China, their movement being so sudden and unexpected that the border town of Fooshun was taken almost without a blow. The army sent to retake it was hurled back in defeat, and the strong town of Tsingho was next besieged and captured. The progress of Noorhachu was checked at this point by the clamor of his men, who were unwilling to march farther while leaving the hostile state of Yeho in their rear. He therefore led them back to their homes.

The Chinese were now thoroughly aroused. An army of more than one hundred thousand men was raised and sent to attack Noorhachu in his native realm. But it was weakly commanded and unwisely divided into three unsupported sections, which the Manchus attacked and routed in detail. The year's work was completed by the conquest and annexation of Yeho, an event which added thirty thousand men to Noorhachu's resources and completed the confederation of the Niuche clans, which had been his original plan.

The old Chinese emperor was now near his life's end. But his last act was one of his wisest ones, it being the appointment of Tingbi, a leader of skill and resolution, to the command in Liautung. In a brief time this energetic commander had placed the capital and the border towns of the province in a state of defence and collected an army of one hundred and eighty thousand men on the frontier. Two years sufficed to make the province impregnable to Manchu attack. During this period of energy Noorhachu wisely remained quiet. But the Chinese emperor died, and was succeeded by his son, who quickly followed him to the grave. His grandson, a boy of sixteen, succeeded, and the court enemies of Tingbi now had him recalled and replaced by a man who had never seen a battle.

The result was what might have been expected. Noorhachu, who had been waiting his opportunity, at once led his army across the borders (1621), marching upon the strong town of Moukden, whose commandant, more brave than wise, left the shelter of his walls to meet him in the field. The result was a severe repulse, the Manchus entering the gates with the fugitives and slaughtering the garrison in the streets. Three armies were sent to retake Moukden, but were so vigorously dealt with that in a few weeks less than half Tingbi's strong army remained. Liauyang, the capital of the province, was next besieged and taken by storm, the garrison falling almost to a man, among them Tingbi's incapable successor meeting his death. No further resistance was made, the other towns, with one exception, opened their gates, and in a brief time Noorhachu completed the conquest of the province of Liautung.

Only one thing kept the Manchus from crossing the Great Wall and invading the provinces beyond. This was the stronghold of Ningyuen, which a Chinese officer named Chungwan had reinforced with a small party, and which resolutely resisted all a.s.saults. Noorhachu, not daring to leave this fortified place in his rear, besieged it with a strong army, making two desperate a.s.saults upon its walls. But Chungwan, a.s.sisted by some European cannon, whose noise proved more terrible to the Manchus than their b.a.l.l.s, held out so vigorously that for the first time in his career the Manchu chief met with defeat. Disappointed and sick at heart, he retraced his steps to Moukden, then his capital, there to end his career, his death taking place in September, 1626.

Such was the adventurous life of the man who, while not conquering China himself, made its conquest possible to his immediate successors, who acknowledged his great deeds by giving him the posthumous t.i.tle of Emperor of China, the Manchu dynasty dating its origin back to 1616. His son, Taitsong, who succeeded him, renewed the attack on Ningyuen, but found the heroic Chungwan more than his match. A brilliant idea brought him final success. Leaving the impregnable stronghold in his rear, he suddenly marched to the Great Wall, which he crossed, and was far on the road to Peking before Chungwan knew of his purpose. At once abandoning the town, the Chinese general hurried southward, and, having the best road, succeeded in reaching the capital in advance of the Manchus. But he came only to his death. Tingbi, the one man feared by Noorhachu, had been executed through the machinations of his enemies, and now Chungwan suffered the same fate, Taitsong, not being able to defeat him in the field, having succeeded in forming a plot against him in the palace.

But Peking, though in serious peril, was not taken. A truce was arranged, and Taitsong drew off his troops--for reasons best known to himself. He was soon back in China, but did not again attack Peking, devoting himself to raids through the border provinces. In 1635 he a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of Emperor of China, in consequence of the seal of the Mongol dynasty, which had been lost in Mongolia two centuries before, being found and sent to him. But Ningyuen still held out, under an able successor to Chungwan, and in September, 1643, this second of the Manchu leaders came to his death. The conquest of China was reserved for a later leader.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHINESE GAMBLERS.]

_THE MANCHU CONQUEST OF CHINA._

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 p.r.o.nounced 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 ma.s.sacres 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 a.s.sumed the t.i.tle 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 a.s.sault, broke and fled, pursued by their foes with such bloodthirsty fury that thirty thousand of them were slain. Li escaped with a few hundred hors.e.m.e.n 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 w.a.n.g (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 t.i.tles 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 princ.i.p.ality 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 pa.s.sing 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.

_THE CAREER OF A DESERT CHIEF._

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 hors.e.m.e.n 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 s.p.a.ce 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 embarra.s.sed 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 a.s.sistance. 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 a.s.sistance 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 princ.i.p.al 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 princ.i.p.al street of Peking. The emperor, surrounded by the princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.sume 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 a.s.sailed 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 a.s.sault 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.