Five hundred years ago there was a somewhat analogous situation. The Emperor of the time, Hwei-ti by name, was but a stripling, and utterly incapable of guiding the ship of state through the stormy seas of Court intrigue. His uncle, Prince Yen, the Yuan Shih K'ai of his age, had for years been drilling his soldiery, accumulating war stores, and in every way preparing to seize the reins of power. In 1400 A.D. the time seemed ripe; and in August of that year Yen led forty thousand picked men into Shangtung. No less than three hundred thousand loyalists were sent to oppose him; but the better trained and more skilfully led rebels, though numerically so inferior, utterly routed the badly-placed horde led by General Ping-Wen. This was but the beginning of a four-years relentless war, waged mostly in the northern and eastern provinces—Shangtung, Chihli, Anhwei and Kiangsu—leading to the flight of Hwei-ti to Szechuen (where he became a Buddhist priest) and the proclamation of Prince Yen as Emperor under the title of Ch'eng Tsu.
This Revolution in no way affected the Dynasty, which, in spite of internal uprisings and external depredations by Mongols and Japanese, ran for another 250 years in unbroken succession. Nevertheless during the whole of this period the history of China is one long chapter of domestic trouble, corruption and decadence alike of ruler and ruled, whilst over all Court life the deadly upas-tree of eunuchdom cast its blasting shadow. There were always rebellions, always the argument of the naked sword in the settlement of differences—and always the emerging from one cloud of trouble to enter but another, and that of a deeper darkness. Then came the end.
A rebellion that shook the Empire to its centre and brought about the end of the Ming Dynasty broke out in Shensi, and quickly spread through the neighbouring provinces, until not only Shensi, but Shansi, Honan, and Hupeh were involved. Like the Revolution that threatens to be the end of the present Dynasty, and has already foreshadowed the great and momentous changes to be, this rebellion was conceived and carried out by a "General Li"—Li Tsi-cheng by name. For some few years the Government was able to keep the upper hand—indeed, in 1634 it seemed as if the generalissimo of the rebel forces was hopelessly involved in a mountainous cul-de-sac, and that his extermination was but a question of time. Not knowing the strength of the rebel army, the commander of the Imperial forces granted terms of capitulation. Li brought away his forces to the number of thirty-six thousand with only the loss of their arms, much to the chagrin of the Imperial leader.
There was the great mistake of the Imperialists. Almost immediately the Manchus, having been joined by the Mongol forces, harassed the northern borders of the Empire. The Ming Dynasty had lost the confidence of the nation; officialdom was at its weakest through long years of corruption and misrule; General Li seized his opportunity, other leaders joined themselves and their forces to the rebel army, and China for ten years became one great battlefield.[[1]] To give but a solitary instance of the carnage that ensued: Li had unsuccessfully invested Kaifeng-fu earlier in the year, but having captured Nanyang, he led his victorious troops before the former city at the close of 1641, only to be repulsed, losing an eye, pierced by an arrow, in the attempt. In the following year Li again laid siege to the seemingly impregnable place; and, finally, enraged by the nine-months resistance of plucky Kaifeng, turned the waters of the Yellow River into the doomed city. The loss of life was fearful—some million souls, it is said, perishing in the muddy torrent that swept across the plain, twenty feet high. Li himself was compelled to beat a hasty retreat, losing ten thousand men in his flight. Compared with such awful carnage and loss of life, the casualties in the war of the present Revolution seem but trifling.
In the early part of 1644 Li was so far successful that he proclaimed himself Emperor, called his Dynasty "Tai Shun," appointed various Boards to control the affairs of the country, granted patents of nobility and other rewards to all who had faithfully served him, and generally believed that the Empire, with the throne of it, was his. The rebel chieftain marched through rivers of blood to Peking, captured the city, and found that the Emperor (Chwang Lieh-ti) had hanged himself in his own girdle. The revolution seemed complete, and the prize of life within his grasp.
One enemy remained unconquered, but this enemy was one Wu San-kwei, the commandant of the fortress of Ning Yuen. His force was not a large one, and his supplies limited. To crush him utterly seemed but the work of a few days to the one who had swept on to Peking in one victorious career. Li Tsi-cheng himself led the army—strong in itself, doubly strong in its sense of reliance born of victory. Love is strong; love ruthlessly deprived of its object breeds a hatred that is stronger tenfold in its thirst for vengeance. Wu San-kwei's beautiful mistress, whom he passionately adored, had been ravished by one of the rebels. Weak himself, he called in a mighty power to aid him in wreaking his revenge. About 270 miles away was the Manchu host, eagerly awaiting the opportunity to strike the blow they had so long been preparing. Wu must have foreseen the consequences. It was a deliberate betrayal of his country to her bitterest foes. Hate had its way, and called in its only effective instrument.
In the battle that followed the Chinese army was completely surprised and routed, Li being one of the first to flee. His power was broken, his army gone, and the last of the Chinese Emperors had reigned his reign. The Manchu had come.
Li's conquest of the Empire was completed with the taking of Peking; in Peking the subjugation of China by the Manchus was begun. For thirty-seven years the work of conquest and pacification was carried on. Then the Empire had rest for a season.
We quote the following from an interesting article that appeared in the Central China Post of December 2, 1911: "From this date there was no serious internal disturbances in China for a hundred and seventy years. During the greater portion of the time the administration was at once strong, able, and enlightened, for two of the first four Manchu Emperors were great and commanding personalities, while the length of time they severally occupied the throne did much to consolidate the position of the Dynasty. The second Manchu sovereign, the great Kanghi, proclaimed Emperor at the age of eight, in 1661, occupied the throne for the long term of sixty-one years, and his long rule was extremely brilliant and vigorous. Kanghi's immediate successor, Yung Ching, was far from being a weak man; but as his brief reign of thirteen years was characterised by no novel departure and no startling events, he is much less prominent than either his father or the son that succeeded him. The fourth Manchu sovereign would have had even a longer reign than his grandfather had if he had not adopted the unusual course of abdicating the throne, after occupying it sixty years. In this connection, it may be remarked that cases of abdication are about as rare in Chinese as in European history, while in Japan during the last millennium it has been quite exceptional for a sovereign to die in actual occupation of the throne. The second Manchu Emperor, Kanghi (1661-1722), was one of the greatest and most successful rulers that ever exercised sway in China. But his grandson, the fourth Manchu Emperor, Keen-lung (1735-96), was even greater and even more successful still. Keen-lung was twenty-five years of age when he ascended the throne in 1735; thus when he abdicated in 1796 he was a patriarch of fourscore years and six. Yet even till that date he had retained the active habits which had characterised his youth. Much of his official work was carried on at an early hour of the morning; and Europeans who had audience with him shortly before his abdication were greatly surprised to find the patriarch so keen and eager for business at these early conferences. Keen-lung did not omit to train, or at least to try to train, a successor. He abdicated in 1796, as has just been written; but for three years after that date he kept a keen watch upon his son and successor, Kia-king, exerting all his efforts to inculcate in him the right principles of sound government. But the results were nothing much to boast of after all. Half a century after the death of Keen-lung, the account of the state of China, given by writers notoriously friendly to the Manchus, is lurid indeed. The corruption of the public service, we are told, had gradually alienated the sympathies of the people. Conscience and probity had for a time been banished from it. The example of a few men of honoured capacity served but to bring into more prominent relief the faults of the administrative class as a whole. Justice was nowhere to be found; the verdict was sold to the highest bidder. It became far from uncommon for rich criminals sentenced to death to get substitutes procured for them. Offices were sold to men who had never passed an examination, and who were wholly illiterate, the sole value of the office lying in its being a tool for extortion. Extortion and malversation ran to extraordinary lengths. In Kia-king's early years, when the minister Hokwan was condemned and executed for peculation, it was found that the fortune he had amassed amounted to eighty million taels—more than twenty-six million pounds sterling. The officials waxed rich on ill-gotten wealth, and a few accumulated enormous fortunes. But the administration went on sinking lower and lower in the estimation of the people, while, of course, its efficiency was getting steadily crippled. Now, the peculiar Civil Service of China is at once the strength and weakness of the Empire. It needs to be made to toe the line very strictly by a stern and upright and ever alert Imperial master. Keen-lung himself knew its weak spots, and more than once thought of finding drastic remedies for them. But when questioned on the matter, one of the ablest and most honest of his ministers maintained that there was no remedy. 'It is impossible; the Emperor himself cannot do it—the evil is too widespread. He will, no doubt, send to the scene of disturbance and complaint mandarins clothed with all his authority; but they will only commit greater exactions, and the inferior magistrates, in order to be left undisturbed, will offer them presents. The Emperor will then be told that all is well, while everything is really wrong, and the poor people are being oppressed.'
"Therefore, Keen-lung had to depend almost entirely upon others as his 'ears and eyes.' It is all very well to speak of him doing and seeing everything for himself, but in an Empire such as his the thing was really entirely out of the question. However, his untiring and unceasing energy did much to make his subordinates honest and attentive to their duties, in spite of themselves. But his successor, Kia-king (1796-1821), was neither a strong man nor a great worker, and under him the debacle began. Under the weak but well-meaning Taou-kwang (1821-50) it gathered headway apace, with the result that within half a century of the great Keen-lung's demise the Manchu Dynasty had to face a national revolt that put its existence into direst jeopardy."