Copyright, 1913, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.
Pailoo memorial arch, a splendid type of the Chinese roof and screen carving.
The Manchus had learned that the host of Chinese people, one hundred to his one, had no transport service (ponies); that they, therefore, were not cohesive or mobile; that their capital could be held by any bold clan which would at the beginning not exact too heavy a tribute, and which would allow the people practically to rule themselves by the classical examination and democratic civil service. The Manchus informed this civil service that they could hold their places if they adopted the Manchu style of hair-dressing, which was done, and in time Manchu yellow instead of Chinese blue became the official dress of honor. The Chinese women were unconquerable. They never adopted the Manchu style of dressing the hair over the ears, or of not compressing the feet. The Manchus refused to adopt the Chinese system of using family names first, making a three-named system, as Li Hung-Chang. The Manchus used merely their double names, as Na-Tung, but their family names were entered on the roster of one of the eight military banners. Gradually the Manchu garrisons bullied the Chinese out of their walled cities, and the Chinese had to build a second wall around the suburbs. The events and dates of Manchu history, as it affects their own Ta Ching (Great Pure) and foreign (Fung Kwei) civilizations, are told shortly, as follows:
| The Manchu Tien-Tsung overthrows the Ming King Hwai Tsung and occupies Peking | 1643 |
| Tea brought to Europe in English ships from Canton | 1660 |
| Kang-Hi, greatest and most artistic Manchu Emperor, ascends throne, Christianity almost established | 1661 |
| Galdan, Prince of Jungaria, conquers Kashgaria and becomes supreme in Central Asia | 1678 |
| First treaty with European power (Russia) | 1689 |
| Commerce with East India Company begins at Canton | 1680 |
| Yung-Ching ascends throne; anti-Christian | 1722 |
| Jesuits expelled | 1724 |
| English send first man-of-war, Centurion, to China, English being active at Canton, Ningpo, etc. | 1742 |
| First American vessel, Empress of China, from New York, Captain Green, reaches Canton, China | 1784 |
| First American Consul, Major Shaw, at Macao, China | 1786 |
| Philadelphia opens China trade with ship Alliance | 1788 |
| Boston opens China trade with ship Massachusetts | 1789 |
| Earl Macartney’s mission arrives at Peking, throwing light on the Empire, which appeared to contain 4,402 walled cities, population 333,000,000, the Tartar and Manchu army being 1,000,000 infantry and 800,000 cavalry. Government absolute | 1793 |
| Macartney ordered to depart, the Chinese deciding to seal the country against foreigners | October 7, 1793 |
| Sir G. L. Staunton, at London, in three volumes reveals the heart of China and the capital to the world, fixing the nations in their determination to open China to modernity | 1798 |
| First English Protestant missionary, Robert Morrison, arrives, and in American factory of Milner & Bull at Canton translates Bible and compiles Chinese-English dictionary | 1808 |
| Edict against Christianity | 1812 |
| Lord Amherst’s embassy, which failed because he would not make “kotow” to Emperor as a bearer of tribute from an inferior nation | 1816 |
| Exclusive rights of East India Company cease | 1834 |
| Lord Napier arrives at Macao to superintend British commerce | 1834 |
| Opium dispute begins; the trade prohibited by Emperor | November, 1834 |
| Opium burned at Canton by famous Chinese Commissioner Lin | February, 1835 |
| Captain Elliot and British merchants leave Canton | May, 1839 |
| British and American seamen fight Chinese at Canton | July 7, 1839 |
| Hongkong taken by British | August 23, 1839 |
| British retire from Macao | August 26, 1839 |
| American frigate Powhatan and British sloop Rattler fight Chinese pirates in Kowloon Bay, opposite Hongkong | September 4, 1839 |
| British trade with China ceases by edict of Emperor | December 6, 1839 |
| Opium war between England and China, in which old China received the soundest thrashing she ever received from any foreign nation; many engagements; many ports taken | 1840 |
| Treaty of peace signed before Nanking on board ship Cornwallis, Sir Henry Pottinger for England and Ki-Ying and Neu-Kien for China, China paying indemnity of $21,000,000, throwing open as treaty ports Canton, Amoy, Fuchau, Ningpo and Shanghai, and ceding Hongkong Island to Britain | August 29, 1842 |
| American Commissioner Cushing, Daniel Webster’s son Fletcher, etc., arrive at Canton | 1844 |
| Manchu yellow instead of Chinese blue adopted as official color | 1855 |
| Famous Empress Dowager Tse Hsi and Viceroy Li Hung Chang arise to power | 1856 |
| Non-fulfilment of Nanking treaty with Britain causes war again | 1856 |
| Coolie slave trade for Peru, Cuba, California, etc., opens at Macao | 1860 |
| Britain and France war with China | 1860 |
| Taiping rebellion, beginning at Canton, sweeps to Nanking; opposed by the American, Ward; Chinese Gordon, etc., on behalf of Manchus | 1863 |
| Yung Wing brings first Chinese students to America (Hartford) | 1872 |
| Terrific Mohammedan rebellion in Shensi, Kansu, Yunnan provinces and Turkestan, suppressed by ferocious General Tso Tsung-tang, Mohammedan leader, Yakub Beg, being assassinated in Turkestan | May, 1877 |
| Sir Robert Hart establishes Chinese national customs, first guarantee for foreign loans | 1886 |
| China-Japan war over Korea; Formosa lost; indemnity also paid | 1894 |
| Emperor Kwang Hsu’s reform edicts, influenced by Kang Yu Wei | 1898 |
| Siege of Peking by allies | 1900 |
| Russia-Japan war over Manchuria | 1904 |
| America, Britain and China at Shanghai agree to end opium curse | 1909 |
| Death of Emperor Kwang Hsu and Empress Dowager Tse Hsi together | 1909 |
| Republican rebellion, led by Generals Li and Hsu, and planned by Sun Yat Sen | 1911 |
| Abdication of Manchus | 1912 |
One serious charge against the Manchu is that he has been continually signing away China: Formosa and Korea to Japan, Manchuria to Russia, Kwangchou Bay and Tonquin to France, Kiaochou to Germany, and Wei-Hai-Wei to Britain. The Manchus themselves are to blame for the lack of respect shown the throne and dynasty in the last fifty years. Prince Chun might have taken the throne himself, but in fear of the cabal of jealous princes he named his child Pu Yi. This system of a long regency had several times been put in force by the Manchu intriguer, especially by the Dowager Tse Hsi with Kwang Hsu. When the latter grew up and asserted himself, he was destroyed, and another child, this Pu Yi, named as his successor. The same murderous and unstable system has been followed in putting up a new child Dalai Lama at Lhasa every few years, the old Dalai being informed that “it is time for him to pass his soul on to a new incarnation”. He can commit hara-kiri or be murdered. The Chinese people felt that there was no emperor to worship and obey, but rather a cabal in usurpation at Peking, and an irreligious cabal at that. From the time of the Chou founders, 1200 B. C., to make light of the sacrifices by letting a child do a man’s duties, was a cardinal sin.
Moreover, the Manchu in his long rule at Peking debased the idea of government by women and eunuch favorites. No one concerned will ever forget the power of the notorious eunuch Li Lien Ying at Peking in the years which led to the coup d’état of 1898, when reformers and emperor were crushed to the ground. This notorious “grafter” really shared the throne power with the Dowager Tse Hsi, and the Emperor Kwang Hsu was in continual disgrace. The Manchus knew that it was unconstitutional to honor eunuchs. During the minority of Kang-Hi, the greatest emperor of the Manchus, the regents degraded the eunuchs and had the law engraved on iron plates of one thousand pounds each. Why did not Tse Hsi observe this law during her long regency? Did she think the people would not remember and that her successor, Prince Chun, and the dynasty would not suffer? Because of her hospitality when at the close of her life she permitted her portrait to be painted for the St. Louis Exposition by a talented American woman, and when she entertained several of the charming legation ladies at Peking, books have been written by her guests, in their womanly kindness of heart, and one book by a talented editor friend of mine at Hongkong, palliating her offenses as a tyrant, a reactionary and a murderess. The long cold history of British and American diplomacy; the domestic history of China during her period, the Boxer siege, the written testimony of the Emperor Kwang Hsu, her “dummy” policy, the experiences of the great reformers, including Yuan; her persecution over the whole world of Kang Yu Wei and Sun Yat Sen by her spy system; the national newspapers, the publications of Ching-Shan, her household controller; the statements of the American secretaries of her chief viceroy, Li Hung Chang; the republican revolution and Declaration of Independence of 1911, are all insistent that egotism and reaction sat closest to the heart of this powerful woman; that she belonged to the class of Catherine and not to the class of Elizabeth or Victoria. If this was the character for seventy years of the leader of the Manchus, what was the character of the followers!
Owing to the Manchu’s lack of an art sense, he has neglected the beautiful bridges and broad roads left by the Sung dynasty; the artistic towers left by the Tang dynasty; the gorgeous pagodas left by the artistically incomparable Ming dynasty; and the fine canals left by the Mongols. There should, perhaps, be less surprise over the difference in the intellectual powers of the Manchu and the Chinese. Three hundred and fifty years ago the Manchu was only a hunter, a warrior and fisherman, like his cousins, the Buriats and Tungus up in Siberia to-day; whereas for immemorial centuries the Chinese has been a merchant, a scientific agriculturalist, and a scholar, and has always earned his own living without benefit of government subsidy or class privilege in any way, which have enervated the Manchus of to-day and yesterday. The reaction of the patient Chinese in the October, 1911, rebellion against the Manchu conqueror was natural. The surprise is that it was withheld for three centuries. The Manchus have never mingled with the Chinese. All the large cities, even to distant Canton and Yunnan, 1,200 and 1,400 miles away from the center of power, have separate walled Manchu cities, or Tartar cities as they are generally called, which were taken from the original Chinese. In an effort to appease the complaints of insurgents, the Regent Prince Chun in 1909 recalled the edict which until that late year prohibited Manchus from marrying Chinese.
Like all minorities that try to intrench their privileges, the Manchu is much of a “snob”. It is not uncommon to hear this sneer at Peking regarding the Chinese women of the south: “Oh, she’s a woman from the southern provinces; you can’t expect manners from her.” The fact is that the Chinese women of Nanking, Hangchow, Soochow, Canton and other southern cities have more refined manners than the rough-riding Manchus, the daughters of raiders. The wearing of the queue and the skull cap is a Manchu custom, imposed in the seventeenth century upon the conquered Chinese. One of the first things the Han republicans did in the October, 1911, revolution was to cut off the queue which they declared was a sign of servitude to the dynasty which they were trying to displace. The head-dress of the Manchu women shows the bunching of the hair over each ear instead of behind the head and on the neck, as is the Chinese custom. The Manchus do not deform the feet, nor paint, both of which have been Chinese customs. The gown of the Manchu women is longer than that of the Chinese women, the latter showing the divided skirt, or rather wide trousers. Other distinctive Manchu styles are the jewel-buttons, denoting rank, worn on the peak of the conical official hat; the peacock’s feather worn at the back of the hat; the peacock design in embroidery; the yellow riding jacket.
Manchus drink kaoliang spirits in place of rice samshu. Their battle flags have been triangular instead of oblong. The peculiar daylight audiences given by the throne to the grand councilors and viceroys showed the fear of publicity, and a recognition of estrangement from the people. They seemed to think that a throne that was surrounded with a good deal of mystery, exclusiveness, smoke of incense and darkness was stronger than a throne that was clearly outlined in the love of the people. A curious worship of the Manchu leaders, who are more superstitious than religious, is that of the fox. The great Fox Temple at Mukden, the ancestral temple of the dynasty, is famous. The Chinese leaders have never been as crude as this in their grossest superstition. The Chinese, especially the hard-working southerners who pay most of the taxes, have objected to the pensions accorded to a million Manchus gathered under the eight banners, and quartered, with the privilege to bear arms, in walled cities, barracks and arsenals throughout the land. In the fall of the Manchus, intrenched so long behind a spy system, control of taxation, trade routes and judicial appointees, all oppressive systems and tyrants should take notice that however intrenched they may seem to be against the people, the people will in the end become supreme, with a long, long memory of the wrongs that they have endured against their will, and the theme of “Restitution” on their tongues. To quote the words of Wu Ting Fang, the Jefferson of China, well known to Americans and Britons: “The hand of the people is now at the plough, and they must of necessity push on to the uttermost end of the furrow.”