China and the Manchus

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CHINA AND THE MANCHUS

By Herbert A. Giles


Professor of Chinese in the University of Cambridge, and sometime H.B.M.
Consul at Ningpo.



NOTE

It is impossible to give here a complete key to the pronunciation
of Chinese words. For those who wish to pronounce with approximate
correctness the proper names in this volume, the following may be a
rough guide:--

a as in alms.
e as u in fun.
i as ie in thief.
o as aw in saw.
u as oo in soon.
ue as u in French, or ue in German.
{u} as e in her.
ai as aye (yes).
ao as ow in cow.
ei as ey in prey.
ow as o (not as ow in cow).
ch as ch in church.
chih as chu in church.
hs as sh (hsiu = sheeoo).
j as in French.
ua and uo as wa and wo.

The insertion of a rough breathing ` calls for a strong aspirate.





CHINA AND THE MANCHUS




CHAPTER I--THE NUe-CHENS AND KITANS

The Manchus are descended from a branch of certain wild Tungusic nomads,
who were known in the ninth century as the Nue-chens, a name which has
been said to mean "west of the sea." The cradle of their race lay at the
base of the Ever-White Mountains, due north of Korea, and was fertilised
by the head waters of the Yalu River.

In an illustrated Chinese work of the fourteenth century, of which the
Cambridge University Library possesses the only known copy, we read that
they reached this spot, originally the home of the Su-shen tribe, as
fugitives from Korea; further, that careless of death and prizing valour
only, they carried naked knives about their persons, never parting from
them by day or night, and that they were as "poisonous" as wolves or
tigers. They also tattooed their faces, and at marriage their mouths.
By the close of the ninth century the Nue-chens had become subject to
the neighbouring Kitans, then under the rule of the vigorous Kitan
chieftain, Opaochi, who, in 907, proclaimed himself Emperor of an
independent kingdom with the dynastic title of Liao, said to mean
"iron," and who at once entered upon that long course of aggression
against China and encroachment upon her territory which was to result
in the practical division of the empire between the two powers, with the
Yellow River as boundary, K`ai-feng as the Chinese capital, and Peking,
now for the first time raised to the status of a metropolis, as the
Kitan capital. Hitherto, the Kitans had recognised China as their
suzerain; they are first mentioned in Chinese history in A.D. 468, when
they sent ambassadors to court, with tribute.

Turning now to China, the famous House of Sung, the early years of which
were so full of promise of national prosperity, and which is deservedly
associated with one of the two most brilliant periods in Chinese
literature, was founded in 960. Korea was then forced, in order to
protect herself from the encroachments of China, to accept the hated
supremacy of the Kitans; but being promptly called upon to surrender
large tracts of territory, she suddenly entered into an alliance with
the Nue-chens, who were also ready to revolt, and who sent an army to the
assistance of their new friends. The Nue-chen and Korean armies, acting
in concert, inflicted a severe defeat on the Kitans, and from this
victory may be dated the beginning of the Nue-chen power. China had
indeed already sent an embassy to the Nue-chens, suggesting an alliance
and also a combination with Korea, by which means the aggression of the
Kitans might easily be checked; but during the eleventh century Korea
became alienated from the Nue-chens, and even went so far as to advise
China to join with the Kitans in crushing the Nue-chens. China, no doubt,
would have been glad to get rid of both these troublesome neighbours,
especially the Kitans, who were gradually filching territory from the
empire, and driving the Chinese out of the southern portion of the
province of Chihli.

For a long period China weakly allowed herself to be blackmailed by the
Kitans, who, in return for a large money subsidy and valuable supplies
of silk, forwarded a quite insignificant amount of local produce, which
was called "tribute" by the Chinese court.

Early in the twelfth century, the Kitan monarch paid a visit to the
Sungari River, for the purpose of fishing, and was duly received by
the chiefs of the Nue-chen tribes in that district. On this occasion the
Kitan Emperor, who had taken perhaps more liquor than was good for him,
ordered the younger men of the company to get up and dance before him.
This command was ignored by the son of one of the chiefs, named Akuteng
(sometimes, but wrongly, written _Akuta_), and it was suggested to
the Emperor that he should devise means for putting out of the way so
uncompromising a spirit. No notice, however, was taken of the affair
at the moment; and that night Akuteng, with a band of followers,
disappeared from the scene. Making his way eastward, across the Sungari,
he started a movement which may be said to have culminated five hundred
years later in the conquest of China by the Manchus. In 1114 he began to
act on the offensive, and succeeded in inflicting a severe defeat on
the Kitans. By 1115 he had so far advanced towards the foundation of an
independent kingdom that he actually assumed the title of Emperor. Thus
was presented the rare spectacle of three contemporary rulers, each of
whom claimed a title which, according to the Chinese theory, could only
belong to one. The style he chose for his dynasty was Chin (also read
_Kin_), which means "gold," and which some say was intended to mark a
superiority over Liao (= iron), that of the Kitans, on the ground that
gold is not, like iron, a prey to rust. Others, however, trace the
origin of the term to the fact that gold was found in the Nue-chen
territory.

A small point which has given rise to some confusion, may fitly be
mentioned here. The tribe of Tartars hitherto spoken of as Nue-chens, and
henceforth known in history as the "Golden Dynasty," in 1035 changed the
word _chen_ for _chih_, and were called Nue-chih Tartars. They did this
because at that date the word _chen_ was part of the personal name of
the reigning Kitan Emperor, and therefore taboo. The necessity for such
change would of course cease with their emancipation from Kitan rule,
and the old name would be revived; it will accordingly be continued in
the following pages.

The victories of Akuteng over the Kitans were most welcome to the
Chinese Emperor, who saw his late oppressors humbled to the dust by the
victorious Nue-chens; and in 1120 a treaty of alliance was signed by the
two powers against the common enemy. The upshot of this move was that
the Kitans were severely defeated in all directions, and their chief
cities fell into the hands of the Nue-chens, who finally succeeded, in
1122, in taking Peking by assault, the Kitan Emperor having already
sought safety in flight. When, however, the time came for an equitable
settlement of territory between China and the victorious Nue-chens, the
Chinese Emperor discovered that the Nue-chens, inasmuch as they had done
most of the fighting, were determined to have the lion's share of the
reward; in fact, the yoke imposed by the latter proved if anything more
burdensome than that of the dreaded Kitans. More territory was taken by
the Nue-chens, and even larger levies of money were exacted, while the
same old farce of worthless tribute was carried on as before.

In 1123, Akuteng died, and was canonised as the first Emperor of the
Chin, or Golden Dynasty. He was succeeded by a brother; and two years
later, the last Emperor of the Kitans was captured and relegated to
private life, thus bringing the dynasty to an end.

The new Emperor of the Nue-chens spent the rest of his life in one long
struggle with China. In 1126, the Sung capital, the modern K`ai-feng
Fu in Honan, was twice besieged: on the first occasion for thirty-three
days, when a heavy ransom was exacted and some territory was ceded; on
the second occasion for forty days, when it fell, and was given up to
pillage. In 1127, the feeble Chinese Emperor was seized and carried off,
and by 1129 the whole of China north of the Yang-tsze was in the
hands of the Nue-chens. The younger brother of the banished Emperor was
proclaimed by the Chinese at Nanking, and managed to set up what is
known as the southern Sung dynasty; but the Nue-chens gave him no rest,
driving him first out of Nanking, and then out of Hangchow, where he had
once more established a capital. Ultimately, there was peace of a more
or less permanent character, chiefly due to the genius of a notable
Chinese general of the day; and the Nue-chens had to accept the Yang-tsze
as the dividing line between the two powers.

The next seventy years were freely marked by raids, first of one side
and then of the other; but by the close of the twelfth century the
Mongols were pressing the Nue-chens from the north, and the southern
Sungs were seizing the opportunity to attack their old enemies from
the south. Finally, in 1234, the independence of the Golden Dynasty
of Nue-chens was extinguished by Ogotai, third son of the great Genghis
Khan, with the aid of the southern Sungs, who were themselves in turn
wiped out by Kublai Khan, the first Mongol Emperor to rule over a united
China.

The name of this wandering people, whose territory covers such a
huge space on the map, has been variously derived from (1) _moengel_,
celestial, (2) _mong_, brave, and (3) _munku_, silver, the last
mentioned being favoured by some because of its relation to the iron and
golden dynasties of the Kitans and Nue-chens respectively.

Three centuries and a half must now pass away before entering upon the
next act of the Manchu drama. The Nue-chens had been scotched, but not
killed, by their Mongol conquerors, who, one hundred and thirty-four
years later (1368), were themselves driven out of China, a pure native
dynasty being re-established under the style of Ming, "Bright." During
the ensuing two hundred years the Nue-chens were scarcely heard of, the
House of Ming being busily occupied in other directions. Their warlike
spirit, however, found scope and nourishment in the expeditions
organised against Japan and Tan-lo, or Quelpart, as named by the Dutch,
a large island to the south of the Korean peninsula; while on the other
hand the various tribes scattered over a portion of the territory known
to Europeans as Manchuria, availed themselves of long immunity from
attack by the Chinese to advance in civilization and prosperity. It
may be noted here that "Manchuria" is unknown to the Chinese or to the
Manchus themselves as a geographical expression. The present extensive
home of the Manchus is usually spoken of as the Three Eastern Provinces,
namely, (1) Sheng-king, or Liao-tung, or Kuan-tung, (2) Kirin, and (3)
Heilungchiang or Tsitsihar.

Among the numerous small independent communities above mentioned, which
traced their ancestry to the Nue-chens of old, one of the smallest, the
members of which inhabited a tract of territory due east of what is now
the city of Mukden, and were shortly to call themselves Manchus,--the
origin of the name is not known,--produced, in 1559, a young hero who
altered the course of Chinese history to such an extent that for nearly
three hundred years his descendants sat on the throne of China, and
ruled over what was for a great portion of the time the largest empire
on earth. Nurhachu, the real founder of the Manchu power, was born
in 1559, from a virile stock, and was soon recognised to be an
extraordinary child. We need not linger over his dragon face, his phoenix
eye, or even over his large, drooping ears, which have always been
associated by the Chinese with intellectual ability. He first came into
prominence in 1583, when, at twenty-four years of age, he took up arms,
at the head of only one hundred and thirty men, in connection with the
treacherous murder by a rival chieftain of his father and grandfather,
who had ruled over a petty principality of almost infinitesimal extent;
and he finally succeeded three years later in securing from the
Chinese, who had been arrayed against him, not only the surrender of
the murderer, but also a sum of money and some robes of honour. He was
further successful in negotiating a treaty, under the terms of which
Manchu furs could be exchanged at certain points for such Chinese
commodities as cotton, sugar, and grain.

In 1587, Nurhachu built a walled city, and established an administration
in his tiny principality, the even-handed justice and purity of which
soon attracted a large number of settlers, and before very long he had
succeeded in amalgamating five Manchu States under his personal rule.
Extension of territory by annexation after victories over neighbouring
States followed as a matter of course, the result being that his growing
power came to be regarded with suspicion, and even dread. At length,
a joint attempt on the part of seven States, aided by two Mongol
chieftains, was made to crush him; but, although numerical superiority
was overpoweringly against him, he managed to turn the enemy's attack
into a rout, killed four thousand men, and captured three thousand
horses, besides other booty. Following up this victory by further
annexations, he now began to present a bold front to the Chinese,
declaring himself independent, and refusing any longer to pay tribute.
In 1604, he built himself a new capital, Hingking, which he placed not
very far east of the modern Mukden, and there he received envoys from
the Mongolian chieftains, sent to congratulate him on his triumph.

At this period the Manchus, whose spoken words were polysyllabic, and
not monosyllabic like Chinese, had no written language beyond certain
rude attempts at alphabetic writing, formed from Chinese characters, and
found to be of little practical value. The necessity for something more
convenient soon appealed to the prescient and active mind of Nurhachu;
accordingly, in 1599, he gave orders to two learned scholars to prepare
a suitable script for his rapidly increasing subjects. This they
accomplished by basing the new script upon Mongol, which had been
invented in 1269, by Baschpa, or 'Phagspa, a Tibetan lama, acting under
the direction of Kublai Khan. Baschpa had based his script upon the
written language of the Ouigours, who were descendants of the Hsiung-nu,
or Huns. The Ouigours, known by that name since the year 629, were once
the ruling race in the regions which now form the khanates of Khiva and
Bokhara, and had been the first of the tribes of Central Asia to have a
script of their own. This they formed from the Estrangelo Syraic of
the Nestorians, who appeared in China in the early part of the seventh
century. The Manchu written language, therefore, is lineally descended
from Syraic; indeed, the family likeness of both Manchu and Mongol
to the parent stem is quite obvious, except that these two scripts,
evidently influenced by Chinese, are written vertically, though, unlike
Chinese, they are read from left to right. Thirty-three years later
various improvements were introduced, leaving the Manchu script
precisely as we find it at the present day.

In 1613, Nurhachu had gathered about him an army of some forty thousand
men; and by a series of raids in various directions, he further
gradually succeeded in extending considerably the boundaries of his
kingdom. There now remained but one large and important State, towards
the annexation of which he directed all his efforts. After elaborate
preparations which extended over more than two years, at the beginning
of which (1616) the term Manchu (etymology unknown) was definitively
adopted as a national title, Nurhachu, in 1618, drew up a list of
grievances against the Chinese, under which he declared that his people
had been and were still suffering, and solemnly committed it to the
flames,--a recognised method of communication with the spirits of heaven
and earth. This document consisted of seven clauses, and was addressed
to the Emperor of China; it was, in fact, a declaration of war. The
Chinese, who were fast becoming aware that a dangerous enemy had arisen,
and that their own territory would be the next to be threatened, at
length decided to oppose any further progress on the part of Narhachu;
and with this view dispatched an army of two hundred thousand men
against him. These troops, many of whom were physically unfit, were
divided on arrival at Mukden into four bodies, each with some separate
aim, the achievement of which was to conduce to the speedy disruption of
Nurhachu's power. The issue of this move was certainly not expected on
either side. In a word, Nurhachu defeated his Chinese antagonists
in detail, finally inflicting such a crushing blow that he was left
completely master of the situation, and before very long had realised
the chief object of his ambition, namely, the reunion under one rule of
those states into which the Golden Dynasty had been broken up when it
collapsed before the Mongols in 1234.




CHAPTER II--THE FALL OF THE MINGS

It is almost a conventionalism to attribute the fall of a Chinese
dynasty to the malign influence of eunuchs. The Imperial court was
undoubtedly at this date entirely in the hands of eunuchs, who occupied
all kinds of lucrative posts for which they were quite unfitted, and
even accompanied the army, nominally as officials, but really as spies
upon the generals in command. One of the most notorious of these was Wei
Chung-hsien, whose career may be taken as typical of his class. He was a
native of Sun-ning in Chihli, of profligate character, who made himself
a eunuch, and changed his name to Li Chin-chung. Entering the palace,
he managed to get into the service of the mother of the future Emperor,
posthumously canonised as Hsi Tsung, and became the paramour of that
weak monarch's wet-nurse. The pair gained the Emperor's affection to an
extraordinary degree, and Wei, an ignorant brute, was the real ruler
of China during the reign of Hsi Tsung. He always took care to present
memorials and other State papers when his Majesty was engrossed in
carpentry, and the Emperor would pretend to know all about the question,
and tell Wei to deal with it. Aided by unworthy censors, a body of
officials who are supposed to be the "eyes and ears" of the monarch,
and privileged to censure him for misgovernment, he gradually drove all
loyal men from office, and put his opponents to cruel and ignominious
deaths. He persuaded Hsi Tsung to enrol a division of eunuch troops, ten
thousand strong, armed with muskets; while, by causing the Empress to
have a miscarriage, his paramour cleared his way to the throne. Many
officials espoused his cause, and the infatuated sovereign never wearied
of loading him with favours. In 1626, temples were erected to him in all
the provinces except Fuhkien, his image received Imperial honours, and
he was styled Nine Thousand Years, i.e. only one thousand less than the
Emperor himself, the Chinese term in the latter case being _wan sui_,
which has been adopted by the Japanese as _banzai_. All successes were
ascribed to his influence, a Grand Secretary declaring that his virtue
had actually caused the appearance of a "unicorn" in Shantung. In 1627,
he was likened in a memorial to Confucius, and it was decreed that he
should be worshipped with the Sage in the Imperial Academy. His hopes
were overthrown by the death of Hsi Tsung, whose successor promptly
dismissed him. He hanged himself to escape trial, and his corpse was
disembowelled. His paramour was executed, and in 1629, nearly three
hundred persons were convicted and sentenced to varying penalties for
being connected with his schemes.

Jobbery and corruption were rife; and at the present juncture these
agencies were successfully employed to effect the recall of a really
able general who had been sent from Peking to recover lost ground, and
prevent further encroachments by the Manchus. For a time, Nurhachu had
been held in check by his skilful dispositions of troops, Mukden was
strongly fortified, and confidence generally was restored; but the fatal
policy of the new general rapidly alienated the Chinese inhabitants, and
caused them to enter secretly into communication with the Manchus. It
was thus that in 1621 Nurhachu was in a position to advance upon
Mukden. Encamping within a mile or two of the city, he sent forward
a reconnoitring party, which was immediately attacked by the Chinese
commandant at the head of a large force. The former fled, and the
latter pursued, only to fall into the inevitable ambush; and the Chinese
troops, on retiring in their turn, found that the bridge across the
moat had been destroyed by traitors in their own camp, so that they were
unable to re-enter the city. Thus Mukden fell, the prelude to a series
of further victories, one of which was the rout of an army sent to
retake Mukden, and the chief of which was the capture of Liao-yang, now
remembered in connection with the Russo-Japanese war. In many of these
engagements the Manchus, whose chief weapon was the long bow, which they
used with deadly effect, found themselves opposed by artillery, the
use of which had been taught to the Chinese by Adam Schaal, the Jesuit
father. The supply of powder, however, had a way of running short, and
at once the pronounced superiority of the Manchu archers prevailed.

Other cities now began to tender a voluntary submission, and
many Chinese took to shaving the head and wearing the queue, in
acknowledgment of their allegiance to the Manchus. All, however, was not
yet over, for the growing Manchu power was still subjected to frequent
attacks from Chinese arms in directions as far as possible removed
from points where Manchu troops were concentrated. Meanwhile Nurhachu
gradually extended his borders eastward, until in 1625, the year in
which he placed his capital at Mukden, his frontiers reached to the sea
on the east and to the river Amur on the north, the important city of
Ning-yuean being almost the only possession remaining to the Chinese
beyond the Great Wall. The explanation of this is as follows.

An incompetent general, as above mentioned, had been sent at the
instance of the eunuchs to supersede an officer who had been holding
his own with considerable success, but who was not a _persona grata_
at court. The new general at once decided that no territory outside the
Great Wall was to be held against the Manchus, and gave orders for the
immediate retirement of all troops and Chinese residents generally.
To this command the civil governor of Ning-yuean, and the military
commandant, sent an indignant protest, writing out an oath with their
blood that they would never surrender the city. Nurhachu seized the
opportunity, and delivered a violent attack, with which he seemed to be
making some progress, until at length artillery was brought into play.
The havoc caused by the guns at close quarters was terrific, and
the Manchus fled. This defeat was a blow from which Nurhachu never
recovered; his chagrin brought on a serious illness, and he died in
1626, aged sixty-eight. Later on, when his descendants were sitting upon
the throne of China, he was canonised as T`ai Tsu, the Great Ancestor,
the representatives of the four preceding generations of his family
being canonised as Princes.

Nurhachu was succeeded by his fourth son, Abkhai, then thirty-four
years of age, and a tried warrior. His reign began with a correspondence
between himself and the governor who had been the successful defender of
Ning-yuean, in which some attempt was made to conclude a treaty of peace.
The Chinese on their side demanded the return of all captured cities and
territory; while the Manchus, who refused to consider any such terms,
suggested that China should pay them a huge subsidy in money, silk,
etc., in return for which they offered but a moderate supply of furs,
and something over half a ton of ginseng (_Panax repens_), the famous
forked root said to resemble the human body, and much valued by the
Chinese as a strengthening medicine. This, of course, was a case of
"giving too little and asking too much," and the negotiations came to
nothing. In 1629, Abkhai, who by this time was master of Korea, marched
upon Peking, at the head of a large army, and encamped within a few
miles from its walls; but he was unable to capture the city, and had
finally to retire. The next few years were devoted by the Manchus, who
now began to possess artillery of their own casting, to the conquest of
Mongolia, in the hope of thus securing an easy passage for their armies
into China. An offer of peace was now made by the Chinese Emperor, for
reasons shortly to be stated; but the Manchu terms were too severe, and
hostilities were resumed, the Manchus chiefly occupying themselves in
devastating the country round Peking, their numbers being constantly
swelled by a stream of deserters from the Chinese ranks. In 1643, Abkhai
died; he was succeeded by his ninth son, a boy of five, and was later on
canonised as T`ai Tsung, the Great Forefather. By 1635, he had already
begun to style himself Emperor of China, and had established a system
of public examinations. The name of the dynasty had been "Manchu" ever
since 1616; twenty years later he translated this term into the Chinese
word _Ch`ing_ (or Ts`ing), which means "pure"; and as the Great Pure
Dynasty it will be remembered in history. Other important enactments of
his reign were prohibitions against the use of tobacco, which had been
recently introduced into Manchuria from Japan, through Korea; against
the Chinese fashion of dress and of wearing the hair; and against the
practice of binding the feet of girls. All except the first of these
were directed towards the complete denationalisation of the Chinese who
had accepted his rule, and whose numbers were increasing daily.