Читать книгу The War in the East: Japan, China, and Corea - White Trumbull - Страница 8

Table of Contents

How the Western Nations Formed the Acquaintance of China—First Mention of the Orient by Grecian and Roman Historians—Introduction of Judaism—Nestorian Missionaries Bring Christianity—Marco Polo’s Wonderful Journey—Roman Missionaries in the Field—Dissentions among Christians Discredit their Work—Work of the Jesuits—The Dynasty of the Chings—Splendid Literary Labors of Two Emperors—England’sEngland’s First Embassy to China—The Opium War—Opening the Ports of China—Treaties with Western Nations—The Tai-Ping Rebellion—The Later Years of Chinese History.

The works of several Greek and Roman historians, principally those of Ptolemy and Arian, who lived in the second century, contain references of a vague character to a country now generally believed to be China. Ptolemy states that his information came from the agents of Macedonian traders, who gave him an account of a journey of seven months from the principal city of eastern Turkestan, in a direction east inclining a little south. It is probable that these agents belonged to some of the Tartar tribes of Central Asia. They represented the name of this most eastern nation to be Serica, and that on the borders of this kingdom they met and traded with its inhabitants, the Seres. Herodotus speaks of the Isadores as a people in the extreme north-east of Asia. Ptolemy also mentions these tribes as a part of Serica and under its sway. Ammianus Marcellinus, a Roman historian of the fourth century, speaks of the land of the Seres as surrounded by a high and continuous wall. This was about six hundred years after the great wall of northern China was built. Virgil, Pliny, Ricitus and Juvenal refer to the Seres in connection with the Seric garments which seem to have been made of fine silk or gauze. This article of dress was much sought after in Rome by the wealthy and luxurious, and as late as the second century, is said to have been worth its weight in gold. From the length and description of the route of the traders, the description of the mountains and rivers which they passed, the character of the people with whom they traded and the articles of traffic, the evidence seems almost conclusive that the nation which the Greeks and Romans designated by the name of Serica is that now known to us as China. The particular countries visited by the caravans which brought the silk to Europe, were probably the dependencies or territories of China on the west, or possibly cities within the extreme north-west limit of China proper.

The introduction of Judaism into China is evidenced by a Jewish synagogue which existed until quite recently in Kai-fung-foo, a city in the province of Honan. Connected with this synagogue were some Hebrew manuscripts, and a few worshippers who retained some of the forms of their religion, but very little knowledge of its real character and spirit. There is a great deal of uncertainty as to when the Jews came to China, though they have, no doubt, resided there for many centuries.

Nestorian missionaries entered China some time before the seventh century. The principal record which they have left of the success of their missions is the celebrated Nestorian monument in Fen-gan-foo. This monument contains a short history of the sect from the year 630 to 781, and also an abstract of the Christian religion. The missionaries of this sect have left but few records of their labors or of their observations as travelers, but the churches planted by them seem to have existed until a comparatively recent period. The Romish missionaries who entered China in the beginning of the fourteenth century, found them possessed of considerable influence, not only among the people, but also at court, and met with no little opposition from them in their first attempts to introduce the doctrines of their church. It seems to be true that during the period of nearly eight hundred years in which Nestorian Christianity maintained its foothold in China, large numbers of converts were made. But in process of time the Nestorian churches departed widely from their first teachings. After the fall of the Mongolian empire they were cut off from connection with the west, and not having sufficient vitality to resist the adverse influences of heathenism the people by degrees relapsed into idolatry or took up the new faiths that were introduced.

The first western writer, whose works are extant, who has given anything like full and explicit explanation respecting China is Ser Marco Polo. He went to China in the year 1274, in company with his father and uncle, who were Venetian noblemen. At this time, the independent nomad tribes of central Asia being united in one government, it was practicable to reach eastern Asia by passing through the Mongolian empire. Marco Polo spent twenty-four years in China, and seems to have been treated kindly and hospitably. After his return to Europe he was taken prisoner in a war with the Genoese, and during his confinement wrote an account of his travels. The description he gives of the vast territories of China, its teeming population, and flourishing cities, the refinement and civilization of its people, and their curious customs, seemed to his countrymen more like a fiction of fairyland than sober and authentic narrative. It is said that he was urged when on his death bed to retract these statements and make confession of falsehood, which he refused to do. He was undoubtedly one of the most remarkable travelers of any age.

During the period of the Mongolian empire which comprehended under its sway the greater part of Asia from China on the east to the Mediterranean on the west, an intense desire was kindled in the Roman church to convert this powerful nation to its faith. Among the first and the most noted of the missionaries sent to China at this time, was John of Mount Corvin, who reached Peking in 1293. He was afterward made an archbishop. From time to time bishops and priests were sent out to re-enforce this mission, but they met with indifferent success; and when the Mongols were driven from China the enterprise was abandoned as a complete failure. After the fall of the Mongolian empire, direct overland communication with eastern Asia was interrupted, and for about two hundred years China was again almost completely isolated from the western world.

The use of the magnetic needle, and improvements in navigation, made a new era in intercourse with the Orient. It is supposed that the first voyage from Europe to China was made by a Portuguese vessel in 1516. From this period commercial intercourse with China became more frequent, and various embassies were sent to the Chinese court by different nations of Europe. Unfortunately the growing familiarity of the Chinese with western nations did not increase their respect and confidence in them. This was due partly to the servility of most of the embassies to Peking, but principally, no doubt, to the want of honesty and the general lawlessness of most of the traders from the west. The consequence was that the Chinese became desirous of restricting foreign intercourse, and exercising as strict surveillance over their troublesome visitors as possible.

Immediately after connection was established between Europe and the far east by sea, another and a more successful effort was made by the Roman church to propagate its faith in the Chinese empire, this being coincident with the growth of the exchange of business. Francis Xavier, in his attempt to gain an entrance into the country, died on one of the islands of the coast in 1552. Toward the close of the Sixteenth century the Portuguese appeared upon the scene, and from their “concession” at Macao, at one time the residence of Camoens, opened commercial relations between China and the west. They brought the Chinese, among other things, opium, which had previously been imported overland from India. They possibly taught them how to make gunpowder, to the invention of which the Chinese do not seem, upon striking a balance of evidence, to possess an independent claim. About the same time Rome contributed the first installment of those wonderful Jesuit fathers whose names yet echo in the empire, the memory of their scientific labors and the benefits they thus conferred upon China having long survived the wreck and discredit of the faith to which they devoted their lives. At this distance of time it does not appear to be a wild statement, to assert that had the Jesuits, the Franciscans, and the Dominicans been able to resist quarreling among themselves, and had they rather united to persuade papal infallibility to permit the incorporation of ancestor-worship with the rites and ceremonies of the Romish church, China would at this moment be a Catholic country and Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism would long since have receded into the past.

CHINESE PRIEST.

Of all these Jesuit missionaries, the name of Matteo Ricci stands by common consent upon the long list. He established himself in Canton in the garb of a Buddhist priest in 1581. He was a man of varied intellectual gifts and extensive learning, united with indomitable energy, zeal and perseverance, and great prudence. In 1601 he reached Peking in the dress of a literary gentleman. He spent many years in China. He associated with the highest personages in the land. He acquired an unrivalled knowledge of the book language, and left behind him several valuable treatises of a metaphysical and theological character, written in such a polished style as to command the recognition and even the admiration of the Chinese. One of his most intimate friends and fellow workers was the well-known scholar and statesman, Hsu Kuang-chi, the author of a voluminous compendium of agriculture, and joint author of the large work which introduced European astronomy to the Chinese. He was appointed by the emperor to co-operate with other Jesuit missionaries in reforming the national calendar, which had gradually reached a stage of hopeless inaccuracy. He wrote independently several small scientific works; also a severe criticism of the Buddhist religion, and finally, not least in importance, a defense of the Jesuits, addressed to the throne, when their influence at court had begun to excite envy and distrust. Hsu Kuang-chi forms the sole exception in the history of China of a scholar and a man of means and position on the side of Christianity.

MAN OF SWATOW.

The age of the Chings is the age in which we live, but it is not so familiar to some persons as it ought to be that a Tartar and not a Chinese sovereign is now seated on the throne in China. For some time after the accession of the first Manchoo emperor, there was considerable friction between the two races. The subjugation of the empire by the Manchoos was followed by a military occupation of the country, which survived the original necessity, and has remained part of the system of government until the present day. The dynasty thus founded, partly by accident as it seems, as was related in the last chapter, has remained in power through the entire period of intercourse with western nations. The title adopted by the first emperor of the line was Shun-che. It was during the reign of this sovereign that Adam Schaal, a German Jesuit, took up his residence at Peking and that the first Russian embassy, 1656, visited the capital. But in those days the Chinese had not learned to tolerate the idea that a foreigner should enter the presence of the Son of Heaven unless he were willing to perform the prostration known as the Ko-t’ow, and the Russians not being inclined to humor any such presumptuous folly left the capital without opening negotiations.

Of the nine emperors of this line, from the first to the present, the second in every way fills the largest space in Chinese history. Kang Hi, the son of Shun-che, reigned for sixty-one years. This sovereign is renowned in modern Chinese history as a model ruler, a skillful general and an able author. During his reign Thibet was added to the empire, and the Eleuths were successfully subdued. But it is as a just and considerate ruler that he is best remembered among the people. He treated the early Catholic priests with kindness and distinction, and availed himself in many ways of their scientific knowledge. He promulgated sixteen moral maxims collectively known as the “Sacred Edict,” forming a complete code of rules for the guidance of every day life, and presented in such terse, yet intelligible terms, that they at once took firm hold of the public mind and have retained their position ever since. Kang Hi was the most successful patron of literature the world has ever seen. He caused to be published under his own personal supervision the four following compilations, known as the four great works of the present dynasty: A huge thesaurus of extracts in one hundred and ten thick volumes; an encyclopedia in four hundred and fifty books, usually bound in one hundred and sixty volumes; an enlarged and improved edition of a herbarium in one hundred books; and a complete collection of the important philosophical writings of Chu Hsi in sixty-six books. In addition to these the emperor designed and gave his name to the great modern lexicon of the Chinese language, which contains over forty thousand characters under separate entries, accompanied in each case by appropriate citations from the works of authors of every age and every style. The monumental encyclopedia contains articles on every known subject, and extracts from all works of authority dating from the twelfth century B.C. to that time. As only one hundred copies of the first imperial edition were printed, all of which were presented to princes of the blood and high officials, it is rapidly becoming extremely rare, and it is not unlikely that before long the copy in the possession of the British museum will be the only complete copy existing. A cold caught on a hunting excursion in Mongolia brought his memorable reign of sixty-one years to a close, and he was succeeded on the throne by his son Yung Ching.

The labors of the missionaries during the years of this last reign have been effective in establishing many churches and bishoprics, and in making many thousands of converts. But the suspicions in the minds of the Chinese rulers that the Christians were leagued with rebels, as well as the controversies between the different sects, antagonized the authorities. Under the third Manchoo emperor, Yung Ching, began that violent persecution of the Catholics which continued almost to the present day, and in the year 1723 an edict was promulgated prohibiting the further propagation of this religion in the empire. From this time the Roman Catholics were subjected to this persecution except for a few alternate periods of comparative toleration. They have retained their position in the face of great difficulties and trials, and since the late treaties with China the number of their converts has rapidly increased.

After a reign of twelve years, Yung Ching was gathered to his fathers, having bequeathed the throne to his son Kien Lung. This fourth emperor of the dynasty enjoyed a long and glorious reign. He possessed many of the great qualities of his grandfather, but he lacked his wisdom and moderation. His generals led a large army into Nepaul and conquered the Goorkhas, reaching a point only some sixty miles distant from British territory. He carried his armies north, south, and west, and converted Kuldja into a Chinese province. But in Burmah, Cochin China, and Formosa his troops suffered discomfiture. During his reign, which extended over sixty years, a full Chinese cycle, the relations of his government with the East India Company were extremely unsatisfactory. The English merchants were compelled to submit to many indignities and wrongs; and for the purpose of establishing a better international understanding Lord Macartney was sent by George III. on a special mission to the court of Peking. The ambassador was received graciously by the emperor, who accepted the presents sent him by the English king, but owing to his ignorance of his own relative position, and of even the rudiments of international law, he declined to give those assurances of a more equitable policy which were demanded of him.

CHINESE PAPER-MAKING.

Like his illustrious ancestor, Kien Lung was a generous patron of literature, though only two instead of five great literary monuments remain to mark his sixty years of power. These are a magnificent bibliographical work in two hundred parts, consisting of a catalogue of the books in the imperial library, with valuable historical and critical notices attached to the entries of each; and a huge topography of the whole empire in five hundred books, beyond doubt one of the most comprehensive and exhaustive works of the kind ever published. Kang Hi had been a voluminous poet; but the productions of Kien Lung far outnumber those of any previous or subsequent bard. For more than fifty years this emperor was an industrious poet, finding time in the intervals of state duties to put together no fewer than thirty-three thousand nine hundred and fifty separate pieces. In the estimation however of this apparently impossible contribution to poetic literature, it must always be borne in mind that the stanza of four lines is a favorite length for a poem and that the couplet is not uncommon. Even thus a large balance stands to the credit of a Chinese emperor, whose time is rarely his own, and whose day is divided with wearisome regularity, beginning with councils and audiences long before daylight has appeared. We gain a glimpse into Kien Lung’s court from the account of Lord Macartney’s embassy in 1795, which was so favorably received by the venerable monarch a short time previous to his abdication, and three years before his death, and forms such a contrast with that of Lord Amherst to his successor in 1816. In 1795, at the age of eighty-five years, Kien Lung abdicated in favor of his fifteenth son who ascended the throne with the title of Kea King.

During the reign of Kea King, a second English embassy was sent to Peking, in 1816, to represent to the emperor the unsatisfactory position of the English merchants in China. The envoy, Lord Amherst, was met at the mouth of the Peiho and conducted to Yuen-ming-yuen or summer palace, where the emperor was residing. On his arrival he was officially warned that only on condition of his performing the Ko-t’ow would he be permitted to behold “the dragon countenance.” This of course was impossible, and he consequently left the palace without having slept a night under its roof.

CHINESE PEASANT, PEIHO DISTRICT.

Meanwhile the internal affairs of the country were even more disturbed than the foreign relations. A succession of rebellions broke out in the western and northern provinces and the sea-boards were ravaged by pirates. While these disturbing causes were in full play the emperor died, in 1820, and the throne devolved upon Tao Kuang, his second son. It was during the reign of Kea King that Protestant missionaries initiated a systematic attempt to convert the Chinese to Christianity; but the religious toleration of these people, which on the whole has been a marked feature in their civilization of all ages, had been sorely tried by the Catholics and but little progress was made. In another direction some of the early Protestant missionaries did great service to the world at large. They spent much of their time in grappling with the difficulties of the written language; and the publication of Dr. Morrison’s famous dictionary and the achievements of Dr. Legge were the culmination of these labors.

Under Tao Kuang both home and foreign affairs went from bad to worse. A secret league known as the Triad Society, which was first formed during the reign of Kang Hi, now assumed a formidable bearing, and in many parts of the country, notably in Honan, Kwang-hsi, and Formosa, insurrections broke out at its instigation. At the same time the mandarins continued to persecute the English merchants, and on the expiration of the East India Company’s monopoly in 1834 the English government sent Lord Napier to Canton to superintend the foreign trade at that port. Thwarted at every turn by the presumptuous obstinacy of the mandarins, Lord Napier’s health gave way under the constant vexations connected with his post, and he died at Macao after but a few months’ residence in China.

The opium trade was now the question of the hour, and at the urgent demand of Commissioner Lin, Captain Elliot, the superintendent of trade, agreed that all opium in the hands of English merchants should be given up to the authorities. On the 3rd of April, 1839, twenty thousand two hundred and eighty-three chests of opium were, in accordance with this agreement, handed over to the mandarins, who burnt them to ashes. This demand of Lin’s, though agreed to by the superintendent of trade, was considered so unreasonable by the English government that in the following year war was declared against China. The island of Chusan and the Bogue forts on the Canton river soon fell into the English hands, and Commissioner Lin’s successor sought to purchase peace by the cession of Hong Kong and the payment of an indemnity of $6,000,000. This convention was, however, repudiated by the Peking government, and it was not until Canton, Amoy, Ningpo, Shanghai, Chapoo and Chin-keang Foo had been taken by the British troops, that the emperor at last consented to come to terms, now of course far more onerous. By a treaty made by Sir Henry Pottinger in 1842 the cession of Hong Kong was supplemented by the opening of the four ports of Amoy, Foochow Foo, Ningpo, and Shanghai to foreign trade, and the indemnity of $6,000,000 was increased to $21,000,000.

Without noticing the other points at issue and the merits of the dispute concerning them, it is considered by the world at large that one of the blackest pages in the records of the history of civilization is that which tells of the forcing of the opium traffic upon the Chinese by Great Britain. The Chinese people were making most strenuous efforts to abolish the traffic in opium and the habit of its use, which had been introduced from India, and which was rapidly becoming the curse of the nation. But for commercial motives, in this Victorian age of civilization, England sent to force compliance with the demand of her merchants in China that the sale of the drug be legalized. The rapid spread of the use of opium among the hundreds of millions of Chinese, dating from this time, may be charged against England, in the long account which records the oppression and the shame of her dealings with whatever eastern nation she has played the game of war and colonization and annexation.

BATTLE OF CRICKETS.

Death put an end to Tao Kuang’s reign in 1850, and his fourth son, Hien Feng, assumed rule over the distracted empire which was bequeathed him by his father. There is a popular belief among the Chinese that two hundred years is the natural life of a dynasty. This is one of those traditions which are apt to bring about their own fulfilment, and in the beginning of the reign of Hien Feng the air was rife with rumors that an effort was to be made to restore the Ming dynasty to the throne. On such occasions there are always real or pretended scions of the required family forthcoming. And when the flames of rebellion broke out in Kwang-hsi a claimant suddenly appeared under the title of Teen-tih, “heavenly virtue,” to head the movement. But he had not the capacity required to play the necessary part, and the affair languished and would have died out altogether had not a leader named Hung Sew-tseuen arose, who combined all the qualities required in a leader of men, energy, enthusiasm, and religious bigotry.

CHINESE MANDARIN.

As soon as he was sufficiently powerful he advanced northward into Honan and Hoopih, and captured Woo-chang Foo, the capital of the last named province, and a city of great commercial and strategical importance, situated as it is at the junction of the Han river with the Chiang. Having made this place secure he advanced down the river and made himself master of Gan-ting and the old capital of the empire, Nanking. Here in 1852 he established his throne, and proclaimed the commencement of Taiping dynasty. For himself he adopted the title of Teen-wang, or “heavenly king.” For a time all went well with the new dynasty. The Tai-ping standard was carried northward to the walls of Tien-tsin and floated over the towns of Chin-keang Foo and Soochow Foo.

Meanwhile the imperial authorities had by their stupidity raised another enemy against themselves. The outrage on the English flag perpetrated on board the Chinese lorcha “Arrow,” at Canton in 1857, having been left unredressed by the mandarins, led to the proclamation of war by England. Canton fell to the arms of General Straubenzee, and Sir Michael Seymour in December of the same year, and in the following spring the Taku forts at the mouth of the Peiho having been taken, Lord Elgin, who had in the meantime arrived as plenipotentiary minister, advanced up the river to Tien-tsin on his way to the capital. At that city, however, he was met by imperial commissioners, and yielding to their entreaties he concluded a treaty with them which it was arranged should be ratified at Peking in the following year.

But the evil genius of the Chinese still pursuing them, they treacherously fired on the fleet accompanying Sir Frederic Bruce, Lord Elgin’s brother, proceeding in 1860 to Peking, in fulfillment of this agreement. This outrage rendered another military expedition necessary, and in conjunction with the French government, the English cabinet sent out a force under the command of Sir Hope Grant, with orders to march to Peking. In the summer of 1861 the allied forces landed at Peh-tang, a village twelve miles north of the Taku forts, and taking these intrenchments in the rear captured them with but a trifling loss. This success was so utterly unexpected by the Chinese, that leaving Tien-tsin unprotected they retreated rapidly to the neighborhood of the capital. The allies pushed on after them, and in reply to an invitation sent from the imperial commissioners at Tung-chow, a town twelve miles from Peking, Sir Harry Parkes and Mr. Loch, accompanied by an escort and some few friends, went in advance of the army to make a preliminary convention. While so engaged they were treacherously taken prisoners and carried to Peking.

This act precipitated an engagement in which the Chinese were completely routed, and the allies marched on to Peking. After the usual display of obstinacy the Chinese yielded to the demand for the surrender of the An-ting gate of the city. From this vantage point Lord Elgin opened negotiations, and having secured the release of Sir Harry Parkes and the other prisoners who had survived the tortures to which they had been subjected, and having burnt the summer palace of the emperor as a punishment for their treacherous capture and for the cruelties perpetrated on them, he concluded a treaty with Prince Kung, the representative of the emperor. By this instrument the Chinese agreed to pay a war indemnity of $8,000,000 and to open six other ports in China, one in Formosa, and one in the island of Hainan to foreign trade, and to permit the representatives of the foreign governments to reside at Peking.

GATE AT PEKING.

Having thus relieved themselves from the presence of a foreign foe, the authorities were able to devote their attention to the suppression of the Tai-ping rebellion. Fortunately for themselves, the apparent friendliness with which they greeted the arrival of the British legation at Peking enlisted for them the sympathies of Sir Frederic Bruce, the British minister, and inclined him to listen to their request for the services of an English officer in their campaign against the rebels. At the request of Bruce, General Staveley selected Major Gordon, since generally known as Chinese Gordon, who was killed a few years ago at Khartoom, for this duty. A better man or one more peculiarly fit for the work could have been found. A numerous force known as “the ever victorious army,” partly officered by foreigners, had for some time been commanded by an American named Ward and after his death by Burgevine, another American. Over this force Gordon was placed, and at the head of it he marched in conjunction with the Chinese generals against the Tai-pings. With masterly strategy he struck a succession of rapid and telling blows against the fortunes of the rebels. City after city fell into his hands, and at length the leaders at Soochow opened the gates of the city to him on condition that he would spare their lives. With cruel treachery, when these men presented themselves before Li Hung Chang to offer their submission to the emperor, they were seized and beheaded. On learning how lightly his word had been treated by the Chinese general, Gordon armed himself, for the first time during the campaign with a revolver, and sought out the Chinese headquarters intending to avenge with his own hand this murder of the Tai-ping leaders. But Li Hung Chang having received timely notice of the righteous anger he had aroused took to flight, and Gordon, thus thwarted in his immediate object, threw up his command feeling that it was impossible to continue to act with so orientally-minded a colleague.

After considerable negotiation however, he was persuaded to return to his command and soon succeeded in so completely crippling the power of the rebels that in July 1864, Nanking, their last stronghold, fell into the hands of the imperialists. Teen-wang was then already dead, and his body was found within the walls wrapped in imperial yellow. Thus was crushed out a rebellion which had paralyzed the imperial power in the central provinces of the empire and which had for twelve years seriously threatened the existence of the reigning dynasty.

OPIUM SMOKERS.

Meanwhile in the summer following the conclusion of the treaty of Peking, 1861, the emperor, Hien Feng, breathed his last at Jehol, an event which was in popular belief foretold by the appearance of a comet in the early part of the summer. He was succeeded to the throne by his only son, a mere child, and the offspring of one of the imperial concubines. He adopted the name of Tung Chih. On account of his youth the administration of affairs was placed in the hands of the two dowager empresses, the wife of the last emperor and the mother of the new one. These regents were aided by the counsels of the boy emperor’s uncle, Prince Kung.

Under the direction of these regents, though the internal affairs of the empire prospered, the foreign relations were disturbed by the display of an increasingly hostile spirit towards the Christian missionaries and their converts, which culminated in 1870 in the Tien-tsin massacre. In some of the central provinces reports had been industriously circulated that the Roman Catholic missionaries were in the habit of kidnapping and murdering children, in order to make medicine from their eyeballs. Ridiculous as the rumor was, it found ready credence among the ignorant people, and several outrages were perpetrated on the missionaries and their converts in Kwang-hsi and Sze-chwan. Through the active interference, however, of the French minister on the spot, the agitation was locally suppressed only to be renewed at Tien-tsin. Here also the same absurd rumors were set afloat, and were especially directed against some sisters of charity who had opened an orphanage in the city.

For some days previous to the massacre on the 21st of June, reports increasing in alarm reached the foreign residents that an outbreak was to be apprehended, and three times the English consul wrote to Chung How, the superintendent of the three northern ports, calling upon him to take measures to subdue the gathering passions of the people which had been further dangerously exasperated by an infamous proclamation issued by the prefects. To these communications the consul did not receive any reply, and on the morning of the 21st, a day which had apparently been deliberately fixed for the massacre, the attack was made. The mob first broke into the French consulate and while the consul, M. Fontanier, was with Chung How endeavoring to persuade him to interfere, two Frenchmen and their wives, and Father Chevrien were there murdered. While returning the consul suffered the same fate. Having thus whetted their taste for blood, the rioters then set fire to the French cathedral, and afterward moved on to the orphanage of the sisters of mercy. In spite of the appeals of these defenseless women for mercy, if not for themselves at least for the orphans under their charge, the mob broke into the hospital, killed and mutilated most shockingly all the sisters, smothered from thirty to forty children in the vault, and carried off a still larger number of older persons to prisons in the city, where they were subjected to tortures of which they bore terrible evidence when their release was at length affected. In addition to these victims, a Russian gentleman with his bride, and a friend, who were unfortunate enough to meet the rioters on their way to the cathedral, were also murdered. No other foreigners were injured, a circumstance due to the fact that the fury of the mob was primarily directed against the French Roman Catholics, and also that the foreign settlement where all but those engaged in missionary work resided, was at a distance of a couple of miles from the city.

When the evil was done, the Chinese authorities professed themselves anxious to make reparation, and Chung How was eventually sent to Paris to offer the apologies of the Peking cabinet to the French government. These were ultimately accepted; and it was further arranged that the Tien-tsin prefect and district magistrate should be removed from their posts and degraded, and that twenty of the active murderers should be executed. By these retributive measures the emperor’s government made its peace with the European powers, and the foreign relations again assumed their former friendly footing.

The Chinese had now leisure to devote their efforts to the subjugation of the Panthay rebels. This was a great Mohammedan uprising which dated back as far as 1856 and which had for its object the separation of the province of Yun-nan into an independent state. The visit of the adopted son of the rebel leader, the sultan Suleiman, to England, for the purpose of attempting to enlist the sympathies of the English government in the Panthay cause, no doubt added zest to the action of the mandarins, who after a short but vigorous campaign, marked by scenes of bloodshed and wholesale carnage, suppressed the rebellion and restored the province to the imperial sway.

Peace was thus brought about, and when the empresses handed over the reigns of power to the emperor, on the occasion of his marriage in 1872, tranquility reigned throughout the eighteen provinces. The formal assumption of power proclaimed by this marriage was considered by the foreign ministers a fitting opportunity to insist on the fulfillment of the article in the treaties which provided for their reception by the emperor, and after much negotiation it was finally arranged that the emperor should receive them on the 29th of June, 1873.

Very early therefore on the morning of that day, the ministers were astir and were conducted in their sedan chairs to the park on the west side of the palace, where they were met by some of the ministers of state, who led them to the “Temple of Prayer for Seasonable Weather.” Here they were kept waiting for some time while tea and confectionery from the imperial kitchen, by favor of the emperor, were served to them. They were then conducted to an oblong tent made of matting on the west side of the Tsze-kwang pavilion, where they were met by Prince Kung and other ministers. As soon as the emperor reached the pavilion, the Japanese ambassador was introduced into his presence and when he had retired the other foreign ministers entered the audience chamber in a body. The emperor was seated facing southward. On either side of his majesty stood, with Prince Kung, several princes and high officers. When the foreign ministers reached the center aisle they halted and bowed one and all together; they then advanced in line a little further and made a second bow; and when they had nearly reached the yellow table on which their credentials were to be deposited they bowed a third time; after which they remained erect. M. Vlangaly, the Russian minister, then read a congratulatory address in French, which was translated by an interpreter into Chinese, and the ministers making another reverence respectfully laid their letters of credence upon the yellow table. The emperor was pleased to make a slight inclination of the head towards them, and Prince Kung advancing to the left of the throne and falling upon his knees, had the honor to be informed in Manchoo that his majesty acknowledged the receipt of the letters presented. Prince Kung, with his arms raised according to precedent set by Confucius when in the presence of his sovereign, came down by the steps on the left of the desk, to the foreign ministers, and respectfully repeated this in Chinese. After this he again prostrated himself, and in like manner received and conveyed a message to the effect that his majesty hoped that all foreign questions would be satisfactorily disposed of. The ministers then withdrew, bowing repeatedly, until they reached the entrance.

Thus ended the first instance during the present century of Europeans being received in imperial audience. Whether under more fortunate circumstances the ceremony might have been repeated it is difficult to say, but in the following year the young emperor was stricken down with the small-pox, or “enjoyed the felicity of the heavenly flowers,” and finally succumbed to the disease on the twelfth of January, 1875. With great ceremony the funeral obsequies were performed over the body of him who had been Tung Chih, and the coffin was finally laid in the imperial mausoleum among the eastern hills beside the remains of his predecessors. His demise was shortly afterwards followed by the death of the girl empress he had just previously raised to the throne.

For the first time in the annals of the Ching dynasty, the throne was now left without a direct heir. As it is the office of the son and heir to perform regularly the ancestral worship, it is necessary that if there should be no son, the heir should be, if possible, of a later generation than the deceased. In the present instance this was impossible, and it was necessary therefore that the lot should fall on one of the cousins of the late emperor. Tsai-teen, the son of the Prince of Chun, a child not quite four years old, was chosen to fill the vacant throne, and the title conferred upon him was Kuang Su or “an inheritance of glory.”

Scarcely had the proclamation gone forth of the assumption of the imperial title by Kuang Su, when news reached the English legation at Peking of the murder at Manwyne, in the province of Yun-nan, of Mr. Margary, an officer in the consular service who had been dispatched to meet an expedition sent by the Indian government, under the command of Colonel Horace Browne, to discover a route from Birmah into the south-western provinces of China. In accordance with conventional practice, the Chinese government, on being called to account for this outrage, attempted to lay it to the charge of brigands. But the evidence which Sir Thomas Wade was able to adduce proved too strong to be ignored even by the Peking mandarins, and eventually they signed a convention in which they practically acknowledged their blood guiltiness, under the terms of which some fresh commercial privileges were granted, and an indemnity was paid.

At the same time a Chinese nobleman was sent to England to make apology, and to establish an embassy on a permanent footing at the court of St. James. Since that time the Chinese empire has been at peace with all foreign powers until the eruptions of the recent months. There have been some narrow escapes from war with the European countries holding possessions on the southern Chinese border, but serious results have not followed. Ministers have been maintained in China by the western nations, and by China in the western capitals.

Under the child Kuang Su, who came to the throne in 1875, we have seen the completion of Chinese re-conquests in Central Asia and the restoration of Kuldja by the Russians. For many years the progressive party in the nation’s councils, under the leadership of Li Hung Chang, Viceroy of Chihli, gradually appeared to gain ground, amply posted as the court of Peking was in the affairs of western countries. Even the old conservative party, of which the successful and the aged general Tso Tsung-tang was the representative, has vastly modified its tone in the last twenty years.

It is true that the short experimental line of railway which had been laid down between Shanghai and Wusung was objected to, and finally got rid of by the Chinese government; but the reason for this apparently retrograde step arose out of the not very scrupulous means employed by the promoters of the scheme, and out of the very natural dislike of an independent state to be forced into innovations for which it may not be altogether prepared. Since that time several telegraph lines have been constructed, beginning with the first one between Peking and Shanghai, which formed the final connecting link between the capital of the Chinese empire and the western civilized world. The freedom of residence has been greatly extended to foreigners living in China. Travel has become safer, and popular hatred towards foreigners not as apparent. Slow as it has been to take effect, nevertheless the influence of closer association with western civilization has made its impress on the Chinese nation, and the extreme conservatism in many details has been compelled to waver. The stories of the war which are to follow will indicate much of the characteristics of the later day history of the empire.