Chapter VIII: Part 8

So rapidly did he work that his fortifications were completed before the Mongol admiral discovered his locality. On learning what had been done, the Mongols at once hurried forward reinforcements and prepared for an immediate and vigorous assault on this final stronghold of the empire of China. The attack was made with the impetuous courage for which the Mongols had become noted, but the works were bravely held, and for two days the struggle was maintained without advantage to the assailants. On the third day the Mongol admiral resumed his attack, and a fiercely contested battle took place, ending in the Chinese fleet being thrown into confusion. The result would have been utterly disastrous had not a heavy mist fallen at this opportune moment, under cover of which Chang Chikie, followed by sixteen vessels of his fleet, made his way out to sea.

The vessel which held the young emperor was less fortunate. Caught in the press of the battle, its capture was inevitable, and with it that of the last emperor of the Sung dynasty. In this desperate emergency, a faithful minister of the empire, resolved to save the honor of his master even at the sacrifice of his life, took him in his arms and leaped with him into the sea. This act of desperation was emulated by many of the officers of the vessel, and in this dramatic way the great dynasty of the Sung came to an end.

But the last blow for the empire had not been struck so long as Chang Chikie survived. With him had escaped the mother of the drowned prince, and on learning of his loss the valiant leader requested her to name some member of the Sung family to succeed him. But the mother, overwhelmed with grief at the death of her son, was in no mood to listen to anything not connected with her loss, and at length, hopeless and inconsolable, she put an end to her own existence by leaping overboard from the vessel's side.

Chang Chikie was left alone, with the destinies of the empire dependent solely upon him. Yet his high courage sustained him still; he was not ready to acknowledge final defeat, and he sailed southward in the double hope of escaping Mongol pursuit and of obtaining means for the renewal of the struggle. The states of Indo-China were then tributary to the empire, and his small fleet put in to a port of Tonquin, whose ruler not only welcomed him, but aided him to refit his fleet, collect stores, and enlist fresh troops.

Thus strengthened, the intrepid admiral resolved to renew the war without delay, his project being to assault Canton, which he hoped to take by a sudden attack. This enterprise seemed desperate to his followers, who sought to dissuade him from what might prove a fatal course; but, spurred on by his own courage and a hope of retrieving the cause of the Sungs, he persisted in his purpose, and the fleet once more returned to the seas.

It was now 1279, a year after Tiping's death. The Mongols lay in fancied security, not dreaming that there was in all China the resolution to strike another blow, and probably unsuspicious that a fleet was bearing down upon one of their captured ports. What would have been the result had Chang Chikie been able to deliver his attack it is impossible to say. He might have taken Canton by surprise and captured it from the enemy, but in any event he could not have gained more than a temporary success.

As it was, he gained none. Fate had destined the fall of China, and the elements came to the assistance of its foes. A sudden and violent tempest fell upon the fleet while near the southern headland of the Kwantung coast, hurling nearly or quite all the vessels on the shore or sinking them beneath the waves. The bold leader had been counselled to seek shelter from the storm under the lee of the shore, but he refused, and kept on despite the storm, daring death in his singleness of purpose.

"I have done everything I could," he said, "to sustain the Sung dynasty on the throne. When one prince died I had another proclaimed. He also has perished, and I still live. Should I be acting against thy decrees, O Heaven, if I sought to place a new prince on the throne?"

It appeared so, for the winds and the waves gave answer, and the last defender of China sank to death beneath the sea. The conquest of China was thus at length completed after seventy years of resistance against the most valorous soldiers of the world, led by such generals as Genghis, Kublai, and other warlike Mongol princes. In view of the fact that Genghis had overrun Southern Asia in a few years, this long and obstinate resistance of China, despite the incompetence of its princes and ministers, places in a striking light the great military strength of the empire at that period of its history.

_THE PALACE OF KUBLAI KHAN._

In the middle of the thirteenth century two eminent Venetian merchants, Nicolo and Matteo Polo, of noble birth and adventurous spirit, left their native city for a long journey to the East, their purposes being those of ordinary travel and also of barter, for which they took with them a stock of jewels, as the commodity of most worth with least weight. Visiting Constantinople and several Russian cities, they journeyed to the capital of the khan of Kaptchak, where they remained three years, trading and studying the Mongol language. Subsequently they met in Bokhara a Persian ambassador on the way to the court of Kublai Khan, and were persuaded to keep him company as far as Kambalu (the modern Peking), the capital of the Mongol emperor of Cathay, or China.

Their journey led them through Samarcand, Cashgar, and other cities of the far East, a whole year passing before they reached the capital of the great potentate, by whom they were graciously received. Kublai asked them many questions about their country, and was very curious about the pope, to whom he in the end sent them as ambassadors, bidding them return to him with a hundred Europeans learned in the arts and sciences, for the instruction of his people. They reached Venice in 1269, after an absence of fifteen years.

In 1271 they set out again for China, bearing despatches from the pope, but without the learned Europeans they were to bring. Marco, the young son of Nicolo, accompanied them on their journey, which occupied three and a half years. Kublai, though he had nearly forgotten their existence, received them as graciously as before, and was particularly pleased with young Marco, giving him a high office and employing him on important missions throughout the empire. In truth, he took so strong a fancy to his visitors that they were not suffered to leave China for years, and finally got away in 1291 only as escort to a Mongol princess who was sent as a bride to Persia.

Twenty-four years had elapsed from the time they left Venice before they appeared in that city again. They were quite forgotten, but the wealth in precious stones they brought with them soon freshened the memory of their relatives, and they became the heroes of the city. Marco took part in a war then raging with Genoa, was taken prisoner, and long lay in a dungeon, where he dictated to a fellow-prisoner the story of his adventures and the wonderful things he had seen in the dominions of the Great Khan of Cathay. This was afterwards published as "Il Milione di Messer Marco Polo Veneziano," and at once gained a high reputation, which it has preserved from that day to this. Though long looked on by many as pure fable, time has proved its essential truth, and it is now regarded as the most valuable geographical work of the Middle Ages.

We cannot undertake to give the diffuse narrative of Marco Polo's book, but a condensed account of a few of his statements may prove of interest, as showing some of the conditions of China in this middle period of its existence. His description of the great palace of Kublai, near his capital city of Kambalu, much the largest royal residence in the world, is of sufficient interest to be given in epitome. The palace grounds included a great park, enclosed by a wall and ditch eight miles square, with an entrance gate midway of each side. Within this great enclosure of sixty-four square miles was an open space a mile broad, in which the troops were stationed, it being bounded on the interior by a second wall six miles square. This space, twenty-eight square miles in area, held an army of more than a hundred thousand men, nearly all cavalry.

Within the second wall lay the royal arsenals and the deer-park, with meadows and handsome groves, and in the interior rose a third wall of great thickness, each side of which was a mile in length, while its height was twenty-five feet. This last enclosure, one square mile in area, contained the palace, which reached from the northern to the southern wall and included a spacious court. Though its roof was very lofty, it was but one story in height, standing on a paved platform of several feet elevation, from which extended a marble terrace seven feet wide, surrounded by a handsome balustrade, which the people were allowed to approach.

Carved and gilt dragons, figures of warriors and animals, and battle-scenes ornamented the sides of the great hall and the apartments, while the roof was so contrived that only gilding and painting were to be seen. On each side of the palace a grand flight of marble steps ascended to the marble terrace which surrounded the building. The interior contained an immense hall, capable of serving as a banqueting-room for a multitude of guests, while the numerous chambers were all of great beauty and admirably arranged.

The roof on the exterior was painted red, green, azure, and violet, the colors being highly durable, while the glazing of the windows was so neatly done that they were transparent as crystal. In the rear of the palace were arranged the treasure-rooms, which contained a great store of gold and silver bullion, pearls and precious stones, and valuable plate. Here also were the family apartments of the emperor and his wives. Opposite the grand palace stood another, very similar in design, where dwelt his eldest son, the heir to the throne.

On the north side, between the palace and the adjoining wall, rose an artificial mound of earth, a hundred paces high and a mile in circuit at its base. Its slopes were planted with beautiful evergreen trees, which had been transported thither, when well grown, by the aid of elephants. This perpetual verdure gave it the appropriate name of the Green Mount. An ornamental pavilion crowned the summit, which, in harmony with the sides, was also made green. The view of the mount, with its ever-verdant trees and the richly decorated building on its summit, formed a scene delightful to the eyes of the emperor and the other inmates of the palace. This hill still exists, and is yet known by its original title of Kinshan, or the Green Mount.

The excavation made to obtain the earth for the mount was filled with water from a small rivulet, forming a lake from which the cattle drank, its overflow being carried by an aqueduct along the foot of the Green Mount to fill another great and very deep excavation, made in the same manner as the former. This was used as a fish-pond, containing fish in large variety and number, sufficient to keep the table of the emperor constantly supplied. Iron or copper gratings at the entrance and exit prevented the escape of the fish along the stream. The pond was also stocked with swans and other aquatic birds, and a bridge across its width led from one palace to the other.

Such was the palace. The city was correspondingly great and prosperous, and had an immense trade. A thousand pack-horses and carriages laden with raw silk daily entered its gates, and within its workshops a vast quantity of silk and gold tissues was produced. As Hoangti made himself famous by the Great Wall, so Kublai won fame by the far more useful work of the Great Canal, which was largely due to his fostering care, and has ever since been of inestimable value to China, while the Wall never kept out a Tartar who strongly desired to get over its threatening but useless height.

Having said so much about the conditions of palace and capital, it may be of interest to extract from Polo's narrative some account of the method pursued in war during Kublai's reign. The Venetian attended a campaign made by the emperor against one of his kinsmen named Nayan, who had under him so many cities and provinces that he was able to bring into the field an army of four hundred thousand horse. His desire for sovereignty led him to throw off his allegiance, the more so as another rebel against the Grand Khan promised to aid him with a hundred thousand horsemen.

News of this movement soon reached Kublai, and he at once ordered the collection of all the troops within ten days' march of Kambalu, amounting in all to four hundred and sixty thousand men. By forced marches these were brought to Nayan's territory in twenty-five days, reaching there before the rebel prince had any warning of their approach. Kublai, having given his army two days' rest, and consulted his astrologers, who promised him victory, marched his army up the hill which had concealed them from the enemy, the great array being suddenly displayed to the astonished eyes of Nayan and his men.

Kublai took his station in a large wooden castle, borne on the backs of four elephants, whose bodies were protected with coverings of thick leather hardened by fire, over which were spread housings of cloth of gold. His army was disposed in three grand divisions, each division consisting of ten battalions of horsemen each ten thousand strong, and armed with the great Mongol bow. The right and left divisions were disposed so as to outflank the army of Nayan. In front of each battalion were stationed five hundred infantry, who, whenever the cavalry made a show of flight, were trained to mount behind them, and to alight again when they returned to the charge, their duty being to kill with their lances the horses of the enemy.

As soon as the order of battle was arranged, wind instruments of various kinds and in great numbers were sounded, while the host of warriors broke into song, as was the Tartar practice before engaging in battle. The battle began with a signal from the cymbals and drums, the sound of the instruments and the singing growing deafening. At the signal both wings advanced, a cloud of arrows filling the air, while on both sides numbers of men and horses fell. Their arrows discharged, the warriors engaged in close combat with lances, swords, and iron-shod maces, while the cries of men and horses were such as to inspire terror or rouse all hearers to the battle-rage.

For a long time the fortune of the day remained undecided, Nayan's people fighting with great zeal and courage. But at length their leader, seeing that he was almost surrounded, attempted to save himself by flight. He was made prisoner, however, and brought before Kublai, who ordered him to be put to death on the spot. This was done by enclosing him between two carpets, which were violently shaken until the spirit departed from the body, the dignity of the imperial family requiring that the sun and the air should not witness the shedding of the blood of one who belonged to the royal stock.

These extracts from the narrative of the Venetian traveller may be fitly followed by a portion of Coleridge's remarkable dream-poem on the subject of Kublai's palace. The poet, having been reading from "Purchas's Pilgrimage" a brief description of the palace of the Great Khan,--not the one above described, but a pleasure-retreat in another section of his dominions,--fell asleep, and his dreams took the form of an extended poem on the subject. On waking he hastened to write it down, but was interrupted by a visitor in the midst of his task, and afterwards found himself unable to recall another line of the poem, only a shadowy image of which remained in his mind. The part saved is strangely imaginative.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree,
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced,
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail;
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war.

_THE EXPULSION OF THE MONGOLS._

While the descendants of Kublai Khan, the Mongol emperor, still held the reins of power in China, there was born in humble life in that empire a boy upon whose shoulders fortune had laid the task of driving the foreigners from the soil and restoring to the Chinese their own again. Tradition says that at his birth the room was several times filled with a bright light. However that be, the boy proved to be gifted by nature with a fine presence, lofty views, and an elevated soul, qualities sure to tell in the troubled times that were at hand. When he was seventeen years of age the deaths of his father and mother left him a penniless orphan, so destitute of means that he felt obliged to take the vows of a priest and enter the monastery of Hoangkiose. But the country was now in disorder, rebels were in the field against the Mongol rule, and the patriotic and active-minded boy could not long endure the passive life of a bonze. Leaving the monastery, he entered the service of one of the rebel leaders as a private soldier, and quickly showed such enterprise and daring that his chief not only made him an officer in his force but gave him his daughter in marriage.

The time was ripe for soldiers of fortune. The mantle of Kublai had not fallen on the shoulders of any of his successors, who proved weak and degenerate monarchs, losing the firm hold which the great conqueror had kept upon the realm. It was in the year 1345 that Choo Yuen Chang, to give the young soldier his full name, joined the rebel band. Chunti, one of the weakest of the Mongol monarchs, was now upon the throne, and on every side it was evident that the empire of Kublai was in danger of falling to pieces under this incapable ruler. Fortune had brought its protege into the field at a critical time.

Choo was not long in proving himself "every inch a soldier." Wherever he fought he was victorious. In a year's time he had under him seven hundred men of his own enlistment, and was appointed the lieutenant of his chief. Soon after the latter died, and Choo took his place at the head of the rebel band. In it enlisted another young man, Suta by name, who was before many years to become China's greatest general and the bulwark of a new dynasty.

Choo was now able to prove his powers on a larger scale. One of his first exploits was the capture of the town of Hoyan, where he manifested a high order of courage and political wisdom in saving the inhabitants from rapine by his ill-paid and hungry soldiers. Here was a degree of self-restraint and power of command which none of the Chinese leaders had shown, and which seemed to point out Choo as the man destined to win in the coming struggle for a rejuvenated China.

Meanwhile a rival came into the field who for a time threw Choo's fortunes into the shade. This was a young man who was offered to the people as a descendant of the dynasty of the Sungs, the emperors whom the Mongol invaders had dethroned. His very name proved a centre of attraction for the people, whose affection for the old royal house was not dead, and they gathered in multitudes beneath his banner. But his claim also aroused the fear of the Mongols, and a severe and stubborn struggle set in, which ended in the overthrow of the youthful Sung and the seeming restoration of the Mongol authority. Yet in reality the war had only cleared the way for a far more dangerous adversary than the defeated claimant of the throne.

Masked by this war, the strength and influence of Choo had steadily grown, and in 1356 he made a daring and masterly move in the capture of the city of Nanking, which gave him control of some of the wealthiest provinces of the land. Here he showed the same moderation as before, preserving the citizens from plunder and outrage, and proving that his only purpose was to restore to China her old native government. With remarkable prudence, skill, and energy he strengthened his position. "The time has now come to drive the foreigners out of China," he said, in a proclamation that was scattered far and wide and brought hosts of the young and daring to his ranks. Elsewhere the so-called Chinese patriots were no better than brigands, all the horrors of war descending upon the districts they occupied and the cities which fell into their hands. But where Choo ruled discipline and security prevailed, and as far as his power reached a firm and orderly government existed.

Meanwhile the Mongols had a host of evils with which to contend. Rebel leaders had risen in various quarters, some of them making more progress than Choo, but winning the execration rather than the love of the people by their rapine and violence. On the contrary, his power grew slowly but surely, various minor leaders joining him, among them the pirate Fangkue Chin, whose exploits had made him a hero to the people of the valley of the Kiang. The events of the war that followed were too many to be here detailed. Suffice it to say that the difficulties of the Mongol emperor gradually increased. He was obliged to meet in battle a Mongol pretender to his throne; Corea rose in arms and destroyed an army sent to subdue it; and Chahan Timour, Chunti's ablest general, fell victim to an assassin. Troubles were growing thick around his throne.

In the year 1366, Choo, after vanquishing some leaders who threatened his position, among them his late pirate ally Fangkue Chin, saw that the time had arrived for a vigorous effort to expel the foreign rulers, and set out at the head of his army for a general campaign, at the same time proclaiming to the people that the period was at hand for throwing off the Mongol yoke, which for nearly a century had weighed heavily upon their necks. Three armies left Nanking, two of them being sent to subdue three of the provinces of the south, a result which was achieved without a blow, the people everywhere rising and the Mongol garrisons vanishing from sight,--whether by death or by flight history fails to relate. The third army, under Suta, Choo's favorite general, marched towards Peking, the Mongol garrisons, discouraged by their late reverses, retreating as it advanced.

At length the great Mongol capital was reached. Within its walls reigned confusion and alarm. Chunti, panic-stricken at the rapid march of his enemies, could not be induced to fight for his last hold upon the empire of China, but fled on the night before the assault was made. Suta at once ordered the city to be taken by storm, and though the Mongol garrison made a desperate defence, they were cut down to a man, and the victorious troops entered the Tartar stronghold in triumph. But Suta, counselled by Choo to moderation, held his army firmly in hand, no outrages were permitted, and the lives of all the Mongols who submitted were spared.

The capture of Peking and the flight of Chunti marked the end of the empire of the Mongols in China. War with them still went on, but the country at large was freed from their yoke, after nearly a century of submission to Tartar rule. Elsewhere the vast empire of Genghis still held firm. Russia lay under the vassalage of the khans. Central and Southern Asia trembled at the Mongol name. And at the very time that the Chinese were rising against and expelling their invaders, Timour, or Tamerlane, the second great conqueror of his race, was setting out from Central Asia on that mighty career of victory that emulated the deeds of the founder of the Mongol empire. Years afterwards Timour, after having drowned Southern Asia in a sea of blood, returned to Samarcand, where, in 1415, he ordered the collection of a great army for the invasion of China, with which he proposed to revenge the wrongs of his compatriots. The army was gathered; it began its march; the mountains of Khokand were reached and passed; threats of the coming danger reached and frightened China; but on the march the grim old conqueror died, and his great expedition came to an end. All that reached China to represent the mighty Timour was his old war-horse, which was sent as a present four years afterwards when an embassy from Central Asia reached Peking.

With the fall of the Mongols in China the native rule was restored, but not with it the old dynasty. Choo, the conqueror, and a man whose ability and nobleness of mind had been remarkably displayed, was everywhere looked upon as the Heaven-chosen successor to the throne, the boy who had begun his career as a penniless orphan having risen through pure power of intellect and loftiness of soul to the highest position in the realm. He was crowned emperor under the title of Hongwou, and instituted the Ming dynasty, which held the throne of China until three centuries afterwards, when another strange turn in the tide of affairs again overthrew Chinese rule and brought a new dynasty of Tartar emperors to the throne.

As regards the reign of Hongwou, it may here be said that he proved one of the ablest monarchs China ever knew, ruling his people with a just and strong hand, and, by the aid of his able general Suta, baffling every effort of the Mongols to regain their lost dominion. Luxury in the imperial administration was brought to an end, the public money was used for its legitimate purpose, and even some of the costly palaces which the Mongol emperors had built were destroyed, that the people might learn that he proposed to devote himself to their good and not to his own pleasure. Steps were taken for the encouragement of learning, the literary class was elevated in position, the celebrated Hanlin College was restored, and the great book of laws was revised. Schools were opened everywhere, orphanages and hospitals were instituted, and all that could be was done for the relief of the sick and the poor.

All this was performed in the midst of bitter and unceasing wars, which for nearly twenty years kept Suta almost constantly in the field. The Mongols were still strong in the northwest, Chungti continued to claim imperial power, and the army was kept steadily employed, marching from victory to victory under the able leadership of Suta, who in his whole career scarcely learned the meaning of defeat. His very appearance on the field on more than one occasion changed the situation from doubt to victory. In time the Mongols were driven beyond the Great Wall, the ex-emperor died, and the steppes were invaded by a great army, though not a successful one, Suta meeting here his first and only reverse. The war ended with giving the Chinese full control of all the cultivated country, while the Tartars held their own in the desert. This done, Suta returned to enjoy in peace the honors he had won, and soon after died, at the age of fifty-four years, thirty of which had been spent in war.

The death of the great general did not leave China free from warlike commotion. There were rebellious risings both in the south and in the north, but they all fell under the power of Hongwou's victorious arms, the last success being the dispersal of a final Mongol raid. The closing eight years of the emperor's reign were spent in peace, and in 1397 he died, after an administration of thirty years, in which he had freed China from the last dregs of the Mongol power, and spread peace and prosperity throughout the realm.

_THE RISE OF THE MANCHUS._

Twice had a Tartar empire been established in China, that of the Kin dynasty in the north, and that of their successors, the Mongols, over the whole country. A third and more permanent Tartar dynasty, that of the Manchus, was yet to come. With the striking story of the rise and progress of these new conquerors we are now concerned.

In the northeast of China, beyond the Great Wall and bordering on Corea, lies the province of Liautung. Northward from this to the Amur River extends the eastern section of the steppes, known on modern maps as Manchuria. From these broad wilds the Kins had advanced to their conquest of Northern China. To them they fled for safety from the Mongol arms, and here lost their proud name of Kin and resumed their older and humbler one of Niuche. For some five centuries they remained here unnoticed and undisturbed, broken up into numerous small clans, none of much strength and importance. Of these clans, which were frequently in a state of hostility to one another, there is only one of interest, that of the Manchus.

The original seat of this small Tartar clan lay not far north of the Chinese border, being on the Soodsu River, about thirty miles east of the Chinese city of Moukden. Between the Soodsu and Jiaho streams, and south of the Long White Mountains, lies the valley of Hootooala, a location of rugged and picturesque scenery. This valley, protected on three sides by water and on the fourth by a lofty range of mountains, the whole not more than twelve miles long, formed the cradle of the Manchu race, the narrow realm from which they were to emerge to victory and empire. In a certain respect it resembled the native home of the Mongols, but was far smaller and much nearer the Chinese frontier.

In this small and secluded valley appeared, about the middle of the fourteenth century, when the emperor Hongwou was fighting with the Mongols, a man named Aisin Gioro. Tradition attributes to him a miraculous birth, while calumny asserts that he was a runaway Mongol; but at any rate he became lord of Hootooala and ancestor of its race of conquerors. Five generations from him came a chief named Huen, who ruled over the same small state, and whose grandson, Noorhachu by name, born in 1559, was the man upon whom the wonderful fortunes of the Manchus were to depend. Like many other great conquerors, his appearance predicted his career. "He had the dragon face and the phoenix eye; his chest was enormous, his ears were large, and his voice had the tone of the largest bell."

He began life like many of the heroes of folk-lore, his step-mother, when he was nineteen years of age, giving him a small sum of money and turning him out into the world to seek his fortune. She repented afterwards, and bade him come home again or accept further aid, but the proud youth refused to receive from her any assistance, and determined to make his own way in the world.

Noorhachu first came into notice in 1583. In that year Haida, chief of a small district south of Hootooala, made an attack, assisted by the Chinese, on some neighboring clans. One of these was governed by a relative of the old Manchu chief Huen, who, with his son and a small force, hurried to his aid and helped him to defend his town. Haida and his allies, finding the place too strong for them, enticed a part of the garrison outside the walls, and then fell upon and treacherously massacred them. Among the slain were Huen and his son.

This brutal murder left Noorhachu chief of his clan, and at the same time filled him with a fierce desire for revenge, both upon Haida and upon the Chinese. He was forced to bide his time, Haida gaining such influence with his allies that he was appointed by them chief of all the Niuche districts. This act only deepened the hatred of Noorhachu, who found himself made one of the vassals of the murderer, while many of his own people left him and attached themselves to the fortunes of Haida.

Fortunately for the youthful chief, the Chinese did not strongly support their nominee, and Noorhachu pursued his rival so persistently that the assassin did not feel safe even within his stockaded camp, but several times retreated for safety into Liautung. The Chinese at length, tired of supporting a man without the courage to defend himself, seized him and handed him over to Noorhachu, who immediately put him to death.

The energy and success of Noorhachu in this scheme of vengeance gave him a high reputation among the Niuche. He was still but twenty-seven years of age, but had probably laid out his life-work, that of making himself chief of a Niuche confederacy, and employing his subjects in an invasion of Chinese soil. It is said that he had sworn to revenge his father's death by the slaughter of two hundred thousand Chinese.

He began by building himself a stronghold. Selecting a site in the plain where water was abundant, he built a town and surrounded it with a triple wall. This done, he began the work of uniting the southern clans under his sway, a task which proved easy, they being much impressed by his victory over Haida. This peaceful progress was succeeded by a warlike movement. In 1591 he suddenly invaded the district of Yalookiang, which, taken by surprise, was forced to submit to his arms.

This act of spoliation roused general apprehension among the chiefs. Here was a man who was not satisfied with petty feuds, but evidently had higher objects in view. Roused by apprehension of danger, seven of the neighboring chiefs gathered their forces, and with an army of thirty thousand Niuche and Mongols invaded the territory of the daring young leader. The odds against him seemed irresistible. He had but four thousand men to oppose to this large force. But his men had been well chosen and well trained, and they so vigorously resisted the onset of the enemy that the principal Niuche chief was killed and the Mongol leader forced to flee. At this juncture Noorhachu charged his foes with such vigor that they were broken and put to flight, four thousand of them being slain in the pursuit. A number of chiefs were taken prisoners, while the spoils included several thousand horses and plaited suits of armor, material of great value to the ambitious young victor.

Eight years passed before Noorhachu was ready for another move. Then he conquered and annexed the fertile district of Hada, on the north. In 1607 he added to this the state of Hwifa, and in the following year that of Woola. These conquests were preliminary to an invasion of Yeho, the most powerful of the Niuche states. His first attack upon this important district failed, and before repeating it he deemed it necessary to show his strength by invading the Chinese province of Liautung. He had long been preparing for this great enterprise. He had begun his military career with a force of one hundred men, but had now an army forty thousand strong, well drilled and disciplined men, provided with engines of war, and of a race famed for courage and intrepidity. Their chief weapon consisted of the formidable Manchu bow, while the horsemen wore an armor of cotton-plaited mail which was proof against arrow or spear. The invasion was preceded by a list of grievances drawn up against the Chinese, which, instead of forwarding it to the Chinese court, Noorhachu burnt in presence of his army, as an appeal to Heaven for the justice of his cause.

The Chinese had supinely permitted this dangerous power to grow up among their tributaries on the north. In truth, the Ming dynasty, which had begun with the great Hongwou, had shared the fate of Chinese dynasties in general, having fallen into decadence and decay. With a strong hand at the imperial helm the Manchu invasion, with only a thinly settled region to draw on for recruits, would have been hopeless. With a weak hand no one could predict the result.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_THE MANCHU CONQUEST OF CHINA._

Long years of misgovernment in China produced their natural result. Evils stalked abroad while worthless emperors spent their days in luxury at home. The land ceased to be governed, local rebellions broke out in a dozen quarters, and the Manchu invasion was but one event in the series of difficulties that environed the weakened throne. From the midst of these small rebellions emerged a large one before which the Ming dynasty trembled to its fall. Its leader, Li Tseching, was a peasant's son, who had chosen the military career and quickly gained renown as a daring horseman and skilful archer. In 1629 he appeared as a member of a band of robbers, who were defeated by the troops, Li being one of the few to escape. A year afterwards we hear of him as high in rank in a rebel band almost large enough to be called an army. The leader dying after a few years, Li succeeded him in command.

His progress to power was rapid, cunning and duplicity aiding him, for often when in a dangerous situation he escaped by pretending a desire to come to terms with the authorities. Other rebels rose, won victories, and sank again; but Li held his own and steadily grew stronger, until, in 1640, he was at the head of an army of nearly half a million of men and in a position to aspire to the throne of Peking itself. Town after town fell into his hands, frightful outrages being perpetrated in each, for Li was a brigand in grain and merciless at heart. The efforts of the emperor to overthrow him proved futile, the imperial army being sent against him in four divisions, which he attacked and defeated in detail. The court had learned nothing from the failure of similar tactics in the war with Noorhachu. After this pronounced success Li laid siege to Kaifong, an important city which had once been the capital of China. He was twice repulsed, but a third time returned to the siege, finally succeeding through a rise in the Hoang-ho, which washed away the defences of the city, drowned thousands of its people, and left it at the mercy of the besieging troops.

Li's next effort was made against the city of Tunkwan, the most formidable of Chinese fortresses. Situated in the mountains between the provinces of Honan and Shensi, it was strong by position, while the labor of centuries had added enormously to its strength. Here fortune aided him, his army following into the city a fugitive force which had been beaten outside. By this time the rebel chief had made himself so dreadful a record by the massacres and outrages committed in conquered cities that terror began to fill the minds of garrisons, and towns and cities opened their gates to him without venturing resistance.

No longer a mere rebel chief, but master of more than a third of China, and feared through all the rest, Li now assumed the title of emperor, and, capturing every stronghold as he advanced, began his march upon Peking, then a scene of unimaginable terror and confusion. The emperor, who had hesitated to flee, found flight impossible when Li's great army invested the capital. Defence was equally impossible, and the unhappy weakling, after slaying all the women of the palace, ended the career of the Ming dynasty by hanging himself. Li was quickly master of the city, where the ancestral temple of the Mings was plundered and levelled with the ground, and all the kinsmen of the royal family he could seize were summarily put to death. Thus was completed the first phase of a remarkable career, in which in a few years the member of a band of robbers became master of the most populous empire of the earth. The second phase was to be one of a decline in fortune still more rapid than had been the growth of the first. And with it is connected the story of the Manchu invasion and conquest of China.

We have seen in the preceding tale how the heroic Chungwan held the fortress of Ningyuen against all the efforts of Noorhachu, the Manchu chief. After his death Wou Sankwei, a man of equal valor and skill, repelled Taitsong and his Manchus from its walls. This city, with the surrounding territory, was all of Northern China that had not submitted to Li, who now made earnest efforts by lavish promises to win Wou over to his side. But in the latter he had to deal with a man who neither feared nor trusted him, and to whose mind it seemed preferable that even the Tartars should become lords of the empire than that it should be left to the mercy of a brutal robber like Li Tseching.

Wou's position was a delicate and difficult one. The old dynasty was at an end. Those loyal to it were powerless. He had no means of his own enabling him to contend against the great force of Li. He must surrender or call in foreigners to his aid. In this dilemma he made overtures to the Manchus, asking their aid to put down the rebellion and restore tranquillity to the empire,--seemingly with the thought that they might be dispensed with when no longer of use.

Not for a moment did the Manchu leaders hesitate to avail themselves of the promising offer. The man who for years had stood resolutely in the way of their invasion of China was now voluntarily stepping from their path, and even offering them his aid to accomplish their cherished project. The powerful fortresses which had defied their strength, the Great Wall which in Wou's hands might have checked their progress, had suddenly ceased to be obstacles to their advance, and throughout the camps and towns of the Tartars an enthusiastic response was made to the inspiriting cry of "On to Peking!"

Wou Sankwei did not wait for their coming. Li had sent a strong force to meet him, with instructions either to negotiate or to fight. Wou chose the latter, and delivered battle with such energy and success that more than twenty thousand of the opposing force were laid in death upon the field, no quarter being given to the flying host. News of this perilous reverse roused Li to vigorous action. Knowing nothing of the approach of a Tartar army, he imagined that he had only Wou with whom to deal, and marched against him in person with sixty thousand men, the pick of his victorious army.

This large force, perhaps three times the number that the loyal leader could put in the field, reached Wou's station on the river Lanho before the vanguard of the Manchus had appeared. It was obviously Wou's policy to defer the action, but Li gave him no opportunity, making at once an impetuous attack, his line being formed in the shape of a crescent, with the design of overlapping the flanks of the foe. Skilled and experienced as Wou was, the smallness of his force made him unable to avoid this movement of his enemy, who, from a hill where he had taken his station to overlook the battle, had the satisfaction of seeing the opposing army completely surrounded by his numerous battalions. Wou and his men fought with desperate courage, but it was evident that they could not long hold out against such odds. Fortunately for them, at this critical moment a strong Manchu corps reached the field, and at once made a furious charge upon the nearly victorious troops. This diversion caused a complete change in the situation. Li's troops, filled with terror at the vigorous and unexpected assault, broke and fled, pursued by their foes with such bloodthirsty fury that thirty thousand of them were slain. Li escaped with a few hundred horsemen from the disastrous field which was to prove the turning-point in his career.

The delayed Manchus soon after appeared in numbers, and Wou lost no time in following up his signal success. Peking was quickly reached, and there, on the eastern ramparts, the victor was greeted with the spectacle of his father's head on the wall, Li having thus wreaked what vengeance he could upon his foe. It was an unwise act of ferocity, since it rendered impossible any future reconciliation with his opponent.

Li made no effort to defend the city, but fled precipitately with all the plunder he could convey. Wou, marching round its walls, pressed hard upon his track, attacking his rear-guard in charge of the bulky baggage-train, and defeating it with the slaughter of ten thousand troops. Li continued to retreat, collecting the garrisons he had left in various cities as he fled, until, feeling strong enough to hazard another battle, he took his stand near the city of Chingtung. Wou did not hesitate to attack. Eighty thousand Manchus had joined him, and abundant Chinese levies had raised his forces to two hundred thousand men. The battle was fierce and obstinate, Li fighting with his old skill and courage, and night closed without giving either party the victory. But under cover of the darkness the rebel leader, having lost forty thousand men, including some of his ablest officers, deemed it necessary to resume his retreat.

The remainder of Li's career may be briefly told. Wou followed him with unyielding persistency, fighting at every opportunity and being always the victor in these encounters. This rapid flight, these repeated defeats, at length so discouraged the rebel troops that on Li's making a final stand they refused to fight, and insisted on coming to terms with their pursuer. Finding that all was at an end, Li fled to the neighboring mountain region with a small body of men, and there returned to the robber state from which he had emerged. But his foe was implacable; pursuit was kept up, his band lost heavily in various encounters, and at length, while on a foraging trip in search of food, he was surprised in a village by a superior force. A sharp combat followed, in which Li was the first to fall, and his head was carried in triumph to the nearest mandarin.