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CHINA AND THE MANCHUS
V
YUNG CHÊNG AND CH`IEN LUNG
The fourth son of K`ang Hsi came to the throne under the year-title of Yung Chêng (harmonious rectitude). He was confronted with
serious difficulties from the very first. Dissatisfaction prevailed among his
numerous brothers, at least one of whom may have felt that he had a better
claim to rule than his junior in the family. This feeling culminated in a plot
to dethrone Yung Chêng, which was, however,
discovered in time, and resulted only in the degradation of the guilty
brothers. The fact that among his opponents were native Christians—some say
that the Jesuits were at the bottom of all the mischief—naturally influenced
the Emperor against Christianity; no fewer than three hundred churches were
destroyed, and all Catholic missionaries were thenceforward obliged to live
either at Peking or at Macao. In 1732 he thought of expelling them altogether;
but finding that they were enthusiastic teachers of filial piety, he left them
alone, merely prohibiting fresh recruits from coming to China.
These domestic troubles were followed by a serious
rebellion in Kokonor, which was not fully suppressed
until the next reign; also by an outbreak among the
aborigines of Kueichow and Yünnan,
which lasted until three years later, when the tribesmen were brought under
Imperial rule.
A Portuguese envoy, named Magalhaens (or Magaillans), visited Peking in 1727, bearing
presents for the Emperor; but nothing very much
resulted from his mission. In 1730, in addition to terrible floods, there was a
severe earthquake, which lasted ten days, and in which one hundred thousand
persons are said to have lost their lives. In 1735, Yung Chêng's reign came to an end amid sounds of a further outbreak of the aborigines in Kueichow. Before his death, he named his fourth son, then
only fifteen, as his successor, under the regency of two of the boy's uncles
and two Grand Secretaries, one of the latter being a distinguished scholar, who
was entrusted with the preparation of the history of the Ming dynasty. Yung Chêng's name has always been somewhat unfairly associated
by foreigners with a bitter hostility to the Catholic priests of his day,
simply because he refused to allow them a free hand in matters outside their
proper sphere. Altogether, it may be said that he was a just and
public-spirited ruler, anxious for his people's welfare. He hated war, and failed to carry on his father's vigorous policy in
Central Asia; nevertheless, by 1730, Chinese rule extended to the Laos border,
and the Shan States paid tribute. He was a man of letters,
and completed some of his father's undertakings.
Edict Against the Missionaries. The literati began
from the commencement of the reign of Yung cheng to
push their opposition to the “Religion of the Lord of Heaven,” and presented
a memorial soon after his accession petitioning for the banishment of
the foreign priests and the conversion of the churches to “other and
better uses.” Perhaps the Emperor himself was inclined to anti-foreign
opinions, and the fact that certain members of the royal family, who
seemed possible rivals to himself, had embraced Christianity, made his
inclination the more pronounced. But indeed he
seemed to be genuinely concerned lest China should become Christian. He
was a votary of a foreign religion himself, being a daily worshiper
of the Buddha, but he contemplated with something like consternation the
prospect of a Christian China. “You wish,” he said, “that all the
Chinese should become Christians, and indeed your creed commands it. I am well
aware of this, but in that event what would
become of us? Should we not soon be merely the subjects of
your kings?” Consequently, a hostile edict was issued in 1724 and the
missionaries obeyed the decree of banishment to the extent of retiring to
Canton, leaving three hundred thousand converts well-nigh shepherdless. Some attempt on the part of a few of the
priests to return to their flocks was met with sterner measures, and in
1732 all the priests who could be “rounded up” were deported to
the Portuguese possession of Macao.
In spite of the severe measures adopted against the propagation
of Christianity, the missionaries themselves are loud in their testimony
to the general justice and beneficence of Yung cheng’s reign. He was, they said, indefatigable in work, and was ever ready
to recognize merit and reward virtue. Among the reforms he introduced was
one to limit to the Emperor himself the right to
sign a sentence of death. Like Tai tsung of
the T’ang dynasty, he desired the greatest possible
deliberation in a matter of such importance and required that the case
should be presented to him three times, lest in the first instance he
should be tempted to act impulsively.
To encourage agriculture he
made a law that in future the taxes should be paid by the proprietors, instead
of by the tenants of the land. Still more significant was the remarkable
order given in 1732 that in future the city governor should annually
supply him with the name of the peasant who had been most diligent in
cultivating the soil, in preserving the unity of the family and in
frugality and temperance of life. Such model peasants were to be made mandarins
of the eighth class, with a right to wear the mandarin’s robe, to sit
in the presence of the Governor and to take tea with him. On their death,
moreover, they were to be awarded the crowning glory of having their
names inscribed in the Halls of the Ancestors.
Possibly on the principle that
“what one does through another one does himself,” Yung cheng is to be numbered among the authors of China. To begin with, he has
the credit, filial perhaps rather than literary, of amplifying and
commenting on the Sacred Edicts of Kang hsi.
In the next place, he is held responsible for a truly
remarkable Treatise on War. It is entitled the “Ten
Precepts'’ and was designed to secure in perpetuity the prestige
and permanence of Manchu sovereignty. These precepts may be briefly
summarized as follows:
· 1. Fathers and mothers to have tender care of their
children.
· 2. Children to be subordinate to parents and the
younger children to the elder.
· 3. Good relations to be maintained with all the
world.
· 4. Parents to instruct children to obey the
laws and to have respect for magistrates.
· 5. Soldiers to occupy themselves with the cultivation
of the land.
Truly, we have here a “military treatise” which, if
followed to the letter, would go a long way towards rendering war
impossible.
Yung Chêng's successor was
twenty-five years of age when he came to the throne with the year-title of Ch`ien Lung (or Kien Long =
enduring glory), and one of his earliest acts was to forbid the propagation of
Christian doctrine, a prohibition which developed between 1746 and 1785 into
active persecution of its adherents. The first ten years of this reign were
spent chiefly in internal reorganization; the remainder, which covered half a
century, was almost a continuous succession of wars. The aborigines of Kueichow, known as the Miao-Tz{u},
offered a determined resistance to all attempts to bring them under the regular
administration; and although they were ultimately conquered, it was deemed
advisable not to insist upon the adoption of the queue, and
also to leave them a considerable measure of self-government. Acting
under Manchu guidance, chiefs and leading tribesmen were entrusted with
important executive offices; they had to keep the peace among their people, and
to collect the revenue of local produce to be forwarded to Peking. These posts
were hereditary. On the death of the father, the eldest son proceeded to Peking
and received his appointment in person, together with his seal of office.
Failing sons or their children, brothers had the right of succession.
In 1741 the population was estimated by Père Amiot, S.J., at over one hundred and fifty millions, as against twenty-one million households in 1701.
In 1753 there was trouble in Ili. After the death of Galdan II, son of Arabtan, an
attempt was made by one, Amursana, to usurp the
principality. He was, however, driven out, and fled to Peking, where he was
favourably received by Ch`ien Lung, and an army was
sent to reinstate him. With the subsequent settlement, under which he was to
have only one quarter of Ili, Amursana was profoundly
dissatisfied, and took the earliest opportunity of turning on his benefactors.
He murdered the Manchu-Chinese garrison and all the other Chinese he could find, and proclaimed himself khan of the Eleuths.
His triumph was short-lived; another army was sent from Peking, this time
against him, and he fled into Russian territory, dying there soon afterwards of
smallpox. This campaign was lavishly illustrated by Chinese artists, who
produced a series of realistic pictures of the battles and skirmishes fought by Ch`ien Lung's victorious troops. How far these were
prepared under the guidance of the Jesuit Fathers does not seem to be known.
About sixty years previously, under the reign of K`ang Hsi, the Jesuits had carried out extensive surveys,
and had drawn fairly accurate maps of Chinese territory, which had been sent to
Paris and there engraved on copper by order of Louis XIV. In like manner, the
pictures now in question were forwarded to Paris and engraved, between 1769 and
1774, by skilled draughtsmen, as may be gathered from the lettering at the foot
of each; for instance—Gravé par J. P. Le Bas, graveur du cabinet du roi (Cambridge University Library).
Kuldja and Kashgaria were next
added to the empire, and Manchu supremacy was established in Tibet. Burma and
Nepal were forced to pay tribute, after a disastrous war (1766-1770) with the
former country, in which a Chinese army had been almost exterminated;
rebellions in Ss{u}ch`uan (1770), Shantung (1777),
and Formosa (1786) were suppressed.
Early in the eighteenth century, the Turguts, a branch of the Kalmuck Tartars, unable to endure
the oppressive tyranny of their rulers, trekked into Russia, and settled on the
banks of the Volga. Some seventy years later, once more finding the burden of
taxation too heavy, they again organized a trek upon a colossal scale. Turning
their faces eastward, they spent a whole year of fearful suffering and
privation in reaching the confines of Ili, a terribly diminished host. There
they received a district, and were placed under the
jurisdiction of a khan. This journey has been dramatically described by De
Quincey in an essay entitled "Revolt of the Tartars, or Flight of the
Kalmuck Khan and his people from the Russian territories to the Frontiers of
China." Of this contribution to literature it is
only necessary to remark that the scenes described, and especially the numbers
mentioned, must be credited chiefly to the perfervid imagination of the
essayist, and also to certain not very trustworthy documents sent home by Père Amiot. It is probable that about one hundred and sixty
thousand Turguts set out on that long march, of whom
only some seventy thousand reached their goal.
In 1781, the Dungans (or
Tungans) of Shensi broke into open rebellion, which was suppressed only after
huge losses to the Imperialists. These Dungans were
Mahometan subjects of China, who in very early times had colonized, under the
name of Gao-tchan, in Kansuh and Shensi, and subsequently spread westward into Turkestan. Some say that they
were a distinct race, who, in the fifth and sixth centuries, occupied the Tian
Shan range, with their capital at Harashar. The name,
however, means, in the dialect of Chinese Tartary, "converts," that
is, to Mahometanism, to which they were converted in
the days of Timour by an Arabian adventurer. We shall
hear of them again in a still more serious connexion.
Eight years later there was a revolution in
Cochin-China. The king fled to China, and Ch`ien Lung
promptly espoused his cause, sending an army to effect his restoration. This was no sooner accomplished than the chief Minister
rebelled, and, rapidly attracting large numbers to his standard, succeeded in
cutting off the retreat of the Chinese force. Ch`ien Lung then sent another army, whereupon the rebel Minister submitted, and humbled himself so completely that the Emperor appointed him to
be king instead of the other. After this, the Annamese continued to forward
tribute, but it was deemed advisable to cease from further interference with
their government.
The next trouble was initiated by the Gurkhas, who, in
1790, raided Tibet. On being defeated and pursued by a Chinese army, they gave
up all the booty taken, and entered into an agreement to pay tribute once every
five years.
The year 1793 was remarkable for the arrival of an
English embassy under Lord Macartney, who was received in audience by the
Emperor at Jehol (= hot river), an Imperial summer
residence lying about a hundred miles north of Peking, beyond the Great Wall.
It had been built in 1780 after the model of the palace of the Panshen Erdeni at Tashilumbo, in Tibet, when that functionary, the spiritual
ruler of Tibet, as opposed to the Dalai Lama, who is the secular ruler,
proceeded to Peking to be present on the seventieth anniversary of Ch`ien Lung's birthday. Two years later, the aged Emperor,
who had, like his grandfather, completed his cycle of sixty years on the
throne, abdicated in favour of his son, dying in retirement some four years
after. These two monarchs, K`ang Hsi and Ch`ien Lung, were among the ablest, not only of
Manchu rulers, but of any whose lot it has been to shape the destinies of
China. Ch`ien Lung was an indefatigable
administrator, a little too ready perhaps to plunge into costly military
expeditions, and somewhat narrow in the policy he adopted towards the
"outside barbarians" who came to trade at Canton and elsewhere, but
otherwise a worthy rival of his grandfather's fame as a sovereign and patron of
letters. From the long list of works, mostly on a very extensive scale,
produced under his supervision, may be mentioned the new and revised editions
of the Thirteen Classics of Confucianism and of the Twenty-Four Dynastic
Histories. In 1772 a search was instituted under Imperial orders for all
literary works worthy of preservation, and high provincial officials vied with
one another in forwarding rare and important works to Peking. The result was the
great descriptive Catalogue of the Imperial Library, arranged under the four
heads of Classics (Confucianism), History, Philosophy, and General Literature,
in which all the facts known about each work are set forth, coupled with
judicious critical remarks,—an achievement which has
hardly a parallel in any literature in the world.
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