THE MANCHU DYNASTY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 95, 22 April 1912, Page 3

THE MANCHU DYNASTY.

ITS RISE AND DECAY. The name China retains for mos of us the romantic flavour which i has posscsed for many centuries. T the ancients it represented tiio shad owy region whence came the silks am brocades which great ladies delightei in, as they do now, and whence occas ional specimens of porcelain, whiti or. green or imitating various colour ed hard stones, made their way ac rosg unknown deserts. So it remained until in the l3tl century an outburst of quite a uuiqm kind occurred among the nomads o the great Asiatic desert, which final!,\ led to the conqust of all tlm ItUbwr world from the Sea of China to tin Carpathians. The 11 assian Empire he came trihulevy to the great Mongo Khan, who had his liapcrinl SiJat ii China, Hungary was desolated, tin Prussian knights were destroyed ai ]■ res burg-, while Baghdad was laid L ashes, and an end was jVnt to the Khalil's and their Splendid rule. 1 ho result PV this conquest was the union Under one chief for a greju nmny decades of a vast empire streteliing from the Persian Gulf iu>vj the Black Sea to the Pacific, aiul for the first time China passed out of the icalms of mist and fog and became a reality to the Western world. Travel j lors with picturesque pons, Among [ ‘thorn the unapproachable Vaconteir. afarco Polo, wandered to and fro between Europe and “Cathay,” ant. caravans exchanged the commodities u! the East and West at tiro HU me time. Many discoveries, such as the printing press, hanking, the niarin ei's compass, gunpowder, etc., iriatk their way hither, while China itself n as flooded with new ideas, especially from Persia, The Chinese People. It cannot be said that the new light tjus obtained did much to dissipate the romance and mystery surrounding the wonderful Land of the Rising Sun. The gap between ourselves and the thought and the taste of itr picturesque men and. women dressed in satin robes, with their often .ini passive yellow faces and slanting eyes seemed complete. Their language war so uncouth in structure, their writing so strange, their several religions ■ (one more curious than another) so puzzling, their buildings, especially their pagodas and temples, their ships their wonderful porcelain and lacquer, their family life, their moral and po lineal theories—ail these looked like products of another world. Artists.; dramatists, and picturesque .writerr revelled in painting the oddities, of these, queer and yet most attractive people. . , ) £ ■ , , , ; r, ! 1 » Ao wonder they differed so much, from Us, for never, save in ifie ■ eatfe of Japan, did a civilised human community live such a secluded life for so many thousand years. Nature bar been kind to them in thia respect: except on one side it gavefthem impassable frontiers—on the east the sea, on, the west the mightiest group of , mountains in the world, Tibet; on the south stretches of wild conn try thinly peopled. On the north- ado in' was the way open to the invader. In tins vast cnl-de-sae the China wo know, originated and grew. Wheilci its people originally came we know not, and, so far as available evidence goes, they answer more ''clearly to what the Greeks called autochthones than any known race. They arc remotely akin to the Tibetans in speech, while in this respect they are as far as well can be from their neighbours in Manchuria, Mongolia, and Turkes tan, in Korea and Japan. The “Hui'tlred Families.'’ fn the forests and hills of Southern China numerous scattered and primitive tribes exist, for the most classed by the "Chinese under the name Miaotze. They no doubt form the wreckage of the once continuous population of China south of the, Yangtsze River before it was conquered by the, Chinese. The land between the latter and the so-called Yellow River is the beautiful homo of the Chinese race, .the so-called “Hundred families.’’ Here it was doubtless developed, pei haps by the combination of several elements in primitive times, and here ii has passed through several vicissitudes of glowing. life, artistic skill and splendour, political and moral progress, interwoven with other periods of almdst. Byzantine stagnation. Each revival was apparently coincident with a huge graft of fresh blood and fresh idem imported from beyond itr; frontier!' when China passed for a time out of the Lands of its own folk and became subject to the foreigner. On each eas there was a culmination of prosperity followed by dire decay. Tli most famous of these conquests,’ and perhap; the most important in its effect, r ' o” Chirm, was the .Mongol domination above mentioned, which lasted ab'u:l 150 years. Those to whom the name Mongol is unfamiliar will remember the famous and very enlightened ruler of this dynasty apostrophised by Coleridge as Kubia Khan. In the middle of the 1-1 tli century the Mongols were driven out and the Chinese recovered their own again. The native dynasty which then succeeded, which is known its the Ming dynasty, is familiar enough to the students of Chinese art for its fine porcelain and painting. It was no less a great period of renascence in literature, and some of the mightiest in bulk and most encyclopaedic works which the world has seen were then produced; The Ming dynasty lasted till the fifth decade of the 17th century, when China was again conquered by another race of foreigners whoso name is familiar enough to ns all—namely, the Munch us. Tho Manchu Rsce. Who, then, were the Manelms? Tho long northern frontier of the Chinese Empire is bordered by three races. Physically they have certain marked resemblances in their yellow* skins.

scanty beards, slanting oyek, and Hat faces. Their languages differ very considerably in vocabulary, but are akin

in their grammatical structure. They have, however, had quite distinct histories from early timeij. and it iVofiid bo easy to exaggerate their kinship.

Tho three division’s are tile Turhc, the Mongols, aml las ti.y the Vi M I!(*1: US, and their relative*). Once tho EuiTern Turks were dominant north of tlm Chinese Wall, but they have gradually moved westward, being now grouped round the Altai mountains as a mitdeVis. The Mongols lie to the oast of them in the deserts of Mongolia so called, while east of the MOfigols c tho old homeland of the MaiU'.vm, which Vve call Manchuria. The Manelms before their conquest of China occupied ’ the soi'llitTh ji.ifi of that very U-l-tiie region and were ViVidy the civilised and cultured par tion of a widespread race wlrmh hr tended to tlio north- fit the It ire; Amur no*.! 'iiiclnded the Russian province of Dauria east of Lake Baikal, and are known as Tnugus. ft must be remeniheretl I but when they conquered Chimi the Mancha?

Were <ii UO eenSd Iklrbnvians. Their country WaS very fertile, they had largo and prosprous towns, fine roads,

and a literature largely consisting of translations from standard Chinese books, especially C'liinelie ~ Buddhist works-. They wei'o a vigorous, warlike race, well trained and armed and their Royal family was also, a gifted, stock. The CHncsc, while possessing a eon-

. siclerable 'capacity for ; | .Kelf-govcl'ii-mont, hit vO novel', heeli , Vel'y , tactful overlords. Exacting, at times cruel, and always supcrcilioim, they have had in.any troubles with their dependent satellites, the chief offenders being their frontier agents or the Residents at the neighbouring .Courts, whoso ways have been too often intolerable and their rapacity unbearable. It is not wonderful, therefore, that the Manelms should have lived on had terms with their suzerain at Pekin. They doubtless continually remembered, that they had once been masters of Northern China, which when conquered by the Mongols was ruled by a dynasty of the same race as tho later Manelms, and known as the Kin, or golden d y n a id y. First Manchu Emperors, Frontier lights continually occurred, and at length the Manelm ruler Thai tsu, a, person of singular gifts and strength, .determined to invade China, whore .the army was no, match for his ■tine soldiers. . Tins, .topic, place in 1010 and the following yearly, and ended in the conquest ,pf. .the Empire and the substitution of dynasty for tlqit of the Ming. ( The of tl}9 first epnqnel'or were, aiep great, fopce, japd ability, and npti.i^ly |( .t;wo of. ,,who ; bad long rpigfip, ,)\']iieh w j a§,,remarkable for the revived prowess of China in the field of anils as for its renewed,, virility iu the fields -of art, literature, and diplomacy, and the country was well governed and prosperous. The two -great anon-,were known as Kanglii ■ and’ ■' •-•*ns»:t* an; Vigorous'cahipiiigns HiTfe''Tought on thoi northern l dr jntieW add ’.the ' vdst area occupied - ‘by the ’ Mdngolc', and the more EakteCn' Turkc AeVC Tlioronghly subdued, the 1 Emperor himself talcing part fn them. Trade 'was prosperous, and with it*tame -the improvement of the larger towns and the encouragement of progressive theories. The Jesuit and other missionaries 'at Pekin introduced a knowledge of astronomy and had a well-lltied observatory. The greatest and most brilliant period in China’s artistic history for many centuries was coincident with the two reigns just mentioned, and when we-march through galleries of splendid porcelain like those of Mr Salting or Mr Bierpon! Morgan, we do not forget that most of the matchless pieces come from the end of the 17th and the first half of tho ISlh century, and are labelled as of the time of Rangin' and Kienhmg. They also continued tho excellent traditions of the Ming dynasty in the manufacture of cloisonne enamel.' and oT red lacquer. Meanwhile a great literary revival took place. The Emperor himself wrote poems, and one example of them may he seen cut on a series of -tablets of jade at the British Mnset'im. Most of the literature was, no doubt, translation, but it was translation mi - ll great scale and very jtiseful to the foreign scholar, who thus got a good guide to ambiguities of Chinese texts in the much less ambiguous Manelm translations. Presently a great colonising movement took place. The Chinese potmed into Southern Manchuria, settled in large: numbers in Malacca, and secured a largo trade in the seas of the Eastern lA rchipelago. A Growing Reaction. This period of enlightenment war. followed by the usual nenies:’;;. The Chinese have always ended by absorbing their maulers. It was the policy of .the Manelm conquerors to garrison tin country, especially its northern provinces and the capital, largely with men of purely Manelm blood. Tuey wore organised in a number of special regiments known as Banner, men. This mas natural, since the Chin; sc had ceased to he a warlike race like themselves, and they knew well that they only kept China by the sword, and were strangers encamped in the country. The Imperial Family, the very numerous Imperial Princes, and the greater part of the military and naval commanders, of the local governors and grandees and officials, were of Manelm blood and drawn from Manelm families. This was naturally resented by the Chinese, more especially since the Manelms had in so many ways ceased to lie. foreigners. They had, in fact, almost cnlireiv abandoned their language and become Chinese in speech as in dress and in their modi' of living. What aggravated the situation was that tho long-'

i'dicritcd capacity for passing examinations made the Chiac.se prc-caiin-

cut in the State competitions among tljfi schools and colleges and made the tell'tivc ifii’erioi'ily of the ivo.val and ■ miliary cade more obvious. It made

it also kunk r to bear ween so many high places werC reserved fol' their less equipped masters, who were exceed-

ingly Inienicul at times in their freatiiienl of thfihh

All the while, as happens continually in such eases, tin* great woaltn accumulating in the ruling and aristocratic caste led to unrestrained luxury and io all the vices incidental to poly gamy. The detluil holm of tho

State parsed out of the hands of the masculine type of rider who controlled the earlier period of Manelm ruin; women and favourites, with the sexless attendants in the harems, got more and more control of affairs, and the nih'i'ij became more and more feeble and debauched. Especially aggravated did the st ite of things become when a most aggressive, strong-willed, avaricious, mid imperious old lady becamel absolute master of the Palace

and it potent machinery, and piled up huge masses of gold and silver bars, while she interfered at every turn with critical matters of State, and her eunuchs sent dangerous critics to the land beyond the stars. No wonder th.at the Chinese have been very restive indeed for a long time under this intolerable readme avi have made move than one desperate effort to break the yoke in more than one very bloody rebellion. They have great traditions; no pedigree among the Dal ions Is older than theirs; they .have shown on many occasions that they can produce men of sterling ability. They are given to study, and are panting to be free from the trammels that liiud their public and private life and cramp their ambition, and are determined to be free from tho incubus which smothers every effort they have made. They feel themselves humiliated when they think of the object lesson which is always present to their eyes as a symbol of servitude —namely, the pigtail, which most people fancy is a peculiarly Chinese institution, while in fact it was introduced by the Manchus' as a badge of submission to them.