KEEN LUNG'S WARS AND CONQUESTS
It was the arrival of a chief named Amursana at his court that first led
Keen Lung to seriously entertain the idea of advancing into Central Asia,
and having determined on the Central Asian campaign, Keen Lung's military
preparations were commensurate with the importance and magnitude of the
undertaking. He collected an army of 150,000 men, including the picked
Manchu Banners and the celebrated Solon contingent, each of whom was said
to be worth ten other soldiers. The command of this army was given to
Panti, the best of the Manchu generals, and Amursana, who accompanied it,
received a seal and the honorary title of Great General. But Keen Lung
superintended all the operations of the war, and took credit to himself
for its successful issue.
The triumph of Amursana, by the aid of the Chinese, did not bring
tranquillity to Central Asia. He was not contented with the position to
which the friendship of Keen Lung had raised him, and, placing too high an
estimate on his own ability and resources, he was inclined to dispute the
accepted opinion that all his success was due to the Chinese army. On the
termination of the campaign the major portion of that army returned to
China, but Panti was left with a select contingent, partly to support
Amursana, and partly to secure the restoration of China's authority.
Amursana, however, considered that the presence of this force detracted
from the dignity of his position. Having risen to the greatness he
coveted, Amursana meditated casting aside the prop by which he had risen;
but before he took an irretraceable step he resolved to make use of the
Chinese forces for extending his authority south of the Tian Shan range
into Kashgaria. With some hesitation Panti lent him 500 Chinese soldiers,
and with their aid the Eleuth prince captured the cities of Kashgar and
Yarkand, and set up a chief named Barhanuddin Khoja as his nominee. This
success confirmed Amursana in his good opinion of himself and his
resources, and when Keen Lung, who had grown mistrustful of his good
faith, summoned him to Pekin, he resolved to throw off the mask and his
allegiance to China. At this supreme moment of his fate not the least
thought of gratitude to the Chinese emperor, who had made him what he was,
seems to have entered his mind. He determined not merely to disregard the
summons to Pekin and to proclaim his independence, but also to show the
extent of his hostility by adding to his defiance an act of treachery.
Before he fully revealed his plans he surprised the Chinese garrison and
massacred it to the last man; the valiant Panti, who had gained his
victories for him, being executed by the public executioner.
The impression produced by this event was profound, and when Amursana
followed up the blow by spreading abroad rumors of the magnitude of his
designs they obtained some credence even among the Mongols. Encouraged by
this success he sought to rally those tribes to his side by imputing
minister intentions to Keen Lung. His emissaries declared that Keen Lung
wished to deprive them all of their rank and authority, and that he had
summoned Amursana to Pekin only for the purpose of deposing him. To
complete the quarrel, Amursana declared himself King of the Eleuths, and
absolutely independent of China. But the energy and indignation of Keen
Lung soon exposed the hollowness of these designs, and the inadequacy of
Amursana's power and capacity to make good his pretensions. Keen Lung
collected another army larger than that which had placed him on his
throne, to hurl Amursana from the supremacy which had not satisfied him
and which he had grossly abused.
The armies of Keen Lung traversed the Gobi Desert and arrived in Central
Asia, but the incapacity of his generals prevented the campaigns having
those decisive results which he expected. The autocratic Chinese ruler
treated his generals who failed like the fickle French Republic. The
penalty of failure was a public execution. Keen Lung would accept nothing
short of the capture of Amursana as evidence of his victory, and Amursana
escaped to the Kirghiz. His celerity or ingenuity cost the lives of four
respectable Chinese generals, two of whom were executed at Pekin and two
were slain by brigands on their way there to share the same fate.
Emboldened by the inability of the Chinese to capture him, Amursana again
assembled an army and pursued the retiring Chinese across the desert,
where he succeeded in inflicting no inconsiderable loss upon them.
When the Chinese army retired before Amursana one corps maintained its
position and successfully defied him, thanks to the capacity of its
commander, Tchaohoei. Tchaohoei not merely held his ground, but drew up a
scheme for regaining all that had been lost in Central Asia, and Keen Lung
was so impressed by it that he at once resolved to intrust the execution
of his policy to the only officer who had shown any military capacity. Two
fresh armies were sent to the Ili, and placed, on their arrival there,
under the command of Tchaohoei, who was exhorted, above all things, to
capture Amursana, dead or alive. Tchaohoei at once assumed the offensive,
and as Amursana was abandoned by his followers as soon as they saw that
China was putting forth the whole of her strength, he had no alternative
but once more to flee for shelter to the Kirghiz. But the conditions
imposed by Keen Lung were so rigorous that Tchaohoei realized that the
capture of Amursana was essential to his gaining the confidence and
gratitude of his master. He, therefore, sent his best lieutenant, Fouta,
to pursue the Eleuth prince. Fouta pursued Amursana with the energy of one
who has to gain his spurs, and he almost succeeded in effecting his
capture, but Amursana just made his escape in time across the frontier
into Russian territory. But Keen Lung was not satisfied with this result,
and he sent both to Fouta and Tchaohoei to rest satisfied with nothing
short of the capture of Amursana. The close of that unfortunate prince's
career was near at hand, although it was not ended by the act of the
Chinese officers. He died in Russian territory of a fever, and when the
Chinese demanded of their neighbors that his body should be surrendered
they refused, on the ground that enmity should cease with death; but Fouta
was able to report to his sovereign that he had seen with his own eyes the
mortal remains of the Eleuth chief who had first been the humble friend
and then the bitter foe of the Manchu ruler.
Keen Lung decided to administer the country which he had conquered. But
another step was seen to be necessary to give stability to the Chinese
administration, and that was the annexation of Kashgaria. The great region
of Little Bokhara or Eastern Turkestan, known to us now under the more
convenient form of Kashgaria, was still ruled by the Khoja Barhanuddin,
who had been placed in power by Amursana, and it afforded a shelter for
all the disaffected, and a base of hostility against the Chinese. Even if
Tchaohoei had not reported that the possession of Kashgaria was essential
to the military security of Jungaria, there is no doubt that sooner or
later Keen Lung would have proceeded to extreme lengths with regard to
Barhanuddin. The Chinese were fully warranted, however, in treating him as
an enemy when he seized an envoy sent to his capital by Tchaohoei and
executed him and his escort. This outrage precluded all possibility of an
amicable arrangement, and the Chinese prepared their fighting men for the
invasion and conquest of Kashgaria. They crossed the frontier in two
bodies, one under the command of Tchaohoei, the other under that of Fouta.
Any resistance that Barhanuddin and his brother attempted was speedily
overcome; the principal cities, Kashgar and Yarkand, were occupied, and
the ill-advised princes were compelled to seek their personal safety by a
precipitate flight. The conquest and annexation of Kashgaria completed the
task with which Tchaohoei was charged, and it also realized Keen Lung's
main idea by setting up his authority in the midst of the turbulent tribes
who had long disturbed the empire, and who first learned peaceful pursuits
as his subjects. The Chinese commanders followed up this decided success
by the dispatch of several expeditions into the adjoining states.
The ruler of Khokand was either so much impressed by his neighbor's
prowess, or, as there is much reason to believe, experienced himself the
weight of their power by the occupation of his principal cities, Tashkent
and Khokand, that he hastened to recognize the authority of the emperor
and to enroll himself among the tributaries of the Son of Heaven. The
tribute he bound himself to pay was sent without a break for a period of
half a century. The Kirghiz chiefs of low and high degree imitated his
example, and a firm peace was thus established from one end of Central
Asia to the other. The administration was divided between Chinese and
native officials, and if there was tyranny, the people suffered rather
from that of the Mohammedan Hakim Beg than that of the Confucian Amban.
Keen Lung was engaged in many more wars than those in Central Asia. On the
side of Burmah he found his borders disturbed by nomad and predatory
tribes not less than in the region of Gobi. These clans had long been a
source of annoyance and anxiety to the viceroy of Yunnan, but the weakness
of the courts of Ava and Pegu, who stood behind these frontagers, had
prevented the local grievance becoming a national danger. But the triumph
of the remarkable Alompra, who united Pegu and Burmah into a single state,
and who controlled an army with which he effected many triumphs, showed
that this state of things might not always continue, and that the day
would come when China might be exposed to a grave peril from this side.
The successors of Alompra inherited his pretensions if not his ability,
and when the Chinese called upon them to keep the borders in better order
or to punish some evildoers, they sent back a haughty and unsatisfactory
reply. Sembuen, the grandson of Alompra, was king when Keen Lung ordered,
in the year 1768, his generals to invade Burmah, and the conduct of the
war was intrusted to an officer in high favor at court, named Count
Alikouen, instead of to Fouta, the hero of the Central Asian war, who had
fallen under the emperor's grave displeasure for what, after all, appears
to have been a trifling offense. The course of the campaign is difficult
to follow, for both the Chinese and the Burmese claim the same battles as
victories, but this will not surprise those who remember that the Burmese
court chroniclers described all the encounters with the English forces in
the wars of 1829 and 1853 as having been victorious. The advance of the
Chinese army, estimated to exceed 200,000 men, from Bhamo to Ava shows
clearly enough the true course of the war, and that the Chinese were able
to carry all before them up to the gates of the capital. Count Alikouen
did not display any striking military capacity, but by retaining
possession of the country above Ava for three years he at last compelled
the Burmese to sue for peace on humiliating terms.
In previous chapters the growth of China's relations with Tibet has been
traced, and especially under the Manchu dynasty. The control established
by Kanghi after the retirement of the Jungarian army was maintained by
both his successors, and for fifty years Tibet had that perfect
tranquillity which is conveyed by the expression that it had no history.
The young Dalai Lama, who fled to Sining to escape from Latsan Khan, was
restored, and under the name of Lobsang Kalsang pursued a subservient
policy to China for half a century. In the year 1749 an unpleasant
incident took place through a collision between the Chinese ambans and the
Civil Regent or Gyalpo, who administered the secular affairs of the Dalai
Lama. The former acted in a high-handed and arbitrary manner, and put the
Gyalpo to death. But in this they went too far, for both the lamas and the
people strongly resented it, and revolted against the Chinese, whom they
massacred to the last man. For a time it looked as if the matter might
have a very serious ending, but Keen Lung contented himself with sending
fresh ambans and an escort to Tibet, and enjoining them to abstain from
undue interference with the Tibetans. But at the same time that they
showed this moderation the Chinese took a very astute measure to render
their position stronger than ever. They asserted their right to have the
supreme voice in nominating the Gyalpo, and they soon reduced that high
official, the Prime Minister of Tibet, to the position of a creature of
their own. The policy was both astute and successful. The Tibetans had
welcomed the Chinese originally because they saved them from the Eleuth
army, and provided a guarantee against a fresh invasion. But the long
peace and the destruction of the Eleuth power had led the Tibetans to
think less of the advantage of Chinese protection, and to pine for
complete independence. The lamas also bitterly resented the assumption by
the ambans of all practical authority. How long these feelings could have
continued without an open outbreak must remain a matter of opinion; but an
unexpected event brought into evidence the unwarlike character of the
Tibetans, and showed that their country was exposed to many dangers from
which only China's protection could preserve them. In Kanghi's time the
danger had come from Ili; in the reign of Keen Lung it came from the side
of Nepaul.
As a general rule the mighty chain of the Himalaya has effectually
separated the peoples living north and south of it, and the instances in
history are rare of any collision between them. Of all such collisions the
most important was that which has now to be described as the main cause of
the tightening of the hold of China upon Tibet. The mountain kingdom of
Nepaul was equally independent of the British and the Mogul Empire of
Delhi. It was ruled by three separate kings, until in the year 1769 the
Goorkha chief Prithi Narayan established the supremacy of that warlike
race. The Goorkhas cared nothing for trade, and their exactions resulted
in the cessation of the commercial intercourse which had existed under the
Nepaulese kings between India and Tibet. Their martial instincts led them
to carry on raids into both Tibet and India. The Tibetans were unequal to
the task of punishing or restraining them, and at last the Goorkhas were
inspired with such confidence that they undertook the invasion of their
country. It is said that the Goorkhas were encouraged to take this, step
by the belief that the Chinese would not interfere, and that the
lamaseries contained an incalculable amount of treasure. The Goorkhas
invaded Tibet in 1791 with an army of less than 20,000 men, and, advancing
through the Kirong and Kuti passes, overcame the frontier guards, and
carried all before them up to the town of Degarehi, where they plundered
the famous lamasery of Teshu Lumbo, the residence of the Teshu Lama.
Having achieved this success and gratified their desire for plunder, the
Goorkhas remained inactive for some weeks, and wasted much precious time.
The Tibetans did not attempt a resistance, which their want of military
skill and their natural cowardice would have rendered futile, but they
sent express messengers to Pekin entreating the Chinese emperor to send an
army to their assistance. Keen Lung had not sent troops to put a stop to
the raids committed on the frontier by the Goorkhas; but when he heard
that a portion of his dominions was invaded, and that the predominance of
his country in the holy land of Buddhism was in danger, he at once ordered
his generals to collect all the forces they could and to march without
delay to expel the foreign invader. He may have been urged to increased
activity by the knowledge that the Tibetans had also appealed for aid to
the British, and by his being ignorant what steps the Indian Government
would take. Within a very short time of the receipt of the appeal for
assistance a Chinese army of 70,000 men was dispatched into Tibet, and the
Goorkhas, awed by this much larger force, began their retreat to their own
country. Their march was delayed by the magnitude of their spoil, and
before they had reached the passes through the Himalaya the Chinese army
had caught them up. In the hope of securing a safe retreat for his baggage
and booty, the Goorkha commander drew up his force in battle array on the
plain of Tengri Maidan, outside the northern entrance of the Kirong Pass,
and the Chinese general, Sund Fo, made his dispositions to attack the
Goorkhas; but before delivering his attack he sent a letter reciting the
outrages committed, and the terms on which his imperial master would grant
peace. Among these were the restitution of the plunder and the surrender
of the renegade lama, whose tales were said to have whetted the cupidity
of the Goorkhas. A haughty reply was sent back, and the Chinese were told
to do their worst.
In the desperately-contested battle which ensued the victory was decisive,
and the Goorkha king at once sued for peace, which was readily granted, as
the Chinese had attained all their objects, and Sund Fo was beginning to
be anxious about his retreat owing to the approach of winter. When,
therefore, the Goorkha embassy entered his camp Sund Fo granted terms
which, although humiliating, were as favorable as a defeated people could
expect. The Goorkhas took an oath to keep the peace toward their Tibetan
neighbors, to acknowledge themselves the vassals of the Chinese emperor,
to send a quinquennial embassy to China with the required tribute, and,
lastly, to restore all the plunder that had been carried off from Teshu
Lumbo. The exact language of this treaty has never been published, but its
provisions have been faithfully kept. The Goorkhas still pay tribute to
China; they have kept the peace with one insignificant exception ever
since on the Tibetan border; and they are correctly included among the
vassals of Pekin at the present time. The gratitude of the Tibetans, as
well as the increased numbers of the Chinese garrison, insured the
security of China's position in Tibet, and, as both the Tibetans and the
Goorkhas considered that the English deserted them in their hour of need,
for the latter when hard pressed also appealed to us for assistance, China
has had no difficulty in effectually closing Tibet to Indian trade. China
closed all the passes on the Nepaul frontier, and only allowed the
quinquennial mission to enter by the Kirong Pass. Among all the military
feats of China none is more remarkable or creditable than the overthrow of
the Goorkhas, who are among the bravest of Indian races, and who, only
twenty years after their crushing defeat by Sund Fo, gave the Anglo-Indian
army and one of its best commanders, Sir David Ochterloney, an infinity of
trouble in two doubtful and keenly contested campaigns.
Keen Lung's war in Formosa calls for only brief notice; but, in concluding
our notice of his many military conquests and campaigns, some description
must be given of the great rising in an island which Chinese writers have
styled "the natural home of sedition and disaffection." In the year 1786
the islanders rose, slaughtered the Tartar garrisons, and completely
subverted the emperor's authority. The revolt was one not on the part of
the savage islanders themselves, but of the Chinese colonists, who were
goaded into insurrection by the tyranny of the Manchu officials. At first
it did not assume serious dimensions, and it seemed as if it would pass
over without any general rising, when the orders of the Viceroy of
Fuhkien, to which Formosa was dependent until made a separate province a
few years ago, fanned the fuel of disaffection to a flame. The popular
leader Ling organized the best government he could, and, when Keen Lung
offered to negotiate, laid down three conditions as the basis of
negotiation. They were that "the mandarin who had ordered the cruel
measures of repression should be executed," that "Ling personally should
never be required to go to Pekin," and, thirdly, that "the mandarins
should abandon their old tyrannical ways." Keen Lung's terms were an
unconditional surrender and trust in his clemency, which Ling, with
perhaps the Miaotze incident fresh in his mind, refused. At first Keen
Lung sent numerous but detached expeditions to reassert his power; but
these were attacked in detail, and overwhelmed by Ling. Keen Lung said
that "his heart was in suspense both by night and by day as to the issue
of the war in Formosa"; but, undismayed by his reverses, the emperor sent
100,000 men under the command of a member of his family to crush the
insurrection. Complete success was attained by weight of numbers, and
Formosa was restored to its proper position in the empire.
A rising in Szchuen, which may be considered from some of its features the
precursor of the Taeping Rebellion, and the first outbreak of the Tungan
Mohammedans in the northwest, whom Keen Lung wished to massacre, marked
the close of this long reign, which was rendered remarkable by so many
military triumphs. The reputation of the Chinese empire was raised to the
highest point, and maintained there by the capacity and energy of this
ruler. Within its borders the commands of the central government were
ungrudgingly obeyed, and beyond them foreign peoples and states respected
the rights of a country that had shown itself so well able to exact
obedience from its dependents and to preserve the very letter of its
rights. The military fame of the Chinese, which had always been great
among Asiatics, attained its highest point in consequence of these
numerous and rapidly-succeeding campaigns. The evidences of military
proficiency, of irresistible determination, and of personal valor not
easily surpassed, were too many and too apparent to justify any in
ignoring the solid claims of China to rank as the first military country
in Asia--a position which, despite the appearance of England and Russia in
that continent, she still retains, and which must eventually enable her to
exercise a superior voice in the arrangement of its affairs to that of
either of her great and at present more powerful and better prepared
neighbors.