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.
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 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.