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CHINA
CHINA DEMETRIUS CHARLES BOULGER CONTENTS
CHAP.
I. THE EARLY AGES
II. THE FIRST NATIONAL DYNASTY
III. A LONG PERIOD OF DISUNION
IV. THE SUNGS AND THE KINS
V. THE MONGOL CONQUEST OF CHINA
VI. KUBLAI AND THE MONGOL DYNASTY
VII. THE MING DYNASTY
VIII. THE DECLINE OF THE MINGS
IX. THE MANCHU CONQUEST OF CHINA
X. THE FIRST MANCHU RULER
XI. THE EMPEROR KANGHI
XII. A SHORT REIGN AND THE BEGINNING OF A LONG ONE
XIII. KEEN LUNG'S WARS AND CONQUESTS
XIV. THE COMMENCEMENT OF EUROPEAN INTERCOURSE
XV. THE DECLINE OF THE MANCHUS
XVI. THE EMPEROR TAOUKWANG
XVII. THE FIRST FOREIGN WAR
XVIII. TAOUKWANG AND HIS SUCCESSOR
XIX. THE SECOND FOREIGN WAR
XX. THE TAEPING REBELLION
XXI. THE REGENCY
XXII. THE REIGN OF KWANGSU
THE WAR WITH JAPAN AND SUBSEQUENT EVENTS
THE FUTURE OF CHINA
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
_Frontispiece_--The Emperor Receiving the Diplomatic Corps
Hong Kong
Canton--The Flower Pagoda
Kang the Reformer
PREFACE
As China has now fairly taken her place in the family of nations it is
unnecessary to elaborate an argument in support of even the humblest
attempt to elucidate her history. It is a subject to which we can no
longer remain indifferent because circumstances are bringing every day
more clearly into view the important part China must play in the changes
that have become imminent in Asia and that will affect the security of
our position and empire in that continent. A good understanding with China
should be the first article of our Eastern policy for not only in Central
Asia but also in Indo-China where French ambition threatens to create a
fresh Egypt her interests coincide with ours and furnish the sound basis
of a fruitful alliance.
This book which I may be pardoned for saying is not an abridgment of my
original work but entirely rewritten and rearranged with the view of
giving prominence to the modern history of the Chinese Empire may appeal
although they generally treat Asiatic subjects with regrettable
indifference to that wider circle of English readers on whose opinion and
efforts the development of our political and commercial relations with the
greatest of Oriental States will mainly depend.
D. C. BOULGER April 28 1893.
CHAPTER I
THE EARLY AGES
The Chinese are unquestionably the oldest nation in the world and their
history goes back to a period to which no prudent historian will attempt
to give a precise date. They speak the language and observe the same
social and political customs that they did several thousand years before
the Christian era and they are the only living representatives to-day of
a people and government which were contemporary with the Egyptians the
Assyrians and the Jews. So far as our knowledge enables us to speak the
Chinese of the present age are in all essential points identical with
those of the time of Confucius and there is no reason to doubt that
before his time the Chinese national character had been thoroughly formed
in its present mold. The limits of the empire have varied from time to
time under circumstances of triumph or disunion but the Middle Kingdom
or China Proper of the eighteen provinces has always possessed more or
less of its existing proportions. Another striking and peculiar feature
about China is the small amount of influence that the rest of the world
has exercised upon it. In fact it is only during the present century that
that influence can be said to have existed at all. Up to that point China
had pursued a course of her own carrying on her own struggles within a
definite limit and completely indifferent to and ignorant of the
ceaseless competition and contests of mankind outside her orbit which
make up the history of the rest of the Old World. The long struggles for
supremacy in Western Asia between Assyrian Babylonian and Persian the
triumphs of the Greek followed by the absorption of what remained of the
Macedonian conquests in the Empire of Rome even the appearance of Islam
and the Mohammedan conquerors who changed the face of Southern Asia from
the Ganges to the Levant and long threatened to overrun Europe had no
significance for the people of China and reacted as little on their
destiny as if they had happened in another planet. Whatever advantages the
Chinese may have derived from this isolation it has entailed the penalty
that the early history of their country is devoid of interest for the lest
of the world and it is only when the long independent courses of China
and Europe are brought into proximity by the Mongol conquests the efforts
of the medieval travelers the development of commerce and the wars
carried on for the purpose of obtaining a secure position for foreigners
in China--four distinct phases covering the last seven centuries--that any
confidence can be felt in successfully attracting notice to the affairs of
China. Yet as a curiosity in human existence the earlier history of that
country may justly receive some notice. Even though the details are not
recited the recollection of the antiquity of China's institutions must be
ever present with the student as affording an indispensable clew to the
character of the Chinese people and the composition of their government.
The first Chinese are supposed to have been a nomad tribe in the province
of Shensi which lies in the northwest of China and among them at last
appeared a ruler Fohi whose name at least has been preserved. His deeds
and his person are mythical but he is credited with having given his
country its first regular institutions. One of his successors was Hwangti
(which means Heavenly Emperor) who was the first to employ the imperial
style of Emperor the earlier rulers having been content with the inferior
title of Wang or prince. He adopted the convenient decimal division in
his administration as well as his coinage. His dominions were divided into
ten provinces each of these into ten departments these again into ten
districts each of which held ten towns. He regulated the calendar
originating the Chinese cycle of sixty years and he encouraged commerce.
He seems to have been a wise prince and to have been the first of the
great emperors. His grandson who was also emperor continued his good
work and earned the reputation of being "the restorer or even founder of
true astronomy."
But the most famous of Hwangti's successors was his great-grandson Yao who
is still one of the most revered of all Chinese rulers. He was "diligent
enlightened polished and prudent" and if his words reflected his actions
he must have been most solicitous of the welfare of his people. He is
specially remarkable for his anxiety to discover the best man to succeed
him in the government and during the last twenty-eight years of his reign
he associated the minister Chun with him for that purpose. On his death he
left the crown to him and Chun after some hesitation accepted the
charge; but he in turn hastened to secure the co-operation of another
minister named Yu in the work of administration just as he had been
associated with Yao. The period covered by the rule of this triumvirate is
considered one of the most brilliant and perfect in Chinese history and
it bears a resemblance to the age of the Antonines. These rulers seem to
have passed their leisure from practical work in framing moral axioms and
in carrying out a model scheme of government based on the purest ethics.
They considered that "a prince intrusted with the charge of a State has a
heavy task. The happiness of his subjects absolutely depends upon him. To
provide for everything is his duty; his ministers are only put in office
to assist him" and also that "a prince who wishes to fulfill his
obligations and to long preserve his people in the ways of peace ought
to watch without ceasing that the laws are observed with exactitude." They
were stanch upholders of temperance and they banished the unlucky
discoverer of the fact that an intoxicating drink could be obtained from
rice. They also held fast to the theory that all government must be based
on the popular will. In fact the reigns of Yao Chun and Yu are the ideal
period of Chinese history when all questions were decided by moral right
and justice and even now Chinese philosophers are said to test their
maxims of morality by the degree of agreement they may have with the
conduct of those rulers.
With them passed away the practice of letting the most capable and
experienced minister rule the State. Such an impartial and reasonable mode
of selecting the head of a community can never be perpetuated. The rulers
themselves may see its advantages and may endeavor as honestly as these
three Chinese princes to carry out the arrangement but the day must come
when the family of the able ruler will assert its rights to the
succession and take advantage of its opportunities from its close
connection with the government to carry out its ends. The Emperor Yu true
to the practice of his predecessors nominated the president of the
council as his successor but his son Tiki seized the throne and became
the founder of the first Chinese dynasty which was called the Hia from
the name of the province first ruled by his father. This event is supposed
to have taken place in the year 2197 B.C. and the Hia dynasty of which
there were seventeen emperors ruled down to the year 1776 B.C. These Hia
princes present no features of interest and the last of them named Kia
was deposed by one of his principal nobles Ching Tang Prince of Chang.
This prince was the founder of the second dynasty known as Chang which
held possession of the throne for 654 years or down to 1122 B.C. With the
exception of the founder who seems to have been an able man this dynasty
of twenty-eight emperors did nothing very noteworthy. The public morality
deteriorated very much under this family and it is said that when one of
the emperors wanted an honest man as minister he could only find one in
the person of a common laborer. At last in the twelfth century before our
era the enormities of the Chang rulers reached a climax in the person of
Chousin who was deposed by a popular rising headed by Wou Wang Prince of
Chow.
This successful soldier whose name signifies the Warrior King founded
the third Chinese dynasty of Chow which governed the empire for the long
space of 867 years down to 266 B.C. During that protracted period there
were necessarily good and bad emperors and the Chow dynasty was rendered
specially illustrious by the appearance of the great social and religious
reformers Laoutse Confucius and Mencius during the existence of its
power. The founder of the dynasty instituted the necessary reforms to
prove that he was a national benefactor and one of his successors known
as the Magnificent King extended the authority of his family over some of
the States of Turkestan. But on the whole the rulers of the Chow dynasty
were not particularly distinguished and one of them in the eighth century
B.C. was weak enough to resign a portion of his sovereign rights to a
powerful vassal Siangkong the Prince of Tsin in consideration of his
undertaking the defense of the frontier against the Tartars. At this
period the authority of the central government passed under a cloud. The
emperor's prerogative became the shadow of a name and the last three
centuries of the rule of this family would not call for notice but for the
genius of Laoutse and Confucius who were both great moral teachers and
religious reformers.
Laoutse the founder of Taouism was the first in point of time and in
some respects he was the greatest of these reformers. He found his
countrymen sunk in a low state of moral indifference and religious
infidelity which corresponded with the corruption of the times and the
disunion in the kingdom. He at once set himself to work with energy and
devotion to repair the evils of his day and to raise before his
countrymen a higher ideal of duty. He has been called the Chinese
Pythagoras the most erudite of sinologues have pronounced his text
obscure and the mysterious Taouism which he founded holds the smallest or
the least assignable part in what passes for the religion of the Chinese.
As a philosopher and minister Laoutse will always attract attention and
excite speculation but as a practical reformer and politician he was far
surpassed by his younger and less theoretical contemporary Confucius.
Confucius was an official in the service of one of the great princes who
divided the governing power of China among themselves during the whole of
the seventh century before our era which beheld the appearance of both of
these religious teachers and leaders. He was a trained administrator with
long experience when he urged upon his prince the necessity of reform and
advocated a policy of union throughout the States. His exhortations were
in vain and so far ill-timed that he was obliged to resign the service of
one prince after another. In his day the authority of the Chow emperor had
been reduced to the lowest point. Each prince was unto himself the supreme
authority. Yet one cardinal point of the policy of Confucius was
submission to the emperor as implicit obedience to the head of the State
throughout the country as was paid to the father of every Chinese
household. Although he failed to find a prince after his own heart his
example and precepts were not thrown away for in a later generation his
reforms were executed and down to the present day the best points in
Chinese government are based on his recommendations. If "no intelligent
monarch arose" in his time the greatest emperors have since sought to
conform with his usages and to rule after the ideal of the great
philosopher. His name and his teachings were perpetuated by a band of
devoted disciples and the book which contained the moral and
philosophical axioms of Confucius passed into the classic literature of
the country and stood in the place of a Bible for the Chinese. The list of
the great Chinese reformers is completed by the name of Mencius who
coming two centuries later carried on with better opportunities the
reforming work of Confucius and left behind him in his Sheking the most
popular book of Chinese poetry and a crowning tribute to the great Master.
From teachers we must again pass to the chronicle of kings although few
of the later Chow emperors deserve their names to be rescued from
oblivion. One emperor suffered a severe defeat while attempting to
establish his authority over the troublesome tribes beyond the frontier;
of another it was written that "his good qualities merited a happier day"
and the general character of the age may be inferred from its being
designated by the native chroniclers "The warlike period." At last after
what seemed an interminable old age marked by weakness and vice the Chow
dynasty came to an end in the person of Nan Wang who although he reigned
for nearly sixty years was deposed in ignominious fashion by one of his
great vassals and reduced to a humble position. His conqueror became the
founder of the fourth Chinese dynasty.
During the period of internal strife which marked the last four centuries
of the Chow dynasty one family had steadily waxed stronger and stronger
among the princes of China: the princes of Tsin by a combination of
prudence and daring gradually made themselves supreme among their
fellows. It was said of one of them that "like a wolf or a tiger he wished
to draw all the other princes into his claws so that he might devour
them." Several of the later Tsin princes and particularly one named Chow
Siang Wang showed great capacity and carried out a systematic policy for
their own aggrandizement. When Nan Wang was approaching the end of his
career the Tsin princes had obtained everything of the supreme power
short of the name and the right to wear the imperial yellow robes. Ching
Wang or to give him his later name as emperor Tsin Chi Hwangti was the
reputed great-grandson of Chow Siang Wang and under him the fame and
power of the Tsins reached their culminating point. This prince also
proved himself one of the greatest rulers who ever sat on the Dragon
throne of China.
The country had been so long distracted by internal strife and the
authority of the emperor had been reduced to such a shadow that peace was
welcomed under any ruler and the hope was indulged that the Tsin princes
who had succeeded in making themselves the most powerful feudatories of
the empire might be able to restore to the central government something
of its ancient power and splendor. Nor was the expectation unreasonable or
ungratified. The Tsins had fairly earned by their ability the confidence
of the Chinese nation and their principal representative showed no
diminution of energy on attaining the throne and exhibited in a higher
post and on a wider field the martial and statesmanlike qualities his
ancestors had displayed when building up the fabric of their power as
princes of the empire. Their supremacy was not acquiesced in by the other
great feudatories without a struggle and more than one campaign was
fought before all rivals were removed from their path and their authority
passed unchallenged as occupants of the Imperial office.
It was in the middle of this final struggle and when the result might
still be held doubtful that Tsin Chi Hwangti began his eventful reign.
When he began to rule he was only thirteen years of age but he quickly
showed that he possessed the instinct of a statesman and the courage of a
born commander of armies. On the one hand he sowed dissension between the
most formidable of his opponents and brought about by a stratagem the
disgrace of the ablest general in their service and on the other he
increased his army in numbers and efficiency until it became
unquestionably the most formidable fighting force in China. While he
endeavored thus to attain internal peace he was also studious in
providing for the general security of the empire and with this object he
began the construction of a fortified wall across the northern frontier to
serve as a defense against the troublesome Hiongnou tribes who are
identified with the Huns of Attila. This wall which he began in the first
years of his reign was finished before his death and still exists as the
Great Wall of China which has been considered one of the wonders of the
world. He was careful in his many wars with the tribes of Mongolia not to
allow himself to be drawn far from his own border and at the close of a
campaign he always withdrew his troops behind the Great Wall. Toward
Central Asia he was more enterprising and one of his best generals
Moungtien crossed what is now the Gobi Desert and made Hami the frontier
fortress of the empire.
In his civil administration Hwangti was aided by the minister Lisseh who
seems to have been a man of rare ability and to have entered heartily
into all his master's schemes for uniting the empire. While Hwangti sat on
the throne with a naked sword in his hand as the emblem of his authority
dispensing justice arranging the details of his many campaigns and
superintending the innumerable affairs of his government his minister was
equally active in reorganizing the administration and in supporting his
sovereign in his bitter struggle with the literary classes who advocated
archaic principles and whose animosity to the ruler was inflamed by the
contempt not unmixed with ferocity with which he treated them. The
empire was divided into thirty-six provinces and he impressed upon the
governors the importance of improving communications within their
jurisdiction. Not content with this general precept he issued a special
decree ordering that "roads shall be made in all directions throughout the
empire" and the origin of the main routes in China may be found with as
much certainty in his reign as that of the roads of Europe in the days of
Imperial Rome. When advised to assign some portion of his power to his
relatives and high officials in the provinces he refused to repeat the
blunders of his predecessors and laid down the permanent truth that "good
government is impossible under a multiplicity of masters." He centralized
the power in his own hands and he drew up an organization for the civil
service of the State which virtually exists at the present day. The two
salient features in that organization are the indisputable supremacy of
the emperor and the non-employment of the officials in their native
provinces and the experience of two thousand years has proved their
practical value.
When he conquered his internal enemies he resolved to complete the
pacification of his country by effecting a general disarmament and he
ordered that all weapons should be sent in to his capital at Hienyang.
This "skillful disarming of the provinces added daily to the wealth and
prosperity of the capital" which he proceeded to embellish. He built one
palace within the walls and the Hall of Audience was ornamented with
twelve statues each of which weighed twelve thousand pounds. But his
principal residence named the Palace of Delight was without the walls
and there he laid out magnificent gardens and added building to building.
In one of the courts of this latter palace it is said he could have drawn
up 10000 soldiers. This eye to military requirements in even the building
of his residence showed the temper of his mind and in his efforts to
form a regular army he had recourse to "those classes in the community
who were without any fixed profession and who were possessed of
exceptional physical strength." He was thus the earliest possessor in
China of what might be called a regular standing army. With this force he
succeeded in establishing his power on a firm basis and he may have hoped
also to insure permanence for his dynasty; but alas! for the fallacy of
human expectations the structure he erected fell with him.
Great as an administrator and successful as a soldier Hwangti was
unfortunate in one struggle that he provoked. At an early period of his
career when success seemed uncertain he found that his bitterest
opponents were men of letters and that the literary class as a body was
hostile to his interests and person. Instead of ignoring this opposition
or seeking to overcome it by the same agency Hwangti expressed his hatred
and contempt not only of the literary class but of literature itself
and resorted to extreme measures of coercion. The writers took up the gage
of battle thrown down by the emperor and Hwangti became the object of the
wit and abuse of every literate who could use a pencil. His birth was
aspersed. It was said that he was not a Tsin at all that his origin was
of the humblest and that he was a substituted child foisted on the last
of the Tsin princes. These personal attacks were accompanied by
unfavorable criticism of all his measures and by censure where he felt
that he deserved praise. It would have been more prudent if he had shown
greater indifference and patience for although he had the satisfaction of
triumphing by brute force over those who jeered at him the triumph was
accomplished by an act of Vandalism with which his name will be quite as
closely associated in history as any of the wise measures or great works
that he carried out. His vanquished opponents left behind them a legacy of
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