victorious, and in 1642 Cai-fong-fu itself fell into their hands, after a siege in which the horrors of war were aggravated by flood and famine; human flesh was sold in the streets of the starving city.

Meanwhile the Chinese court was in danger from native rebels almost or quite as formidable as the Tatars. In 1643 the Imperial general was reduced to beg the assistance of the European Tang-ja-wang (Adam Schall), who understood the use of artillery and the construction of bridges of boats. In accepting the command, the general had counted on the private resources of his family and himself; but on arriving at the seat of war, he found all his possessions in the hands of the rebels, and had no means of paying his troops; no assistance was to be obtained from the imperial revenues, which were distributed by the eunuchs among their own families and supporters. His force was thus paralyzed, and Li-tse-ching, the rebel chief, pressed on victoriously to the gates of Peking.

In this crisis Hoai-tsong appealed to his remaining adherents for advice; some proposed abdication, others flight to Southern China, others thought posterity would condemn the weakness of both these expedients; but no voice at once loyal and vigorous was to be heard, and the unhappy Emperor could only wait in hopes of succour from without. Before this could arrive, panic and treason delivered the virtually impregnable capital into the hands of the rebels; and to save himself from capture, the last Emperor of the Ming hung himself by the girdle, having first traced upon his clothes a few characters in which he protested that his shortcomings alone were not to blame; the nobles in his service had betrayed him, by concealing the truth as to his affairs. His body was left to the mercy of his enemies; he only prayed that the innocent people might be spared. Hoai-tsong was justified in complaining of the pusillanimity of his adherents, for even a loyal general in command of an army on the frontier against the Mantchus could think of no better way to avenge his master's death than to invite the Mantchus themselves to come and help him to defeat the rebel, offering as a reward not only gold, silver, and silk, but also a number of girls, "of which he knew the Tatars to be in want, to serve as wives for their young men." Li-tse-ching had proclaimed himself emperor, but made no attempt to hold Peking, and was in retreat when the Chinese army, joined by 60,000 Mongols and Mantchus, intercepted his passage. The victory of the allied forces was complete ; but the barbarian troops, as might have been foreseen, declined to take their departure when it was

won.

For eight years there had been no Mantchu emperor, only a Council of State, where all the princes sat in order of age. They now proposed to choose an emperor for themselves and China, rendering meanwhile due honours to Hoai-tsong as the last emperor of his dynasty. Li-tse-ching, the rebel chief, still called himself emperor; and the Chinese had invited a great-grandson of Chin-tsong to accept the throne, so that there was a choice of pretenders. But the Tatars had already got astute Chinese advisers on their side, or else the historian of the conquest has

been careful to give his record the colour most acceptable to the conquered, for the young Emperor is represented as protesting that it is not he, but the rebels, who overthrew the Ming Dynasty, and that he had only come to supplant the traitor and avenge and honour the memory of the last legitimate prince.

The distant provinces troubled themselves little about the whole affair, and it may be doubted whether any preceding dynasty possessed itself so quickly, and with so little serious opposition, of the whole empire as was the case with this alien house. The Ming pretender perished like the last representative of the Sung. An attempt was made to form a party for another prince of the same house who was strong in Fokien, and the alliance of the pirate chiefs of the coast was sought against the invaders, but with no better result than that of encouraging the most formidable of the pirates in his turn to covet the imperial rank. A militant Buddhist rallied the patriotic party for a time, but by 1649 all the serious rivals of the Mantchu Emperor were subdued, and the reigning dynasty entered on its career.

CHAPTER XXII.

EDUCATION, ART, AND SOCIAL CHANGes under the MING.

THE literature of the Ming Dynasty, in so far as it has been made accessible to European readers, does not throw much additional light upon the social and economic condition of the people. Philosophic historians, who had witnessed the expulsion of the Mongols, reproduced in picturesque language the doctrine of the alternation of growth and decay, which was already a commonplace in the time of Ssema-tsien. Nothing human can last for ever, and no human foresight can guard against the ever-varying dangers which prove fatal at last to each State or Dynasty in Even the sages of antiquity had no thought of avoiding this doom of change, and were content if, by following truth and virtue, they might earn so much of the blessing of Heaven that the evil days were deferred to another generation. This philosophy was not new in China, but some practical difference arises when, as now, it is professed by scholars who find in it an excuse for political inaction, instead of representing the conclusions of statesmen who, having done their best, discern with rational stoicism that even the best action has but a finite scope.

turn.

The history of the dynasty translated by the Abbé de la Marre gives more details than De Mailla's work respecting the struggle between the cultivating peasantry and the "agglomerators" of land in the 15th century, but unfortunately only half the work was completed, or at least published before the translator's death. Four lists of the amount of cultivated land registered for taxation were published under the Ming Dynasty; the first in 1370 by order of its founder, and the others respectively in 1502, 1542, and 1582. The quantities show a surprising variation; and it will be observed that the minimum is reached in 1502, just at the time when the revision of the salt monopoly, following the attacks upon agglomeration, began to encourage the industry of small cultivators.

Complaints of the growth of luxury and extravagance are met with from time to time, but at least as frequently at the beginning of the dynasty as

The latter area, according to M. Biot's estimate, would be about equivalent to 120 million acres, or a little over 10 acres to a family, according to a census taken two years before.

later. For instance, we learn from a semi-political skit of the 14th century, that persons who gave dinner parties, of pretensions beyond their means, used to hire fruit for dessert, to be looked at, not eaten. A costermonger was reproached for selling oranges a year old, which had been carefully kept so as to look fresh and bright outside, though dry and withered within, and "only fit for show at banquets." The dealer admits the imputation, and defends himself by observing that they are not more hollow and worthless than the degenerate rulers of the State! The author of this apologue was attached to the fortunes of Hung-woo, so the custom in question may have prevailed under the Mongols or earlier.

As a measure of the extent to which the paper money of the Mongols had been depreciated before their expulsion, we are told that a pound of rice cost about 6s. in paper. One of the first measures of Tai-tsou-ming was to issue a new copper money with coins of five different values, but in less than seven years paper was again resorted to; the people were forbidden to use either gold or silver for purposes of exchange, and required to sell all they had to the Government at its own price in paper; while payment of taxes was received half in copper and half in the new paper, which was naturally soon discredited. According to the rates laid down for the purchase of gold and silver, the value of the former appears as 4 to 1-a much lower rate than prevailed under the Mongols, when it was more nearly 10 to 1; but as there is nothing to account for an increasing scarcity of silver, it is probable that the proportion fixed by the edict was purely arbitrary. Gold not being in ordinary use, either as money or merchandise, the commerce of the country was not threatened with disorganization because the holders of gold were, in effect, more heavily taxed than the larger class possessed of silver.

Copper continued to be cast, and worn-out paper was called in from time to time, though in 1450, by a supreme absurdity, the use of copper money itself was prohibited for a time. Base money made of tin was in circulation, and in 1467 the ordinance of Tai-tsou was revived, requiring the taxes to be paid half in copper and half in paper. In 1489 a special edict was directed against the Government officers and other rich individuals who speculated in the Government paper, as the capitalists of the Tang Dynasty had done in the copper money of the day. As the paper was virtually inconvertible, and, according to any sound financial system worthless, it is difficult to see what can have been the inducement to attempt operations in it. But paper money, however much depreciated, like copper money, however much debased, can be made at a pinch to serve the purpose of a medium of exchange; some such medium was necessary up to a certain point, though Chinese ingenuity reduced the necessity to a minimum. And the supply was liable to fall short even of the modest, irreducible demand, so that if the cultivators had to pay any part of their taxes in paper, the holders of it could make their own terms. After this, nothing more is heard of the Ming paper, and little of cur1 Giles, Gems, p. 226.

rency troubles, perhaps because the use, as at present, of uncoined silver for commercial purposes became general. In the middle of the 16th century, an emperor is reported to have said that each of his predecessors had coined copper money to the value of about £3,000,000 sterling, and that he proposed to issue three times that amount. No fresh issues of paper are mentioned, but the old ones seem to have remained in circulation till they died a natural death. According to M. Biot, an elementary arithmetic, published in 1593, speaks of the paper tchao and copper cash as both legal tender, though the examples given in the work are of such different date and origin that they give no reliable clue to their comparative value.

At and after this date various regulations were issued respecting the use of silver in small bars, from which it appears that all attempts to restrain the use of silver for exchange had been given up. And with the use of silver in all transactions of importance, of course the demand for copper became less clamorous; and the existing supply may have proved fairly adequate, when its use was restricted to the petty trading of the masses. The circulation of paper was not formally put a stop to until the present dynasty, but the subsisting solution, such as it is, of the currency problem must have been worked out gradually by the unaided ingenuity of the commercial classes during the last century and a half of Ming rule.

What is regarded as the flourishing period of the Ming Dynasty is shorter in proportion than that boasted by former lines. It closes soon after the reign of Yung-lo in 1426, and so comprises less than sixty years. Most of the edicts respecting the public Examinations and the imperial Colleges, which continue in force, date from the earlier years of this period. Immediately after his accession (1368), Tai-tsou founded an imperial college at the then capital Nanking, and in the following year he issued an edict for the restoration of provincial and departmental colleges. A decree of 1370, which is still in force, declares that "all places of civil officers, whether attached to the court or to the government of the provinces, must be obtained by passing the test of examination." This was repealed for a time in 1373, but definitely re-enacted in 1384 after a short experience of the drawbacks to promotion by favour. In 1375 village schools after the pattern of the Rites of Chow were required to be provided, but this decree was never completely carried out. In 1382 a slight alteration was made in the allowance of rice assigned for the maintenance of scholars and teachers in the different district colleges, and grants of newly confiscated lands were made to the latter, so that they might grow their own grain instead of receiving it periodically from the Government.

The regulations of 1384 show that the examinations had become purely literary; law, mathematics, riding, and shooting had dropped out altogether, in spite of the anxiety shown by the Emperor to revive the solemn archery of the Chow, with a view to restoring the military spirit of the people. The first examination for the degree of Doctor took place at the capital in 1385,' together with one of a more arduous character for admis1 History has preserved the names of these three first Tsin-sse, or doctors.