Important places like Taiyuen and
Taitong surrendered to him after a merely nominal resistance, and when
they fell there was no further impediment in the way of his marching on
Pekin.
No preparations had been made to defend Pekin. The defenses were weak, the
garrison insufficient, as all the best troops were on the frontier, and
the citizens disposed to come to terms with the assailant rather than to
die in the breach for their sovereign. When Li pitched his tent outside
the western gate of the capital, and sent a haughty demand to the emperor
to abdicate his throne, he was master of the situation; but Tsongching,
ignorant of his own impotence, defied and upbraided his opponent as a
rebel. His indignation was turned to despair when he learned that the
troops had abandoned his cause, that the people were crying out for Li
Tseching, and that that leader's followers were rapidly approaching his
palace. Tsongching strangled himself with his girdle, but only one officer
was found devoted enough to share his fate. Although Tsongching had some
nominal successors, he was, strictly speaking, the last of the Ming
emperors, and with him the great dynasty founded by Hongwou came to an
end. The many disasters that preceded its fall rendered the loss of the
imperial station less of a blow to the individual, and the last of the
Ming rulers seems to have even experienced relief on reaching the term of
his anxieties. The episode of the faithful officer, Li Kweiching,
concludes the dramatic events accompanying the capture of Pekin and the
fall of the dynasty. After the death of his sovereign he attempted to
defend the capital; but overpowered by numbers he surrendered to the
victor, who offered him an honorable command in his service. Li Kweiching
accepted the offer on the stipulation that he should be allowed to give
the Emperor Tsongching honorable burial, and that the surviving members of
the Ming family should be spared. These conditions, so creditable to Li
Kweiching, were granted; but, at the funeral of his late sovereign, grief
or a spirit of duty so overcame him that he committed suicide on the grave
of Tsongching. Li Tseching, who had counted on valuable assistance from
this officer, became furious at this occurrence. He plundered and
destroyed the ancestral temple of the Mings, and he caused every member of
the imperial family on whom he could lay hands to be executed. Thus
terminated the events at Pekin in the absolute and complete triumph of the
rebel Li Tseching, and the panic produced by his success and severity
blinded observers to the hollowness of his power, and to the want of
solidity in his administration. Yet it seemed for a time as if he were
left the virtual master of China.
While the Ming power was collapsing before the onset of Li Tseching, there
still remained the large and well-trained Ming army in garrison on the
Manchu frontier, under command of the able general, Wou Sankwei.
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