Meantime Dissension Further Weakened The Already Discouraged Chinese
Forces.
The pirate Ching Chelong, who was the mainstay of the Ming cause,
cherished the hope that he might place his own family on the throne, and
he endeavored to induce the Ming prince to recognize his son, Koshinga, as
his heir.
Low as he had fallen, it is to the credit of this prince that he
refused to sign away the birth-right of his family. Ching was bitterly
chagrined at this refusal, and after detaching his forces from the other
Chinese he at last came to the resolution to throw in his lot with the
Manchus. He was promised honorable terms, but the Tartars seem to have had
no intention of complying with them, so far at least as allowing him to
retain his liberty. For they sent him off to Pekin, where he was kept in
honorable confinement, notwithstanding his protests and promises, and the
defiant threats of his son Koshinga. In preserving his life he was more
fortunate than the members of the Ming family, who were hunted down in a
remorseless manner and executed with all their relations on capture. The
only place that offered any resistance to the Manchus was the town of
Kanchow, on the Kan River, in Kiangsi. The garrison defended themselves
with desperate valor during two months, and a council of war was held amid
much anxiety, to consider whether the siege should be abandoned. Bold
counsels prevailed. The Manchus returned to the attack, and had the
satisfaction of carrying the town by assault, when the garrison were put
to the sword.
The relics of the Chinese armies gathered for a final stand in the city of
Canton, but unfortunately for them the leaders were still divided by petty
jealousies. One Ming prince proclaimed himself Emperor at Canton, and
another in the adjoining province of Kwangsi. Although the Manchus were
gathering their forces to overwhelm the Chinese in their last retreat,
they could not lay aside their divisions and petty ambitions in order to
combine against the national enemy, but must needs assail one another to
decide which should have the empty title of Ming emperor. The Manchus had
the satisfaction of seeing the two rivals break their strength against
each other, and then they advanced to crush the victor at Canton. Strong
as the place was said to be, it offered no serious resistance, and the
great commercial city of the south passed into the hands of the race who
had subdued the whole country from Pekin to the Tonquin frontier. At this
moment the fortune of the Manchus underwent a sudden and inexplicable
change. Two repulses before a fortress southwest of Canton, and the
disaffection of a large part of their Chinese auxiliaries, who clamored
for their pay, seem to have broken the strength of the advanced Manchu
army. A wave of national antipathy drove the Tartars out of Canton and the
southern provinces, but it soon broke its force, and the Manchus,
returning with fresh troops, speedily recovered all they had lost, and by
placing stronger garrisons in the places they occupied consolidated their
hold on Southern China.
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