China By Demetrius Charles Boulger































































 -  There is no
room to doubt that the Catholic priests had drawn a too hasty and too
favorable deduction from - Page 149
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There Is No Room To Doubt That The Catholic Priests Had Drawn A Too Hasty And Too Favorable Deduction From The Favor Of Kanghi.

They confounded their practical utility with the intrinsic merit and persuasive force of Christianity.

An enlightened ruler had recognized the former, but a skeptical people showed themselves singularly obdurate to the latter. The persecution of the Christians, of which the letters from the missionaries at Pekin at this time are so full, did not go beyond the placing of some restraint on the preaching of their religion. No wholesale executions or sweeping decrees passed against their persons attended its course or marked its development. Yung Ching simply showed by his conduct that they must count no longer on the favor of the emperor in the carrying out of their designs. The difficulties inherent in the task they had undertaken stood for the first time fully revealed, and having been denounced as a source of possible danger to the stability of the empire, they became an object of suspicion even to those who had sympathized with them personally, if not with their creed.

The early years of the reign of Yung Ching were marked by extraordinary public misfortunes. The flooding of the Hoangho entailed a famine, which spread such desolation throughout the northern provinces that it is affirmed, on credible authority, that 40,000 persons were fed at the state expense in Pekin alone for a period of four months. The taxes in some of the most important cities and wealthiest districts had to be greatly reduced, and the resources of the exchequer were severely strained. But the loss and suffering caused by the famine were speedily cast into the shade by a terrible and sudden visitation which carried desolation and destruction throughout the whole of the metropolitan province of Pechihli. The northern districts of China have for many centuries been liable to the frequent recurrence of earthquakes on a terribly vast and disastrous scale, but none of them equaled in its terrific proportions that of the year 1730. It came without warning, but the shocks continued for ten days. Over 100,000 persons were overwhelmed in a moment at Pekin, the suburbs were laid in ruins, the imperial palace was destroyed, the summer residence at Yuen Ming Yuen, on which Yung Ching had lavished his taste and his treasure, suffered in scarcely a less degree. The emperor and the inhabitants fled from the city, and took shelter without the walls, where they encamped. The loss was incalculable, and it has been stated that Yung Ching expended seventy-five million dollars in repairing the damage and allaying the public misfortune. Notwithstanding these national calamities the population increased, and in some provinces threatened to outgrow the production of rice. Various devices were resorted to to check the growth of the population; but they were all of a simple and harmless character, such as the issue of rewards to widows who did not marry again and to bachelors who preserved their state.

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