He Succeeded After Great Loss, And At The End Of Several
Campaigns, In Taking Kingchow And Songshan, But These Were His Last
Successes, For In The Year 1643 He Was Seized With A Fatal Illness At
Moukden, Which Terminated His Career At The Comparatively Early Age Of
Fifty-Two.
Taitsong's premature death, due, in all probability, to the
incompetence of his physicians, cut short a career that had not reached
its prime, and retarded the conquest of China, for the supreme authority
among the Manchus then passed from a skillful and experienced ruler into
the hands of a child.
The possession of a well-trained army, the production of two great leaders
of admitted superiority, and forty years of almost continuously successful
war, had not availed to bring the authority of the Manchus in any
permanent form south of the Great Wall. The barrier of Tsin Che Hwangti
still kept out the most formidable adversary who had ever borne down upon
it, and the independence of China seemed far removed from serious
jeopardy. At this juncture events occurred that altered the whole
situation, and the internal divisions of the Chinese proved more serious
and entailed a more rapid collapse than all the efforts of the Manchus.
The arch rebel Li Tseching, who proved more formidable to the Ming ruler
than his Manchu opponent, was the son of a peasant in the province of
Shansi. At an early age he attached himself to the profession of arms, and
became well known as a skillful archer and horseman.
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