The Manchus Seem To Have
Been A Little Alarmed By The Boldness Of Taitsong's Scheme, And They Might
Have Hesitated
To follow him if he had given them any time for reflection,
but his plans were not fully known until
His forces were through the
Dangan Pass on the march to the capital. The Chinese, relying altogether
on Ningyuen as a defense, had made no preparation to hold their ground on
this side, and Taitsong encountered no opposition until he reached Kichow.
Then Chungwan, realizing that he had been outmaneuvered, and that the
defenses of Ningyuen had been turned, hastened back by forced marches to
defend Pekin. Owing to his road being the better of the two he gained the
capital in time, and succeeded in throwing himself and his troops into it
in order to defend it against the assault of the Manchus. After Taitsong
sat down before Pekin he engaged in an intrigue for the ruin of Chungwan,
whose disgrace would be equivalent to a great victory. The method is not
to be approved on general grounds, but Taitsong conceived that he was
justified in bribing persons in Pekin to discredit Chungwan and compass
his ruin. The emperor was persuaded that Chungwan was too powerful a
subject to be absolutely loyal, and it was asserted that he was in
communication with the enemy. Chungwan, who had been so long the buttress
of the kingdom, was secretly arrested and thrown into a prison from which
he never issued. The disappearance of Chungwan was as valuable to Taitsong
as a great victory, and he made his final preparations for assaulting
Pekin; but either the want of supplies or the occurrence of some
disturbance in his rear prevented the execution of his plan. He drew off
his forces and retired behind the Great Wall at the very moment when Pekin
seemed at his mercy.
During four years of more or less tranquillity Taitsong confined his
attention to political designs, and to training a corps of artillery, and
then he resumed his main project of the conquest of China. Instead of
availing themselves of the lull thus afforded to improve their position,
the Chinese ministers seemed to believe that the danger from the Manchus
had passed away, and they treated all the communications from Taitsong
with imprudent and unnecessary disdain. Their attention was also
distracted by many internal troubles, produced by their own folly, as well
as by the perils of the time.
Taitsong, in 1634, resumed his operations in China, and on this occasion
he invaded the province of Shansi, at the head of an army composed largely
of Mongols as well as of Manchus. Although the people of Shansi had not
had any practical experience of Manchu prowess, and notwithstanding that
their frontier was exceedingly strong by nature, Taitsong met with little
or no resistance from either the local garrisons or the people themselves.
One Chinese governor, it is said, ventured to publish a boastful report of
an imaginary victory over the Manchus, and to send a copy of it to Pekin.
Taitsong, however, intercepted the letter, and at once sent the officer a
challenge, matching 1,000 of his men against 10,000 of the Chinese. That
the offer was not accepted is the best proof of the superiority of the
Manchu army.
It was at the close of this successful campaign in Shansi, that Taitsong,
in the year 1635, assumed, for the first time among any of the Manchu
rulers, the style of Emperor of China. Events had long been moving in this
direction, but an accident is said to have determined Taitsong to take
this final measure. The jade seal of the old Mongol rulers was suddenly
discovered, and placed in the hands of Taitsong. When the Mongols heard of
this, forty-nine of their chiefs hastened to tender their allegiance to
Taitsong and the only condition made was that the King of Corea should be
compelled to do so likewise. Taitsong, nothing loth, at once sent off
letters to the Corean court announcing the adhesion of the Mongols, and
calling upon the king of that state to recognize his supremacy. But the
Corean ruler had got wind of the contents of these letters and declined to
open them, thus hoping to get out of his difficulty without offending his
old friends the Chinese. But Taitsong was not to be put off in this
fashion. He sent an army to inflict chastisement on his neighbor, and its
mission was successfully discharged. The king and his family were taken
prisoners, although they had fled to the island of Gangwa for safety, and
Corea became a Manchu possession. The last years of Taitsong's life were
spent in conducting repeated expeditions into the provinces of Shansi and
Pechihli, but the strength of the fortresses of Ningyuen and Shanhaikwan
on the Great Wall effectually prevented his renewing his attempt on Pekin.
These two places with the minor forts of Kingchow and Songshan formed a
quadrilateral that effectually secured Pekin on its northern side, and
being intrusted to the defense of Wou Sankwei, a general of great
capacity, of whom much more will be heard, all Taitsong's ability and
resources were taxed to overcome those obstacles to his progress south of
the Great Wall. 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.
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