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. At the
eleventh hour the Emperor Tsonching had sent a message to Wou Sankwei,
begging him to come in all haste to save the capital; and that general,
evacuating Ningyuen, and leaving a small garrison at Shanhaikwan, had
begun his march for Pekin, when he learned that it had fallen and that the
Ming dynasty had ceased to be. Placed in this dilemma, between the
advancing Manchus, who immediately occupied Ningyuen on his evacuation of
it, and the large rebel force in possession of Pekin, Wou Sankwei had no
choice between coming to terms with one or other of them. Li Tseching
offered him liberal rewards and a high command, but in vain, for Wou
Sankwei decided that it would be better to invite the Manchus to enter the
country, and to assist them to conquer it. There can be no doubt that this
course was both the wiser and the more patriotic, for Li Tseching was
nothing more than a successful brigand on a large scale; whereas the
Manchu government was a respectable one, was well organized, and aspired
to revive the best traditions of the Chinese. Having come to a prompt
decision, Wou Sankwei lost no time in promptly carrying it out. He wrote a
letter to the Manchus, asking them to send an army to co-operate with his
in driving Li Tseching out of Pekin; and the Manchus, at once realizing
that the moment had arrived for conquering China, acquiesced promptly in
his plans, sent forward their advanced corps, and ordered a _levee en
masse_ of the nation for the conquest of China. Assured of his rear,
and also of speedy re-enforcement, Wou Sankwei did not delay a day in
marching on Pekin. Li Tseching sent out a portion of his army to oppose
the advance of Wou Sankwei; but the officer's instructions were rather to
negotiate than to fight, for to the last Li Tseching expected that Wou
Sankwei would come over to his side. He was already beginning to feel
doubtful as to the security of his position; and his fears were increased
by his superstition, for when, on entering Pekin, he passed under a gate
above which was written the character "joong" (middle), he exclaimed,
drawing his bow at the same time, "If I hit this joong in the middle, it
is a sign I have gained the whole empire, as the empire is joong, the
middle kingdom." His arrow missed its mark. The apprehensions of Li
Tseching were soon confirmed, for Wou Sankwei defeated the first army he
had sent out with a loss of 20,000 men. Li does not seem to have known of
the alliance between that officer and the Manchus, for he marched at the
head of 60,000 men to encounter him. He took with him the aged father of
Wou Sankwei and two Ming princes, who had survived the massacre of their
family, with a view to appealing to the affection and loyalty of that
commander; but these devices proved vain.
Wou Sankwei drew up his forces at Yungping in a strong position near the
scene of his recent victory; his front seems to have been protected by the
river Zanho, and he calmly awaited the attack of Li Tseching, whose army
far outnumbered his. Up to this point Wou Sankwei had not been joined by
any of the Manchus, but a body was known to be approaching, and he was
anxious to put off the battle until they arrived. For the same reason Li
Tseching was as anxious to begin the attack, and, notwithstanding the
strength of Wou Sankwei's position, he ordered his troops to engage
without delay. Adopting the orthodox Chinese mode of attack of forming his
army in a crescent, so that the extreme wings should overlap and gradually
encompass those of the enemy, Li trusted to his numerical superiority to
give him the victory. At one moment it seemed as if his expectation would
be justified; for, bravely as Wou Sankwei and his army fought, the weight
of numbers was telling its inevitable tale when a Manchu corps opportunely
arrived, and attacking the Chinese with great impetuosity, changed the
fortune of the day and put the army of Li Tseching to the rout.
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