Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/752

* CHINESE EMPIRE. 654 CHINESE EMPIRE. Ocean, and from the Arctic Ocean to the Straits of Mahieea. The laws were eodilied, and litera- ture and public works lloui'ished. For a hall- L'ontury there was considerable commerce with italy. Marco Polo and his two uncles then lived in the empire, in the service of the Khan, used paper money and passports, and traveled on the Grand Canal, at a time when paper money, pass- ports, and canals were unknown in Europe. In- tercourse with the Arabs and the Persians waS continuous, and the lii^jhway into Kurope was maintained until the ^fonjiols in Central Asia embraced Islam and turned bigots, when com- munication ceased. The Jlongol dynasty, one of the' many foreign dynasties of China, ended in 1368, when the tlirone was occupied by the native Ming or Bright Dynasty, noted as patrons of the arts of peace. They cultivated friendly re- lations with other nations, and from them drew students to their great university in Nanking. Under their rule the Portuguese and Spaniards entered China. Canton became the centre of for- eign trade, and Peking, under Ricci, the focus of Komau Christianity. Modern History. The last Chinese imperial line, the Ming Dynasty (130S-I644), was of low origin, its founder having risen to power in a national reaction which followed the period of disorder due to the disintegration of the Mongol Empire imder the successors of Kublai Khan. 1'he first Jling sovereign added Tongking and Cochin China to the empire. China, liowever, was continually harassed by the Tartars, and in 1043 tile warlike !Manchus, besought to defend the country against its enemies, entered it as peaceful conquerors, and a iManchu prince estab- lished himself in Peking without serious opposi- tion, beginning the present Ta-Tsing, or 'Great Pure,' Dynasty (1G44). The enforced adoption by the Chinese of the plaited queue of the Manchus at first produced friction between the races, but this gradually disappeared, and Slanchus and Chinese assumed harmonious relations, although the former renuiined a distinct militiiry and offi- cial caste. In most cases the customs of the country and the methods of administration re- mained Chinese, as did the langu.ige, and, like uiost numerically weak conquerors, the Manchus were assimilated to the wavs of the people whom they had subdued. Kanghi (1 002-1 722 ), the second of the Manchu emperors, was perhaps the greatest of his line. Under him the boundaries of the empire were extended, notably liy the conquest of Tit>et: sciences and arts were en- couraged, and the great dictionary of the Chinese language was begun. His successor, Yimg Cheng (1723-30), began the persecution of the Catholic missionaries. These had entered the country fol- lowing in the footsteps of the Portuguese traders, who had appeared in China as early as 1.'>1C, and had been well received at first. The Chinese were never able to comprehend how ad- herents of the same religion could quarrel as they saw the .Tesuits, Franciscans, and Domini- cans quarrel, and the missionaries lost credit accordingly. Nor did the Portuguese traders conduct themselves in a way to win the lespeet of the Chinese, and the avarice, violence, and the spirit of bitter rivalry exhibited by them, as well as by the Spanisli, Dut^-h, and Knglish, all of whom in the Seventeenth Century I'ullowed the Portuguese in the Chinese field, tended to ac- centuate the suspicion with which the foreigners were regarded, A narrow and exclusive policy, intended to i)rotect China from the aggression of the 'barbarians,' was initialed before tin- close of the ^Iing jjcriod, and was developed by the JManehu emperors as time went on. Mutual mis- understandings due to Uie collision of diametri- cal Ij' opposed civilizations generated continual troubles. Since the lilx'ral days of the Mongol rulers the Chinese had been retiring within themselves, and the admission of foreigners to privileges of trade and intercourse «as regarded as a special grace to inferiors. Di|)li)matic inter- course, in the Western sense, they could not un- derstand, since the Emperor, the Sou of Heaven, liad no equals, and those who approaelied liini could only do so as vassals. The Vestern nations failed to understand this point of view, and Portugal, Spain, Holhind, and England tried to enter into iwrmanent relations with the Chinese (ioverunieiit, with most humiliating results. Only Russia had any success in dealing with Cliina ollicially before the first English war. Russia's rapid march across Asia had brouglit it inUj ccin- tact with (hina in the Sixteenth Centviry, and the first treat}' made between China and a Christian power was that of Nertchinsk with Russia, September 12, 1089, by which the latter's advance on the Amur was checked. The Russians, with iheir knowledge of Oriental peoples, have always Known better than other Europeans how to deal with the Cliinese, conceding mucli lo their preju- dices in nonessentials, but refusing to acknowl- edge any inleriority. The United Stales entered the China field in 1785; and in the palmy days of the old Oriental trade the commerce of the United States was second in volume among the Western nations; but the American Government made no attempt to safeguard the interests of its citizens, or to enter into relations with the Chi- nese Government. England began to trade with Canton in 1035, but this amounted to little until J 004. From 1004 until 1834 England's Chinese trade was in the hands of the East India Company, which the people of the Far East could never learn to regard as a political power. The Chi- nese Government looked upon the representa- tives of the East India t'onipany in the same way as they rcgitrded the hong merchants — a body without political status, to whom all matters re- garding foreign trade Iiad been relegated. The growth of English trade was vigorously fought by the Portugnese, who were first in the field, and wished to maintain a monopoly; but the trade and infiuence of the Portuguese declined ra])idly after 1753, until their once prosperous station of ilacao hardly paid its own exi)enses. The growth of Euroi)ean interests in the Far East created an epoch in Chinese historj' in spite of the spirit of cxclusiveness, A crisis was precipitated when the numopoly of the East India Com- ]iany came to an end in 1834, at about the same time when the heavy responsibilities to their own Government wliieh the hong mcrcliants were compelled to assume had made several of them bankrupt. Trade, which had been regulated by these two coi-poralions. became demoralized, and under the conditicms of mutual distrust and misunderstanding which already existed, trouble was inevitable. The (>])ium Ira Hie. a most impor- tant part of Oriental trade, lirought existing dilfercnces to a head. This Ira Hie had been made illegal by the Chinese Government in 1790, but