Page:The Truth about China and Japan - Weale - 1919.djvu/23

 ous centuries, so now did the plains of the Tartars receive in large numbers the Sons of Han.

This Manchurian colonization was, however, limited to the Liaotung, i.e. the country east of the Liao River, and to the districts immediately adjoining it. Beyond—in the mountains and forests—lurked fierce tribes ever ready to raid their peaceful neighbours. The Chinese symbols of conquest were now as in the dim past the mattock and the plough; their permanent posture was one of defence carried on from inside walled cities. In the sixteenth century began their historic struggle with the Manchus, a race of mountaineers living at the foot of the Ever White mountain, who finally repeated the miracle of Kublai Khan and his Tartars and conquered the Empire after a conflict lasting two generations.

The first census taken by the Manchus in 1651, after the restoration of order, returned China's population at 55 million persons, which is less than the number given in the first census of the Han dynasty, 1, and about the same as when Kublai Khan established the Mongol dynasty in 1295. Thus we are faced by the amazing fact that, from the beginning of the Christian era, the toll of life taken by