Page:The Truth about China and Japan - Weale - 1919.djvu/24

 internecine and frontier wars in China was so great that in spite of all territorial expansion the population for upwards of sixteen centuries remained more or less stationary. There is in all history no similar record. Now, however, came a vast change. Thus three years after the death of the celebrated Manchu emperor Kang Hsi, in 1720, the population had risen to 125 millions. At the beginning of the reign of the no less illustrious Ch'ien Lung (1743) it was returned at 145 millions: towards the end of his reign in 1783 it had doubled and was given as 283 millions. In the reign of Chia Ch'ing (1812) it had risen to 360 millions; before the Taiping Rebellion (1842) it had grown to 413 millions: after that terrible rising it sunk to 261 millions. Thus good government between the years 1651 and 1842—a period of 191 years—increased China's population from 55 millions to 413 millions, an eightfold growth. It had been left to a foreign race to achieve this surprising result.

Who are the Japanese? For political reasons the Japanese trace their emperors from a sun-goddess who is supposed to have come