Secret Annals of the Manchu Court: Ii. The Sack of Yang Chou-Fu

THE history of China, ancient and modern, is an eternal series of paroxysms; its keynote is bloodshed and famine, with periods of peace and prosperity purchased by the slaughter of countless innocents. Its splendid civilization, based on an unassailable moral philosophy and the canons of the Sages, has ever proved powerless against the inexorable laws of nature, the pitiless cruelty of the struggle for life, intensified by a social system which inculcates procreative recklessness and passive fatalism. Under Mongols, Mings, and Manchus the stern retributive law and its fulfillment have ever been the same, — history persistently repeating itself, at the passing of dynasties, with fearful monotony of wholesale massacres.

The following narrative of the sack of Yang Chou-fu by the Manchus, in 1645, was written by one (his name is unknown) who was himself a victim and an eye-witness of those fearful days of slaughter, — of events which may be taken as normal at times of conquest and civil strife in Oriental lands. The blood-lust of the victorious Manchus was no more fierce than that of the Mongols before them, or for that matter, of the Chinese of to-day. Throughout all the recorded history of the Empire, these wholesale massacres of non-combatants have been an accepted feature of the sorry scheme of things; a deliberate, cold-blooded, almost instinctive fulfillment of the law which prescribes the survival of the fittest among a people with whom the problem of daily bread is ever insistently insoluble. Compared with the most merciless butcheries of ancient and modern times in Europe, with the worst excesses of ‘Kirke’s lambs’ or Alva’s butchers, the slaughter of Orientals by Orientals lacks those factors of religious and political hatred which often explain the extermination of whole communities. Yet another feature common to these records of Chinese cities left desolate, is the complete lack of resistance on the part of their inhabitants — a few thousands of savage soldiery, let loose without discipline or military cohesion on a walled city of a million inhabitants, will convert it, almost methodically, into a shambles, their terror-stricken victims awaiting death with pitiful helplessness.

Yang Chou-fu,¹ on the Grand Canal in Kiangsu, has always been an important city. Strategically, before the days of railways, it was the gate of the southern capital, Nanking, for invaders from the north. Its ancient walls are some four miles in circumference, and in olden days, when the Grand Canal was the great artery of trade between the Yangtsze and North China, it boasted great wealth and a large population. Before the Manchu invasion it had suffered, as all Central China had suffered, from the disorders of rebellion and from the general unrest brought about by the chaotic condition of affairs in Peking; but until 1644 the tide of civil war had flowed northward, and though the cities of the plain had paid for it in silver, there had been but little bloodshed in their streets. After the fall of Peking and the collapse of the Mings before the rebel forces of Li Tzû-ch’eng, came the swift turning of the tide: Li’s great army, routed by Wu San-kuei and the Manchus, fled southward and west, while the fugitive Mings established their court at Nanking, and gathered together their shattered forces to prevent the Manchus from crossing the Yangtsze.

In 1644, when the Manchu armies began their invasion and subjugation of the south, the population of Yang Chou-fu was estimated at over a million. Lying on the direct route of the invaders to Nanking, it was held for the Mings by their ablest general, Shih K’o-fa, and garrisoned with an army of about 40,000 men. If Prince Fu, heir to the throne of the Mings, had not been hopelessly dissolute and incapable, if he and his advisers at the court of Nanking had given General Shih the loyal support he deserved, the Manchus would probably never have reached the Yangtsze. But the court was wholly engrossed in licentious pleasures, its scanty revenues were wasted in wine-bibbing and play-acting, its forces in the field unprovided with the necessaries of life and materials of war.

Shih K’o-fa had been obliged to detach part of the garrison of Yang Chou-fu, at a most critical moment, to protect a store of munitions and equipment which he had been compelled to leave behind him on his forced march from Soochow. Even so, he might have destroyed the army of the invaders before the investment of the city, had he been willing to cut the banks of the Huai River and flood the country. But Shih was a scholar and a humane man, and preferred the risks of war to the infliction of enduring misery on vast numbers of his fellow countrymen. He might have saved himself, his army, and the city, had he been willing to entertain the advances made to him by the Manchu Regent and forsake the cause of the Mings. But hoping against hope for reinforcements, he met with a dignified refusal the Regent’s offers to confer wealth and honor upon him as the price of disloyalty. He took a terrible responsibility, and he paid the price of high failure; and with him, more than half a million men, women, and children ‘went to their graves like beds.’

The diary from which the following narrative is taken is dated the fourth Moon of the ‘Yi Yu’ year (1645).

On the fourteenth day of the Yi Yu year, it was reported to General Shih K’o-fa, the commander-in-chief, by his staff, that Yang Ho (on the Huai River) had fallen, and our garrison prepared for a siege. Soldiers were quartered in every house; a certain Colonel Yang and his men were billeted on me. Their discipline was very bad: we had to supply them with everything and their keep cost us several strings of cash per day. As their demands became ever more importunate, I invited Colonel Yang to a banquet and seized the opportunity to beg him to keep his men in better order. After this we were somewhat less disturbed. The colonel enjoyed listening to the flute, and we called in some singing girls to entertain his men.

There was fierce fighting on the walls and around the city for ten days and nights ² and we all hoped that the garrison would repel the enemy. But one evening, while we were having quite a lively party at our house, orders from the commander-in-chief were suddenly brought to Colonel Yang. He read the note, turned deathly pale, and hurried out on the city wall. Our party broke up, every one wondering what evil tidings were in store for us. Next morning all the walls of the city were placarded with a proclamation from General Shih K’o-fa, saying, ‘I alone will bear the brunt; none of you blameless people shall pay the penalty.’

I felt quite reassured and touched by these good words. Later in the day every one’s spirits rose, for news came in that our men had been victorious in a heavy skirmish outside the city. That afternoon, my married cousin came in from Kua-chou in order to escape from the lawlessness of General Li’s dispersed troops. My wife was delighted to see her, and the two women were chatting away, when suddenly rumors began to circulate that the Manchus were in the city. I made immediate inquiries and at first came to the conclusion that the troops who had come in were those of the Marquis Huang Te-kung, one of our own generals, the more so as our guards on the city wall showed no signs of panic. On reaching the main street, however, I met crowds of men, women, and children, many of them barefooted and half naked, all rushing wildly along. To my inquiries they could make no clear replies, all muttering and gibbering incoherently. Next, I observed a small party of horsemen desperately galloping toward the south gate of the city. They passed like a torrent in flood, but I had time to notice that the person they were escorting was none other than General Shih K’o-fa himself. They had tried to leave by the east gate, but finding that the Manchus held it already outside, were hoping to escape by the south. The general was wounded ³ and had been forced by his bodyguard to leave.

Next I saw another of the Ming generals riding northward, evidently intending to surrender to the enemy. His face wore a look of misery such as I never wish to behold again. By this time, the troops on the wall had begun to throw away their weapons and were tearing off the badges from their uniforms. Many of them were severely hurt in the crush and confusion as they rushed from the wall; soon the section adjoining my house was quite deserted. General Shih had erected gun-platforms on a level with the wall, because it was too narrow for artillery purposes; these platforms were reached from the roofs below by a sloping gangway of planks lashed together. The Manchus gained the wall near the north gate, and came rushing along it, sword in hand, driving our men before them. On reaching the gun-platform adjoining my house, crowds of them, pursuers and pursued, came down it helterskelter; the gangway collapsed beneath them and a score or more were killed. Those who succeeded in reaching the roofs engaged in fierce hand-to-hand fighting, making a din most terrifying to the occupants of the house cowering in the rooms beneath. My courtyard was filled with routed soldiery and panic-stricken refugees, who listened in terror to the fierce yells of the Manchus. I had no means of preventing these fugitives from entering my house; even the womens’ quarters were full.

From a window at the back I observed a body of troops marching toward the southwest of the city. They seemed well disciplined, and at first I hoped they were some of our own men. At this moment there came a sound of knocking at my gate. A few neighbors had come to suggest that we should join them in preparing a welcome to the Manchu invaders and that we should burn incense in token of allegiance to our new Emperor. As matters stood, I dared not refuse to join in these preparations, so we hurriedly put on our ceremonial robes and shaved our heads in the Manchu fashion. This done, we waited a long while, but no Manchu prince put in an appearance. The fight in my courtyard was now over, and about a dozen soldiers lay dead. The Manchus had passed on to other parts of the city.

As I looked out from my window, I saw a few soldiers coming and going; in a little while there came a troop of them escorting a bevy of gaudily clad women, — women belonging to this city, of evil repute. At the spectacle, a sudden thought struck me, and I went to my women-folk and said, ‘The city has fallen; you must be ready to commit suicide and thus escape outrage.’ They all agreed and handed me their ornaments and their money, saying, ‘Keep them; we don’t expect to live more than a few hours at most.’

Next I saw a small party of horsemen riding slowly from the north; every person whom they met they stopped, demanding money. These men were not extravagant in their demands, and if they were refused, they would prod their captive with swords, but not so as to hurt him seriously. (I heard afterwards that a Yang Chou man had treacherously conducted this party to the house of a rich merchant, who had paid ten thousand taels as ransom; nevertheless he had been murdered.)

When they came near to my house one of the horsemen pointed to me (I had come out and was standing in the court). ‘Search that fellow in the blue gown,’ he shouted to one of his comrades, who at once dismounted; but I was too quick for him and rushed inside. The men rode away laughing. I wondered why they should wish to search me, as I was clad in the garments of a rustic. At this moment my two brothers came up and, discussing the point, we concluded that as this part of the city was chiefly inhabited by wealthy merchants, they had suspected my disguise. I therefore decided to remove all the family from my house and take refuge in that of my second eldest brother. My two brothers and the women all made the best of their way thither by unfrequented alleys. Just at the back of my brother’s house were some of the slums of the city, a quarter known as the ‘Graveyard of the Ho family.’ Meanwhile I remained behind in my own house to see what would happen. All of a sudden my eldest brother came running back to tell me that the main street was running with blood, and that if I stayed where I was, I should surely be murdered. ‘Come with us; we can at least all die together in our brother’s house.’ At that, I took the ancestral tablets from their shrine and went with my brother. We were altogether in his house a party of ten: four of us brothers (two older and one younger than myself), my wife and little son, my sister-in-law, my nephew, and my wife’s brother and sister.

As evening drew on, we could hear more and more clearly the shouts of the Manchus at their hellish work of butchery. It was pouring with rain but that did not stop them. Hoping to escape detection, we all lay out on the flat roof of an outhouse under the heavy rain, covered with a large felt plaid, which soon became soaked. The deathcries of wounded and dying men, of women and children, rang in our ears and made our blood run cold. Not till midnight did we dare to come from our hiding-place and make for the kitchen, where we managed to kindle a fire and boil a little rice. By this time flames were bursting out all over the city; several of our neighbors’ houses had been burned to the ground; the total number thus destroyed must have run into thousands. The night was as light as day; the tumult and the shouting were incessant. Every now and then we could hear curses in Manchu, blended with some woman’s frantic appeal for mercy. We tried to eat, but our chopsticks refused to carry the food to our mouths. We could think of no way of escape; my wife took some ingots of silver and divided them amongst us four brothers. We hid them in our topknots, in our boots and loin-cloths. My wife also found for me an old robe and a pair of frayed shoes, which she bade me wear.

All night we sat desperate, awaiting the end, and dared not close our eyes. A bird in the room sang without ceasing; its notes sounded like a clarion. Close at hand I heard a child sobbing, but could not place it. As dawn broke, the conflagrations seemed to die down. I mounted a ladder and concealed myself in the loft. We all crouched on some boards by the ceiling, when suddenly, from the eastern side, a man’s head appeared. He climbed in by one ladder and rushed down another, but the Manchu trooper who followed him paused when he saw us and gave over his pursuit, coming toward me instead. In my terror I too rushed down the ladder and out into the street, followed by my two brothers. We ran at least a hundred yards, but stopped on finding that we were not pursued. For the time being I lost sight of my wife and knew not whether she lived or died.

The cruel Manchus, to save themselves the trouble of hunting for their victims, posted notices, telling the people that if they surrendered they would be given badges guaranteeing them their lives, but if they hid themselves and were caught they would be killed. Many people gave themselves up in consequence. As my brother and I were standing in the street, we saw a group of fifty or sixty persons, half of them women, a little farther on, and my brother said, ‘If we hide and are discovered we shall certainly be killed. We are only four helpless men, so we had better surrender and join that group over there. By so doing we may possibly find a means of escape, and if not, at least we shall have the satisfaction of perishing in a general massacre.’

I was far too terrified to suggest any better course, so we went and joined the group, expecting to receive our badges of safety. The Manchus searched my brothers and took away all their money, but oddly enough they left me alone. At this moment some women came up, and one of them spoke to me. I recognized her at once, — the second concubine of my old friend Chu Shu, — but I begged her not to draw attention to me. She was in a pitiable condition, her hair all disheveled, her bosom exposed, and her legs besmeared to the knees with mud. Another concubine had a girl baby in her arms, but the troops first flogged her, then threw her down in the mud. Then some more soldiers came up, collected the women, and began tying them together at the knees, like a string of pearls.

We were then marched off in a body, one man with a sword leading the way, and another on either side to prevent anyone escaping, just as if they were driving sheep to market. At every step we took we saw dead bodies lying in agonized attitudes, — babies who had been crushed to shapelessness beneath the hoofs of horses, women with their new-born babes by the roadside all beaten to a pulp. The streets reeked like a shambles; here and there one heard the groans of a few dying wretches. Arms and legs protruded from every ditch, inextricably mingled.

We were taken to the house of Colonel Yao Yung-yen, entering it by the back door. Every room that I saw was full of corpses, and I said to myself that mine would surely be added to their number. However, there were no Manchu butchers at work there for the time being, and after passing through several courtyards we were brought out through the front of the building. Thence we were led to the house of a Shansi merchant, one Ch’iao Cheng-wang, the headquarters of the men who were our captors. As we entered, I noticed a soldier mounting guard over three comely females. The floor was strewn deep with valuable silks and furs. Our three guards laughed loudly at the sight, and then drove us, a party of fifty, into the back room, while they placed the women in an inner apartment. In the room into which we were driven, three seamstresses were sitting at work. One of them was about thirty-five and very smartly dressed. She was a native of Yang Chou, and seemed perfectly happy, chaffing the soldiers merrily. Her behavior was wanton in the extreme; as I watched her making eyes at the men, I heard one of the Manchus say, ‘During the Corean campaign, hardly a woman bought her life at the price of her virtue. Who would have believed that the inhabitants of this great Empire of China could be as shameless as this wench?’

Next, one of the Manchus began brandishing his sword and shouted, ‘Come here, you Chinese savages.’ They then bound with cords all of us who were in the front row, including my eldest brother. My second brother called out to me, ‘It’s all up with us: what’s the use of talking?’ He seized my hand and led me forward; my younger brother followed. We were all bound, some fifty of us in all, and the Manchus led us out into the courtyard, yelling like savages. Then the butchery began: every one was struck dumb with terror, and I stood there and watched it for a few moments, awaiting my turn. At first I looked forward to death calmly enough, but suddenly I felt as if aid had been vouchsafed to me from some supernatural power. Bound as I was, I managed to creep away unnoticed, and reached one of the back rooms of the house, and found myself in the women’s quarters, where there were still some of the older women who had been unable to escape.

At the back of this part of the house the Manchu horses and pack-camels were stabled, completely blocking all chance of egress. Creeping on hands and knees, I managed to crawl under the beasts, any one of which might have trampled me to a jelly. After getting past them, I found the walls too high for escape in that direction, but to my left there was a passage leading to a postern door. This door — half way down the passage — was nailed securely, so I went some distance up the passage, where I could distinctly hear the groans of my dying comrades and the shouts of their executioners. Passing the kitchen, I saw four men at work there. They had been pressed into the job by the Manchus, and I implored them to let me join them as hewer of wood or drawer of water. They angrily refused, saying, ‘We four have been specially assigned to this duty; if the Manchus find an extra hand here, they will suspect us of conspiracy, and we shall all be killed.’ As I continued to beseech them, they pushed me out, driving me forth with a carving-knife.

I then rushed back to the door leading out of the passage, and pulled at it with all my might. I seized the support, in the socket of which the door was inserted, and with a stupendous effort, managed to pull it out. With bleeding fingers I tried to push the door open, but it was still effectually closed from the outside by a heavy beam. The long spell of wet weather had caused it to stick fast in its socket and I could not move it. But as I pushed and pulled, by great good luck the top hinge of the door gave way, and it fell outwards with a heavy crash.

Again some unseen power seemed to aid me, and I was through the postern door in a flash. The spot at which I emerged was at the foot of the city wall, and there some sentries made signs to me to advance no farther, so I made my way into a house just beyond the one I had left. Every room in it was full of refugees in hiding, except the gate-house, which looked out on the main street, and was so often visited by soldiers that no one had ventured to go there.

There was a corner in this gatehouse behind a very high cupboard, into which I managed to climb. As I waited, scarcely daring to breathe, I heard an agonized voice which I recognized all too well, the voice of my younger brother, begging for mercy. A sound of blows followed and then I heard my second eldest brother cry, ‘ I have money buried in my cellar at home. Let me go, and I will bring it to you.’ After that all was silence, and my heart seemed to cease beating. I felt as if my brain were on fire; the tears refused to well from my eyes, and my bowels were rent asunder. My tongue clove to my mouth and I think I lost consciousness. Shortly afterwards a soldier came in, dragging a woman with him, and abusing her fearfully.

My own position was now one of extreme peril. Seizing the first opportunity, I managed to climb from the cupboard, which was open at the top, onto the cross-beam of the loft above. It was as black as pitch up there; and every now and then soldiers, passing by, would look in, and prod the loft matting above their heads with their long spears. Hearing no sound, they concluded it was empty. I lay up there all that day; during that time, about a score of persons were murdered in the room beneath me. Out in the street I could hear sounds of horsemen riding by, with shrieking women in their train. There was no rain that day, but the sky was overcast.

As the day drew to its close, there were fewer soldiers about, but the wailing of homeless refugees served to remind me of my two brothers’ pitiful deaths. I wondered if my wife and son still lived and if so, where they might be hiding. As the night fell, I crept down from my loft and went out into the street. The road was full of people crouching in attitudes of despair, some stooping over corpses and calling them by name. Seeing torches moving toward me, I hurriedly made down a side lane toward the city wall. Here the piles of corpses made progress difficult, and I stumbled over them again and again. It took me three hours, from eight o’clock to eleven, to reach my eldest brother’s house. He, with my wife and child, was there before me; I could not bear to tell them of the death of our two brothers. . . .

I then told them my experiences. While I was speaking, Mrs. Hung came in and brought some rice, but none of us could eat. Fires were again breaking out all over the city; by their light one could see a long distance. At the back of the Ho family’s graveyard there were groups of people lying about under the trees, and the sound of wailing mothers and children was most pitiful to hear. My wife said she wished to kill herself; we talked together all through the night, and I dissuaded her for the present. In the morning she led me to the end of a winding passage, where there was a room full of coffins awaiting burial. Here I crouched down in some straw and hid, after placing the child on one of the coffins and covering him with matting. My wife concealed herself in front. I dared not move hand or foot, and soon my limbs were completely numbed. All day we could hear the voices of soldiers cursing, and the pitiful entreaties of their victims. A southerner before a Manchu was like a sheep in the hands of the butcher; hardly any attempted even to escape. Toward evening I peeped out and counted over a hundred dead bodies in that one courtyard.

Little Peng’rh slept on the top of the coffin right through that terrible day, and never stirred but once, when I wetted his lips with water which I brought in a hollow tile from the ditch outside. As evening came on, Mrs. Hung came again, and with her we returned to the room in which we had passed the night. She told me that my sister-in-law had been carried off, together with my little nephew, an infant in arms. We counted them both for dead, which made four deaths in my family in two days.

I tried to procure a little rice, but without success. My brother and I talked together all that night. Thrice my wife attempted suicide, but each time Mrs. Hung prevented her. Then my brother said, ‘We are not all likely to survive another day. I am still unhurt. Give me the child now and let me try to escape with him.’ I agreed, and my brother left us.

Mrs. Hung advised my wife to hide in her cupboard, proposing to change places with her. However, we went back to our coffin room. A party of Manchu soldiers entered the house shortly afterwards, and discovering Mrs. Hung’s hiding-place, beat her cruelly; but she told them nothing of our whereabouts, thereby earning my undying gratitude. Then more troops appeared on the scene, but when they saw the coffins, came no farther in our direction. At last a party of ten ruffianly-looking Manchus entered the room, and one of them seized a pole and began poking at my feet. I rose and showed myself. Their guide was a Yang Chou man whom I knew by sight, and I begged him to ask them to spare me. They asked for money, and I gave them some. One of the soldiers shouted, ‘Let’s spare this fellow’s life for the present’; and they all went away.

Then a young fellow in red clothes with a long sword entered, and began brandishing it in my direction. He too wanted money, and I gave him some. He was not satisfied and pointed at my wife. She was expecting her confinement very shortly, and now lay motionless on the ground. I deceived him by telling him that she had been injured. ‘My wife is near her time,’ I said, ‘and yesterday she fell from a roof and injured herself. She cannot sit up and has to remain lying down.’ The red-clothed man did not believe me at first; but he noticed that her lower garments were caked in blood (she had previously daubed it on) and so believed my story. He had with him a young woman and two little children; one of them, a boy, cried to his mother for food. This enraged the soldier who brained the poor child on the stone floor. He then departed with the mother and her little girl.

After this, I made for a neighbor’s house, and implored him to let us take shelter there. He said he had no room. My wife again begged to commit suicide, and as I felt there was no longer any hope, I agreed: so we both proceeded to hang ourselves with one rope to the rafter. But the noose had been clumsily adjusted, and we fell with a crash to the ground. More soldiers entered the premises, but they marched straight through and went their ways. My wife rushed out from the chamber into an outhouse, which was full of straw; here there were a number of countrywomen, who allowed her to enter, but they had no room for me. I ran as quickly as I could toward some straw which was piled in a heap in the southern corner, climbed up to the top of the stack, and covered myself completely with the straw. I thought I should be safe there, but in a little while there came a soldier who jumped up and began poking about with a long spear. I came forth from the straw and offered him money to spare my life. He searched about and discovered several other refugees, who all escaped by likewise tendering him silver.

After he had withdrawn, we all crept back into our hiding-place. Down in the middle of the straw I noticed a couple of long tables, which seemed to offer an excellent refuge for several persons. Unfortunately for my idea, part of the adjoining wall had collapsed, and there was a wide chink through which our movements could be seen from without. I had not noticed this and had just lain down, when a soldier began prodding at me with a spear; he succeeded in wounding me and my companions in misery. The lower part of my back received a nasty gash. We all scrambled out as best we could, and again I went to my wife’s new quarters. All the women there were crouching on piles of firewood; they had smeared their faces and hair with blood and mud and cinders, so that they looked more like demons than women, and I only recognized my wife by her voice.

I implored them to allow me to get in among them, and they managed to find me a place right at the bottom of the straw, with the women all lying on top of me. I was nearly stifled, but my wife procured a long hollow bamboo, which I placed in my mouth, and through it inhaled a little fresh air from above. A soldier came to the door, murdered two women whom he had dragged thither, and then went off.

The day wore on; it grew dark and the women got up. I then came out of my hiding-place, soaking with perspiration, and my wife and I went back to the Hungs’ house, where we found not only Mrs. Hung and her husband, but also my brother and little Peng’rh. He said he had been forced by some Manchus to load carts all day, but they had been kind to little Peng’rh. They had given him a string of cash at the end of his day’s work besides a safeconduct flag. The streets were piled high with corpses, and all the ditches choked with blood. A report was current that a certain Colonel Wang Shaoyang, on good terms with the Manchus, was providing relief for the homeless and destitute, and that his intercession had saved many from being murdered. In spite of all our misery I slept soundly that night; when morning broke we had entered upon our ninth day of tribulation.

So far we had marvelously escaped, but rumors were being noised abroad that all the survivors were to be massacred that day, so that many, at the risk of their lives, fled from the city by means of ropes let down from the wall. Meanwhile outlaws and cutthroats from the country had begun to make their way into the city, plundering whatever was left, or else, lying in wait outside, they would intercept the escaping town-people and despoil them. Under these circumstances I dared not make the attempt to quit Yang Chou, and my brother was unwilling to start forth alone; so that evening I concealed myself again under some straw; my wife and the child lay on top.

Many times did my wife owe her safety to her advanced pregnancy. Soldiers often came in, but we were able to buy them off with bribes. Finally a wolf-eyed, lantern-faced Manchu entered and glared at my wife ferociously. He pulled her about violently, but she lay still, and told him the same story about having fallen from a height. He did not believe her and compelled her to rise. She sank again immediately, whereupon the soldier took his sword and cut at her back, blood gushing from each stroke. My wife had previously begged me not to betray my presence, even to save her life, as there was a chance of their sparing the child, even if they killed her, and if I discovered myself the child would surely starve, for both its parents would be dead. So I remained hidden in the straw, and said nothing, expecting that each moment would be her last. The soldier finally caught her by the hair, twisted her long tresses round his arm and brutally pulled her along, belaboring her all the while. He dragged her from the pile of straw down the street for about fifty yards, pausing after every few paces to slash at her with his sword. At this moment a party of cavalry came up, and one of the horsemen spoke to the soldier in Manchu. He at once desisted and left my wife, who managed to crawl back, bleeding in seven or eight places, and covered with the marks of her terrible ill-treatment. She continued moaning all the rest of that day.

Toward dawn we crept out and lay awhile at the back of a grave-mound. We were caked all over with mud and filth and looked like anything but human beings. A fire close by spread to the trees by the graveside, and what with the roaring of the flames and the howling of the wind, we felt as if we were already in the infernal regions. Ghastly was the spectacle as the dawn broke, and a pallid sun appeared. On all sides we beheld gaunt fleeting spectres of men and women, our fellow countrymen, while the Manchus, like so many Rakchas,⁴ chased them up and down, as if they were already denizens of the nethermost hell. If we closed our eyes, our fevered brains conjured up visions of tortures worse than those we had already undergone.

Suddenly I heard the sound of rushing feet. Looking up, I was horrified to see that my brother had been seized by a Manchu soldier and was making desperate efforts to escape from his hold. At last he broke away, but the soldier was after him. For a few breathless moments, I gazed in horror; in the end my brother came tottering back, stark naked and with disheveled hair, in the firm grasp of the Manchu. He implored me to offer the man money to save his life. I had only one silver ingot left and this I offered to the man, but he furiously seized his sword and stabbed my brother in the neck. He fell to earth, blood gushing from his wounds. Poor little Peng’rh (aged five years) seized the soldier’s knees and begged him with tears to spare his uncle’s life. The soldier calmly wiped his blade on Peng’rh’s coat and then stabbed my brother again, this time in the head, and as it seemed to me, mortally. Then he caught me by the hair and demanded money, belaboring me with the blunt side of his sword.

I told him that my money was all gone, but offered to get him other articles. So he dragged me to the Hungs’ house, where I showed him my wife’s silk clothes and jewelry which we had hidden in two water-jars. Everything was turned out on the doorstep, and he helped himself to whatever took his fancy. He removed all the pearls and gold ornaments, made a selection of the best clothes, and observing that little Peng’rh had a silver locket round his neck, wrenched it off with his knife. Then he turned to me and said, ‘I won’t kill you, but don’t rejoice too soon. Others will kill you before very long.’ This showed me that a general massacre was afoot, and I felt that our last hour had come. But my wife and I hurried back to see how it fared with our brother. The wound in his neck was fearful, — a gaping hole, several inches deep, — and from the gash in his head a portion of the brain was protruding. He had also a terrible wound in the breast. We took him to the Hungs’ house and asked how he felt. ‘No pain,’ he replied, ‘just drowsy. I want to sleep.’ He was only half-conscious when we left him there, to go and hide ourselves close to a neighbor’s house amidst a pile of corpses. As we lay there, suddenly we heard a voice cry, ‘The general massacre is fixed for to-morrow. All who can escape had better do so.’

My wife urged me to fly the city, but I reflected that my brother was desperately wounded and could not find it in my heart to leave him. Besides, we had now no money left and if we left the city we should only be facing the certainty of death from starvation. We discussed our position miserably for a long time; by this time the fires had burned themselves out, and we could hear the booming of distant guns. There were not so many soldiers about, so I moved with my wife and child to an outhouse in which dry dung was kept. Mrs. Hung soon joined us.

A little later a young man of about thirty, wearing a Manchu hat, clad in red clothes and wearing black satin boots, came riding by. He had a breastplate of the finest mail; his steed was beautifully caparisoned, and he was attended by a large suite. His features, though Tartar, were exceedingly handsome: he had a long protruding chin and a lofty forehead. Amongst his retinue there were many Yang Chou people. This was Prince Yü, the Manchu commander-in-chief and uncle of their Emperor.

He looked closely at me, saying, ‘You don’t look like a common person: who and what are you?’ I reflected that some of our people had escaped by saying that they were scholars by profession, while others of the literati had been murdered on suspicion of antiManchu proclivities. I did not therefore reveal my identity, but concocted a plausible story. Then he asked about my wife and I told him the truth. He then said, ‘I have given orders that all killing shall cease from to-morrow, so you will be quite safe.’ He bade some of his retinue give me clothes and an ingot of silver. ‘How long,’ he asked, ‘is it since you have had a good meal?’ I answered, ‘ Five days.’ He commanded us to follow him. My wife and I dared not disobey, though suspicious of his intentions.

We reached a mansion where preparations for a banquet were laid out on a most lavish scale. Victuals of all kinds were there in abundance. He called a woman, saying, ‘Treat these people well,’ and then departed. It was now twilight. My wife’s younger brother had been carried off and we knew nothing of his fate; my wife was very sad at his loss. The woman soon came out with bowls of fish and rice, and as this mansion was quite near to the Hungs’ house, I carried some food to my brother, but he could not eat it. I combed his hair and washed away the blood from his face, feeling all the time as though a sword were at my own heart. People’s minds were more composed on hearing that massacres were to cease.

Next day was the first of the fifth moon; although the situation was much improved, looting and murder did not cease entirely. All the well-to-do families had been stripped bare of everything; hardly any females over ten years of age had escaped outrage. To-day one of the Manchu generals, the Earl of Established Peace, rëentered Yang Chou and distributed some food to the people, over which they fought like ravenous tigers. On the second day proclamations were issued that the Manchus had established local officials in Yang Chou and the surrounding districts. The magistrates were sending out runners to tranquillize the people. The Buddhist temples received orders to burn all corpses: there were still many women hiding in their shrines, and many had died there of starvation. According to the official records of bodies found, the total number of persons who perished during these days was eight hundred thousand, but this does not include those who perished in the flames or who drowned themselves in the river.

On the third day a notice was circulated that relief offices were distributing grain and rice. I went with Mrs. Hung to the place, which was the former commissariat department of General Shih K’o-fa. There were tons of rice and grain stored in bins, but in a very short space of time the whole of it had been distributed to the famishing crowd. They presented a pitiful spectacle, most of them with maimed limbs and broken heads, and all in filthy apparel. But when the grain was distributed, each and all fought like wolves: children even forgot to consider their parents, and struggled only for themselves. Many aged and infirm persons waited all day without securing a mouthful.

On the fourth day, the sky cleared and the heat of the sun was great. The stench of the corpses was overpowering, and thousands were burned during the day. A mighty smoke was raised and the smell of the burning bodies filled the air, tainting it for miles around. I burned some cotton-wool and human bone, and with the calcined ashes prepared ointment for my brother’s wounds. He accepted it gratefully but could not utter a word.

On the fifth day, many people who had remained in hiding began to come forth; people’s hearts were too full for speech. We five, including the Hungs, were still alive, but as yet we did not dare to spend the day in our own house. After breakfast we went out and sat by the roadside. No one dared to wash or dress his hair, for there were still robbers about, but these were only common footpads. They had no swords, only cudgels, with which they frightened people into giving them money. But even so they beat several people to death. We could not tell if these wretches were Manchus or Chinese soldiers, or merely local ruffians. Today my brother died of his grievous wounds, which had mortified. My loss is not to be described. At the beginning of the trouble we were a party of eight brothers and sisters and their issue; now only three remained, I, my wife, and Peng’rh.

In all I have described the events of ten days, from the twenty-fifth of the fourth to the fifth of the fifth moon. I have only told of my own experiences and the things of which I have been an eye-witness. In all my story there is not one word of hearsay or rumor, and I have avoided all mention of events which did not come under my own observation. Hence I know that this record is true. Perchance, posterity, born in a happier age, may be interested in perusing this diary, and it may serve to point a moral for the unreflecting. It may even cause vindictive and cruel-minded men to reflect on the error of their ways, and thus be of some value, as a solemn warning.

Thus it was in China in the year 1645. Thereafter, for 265 years, the Manchus ruled over the Empire which they had won by the sword. Under the wise government of their earlier emperors the country rapidly recovered, as it always does, from the abomination of desolation wrought, first, by Li Tzû-ch’eng’s rebellion, and then by the Manchus’ ruthless war of conquest. New cities sprang up where not one stone had been left upon another to tell the story of the dead; once more the wilderness was made to blossom as the rose, until, in the fullness of time, the Manchus’ course of empire was run and, as they lost their prestige as rulers, rebellion and anarchy once more laid waste the land.

In the events which have marked the passing of this once Imperial race, none display more vividly the pitiless irony of Fate and the innate savagery of Orientals, than the slaughter of the Manchu garrisons at cities like Sianfu in the recent revolution. Describing the sack of the Tartar quarter in that city in October, 1911, one who passed through it shortly afterwards wrote:⁵

‘Once the Chinese set about this business of destruction, the lust of blood, the madness of killing,possessed them. Old and young, men and women, little children, were alike butchered. The Tartar general, old, hopeless, cut off from his people at the critical moment, was unable to face the situation. The safety he had won for the moment, he felt not worth the keeping; he ended his life by throwing himself down a well. Houses were plundered and then burnt; those who would fain have lain hidden till the storm was past, were forced to come out into the open. The revolutionaries, protected by a parapet of the wall, poured a heavy, unceasing, relentless fire into the doomed Tartar city. Those who tried to escape thence into the Chinese city were cut down as they emerged from the gates. At the western gates the Mohammedans cynically received them for their own purpose.

‘ In the darkness some managed to scale the city wall, descend the other side, wade through the moat, and escape to the open country. But not all who attempted this succeeded. The wall is thirty-six feet in height and at the top is some sixteen yards wide, and on it at various points clustered the Chinese soldiers. The fugitives, to escape, had to slip between these, avoid the flashing lanterns and find a means of affixing their ropes safely before descending. Some possibly escaped by venturing to leap from the height.

‘ In despair, many Manchus themselves set fire to their houses; at least they might cheat their murderers of the loot they sought. Into the English Hospital, days afterwards, when the first fury was passed, men were brought in a shocking condition — men who had attempted to cut their throats. Asked why they had done so, they answered simply, “The wells were full.” And the Shensi wells are not the shallow ones of some parts of China; they are thirtysix feet deep. There is such a man in that hospital to-day. All his family, wife, daughters, sons, were slain or destroyed themselves, and he failed in his attempt to end his life by other means.

‘There were many Manchus in the Chinese city at the time of the outbreak. Some escaped for the moment through taking shelter with friends. But even twenty days after the outbreak a Manchu detected on the street would be dragged off to instant execution. Hundreds were thus hunted through the streets and lanes of the city. They were known by their clothing, by their cast of countenance, by their speech. . . .

1 See The Passing of the Dragon, by J. C. Keyte. Hodder and Stoughton. 1913.

‘When the Manchus found that further resistance was useless, they in many cases knelt on the ground, laying down their weapons, and begged the soldiers for life. They were shot as they knelt. Sometimes there was a whole line of them. In one doorway a group of between ten and twenty was thus killed in cold blood.

‘A girl came down the street; a girl of twenty, with hands bound. She had been hastily dragged before the “judges” in the Magazine, temporary headquarters of the Revolution, and was now being taken out a hundred yards or so to be beheaded. And in her face was that which once seen — by one passer-by at least — was never to be forgotten. It was not despair; ah, no! That anodyne had had no time in which to reach her. It was the full young life cheated of its days, going out into the dark, the path before her littered by fearful reminders of the fate in front. From the pallid lips no sound issued; they were held, as the girl’s whole being was held, by utter terror. The shaking limbs, the stumbling gait, proclaimed it; but more than all, the awful haunting eyes.

‘Along the route where the reek of blood made the very air bitter, acrid in the brilliant sunshine, where curses and sobs mingled with groans, and derisive raucous cries rent the air, they went. A woman, a very girl, caught within the enemy’s gates, not dying with her own people, not able to save herself with them if only in a death she saw and chose: but hurried along thus, as to a shambles. And her crime? Her birth: a Manchu. The soldier muttered impatiently. He had other affairs to attend to when this was over. Time meant money,— meant sport, — in those days. He stalked along behind her with naked sword held up. “Hurry,” he snarled, “hurry.”

‘Days after the outbreak, an Englishman, passing down a side street, heard groans, heard the cry of pain, coming up with hollow sound from the depths. At the mouth of a well stood some Chinese. It was their day. The pitiful cries went on, the feeble moaning, varied with the sharp cries. A Manchu who had thrown himself, or been thrown down this well, lay there with broken limbs; lay there in agony, appealing almost unconsciously for pity.

‘ The men at the well-mouth picked up lumps of earth, stones, picked up what came to hand. There came up from the well’s depths the thud of missiles on human flesh.’

And so the whirligig of Time brings on its merciless revenges; the butchers of to-day become the victims of tomorrow. Europe, with its reserves of inherited wealth, with outlets over-seas for its surplus millions, its organized philanthropy and scientific economics, has no conception of the realities of life in farthest Asia, the same now as they were in the days when ‘The Lord commanded Moses to war against the Midianites, and they slew all the males, and burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt.’ It is not possible for us, in our well-ordered materialism, to sympathize with the forces of atavism, the instinctive terrors and cruelties, that dwell forever deep-rooted in the soul of this people. The sack of Yang Choufu, and that of the Tartar city in Sianfu, are in reality only typical and insignificant incidents, normal features in the life-history of a race which, since the beginning of recorded time, has learned ‘to eat its bread with quaking and to drink its water with trembling.’