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The National Geographic Magazine 



have done their part, and compare favor- 

 ably with the preceding dynasties. Be- 

 ginning in response to an invitation 

 of the Chinese to drive out a Tatar 

 usurper, they became in forty years the 

 masters of China, showing surprising 

 power and valor. Among the Manchu 

 heroes was Koshinga, a semi-piratical 

 leader, who expelled the Dutch from 

 Formosa. 



In the early days of this dynasty em- 

 bassies began to arrive from western 

 nations, and the Jesuit missionaries held 

 high places on account of their mathe- 

 matical and astronomical knowledge. 

 Formosa was conquered and Chinese au- 

 thority was made paramount in Tibet." 

 Of Kanghi, who reigned for 6i years, 

 or a cycle of Cathay, and made the 

 Manchu sway complete over China, it 

 is written : ' ' The public acts and mag- 

 nificent exploits of his reign show him 

 wise, courageous, magnanimous, and 

 sagacious. In the smallest affairs he 

 seems to have been truly great." 



In later reigns wars were waged 

 against the Burmese and the indomitable 

 Goorkas in Nepaul, who had invaded 

 Tibet. Kien-IyUng was another emperor 

 of the Kanghi greatness, and under him 

 relations with the outer world and 

 knowledge of it among the people grew 

 rapidly. Then followed Kia King, and 

 then his famous son Tau Kwang, who 

 was emperor when the first war with 

 England aroused both China and Europe 

 and practically opened the former to the 

 trade of foreign nations. His reign 

 ended with the Taiping rebellion, which 

 swept over such a large portion of China, 

 and was finally concluded through the 

 skillful leadership of the eminent Chi- 

 nese Gordon, who later was cruelly 

 assassinated at Khartum. Hienfung, 

 of mediocre abilities, succeeded Tau 

 Kwang. Tung Chi, under whom the 

 Taiping rebellion was subdued, followed 

 Tau Kwang. The Mohammedan rebel- 

 lion was another period of destructive 

 interior wars, and Kwangsu, the present 



emperor and cousin of Tung Chi, came 

 to the throne. 



It has been my privilege to have 

 led rapidly in review Chinese dynas- 

 ties, emperors, empresses, feudal lords, 

 usurpers, philosophers, historians, trav- 

 elers, merchants, and diplomatists who 

 have figured in the annals of Chinese 

 history from Fuhhi, 3,000 years be- 

 fore Christ and 5,000 years before the 

 present era, down to the brilliant Tsi 

 An, who controls through Kwangsu the 

 destinies of China at the beginning of 

 the 2oth century. 



FOREIGN RELATIONS 



The foreign relations in the modern 

 sense are chiefly limited to the last fifty 

 years. Interesting events that have a 

 direct bearing on the present have, how- 

 ever, occurred through the past two cen- 

 turies. Only a few salient points can 

 be here emphasized. 



With Manchuria and Russia before 

 our eyes every day in the papers, we 

 note that the first treaty between China 

 and. Russia was imposed, as a result of 

 a five-years' war, by the' former on the 

 latter, in 1689. By this the whole of 

 the Amur Valley was placed in China's 

 hands. Nearly two centuries later, or 

 in 1858, Count Muravieff secured for 

 Russia the Amur Province, while in 1 860 

 General Ignatieff, taking advantage of 

 the presence of the Anglo-French troops 

 at Pekin, transferred to Russia with a 

 stroke of the pen the entire Manchu- 

 rian coast line from the mouth of the 

 Amur River to the frontier of Korea. 

 In 1898 Russia, by the Cassini conven- 

 tion, took Port Arthur and Taliehwan ; 

 and now, in April, 1901 , the whole world 

 is asking the significance of her occupa- 

 tion of Manchuria in relation to the in- 

 tegrity of China and the maintenance of 

 the open door. 



The French, as early as i-'89, when 

 Philip the Fair was king, received dis- 

 patches from China, suggesting.conimon 



