【英文原著类】China and the Manchus(中国和马楚斯).pdf

CHINA AND THE MANCHUS
CHINA AND THE
MANCHUS
HERBERT A. GILES, ., .
(Professor of Chinese in the University of Cambridge, and sometime
. Consul at Ningpo.)
1
CHINA AND THE MANCHUS
CHAPTER I
THE NU-CHENS AND KITANS
The Manchus are descended from a branch of certain wild Tungusic
nomads, who were known in the ninth century as the Nu-chens, a name
which has been said to mean "west of the sea." The cradle of their race lay
at the base of the Ever-White Mountains, due north of Korea, and was
fertilised by the head waters of the Yalu River.
In an illustrated Chinese work of the fourteenth century, of which the
Cambridge University Library possesses the only known copy, we read
that they reached this spot, originally the home of the Su-shen tribe, as
fugitives from Korea; further, that careless of death and prizing valour
only, they carried naked knives about their persons, never parting from
them by day or night, and that they were as "poisonous" as wolves or
tigers. They also tattooed their faces, and at marriage their mouths. By the
close of the ninth century the Nu-chens had e subject to the
neighbouring Kitans, then under the rule of the vigorous Kitan chieftain,
Opaochi, who, in 907, proclaimed himself Emperor of an independent
kingdom with the dynastic title of Liao, said to mean "iron," and who at
once entered upon that long course of aggression against China and
encroachment upon her territory which was to result in the practical
division of the empire between the two powers, with the Yellow River as
boundary, K`ai-feng as the Chinese capital, and Peking, now for the first
time raised to the status of a metropolis, as the Kitan capital. Hitherto, the
Kitans had recognised China as their suzerain; they are first mentioned in
Chinese history in . 468, when they sent ambassadors to court, with
tribute.
Turning now to China, the famous House of Sung, the early years of
which were so full of promise of national