A brief review of Chinese history during the later years of Manchu
progress, as described above, discloses a state of things such as will
always be found to prevail towards the close of an outworn dynasty.
Almost from the day when, in 1628, the last Emperor of the Ming Dynasty
ascended the throne, national grievances began to pass from a simmering
and more or less latent condition to a state of open and acute
hostility. The exactions and tyranny of the eunuchs had led to increased
taxation and general discontent; and the horrors of famine now enhanced
the gravity of the situation. Local outbreaks were common, and were with
difficulty suppressed. The most capable among Chinese generals of the
period, Wu San-kuei, shortly to play a leading part in the dynastic
drama, was far away, employed in resisting the invasions of the Manchus,
when a very serious rebellion, which had been in preparation for some
years, at length burst violently forth.

Li Tz{u}-ch`êng was a native of Shensi, who, before he was twenty years
old, had succeeded his father as village beadle. The famine of 1627
had brought him into trouble over the land-tax, and in 1629 he turned
brigand, but without conspicuous success during the following ten years.
In 1640, he headed a small gang of desperadoes, and overrunning parts of
Hupeh and Honan, was soon in command of a large army. He was joined by a
female bandit, formerly a courtesan, who advised him to avoid slaughter
and to try to win the hearts of the people. In 1642, after several
attempts to capture the city of K`ai-fêng, during one of which his
left eye was destroyed by an arrow, he at length succeeded, chiefly in
consequence of a sudden rise of the Yellow River, the waters of which
rushed through a canal originally intended to fill the city moat and
flood out the rebels. The rise of the river, however, was so rapid and
so unusually high that the city itself was flooded, and an enormous