places; notably, one at Hangchow and another at Foochow, each of whom
looked upon the other as a usurper. The former was soon disposed of, but
the latter gradually established his rule over a wide area, and for
a long time kept the Manchus at bay, so hateful was the thought of an
alien domination to the people of the province in question. Towards the
close of 1646, he too had been captured, and the work of pacification
went on, the penalty of death now being exacted in the case of officials
who refused to shave the head and wear the queue. Two more Emperors,
both of Imperial Ming blood, were next proclaimed in Canton, one of
whom strangled himself on the advance of the Manchus, while the other
disappeared. A large number of loyal officials, rather than shave the
front part of the head and wear the Manchu queue, voluntarily shaved the
whole head, and sought sanctuary in monasteries, where they joined the
Buddhist priesthood.

One more early attempt to re-establish the Mings must be noticed. The
fourth son of a grandson of the Ming Emperor Wan Li (died 1620) was in
1646 proclaimed Emperor at Nan-yang in Honan. For a number of years of
bloody warfare he managed to hold out; but gradually he was forced
to retire, first to Fuhkien and Kuangtung, and then into Kueichou and
Yünnan, from which he was finally expelled by Wu San-kuei. He next
fled to Burma, where in 1661 he was handed over to Wu San-kuei, who had
followed in pursuit; and he finally strangled himself in the capital
of Yünnan. He is said to have been a Christian, as also many of his
adherents, in consequence of which, the Jesuit father, A. Koffler,
bestowed upon him the title of the Constantine of China. In view of
the general character for ferocity with which the Manchus are usually
credited, it is pleasant to be able to record that when the official
history of the Ming Dynasty came to be written, a Chinese scholar of
the day, sitting on the historical commission, pleaded that three of