[63] In 1618 the Manchu leader Noorhachu invaded the province of Liaotung—­now a division of the province of Sheng-King, and lying on the northern coast of the Korean Gulf; its southern extremity forms a long, narrow peninsula which terminates at the entrance of the Gulf of Pe-chili, and on it are the fortified posts of Dalny and Port Arthur, important strategic points commanding the entrance to that gulf, and prominent in the present war (May, 1904) between Russia and Japan.  In Liaotung are also the important towns of Mukden and Niuchuang (Newchwang).  In 1621 Noorhachu captured Mukden, and soon conquered the rest of the province; and, about twenty-five years later, his successors completed the conquest of China, expelling the Ming dynasty (which had begun in 1368), and establishing that of the Manchus, which still rules in China.  For a detailed description of this conquest, see Boulger’s History of China (London and New York, 1900), pp. 97-125.

[64] There is an apparent hiatus here; perhaps it should read “before the last invasion.”—­Trans.

[65] Boulger says (History of China, p. 107):  “During this campaign it was computed that the total losses of the Chinese amounted to 310 general officers and 45,000 private soldiers.”  Noorhachu defeated three Chinese armies, and captured the towns of Fooshun, Tsingho, and Kaiyuen.

[66] A phonetic rendering of Wanleh (Vol.  III, p. 228).  See account of his reign in Boulger’s History of China, pp. 97-107.

[67] The Christian religion was first introduced into Cochinchina (a kingdom founded in 1570, by a Tonquin chief) by Spanish Franciscans, in 1583; but little was accomplished for the conversion of the heathen until 1615, when both Franciscans and Jesuits entered upon that work.  See Crawfurd’s account of the country, in his Dictionary of Indian Islands, pp. 105-112.

[68] See letter by Bishop Arce, post.

[69] This name is not to be found in Sommervogel.

[70] That is, Yedo; then, as now (but with the modern name Tokio), the capital of the Japanese empire.  The Castle of Yedo, first built in 1456-57, was the abode of the Tokugawa Shoguns from 1591—­when it was assigned to Iyeyasu, who greatly enlarged it—­until the close of that dynasty in 1868.  See historical and descriptive account of this edifice, by T.R.H.  McClatchie, in Transactions of Asiatic Society of Japan, vol. vi (Tokyo, ed. 1888), pp. 119-154.

[71] The daimios constituted, under the old feudal organization of Japan, a class of territorial nobility, who numbered about two hundred and fifty.  Under Iyemidzu (1623-51) the daimios were obliged to live in Yedo half the time with their families; and, before this, those nobles had been in the habit of visiting the reigning monarch at the capital.  For account of the daimios and their vassals, the samurai, see Rein’s Japan, pp. 318-328; and Griffis’s Mikado’s Empire, pp. 217, 321, 322.