was captured and was condemned to penal servitude.  His followers, however, regrouped themselves, particularly in the province of Anhui.  These risings had been produced, as always, by excessive oppression of the people by the government or the governing class.  As, however, the anger of the population was naturally directed also against the idle Manchus of the cities, who lived on their state pensions, did no work, and behaved as a ruling class, the government saw in these movements a nationalist spirit, and took drastic steps against them.  The popular leaders now altered their programme, and acclaimed a supposed descendant from the Ming dynasty as the future emperor.  Government troops caught the leader of the “White Lotus” agitation, but he succeeded in escaping.  In the regions through which the society had spread, there then began a sort of Inquisition, of exceptional ferocity.  Six provinces were affected, and in and around the single city of Wuch’ang in four months more than 20,000 people were beheaded.  The cost of the rising to the government ran into millions.  In answer to this oppression, the popular leaders tightened their organization and marched north-west from the western provinces of which they had gained control.  The rising was suppressed only by a very big military operation, and not until 1802.  There had been very heavy fighting between 1793 and 1802—­just when in Europe, in the French Revolution, another oppressed population won its freedom.

The Ch’ien-lung emperor abdicated on New Year’s Day, 1795, after ruling for sixty years.  He died in 1799.  His successor was Jen Tsung (1796-1821; reign name:  Chia-ch’ing).  In the course of his reign the rising of the “White Lotus” was suppressed, but in 1813 there began a new rising, this time in North China—­again that of a secret organization, the “Society of Heaven’s Law”.  One of its leaders bribed some eunuchs, and penetrated with a group of followers into the palace; he threw himself upon the emperor, who was only saved through the intervention of his son.  At the same time the rising spread in the provinces.  Once more the government succeeded in suppressing it and capturing the leaders.  But the memory of these risings was kept alive among the Chinese people.  For the government failed to realize that the actual cause of the risings was the general impoverishment, and saw in them a nationalist movement, thus actually arousing a national consciousness, stronger than in the Ming epoch, among the middle and lower classes of the people, together with hatred of the Manchus.  They were held responsible for every evil suffered, regardless of the fact that similar evils had existed earlier.

7 European Imperialism in the Far East

With the Tao-kuang period (1821-1850) began a new period in Chinese history, which came to an end only in 1911.