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The Chinese sent several armies to recover Moukden; but, although they took these guns with them, they met with no success, and Noorhachu made it the base of his plan of attack on Leaouyang, the capital of the province. The defense of this important town was intrusted to Yuen Yingtai, the court favorite and incompetent successor of Tingbi.
When he reached that place he found that Tingbi had fallen into disgrace and been executed, not for devising his own plan of campaign, but for animadverting on that of his colleague in satirical terms.
The very last act of his reign was, whether by accident or good judgment, the most calculated to prevent the Manchus overrunning the State, and that was the selection of a capable general in the person of Hiung Tingbi.
The choice did not prove fortunate, as this prince became known as Tienki the Unhappy, whose reign witnessed the culmination of Ming misfortunes. One of his first acts was the removal of Tingbi from his command, and this error of judgment, aggravated by the ingratitude it implied to a faithful servant, fitly marked the commencement of a reign of incompetence and misfortune.
But he came only to his death. Tingbi, the one man feared by Noorhachu, had been executed through the machinations of his enemies, and now Chungwan suffered the same fate, Taitsong, not being able to defeat him in the field, having succeeded in forming a plot against him in the palace. But Peking, though in serious peril, was not taken.
That general devised a simple and what might have proved an efficacious line of defense, but his colleague, with more powerful influence at court, would have none of it, and insisted on his own plan being adopted. Noorhachu divined that the councils of the Chinese were divided, and that Tingbi was hampered.
For a time Noorhachu showed no disposition to cross the River Leaou, and confined his attention to consolidating his position in his new conquest. But it was clear that this lull would not long continue, and the Chinese emperor, Tienki, endeavored to meet the coming storm by once more intrusting the defense of the frontier to Tingbi.
With the death of Wanleh the decadence of Ming power became clearly marked, and the only question that remained was whether it could be arrested before it resulted in absolute ruin. Tingbi, with the wrecks of the Chinese armies, succeeded in doing more for the defense of his country than had been accomplished by any of his predecessors with undiminished resources.
Two years sufficed to make the province impregnable to Manchu attack. During this period of energy Noorhachu wisely remained quiet. But the Chinese emperor died, and was succeeded by his son, who quickly followed him to the grave. His grandson, a boy of sixteen, succeeded, and the court enemies of Tingbi now had him recalled and replaced by a man who had never seen a battle.
The old Chinese emperor was now near his life's end. But his last act was one of his wisest ones, it being the appointment of Tingbi, a leader of skill and resolution, to the command in Liautung. In a brief time this energetic commander had placed the capital and the border towns of the province in a state of defence and collected an army of one hundred and eighty thousand men on the frontier.
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