Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 19, 2025
Owing to the energy of the Empress Wou victory rested with the Chinese, and the Japanese navy of four hundred junks was completely destroyed. The kingdom of Sinlo was made a Chinese province, and for sixty years the Coreans paid tribute and caused no trouble.
The powerful fortresses which had defied their strength, the Great Wall which in Wou's hands might have checked their progress, had suddenly ceased to be obstacles to their advance, and throughout the camps and towns of the Tartars an enthusiastic response was made to the inspiriting cry of "On to Peking!" Wou Sankwei did not wait for their coming.
Li continued to retreat, collecting the garrisons he had left in various cities as he fled, until, feeling strong enough to hazard another battle, he took his stand near the city of Chingtung. Wou did not hesitate to attack. Eighty thousand Manchus had joined him, and abundant Chinese levies had raised his forces to two hundred thousand men.
The Manchus were at that time embarrassed by the rebellion of Wou Sankwei, and the opportunity seemed excellent for an invasion of the district of the Khalkas, firm friends of the Manchu power. He also sent troops towards the Chinese frontier, fear of whom forced many of the tribesmen to cross the border and seek the emperor's aid.
The apprehensions of Li Tseching were soon confirmed, for Wou Sankwei defeated the first army he had sent out with a loss of 20,000 men. Li does not seem to have known of the alliance between that officer and the Manchus, for he marched at the head of 60,000 men to encounter him.
On the 1st December they accordingly abandoned the siege and resumed their march northwards. They crossed the Tungting Lake on boats and junks which they had seized, and secured the town of Yochow on the Yangtsekiang without meeting any resistance. Here they captured much war material, including a large supply of gunpowder left by the great Chinese Viceroy, Wou Sankwei, of the seventeenth century.
Knowing nothing of the approach of a Tartar army, he imagined that he had only Wou with whom to deal, and marched against him in person with sixty thousand men, the pick of his victorious army. This large force, perhaps three times the number that the loyal leader could put in the field, reached Wou's station on the river Lanho before the vanguard of the Manchus had appeared.
But a garrison of Manchus was placed in each town of importance, and it was by Kanghi's order that a walled town, or "Tartar city," was built within each city for the accommodation and security of the dominant race. But notwithstanding these successes Kanghi made little or no progress against the main force of Wou Sankwei, whose supremacy was undisputed throughout the whole of southwest China.
But that minister proved as true to his sovereign as Wou Sankwei did to the Manchu. The result of the long correspondence between them was nil, but it showed the leaders of the Manchus in very favorable colors, as wishing to avert the horrors of war, and to simplify the surrender of provinces which could not be held against them.
He was destined to reign for more than sixty years and to prove himself one of the best and greatest of the emperors of China. We cannot close without a mention of the final events in the career of Wou Sankwei, to whom China owed her Manchu dynasty.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking