d to reform the Chinese calendar. In the time of the Mongols,
Arabs had been at work in Peking as astronomers, and their influence had
continued under the Ming until the Europeans came. By his astronomical
labours Ricci won a place of honour in Chinese literature; he is the
European most often mentioned.

The missionary work was less effective. The missionaries penetrated by
the old trade routes from Canton and Macao into the province of Kiangsi
and then into Nanking. Kiangsi and Nanking were their chief centres.
They soon realized that missionary activity that began in the lower
strata would have no success; it was necessary to work from above,
beginning with the emperor, and then, they hoped, the whole country
could be converted to Christianity. When later the emperors of the Ming
dynasty were expelled and fugitives in South China, one of the
pretenders to the throne was actually converted--but it was politically
too late. The missionaries had, moreover, mistaken ideas as to the
nature of Chinese religion; we know today that a universal adoption of
Christianity in China would have been impossible even if an emperor had
personally adopted that foreign faith: there were emperors who had been
interested in Buddhism or in Taoism, but that had been their private
affair and had never prevented them, as heads of the state, from
promoting the religious system which politically was the most
expedient--that is to say, usually Confucianism. What we have said here
in regard to the Christian mission at the Ming court is applicable also
to the missionaries at the court of the first Manchu emperors, in the
seventeenth century. Early in the eighteenth century missionary activity
was prohibited--not for religious but for political reasons, and only
under the pressure of the Capitulations in the nineteenth century were
the missionaries enabled to resume their labours.

14 _External and internal perils_

Towards the end of the reign of Wan-li, about 1620, the danger that
threatened the empire became more and more evident. The Manchus
complained, no doubt with justice, of excesses on the part of Chinese
officials; the friction constantly increased, and the Manchus began to
attack the Chinese cities in Manchuria. In 1616, after his first
considerable successes, their leader Nurhachu assumed the imperial
title; the name of the dynasty was Tai Ch'ing (interpreted as "The great
clarity", but probably a transliteration of a Manchurian word