ing of the seventeenth century had no longer trusted the Ming
rulers. The Ming prince in Nanking was just as incapable, and surrounded
by just as evil a clique, as the Ming emperors of the past. The gentry
were not inclined to defend him. A considerable section of the gentry
were reduced to utter despair; they had no desire to support the Ming
any longer; in their own interest they could not support the rebel
leaders; and they regarded the Manchus as just a particular sort of
"rebels". Interpreting the refusal of some Sung ministers to serve the
foreign Mongols as an act of loyalty, it was now regarded as shameful to
desert a dynasty when it came to an end and to serve the new ruler, even
if the new regime promised to be better. Many thousands of officials,
scholars, and great landowners committed suicide. Many books, often
really moving and tragic, are filled with the story of their lives. Some
of them tried to form insurgent bands with their peasants and went into
the mountains, but they were unable to maintain themselves there. The
great bulk of the elite soon brought themselves to collaborate with the
conquerors when they were offered tolerable conditions. In the end the
Manchus did not interfere in the ownership of land in central China.

At the time when in Europe Louis XIV was reigning, the Thirty Years War
was coming to an end, and Cromwell was carrying out his reforms in
England, the Manchus conquered the whole of China. Chang Hsien-chung and
Li Tz[)u]-ch'eng were the first to fall; the pirate Coxinga lasted a
little longer and was even able to plunder Nanking in 1659, but in 1661
he had to retire to Formosa. Wu San-kui, who meanwhile had conquered
western China, saw that the situation was becoming difficult for him.
His task was to drive out the last Ming pretenders for the Manchus. As
he had already been opposed to the Ming in 1644, and as the Ming no
longer had any following among the gentry, he could not suddenly work
with them against the Manchus. He therefore handed over to the Manchus
the last Ming prince, whom the Burmese had delivered up to him in 1661.
Wu San-kui's only possible allies against the Manchus were the gentry.
But in the west, where he was in power, the gentry counted for nothing;
they had in any case been weaker in the west, and they had been
decimated by the insurrection of Chang Hsien-chung. Thus Wu San-kui was
compelled to try to push eastwards, in order to unite with the gentry of
the