and
in 1645 captured Nanking, where a Ming prince had ruled. The region
round Nanking was the economic centre of China. Soon the Manchus were in
the adjoining southern provinces, and thus they conquered the whole of
the territory of the landowning gentry, who after the events of the
beginning 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 Tzu-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