t court as "scientists", and in
this they were of service both to China and to Europe. The behaviour of
the European merchants who followed the missions, spreading gradually in
growing numbers along the coasts of China, was not by any means so
irreproachable. The Chinese were certainly justified when they declared
that European ships often made landings on the coast and simply looted,
just as the Japanese had done before them. Reports of this came to the
court, and as captured foreigners described themselves as "Christians"
and also seemed to have some connection with the missionaries living at
court, and as disputes had broken out among the missionaries themselves
in connection with papal ecclesiastical policy, in the Yung-cheng period
(1723-1736; the name of the emperor was Shih Tsung) Christianity was
placed under a general ban, being regarded as a secret political
organization.

5 _Relations with the outer world_

During the Yung-cheng period there was long-continued guerrilla fighting
with natives in south-west China. The pressure of population in China
sought an outlet in emigration. More and more Chinese moved into the
south-west, and took the land from the natives, and the fighting was the
consequence of this.

At the beginning of the Ch'ien-lung period (1736-1796), fighting started
again in Turkestan. Mongols, now called Kalmuks, defeated by the
Chinese, had migrated to the Ili region, where after heavy fighting they
gained supremacy over some of the Kazaks and other Turkish peoples
living there and in western Turkestan. Some Kazak tribes went over to
the Russians, and in 1735 the Russian colonialists founded the town of
Orenburg in the western Kazak region. The Kalmuks fought the Chinese
without cessation until, in 1739, they entered into an agreement under
which they ceded half their territory to Manchu China, retaining only
the Ili region. The Kalmuks subsequently reunited with other sections of
the Kazaks against the Chinese. In 1754 peace was again concluded with
China, but it was followed by raids on both sides, so that the Manchus
determined to enter on a great campaign against the Ili region. This
ended with a decisive victory for the Chinese (1755). In the years that
followed, however, the Chinese began to be afraid that the various Kazak
tribes might unite in order to occupy the territory of the Kalmuks,
which was almost unpopulated owing to the mass slaughter of Kalmuks by
the Chinese. Unrest be