actorily identified; the various names given to the
same person, the conflicting claims of various usurpers or temporary
rulers, and the struggle between the dying Ming dynasty and the Manchu
conquerors, cause great confusion and uncertainty in the history of
that period. The actual ruler of China was then the Manchu Chuntche
(1646-61); he was succeeded by his second son, Kanghi.

[55] Nanking was, under some early Chinese dynasties, the capital
of the empire. This name signifies merely "Southern Court;" the
proper appellation of the city is Kianningfu. Odoric of Pordenone,
who visited it near the year 1325, says that its walls had a circuit
of forty miles, and in it were three hundred and sixty stone bridges,
the finest in the world (Yule's Cathay, i, pp. 120, 121).

[56] This was Hia-mun, or Emuy (known by the English as Amoy); it lies
off the province of Fuh-kien, at the mouth of the Lung-kiang ("Dragon")
River. On it lies the city of Amoy, a large and important commercial
port; it has one of the best harbors on the coast. (Williams's Middle
Kingdom, i, pp. 114, 115.)

[57] Diaz relates this (Conquistas, p. 619) in greater detail. "The
Tartar [i.e., Chuntche], seeing himself reduced to so great straits
... resolved to command that all the [inhabited places on the] maritime
coasts should be laid waste and dismantled, for a distance of three
or four leguas inland, throughout the more than eight hundred leguas
of coasts which that empire possesses. This, to the great injury
of the empire, left demolished and razed to the ground innumerable
settlements and cities, enough to compose several kingdoms. This was
the greatest conflagration and havoc that the world has seen, ... and
only populous China could be the fit theater for such a tragedy,
and only the cruel barbarity of the Tartars [could make them the]
inventors and executors of such destruction. The upheaval which the
execution of this so unexampled cruelty caused cannot be described; the
loss of property is incalculable; and human thought cannot conceive the
horror produced by the sight of so many thousands of towns and cities
burning. At last this general conflagration was completed, the fire
lasting many days--the clouds of smoke reaching as far as Hia-muen,
more than twenty leguas, and the sun not being visible in all that
broad expanse. Stations were established at suitable distances for
easily rendering aid, well garrisoned with soldiers; and watch-towers
we