The elaborate system of examinations, with the splendid
official honours reserved for successful students which was
adopted by the Dynasty, not only conciliated Chinese society but
provided a vast body of men whose interest lay in maintaining the
new conquest; and thus Literature, which had always been the door
to preferment, became not only one of the instruments of
government, but actually the advocate of an alien rule. With their
persons and properties safe, and their women-folk protected by an
elaborate set of capitulations from being requisitioned for the
harems of the invaders, small wonder if the mass of Chinese
welcomed a firm administration after the frightful disorders which
had torn the country during the last days of the Mings. [Footnote:
This most interesting point--the immunity of Chinese women from
forced marriage with Manchus--has been far too little noticed by
historians though it throws a flood of light on the sociological
aspects of the Manchu conquest. Had that conquest been absolute it
would have been impossible for the Chinese people to have
protected their womenfolk in such a significant way.]
It was the foreigner, arriving in force in China after the capture
of Peking and the ratification of the Tientsin Treaties in 1860,
who so greatly contributed to making the false idea of Manchu
absolutism current throughout the world; and in this work it was
the foreign diplomat, coming to the capital saturated with the
tradition of European absolutism, who played a not unimportant
part.
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