There was the great mistake of the Imperialists. Almost immediately the Manchus, having been joined by the Mongol forces, harassed the northern borders of the Empire. The Ming Dynasty had lost the confidence of the nation; officialdom was at its weakest through long years of corruption and misrule; General Li seized his opportunity, other leaders joined themselves and their forces to the rebel army, and China for ten years became one great battlefield.[1] To give but a solitary instance of the carnage that ensued: Li had unsuccessfully invested Kaifeng-fu earlier in the year, but having captured Nanyang, he led his victorious troops before the former city at the close of 1641, only to be repulsed, losing an eye, pierced by an arrow, in the attempt. In the following year Li again laid siege to the seemingly impregnable place; and, finally, enraged by the nine-months resistance of plucky Kaifeng, turned the waters of the Yellow River into the doomed city. The loss of life was fearful--some million souls, it is said, perishing in the muddy torrent that swept across the plain, twenty feet high. Li himself was compelled to beat a hasty retreat, losing ten thousand men in his flight. Compared with such awful {259} carnage and loss of life, the casualties in the war of the present Revolution seem but trifling. In the early part of 1644 Li was so far successful that he proclaimed himself Emperor, called his Dynasty "Tai Shun," appointed various Boards to control the affairs of the country, granted patents of nobility and other rewards to all who had faithfully served him, and generally believed that the Empire, with the throne of it, was his. The rebel chieftain marched through rivers of blood to Peking, captured the city, and found that the Emperor (Chwang Lieh-ti) had hanged himself in his own girdle. The revolution seemed complete, and the prize of life within his grasp. One enemy remained unconquered, but this enemy was one Wu San-kwei, the commandant of the fortress of Ning Yuen. His force was not a large one, and his supplies limited. To crush him utterly seemed but the work of a few days to the one who had swept on to Peking in one victorious career. Li Tsi-cheng himself led the army--strong in itself, doubly strong in its sense of reliance born of victory. Love is strong; love ruthlessly deprived of its object breeds a hatred that is stronger tenfold in its thirst for vengeance. Wu San-kwei's beautiful mistress, whom he passionately adored, had been ravished by one of the rebels. Weak himself, he called in a mighty power to aid him in wreaking his revenge. About 270 miles away was the Manchu host, eagerly awaiting the opportunity to strike the blow they had so long been preparing. Wu must have foreseen the consequences. It was a deliberate betrayal of his country to her bitterest foes. Hate had its way, and called in its only effective instrument.