In the battle that followed the Chinese army was completely surprised and routed, Li being one of the first to flee. His power was broken, his army gone, and the last of the Chinese Emperors had reigned his reign. The Manchu had come. Li's conquest of the Empire was completed with the {260} taking of Peking; in Peking the subjugation of China by the Manchus was begun. For thirty-seven years the work of conquest and pacification was carried on. Then the Empire had rest for a season. We quote the following from an interesting article that appeared in the Central China Post of December 2, 1911: "From this date there was no serious internal disturbances in China for a hundred and seventy years. During the greater portion of the time the administration was at once strong, able, and enlightened, for two of the first four Manchu Emperors were great and commanding personalities, while the length of time they severally occupied the throne did much to consolidate the position of the Dynasty. The second Manchu sovereign, the great Kanghi, proclaimed Emperor at the age of eight, in 1661, occupied the throne for the long term of sixty-one years, and his long rule was extremely brilliant and vigorous. Kanghi's immediate successor, Yung Ching, was far from being a weak man; but as his brief reign of thirteen years was characterised by no novel departure and no startling events, he is much less prominent than either his father or the son that succeeded him. The fourth Manchu sovereign would have had even a longer reign than his grandfather had if he had not adopted the unusual course of abdicating the throne, after occupying it sixty years. In this connection, it may be remarked that cases of abdication are about as rare in Chinese as in European history, while in Japan during the last millennium it has been quite exceptional for a sovereign to die in actual occupation of the throne. The second Manchu Emperor, Kanghi (1661-1722), was one of the greatest and most successful rulers that ever exercised sway in China. But his grandson, the fourth Manchu Emperor, Keen-lung (1735-96), was even greater and even more successful still. Keen-lung was twenty-five years of age when he ascended the throne in 1735; thus when he abdicated {261} in 1796 he was a patriarch of fourscore years and six. Yet even till that date he had retained the active habits which had characterised his youth. Much of his official work was carried on at an early hour of the morning; and Europeans who had audience with him shortly before his abdication were greatly surprised to find the patriarch so keen and eager for business at these early conferences. Keen-lung did not omit to train, or at least to try to train, a successor. He abdicated in 1796, as has just been written; but for three years after that date he kept a keen watch upon his son and successor, Kia-king, exerting all his efforts to inculcate in him the right principles of sound government.