The main object in establishing these Wei was, as we have seen, to provide some effective means of repelling the persistent attacks of Japanese raiders. In this object the authorities appear to have been only moderately successful. "When the sea-robbers heard of what had been done," says one exultant writer, "they betook themselves a long way off and dared not cast any more longing looks at our coast; and thus came peace to hundreds and thousands of people. No more intermittent alarms and disorders, no more panics and stampedes for the people of Weihai!" This view of the situation was unduly rosy, for in the fourth year of the reign Ming Yung Lo (1406)—only eight years after the creation of the several Wei—the Japanese (Wo k'ou, "Dwarf-pirates") effected a landing at Liukungtao, and additional troops had to be summoned from long distances before they could be expelled. Two years later—as if to show their contempt for one Wei after another—they landed in force at Ch'êng-shan, and though they did not succeed in capturing the new walled city of Ch'êng-shan-wei they overwhelmed the garrisons of two neighbouring forts. These daring raids resulted in an increase and reorganisation of the troops attached to each Wei, and in the appointment of an officer with the quaint title of "Captain charged with the duty of making preparations against the Dwarfs." Henceforward the forts under each Wei were known as "Dwarf-catching Stations," while the soldiers were "Dwarf-catchers." It is not explained what happened to the Dwarfs when caught, but there is no reason to suppose they were treated with undue leniency. It is perhaps well for the self-respect of the Chinese that the Wei establishments had been abolished long before the capture of Weihai by the Japanese in 1895, otherwise the Catchers would have found themselves in the ignoble position of the Caught.
We have seen that the city wall of Weihaiwei was first built in 1403. The troops were stationed within the city and also in barracks erected at the various beacon-posts and forts which lined the coast to east and west, but considerable numbers in times of peace lived on their farms in the neighbourhood and only took up arms when specially summoned. The official quarters of the commandant of the Wei—the principal chih-hui—were in the yamên which is now the residence of the Chinese deputy-magistrate. The number of troops under his charge seems to have varied according to the exigencies of the moment, but it is recorded that Weihaiwei was at first (at the end of the fourteenth century) provided with a garrison of two thousand soldiers, which number was gradually increased. The area of the Wei—including the lands devoted to direct military uses and those farmed by the military colonists—was probably considerably less than one hundred square miles in extent, and embraced a part of the most northerly (peninsular) portion of the territory now administered by Great Britain.
It was not only from foreign "barbarians" that the inhabitants of Wên-têng had to fear attack. Their own lawless countrymen were sometimes no less daring and ruthless than the Japanese. Those that came by sea were, indeed, foreigners in the eyes of the people of Shantung, for most of them came from the provinces south of the Yangtse and spoke dialects quite incomprehensible in the north. During the Chia-ching period (1522–66) a Chinese pirate named Wang Hsien-wu seized the island of Liukung, within full view of the soldiers of the Wei, and maintained himself there with such ease and comfort that he built fifty-three houses for his pirate band and took toll of all junks that passed in and out of the harbour. He was finally dislodged by a warlike Imperial Censor, who after his main work was accomplished made a careful survey of the arable land of the island and had it put under cultivation by soldier-farmers. This useful work was again pursued with energy rather more than half a century later, when in 1619 the prefect T'ao Lang-hsien admitted a few immigrants to the island and enrolled them as payers of land-tax. With a view to their better protection against further sudden attacks from pirates he established on the island a system of signal-beacons.
The last year or two of the Ming dynasty (1642–3) was a troublous and anxious time for all peace-loving Chinese. The events that led to the expulsion of the Mings and the establishment of the present (Manchu) dynasty on the Chinese throne are too well known to need detailed mention. A great part of the Empire was the prey of roving bands of rebels and brigands, one of whom—a remarkable adventurer named Li Tzŭ-ch'êng—after repeatedly defeating the imperial troops finally made himself master of the city of Peking. The last Emperor of the Ming dynasty, overwhelmed with shame and grief, hanged himself within the palace grounds. The triumph of Li was short-lived, for the warlike tribes of Manchuria, readily accepting an invitation from the Chinese imperialist commander-in-chief to cross the frontier and drive out the presumptuous rebels, soon made themselves supreme in the capital and in the Empire. The condition of the bulk of the Chinese people during this time of political ferment was pitiable in the extreme. Military leaders, unable to find money to pay their troops, neither could nor would prevent them from committing acts of pillage and murder. Bands of armed robbers, many of them ex-soldiers, roamed over the land unchecked, leaving behind them a trail of fire and blood.
Confining our attention to the districts with which we are specially concerned, we find that a band of brigands took by assault the walled city of Ch'êng-shan, while at Weihaiwei the conduct of the local troops was so disorderly that civilians with their wives and families had to abandon their fields and homes and flee for refuge to the tops of hills.[33] The chih-hui in command of the local Wei at this momentous time, coming to the conclusion that the dynasty was tottering and that the seals of office issued by the Ming Emperors would shortly bring disaster on their possessors, deserted his post and sought a dishonoured refuge at home. It was not for several years afterwards that the distracted people of Weihaiwei, or such of them as had survived the miseries of those terrible days, once more found themselves in possession of their ancestral farms and reasonably secure from rapine and outrage.
The strong rule of the early Ta Ch'ing Emperors (the Manchu dynasty) had its natural effect throughout the whole country. Law-abiding folk enjoyed the fruits of their industry without molestation, while robbers and pirates found their trade both more dangerous and less profitable than in the good old days of political disorder. Yet it was not to be supposed that even the great days of K'ang Hsi and his two remarkable successors were totally unmarked by occasional troubles for the people of so remote and exposed a section of the Empire as north-eastern Shantung. The year 1703, say the local annals, was a disastrous one, for floods in spring and a drought in summer were followed in autumn by the arrival at Weihaiwei of shiploads of Chinese pirates. Soldiers from the neighbouring camps of Ning-hai, Fu-shan (Chefoo) and Wên-têng had to be sent for to assist the local garrison in beating them off. Nine years later, on the seventeenth day of the tenth month, pirates arrived at the island of Chi-ming,[34] whereupon a great fight ensued in which a brave and distinguished Chinese commander lost his life.
An important year for the districts we are considering was 1735. For some years previous to this the question of the abolition of the various Wei and amalgamating them with the appropriate Hsien had been eagerly discussed in civil and military circles. The question was not, indeed, one of dismantling fortifications or denuding the place of troops: these, it was reluctantly recognised, were a permanent necessity. The disputed point was merely one of jurisdiction and organisation. As we have seen, the Wei were something quite exceptional in the Chinese administrative system; the creation of districts under direct military control, free