In Kirin Province likin tax is known under the name of seven and four likin: that is to say, 7 per cent. likin for army expenditure and 4 per cent. likin to defray the expenses connected with the Kirin mint.

In Amur Province there is no likin tax at all. In its place there is a 10 per cent. levy on various goods, livestock, and grains.

M

CHAPTER XIV

GOVERNMENT

In the first year of Emperor Shunchih, who placed the Manchu Dynasty upon the Dragon Throne of the Middle Kingdom, Manchuria received an expression of special consideration at the hand of the Peking Court. It sent one of the Palace Ministers to preside over her. He was supported and assisted by two Deputy Lieutenant Generals and a military secretary in the administration of the Province. Even in those simple days the governing of the Home Province of the Manchu Dynasty seemed anything but simple. The persistent and frequent changes in her administrative form are an eloquent comment on this point.

In 1646, that is to say only two years after the Palace Minister had been sent there, an Anpang took his place at the head of the Provincial Government. He took upon himself all the functions of the two Lieutenant Generals who had gone to assist the palace minister. In 1657 Shenyang, the district round about the Capital City of Mukden, was created a prefecture under the name of Fengtien Fu, and a civil governor was appointed to rule over it. He was commanded to combine the duties of Literary Chancellor in 1661. In 1662 the title of Anpang was changed to Chiangchun, or Military Governor, of Liaotung. In the next year the title was changed again to the Military Governor of Fengtien. In 1671 it was once more changed to the Military Governor of Shenking. In 1684 the Provinces of Mukden, Kirin, and Amur were each governed by a military governor, who

combined the functions of a civil governor as well. And in 1876 the Military Governor of Shenking was created the Governor General of Fengtien (as the Chinese call Mukden). The Military Governor was also the commander-in-chief of all the military forces of the province, except the garrison at Port Arthur and in its immediate neighborhood at the tip end of the Liaotung Peninsula, which was under the command of the Superintendent of Trade for the Northern Ports. In 1876 also the Civil Governor of the Mukden Prefecture was raised to the rank of a Provincial Governor, and as such he was made a colleague of the military governor. He governed the country with the famous Five Boards of War, Punishment, Ceremony, Construction, and Finance. Each of these was presided over by a president and a vice-president and had a staff of many secretaries. The Board of Punishment often had the greatest number of officials on it-a rather significant sidelight on the administration activities of those days.

The

At first the military régime received the prime emphasis; but as years went on, came the Chinese from the southern provinces. And with the increase of agricultural and commercial population, the need for and the prestige of the civil government rose steadily. Mukden Province was the first to have a civil governor acting on an equal footing with the military governor. The first agricultural immigration from Shantung and from Chihli, which crowded into the valley of the Liao and spread over South Manchuria, was of course the primal cause of this. And the Kirin Province followed in the wake of the Province of Mukden in claiming a civil governor of its own. The primitive Province of Amur has ever been under military rule. The coming of the civil government has served in Manchuria as in many other countries of the world as the gauge of the forward march of civilization.