MUKDEN (

See also:

• CHINESE, JAPANESE AND

Chinese Sheengking)  , the capital of Manchuria, on the Hun-ho, Ito m . N.E. of Niuchwang, in 41° 51' N., 123° 38' E., with a population of 250,000 . It is a centre for trade and also for missionary enterprise . It was formerly the headquarters of the Manchu dynasty, and their tombs lie within its confines . Mukden is a fine town, with splendid walls, about a mile long each way . The suburbs extend a considerable distance from the city and are surrounded by mud walls . In the centre of the town stands a small palace surrounded by an inner wall and roofed with yellow tiles . The boots and pack of Nurhachu, the founder of the present Chinese dynasty, who was a pedlar, are preserved there . Nurhachu's son, the emperor T'ien-tsung (1627-1636), built temples to heaven and earth in the neighbourhood of the city in imitation of those at Peking . These are much dilapidated . Four or five miles to the east of the town stands the Fu-ling or " happy tomb," where the remains of Nurhachu rest, the outer 1 Al Mulfaddasi =" the Jerusalemite."gates of which are adorned with a green majolica representation of an imperial dragon . The Emperor K'ien lung (1726-1796) wrote a poem on Mukden, which was translated into French by Pere Amiot and attracted the attention of Voltaire .

During the Russo-

Japanese War in 1905 some of the heaviest fighting took place before Mukden, what is known as the " battle of Mukden " covering operations from the 19th of February till the Japanese occupied Mukden on the loth of March and the Russians retreated northward on the 12th .