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China

by Demetrius Charles Boulger · English · Gutenberg #6708 · 1,137,215 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: China

Author: Demetrius Charles Boulger


        
Release date: October 1, 2004 [eBook #6708]
                Most recently updated: December 29, 2020

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHINA ***




Produced by Anne Soulard, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.





CHINA

BY
DEMETRIUS CHARLES BOULGER

WITH A SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER OF RECENT EVENTS
BY MAYO W. HAZELTINE

[Illustration: THE EMPEROR RECEIVING THE DIPLOMATIC CORPS
_China Frontispiece_]




I DEDICATE THIS SHORT
HISTORY OF CHINA
TO
SIR HALLIDAY MACARTNEY, K.C.M.G.
AS A SLIGHT TRIBUTE OF PERSONAL RESPECT AND ADMIRATION FOR ONE WHO
HAS MAINTAINED THE RIGHT OF CHINA TO BE TREATED BY THE
GOVERNMENTS OF EUROPE WITH THE DIGNITY AND
CONSIDERATION THAT BECOME A
GREAT EMPIRE.

IF TO LORD MACARTNEY WE OWE THE FIRST SUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT TO OBTAIN
AUDIENCE OF THE EMPEROR OF CHINA ON THE SAME CONDITIONS
AS THOSE ON WHICH FOREIGN AMBASSADORS
ARE RECEIVED AT EUROPEAN COURTS, TO
SIR HALLIDAY MACARTNEY
A SCION OF THE SAME FAMILY
CHINA
OWES MUCH OF THE SUCCESS THAT HAS ATTENDED HER DIPLOMACY
IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES




CONTENTS

CHAP.

I. THE EARLY AGES

II. THE FIRST NATIONAL DYNASTY

III. A LONG PERIOD OF DISUNION

IV. THE SUNGS AND THE KINS

V. THE MONGOL CONQUEST OF CHINA

VI. KUBLAI AND THE MONGOL DYNASTY

VII. THE MING DYNASTY

VIII. THE DECLINE OF THE MINGS

IX. THE MANCHU CONQUEST OF CHINA

X. THE FIRST MANCHU RULER

XI. THE EMPEROR KANGHI

XII. A SHORT REIGN AND THE BEGINNING OF A LONG ONE

XIII. KEEN LUNG'S WARS AND CONQUESTS

XIV. THE COMMENCEMENT OF EUROPEAN INTERCOURSE

XV. THE DECLINE OF THE MANCHUS

XVI. THE EMPEROR TAOUKWANG

XVII. THE FIRST FOREIGN WAR

XVIII. TAOUKWANG AND HIS SUCCESSOR

XIX. THE SECOND FOREIGN WAR

XX. THE TAEPING REBELLION

XXI. THE REGENCY

XXII. THE REIGN OF KWANGSU

THE WAR WITH JAPAN AND SUBSEQUENT EVENTS

THE FUTURE OF CHINA




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

_Frontispiece_--The Emperor Receiving the Diplomatic Corps
Hong Kong
Canton--The Flower Pagoda
Kang, the Reformer




PREFACE


As China has now fairly taken her place in the family of nations, it is
unnecessary to elaborate an argument in support of even the humblest
attempt to elucidate her history. It is a subject to which we can no
longer remain indifferent, because circumstances are bringing every day
more clearly into view the important part China must play in the changes
that have become imminent in Asia, and that will affect the security of
our position and empire in that continent. A good understanding with China
should be the first article of our Eastern policy, for not only in Central
Asia, but also in Indo-China, where French ambition threatens to create a
fresh Egypt, her interests coincide with ours and furnish the sound basis
of a fruitful alliance.

This book, which I may be pardoned for saying is not an abridgment of my
original work, but entirely rewritten and rearranged with the view of
giving prominence to the modern history of the Chinese Empire, may appeal,
although they generally treat Asiatic subjects with regrettable
indifference, to that wider circle of English readers on whose opinion and
efforts the development of our political and commercial relations with the
greatest of Oriental States will mainly depend.

D. C. BOULGER, April 28, 1893.




CHAPTER I

THE EARLY AGES


The Chinese are unquestionably the oldest nation in the world, and their
history goes back to a period to which no prudent historian will attempt
to give a precise date. They speak the language and observe the same
social and political customs that they did several thousand years before
the Christian era, and they are the only living representatives to-day of
a people and government which were contemporary with the Egyptians, the
Assyrians, and the Jews. So far as our knowledge enables us to speak, the
Chinese of the present age are in all essential points identical with
those of the time of Confucius, and there is no reason to doubt that
before his time the Chinese national character had been thoroughly formed
in its present mold. The limits of the empire have varied from time to
time under circumstances of triumph or disunion, but the Middle Kingdom,
or China Proper, of the eighteen provinces has always possessed more or
less of its existing proportions. Another striking and peculiar feature
about China is the small amount of influence that the rest of the world
has exercised upon it. In fact, it is only during the present century that
that influence can be said to have existed at all. Up to that point China
had pursued a course of her own, carrying on her own struggles within a
definite limit, and completely indifferent to, and ignorant of, the
ceaseless competition and contests of mankind outside her orbit, which
make up the history of the rest of the Old World. The long struggles for
supremacy in Western Asia between Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian, the
triumphs of the Greek, followed by the absorption of what remained of the
Macedonian conquests in the Empire of Rome, even the appearance of Islam
and the Mohammedan conquerors, who changed the face of Southern Asia from
the Ganges to the Levant, and long threatened to overrun Europe, had no
significance for the people of China, and reacted as little on their
destiny as if they had happened in another planet. Whatever advantages the
Chinese may have derived from this isolation, it has entailed the penalty
that the early history of their country is devoid of interest for the lest
of the world, and it is only when the long independent courses of China
and Europe are brought into proximity by the Mongol conquests, the efforts
of the medieval travelers, the development of commerce, and the wars
carried on for the purpose of obtaining a secure position for foreigners
in China--four distinct phases covering the last seven centuries--that any
confidence can be felt in successfully attracting notice to the affairs of
China. Yet, as a curiosity in human existence, the earlier history of that
country may justly receive some notice. Even though the details are not
recited, the recollection of the antiquity of China's institutions must be
ever present with the student, as affording an indispensable clew to the
character of the Chinese people and the composition of their government.

The first Chinese are supposed to have been a nomad tribe in the province
of Shensi, which lies in the northwest of China, and among them at last
appeared a ruler, Fohi, whose name at least has been preserved. His deeds
and his person are mythical, but he is credited with having given his
country its first regular institutions. One of his successors was Hwangti
(which means Heavenly Emperor), who was the first to employ the imperial
style of Emperor, the earlier rulers having been content with the inferior
title of Wang, or prince. He adopted the convenient decimal division in
his administration as well as his coinage. His dominions were divided into
ten provinces, each of these into ten departments, these again into ten
districts, each of which held ten towns. He regulated the calendar,
originating the Chinese cycle of sixty years, and he encouraged commerce.
He seems to have been a wise prince and to have been the first of the
great emperors. His grandson, who was also emperor, continued his good
work and earned the reputation of being "the restorer or even founder of
true astronomy."

But the most famous of Hwangti's successors was his great-grandson Yao who
is still one of the most revered of all Chinese rulers. He was "diligent,
enlightened, polished and prudent," and if his words reflected his actions
he must have been most solicitous of the welfare of his people. He is
specially remarkable for his anxiety to discover the best man to succeed
him in the government, and during the last twenty-eight years of his reign
he associated the minister Chun with him for that purpose. On his death he
left the crown to him, and Chun, after some hesitation, accepted the
charge; but he in turn hastened to secure the co-operation of another
minister named Yu in the work of administration, just as he had been
associated with Yao. The period covered by the rule of this triumvirate is
considered one of the most brilliant and perfect in Chinese history, and
it bears a resemblance to the age of the Antonines. These rulers seem to
have passed their leisure from practical work in framing moral axioms, and
in carrying out a model scheme of government based on the purest ethics.
They considered that "a prince intrusted with the charge of a State has a
heavy task. The happiness of his subjects absolutely depends upon him. To
provide for everything is his duty; his ministers are only put in office
to assist him," and also that "a prince who wishes to fulfill his
obligations, and to long preserve his people in the ways of peace, ought
to watch without ceasing that the laws are observed with exactitude." They
were stanch upholders of temperance, and they banished the unlucky
discoverer of the fact that an intoxicating drink could be obtained from
rice. They also held fast to the theory that all government must be based
on the popular will. In fact, the reigns of Yao, Chun and Yu are the ideal
period of Chinese history, when all questions were decided by moral right
and justice, and even now Chinese philosophers are said to test their
maxims of morality by the degree of agreement they may have with the
conduct of those rulers.

With them passed away the practice of letting the most capable and
experienced minister rule the State. Such an impartial and reasonable mode
of selecting the head of a community can never be perpetuated. The rulers
themselves may see its advantages and may endeavor as honestly as these
three Chinese princes to carry out the arrangement, but the day must come
when the family of the able ruler will assert its rights to the
succession, and take advantage of its opportunities from its close
connection with the government to carry out its ends. The Emperor Yu, true
to the practice of his predecessors, nominated the president of the
council as his successor, but his son Tiki seized the throne, and became
the founder of the first Chinese dynasty, which was called the Hia, from
the name of the province first ruled by his father. This event is supposed
to have taken place in the year 2197 B.C., and the Hia dynasty, of which
there were seventeen emperors, ruled down to the year 1776 B.C. These Hia
princes present no features of interest, and the last of them, named Kia,
was deposed by one of his principal nobles, Ching Tang, Prince of Chang.

This prince was the founder of the second dynasty, known as Chang, which
held possession of the throne for 654 years, or down to 1122 B.C. With the
exception of the founder, who seems to have been an able man, this dynasty
of twenty-eight emperors did nothing very noteworthy. The public morality
deteriorated very much under this family, and it is said that when one of
the emperors wanted an honest man as minister he could only find one in
the person of a common laborer. At last, in the twelfth century before our
era, the enormities of the Chang rulers reached a climax in the person of
Chousin, who was deposed by a popular rising headed by Wou Wang, Prince of
Chow.

This successful soldier, whose name signifies the Warrior King, founded
the third Chinese dynasty of Chow, which governed the empire for the long
space of 867 years down to 266 B.C. During that protracted period there
were necessarily good and bad emperors, and the Chow dynasty was rendered
specially illustrious by the appearance of the great social and religious
reformers, Laoutse, Confucius and Mencius, during the existence of its
power. The founder of the dynasty instituted the necessary reforms to
prove that he was a national benefactor, and one of his successors, known
as the Magnificent King, extended the authority of his family over some of
the States of Turkestan. But, on the whole, the rulers of the Chow dynasty
were not particularly distinguished, and one of them in the eighth century
B.C. was weak enough to resign a portion of his sovereign rights to a
powerful vassal, Siangkong, the Prince of Tsin, in consideration of his
undertaking the defense of the frontier against the Tartars. At this
period the authority of the central government passed under a cloud. The
emperor's prerogative became the shadow of a name, and the last three
centuries of the rule of this family would not call for notice but for the
genius of Laoutse and Confucius, who were both great moral teachers and
religious reformers.

Laoutse, the founder of Taouism, was the first in point of time, and in
some respects he was the greatest of these reformers. He found his
countrymen sunk in a low state of moral indifference and religious
infidelity which corresponded with the corruption of the times and the
disunion in the kingdom. He at once set himself to work with energy and
devotion to repair the evils of his day, and to raise before his
countrymen a higher ideal of duty. He has been called the Chinese
Pythagoras, the most erudite of sinologues have pronounced his text
obscure, and the mysterious Taouism which he founded holds the smallest or
the least assignable part in what passes for the religion of the Chinese.
As a philosopher and minister Laoutse will always attract attention and
excite speculation, but as a practical reformer and politician he was far
surpassed by his younger and less theoretical contemporary Confucius.

Confucius was an official in the service of one of the great princes who
divided the governing power of China among themselves during the whole of
the seventh century before our era, which beheld the appearance of both of
these religious teachers and leaders. He was a trained administrator with
long experience when he urged upon his prince the necessity of reform, and
advocated a policy of union throughout the States. His exhortations were
in vain, and so far ill-timed that he was obliged to resign the service of
one prince after another. In his day the authority of the Chow emperor had
been reduced to the lowest point. Each prince was unto himself the supreme
authority. Yet one cardinal point of the policy of Confucius was
submission to the emperor, as implicit obedience to the head of the State
throughout the country as was paid to the father of every Chinese
household. Although he failed to find a prince after his own heart, his
example and precepts were not thrown away, for in a later generation his
reforms were executed, and down to the present day the best points in
Chinese government are based on his recommendations. If "no intelligent
monarch arose" in his time, the greatest emperors have since sought to
conform with his usages and to rule after the ideal of the great
philosopher. His name and his teachings were perpetuated by a band of
devoted disciples, and the book which contained the moral and
philosophical axioms of Confucius passed into the classic literature of
the country and stood in the place of a Bible for the Chinese. The list of
the great Chinese reformers is completed by the name of Mencius, who,
coming two centuries later, carried on with better opportunities the
reforming work of Confucius, and left behind him in his Sheking the most
popular book of Chinese poetry and a crowning tribute to the great Master.

From teachers we must again pass to the chronicle of kings, although few
of the later Chow emperors deserve their names to be rescued from
oblivion. One emperor suffered a severe defeat while attempting to
establish his authority over the troublesome tribes beyond the frontier;
of another it was written that "his good qualities merited a happier day,"
and the general character of the age may be inferred from its being
designated by the native chroniclers "The warlike period." At last, after
what seemed an interminable old age, marked by weakness and vice, the Chow
dynasty came to an end in the person of Nan Wang, who, although he reigned
for nearly sixty years, was deposed in ignominious fashion by one of his
great vassals, and reduced to a humble position. His conqueror became the
founder of the fourth Chinese dynasty.

During the period of internal strife which marked the last four centuries
of the Chow dynasty, one family had steadily waxed stronger and stronger
among the princes of China: the princes of Tsin, by a combination of
prudence and daring, gradually made themselves supreme among their
fellows. It was said of one of them that "like a wolf or a tiger he wished
to draw all the other princes into his claws, so that he might devour
them." Several of the later Tsin princes, and particularly one named Chow
Siang Wang, showed great capacity, and carried out a systematic policy for
their own aggrandizement. When Nan Wang was approaching the end of his
career, the Tsin princes had obtained everything of the supreme power
short of the name and the right to wear the imperial yellow robes. Ching
Wang, or, to give him his later name as emperor, Tsin Chi Hwangti, was the
reputed great-grandson of Chow Siang Wang, and under him the fame and
power of the Tsins reached their culminating point. This prince also
proved himself one of the greatest rulers who ever sat on the Dragon
throne of China.

The country had been so long distracted by internal strife, and the
authority of the emperor had been reduced to such a shadow, that peace was
welcomed under any ruler, and the hope was indulged that the Tsin princes,
who had succeeded in making themselves the most powerful feudatories of
the empire, might be able to restore to the central government something
of its ancient power and splendor. Nor was the expectation unreasonable or
ungratified. The Tsins had fairly earned by their ability the confidence
of the Chinese nation, and their principal representative showed no
diminution of energy on attaining the throne, and exhibited in a higher
post, and on a wider field, the martial and statesmanlike qualities his
ancestors had displayed when building up the fabric of their power as
princes of the empire. Their supremacy was not acquiesced in by the other
great feudatories without a struggle, and more than one campaign was
fought before all rivals were removed from their path, and their authority
passed unchallenged as occupants of the Imperial office.

It was in the middle of this final struggle, and when the result might
still be held doubtful, that Tsin Chi Hwangti began his eventful reign.
When he began to rule he was only thirteen years of age, but he quickly
showed that he possessed the instinct of a statesman, and the courage of a
born commander of armies. On the one hand he sowed dissension between the
most formidable of his opponents, and brought about by a stratagem the
disgrace of the ablest general in their service, and on the other he
increased his army in numbers and efficiency, until it became
unquestionably the most formidable fighting force in China. While he
endeavored thus to attain internal peace, he was also studious in
providing for the general security of the empire, and with this object he
began the construction of a fortified wall across the northern frontier to
serve as a defense against the troublesome Hiongnou tribes, who are
identified with the Huns of Attila. This wall, which he began in the first
years of his reign, was finished before his death, and still exists as the
Great Wall of China, which has been considered one of the wonders of the
world. He was careful in his many wars with the tribes of Mongolia not to
allow himself to be drawn far from his own border, and at the close of a
campaign he always withdrew his troops behind the Great Wall. Toward
Central Asia he was more enterprising, and one of his best generals,
Moungtien, crossed what is now the Gobi Desert, and made Hami the frontier
fortress of the empire.

In his civil administration Hwangti was aided by the minister Lisseh, who
seems to have been a man of rare ability, and to have entered heartily
into all his master's schemes for uniting the empire. While Hwangti sat on
the throne with a naked sword in his hand, as the emblem of his authority,
dispensing justice, arranging the details of his many campaigns, and
superintending the innumerable affairs of his government, his minister was
equally active in reorganizing the administration and in supporting his
sovereign in his bitter struggle with the literary classes who advocated
archaic principles, and whose animosity to the ruler was inflamed by the
contempt, not unmixed with ferocity, with which he treated them. The
empire was divided into thirty-six provinces, and he impressed upon the
governors the importance of improving communications within their
jurisdiction. Not content with this general precept, he issued a special
decree ordering that "roads shall be made in all directions throughout the
empire," and the origin of the main routes in China may be found with as
much certainty in his reign as that of the roads of Europe in the days of
Imperial Rome. When advised to assign some portion of his power to his
relatives and high officials in the provinces he refused to repeat the
blunders of his predecessors, and laid down the permanent truth that "good
government is impossible under a multiplicity of masters." He centralized
the power in his own hands, and he drew up an organization for the civil
service of the State which virtually exists at the present day. The two
salient features in that organization are the indisputable supremacy of
the emperor and the non-employment of the officials in their native
provinces, and the experience of two thousand years has proved their
practical value.

When he conquered his internal enemies he resolved to complete the
pacification of his country by effecting a general disarmament, and he
ordered that all weapons should be sent in to his capital at Hienyang.
This "skillful disarming of the provinces added daily to the wealth and
prosperity of the capital," which he proceeded to embellish. He built one
palace within the walls, and the Hall of Audience was ornamented with
twelve statues, each of which weighed twelve thousand pounds. But his
principal residence named the Palace of Delight, was without the walls,
and there he laid out magnificent gardens, and added building to building.
In one of the courts of this latter palace, it is said he could have drawn
up 10,000 soldiers. This eye to military requirements in even the building
of his residence showed the temper of his mind, and, in his efforts to
form a regular army, he had recourse to "those classes in the community
who were without any fixed profession, and who were possessed of
exceptional physical strength." He was thus the earliest possessor in
China of what might be called a regular standing army. With this force he
succeeded in establishing his power on a firm basis, and he may have hoped
also to insure permanence for his dynasty; but, alas! for the fallacy of
human expectations, the structure he erected fell with him.

Great as an administrator, and successful as a soldier, Hwangti was
unfortunate in one struggle that he provoked. At an early period of his
career, when success seemed uncertain, he found that his bitterest
opponents were men of letters, and that the literary class as a body was
hostile to his interests and person. Instead of ignoring this opposition
or seeking to overcome it by the same agency, Hwangti expressed his hatred
and contempt, not only of the literary class, but of literature itself,
and resorted to extreme measures of coercion. The writers took up the gage
of battle thrown down by the emperor, and Hwangti became the object of the
wit and abuse of every literate who could use a pencil. His birth was
aspersed. It was said that he was not a Tsin at all, that his origin was
of the humblest, and that he was a substituted child foisted on the last
of the Tsin princes. These personal attacks were accompanied by
unfavorable criticism of all his measures, and by censure where he felt
that he deserved praise. It would have been more prudent if he had shown
greater indifference and patience, for although he had the satisfaction of
triumphing by brute force over those who jeered at him, the triumph was
accomplished by an act of Vandalism, with which his name will be quite as
closely associated in history as any of the wise measures or great works
that he carried out. His vanquished opponents left behind them a legacy of
hostility and revenge of the whole literary class of China, which has
found expression in all the national histories.

The struggle, which had been in progress for some years, reached its
culminating point in the year 213 B.C., when a Grand Council of the empire
was summoned at Hienyang. At this council were present not only the
emperor's chief military and civil officers from the different provinces,
but also the large literary class, composed of aspirants to office and the
members of the academies and College of Censors. The opposing forces in
China were thus drawn up face to face, and it would have been surprising
if a collision had not occurred. On the one side were the supporters of
the man who had made China again an empire, believers in his person and
sharers in his glory; on the other were those who had no admiration for
this ruler, who detested his works, proclaimed his successes dangerous
innovations, and questioned his right to bear the royal name. The purpose
of the emperor may be detected when he called upon speakers in this
assembly of his friends and foes to express their opinions of his
administration, and when a member of his household rose to extol his work
and to declare that he had "surpassed the very greatest of his
predecessors." This courtier-like declaration, which would have been
excusable even if it had had a less basis of truth than it unquestionably
possessed in the case of Hwangti, was received with murmurs and marks of
dissent by the literati. One of them rose and denounced the speaker as "a
vile flatterer," and proceeded to expatiate on the superior merit of
several of the earlier rulers. Not content with this unseasonable eulogy,
he advocated the restoration of the empire to its old form of
principalities, and the consequent undoing of all that Hwangti had
accomplished. Hwangti interrupted this speaker and called upon his
favorite minister Lisseh to reply to him and explain his policy. Lisseh
began by stating what has often been said since, and in other countries,
that "men of letters are, as a rule, very little acquainted with what
concerns the government of a country, not that government of pure
speculation which is nothing more than a phantom, vanishing the nearer we
approached to it, but the practical government which consists in keeping
men within the sphere of their proper duties." He then proceeded to
denounce the literary class as being hostile to the State, and to
recommend the destruction of their works, declaring that "now is the time
or never to close the mouths of these secret enemies and to place a curb
on their audacity." The emperor at once from his throne ratified the
policy and ordered that no time should be lost in executing the necessary
measures. All books were proscribed, and orders were issued to burn every
work except those relating to medicine, agriculture, and such science as
then existed. The destruction of the national literature was carried out
with terrible completeness, and such works as were preserved are not free
from the suspicion of being garbled or incomplete versions of their
original text. The burning of the books was accompanied by the execution
of five hundred of the literati, and by the banishment of many thousands.
By this sweeping measure, to which no parallel is to be found in the
history of other countries, Hwangti silenced during the last few years of
his life the criticisms of his chief enemies, but in revenge his memory
has had to bear for two thousand years the sully of an inexcusable act of
tyranny and narrow-mindedness. The price will be pronounced too heavy for
what was a momentary gratification.

The reign of Hwangti was not prolonged many years after the burning of the
books. In 210 B.C. he was seized with a serious illness, to which he
succumbed, partly because he took no precautions, and partly, no doubt,
through the incompetence of his physicians. His funeral was magnificent,
and, like the Huns, his grave was dug in the bed of a river, and with him
were buried his wives and his treasure. This great ruler left behind him
an example of vigor such as is seldom found in the list of Chinese kings
of effete physique and apathetic life. He is the only Chinese emperor of
whom it is said that his favorite exercise was walking, and his vigor was
apparent in every department of State. On one occasion when he placed a
large army of, it is said, 600,000 men at the disposal of one of his
generals, the commander expressed some fear as to how this huge force was
to be fed. Hwangti at once replied, "Leave it to me. I will provide for
everything. There shall be want rather in my palace than in your camp." He
does not seem to have been a great general himself, but he knew how to
select the best commanders, and he was also so quick in discovering the
merits of the generals opposed to him, that some of his most notable
victories were obtained by his skill in detaching them from their service
or by ruining their reputation by some intrigue more astute than
honorable. Yet, all deductions made, Tsin Chi Hwangti stands forth as a
great ruler and remarkable man.

The Tsin dynasty only survived its founder a few years. Hwangti's son
Eulchi became emperor, but he reigned no more than three years. He was
foolish enough to get rid of the general Moungtien, who might have been
the buttress of his throne; and the minister Lisseh was poisoned, either
with or without his connivance. Eulchi himself shared the same fate, and
his successor, Ing Wang, reigned only six weeks, committing suicide after
losing a battle, and with him the Tsin dynasty came to an end. Its chief,
nay its only claim to distinction, arises from its having produced the
great ruler Hwangti, and its destiny was Napoleonic in its brilliance and
evanescence.

Looking back at the long period which connects the mythical age with what
may be considered the distinctly historical epoch of the Tsins, we find
that by the close of the third century before the Christian era China
possessed settled institutions, the most remarkable portion of its still
existing literature, and mighty rulers. It is hardly open to doubt that
the Chinese annalist finds in these remote ages as much interest and
instruction as we should in the record of more recent times, and proof of
this may be discovered in the fact that the history of the first four
dynasties, which we must dismiss in these few pages, occupies as much
space in the national history as the chronicle of events from Tsin Chi
Hwangti to the end of the Ming dynasty in 1644, at which date the official
history of China stops, because the history of the Manchu dynasty, which
has occupied the throne ever since, will only be given to the world after
it has ceased to rule. We must not be surprised at this discursiveness,
because the teachings of human experience are as clearly marked in those
early times as they have been since, and Chinese historians aim as much at
establishing moral and philosophical truths as at giving a complete record
of events. The consequences of human folly and incompetence are as patent
and conspicuous in those days as they are now. The ruling power is lost by
one family and transferred to another because the prince neglects his
business, gives himself over to the indulgence of pleasure, or fails to
see the signs of the times. Cowardice and corruption receive their due and
inevitable punishment. The founders of the dynasties are all brave and
successful warriors, who are superior to the cant of a hypercivilized
state of society, which covers declining vigor and marks the first phase
of effeteness, and who see that as long as there are human passions they
may be molded by genius to make the many serve the few and to build up an
autocracy. Nor are the lessons to be learned from history applicable only
to individuals. The faults of an emperor are felt in every household of
the community, and injure the State. Indifference and obtuseness at the
capital entailed weakness on the frontier and in the provincial capitals.
The barbarians grew defiant and aggressive, and defeated the imperial
forces. The provincial governors asserted their independence, and founded
ruling families. The empire became attenuated by external attack and
internal division. But, to use tho phrase of the Chinese historians,
"after long abiding disunion, union revived." The strong and capable man
always appears in one form or another, and the Chinese people, impressed
with a belief in both the divine mission of their emperor and also in the
value of union, welcome with acclaim the advent of the prince who will
restore their favorite and ideal system of one-man government. The time is
still hidden in a far-distant and undiscoverable future when it will be
otherwise, and when the Chinese will be drawn away from their consistent
and ancient practice to pursue the ignis fatuus of European politics that
seeks to combine human equality with good practical government and
national security. The Chinese have another and more attainable ideal, nor
is there any likelihood of their changing it. The fall of dynasties may,
needs must, continue in the ordinary course of nature, but in China it
will not pave the way to a republic. The imperial authority will rise
triumphant after every struggle above the storm.




CHAPTER II

THE FIRST NATIONAL DYNASTY


As the Chinese are still proud to call themselves the sons of Han, it will
be understood that the period covered by the Han rulers must be an
important epoch in their history, and in more than one respect they were
the first national dynasty, When the successors of Tsin Chi Hwangti proved
unable to keep the throne, the victorious general who profited by their
discomfiture was named Liu Pang. He had been a trusted official of the
Emperor Hwangti, but on finding that his descendants could not bear the
burden of government, he resolved to take his own measures, and he lost no
time in collecting troops and in making a bid for popularity by
endeavoring to save all the books that had not been burned. His career
bears some resemblance to that of Macbeth, for a soothsayer meeting him on
the road predicted, "by the expression of his features, that he was
destined to become emperor." He began his struggle for the throne by
defeating another general named Pawang, who was also disposed to make a
bid for supreme power. After this success Liu Pang was proclaimed emperor
as Kao Hwangti, meaning Lofty and August Emperor, which has been shortened
into Kaotsou. He named his dynasty the Han, after the small state in which
he was born.

Kaotsou began his reign by a public proclamation in favor of peace, and
deploring the evils which follow in the train of war. He called upon his
subjects to aid his efforts for their welfare by assisting in the
execution of many works of public utility, among which roads and bridges
occupied the foremost place. He removed his capital from Loyang in Honan
to Singanfoo in Shensi, and as Singan was difficult of access in those
days, he constructed a great highroad from the center of China to this
somewhat remote spot on the western frontier. This road still exists, and
has been described by several travelers in our time. It was constructed by
the labor of one hundred thousand men through the most difficult country,
crossing great mountain chains and broad rivers. The Chinese engineers
employed on the making of this road, which has excited the admiration of
all who have traversed it, first discovered and carried into execution the
suspension bridge, which in Europe is quite a modern invention. One of
these "flying bridges," as the Chinese called them, is one hundred and
fifty yards across a valley five hundred feet below, and is still in use.
At regular intervals along this road Kaotsou constructed rest-houses for
travelers, and postal-stations for his couriers. No Chinese ruler has done
anything more useful or remarkable than this admirable road from Loyang to
Singanfoo. He embellished his new capital with many fine buildings, among
which was a large palace, the grandeur of which was intended to correspond
with the extent of his power.

The reign of Kaotsou was, however, far from being one of uncheckered
prosperity. Among his own subjects his popularity was great because he
promoted commerce and improved the administration of justice. He also
encouraged literature, and was the first ruler to recognize the claims of
Confucius, at whose tomb he performed an elaborate ceremony. He thus
acquired a reputation which induced the King of Nanhai--a state composed
of the southern provinces of China, with its capital at or near the modern
Canton--to tender his allegiance. But he was destined to receive many
slights and injuries at the hands of a foreign enemy, who at this time
began a course of active aggression that entailed serious consequences for
both China and Europe.

Reference has been made to the Hiongnou or Hun tribes, against whom Tsin
Hwangti built the Great Wall. In the interval between the death of that
ruler and the consolidation of the power of Kaotsou, a remarkable chief
named Meha, or Meta, had established his supremacy among the disunited
clans of the Mongolian Desert, and had succeeded in combining for purposes
of war the whole fighting force of what had been a disjointed and
barbarous confederacy. The Chinese rulers had succeeded in keeping back
this threatening torrent from overflowing the fertile plains of their
country, as much by sowing dissension among these clans and by bribing one
chief to fight another, as by superior arms. But Meha's success rendered
this system of defense no longer possible, and the desert chieftain,
realizing the opportunity of spoil and conquest, determined to make his
position secure by invading China. If the enterprise had failed, there
would have been an end to the paramounce of Meha, but his rapid success
convinced the Huns that their proper and most profitable policy was to
carry on implacable war with their weak and wealthy neighbors. Meha's
success was so great that in a single campaign he recovered all the
districts taken from the Tartars by the general Moungtien. He turned the
western angle of the Great Wall, and brought down his frontier to the
river Hoangho. His light cavalry raided past the Chinese capital into the
province of Szchuen, and returned laden with the spoil of countless
cities. These successes were crowned by a signal victory over the emperor
in person. Kaotsou was drawn into an ambuscade in which his troops had no
chance with their more active adversaries, and, to save himself from
capture, Kaotsou had no alternative but to take refuge in the town of
Pingching, where he was closely beleaguered. It was impossible to defend
the town for any length of time, and the capture of Kaotsou seemed
inevitable, when recourse was had to a stratagem. The most beautiful
Chinese maiden was sent as a present to propitiate the conqueror, and
Meha, either mollified by the compliment, or deeming that nothing was to
be gained by driving the Chinese to desperation, acquiesced in a
convention which, while it sealed the ignominious defeat of the Chinese,
rescued their sovereign from his predicament.

This disaster, and his narrow personal escape, seem to have unnerved
Kaotsou, for when the Huns resumed their incursions in the very year
following the Pingching convention, he took no steps to oppose them, and
contented himself with denouncing in his palace Meha as "a wicked and
faithless man, who had risen to power by the murder of his father, and one
with whom oaths and treaties carried no weight." Notwithstanding this
opinion, Kaotsou proceeded to negotiate with Meha as an equal, and gave
this barbarian prince his own daughter in marriage as the price of his
abstaining from further attacks on the empire. Never, wrote a historian,
"was so great a shame inflicted on the Middle Kingdom, which then lost its
dignity and honor." Meha observed this peace during the life of Kaotsou,
who found that his reputation was much diminished by his coming to terms
with his uncivilized opponent, but although several of his generals
rebelled, until it was said that "the very name of revolt inspired Kaotsou
with apprehension," he succeeded in overcoming them all without serious
difficulty. His troubles probably shortened his life, for he died when he
was only fifty-three, leaving the crown to his son, Hoeiti, and
injunctions to his widow, Liuchi, as to the conduct of the administration.

The brief reign of Hoeiti is only remarkable for the rigor and terrible
acts of his mother, the Empress Liuchi, who is the first woman mentioned
in Chinese history as taking a supreme part in public affairs. Another of
Kaotsou's widows aspired to the throne for her son, and the chief
direction for herself. Liuchi nipped their plotting in the bud by
poisoning both of them. She marked out those who differed from her, or who
resented her taking the most prominent part in public ceremonies, as her
enemies, to be removed from her path by any means. At a banquet she
endeavored to poison one of the greatest princes of the empire, but her
plot was detected and baffled by her son. It is perhaps not surprising
that Hoeiti did not live long after this episode, and then Liuchi ruled in
her own name, and without filling up the vacancy on the throne, until the
public dissatisfaction warned her that she was going too far. She then
adopted a supposititious child as her grandson and governed as regent in
his name. The mother of this youth seems to have made inconvenient demands
on the empress, who promptly put her out of the way, and when the son
showed a disposition to resent this action, she caused him to be poisoned.
She again ruled without a puppet emperor, hoping to retain power by
placing her relatives in the principal offices; but the dissatisfaction
had now reached an acute point, and threatened to destroy her. It may be
doubted whether she would have surmounted these difficulties and dangers,
when death suddenly cut short her adventurous career. The popular legend
is that this Chinese Lucretia Borgia died of fright at seeing the
apparitions of her many victims, and there can be no doubt that her crimes
did not conduce to make woman government more popular in China.

It says much for the excellence of Kaotsou's work, and for the hold the
Han family had obtained on the Chinese people, that when it became
necessary to select an emperor after the death of Liuchi the choice should
have fallen unanimously on the Prince of Tai, who was the illegitimate son
of Kaotsou. On mounting the throne, he took the name of Wenti. He began
his reign by remitting taxes and by appointing able and honest governors
and judges. He ordered that all old men should be provided with corn, meat
and wine, besides silk and cotton for their garments. At the suggestion of
his ministers, who were alive to the dangers of a disputed succession, he
proclaimed his eldest son heir to the throne. He purified the
administration of justice by declaring that prince and peasant must be
equally subject to the law; he abolished the too common punishment of
mutilation, and had the satisfaction of seeing crime reduced to such low
proportions in the empire that the jails contained only four hundred
prisoners. Wenti was a strong advocate of peace, which was, indeed,
necessary to China, as it had not recovered from the effects of the last
Hun invasion. He succeeded by diplomacy in inducing the Prince at Canton,
who had shown a disposition to assert his independence, to recognize his
authority, and thus averted a civil war. In his relations with the Huns,
among whom the authority of Meha had passed to his son, Lao Chang, he
strove to preserve the peace, giving that chief one of his daughters in
marriage, and showing moderation in face of much provocation. When war was
forced upon him by their raids he did everything he could to mitigate its
terrors, but the ill success of his troops in their encounters with the
Tartars broke his confidence, and he died prematurely after a reign of
twenty-three years, which was remarkable as witnessing the consolidation
of the Hans. The good work of Wenti was continued during the peaceful
reign of sixteen years of his son Kingti.

The next emperor was Vouti, a younger son of Kingti, and one of his
earliest conquests was to add the difficult and inaccessible province of
Fuhkien to the empire. He also endeavored to propitiate the Huns by giving
their chief one of the princesses of his family as a wife, but the opinion
was gaining ground that it would be better to engage in a war for the
overthrow of the national enemy than to purchase a hollow peace. Wang Kua,
a general who had commanded on the frontier, and who knew the Hun mode of
warfare, represented that success would be certain, and at last gained the
emperor's ear. Vouti decided on war, and raised a large army for the
purpose. But the result was not auspicious. Wang Kua failed to bring the
Huns to an engagement, and the campaign which was to produce such great
results ended ingloriously. The unlucky general who had promised so much
anticipated his master's displeasure by committing suicide. Unfortunately
for himself, his idea of engaging in a mortal struggle with the Tartars
gained ground, and became in time the fixed policy of China.
Notwithstanding this check, the authority of Vouti continued to expand. He
annexed Szchuen, a province exceeding in size and population most European
states, and he received from the ruler of Manchuria a formal tender of
submission. In the last years of his reign the irrepressible Hun question
again came up for discussion, and the episode of the flight of the Yuchi
from Kansuh affords a break in the monotony of the struggle, and is the
first instance of that western movement which brought the tribes of the
Gobi Desert into Europe. The Yuchi are believed to have been allied with
the Jats of India, and there is little or no doubt that the Sacae, or
Scythians, were their descendants. They occupied a strip of territory in
Kansuh from Shachow to Lanchefoo, and after suffering much at the hands of
the Huns under Meha, they resolved to seek a fresh home in the unknown
regions of Western Asia. The Emperor Vouti wished to bring them back, and
he sent an envoy named Chang Keen to induce them to return. That officer
discovered them in the Oxus region, but all his arguments failed to
incline them to leave a quarter in which they had recovered power and
prosperity. Powerless against the Huns, they had more than held their own
against the Parthians and the Greek kingdom of Bactria. They retained
their predominant position in what is now Bokhara and Balkh, until they
were gathered up by the Huns in their western march, and hurled, in
conjunction with them, on the borders of the Roman Empire. Meantime, the
war with the Huns themselves entered upon a new phase. A general named Wei
Tsing obtained a signal victory over them, capturing 15,000 prisoners and
the spoil of the Tartar camp. This success restored long-lost confidence
to the Chinese troops, and it was followed by several other victories. One
Chinese expedition, composed entirely of cavalry, marched through the Hun
country to Soponomo on the Tian Shan, carrying everything before it and
returning laden with spoil, including some of the golden images of the Hun
religion. Encouraged by these successes, Vouti at last took the field in
person, and sent a formal summons to the Tartar king to make his
submission to China. His reply was to imprison the bearer of the message,
and to defy the emperor to do his worst. This boldness had the effect of
deterring the emperor from his enterprise. He employed his troops in
conquering Yunnan and Leaoutung instead of in waging another war with the
Huns. But he had only postponed, not abandoned, his intention of
overthrowing, once and for all, this most troublesome and formidable
national enemy. He raised an enormous force for the campaign, which might
have proved successful but for the mistake of intrusting the command to an
incompetent general. In an ill-advised moment, he gave his brother-in-law,
Li Kwangli, the supreme direction of the war. His incompetence entailed a
succession of disasters, and the only redeeming point amid them was that
Li Kwangli was taken prisoner and rendered incapable of further mischief.
Liling, the grandson of this general, was intrusted with a fresh army to
retrieve the fortunes of the war; but, although successful at first, he
was outmaneuvered, and reduced to the unpleasant pass of surrendering to
the enemy. Both Li Kwangli and Liling adapted themselves to circumstances,
and took service under the Tartar chief. As this conduct obtained the
approval of the historian Ssematsien, it is clear that our views of such a
proceeding would not be in harmony with the opinion in China of that day.
The long war which Vouti waged with the Huns for half a century, and which
was certainly carried on in a more honorable and successful manner than
any previous portion of that historic struggle, closed with discomfiture
and defeat, which dashed to the ground the emperor's hopes of a complete
triumph over the most formidable national enemy.

After a reign of fifty-four years, which must be pronounced glorious,
Vouti died, amid greater troubles and anxieties than any that had beset
him during his long reign. He was unquestionably a great ruler. He added
several provinces to his empire, and the success he met with over the Huns
was far from being inconsiderable. He was a Nimrod among the Chinese, and
his principal enjoyment was to chase the wildest animals without any
attendants. Like many other Chinese princes, Vouti was prone to believe in
the possibility of prolonging human life, or, as the Chinese put it, in
the draught of immortality. In connection with this weakness an anecdote
is preserved that will bear telling. A magician offered the emperor a
glass containing the pretended elixir of eternal life, and Vouti was about
to drink it when a courtier snatched it from his hand and drained the
goblet. The enraged monarch ordered him to prepare for instant death, but
the ready courtier at once replied, "How can I be executed, since I have
drunk the draught of immortality?" To so convincing an argument no reply
was possible, and Vouti lived to a considerable age without the aid of
magicians or quack medicines. Of him also it may be said that he added to
the stability of the Han dynasty, and he left the throne to Chaoti, the
youngest of his sons, a child of eight, for whom he appointed his two most
experienced ministers to act as governors. As these ministers were true to
their duty, the interregnum did not affect the fortunes of the State
adversely, and several claimants to the throne paid for their ambition
with their lives. The reign of Chaoti was prosperous and successful, but,
unfortunately, he died at the early age of thirty-one, and without leaving
an heir.

After some hesitation, Chaoti's uncle Liucho was proclaimed emperor, but
he proved to be a boor with low tastes, whose sole idea of power was the
license to indulge in coarse amusements. The chief minister, Ho Kwang,
took upon himself the responsibility of deposing him, and also of placing
on the throne Siuenti, who was the great-grandson, or, according to
another account, the grandson, of Vouti. The choice was a fortunate one,
and "Ho Kwang gave all his care to perfecting the new emperor in the
science of government." As a knowledge of his connection with the Imperial
family had been carefully kept from him, Siuenti was brought from a very
humble sphere to direct the destinies of the Chinese, and his greater
energy and more practical disposition were probably due to his not having
been bred in the enervating atmosphere of a palace. He, too, was brought
at an early stage of his career face to face with the Tartar question, and
he had what may be pronounced a unique experience in his wars with them.
He sent several armies under commanders of reputation to wage war on them,
and the generals duly returned, reporting decisive and easily obtained
victories. The truth soon leaked out. The victories were quite imaginary.
The generals had never ventured to face the Tartars, and they were given
no option by their enraged and disappointed master but to poison
themselves. Other generals were appointed, and the Tartars were induced to
sue for peace, partly from fear of the Chinese, and partly because they
were disunited among themselves. Such was the reputation of Siuenti for
justice that several of the Tartar chiefs carried their grievances to the
foot of his throne, and his army became known as "the troops of justice."
It is said that all the tribes and countries of Central Asia as far west
as the Caspian sent him tribute, and to celebrate the event he built a
kilin or pavilion, in which he placed statues of all the generals who had
contributed toward his triumph. Only one incident marred the tranquillity
of Siuenti's reign. The great statesman, Ho Kwang, had sunk quietly into
private life as soon as he found the emperor capable of governing for
himself; but his wife Hohien was more ambitious and less satisfied with
her position, although she had effected a marriage between her daughter
and Siuenti. This lady was only one of the queens of the ruler, and not
the empress. Hohien, to further her ends, determined to poison the
empress, and succeeded only too well. Her guilt would have been divulged
by the doctor she employed, but that Ho Kwang, by an exercise of his
authority, prevented the application of torture to him when thrown into
prison. This narrow escape from detection did not keep Hohien from crime.
She had the satisfaction of seeing her daughter proclaimed empress, but
her gratification was diminished by the son of the murdered Hiuchi being
selected as heir to the throne. Hohien resolved to poison this prince, but
her design was discovered, and she and all the members of her family were
ordered to take poison. The minister, Ho Kwang, had taken no part in these
plots, which, however, injured his reputation, and his statue in the
Imperial pavilion was left without a name.

Siuenti did not long survive these events, and Yuenti, the son of Hiuchi,
became emperor. His reign of sixteen years presents no features of
interest beyond the signal overthrow of the Tartar chief, Chichi, whose
head was sent by the victorious general to be hung on the walls of Singan.
Yuenti was succeeded by his son Chingti, who reigned twenty-six years, and
who gained the reputation of a Chinese Vitellius. His nephew Gaiti, who
was the next emperor, showed himself an able and well-intentioned prince,
but his reign of six years was too brief to allow of any permanent work
being accomplished. One measure of his was not without its influence on
the fate of his successors. He had disgraced and dismissed from the
service an official named Wang Mang, who had attained great power and
influence under Chingti. The ambition of this individual proved fatal to
the dynasty. On Gaiti's death he emerged from his retirement, and, in
conjunction with that prince's mother, seized the government. They placed
a child, grandson of Yuenti, on the throne, and gave him the name of
Pingti, or the Peaceful Emperor, but he never governed. Before Pingti was
fourteen, Wang Mang resolved to get rid of him, and he gave him the
poisoned cup with his own hands. This was not the only, or perhaps the
worst, crime that Wang Mang perpetrated to gain the throne. Pressed for
money to pay his troops, he committed the sacrilege of stripping the
graves of the princes of the Han family of the jewels deposited in them.
One more puppet prince was placed on the throne, but he was soon got rid
of, and Wang Mang proclaimed himself emperor. He also decreed that the Han
dynasty was extinct, and that his family should be known as the Sin.

Wang Mang the usurper was certainly a capable administrator, but in
seizing the throne he had attempted a task to which he was unequal. As
long as he was minister or regent, respect and regard for the Han family
prevented many from revolting against his tyranny, but when he seized the
throne he became the mark of popular indignation and official jealousy.
The Huns resumed their incursions, and, curiously enough, put forward a
proclamation demanding the restoration of the Hans. Internal enemies
sprang up on every side, and Wang Mang's attempt to terrify them by
severity and wholesale executions only aggravated the situation. It became
clear that the struggle was to be one to the death, but this fact did not
assist Wang Mang, who saw his resources gradually reduced and his enemies
more confident as the contest continued. After twelve years' fighting,
Wang Mang was besieged at Singan. The city was soon carried by storm, and
Wang Mang retired to the palace to put an end to his existence. But his
heart failed him, and he was cut down by the foe. His last exclamation and
the dirge of his short-lived dynasty, which is denied a place in Chinese
history, was, "If Heaven had given me courage, what could the family of
the Hans have done?"

The eldest of the surviving Han princes, Liu Hiuen, was placed on the
throne, and the capital was removed from Singan to Loyang, or Honan.
Nothing could have been more popular among the Chinese people than the
restoration of the Hans. It is said that the old men cried for joy when
they saw the banner of the Hans again waving over the palace and in the
field. But Liu Hiuen was not a good ruler, and there might have been
reason to regret the change if he had not wisely left the conduct of
affairs to his able cousin, Liu Sieou. At last the army declared that Liu
Sieou should be emperor, and when Liu Hiuen attempted to form a faction of
his own he was murdered by Fanchong, the leader of a confederacy known as
the Crimson Eyebrows, on whose co-operation he counted. The Crimson
Eyebrows were so called from the distinguishing mark which they had
adopted when first organized as a protest against the tyranny of Wang
Mang. At first they were patriots, but they soon became brigands. After
murdering the emperor, Fanchong, their leader, threw off all disguise, and
seizing Singan, gave it over to his followers to plunder. Liu Sieou, on
becoming emperor, took the style of Kwang Vouti, and his first task was to
overthrow the Crimson Eyebrows, who had become a public enemy. He
intrusted the command of the army he raised for this purpose to Fongy, who
justified his reputation as the most skillful Chinese general of his day
by gaining several victories over a more numerous adversary. Within two
years Kwang Vouti had the satisfaction of breaking up the formidable
faction known as the Crimson Eyebrows, and of holding its leader Fanchong
as a prisoner in his capital.

Kwang Vouti was engaged for many more years in subduing the numerous
potentates who had repudiated the imperial authority. His efforts were
invariably crowned with success, but he acquired so great a distaste for
war that it is said when his son asked him to explain how an army was set
in battle array he refused to reply. But the love of peace will not avert
war when a State has turbulent or ambitious neighbors who are resolved to
appeal to arms, and so Kwang Vouti was engaged in almost constant
hostilities to the end of his days. Chingtse, the Queen of Kaochi, which
may be identified with the modern Annam, defied the Chinese, and defeated
the first army sent to bring her to reason. This reverse necessitated a
still greater effort on the part of the Chinese ruler to bring his
neighbor to her senses. The occupant of the Dragon throne could not sit
down tamely under a defeat inflicted by a woman, and an experienced
general named Mayuen was sent to punish the Queen of Kaochi. The Boadicea
of Annam made a valiant defense, but she was overthrown, and glad to
purchase peace by making the humblest submission. The same general more
than held his own on the northern and northwest frontiers. When Kwang
Vouti died, in A.D. 57, after a brilliant reign of thirty-three years, he
had firmly established the Han dynasty, and he left behind him the
reputation of being both a brave and a just prince.

His son and successor, Mingti, was not unworthy of his father. His acts
were characterized by wisdom and clemency, and the country enjoyed a large
measure of peace through the policy of Mingti and his father. A general
named Panchow, who was perhaps the greatest military commander China ever
produced, began his long and remarkable career in this reign, and, without
the semblance of an effort, kept the Huns in order, and maintained the
imperial authority over them. Among other great and important works,
Mingti constructed a dike, thirty miles long, for the relief of the
Hoangho, and the French missionary and writer, Du Halde, states that so
long as this was kept in repair there were no floods. The most remarkable
event of Mingti's reign was undoubtedly the official introduction of
Buddhism into China. Some knowledge of the great Indian religion and of
the teacher Sakya Muni seems to have reached China through either Tibet,
or, more probably, Burma, but it was not until Mingti, in consequence of a
dream, sent envoys to India to study Buddhism, that its doctrine became
known in China. Under the direct patronage of the emperor it made rapid
progress, and although never unreservedly popular, it has held its ground
ever since its introduction in the first century of our era, and is now
inextricably intertwined with the religion of the Chinese state and
people. Mingti died after a successful reign of eighteen years in 75 A.D.
His son, Changti, with the aid of his mother, Machi, the daughter of the
general Mayuen, enjoyed a peaceful reign of thirteen years, and died at an
early age lamented by his sorrowing people.

After Changti came his son, Hoti, who was only ten at the time of his
accession, and who reigned for seventeen years. He was a virtuous and
well-intentioned prince, who instituted many internal reforms, and during
his reign a new writing paper was invented, which is supposed to have been
identical with the papyrus of Egypt. But the reign of Hoti is rendered
illustrious by the remarkable military achievements of Panchow. The
success of that general in his operations with the Huns has already been
referred to, and he at last formed a deliberate plan for driving them away
from the Chinese frontier. Although he enjoyed the confidence of his
successive sovereigns, the imperial sanction was long withheld from this
vast scheme, but during the life of Changti he began to put in operation
measures for the realization of this project that were only matured under
Hoti. He raised and trained a special army for frontier war. He enlisted
tribes who had never served the emperor before, and who were specially
qualified for desert warfare. He formed an alliance with the Sienpi tribes
of Manchuria, who were probably the ancestors of the present Manchus, and
thus arranged for a flank attack on the Huns. This systematic attack was
crowned with success. The pressure brought against them compelled the
Hiongnou to give way, and as they were ousted from their possessions, to
seek fresh homes further west. In this they were, no doubt, stimulated by
the example of their old opponents, the Yuchi, but Panchow's energy
supplied a still more convincing argument. He pursued them wherever they
went, across the Gobi Desert and beyond the Tian Shan range, taking up a
strong position at modern Kuldja and Kashgar, sending his expeditions on
to the Pamir, and preparing to complete his triumph by the invasion of the
countries of the Oxus and Jaxartes. When Hoti was still a youth, he
completed this programme by overrunning the region as far as the Caspian,
which was probably at that time connected with the Aral, and it may be
supposed that Khiva marked the limit of the Chinese general's triumphant
progress. It is affirmed with more or less show of truth that he came into
contact with the Roman empire or the great Thsin, as the Chinese called
it, and that he wished to establish commercial relations with it. But
however uncertain this may be, there can be no doubt that he inflicted a
most material injury on Rome, for before his legions fled the Huns, who,
less than four centuries later, debased the majesty of the imperial city,
and whose leader, Attila, may have been a descendant of that Meha at whose
hands the Chinese suffered so severely.

After this brilliant and memorable war, Panchow returned to China, where
he died at the great age of eighty. With him disappeared the good fortune
of the Han dynasty, and misfortunes fell rapidly on the family that had
governed China so long and so well. Hoti's infant son lived only a few
months, and then his brother, Ganti, became emperor. The real power rested
in the hands of the widow of Hoti, who was elevated to the post of regent.
Ganti was succeeded in A.D. 124 by his son, Chunti, in whose time several
rebellions occurred, threatening the extinction of the dynasty. Several
children were then elevated to the throne, and at last an ambitious noble
named Leangki, whose sister was one of the empresses, acquired the supreme
direction of affairs. He gave a great deal of trouble, but at last,
finding that his ambitious schemes did not prosper, he took poison, thus
anticipating a decree passed for his execution. Hwanti, the emperor who
had the courage to punish this powerful noble, was the last able ruler of
the Hans. His reign was, on the whole, a brilliant one, and the Sienpi
tribes, who had taken the place of the Hiongnou, were, after one arduous
campaign, defeated in a pitched battle. The Chinese were on the verge of
defeat when their general, Twan Kang, rushed to the front, exclaiming:
"Recall to your minds how often before you have beaten these same
opponents, and teach them again to-day that in you they have their
masters."

After Hwanti's death the decline of the Hans was rapid. They produced no
other ruler worthy of the throne. In the palace the eunuchs, always
numerous at the Chinese court, obtained the upper hand, and appointed
their own creatures to the great governing posts. Fortunately this
dissension at the capital was not attended by weakness on the frontier,
and the Sienpi were again defeated. The battle is chiefly memorable
because the Sienpi endeavored to frighten the Chinese general by
threatening to kill his mother, who was a prisoner in their hands, if he
attacked. Not deterred by this menace, Chow Pow attacked the enemy, and
gained a decisive victory, but at the cost of his mother's life, which so
affected him that he died of grief shortly afterward. After some time
dissensions rose in the Han family, and two half-brothers claimed the
throne. Pienti became emperor by the skillful support of his uncle,
General Hotsin, while his rival, Hienti, enjoyed the support of the
eunuchs. A deadly feud ensued between the two parties, which was
aggravated by the murder of Hotsin, who rashly entered the palace without
an escort. His soldiers avenged his death, carrying the palace by storm
and putting ten thousand eunuchs to the sword. After this the last
emperors possessed only the name of emperor. The practical authority was
disputed among several generals, of whom Tsow Tsow was the most
distinguished and successful; and he and his son Tsowpi founded a dynasty,
of which more will be heard hereafter. In A.D. 220 Hienti, the last Han
ruler, retired into private life, thus bringing to an end the famous Han
dynasty, which had governed China for four hundred and fifty years.

Among the families that have reigned in China none has obtained as high a
place in popular esteem as the Hans. They rendered excellent work in
consolidating the empire and in carrying out what may be called the
imperial mission of China. Yunnan and Leaoutung were made provinces for
the first time. Cochin China became a vassal state. The writ of the
emperor ran as far as the Pamir. The wealth and trade of the country
increased with the progress of its armies. Some of the greatest public
works, in the shape of roads, bridges, canals, and aqueducts, were
constructed during this period, and still remain to testify to the glory
of the Hans. As has been seen, the Hans produced several great rulers.
Their fame was not the creation of one man alone, and as a consequence the
dynasty enjoyed a lengthened existence equaled by few of its predecessors
or successors. No ruling family was ever more popular with the Chinese
than this, and it managed to retain the throne when less favored rulers
would have expiated their mistakes and shortcomings by the loss of the
empire. With the strong support of the people, the Hans overcame
innumerable difficulties, and even the natural process of decay; and when
they made their final exit from history it was in a graceful manner, and
without the execration of the masses. That this feeling retains its force
is shown in the pride with which the Chinese still proclaim themselves to
be the sons of Han.




CHAPTER III

A LONG PERIOD OF DISUNION


The ignominious failure of the usurper Wang Mang to found a dynasty was
too recent to encourage any one to take upon himself the heavy charge of
administering the whole of the Han empire, and so the state was split up
into three principalities, and the period is known from this fact as the
Sankoue. One prince, a member of the late ruling family, held possession
of Szchuen, which was called the principality of Chow. The southern
provinces were governed by a general named Sunkiuen, and called Ou. The
central and northern provinces, containing the greatest population and
resources, formed the principality of Wei, subject to Tsowpi, the son of
Tsow Tsow. A struggle for supremacy very soon began between these princes,
and the balance of success gradually declared itself in favor of Wei. It
would serve no useful purpose to enumerate the battles which marked this
struggle, yet one deed of heroism deserves mention, the defense of
Sinching by Changte, an officer of the Prince of Wei. The strength of the
place was insignificant, and, after a siege of ninety days, several
breaches had been made in the walls. In this strait Changte sent a message
to the besieging general that he would surrender on the hundredth day if a
cessation of hostilities were granted, "as it was a law among the princes
of Wei that the governor of a place which held out for a hundred days and
then surrendered, with no prospect of relief visible, should not be
considered as guilty." The respite was short and it was granted. But the
disappointment of the besieger, already counting on success, was great
when a few days later he saw that the breaches had been repaired, that
fresh defenses had been improvised, and that Sinching was in better
condition than ever to withstand a siege. On sending to inquire the
meaning of these preparations, Changte gave the following reply: "I am
preparing my tomb and to bury myself in the ruins of Sinching." Of such
gallantry and resource the internecine strife of the Sankoue period
presents few instances, but the progress of the struggle steadily pointed
in the direction of the triumph of Wei.

The Chow dynasty of the Later Hans was the first to succumb to the princes
of Wei, and the combined resources of the two states were then directed
against the southern principality of Ou. The supreme authority in Wei had
before this passed from the family of Tsowpi to his best general,
Ssemachow, who had the satisfaction of beginning his reign with the
overthrow of the Chow dynasty. If he had earned out the wishes of his own
commander, Tengai, by attacking Ou at once, and in the flush of his
triumph over Chow, he might have completed his work at a stroke, for as
Tengai wrote, "An army which has the reputation of victory flies from one
success to another." But Ssemachow preferred a slower and surer mode of
action, with the result that the conquest of Ou was put off for twenty
years. Ssemachow died in A.D. 265, and his son Ssemachu founded the new
dynasty of the Later Tsins under the name of Vouti, or the warrior prince.

The main object with Vouti was to add the Ou principality to his
dominions, and the descendants of Sunkiuen thought it best to bend before
the storm. They sent humble embassies to Loyang, expressing their loyalty
and submission, but at the same time they made strenuous preparations to
defend their independence. This double policy precipitated the collision
it was intended to avert. Vouti paid more heed to the acts than the
promises of his neighbor, and he ordered the invasion of his territory
from two sides. He placed a large fleet of war junks on the Yangtsekiang
to attack his opponent on the Tunting Lake. The campaign that ensued was
decided before it began. The success of Vouti was morally certain from the
beginning, and after his army had suffered several reverses Sunhow threw
up the struggle and surrendered to his opponent. Thus was China again
reunited for a short time under the dynasty of the Later Tsins. Having
accomplished his main task, Vouti gave himself up to the pursuit of
pleasure, and impaired the reputation he had gained among his somewhat
severe fellow-countrymen by entertaining a theatrical company of five
thousand female comedians, and by allowing himself to be driven in a car
drawn by sheep through the palace grounds. Vouti lived about ten years
after the unity of the empire was restored, and his son, Ssemachong, or
Hweiti, became emperor on his death in A.D. 290. One of the great works of
his reign was the bridging of the Hoangho at Mongtsin, at a point much
lower down its course than is bridged at the present time.

The reign of Hweiti was marred by the ambitious vindictiveness of his
wife, Kiachi, who murdered the principal minister and imprisoned the widow
of the Emperor Vouti. The only good service she rendered the state was to
discern in one of the palace eunuchs named Mongkwan a great general, and
his achievements bear a strong resemblance to those of Narses, who was the
only other great commander of that unfortunate class mentioned in history.
Wherever Mongkwan commanded in person victory attended his efforts, but
the defeats of the other generals of the Tsins neutralized his success. At
this moment there was a recrudescence of Tartar activity which proved more
fatal to the Chinese ruler than his many domestic enemies. Some of the
Hiongnou tribes had retired in an easterly direction toward Manchuria when
Panchow drove the main body westward, and among them, at the time of which
we are speaking, a family named Lin had gained the foremost place. They
possessed all the advantages of Chinese education, and had married several
times into the Han family. Seeing the weakness of Hweiti these Lin chiefs
took the title of Kings of Han, and wished to pose as the liberators of
the country. Hweiti bent before the storm, and would have made an
ignominious surrender but that death saved him the trouble.

His brother and successor, Hwaiti, fared somewhat better at first, but
notwithstanding some flashes of success the Lin Tartars marched further
and further into the country, capturing cities, defeating the best
officers of the Tsins, and threatening the capital. In A.D. 310 Linsong,
the Han chief, invaded China in force and with the full intention of
ending the war at a blow. He succeeded in capturing Loyang, and carrying
off Hwaiti as his prisoner. The capital was pillaged and the Prince Royal
executed. Hwaiti is considered the first Chinese emperor to have fallen
into the hands of a foreign conqueror. Two years after his capture, Hwaiti
was compelled to wait on his conqueror at a public banquet, and when it
was over he was led out to execution. This foul murder illustrates the
character of the new race and men who aspired to rule over China. The
Tartar successes did not end here, for a few years later they made a fresh
raid into China, capturing Hwaiti's brother and successor, Mingti, who was
executed, twelve months after his capture, at Pingyang, the capital of the
Tartar Hans.

After these reverses the enfeebled Tsin rulers removed their capital to
Nankin, but this step alone would not have sufficed to prolong their
existence had not the Lin princes themselves suffered from the evils of
disunion and been compelled to remove their capital from Pingyang to
Singan. Here they changed their name from Han to Chow, but the work of
disintegration once begun proceeded rapidly, and in the course of a few
years the Lin power crumbled completely away. Released from their most
pressing danger by the fall of this family, the Tsin dynasty took a new
lease of life, but it was unable to derive any permanent advantage from
this fact. The last emperors of this family were weak and incompetent
princes, whose names need not be given outside a chronological table.
There would be nothing to say about them but that a humble individual
named Linyu, who owed everything to himself, found in the weakness of the
government and the confusion in the country the opportunity of
distinction. He proved himself a good soldier and able leader against the
successors of the Lin family on one side, and a formidable pirate named
Sunghen on the other. Dissatisfied with his position, Linyu murdered one
emperor and placed another on the throne, and in two years he compelled
his puppet, the last of the Later Tsins, to make a formal abdication in
his favor. For a considerable portion of their rule they governed the
whole of China, and it is absolutely true to say that they were the least
worthy family ever intrusted with so great a charge. Of the fifteen
emperors who ruled for one hundred and fifty-five years there is not more
than the founder whose name calls for preservation on his own merits.

Although Linyu's success was complete as far as it went, his dynasty, to
which he gave the name of Song, never possessed exclusive power among the
Chinese. It was only one administration among many others, and during his
brief reign of three years he could do nothing toward extending his power
over his neighbors, although he may have established his own the more
firmly by poisoning the miserable Tsin emperor whom he deposed. His son
and successor, Chowti, was deposed and murdered after a brief reign of one
year. His brother Wenti succeeded him, and he was soon drawn into a
struggle for power, if not existence, with his northern neighbor the King
of Wei, who was one of the most powerful potentates in the empire. The
principal and immediate bone of contention between them was the great
province of Honan, which had been overrun by the Wei ruler, but which
Wenti was resolved to recover. As the Hoangho divides this province into
two parts, it was extremely difficult for the Wei ruler to defend the
portion south of it, and when Wenti sent him his declaration of war, he
replied, "Even if your master succeeds in seizing this province I shall
know how to retake it as soon as the waters of the Hoangho are frozen."
Wenti succeeded in recovering Honan, but after a protracted campaign,
during which the Wei troops crossed the river on the ice, his armies were
again expelled from it, and the exhausted combatants found themselves at
the close of the struggle in almost the same position they had held at the
commencement. For a time both rulers devoted their attention to peaceful
matters, although Topatao, king of Wei, varied them by a persecution of
the Buddhists, and then the latter concentrated all his forces with the
view of overwhelming the Song emperor. When success seemed certain,
victory was denied him, and the Wei forces suffered severely during their
retreat to their own territory. This check to his triumphant career
injured his reputation and encouraged his enemies. A short time after this
campaign, Topatao was murdered by some discontented officers.

Nor was the Song ruler, Wenti, any more fortunate, as he was murdered by
his son. The parricide was killed in turn by a brother who became the
Emperor Vouti. This ruler was fond of the chase and a great eater, but, on
the whole, he did no harm. The next two emperors were cruel and
bloodthirsty princes, and during their reigns the executioner was
constantly employed. Two more princes, who were, however, not members of
the Song family, but only adopted by the last ruler of that house,
occupied the throne, but this weakness and unpopularity--for the Chinese,
unlike the people of India, scout the idea of adoption and believe only in
the rights of birth--administered the finishing stroke to the Songs, who
now give place to the Tsi dynasty, which was founded by a general named
Siaotaoching, who took the imperial name of Kaoti. The change did not
bring any improvement in the conditions of China, and it was publicly said
that the Tsi family had attained its pride of place not by merit, but by
force. The Tsi dynasty, after a brief and ignominious career, came to an
end in the person of a youthful prince named Hoti. After his deposition,
in A.D. 502, his successful enemies ironically sent him in prison a
present of gold. He exclaimed, "What need have I of gold after my death? a
few glasses of wine would be more valuable." They complied with his wish,
and while he was drunk they strangled him with his own silken girdle.

After the Tsi came the Leang dynasty, another of those insignificant and
unworthy families which occupy the stage of Chinese history during this
long period of disunion. The new Emperor Vouti was soon brought into
collision with the state of Wei, which during these years had regained all
its power, and had felt strong enough to transfer its capital from the
northern city of Pingching to Honan, while the Leang capital remained at
Nankin. The progress of this contest was marked by the consistent success
of Wei, and the prince of that kingdom seems to have been as superior in
the capacity of his generals as in the resources of his state. One
incident will be sufficient to show the devotion which he was able to
inspire in his officers. During the absence of its governor, Vouti
attempted to capture the town of Ginching, and he would certainly have
succeeded in his object had not Mongchi, the wife of that officer,
anticipating by many centuries the conduct of the Countess of Montfort and
of the Countess of Derby, thrown herself into the breach, harangued the
small garrison, and inspired it with her own indomitable spirit. Vouti was
compelled to make an ignominious retreat from before Ginching, and his
troops became so disheartened that they refused to engage the enemy,
notwithstanding their taunts and their marching round the imperial camp
with the head of a dead person decked out in a widow's cap and singing a
doggerel ballad to the effect that none of Vouti's generals was to be
feared. In the next campaign Vouti was able to restore his declining
fortunes by the timely discovery of a skillful general in the person of
Weijoui, who, taking advantage of the division of the Wei army into two
parts by a river, gained a decisive victory over each of them in turn. If
Vouti had listened to his general's advice, and followed up this success,
he might have achieved great and permanent results, but instead he
preferred to rest content with his laurels, with the result that the Wei
prince recovered his military power and confidence. The natural
consequences of this was that the two neighbors once more resorted to a
trial of strength, and, notwithstanding the valiant and successful defense
of a fortress by another lady named Liuchi, the fortune of war declared in
the main for Vouti. This may be considered one of the most remarkable
periods for the display of female capacity in China, as the great state of
Wei was governed by a queen named Houchi; but the general condition of the
country does not support an argument in favor of female government.

The tenure of power by Houchi was summarily cut short by the revolt of the
Wei commander-in-chief, Erchu Jong, who got rid of his mistress by tying
her up in a sack and throwing her into the Hoangho. He then collected two
thousand of her chief advisers in a plain outside the capital, and there
ordered his cavalry to cut them down. Erchu Jong then formed an ambitious
project for reuniting the empire, proclaiming to his followers his
intention in this speech: "Wait a little while, and we shall assemble all
the braves from out our western borders. We will then go and bring to
reason the six departments of the north, and the following year we will
cross the great Kiang, and place in chains Siaoyen, who calls himself
emperor." This scheme was nipped in the bud by the assassination of Erchu
Jong. Although the death of its great general signified much loss to the
Wei state, the Emperor Vouti experienced bitter disappointment and a rude
awakening when he attempted to turn the event to his own advantage. His
army was defeated in every battle, his authority was reduced to a shadow,
and a mutinous officer completed in his palace the overthrow begun by his
hereditary enemy. Vouti was now eighty years of age, and ill able to stand
so rude a shock. On being deposed he exclaimed: "It was I who raised my
family, and it was I who have destroyed it. I have no reason to complain";
and he died a few days later, from, it is said, a pain in his throat which
his jailers refused to alleviate with some honey. On the whole, Vouti was
a creditable ruler, although the Chinese annalists blame him for his
superstition and denounce his partiality for Buddhism.

Vouti's prediction that his family was destroyed proved correct. He was
succeeded in turn by three members of his family, but all of these died a
violent death. A general named Chinpasien founded a fresh dynasty known as
the Chin, but he died before he had enjoyed power many years. At this
period also disappeared the Wei state, which was dissolved by the death of
Erchu Jong, and now merged itself into that of Chow. The growth of this
new power proved very rapid, and speedily extinguished that of the
unfortunate Chins. The Chow ruler took the name of Kaotsou Wenti, and
ruled over a great portion of China. He changed the name of his dynasty to
the Soui, which, although it did not hold possession of the throne for
long, vindicated its claim to supremacy by successful wars and admirable
public works. This prince showed himself a very capable administrator, and
his acts were marked by rare generosity and breadth of view. His son and
successor, Yangti, although he reached the throne by the murder of a
brother, proved himself an intelligent ruler and a benefactor of his
people. He transferred his capital from Nankin to Honan, which he resolved
to make the most magnificent city in the world. It is declared that he
employed two million men in embellishing it, and that he caused fifty
thousand merchants to take up their residence there. But of all his works
none will compare with the great system of canals which he constructed,
and in connection with which his name will live forever in history.
Although he reigned no more than thirteen years, he completed nearly five
thousand miles of canals. Some of these, such as the Grand Canal, from the
Hoangho to the Yangtsekiang, are splendid specimens of human labor, and
could be made as useful today as they were when first constructed. The
canal named is forty yards wide and is lined with solid stone. The banks
are bordered with elms and willows. These works were constructed by a
general corvee or levy en masse, each family being required to provide one
able-bodied man, and the whole of the army was also employed on this
public undertaking. It is in connection with it that Yangti's name will be
preserved, as his wars, especially one with Corea, were not successful,
and an ignominious end was put to his existence by a fanatic. His son and
successor was also murdered, when the Soui dynasty came to an end, and
with it the magnificent and costly palace erected at Loyang, which was
denounced as only calculated "to soften the heart of a prince and to
foment his cupidity."

There now ensues a break in the long period of disunion which had
prevailed in China, and for a time the supreme authority of the emperor
recovered the general respect and vigor which by right belonged to it. The
deposer of the Souis was Liyuen, who some years before had been given the
title of Prince of Tang. In the year A.D. 617 he proclaimed himself
emperor under the style of Kaotsou, and he began his reign in an
auspicious manner by proclaiming an amnesty and by stating his "desire to
found his empire only on justice and humanity." While he devoted his
attention to the reorganization of the administration at Singan, which he
chose for his capital, his second son, Lichimin, was intrusted with the
command of the army in the field, to which was assigned the task of
subjecting all the provinces. Lichimin proved himself a great commander,
and his success was both rapid and unqualified. He was equally victorious
over Chinese rebels and foreign enemies. His energy and skill were not
more conspicuous than his courage. At the head of his chosen regiment of
cuirassiers, carrying black tiger skins, he was to be found in the front
of every battle, and victory was due as often to his personal intrepidity
as to his tactical skill. Within a few years the task of Lichimin was
brought to a glorious completion, and on his return to Singan he was able
to assure his father that the empire was pacified in a sense that had not
been true for many centuries. His entry into Singan at the head of his
victorious troops reminds the reader of a Roman triumph. Surrounded by his
chosen bodyguard, and followed by forty thousand cavalry, Lichimin,
wearing a breastplate of gold and accompanied by the most important of his
captives, rode through the streets to make public offering of thanks for
victory achieved, at the Temple of his ancestors. His success was enhanced
by his moderation, for he granted his prisoners their lives, and his
reputation was not dimmed by any acts of cruelty or bloodshed.

The magnitude of Lichimin's success and his consequent popularity aroused
the envy and hostility of his elder brother, who aspired to the throne.
The intrigues against him were so far successful that he fell into
disgrace with the emperor, and for a time withdrew from the court. But his
brother was not content with anything short of taking his life, and formed
a conspiracy with his other brothers and some prominent officials to
murder him. The plot was discovered, and recoiled upon its authors, who
were promptly arrested and executed. Then Lichimin was formally proclaimed
heir to the throne; but the event sinks into comparative insignificance
beside the abdication of the throne by Kaotsou in the same year. The real
cause of this step was probably not disconnected with the plot against
Lichimin, but the official statement was that Kaotsou felt the weight of
years, and that he wished to enjoy rest and the absence of responsibility
during his last days. Kaotsou must be classed among the capable rulers of
China, but his fame has been overshadowed by and merged in the greater
splendor of his son. He survived his abdication nine years, dying in A.D.
635 at the age of seventy-one.

On ascending the throne, Lichimin took the name of Taitsong, and he is one
of the few Chinese rulers to whom the epithet of Great may be given
without fear of its being challenged. The noble task to which he at once
set himself was to prove that the Chinese were one people, that the
interests of all the provinces, as of all classes of the community, were
the same, and that the pressing need of the hour was to revive the spirit
of national unity and patriotism. Before he became ruler in his own name
he had accomplished something toward this end by the successful campaigns
he had conducted to insure the recognition of his father's authority. But
Taitsong saw that much more remained to be done, and the best way to do it
seemed to him to be the prosecution of what might be called a national war
against those enemies beyond the northern frontier, who were always
troublesome, and who had occasionally founded governments within the
limits of China like the Topa family of Wei. In order to achieve any great
or lasting success in this enterprise, Taitsong saw that it was essential
that he should possess a large and well-trained standing army, on which he
could rely for efficient service beyond the frontier as well as in China
itself. Before his time Chinese armies had been little better than a rude
militia, and the military knowledge of the officers could only be
described as contemptible. The soldiers were, for the most part, peasants,
who knew nothing of discipline, and into whose hands weapons were put for
the first time on the eve of a war. They were not of a martial
temperament, and they went unwillingly to a campaign; and against such
active opponents as the Tartars they would only engage when superiority of
numbers promised success. They were easily seized with a panic, and the
celerity and dash of Chinese troops only became perceptible when their
backs were turned to the foe. So evident had these faults become that more
than one emperor had endeavored to recruit from among the Tartar tribes,
and to oppose the national enemy with troops not less brave or active than
themselves. But the employment of mercenaries is always only a half
remedy, and not free from the risk of aggravating the evil it is intended
to cure. But Taitsong did not attempt any such palliation; he went to the
root of the question, and determined to have a trained and efficient army
of his own. He raised a standing army of nine hundred thousand men, which
he divided into three equal classes of regiments, one containing one
thousand two hundred men, another one thousand, and the third eight
hundred. The total number of regiments was eight hundred and ninety-five,
of which six hundred and thirty-four were recruited for home service and
two hundred and sixty-one for foreign. By this plan he obtained the
assured services of more than a quarter of a million of trained troops for
operations beyond the frontier. Taitsong also improved the weapons and
armament of his soldiers. He lengthened the pike and supplied a stronger
bow. Many of his troops wore armor; and he relied on the co-operation of
his cavalry, a branch of military power which has generally been much
neglected in China. He took special pains to train a large body of
officers, and he instituted a Tribunal of War, to which the supreme
direction of military matters was intrusted. As these measures greatly
shocked the civil mandarins, who regarded the emperor's taking part in
reviews and the physical exercises of the soldiers as "an impropriety," it
will be allowed that Taitsong showed great moral courage and surmounted
some peculiar difficulties in carrying out his scheme for forming a
regular army. He overcame all obstacles, and gathered under his banner an
army formidable by reason of its efficiency and equipment, as well as for
its numerical strength.

Having acquired what he deemed the means to settle it, Taitsong resolved
to grapple boldly with the ever-recurring danger from the Tartars, Under
different names, but ever with the same object, the tribes of the vast
region from Corea to Koko Nor had been a trouble to the Chinese
agriculturist and government from time immemorial. Their sole ambition and
object in life had been to harry the lands of the Chinese, and to bear
back to their camps the spoils of cities. The Huns had disappeared, but in
their place had sprung up the great power of the Toukinei or Turks, who
were probably the ancestors of the Ottomans. With these turbulent
neighbors, and with others of different race but of the same disposition
on the southern frontier, Taitsong was engaged in a bitter and arduous
struggle during the whole of his life; and there can be little or no doubt
that he owed his success to the care he bestowed on his army. The Great
Wall of Tsin Hwangti had been one barrier in the path of these enemies,
but, held by a weak and cowardly garrison, it had proved inadequate for
its purpose. Taitsong supplied another and a better defense in a
consistent and energetic policy, and in the provision of a formidable and
confident army.

The necessity for this military reform was clearly shown by the experience
of his first campaign with these implacable enemies, when, in the year of
his accession and before his organization had been completed, a horde of
these barbarians broke into the empire and carried all before them, almost
to the gates of the capital. On this occasion Taitsong resorted to
diplomacy and remonstrance. He rode almost unattended to the Tartar camp,
and reproached their chiefs with their breach of faith, reminding them
that on his sending one of his sisters to be the bride of their chief they
had sworn by a solemn oath to keep the peace. He asked: "Are these
proceedings worthy, I will not say of princes, but of men possessing the
least spark of honor? If they forget the benefits they have received from
me, at the least they ought to be mindful of their oaths. I had sworn a
peace with them; they are now violating it, and by that they place the
justice of the question on my side." The Chinese chroniclers declare that
the Tartars were so impressed by Taitsong's majestic air and remonstrances
that they agreed to retire, and fresh vows of friendship and peace were
sworn over the body of a white horse at a convention concluded on the
Pienkiao bridge across the Weichoui River. The only safe deduction from
this figurative narrative is that there was a Tartar incursion, and that
the Chinese army did not drive back the invaders. Their retreat was
probably purchased, but it was the first and last occasion on which
Taitsong stooped to such a measure.

The peace of Pienkiao was soon broken. The tribes again drew their forces
to a head for the purpose of invading China, but before their plans were
complete Taitsong anticipated them by marching into their territory at the
head of a large army. Taken by surprise, the Tartars offered but a feeble
resistance. Several of their khans surrendered, and at a general assembly
Taitsong proclaimed his intention to govern them as Khan of their khans,
or by the title of Tien Khan, which means Celestial Ruler. This was the
first occasion on which a Chinese ruler formally took over the task of
governing the nomad tribes and of treating their chiefs as his
lieutenants. Down to the present day the Chinese emperor continues to
govern the Mongol and other nomadic tribes under this very title, which
the Russians have rendered as Bogdo Khan. The success of this policy was
complete, for not only did it give tranquillity to the Chinese borders,
but it greatly extended Chinese authority. Kashgaria was then, for the
first time, formed into a province under the name of Lonugsi, and
Lichitsi, one of the emperor's best generals, was appointed Warden of the
Western Marches. Some of the most influential of Taitsong's advisers
disapproved of this advanced policy, and attempted to thwart it, but in
vain. Carried out with the vigor and consistency of Taitsong there cannot
be two opinions about its wisdom and efficacy.

During this reign the relations between China and two of its neighbors,
Tibet and Corea, were greatly developed, and the increased intercourse was
largely brought about by the instrumentality of war. The first envoys from
Tibet, or, as it was then called, Toufan or Toupo, are reported to have
reached the Chinese capital in the year 634. At that time the people of
Tibet were rude and unlettered, and their chiefs were little better than
savages. Buddhism had not taken that firm hold on the popular mind which
it at present possesses, and the power of the lamas had not arisen in what
is now the most priest-ridden country in the world. A chief, named the
Sanpou--which means the brave lord--had, about the time of which we are
speaking, made himself supreme throughout the country, and it was said
that he had crossed the Himalaya and carried his victorious arms into
Central India. Curiosity, or the desire to wed a Chinese princess, and
thus to be placed on what may be termed a favored footing, induced the
Sanpou to send his embassy to Singan; but although the envoys returned
laden with presents, Taitsong declined to trust a princess of his family
in a strange country and among an unknown people. The Sanpou chose to
interpret this refusal as an insult to his dignity, and he declared war
with China. But success did not attend his enterprise, for he was defeated
in the only battle of the war, and glad to purchase peace by paying five
thousand ounces of gold and acknowledging himself a Chinese vassal. The
Sanpou also agreed to accept Chinese education, and as his reward Taitsong
gave him one of his daughters as a wife. It is stated that one of his
first reforms was to abolish the national practice of painting the face,
and he also built a walled city to proclaim his glory as the son-in-law of
the Emperor of China. During Taitsong's life there was no further trouble
on the side of Tibet.

Taitsong was not so fortunate in his relations with Corea, where a
stubborn people and an inaccessible country imposed a bar to his ambition.
Attempts had been made at earlier periods to bring Corea under the
influence of the Chinese ruler, and to treat it as a tributary state. A
certain measure of success had occasionaly attended these attempts, but on
the whole Corea had preserved its independence. When Taitsong in the
plenitude of his power called upon the King of Corea to pay tribute, and
to return to his subordinate position, he received a defiant reply, and
the Coreans began to encroach on Sinlo, a small state which threw itself
on the protection of China. The name of Corea at this time was Kaoli, and
the supreme direction of affairs at this period was held by a noble named
Chuen Gaisoowun, who had murdered his own sovereign. Taitsong, irritated
by his defiance, sent a large army to the frontier, and when Gaisoowun,
alarmed by the storm he had raised, made a humble submission and sent the
proper tribute, the emperor gave expression to his displeasure and
disapproval of the regicide's acts by rejecting his gifts and announcing
his resolve to prosecute the war. It is never prudent to drive an opponent
to desperation, and Gaisoowun, who might have been a good neighbor if
Taitsong had accepted his offer, proved a bitter and determined
antagonist. The first campaign was marked by the expected success of the
Chinese army. The Coreans were defeated in several battles, several
important towns were captured, but Taitsong had to admit that these
successes were purchased at the heavy loss of twenty-five thousand of his
best troops. The second campaign resolved itself into the siege and
defense of Anshu, an important town near the Yaloo River. Gaisoowun raised
an enormous force with the view of effecting its relief, and he attempted
to overwhelm the Chinese by superior numbers. But the better discipline
and tactics of the Chinese turned the day, and the Corean army was driven
in rout from the field. But this signal success did not entail the
surrender of Anshu, which was gallantly defended. The scarcity of supplies
and the approach of winter compelled the Chinese emperor to raise the
siege after he had remained before the place for several months, and it is
stated that as the Chinese broke up their camp the commandant appeared on
the walls and wished them "a pleasant journey." After this rebuff Taitsong
did not renew his attempt to annex Corea, although to the end of his life
he refused to hold any relations with Gaisoowun.

During the first portion of his reign Taitsong was greatly helped by the
labors of his wife, the Empress Changsun-chi, who was a woman of rare
goodness and ability, and set a shining example to the whole of her court.
She said many wise things, among which the most quotable was that "the
practice of virtue conferred honor upon men, especially on princes, and
not the splendor of their appointments." She was a patron of letters, and
an Imperial Library and College in the capital owed their origin to her.
She was probably the best and most trustworthy adviser the emperor had,
and after her death the energy and good fortune of Taitsong seemed to
decline. She no doubt contributed to the remarkable treatise on the art of
government, called the "Golden Mirror," which bears the name of Taitsong
as its author. Taitsong was an ardent admirer of Confucius, whom he
exalted to the skies as the great sage of the world, declaring
emphatically that "Confucius was for the Chinese what the water is for the
fishes." The Chinese annalists tell many stories of Taitsong's personal
courage. He was a great hunter, and in the pursuit of big game he
necessarily had some narrow escapes, special mention being made of his
slaying single-handed a savage boar. Another instance was his struggle
with a Tartar attendant who attempted to murder him, and whom he killed in
the encounter. He had a still narrower escape at the hands of his eldest
son, who formed a plot to assassinate him which very nearly succeeded. The
excessive anxiety of Prince Lichingkien to reach the crown cost him the
succession, for on the discovery of his plot he was deposed from the
position of heir-apparent and disappeared from the scene.

After a reign of twenty-three years, during which he accomplished a great
deal more than other rulers had done in twice the time, Taitsong died in
A.D. 649, leaving the undisturbed possession of the throne to his son,
known as the Emperor Kaotsong. There need be no hesitation in calling
Taitsong one of the greatest rulers who ever sat on the Dragon Throne, and
his death was received with extraordinary demonstrations of grief by the
people he had ruled so well. Several of his generals wished to commit
suicide on his bier, the representatives of the tributary nations at his
capital cut off their hair or sprinkled his grave with their blood, and
throughout the length and breadth of the land there was mourning and
lamentation for a prince who had realized the ideal character of a Chinese
emperor. Nor does his claim to admiration and respect seem less after the
lapse of so many centuries. His figure still stands out boldly as one of
the ablest and most humane of all Chinese rulers. He not only reunited
China, but he proved that union was for his country the only sure basis of
prosperity and power.

Under Kaotsong the power of the Tangs showed for thirty years no
diminution, and he triumphed in directions where his father had only
pointed the way to victory. He began his reign with a somewhat risky act
by marrying one of his father's widows, who then became the Empress Won.
She was perhaps the most remarkable woman in the whole range of Chinese
history, acquiring such an ascendency over her husband that she
practically ruled the state, and retained this power after his death. In
order to succeed in so exceptional a task she had to show no excessive
delicacy or scrupulousness, and she began by getting rid of the other
wives, including the lawful empress of Kaotsong, in a summary fashion. It
is stated that she cast them into a vase filled with wine, having
previously cut off their hands and feet to prevent their extricating
themselves. But on the whole her influence was exerted to promote the
great schemes of her husband.

The Tibetan question was revived by the warlike proclivities of the new
Sanpou, who, notwithstanding his blood relationship with the Chinese
emperor, sought to extend his dominion at his expense toward the north and
the east. A desultory war ensued, in which the Chinese got the worst of
it, and Kaotsong admitted that Tibet remained "a thorn in his side for
years." A satisfactory termination was given to the struggle by the early
death of the Sanpou, whose warlike character had been the main cause of
the dispute. Strangely enough the arms of Kaotsong were more triumphant in
the direction of Corea, where his father had failed. From A.D. 658 to 670
China was engaged in a bitter war on land and sea with the Coreans and
their allies, the Japanese, who thus intervened for the first time in the
affairs of the continent. Owing to the energy of the Empress Wou victory
rested with the Chinese, and the Japanese navy of four hundred junks was
completely destroyed. The kingdom of Sinlo was made a Chinese province,
and for sixty years the Coreans paid tribute and caused no trouble. In
Central Asia also the Chinese power was maintained intact, and the extent
of China's authority and reputation may be inferred from the King of
Persia begging the emperor's governor in Kashgar to come to his aid
against the Arabs, who were then in the act of overrunning Western Asia in
the name of the Prophet. Kaotsong could not send aid to such a distance
from his borders, but he granted shelter to several Persian princes, and
on receiving an embassy from the Arabs, he impressed upon them the wisdom
and magnanimity of being lenient to the conquered. Kaotsong died in 683,
and the Empress Wou retained power until the year 704, when, at the age of
eighty, she was compelled to abdicate. Her independent rule was marked by
as much vigor and success as during the life of Kaotsong. She vanquished
the Tibetans and a new Tartar race known as the Khitans, who appeared on
the northern borders of Shensi. She placed her son in confinement and wore
the robes assigned for an emperor. The extent of her power may be inferred
from her venturing to shock Chinese sentiment by offering the annual
imperial sacrifice to heaven, and by her erecting temples to her
ancestors. Yet it was not until she was broken down by age and illness
that any of her foes were bold enough to encounter her. She survived her
deposition one year, and her banished son Chongtsong was restored to the
throne.

Chongtsong did not reign long, being poisoned by his wife, who did not
reap the advantage of her crime. Several emperors succeeded without doing
anything to attract notice, and then Mingti brought both his own family
and the Chinese empire to the verge of ruin. Like other rulers, he began
well, quoting the maxims of the "Golden Mirror" and proclaiming Confucius
King of Literature. But defeats at the hands of the Khitans and Tibetans
imbittered his life and diminished his authority. A soldier of fortune
named Ganlochan revolted and met with a rapid and unexpected success owing
to "the people being unaccustomed, from the long peace, to the use of
arms." He subdued all the northern provinces, established his capital at
Loyang, and compelled Mingti to seek safety in Szchuen, when he abdicated
in favor of his son. The misfortunes of Mingti, whose most memorable act
was the founding of the celebrated Hanlin College and the institution of
the "Pekin Gazette," the oldest periodical in the world, both of which
exist at the present day, foretold the disruption of the empire at no
remote date. His son and successor Soutsong did something to retrieve the
fortunes of his family, and he recovered Singan from Ganlochan. The empire
was then divided between the two rivals, and war continued unceasingly
between them. The successful defense of Taiyuen, where artillery is said
to have been used for the first time, A.D. 757, by a lieutenant of the
Emperor Soutsong, consolidated his power, which was further increased by
the murder of Ganlochan shortly afterward. The struggle continued with
varying fortune between the northern and southern powers during the rest
of the reign of Soutsong, and also during that of his successor, Taitsong
the Second. This ruler showed himself unworthy of his name, abandoning his
capital with great pusillanimity when a small Tibetan army advanced upon
it. The census returns threw an expressive light on the condition of the
empire during this period. Under Mingti the population was given at fifty-
two million; in the time of the second Taitsong it had sunk to seventeen
million. A great general named Kwo Tsey, who had driven back the Tibetan
invaders, enabled Tetsong, the son and successor of Taitsong, to make a
good start in the government of his dominion, which was sadly reduced in
extent and prosperity. This great statesman induced Tetsong to issue an
edict reproving the superstitions of the times, and the prevalent fashion
of drawing auguries from dreams and accidents. The edict ran thus: "Peace
and the general contentment of the people, the abundance of the harvest,
skill and wisdom shown in the administration, these are prognostics which
I hear of with pleasure; but 'extraordinary clouds,' 'rare animals,'
'plants before unknown,' 'monsters,' and other astonishing productions of
nature, what good can any of these do men as auguries of the future? I
forbid such things to be brought to my notice." The early death of Kwo
Tsey deprived the youthful ruler of his best adviser and the mainstay of
his power. He was a man of magnificent capacity and devotion to duty, and
when it was suggested to him that he should not be content with any but
the supreme place, he proudly replied that he was "a general of the
Tangs." It seems from the inscription on the stone found at Singan that he
was a patron of the Nestorian Christians, and his character and career
have suggested a comparison with Belisarius.

Tetsong lived twenty-four years after the death of his champion, and these
years can only be characterized as unfortunate. The great governors
claimed and exacted the privilege that their dignities should be made
hereditary, and this surrender of the imperial prerogative entailed the
usual deterioration of the central power which preceded a change of
dynasty. Unpopularity was incurred by the imposition of taxes on the
principal articles of production and consumption, such as tea, and, worst
symptom of all, the eunuchs again became supreme in the palace. Although
the dynasty survived for another century, it was clear that its knell was
sounded before Tetsong died. Under his grandson Hientsong the mischief
that had been done became more clearly apparent. Although he enjoyed some
military successes, his reign on the whole was unfortunate, and he was
poisoned by the chief of the eunuchs. His son and successor, Moutsong,
from his indifference may be suspected of having been privy to the
occurrence. At any rate, he only enjoyed power for a few years before he
was got rid of in the same summary fashion. Several other nonentities came
to the throne, until at last one ruler named Wentsong, whose intentions at
least were stronger than those of his predecessors, attempted to grapple
with the eunuchs and formed a plot for their extermination. His courage
failed him and the plot miscarried. The eunuchs exacted a terrible revenge
on their opponents, of whom they killed nearly three thousand, and
Wentsong passed the last year of his life as a miserable puppet in their
hands. He was not allowed even to name his successor. The eunuchs ignored
his two sons, and placed his brother Voutsong on the throne.

The evils of the day became specially revealed during the reign of Ytsong,
who was scarcely seated on the throne before his troops suffered several
defeats at the hands of a rebel prince in Yunnan, who completely wrested
that province from the empire. He was as pronounced a patron of Buddhism
as some of his predecessors had been oppressors, and he sent, at enormous
expense, to India a mission to procure a bone of Buddha's body, and on its
arrival he received the relic on bended knees before his whole court. His
extravagance of living landed the Chinese government in fresh
difficulties, and he brought the exchequer to the verge of bankruptcy. Nor
was he a humane ruler. On one occasion he executed twenty doctors because
they were unable to cure a favorite daughter of his. His son Hitsong came
to the throne when he was a mere boy, and at once experienced the depth of
misfortune to which his family had sunk. He was driven out of his capital
by a rebel named Hwang Chao, and if he had not found an unexpected ally in
the Turk chief Likeyong, there would then have been an end to the Tang
dynasty. This chief of the Chato immigrants--a race supposed to be the
ancestors of the Mohammedan Tungani of more recent times--at the head of
forty thousand men of his own race, who, from the color of their uniform,
were named "The Black Crows," marched against Hwang Chao, and signally
defeated him. The condition of the country at this time is painted in
deplorable colors. The emperor did not possess a palace, and all the great
towns of Central China were in ruins. Likeyong took in the situation at a
glance, when he said, "The ruin of the Tangs is not far distant."
Likeyong, who was created Prince of Tsin, did his best to support the
emperor, but his power was inadequate for coping with another general
named Chuwen, prince of Leang, in whose hands the emperor became a mere
puppet. At the safe moment Chuwen murdered his sovereign, and added to
this crime a massacre of all the Tang princes upon whom he could lay his
hands. Chao Siuenti, the last of the Tangs, abdicated, and a few months
later Chuwen, to make assurance doubly sure, assassinated him. Thus
disappeared, after two hundred and eighty-nine years and after giving
twenty rulers to the state, the great Tang dynasty which had restored the
unity and the fame of China. It forms a separate chapter in the long
period of disunion from the fall of the Hans to the rise of the Sungs.

After the Tangs came five ephemeral and insignificant dynasties, with the
fate of which we need not long detain the reader. In less than sixty years
they all vanished from the page of history. The struggle for power between
Chuwen, the founder of the so-called Later Leang dynasty, and Likeyong was
successfully continued by the latter's son, Litsunhiu, who proved himself
a good soldier. He won a decisive victory at Houlieoupi, and extinguished
the Leang dynasty by the capture of its capital and of Chuwen's son, who
committed suicide. Litsunhiu ruled for a short time as emperor of the
Later Leangs, but he was killed during a mutiny of his turbulent soldiers.
This dynasty had a very brief existence; the last ruler of the line,
finding the game was up, retired with his family to a tower in his palace,
which he set on fire, and perished, with his wives and children, in the
flames. Then came the Later Tsins, who only held their authority on the
sufferance of the powerful Khitan king, who reigned over Leaoutung and
Manchuria. The fourth and fifth of these dynasties, named the Later Hans
and Chows, ran their course in less than ten years; and when the last of
these petty rulers was deposed by his prime minister a termination was at
last reached to the long period of internal division and weakness which
prevailed for more than seven hundred and fifty years. The student reaches
at this point firmer ground in the history of China as an empire, and his
interest in the subject must assume a more definite form on coming to the
beginning of that period of united government and settled authority which
has been established for nearly one thousand years, during which no more
than four separate families have held possession of the throne.




CHAPTER IV

THE SUNGS AND THE KINS


One fact will have been noticed during the latter portion of the period
that has now closed, and that is the increasing interest and participation
in Chinese affairs of the races neighboring to, but still outside, the
empire. A large number of the successful generals, and several of the
princely families which attained independence, were of Tartar or Turk
origin; but the founder of the new dynasty, which restored the unity of
the empire, was of pure Chinese race, although a native of the most
northern province of the country. Chow Kwang Yu was born in Pechihli, at
the small town of Yeoutou, on the site of which now stands the modern
capital of Pekin. His family had provided the governor of this place for
several generations, and Chow himself had seen a good deal of military
service during the wars of the period. He is described as a man of
powerful physique and majestic appearance, to whose courage and presence
of mind the result of more than one great battle was due, and who had
become in consequence the idol of the soldiery. The ingenuity of later
historians, rather than the credulity of his contemporaries, may have
discovered the signs and portents which indicated that he was the chosen
of Heaven; but his army had a simple and convincing method of deciding the
destiny of the empire. Like the legionaries of Rome, they exclaimed, "The
empire is without a master, and we wish to give it one. Who is more worthy
of it than our general?" Thus did Chow Kwang Yu become the Emperor Taitsou
and the founder of the Sung dynasty.

Taitsou began his reign by proclaiming a general amnesty, and he sent the
proclamation of his pardon into provinces where he had not a shred of
authority. The step was a politic one, for it informed the Chinese people
that they again had an emperor. At the same time he ordered that the gates
and doors of his palace should always be left open, so that the humblest
of his subjects might have access to him at any time. His own words were
that "his house should resemble his heart, which was open to all his
subjects." He also devoted his attention to the improvement of his army,
and particularly to the training of his officers, who were called upon to
pass an examination in professional subjects as well as physical
exercises. A French writer said, forty years ago, that "The laws of
military promotion in the states of Europe are far from being as rational
and equitable as those introduced by this Chinese ruler." His solicitude
for the welfare of his soldiers was evinced during a campaign when the
winter was exceedingly severe. He took off his own fur coat, and sent it
to the general in command, with a letter stating that he was sorry that he
had not one to send to every soldier in the camp. A soldier himself, he
knew how to win a soldier's heart, and the affection and devotion of his
army never wavered nor declined. He had many opportunities of testing it.
His first war was with the Prince of Han, aided by the King of Leaoutung,
whom he speedily vanquished, and whose capacity for aggression was much
curtailed by the loss of the frontier fortress of Loochow. His next
contest was with an old comrade-in-arms named Li Chougsin, whom he had
treated very well, but who was seized with a foolish desire to be greater
than his ability or power warranted. The struggle was brief, and Li
Chougsin felt he had no alternative save to commit suicide.

The tranquillity gained by these successes enabled Taitsou to institute a
great reform in the civil administration of the empire, and one which
struck at the root of the evil arising from the excessive power and
irresponsibility of the provincial governors. Up to this date the
governors had possessed the power of life and death without reference to
the capital. It had enabled them to become tyrants, and had simplified
their path to complete independence. Taitsou resolved to deprive them of
this prerogative and to retain it in his own hands, for, he said, "As life
is the dearest thing men possess, should it be placed at the disposal of
an official who is often unjust or wicked?" This radical reform greatly
strengthened the emperor's position, and weakened that of the provincial
viceroys; and Taitsou thus inaugurated a rule which has prevailed in China
down to the present day, where the life of no citizen can be taken without
the express authority and order of the emperor. Taitsou then devoted his
attention to the subjugation of those governors who had either disregarded
his administration or given it a grudging obedience. The first to feel the
weight of his hand was the viceroy of Honan; but his measures were so well
taken, and the military force he employed so overwhelming, that he
succeeded in dispossessing him and in appointing his own lieutenant
without the loss of a single man. The governor of Szchuen, believing his
power to be greater than it was, or trusting to the remoteness of his
province, publicly defied Taitsou, and prepared to invade his dominions.
The emperor was too quick for him, and before his army was in the field
sixty thousand imperial troops had crossed the frontier and had occupied
the province. By these triumphs Taitsou acquired possession of some of the
richest provinces and forty millions of Chinese subjects.

Having composed these internal troubles with enemies of Chinese race,
Taitsou resumed his military operations against his old opponents in
Leaoutung. Both sides had been making preparations for a renewal of the
struggle, and the fortress of Taiyuen, which had been specially equipped
to withstand a long siege, was the object of the emperor's first attack.
The place was valiantly defended by a brave governor and a large garrison,
and although Taitsou defeated two armies sent to relieve it, he was
compelled to give up the hope of capturing Taiyuen on this occasion. Some
consolation for this repulse was afforded by the capture of Canton and the
districts dependent on that city. He next proceeded against the governor
of Kiangnan, the dual province of Anhui and Kiangsu, who had taken the
title of Prince of Tang, and striven to propitiate the emperor at the same
time that he retained his own independence. The two things were, however,
incompatible. Taitsou refused to receive the envoys of the Prince of Tang,
and he ordered him to attend in person at the capital. With this the Tang
prince would not comply, and an army was at once sent to invade and
conquer Kiangnan. The campaign lasted one year, by which time the Tang
power was shattered, and his territory resumed its old form as a province
of China. With this considerable success Taitsou's career may be said to
have terminated, for although he succeeded in detaching the Leaoutung
ruler from the side of the Prince of Han, and was hastening at the head of
his forces to crush his old enemy at Taiyuen, death cut short his career
in a manner closely resembling that of Edward the First of England.
Taitsou died in his camp, in the midst of his soldiers; and, acting on the
advice of his mother, given on her death-bed a few years before, "that he
should leave the throne to a relation of mature age," he appointed his
brother his successor, and as his last exhortation to him said, "Bear
yourself as becomes a brave prince, and govern well." Many pages might be
filled with the recitation of Taitsou's great deeds and wise sayings; but
his work in uniting China and in giving the larger part of his country
tranquillity speaks for itself. His character as a ruler may be gathered
from the following selection, taken from among his many speeches: "Do you
think," he said, "that it is so easy for a sovereign to perform his
duties? He does nothing that is without consequence. This morning the
thought occurs to me that yesterday I decided a case in a wrong manner,
and this memory robs me of all my joy."

The new emperor took the style of Taitsong, and during his reign of
twenty-three years the Sung dynasty may be fairly considered to have grown
consolidated. One of his first measures was to restore the privileges of
the descendant of Confucius, which included a hereditary title and
exemption from taxation, and which are enjoyed to the present day. After
three years' deliberation Taitsong determined to renew his brother's
enterprise against Taiyuen, and as he had not assured the neutrality of
the King of Leaoutung, his task was the more difficult. On the advance of
the Chinese army, that ruler sent to demand the reason of the attack on
his friend the Prince of Han, to which the only reply Taitsong gave was as
follows: "The country of the Hans was one of the provinces of the empire,
and the prince having refused to obey my orders I am determined to punish
him. If your prince stands aside, and does not meddle in this quarrel, I
am willing to continue to live at peace with him; if he does not care to
do this we will fight him." On this the Leaou king declared war, but his
troops were repulsed by the covering army sent forward by Taitsong, while
he prosecuted the siege of Taiyuen in person. The fortress was well
defended, but its doom was never in doubt. Taitsong, moved by a feeling of
humanity, offered the Prince of Han generous terms before delivering an
assault which was, practically speaking, certain to succeed, and he had
the good sense to accept them. The subjugation of Han completed the
pacification of the empire and the triumph of Taitsong; but when that
ruler thought to add to this success the speedy overthrow of the Khitan
power in Leaoutung he was destined to a rude awakening. His action was
certainly precipitate, and marked by overconfidence, for the army of
Leaoutung was composed of soldiers of a warlike race accustomed to
victory. He advanced against it as if it were an army which would fly at
the sight of his standard, but instead of this he discovered that it was
superior to his own forces on the banks of the Kaoleang River, where he
suffered a serious defeat. Taitsong was fortunate enough to retain his
conquests over the southern Han states and to find in his new subjects in
that quarter faithful and valiant soldiers. The success of the Leaou army
was also largely due to the tactical skill of its general, Yeliu Hiuco,
who took a prominent part in the history of this period. When Taitsong
endeavored, some years later, to recover what he had lost by the aid of
the Coreans, who, however, neglected to fulfill their part of the
contract, he only invited fresh misfortunes. Yeliu Hiuco defeated his army
in several pitched battles with immense loss; on one occasion it was said
that the corpses of the slain checked the course of a river. The capture
of Yangyeh, the old Han defender of Taiyuen, who died of his wounds,
completed the triumph of the Leaou general, for it was said, "If Yangyeh
cannot resist the Tartars they must be invincible." Taitsong's reign
closed under the cloud of these reverses; but, on the whole, it was
successful and creditable, marking an improvement in the condition of the
country and the people, and the triumph of the Sungs over at least one of
their natural enemies.

His son and successor, Chintsong, must be pronounced fortunate in that the
first year of his reign witnessed the death of Yeliu Hiuco. The direct
consequence of his death was that the Chinese were, for the first time,
successful in their campaign against the Leaous. But this satisfactory
state of things did not long continue, and the Leaous became so aggressive
and successful that there was almost a panic among the Chinese, and the
removal of the capital to a place of greater security was suggested. The
firm counsel and the courageous demeanor of the minister Kaochun prevented
this course being adopted. He figuratively described the evil consequences
of retreat by saying, "Your majesty can, without serious consequences,
advance a foot further than is absolutely necessary, but you cannot
retire, even to the extent of an inch, without doing yourself much harm."
Chintsong, fortunately for himself and his state, adopted this course; and
the Tartars thought it best to come to terms, especially as the Chinese
emperor was willing to pay annually an allowance in silk and money as the
reward of their respecting his frontier. The arrangement could not have
been a bad one, as it gave the empire eighteen years of peace, The
country, no doubt, increased greatly in prosperity during this period; but
the reputation of Chintsong steadily declined. He seems to have been
naturally superstitious, and he gave himself up to fortune tellers and
soothsayers during the last years of his reign; and when he died, in A.D.
1022, he had impaired the position and power of the imperial office. Yet,
so far as can be judged, the people were contented, and the population
rose to over one hundred million.

Chintsong was succeeded by his sixth son, Jintsong, a boy of thirteen, for
whom the government was carried on by his mother, a woman of capacity and
good sense. She took off objectionable taxes on tea and salt--prime
necessaries of life in China--and she instituted surer measures against
the spiritualists and magicians who had flourished under her husband and
acquired many administrative offices under his patronage. After ruling for
ten peaceful years she died and Jintsong assumed the personal direction of
affairs. During the tranquillity that had now prevailed for more than a
generation a new power had arisen on the Chinese frontier in the
principality of Tangut or Hia. This state occupied the modern province of
Kansuh, with some of the adjacent districts of Koko Nor and the Gobi
Desert. Chao Yuen, the prince of this territory, was an ambitious warrior,
who had drawn round his standard a force of one hundred and fifty thousand
fighting men. With this he waged successful war upon the Tibetans, and
began a course of encroachments on Chinese territory which was not to be
distinguished from open hostility. Chao Yuen was not content with the
appellation of prince, and "because he came of a family several of whose
members had in times past borne the imperial dignity," he adopted the
title of emperor. Having taken this step, Chao Yuen wrote to Jintsong
expressing "the hope that there would be a constant and solid peace
between the two empires." The reply of the Chinese ruler to this insult,
as he termed it, was to declare war and to offer a reward for the head of
Chao Yuen.

It was soon made evident that Chao Yuen possessed the military power to
support an imperial dignity. He defeated the emperor's army in two pitched
battles at Sanchuen and Yang Moulong, and many years elapsed before the
Sung rulers can be held to have recovered from the loss of their best
armies. The Khitans of Leaoutung took advantage of these misfortunes to
encroach, and as Jintsong had no army with which to oppose them, they
captured ten cities with little or no resistance. The Chinese government
was compelled to purchase them back by increasing the annual allowance it
paid of gold and silk. A similar policy was resorted to in the case of
Chao Yuen, who consented to a peace on receiving every year one hundred
thousand pieces of silk and thirty thousand pounds of tea. Not content
with this payment, Chao Yuen subsequently exacted the right to build
fortresses along the Chinese frontier. Soon after this Chao Yuen was
murdered by one of his sons, whose betrothed he had taken from him. If
Jintsong was not fortunate in his wars he did much to promote education
and to encourage literature. He restored the colleges founded by the
Tangs, he built a school or academy in every town, he directed the public
examinations to be held impartially and frequently, and he gave special
prizes as a reward for elocution. Some of the greatest historians China
has produced lived in his reign, and wrote their works under his
patronage; of these Szemakwang was the most famous. His history of the
Tangs is a masterpiece, and his "Garden of Szemakwang" an idyll. He was
remarkable for his sound judgment as well as the elegance of his style,
and during the short time he held the post of prime minister his
administration was marked by ability and good sense. The character of
Jintsong was, it will be seen, not without its good points, which gained
for him the affection of his subjects despite his bad fortune against the
national enemies, and his reign of thirty years was, generally speaking,
prosperous and satisfactory. After the brief reign of his nephew,
Yngtsong, that prince's son, Chintsong the Second, became emperor.

The career of Wanganchi, an eccentric and socialistic statesman, who
wished to pose as a great national reformer, and who long possessed the
ear and favor of his sovereign, lends an interest to the reign of the
second Chintsong. Wanganchi did not possess the confidence or the
admiration of his brother officials, and subsequent writers have generally
termed him an impostor and a charlatan. But he may only have been a
misguided enthusiast when he declared that "the State should take the
entire management of commerce, industry, and agriculture into its own
hands, with the view of succoring the working classes, and preventing
their being ground to the dust by the rich." The advocacy of such a scheme
is calculated to earn popularity, as few of those who are to benefit by it
stop to examine its feasibility, and Wanganchi might have been remembered
as an enlightened thinker and enthusiastic advocate of the rights of the
masses if he had not been called upon to carry out his theories. But the
proof of experience, like the touch of Ithuriel's spear, revealed the
practical value of his suggestions, and dissolved the attractive vision
raised by his perfervid eloquence and elevated enthusiasm. His honesty of
purpose cannot, however, be disputed. On being appointed to the post of
chief minister he took in hand the application of his own project. He
exempted the poor from all taxation. He allotted lands, and he supplied
the cultivators with seeds and implements. He also appointed local boards
to superintend the efforts of the agricultural classes, and to give them
assistance and advice. But this paternal government, this system of making
the state do what the individual ought to do for himself, did not work as
it was expected. Those who counted on the agricultural laborer working
with as much intelligence and energy for himself as he had done under the
direction of a master were doomed to disappointment. Want of skill, the
fitfulness of the small holder, aggravated perhaps by national calamities,
drought, flood, and pestilence, being felt more severely by laborers than
by capitalists, led to a gradual shrinkage in the area of cultivated land,
and at last to the suffering of the classes who were to specially benefit
from the scheme of Wanganchi. The failure of his scheme, which, to use his
own words, aimed at preventing there being any poor or over-rich persons
in the state, entailed his disgrace and fall from power. But his work and
his name have continued to excite interest and speculation among his
countrymen down to the present day. His memory has been aspersed by the
writers of China, who have generally denounced him as a free-thinker and a
nihilist, and although, twenty years after his death, a tablet bearing his
name was placed in the Hall of Confucius as the greatest Chinese thinker
since Mencius, it was removed after a brief period, and since then both
the name and the works of Wanganchi have been consigned to an oblivion
from which only the curiosity of European writers has rescued them.

Chintsong's reign was peaceful, but he seems to have only avoided war by
yielding to all the demands of the Tartars, who encroached on the frontier
and seized several Chinese cities. His son Chetsong was only ten when he
became emperor, and the administration was carried on by his mother, the
Empress Tefei, another of the capable women of Chinese history. Her early
death left Chetsong to rule as he listed, and his first acts of
independent authority were not of happy augury for the future. He had not
been on the throne many months before he divorced his principal wife
without any apparent justification, and when remonstrated with he merely
replied that he was imitating several of his predecessors. The censor's
retort was, "You would do better to imitate their virtues, and not their
faults." Chetsong did not have any long opportunity of doing either, for
he died of grief at the loss of his favorite son, and it is recorded that,
as "he did not expect to die so soon," he omitted the precaution of
selecting an heir. Fortunately the mischief of a disputed successor was
avoided by the unanimous selection of his brother Hoeitsong as the new
emperor. He proved himself a vain and superstitious ruler, placing his
main faith in fortune tellers, and expecting his subjects to yield
implicit obedience to his opinions as "the master of the law and the
prince of doctrine." Among other fallacies, Hoeitsong cherished the belief
that he was a great soldier, and he aspired to rank as the conqueror of
the old successful enemy of China, the Khitans of Leaoutung. He had no
army worthy of the name, and the southern Chinese who formed the mass of
his subjects were averse to war, yet his personal vanity impelled him to
rush into hostilities which promised to be the more serious because a new
and formidable power had arisen on the northern frontier.

The Niuche or Chorcha Tartars, who had assumed a distinct name and place
in the vicinity of the modern Kalgan, about the year 1000 A.D., had become
subservient to the great Khitan chief Apaoki, and their seven hordes had
remained faithful allies of his family and kingdom for many years after
his death. But some of the clan had preferred independence to the
maintenance of friendly relations with their greatest neighbor, and they
had withdrawn northward into Manchuria. For some unknown reason the Niuche
became dissatisfied with their Khitan allies, and about the year 1100 A.D.
they had all drawn their forces together as an independent confederacy
under the leadership of a great chief named Akouta. The Niuche could only
hope to establish their independence by offering a successful resistance
to the King of Leaoutung, who naturally resented the defection of a tribe
which had been his humble dependents. They succeeded in this task beyond
all expectation, as Akouta inflicted a succession of defeats on the
hitherto invincible army of Leaoutung. Then the Niuche conqueror resolved
to pose as one of the arbiters of the empire's destiny, and to found a
dynasty of his own. He collected his troops, and he addressed them in a
speech reciting their deeds and his pretensions. "The Khitans," he said,
"had in the earlier days of their success taken the name of Pintiei,
meaning the iron of Pinchow, but although that iron may be excellent, it
is liable to rust and can be eaten away. There is nothing save gold which
is unchangeable and which does not destroy itself. Moreover, the family of
Wangyen, with which I am connected through the chief Hanpou, had always a
great fancy for glittering colors such as that of gold, and I am now
resolved to take this name as that of my imperial family. I therefore give
it the name of Kin, which signifies gold." This speech was made in the
year 1115, and it was the historical introduction of the Kin dynasty,
which so long rivaled the Sung, and which, although it attained only a
brief lease of power on the occasion referred to, was remarkable as being
the first appearance of the ancestors of the present reigning Manchus.

Like other conquerors who had appeared in the same quarter, the Kins, as
we must now call them, owed their rise to their military qualifications
and to their high spirit. Their tactics, although of a simpler kind, were
as superior to those of the Leaous as the latter's were to the Chinese.
Their army consisted exclusively of cavalry, and victory was generally
obtained by its furious attacks delivered from several sides
simultaneously. The following description, taken from Mailla's translation
of the Chinese official history, gives the best account of their army and
mode of fighting:

"At first the Niuche had only cavalry. For their sole distinction they
made use of a small piece of braid on which they marked certain signs, and
they attached this to both man and horse. Their companies were usually
composed of only fifty men each, twenty of whom, clothed in strong
cuirasses, and armed with swords and short pikes, were placed in the
front, and behind those came the remaining thirty in less weighty armor,
and with bows and arrows or javelins for weapons. When they encountered an
enemy, two men from each company advanced as scouts, and then arranging
their troops so as to attack from four sides, they approached the foe at a
gentle trot until within a hundred yards of his line. Thereupon charging
at full speed, they discharged their arrows and javelins, again retiring
with the same celerity. This maneuver they repeated several times until
they threw the ranks into confusion, when they fell upon them with sword
and pike so impetuously that they generally gained the victory."

The novelty, as well as the impetuosity, of their attack supplied the want
of numbers and of weapons, and when the Khitans raised what seemed an
overwhelming force to crush the new power that ventured to play the rival
to theirs in Northern China, Akouta, confident in himself and in his
people, was not dismayed, and accepted the offer of battle. In two
sanguinary battles he vanquished the Khitan armies, and threatened with
early extinction the once famous dynasty of Leaoutung. When the Sung
emperor heard of the defeats of his old opponents, he at once rushed to
the conclusion that the appearance of this new power on the flank of
Leaoutung must redound to his advantage, and, although warned by the King
of Corea that "the Kins were worse than wolves and tigers," he sent an
embassy to Akouta proposing a joint alliance against the Khitans. The
negotiations were not at first successful. Akouta concluded a truce with
Leaoutung, but took offense at the style of the emperor's letter. The
peace was soon broken by either the Kins or the Khitans, and Hoeitsong
consented to address Akouta as the Great Emperor of the Kins. Then Akouta
engaged to attack Leaoutung from the north, while the Chinese assailed it
on the south, and a war began which promised a speedy termination. But the
tardiness and inefficiency of the Chinese army prolonged the struggle, and
covered the reputation of Hoeitsong and his troops with ignominy. It was
compelled to beat a hasty and disastrous retreat, and the peasants of
Leaoutung sang ballads about its cowardice and insufficiency.

But if it fared badly with the Chinese, the armies of Akouta continued to
be victorious, and the Khitans fled not less precipitately before him than
the Chinese did before them. Their best generals were unable to make the
least stand against the Kin forces. Their capital was occupied by the
conqueror, and the last descendant of the great Apaoki fled westward to
seek an asylum with the Prince of Hia or Tangut. He does not appear to
have received the protection he claimed, for after a brief stay at the
court of Hia, he made his way to the desert, where, after undergoing
incredible hardships, he fell into the hands of his Kin pursuers. With his
death soon afterward the Khitan dynasty came to an end, after enjoying its
power for two hundred years, but some members of this race escaped across
the Gobi Desert, and founded the brief-lived dynasty of the Kara Khitay in
Turkestan. Akouta died shortly before the final overthrow of the Leaoutung
power, and his brother Oukimai ruled in his place.

The ill-success of Hoeitsong's army in its joint campaign against
Leaoutung cost the emperor his share in the spoil. The Kins retained the
whole of the conquered territory, and the Sung prince was the worse off,
because he had a more powerful and aggressive neighbor. The ease of their
conquest, and the evident weakness of the Chinese, raised the confidence
of the Kins to such a high point that they declared that the Sungs must
surrender to them the whole of the territory north of the Hoangho, and
they prepared to secure what they demanded by force of arms. The Chinese
would neither acquiesce in the transfer of this region to the Kins nor
take steps to defend it. They were driven out of that portion of the
empire like sheep, and they even failed to make any stand at the passage
of the Hoangho, where the Kin general declared that "there could not be a
man left in China, for if two thousand men had defended the passage of
this river we should never have succeeded in crossing it." Hoeitsong
quitted his capital Kaifong to seek shelter at Nankin, where he hoped to
enjoy greater safety, and shortly afterward he abdicated in favor of his
son Kintsong. The siege of Kaifong which followed ended in a convention
binding the Chinese to pay the Kins an enormous sum--ten millions of small
gold nuggets, twenty millions of small silver nuggets, and ten million
pieces of silk; but the Tartar soldiers soon realized that there was no
likelihood of their ever receiving this fabulous spoil, and in their
indignation they seized both Hoeitsong and Kintsong, as well as any other
members of the royal family on whom they could lay their hands, and
carried them off to Tartary, where both the unfortunate Sung princes died
as prisoners of the Kins.

Although the Kins wished to sweep the Sungs from the throne, and their
general Walipou went so far as to proclaim the emperor of a new dynasty,
whose name is forgotten, another of the sons of Hoeitsong, Prince Kang
Wang, had no difficulty in establishing his own power and in preserving
the Sung dynasty. He even succeeded in imparting a new vigor to it, for on
the advice of his mother, who pointed out to him that "for nearly two
hundred years the nation appears to have forgotten the art of war," he
devoted all his attention to the improvement of his army and the
organization of his military resources. Prince Kang Wang, on becoming
emperor, took the name of Kaotsong, and finally removed the southern
capital to Nankin. He was also driven by his financial necessities to
largely increase the issue of paper money, which had been introduced under
the Tangs. As both the Kins and the Mongols had recourse to the same
expedient, it is not surprising that the Sungs should also have adopted
the simplest mode of compensating for a depleted treasury. Considering the
unexpected difficulties with which he had to cope, and the low ebb to
which the fortunes of China had fallen, much might be forgiven to
Kaotsong, who found a courageous counselor in the Empress Mongchi, who is
reported to have addressed him as follows: "Although the whole of your
august family has been led captive into the countries of the north, none
the less does China, which knows your wisdom and fine qualities, preserve
toward the Sungs the same affection, fidelity, and zeal as in the past.
She hopes and expects that you will prove for her what Kwang Vouti was for
the Hans." If Kaotsong did not attain the height of this success, he at
least showed himself a far more capable prince than any of his immediate
predecessors.

The successful employment of cavalry by the Kins naturally led the Chinese
to think of employing the same arm against them, although the inhabitants
of the eighteen provinces have never been good horsemen. Kaotsong also
devoted his attention especially to the formation of a corps of
charioteers. The chariots, four-wheeled, carried twenty-four combatants,
and these vehicles drawn up in battle array not only presented a very
formidable appearance, but afforded a very material shelter for the rest
of the army. Kaotsong seems to have been better in imagining reforms than
in the task of carrying them out. After he had originated much good work
he allowed it to languish for want of definite support, and he quarreled
with and disgraced the minister chiefly responsible for these reforms. A
short time after this the Kins again advanced southward, but thanks to the
improvement effected in the Chinese army, and to the skill and valor of
Tsongtse, one of Kaotsong's lieutenants, they did not succeed in gaining
any material advantage. Their efforts to capture Kaifong failed, and their
general Niyamoho, recognizing the improvement in the Chinese army, was
content to withdraw his army with such spoil as it had been able to
collect. Tsongtse followed up this good service against the enemy by
bringing to their senses several rebellious officials who thought they saw
a good opportunity of shaking off the Sung authority. At this stage of the
war Tsongtse exhorted Kaotsong, who had quitted Nankin for Yangchow, to
return to Kaifong to encourage his troops with his presence, especially as
there never was such a favorable opportunity of delivering his august
family out of the hands of the Kins. Tsongtse is reported to have sent as
many as twenty formal petitions to his sovereign to do this, but Kaotsong
was deaf to them all, and it is said that his obtuseness and want of nerve
caused Tsongtse so much pain that he died of chagrin.

The death of Tsongtse induced the Kins to make a more strenuous effort to
humiliate the Sungs, and a large army under the joint command of Akouta's
son, Olito, and the general Niyamoho, advanced on the capital and captured
Yangchow. Kaotsong, who saved his life by precipitate flight, then agreed
to sign any treaty drawn up by his conqueror. In his letter to Niyamoho he
said, "Why fatigue your troops with long and arduous marches when I will
grant you of my own will whatever you demand?" But the Kins were
inexorable, and refused to grant any terms short of the unconditional
surrender of Kaotsong, who fled to Canton, pursued both on land and sea.
The Kin conquerors soon found that they had advanced too far, and the
Chinese rallying their forces gained some advantage during their retreat.
Some return of confidence followed this turn in the fortune of the war,
and two Chinese generals, serving in the hard school of adversity,
acquired a military knowledge and skill which made them formidable to even
the best of the Kin commanders. The campaigns carried on between 1131 and
1134 differed from any that had preceded them in that the Kin forces
steadily retired before Oukiai and Changtsiun, and victory, which had so
long remained constant in their favor, finally deserted their arms. The
death of the Kin emperor, Oukimai, who had upheld with no decline of
luster the dignity of his father Akouta, completed the discomfiture of the
Kins, and contributed to the revival of Chinese power under the last
emperor of the Sung dynasty. The reign of Oukimai marks the pinnacle of
Kin power, which under his cousin and successor Hola began steadily to
decline.

The possession of Honan formed the principal bone of contention between
the Kins and Sungs, but after considerable negotiation and some fighting,
Kaotsong agreed to leave it in the hands of the Kins, and also to pay them
a large annual subsidy in silk and money. He also agreed to hold the
remainder of his states as a gift at the hands of his northern neighbor.
Thus, notwithstanding the very considerable successes gained by several of
the Sung generals, Kaotsong had to undergo the mortification of signing a
humiliating peace and retaining his authority only on sufferance.
Fortunately for the independence of the Sungs, Hola was murdered by
Ticounai, a grandson of Akouta, whose ferocious character and ill-formed
projects for the subjugation of the whole of China furnished the Emperor
Kaotsong with the opportunity of shaking off the control asserted over his
actions and recovering his dignity. The extensive preparations of the Kin
government for war warned the Sungs to lose no time in placing every man
they could in the field, and when Ticounai rushed into the war, which was
all of his own making, he found that the Sungs were quite ready to receive
him and offer a strenuous resistance to his attack. A peace of twenty
years' duration had allowed of their organizing their forces and
recovering from an unreasoning terror of the Kins. Moreover, there was a
very general feeling among the inhabitants of both the north and the south
that the war was an unjust one, and that Ticounai had embarked upon a
course of lawless aggression which his tyrannical and cruel proceedings
toward his own subjects served to inflame.

The war began in 1161 A. D., with an ominous defeat of the Kin navy, and
when Kaotsong nerved himself for the crisis in his life and placed himself
at the head of his troops, Ticounai must have felt less sanguine of the
result than his confident declaration that he would end the war in a
single campaign indicated. Before the two armies came into collision
Ticounai learned that a rebellion had broken out in his rear, and that his
cousin Oulo challenged both his legitimacy and his authority. He believed,
and perhaps wisely, that the only way to deal with this new danger was to
press on, and by gaining a signal victory over the Sungs annihilate all
his enemies at a blow. But the victory had to be gained, and he seems to
have underestimated his opponent. He reached the Yangtsekiang, and the
Sungs retired behind it. Ticounai had no means of crossing it, as his
fleet had been destroyed and the Sung navy stood in his path. Such river
junks as he possessed were annihilated in another encounter on the river.
He offered sacrifices to heaven in order to obtain a safe passage, but the
powers above were deaf to his prayers. Discontent and disorder broke out
in his camp. The army that was to have carried all before it was stopped
by a mere river, and Ticounai's reputation as a general was ruined before
he had crossed swords with the enemy. In this dilemma his cruelty
increased, and after he had sentenced many of his officers and soldiers to
death he was murdered by those who found that they would have to share the
same fate. After this tragic ending of a bad career, the Kin army
retreated. They concluded a friendly convention with the Sungs, and
Kaotsong, deeming his work done by the repulse of this grave peril,
abdicated the throne, which had proved to him no bed of roses, in favor of
his adopted heir Hiaotsong. Kaotsong ruled during the long period of
thirty-six years, and when we consider the troubled time through which he
passed, and the many vicissitudes of fortune he underwent, he probably
rejoiced at being able to spend the last twenty-five years of his life
without the responsibility of governing the empire and free from the cares
of sovereignty.

The new Kin ruler Oulo wished for peace, but a section of his turbulent
subjects clamored for a renewal of the expeditions into China, and he was
compelled to bend to the storm. The Kin army, however, had no cause to
rejoice in its bellicoseness, for the Chinese general, Changtsiun,
defeated it in a battle the like of which had not been seen for ten years.
After this a peace was concluded which proved fairly durable, and the
remainder of the reigns of both Oulo and Hiaotsong were peaceful and
prosperous for northern and southern China. Both of these princes showed
an aversion to war and an appreciation of peace which was rare in their
day. The Kin ruler is stated to have made this noble retort when he was
solicited by a traitor from a neighboring state to seize it: "You deceive
yourself if you believe me to be capable of approving an act of treason
whatever the presumed advantage it might procure me. I love all peoples of
whatever nation they may be, and I wish to see them at peace with one
another." It is not surprising to learn that a prince who was so
thoroughly imbued with the spirit of civilization should have caused the
Chinese classics to be translated into the Kin language. Of all the Kin
rulers he was the most intellectual and the most anxious to elevate the
standard of his people, who were far ruder than the inhabitants of
southern China.

Hiaotsong was succeeded by his son Kwangtsong, and Oulo by his grandson
Madacou, both of whom continued the policy of their predecessors.
Kwangtsong was saved the trouble of ruling by his wife, the Empress Lichi,
and after a very short space he resigned the empty title of emperor, which
brought him neither satisfaction nor pleasure. Ningtsong, the son and
successor of Kwangtsong, ventured on one war with the Kins in which he was
worsted. This the last of the Kin successes, for Madacou died soon
afterward, just on the eve of the advent of the Mongol peril, which
threatened to sweep all before it, and which eventually buried both Kin
and Sung in a common ruin. The long competition and the bitter contest
between the Kins and Sungs had not resulted in the decisive success of
either side. The Kins had been strong enough to found an administration in
the north but not to conquer China. The Sungs very naturally represent in
Chinese history the national dynasty, and their misfortunes rather than
their successes appeal to the sentiment of the reader. They showed
themselves greater in adversity than in prosperity, and when the Mongol
tempest broke over China they proved the more doughty opponent, and the
possessor of greater powers of resistance than their uniformly successful
adversary the Kin or Golden Dynasty.




CHAPTER V

THE MONGOL CONQUEST OF CHINA


While the Kins were absorbed in their contest with the Southern Chinese,
they were oblivious of the growth of a new and formidable power on their
own borders. The strength of the Mongols had acquired serious dimensions
before the Kins realized that they would have to fight, not only for
supremacy, but for their very existence. Before describing the long wars
that resulted in the subjection of China by this northern race, we must
consider the origin and the growth of the power of the Mongols, who were
certainly the most remarkable race of conquerors Asia, or perhaps the
whole world, ever produced.

The home of the Mongols, whose name signifies "brave men," was in the
strip of territory between the Onon and Kerulon rivers, which are both
tributaries or upper courses of the Amour. They first appeared as a
separate clan or tribe in the ninth century, when they attracted special
attention for their physical strength and courage during one of China's
many wars with the children of the desert, and it was on that occasion
they gained the appellation under which they became famous. The earlier
history of the Mongol tribe is obscure, and baffles investigation, but
there seems no reason to doubt their affinity to the Hiongnou, with whose
royal house Genghis himself claimed blood relationship. If this claim be
admitted, Genghis and Attila, who were the two specially typical Scourges
of God, must be considered members of the same race, and the probability
is certainly strengthened by the close resemblance in their methods of
carrying on war. Budantsar is the first chief of the House of Genghis
whose person and achievements are more than mythical. He selected as the
abode of his race the territory between the Onon and the Kerulon, a region
fertile in itself, and well protected by those rivers against attack. It
was also so well placed as to be beyond the extreme limit of any
triumphant progress of the armies of the Chinese emperor. If Budantsar had
accomplished nothing more than this, he would still have done much to
justify his memory being preserved among a free and independent people.
But he seems to have incited his followers to pursue an active and
temperate life, to remain warriors rather than to become rich and lazy
citizens. He wrapped up this counsel in the exhortation, "What is the use
of embarrassing ourselves with wealth? Is not the fate of man decreed by
heaven?" He sowed the seed of future Mongol greatness, and the headship of
his clan remained vested in his family.

In due order of succession the chief ship passed to Kabul Khan, who in the
year 1135 began to encroach on the dominion of Hola, the Kin emperor. He
seems to have been induced to commit this act of hostility by a prophecy,
to the effect that his children should be emperors, and also by
discourteous treatment received on the occasion of his visit to the court
of Oukimai. Whatever the cause of umbrage, Kabul Khan made the Kins pay
dearly for their arrogance or short-sighted policy. Hola sent an army
under one of his best generals, Hushahu, to bring the Mongol chief to
reason, but the inaccessibility of his home stood him in good stead. The
Kin army suffered greatly in its futile attempt to cross the desert, and
during its retreat it was harassed by the pursuing Mongols. When the Kin
army endeavored to make a stand against its pursuers, it suffered a
crushing overthrow in a battle at Hailing, and on the Kins sending a
larger force against the Mongols in 1139, it had no better fortune. Kabul
Khan, after this second success, caused himself to be proclaimed Great
Emperor of the Mongols. His success in war, and his ambition, which rested
satisfied with no secondary position, indicated the path on which the
Mongols proceeded to the acquisition of supreme power and a paramount
military influence whithersoever they carried their name and standards.
The work begun by Kabul was well continued by his son Kutula, or Kublai.
He, too, was a great warrior, whose deeds of prowess aroused as much
enthusiasm among the Mongols as those of Coeur de Lion evoked in the days
of the Plantagenets. The struggle with the Kins was rendered more bitter
by the execution of several Mongols of importance, who happened to fall
into the hands of the Kins. When Kutula died the chiefship passed to his
nephew, Yissugei, who greatly extended the influence and power of his
family among the tribes neighboring to the Mongol home. Many of these, and
even some Chinese, joined the military organization of the dominant tribe,
so that what was originally a small force of strictly limited numbers
became a vast and ever-increasing confederacy of the most warlike and
aggressive races of the Chinese northern frontier. Important as Yissugei's
work in the development of Mongol power undoubtedly was, his chief
historical interest is derived from the fact that he was the father of
Genghis Khan.

There are several interesting fables in connection with the birth of
Genghis, which event may be safely assigned to the year 1162. One of these
reads as follows: "One day Yissugei was hunting in company with his
brothers, and was following the tracks of a white hare in the snow. They
struck upon the track of a wagon, and following it up came to a spot where
a woman's yart was pitched. Then said Yissugei, 'This woman will bear a
valiant son.' He discovered that she was the damsel Ogelen Eke (i.e., the
mother of nations), and that she was the wife of Yeke Yilatu, chief of a
Tartar tribe. Yissugei carried her off and made her his wife." Immediately
after his overthrow of Temujin, chief of one of the principal Tartar
tribes, Yissugei learned that the promised "valiant son" was about to be
born, and in honor of his victory he gave him the name of Temujin, which
was the proper name of the great Genghis. The village or encampment in
which the future conqueror first saw the light of day still bears the old
Mongol name, Dilun Boldak, on the banks of the Onon. When Yissugei died,
Temujin, or Genghis, was only thirteen, and his clan of forty thousand
families refused to recognize him as their leader. At a meeting of the
tribe Genghis entreated them with tears in his eyes to stand by the son of
their former chief, but the majority of them mocked at him, exclaiming,
"The deepest wells are sometimes dry, and the hardest stone is sometimes
broken, why should we cling to thee?" Genghis owed to the heroic attitude
of his mother, who flung abroad the cow-tailed banner of his race, the
acceptance of his authority by about half the warriors who had obeyed his
father. The great advantage of this step was that it gave Genghis time to
grow up to be a warrior as famous as any of his predecessors, and it
certainly averted what might have easily become the irretrievable
disintegration of the Mongol alliance.

The youth of Genghis was passed in one ceaseless struggle to regain the
whole of his birthright. His most formidable enemy was Chamuka, chief of
the Juriats, and for a long time he had all the worst of the struggle,
being taken prisoner on one occasion, and undergoing the indignity of the
cangue. On making his escape he rallied his remaining followers round him
for a final effort, and on the advice of his mother, Ogelen Eke, who was
his principal adviser and stanchest supporter, he divided his forces into
thirteen regiments of one thousand men each, and confined his attention to
the defense of his own territory. Chamuka, led away by what he deemed the
weakness of his adversary, attacked him on the Onon with as he considered
the overwhelming force of thirty thousand men; but the result dispelled
his hopes of conquest, for Genghis gained a decisive victory. Then was
furnished a striking instance of the truth of the saying that "nothing
succeeds like success." The despised Temujin, who was thought to be
unworthy of the post of ruling the Mongols, was lauded to the skies, and
the tribes declared with one voice, "Temujin alone is generous and worthy
of ruling a great people." At this time also he began to show the
qualities of a statesman and diplomatist. He formed in 1194 a temporary
alliance with the Kin emperor, Madacou, and the richness of his reward
seems to have excited his cupidity, while his experience of the Kin army
went to prove that they were not so formidable as had been imagined. The
discomfiture of Chamuka has been referred to, but he had not abandoned the
hope of success, and when he succeeded in detaching the Kerait chief, Wang
Khan, from the Mongols, to whom he was bound by ties of gratitude, he
fancied that he again held victory in his grasp. But the intrigue did not
realize his expectations. Wang Khan deserted Genghis while engaged in a
joint campaign against the Naimans, but he was the principal sufferer by
his treachery, for the enemy pursued his force, and inflicted a heavy
defeat upon it. In fact, he was only rescued from destruction by the
timely aid of the man he had betrayed.

But far from inspiring gratitude, this incident inflamed the resentment of
Wang Khan, who, throwing off the cloak of simulated friendship, declared
publicly that either the Kerait or the Mongol must be supreme on the great
steppe, as there was not room for both. Such was the superiority in
numbers of the Kerait, that in the first battle of this long and keenly-
contested struggle, Wang Khan defeated Temujin near Ourga, where the
mounds that cover the slain are still shown to the curious or skeptical
visitor. After this serious, and in some degree unexpected reverse, the
fortunes of Genghis sank to the lowest ebb. He was reduced to terrible
straits, and had to move his camp rapidly from one spot to another. A
small section of his followers, mindful of his past success and prowess,
still clung to him, and by a sudden and daring coup he changed the whole
aspect of the contest. He surprised Wang Khan in his camp at night, and
overwhelmed him and his forces. Wang Khan escaped to his old foes, the
Naimans, who, disregarding the laws of hospitality, put him to death. The
death of Wang Khan signified nothing less than the wholesale defection of
the Kerait tribe, which joined Genghis to the last man. Then Genghis
turned westward to settle the question of supremacy with the Naimans, who
were both hostile and defiant. The Naiman chief shared the opinion of Wang
Khan, that there could not be two masters on the Tian Shan, and with that
vigorous illustration which has never been wanting to these illiterate
tribes, he wrote, "There cannot be two suns in the sky, two swords in one
sheath, two eyes in one eyepit, or two kings in one empire." Both sides
made strenuous efforts for the fray, and brought every fighting man they
could into the field. The decisive battle of the war was fought in the
heart of Jungaria, and the star of Genghis rose in the ascendant. The
Naimans fought long and well, but they were borne down by the heavier
armed Mongols, and their desperate resistance only added to their loss.
Their chief died of his wounds, and the triumph of Genghis was rendered
complete by the capture of his old enemy, Chamuka. As Genghis had sworn
the oath of friendship with Chamuka, he would not slay him, but he handed
him over to a relative, who promptly exacted the rough revenge his past
hostility and treachery seemed to call for. On his way back from this
campaign the Mongol chief attacked the Prince of Hia, who reigned over
Kansuh and Tangut, and thus began the third war he waged for the extension
of his power. Before this assumed serious proportions he summoned a Grand
Council or Kuriltai, at his camp on the Onon, and then erected outside his
tent the royal Mongol banner of the nine white yak-tails. It was on this
occasion that Temujin took, and was proclaimed among the Mongol chiefs by,
the highly exalted name of Genghis Khan, which means Very Mighty Khan. The
Chinese character for the name signifies "Perfect Warrior," and the
earlier European writers affirm that it is supposed to represent the sound
of "the bird of heaven." At this assemblage, which was the first of a long
succession of Mongol councils summoned at the same place on critical
occasions, it was proposed and agreed that the war should be carried on
with the richer and less warlike races of the south. Among soldiers it is
necessary to preserve the spirit of pre-eminence and warlike zeal by
granting rewards and decorations. Genghis realized the importance of this
matter, and instituted the order of Baturu or Bahadur, meaning warrior. He
also made his two leading generals Muhula and Porshu princes, one to sit
on his right hand and the other on his left. He addressed them before the
council in the following words: "It is to you that I owe my empire. You
are and have been to me as the shafts of a carriage or the arms to a man's
body." Seals of office were also granted to all the officials, so that
their authority might be the more evident and the more honored.

In 1207 Genghis began his war with the state of Hia, which he had
determined to crush as the preliminary to an invasion of China. In that
year he contented himself with the capture of Wuhlahai, one of the border
fortresses of that principality, and in the following year he established
his control over the tribes of the desert more fully, thus gaining many
Kirghiz and Naiman auxiliaries. In 1209 he resumed the war with Hia in a
determined spirit, and placed himself in person at the head of all his
forces. Although the Hia ruler prepared as well as he could for the
struggle, he was really unnerved by the magnitude of the danger he had to
face. His army was overthrown, his best generals were taken prisoners, and
he himself had no resource left but to throw himself on the consideration
of Genghis. For good reasons the Mongol conqueror was lenient. He married
one of the daughters of the king, and he took him into subsidiary alliance
with himself. Thus did Genghis absorb the Hia power, which was very
considerable, and prepared to enroll it with all his own resources against
the Kin empire. If the causes of Mongol success on this occasion and
afterward are inquired for, I cannot do better than repeat what I
previously wrote on this subject: "The Mongols owed their military success
to their admirable discipline and to their close study of the art of war.
Their military supremacy arose from their superiority in all essentials as
a fighting power to their neighbors. Much of their knowledge was borrowed
from China, where the art of disciplining a large army and maneuvering it
in the field had been brought to a high state of perfection many centuries
before the time of Genghis. But the Mongols carried the teaching of the
past to a further point than any of the former or contemporary Chinese
commanders, indeed, than any in the whole world, had done; and the
revolution which they effected in tactics was not less remarkable in
itself, and did not leave a smaller impression upon the age, than the
improvements made in military science by Frederick the Great and Napoleon
in their day. The Mongol played in a large way in Asia the part which the
Normans on a smaller scale played in Europe. Although the landmarks of
their triumph have now almost wholly vanished, they were for two centuries
the dominant caste in most of the states of Asia."

Having thus prepared the way for the larger enterprise, it only remained
to find a plausible pretext for attacking the Kins. With or without a
pretext Genghis would no doubt have made war, but even the ruthless Mongol
sometimes showed a regard for appearances. Many years before the Kins had
sent as envoy to the Mongul encampment Chonghei, a member of their ruling
house, and his mission had been not only unsuccessful, but had led to a
personal antipathy between the two men. In the course of time Chonghei
succeeded Madacou as emperor of the Kins, and when a Kin messenger brought
intelligence of this event to Genghis, the Mongol ruler turned toward the
south, spat upon the ground, and said, "I thought that your sovereigns
were of the race of the gods, but do you suppose that I am going to do
homage to such an imbecile as that?" The affront rankled in the mind of
Chonghei, and while Genghis was engaged with Hia, he sent troops to attack
the Mongol outposts. Chonghei thus placed himself in the wrong, and gave
Genghis justification for declaring that the Kins and not he began the
war. The reputation of the Golden dynasty, although not as great as it
once was, still stood sufficiently high to make the most adventurous of
desert chiefs wary in attacking it. Genghis had already secured the co-
operation of the ruler of Hia in his enterprise, and he next concluded an
alliance with Yeliu Liuko, chief of the Khitans, who were again
manifesting discontent with the Kins. Genghis finally circulated a
proclamation among all the desert tribes, calling upon them to join him in
his attack on the common enemy. This appeal was heartily and generally
responded to, and it was at the head of an enormous force that Genghis set
out in March, 1211, to effect the conquest of China. The Mongol army was
led by Genghis in person, and under him his four sons and his most famous
general, Chepe Noyan, held commands.

The plan of campaign of the Mongol ruler was as simple as it was bold.
From his camp at Karakoram, on the Kerulon, he marched in a straight line
through Kuku Khoten and the Ongut country to Taitong, securing an
unopposed passage through the Great Wall by the defection of the Ongut
tribe. The Kins were unprepared for this sudden and vigorous assault
directed on their weakest spot, and successfully executed before their
army could reach the scene. During the two years that the forces of
Genghis kept the field on this occasion, they devastated the greater
portion of the three northern provinces of Shensi, Shansi, and Pechihli.
But the border fortress of Taitong and the Kin capital, Tungking,
successfully resisted all the assaults of the Mongols, and when Genghis
received a serious wound at the former place, he reluctantly ordered the
retreat of his army, laden with an immense quantity of spoil, but still
little advanced in its main task of conquering China. The success of the
Khitan Yeliu Liuko had not been less considerable, and he was proclaimed
King of Leaou as a vassal of the Mongols. The planting of this ally on the
very threshold of Chinese power facilitated the subsequent enterprises of
the Mongols against the Kins, and represented the most important result of
this war.

In 1213 Genghis again invaded the Kin dominions, but his success was not
very striking, and in several engagements of no very great importance the
Kin arms met with some success. The most important events of the year
were, however, the deposition and murder of Chonghei, the murder of a Kin
general, Hushahu, who had won a battle against the Mongols, and the
proclamation of Utubu as emperor. The change of sovereign brought no
change of fortune to the unlucky Kins. Utubu was only able to find safety
behind the walls of his capital, and he was delighted when Genghis wrote
him the following letter: "Seeing your wretched condition and my exalted
fortune, what may your opinion be now of the will of heaven with regard to
myself? At this moment I am desirous to return to Tartary, but could you
allow my soldiers to take their departure without appeasing their anger
with presents?" In reply Utubu sent Genghis a princess of his family as a
wife, and also "five hundred youths, the same number of girls, three
thousand horses, and a vast quantity of precious articles." Then Genghis
retired once more to Karakoram, but on his march he stained his reputation
by massacring all his prisoners--the first gross act of inhumanity he
committed during his Chinese wars.

When Utubu saw the Mongols retreating, he thought to provide against the
most serious consequences of their return by removing his capital to a
greater distance from the frontier, and with this object he transferred
his residence to Kaifong. The majority of his advisers were against this
change, as a retirement could not but shake public confidence. It had
another consequence, which they may not have contemplated, and that was
its providing Genghis with an excuse for renewing his attack on China. The
Mongol at once complained that the action of the Kin emperor implied an
unwarrantable suspicion of his intentions, and he sent his army across the
frontier to recommence his humiliation. On this occasion a Kin general
deserted to them, and thenceforward large bodies of the Chinese of the
north attached themselves to the Mongols, who were steadily acquiring a
unique reputation for power as well as military prowess. The great event
of this war was the siege of Yenking--on the site of which now stands the
capital Pekin--the defense of which had been intrusted to the Prince
Imperial; but Utubu, more anxious for his son's safety than the interests
of the state, ordered him to return to Kaifong. The governor of Yenking
offered a stout resistance to the Mongols, and when he found that he could
not hold out, he retired to the temple of the city and poisoned himself.
His last act was to write a letter to Utubu begging him to listen no more
to the pernicious advice of the man who had induced him to murder Hushahu.

The capture of Yenking, where Genghis obtained a large supply of war
materials, as well as vast booty, opened the road to Central China. The
Mongols advanced as far as the celebrated Tunkwan Pass, which connects
Shensi and Honan, but when their general, Samuka, saw how formidable it
was, and how strong were the Kin defenses and garrison, he declined to
attack it, and, making a detour through very difficult country, he marched
on Kaifong, where Utubu little expected him. The Mongols had to make their
own road, and they crossed several ravines by improvised "bridges made of
spears and the branches of trees bound together by strong chains." But the
Mongol force was too small to accomplish any great result, and the
impetuosity of Samuka nearly led to his destruction. A prompt retreat, and
the fact that the Hoangho was frozen over, enabled him to extricate his
army, after much fatigue and reduced in numbers, from its awkward
position. The retreat of the Mongols inspired Utubu with sufficient
confidence to induce him to attack Yeliu Liuko in Leaoutung, and the
success of this enterprise imparted a gleam of sunshine and credit to the
expiring cause of the Kins. Yeliu Liuko was driven from his newly-created
kingdom, but Genghis hastened to the assistance of his ally by sending
Muhula, the greatest of all his generals, at the head of a large army to
recover Leaoutung. His success was rapid and remarkable. The Kins were
speedily overthrown, Yeliu Liuko was restored to his authority, and the
neighboring King of Corea, impressed by the magnitude of the Mongol
success, hastened to acknowledge himself the vassal of Genghis. The most
important result of this campaign was that Genghis intrusted to Muhula the
control of all military arrangements for the conquest of China. He is
reported to have said to his lieutenant: "North of the Taihing Mountains I
am supreme, but all the regions to the south I commend to the care of
Muhula," and he "also presented him with a chariot and a banner with nine
scalops. As he handed him this last emblem of authority, he spoke to his
generals, saying, 'Let this banner be an emblem of sovereignty, and let
the orders issued from under it be obeyed as my own.'" The principal
reason for intrusting the conquest of China to a special force and
commander was that Genghis wished to devote the whole of his personal
attention to the prosecution of his new war with the King of Khwaresm and
the other great rulers of Western Asia.

Muhula more than justified the selection and confidence of his sovereign.
In the year 1218-19 he invaded Honan, defeated the best of the Kin
commanders, and not merely overran, but retained possession of the places
he occupied in the Kin dominions. The difficulties of Utubu were
aggravated by an attack from Ningtsong, the Sung emperor, who refused any
longer to pay tribute to the Kins, as they were evidently unable to
enforce the claim, and the Kin armies were as equally unfortunate against
their southern opponents as their northern. Then Utubu endeavored to
negotiate terms with Muhula for the retreat of his army, but the only
conditions the Mongol general would accept were the surrender of the Kin
ruler and his resignation of the imperial title in exchange for the
principality of Honan. Utubu, low as he had sunk, declined to abase
himself further and to purchase life at the loss of his dignity. The
sudden death of Muhula gained a brief respite for the distressed Chinese
potentate, but the advantage was not of any permanent significance; first
of all because the Kins were too exhausted by their long struggle, and,
secondly, because Genghis hastened to place himself at the head of his
army. The news of the death of Muhula reached him when he was encamped on
the frontier of India and preparing to add the conquest of that country to
his many other triumphs in Central and Western Asia. He at once came to
the conclusion that he must return to set his house in order at home, and
to prevent all the results of Muhula's remarkable triumphs being lost.
What was a disadvantage for China proved a benefit for India, and possibly
for Europe, as there is no saying how much further the Mongol encroachment
might have extended westward, if the direction of Genghis had not been
withdrawn. While Genghis was hastening from the Cabul River to the
Kerulon, across the Hindoo Koosh and Tian Shan ranges, Utubu died and
Ninkiassu reigned in his stead.

One of the first consequences of the death of Muhula was that the young
king of Hia, believing that the fortunes of the Mongols would then wane,
and that he might obtain a position of greater power and independence,
threw off his allegiance, and adopted hostile measures against them. The
prompt return of Genghis nipped this plan in the bud, but it was made
quite evident that the conquest of Hia was essential to the success of any
permanent annexation of Chinese territory, and as its prince could dispose
of an army which he boasted numbered half a million of men, it is not
surprising to find that he took a whole year in perfecting his
arrangements for so grave a contest. The war began in 1225 and continued
for two years. The success of the Mongol army was decisive and
unqualified. The Hias were defeated in several battles, and in one of them
fought upon the frozen waters of the Hoangho. Genghis broke the ice by
means of his engines, and the Hia army was almost annihilated. The king
Leseen was deposed, and Hia became a Mongol province.

[Illustration: HONG KONG
_China_]

It was immediately after this successful war that Genghis was seized with
his fatal illness. Signs had been seen in the heavens which the Mongol
astrologers said indicated the near approach of his death. The five
planets had appeared together in the southwest, and so much impressed was
Genghis by this phenomenon that on his death-bed he expressed "the earnest
desire that henceforth the lives of our enemies shall not be unnecessarily
sacrificed." The expression of this wish undoubtedly tended to mitigate
the terrors of war as carried on by the Mongols. The immediate successors
of Genghis conducted their campaigns after a more humane fashion, and it
was not until Timour revived the early Mongol massacres that their
opponents felt there was no chance in appealing to the humanity of the
Mongols. Various accounts have been published of the cause of his death;
some authorities ascribing it to violence, either by an arrow, lightning,
or drowning, and others to natural causes. The event seems to have
unquestionably happened in his camp on the borders of Shansi, August 27,
1227, when he was about sixty-five years of age, during more than fifty of
which he had enjoyed supreme command of his own tribe.

The area of the undertakings conducted under his eye was more vast and
included a greater number of countries than was the case with any other
conqueror. Not a country from the Euxine to the China Sea escaped the
tramp of the Mongol horsemen, and if we include the achievements of his
immediate successors, the conquest of Russia, Poland, and Hungary, the
plundering of Bulgaria, Roumania, and Bosnia, the final subjection of
China and its southern tributaries must be added to complete the tale of
Mongol triumph. The sphere of Mongol influence extended beyond this large
portion of the earth's surface, just as the consequence of an explosion
cannot be restricted to the immediate scene of the disaster. If we may
include the remarkable achievements of his descendant Baber, and of that
prince's grandson Akbar, in India three centuries later, not a country in
Asia enjoyed immunity from the effect of their successes. Perhaps the most
important result of their great outpouring into Western Asia--which
certainly was the arrest of the Mohammedan career in Central Asia, and the
diversion of the current of the fanatical propagators of the Prophet's
creed against Europe--is not yet as fully recognized as it should be. The
doubt has been already expressed whether the Mongols would ever have risen
to higher rank than that of a nomad tribe but for the appearance of
Genghis. Leaving that supposition in the category of other interesting but
problematical conjectures, it may be asserted that Genghis represented in
their highest forms all the qualities which entitled his race to exercise
governing authority. He was, moreover, a military genius of the very first
order, and it may be questioned whether either Caesar or Napoleon can as
commanders be placed on a par with him. Even the Chinese said that he led
his armies like a god. The manner in which he moved large bodies of men
over vast distances without an apparent effort, the judgment he showed in
the conduct of several wars in countries far apart from each other, his
strategy in unknown regions, always on the alert, yet never allowing
hesitation or overcaution to interfere with his enterprise, the sieges
which he brought to a successful termination, his brilliant victories, a
succession of "suns of Austerlitz," all combined make up the picture of a
career to which Europe can offer nothing that will surpass, if indeed she
has anything to bear comparison with it. After the lapse of centuries, and
in spite of the indifference with which the great figures of Asiatic
history have been treated, the name of Genghis preserves its magic spell.
It is still a name to conjure with when recording the great revolutions of
a period which beheld the death of the old system in China, and the advent
in that country of a newer and more vigorous government which, slowly
acquiring shape in the hands of Kublai and a more national form under the
Mings, has attained the pinnacle of its utility and strength under the
influence of the great emperors of the Manchu dynasty. But great as is the
reputation Genghis has acquired it is probably short of his merits. He is
remembered as a relentless and irresistible conqueror, a human scourge;
but he was much more. He was one of the greatest instruments of destiny,
one of the most remarkable molders of the fate of nations to be met with
in the history of the world. His name still overshadows Asia with its
fame, and the tribute of our admiration cannot be denied.

The death of Genghis did not seriously retard the progress of the war
against the Kins. He expressed the wish that war should be carried on in a
more humane and less vindictive manner, but he did not advocate there
being no war or the abandonment of any of his enterprises. His son and
successor Ogotai was indeed specially charged to bring the conquest of
China to a speedy and victorious conclusion. The weakness of the Mongol
confederacy was the delay connected with the proclamation of a new Khan
and the necessity of summoning to a Grand Council all the princes and
generals of the race, although it entailed the suspension and often the
abandonment of great enterprises. The death of Genghis saved India but not
China. Almost his last instructions were to draw up the plan for attacking
and turning the great fortress of Tunkwan, which had provided such an
efficient defense for Honan on the north, and in 1230, Ogotai, who had
already partitioned the territory taken from the Kins into ten
departments, took the field in person, giving a joint command to his
brother Tuli, under whom served the experienced generals Yeliu Chutsia,
Antchar, and Subutai. At first the Mongols met with no great success, and
the Kins, encouraged by a momentary gleam of victory, ventured to reject
the terms offered by Ogotai and to insult his envoy. The only important
fighting during the years 1230-31 occurred round Fongsian, which after a
long siege surrendered to Antchar, and when the campaign closed the Kins
presented a bold front to the Mongols and still hoped to retain their
power and dominions.

In 1232 the Mongols increased their armies in the field, and attacked the
Kins from two sides. Ogotai led the main force against Honan, while Tuli,
marching through Shensi into Szchuen, assailed them on their western
flank. The difficulties encountered by Tuli on this march, when he had to
make his own roads, were such that he entered the Kin territories with a
much reduced and exhausted army. The Kin forces gained some advantage over
it, but by either a feigned or a forced retreat, Tuli succeeded in
baffling their pursuit, and in effecting a junction with his brother
Ogotai, who had met with better fortune. Tuli destroyed everything along
his line of march, and his massacres and sacks revived the worst
traditions of Mongol ferocity. In these straits the Kins endeavored to
flood the country round their capital, to which the Mongols had now
advanced, but the Mongols fell upon the workmen while engaged in the task,
and slew ten thousand of them. When the main Kin army accepted battle
before the town of Yuchow, it was signally defeated, with the loss of
three of its principal generals, and Ninkiassu fled from Kaifong to a
place more removed from the scene of war. The garrison and townspeople of
Kaifong--an immense city with walls thirty-six miles in circumference, and
a population during the siege, it is said, of one million four hundred
thousand families, or nearly seven million people--offered a stubborn
resistance to the Mongols, who intrusted the conduct of the attack to
Subutai, the most daring of all their commanders. The Mongols employed
their most formidable engines, catapults hurling immense stones, and
mortars ejecting explosives and combustibles, but twelve months elapsed
before the walls were shattered and the courage and provisions of the
defenders exhausted. Then Kaifong surrendered at discretion, and Subutai
wished to massacre the whole of the population. But fortunately for the
Chinese, Yeliu Chutsai was a more humane and a more influential general,
and under his advice Ogotai rejected the cruel proposal.

At this moment, when it seemed impossible for fate to have any worse
experience in store for the unfortunate Kins, their old enemies, the
Sungs, wishing to give them the _coup de grace_, declared war upon
them, and placed a large army in the field under their best general,
Mongkong, of whom more will be heard. The relics of the Kin army, under
their sovereign Ninkiassu, took shelter in Tsaichau, where they were
closely besieged by the Mongols on one side and the Sungs on the other.
Driven thus into a corner, the Kins fought with the courage of despair and
long held out against the combined efforts of their enemies. At last
Ninkiassu saw that the struggle could not be prolonged, and he prepared
himself to end his life and career in a manner worthy of the race from
which he sprang. When the enemy broke into the city, and he heard the
stormers at the gate of his palace, he retired to an upper chamber and set
fire to the building. Many of his generals, and even of his soldiers,
followed his example, preferring to end their existence rather than to add
to the triumph of their Mongol and Sung opponents. Thus came to an end in
1234 the famous dynasty of the Kins, who under nine emperors had ruled
Northern China for one hundred and eighteen years, and whose power and
military capacity may best be gauged by the fact that without a single
ally they held out against the all-powerful Mongols for more than a
quarter of a century. Ninkiassu, the last of their rulers, was not able to
sustain the burden of their authority, but he at least showed himself
equal to ending it in a worthy and appropriately dramatic manner.

The folly of the Sungs had completed the discomfiture of the Kins, and had
brought to their own borders the terrible peril which had beset every
other state in Asia, and which had in almost every case entailed
destruction. How could the Sungs expect to avoid the same fate, or to
propitiate the most implacable and insatiable of conquering races? They
had done this to a large extent with their eyes open. More than once in
the early stages of the struggle the Kin rulers had sent envoys to beg
their alliance, and to warn them that if they did not help in keeping out
the Mongols, their time would come to be assailed and to share in the
common ruin. But Ningtsong did not pay heed to the warning, and scarcely
concealed his gratification at the misfortunes of his old opponents. The
nearer the Mongols came, and the worse the plight to which the Kins were
reduced, the more did he rejoice. He forgave Tuli the violation of Sung
territory, necessary for his flank attack

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