CHAPTER I.

THE DOWNFALL OF THE SUI DYNASTY

 

It was a troubled world, where loyalties were uncertain and the future menacing and obscure, into which Li Shih-Min was born at Chang An in western China, in the year ad 600. He was a younger son of an old and distinguished aristocratic family descending from Li Kuang, a celebrated general of the Han dynasty

The Li family subsequently settled near Liang Chou in the province of Kansu, the extreme north-west corner of China, There the family became very powerful. In the year a.d. 400, during the confusion that followed the fall of Lo Yang to the Tartars, the head of the family, Li Kao, made himself sovereign prince of the district, calling his state West Liang (Hsi Liang). Li Kao and his two sons reigned over Liang for some twenty years, until the principality was conquered by a Tartar dynast. The Li clan survived this catastrophe, subsequently moving east to Chang An, then the capital of the western division of the Wei dynasty. Several members of the clan served the emperors of Wei and Northern Chou with honour. Li Fing, the sixth descendant of the last prince of Liang, was awarded the honorary tide of duke of Tang for his services. Li Ping married a lady of the Tartar Duku family, and was thus a brother-in-law of Yang Chien, founder of the Sui dynasty. His son, Li Yuan, was the father of Li Shih-Min.

Besides Shih-Min, who was the second son, Li Yuan had four children by his consort the Lady Tou, but only three of these played a part in the history of the time—the eldest and youngest sons, Li Chien-Cheng and Li Yuan-Chi, and his daughter, the lady Li.

Shih-Min, as the second son of a great family, received the education and upbringing of his class. This included classical Chinese literature and calligraphy, at which the youth excelled. Chinese calligraphy is more than a neat accomplishment. It is reckoned as one of the arts ranking with painting or poetry. Shih-Min was a famous calligraphist, and many specimens from his pen, engraved on stone tablets, still exist. Rubbings of these are widely sold in China as models upon which the student should base his style.

Besides the scholarly education to which the Chinese ruling class have always paid so much attention, the boy was trained in the warlike pastimes which the Tartar conquest had made popular in China. Shih-Min perhaps inherited from his grandmother’s family his passionate love of horses. This taste is attested by the famous bas-reliefs, formerly guarding the approach to his tomb, with their vivid portrait sculptures of his six war-horses killed in battle beneath him. Shih-Min was also a superb archer, the most famous of his age, an accomplishment to which he was to owe his life on several occasions.

When the boy was still in his early ’teens his father was appointed governor of Shansi, with headquarters at Tai Yuan Fu, the post being one of the principal frontier commands bordering the country of the Turks, then the dominant and rising power in the Mongolian steppe. It was in this elevated, bracing mountain country, far from the luxury of the extravagant Sui court, that Shih-Min passed his formative years, among scarred frontier troops, learning endurance on hunting expeditions and warfare in border alarms.

The first important campaign in which he distinguished himself occurred in the year AD 615, when he was fifteen years old. The emperor, Yang Ti, of the Sui dynasty, son and successor of Yang Chien, came up to the cooler climate of the Shansi mountains to pass the summer in a palace which he had built near Tai Yuan Fu. This was in the year in which Li Yuan had been governor of the province. Yang Ti, after some stay in his palace, passed beyond the Great Wall to make a tour of the northern frontier. Up to this year the Sui dynasty had been on friendly terms with the khan of the Turks, indeed the Princess I Ch’eng had been given to the khan in marriage.

But Yang Ti, who had begun to fear the power of the Turks, had recently attempted to stir up dissension among the lesser khans. His efforts failed in their purpose, only serving to anger Sibir Khan, the paramount chiefs who was well aware of Yang Ti’s intrigues.

Hearing that the emperor had unwisely passed to the north of the Great Wall, Sibir Khan, gathering a force of several thousand horsemen, made a sudden swoop in the hope of capturing the entire imperial party. He would almost certainly have succeeded had not the Princess I Cheng, his Chinese wife, sent the emperor a secret warning. This gave Yang Ti time to fly post haste to Yen Min, a fortress and gate of the Great Wall, in which he was immediately besieged by the Turkish host.

The position of the emperor was now extremely hazardous. Yen Men was a small place, in which, with the inhabitants, refugees, huge imperial train and guards, there were now no less than 150,000 people, without any adequate supply of provisions. Of the forty-one fortified posts in the district the Turks quickly captured thirty-nine, while Yen Men itself was incessantly attacked so that “arrows fell like rain”, Yang Ti, who at best was an unbalanced character, seems to have lost his nerve. Clasping his youngest son in his arms, the emperor spent his time “weeping till his eyes were swollen”.

His generals and ministers offered a variety of advice, but the distracted monarch could not make up his mind. The generals urged him to choose a few thousands of the best troops and cut his way out through the besiegers on some dark night. The ministers, who risked being left to their fate if this plan was adopted, tried to persuade their sovereign to publish a decree promising to discontinue the unpopular Korean war, which was rapidly exhausting the strength of the dynasty. If this were done, they declared, the troops would fight with renewed ardour.

The best advice came from Hsiao Yu, younger brother of the empress, who was a descendant of the former southern imperial house of Liang. He suggested that a message should be sent secretly to the Princess I Cheng, Sibir Khan’s Chinese wife, who, as her previous warning proved, was at heart always Chinese in sympathy. Apprised of the emperor’s plight, she might be able to contrive some means of raising the siege. Yang Ti, desperately afraid, acted upon this advice, also promising to give up the Korean war, and reward with official rank every man who defended Yen Men.

Meanwhile Li Yuan, as governor of the province, had been informed of the Turkish invasion and had despatched all available troops to the emperor’s assistance, Shih-Min accompanied the expedition, which was in charge of a subordinate general. This commander, however, doubted whether he could raise the siege with his small force. He asked the advice of his staff, and it was then that the young Shih-Min gave early proof of his aptitude for war. “The Turks”, he said, “would never have dared to besiege the emperor in Yen Men if they had not already known that our force was too insignificant to embarrass them. Consequently we can only succeed by making them believe that the main imperial army is arriving to raise the siege. To do this we must march by day in a long column, displaying a great number of standards, and when camped at night, light fires over a wide area, keeping up a constant sound of drums. The Turkish scouts, seeing our army covering the roads for many miles, and hearing so much noise at night, will really believe that the main army has arrived to save the emperor. Then they will retire without fighting, as is their custom.”

The general followed this plan, and the Turks were In effect deceived. As he received a message at the same time from the Princess I Cheng saying that he was menaced from the north by another Tartar tribe, Sibir Khan, believing that he had the imperial army on his hands, abandoned the siege and retreated to his  steppes. The emperor hastened to put himself in safety by a swift retreat to Tai Yuan Fu.

At this time, ad 615, Yang Ti, second emperor of the Sui dynasty, had been ten years on the throne, but the extravagance of his conduct and the unpopularity of his tyrannical rule made it unlikely that he would occupy it in peace much longer. Though not without talents, the emperor's character had steadily deteriorated after he ascended die throne. In his later years he became a real megalomaniac. It was above all Yang Ti’s reckless expenditure that brought the Sui dynasty to ruin. The empire, barely recovered from the destructive wars of three centuries of partition, was taxed to the limit to provide money for the emperor’s gigantic programme of public works.

Discontented with Chang An, his father’s capital, Yang Ti rebuilt the city of Lo Yang, in Honan province, which had been largely ruined in the troubles at the end of the Wei dynasty fifty years earlier. It was now reconstructed on a most spacious plan, adorned with palaces more magnificent and costly than any yet seen, with a vast imperial park to the west of the city. This pleasaunce had artificial lakes and small hills covered with forest trees which were dug up and conveyed to the rite from distant forests. The huge park, larger than Chien Lung's ruined Yuan Ming Yuan, which still covets the countryside near Peking, was rushed to completion, regardless of cost, by press-ganged labourers, who were treated with the utmost brutality.

Lo Yang, however, was only one of Yang Ti’s expenses. His most useful and lasting monument was the Grand Canal from Hang Chou in Chekiang, across the Yangtze near Yang Chou to the Yellow river, a distance of 500 miles. Though this great work served the uses of peaceful commerce, the emperor had it constructed more for his own pleasure than to benefit his subjects. Its primary purpose was to provide a comfortable route by which the imperial court could travel from Lo Yang to Yang Chou, near Nanking, where Yang Ti had built a new southern capital scarcely less magnificent than Lo Yang.

A fleet of superb barges, decorated and equipped with the utmost splendour, served to convey the court on these journeys, while on either bank of the canal the emperor was protected by a numerous army, for whose support every town within a hundred mile zone was forced to contribute provisions.

Had Yang Ti been content to reign at home in this dearly bought luxury, his extravagance, though it bore heavily on the people, might have caused no upheaval Unfortunately his foreign policy was as ambitious, and even more costly, than the internal administration. Ambassadors were sent to all the kingdoms of Central Asia to obtain acknowledgment of Yang Ti’s suzerainty. As the envoys did not dare to return unsuccessful, they gained their ends by bribing the petty kings with enormous sums of money. The vain monarch was perfectly content when he had purchased these empty promises at a fabulous cost.

The emperor’s crowning folly, which finally ruined the dynasty, was the Korean war. There was no reason whatsoever for this expedition. Korea had been a province of the Han empire, and Yang Ti, who considered himself to be by far the greatest ruler China had ever had, was determined to reduce this country to its ancient obedience. In three successive years, ad 611, 612 and 613, the emperor hurled the strength of the empire against the Korean king, and each time he failed dismally. The first expedition, which he commanded in person, was held up at the siege of Liao Yang (near the modern Mukden) till the onset of the bitter northern winter forced the Chinese to retire. In the next year an army under the chief generals of the empire, which had failed to take the Korean capital, was cut to pieces on its retreat at the crossing of the Yalu river. When Yang Ti once more took command of the third invasion he was interrupted when besieging Liao Yang by the news of a dangerous revolt in China proper.

The disasters of the Korean war, coming on top of all Yang Ti’s colossal programme of public works, had beggared the empire. The oppressive taxation drove the despairing people to banditry, while the soldiers, unwillingly press-ganged to fill the ranks of the army, deserted in thousands to swell the forces of the malcontents. In ad 611 these deserters were so numerous in Shantung province that they could defy the regular imperial forces. Under a leader of capacity, named Tou Chien-Te, they allied themselves with the bandits, becoming year by year mote formidable.

The rebellion which recalled Yang Ti from Korea was even more serious. The leader, Yang Hsuan-Kan, was a member of the aristocracy, a man of ability with a winning personality. As has often been the case in the rebellions of Yang Hsuan-Kan was driven to revolt by the fear that his life was in danger. Yang Ti had once made a remark which Yang Hsuan-Kan took as a hint of his future doom. When the emperor had become involved in the tiresome siege of Liao Yang, Yang Hsuan-Kan raised the standard of rebellion at the city of Li Yang. The rebel was at once joined by one Li Mi, who was destined to play a major part in the troubles of that age. Li Mi also came of a good family. He had been a page at court, till one day Yang Ti was heard to remark, “that black-a-vised boy has a strange look”. This ill-omened observation had been taken as a hint by Li Mi’s family, who withdrew the boy from a court where the monarch’s displeasure was apt to lead to a sudden curtailment of the offending subject’s life.

Walking that he could never find fortune at the Sui court, Li Mi, who was endowed with restless ambition and many of the qualities of a great leader, readily joined Yang Hsuan-Kan, with whom he was well acquainted. As chief adviser to that rebel he proposed a plan of campaign which showed great strategic insight. “The emperor”, he said, “is now in Korea with the pick of the army. If we occupy the gates of the Great Wall we can cut off all his supplies and interrupt his communications with China. As the season is now far advanced he and the army will be starved to submission before his supporters in China can come to his rescue. This is the best plan. The second plan is to raise what troops we can, and occupy, with the least possible delay, the province of Kuan Chung. With this inexpugnable base we can at leisure conquer the rest of the empire, which is weary of the Sui dynasty. There is a third plan, inferior to the others. We may seize the capital (Lo Yang) and then, having the families of the aristocracy and the treasure of the empire in our hands, we can readily win wide support. But this plan admits of no delay, for if the imperial troops arrive before we take the city, we are lost beyond hope.”

Yang Hsuan-Kan, who wanted quick results, lacking the patience and foresight of a great commander, opted for the third and worst plan.

The dangers inherent in this scheme, which Li Mi had foreseen, proved only too real. During the absence of the emperor, Lo Yang had been committed to the care of his grandson and heir, Yang Tung, Prince Yueh. Though his troops were frequently beaten by the rebels in the open field, Prince Yueh managed to defend the immensely strong walls until two imperial general Yu-Wen Shu and Chu-Tu Tung, arriving post haste with troops from Korea, made it impossible for the rebels to continue the siege.

Then, too late, Yang Hsuan-Kan tried to carry out Li Mi’s second plan, and seize Shensi: but as even now he could not be persuaded to realise the vital importance of speed, he was overtaken, totally defeated, and killed near Shan Chou on the Lo Yang-Chang An road, in the autumn of ad 613, Li Mi was taken prisoner, but managed to escape after nuking his guards drunk. For some years he led the roving life of an outlaw, till opportunity once more came his way.

Yang Ti returned in triumph to Lo Yang, but his presence failed to check the rising tide of disorder which soon swelled up into open revolt in every province of the empire. The rebellion of Yang Hsuan-Kan occurred two years before Yang Ti’s unfortunate experience at Yen Min. During those two yean, which the emperor passed at Lo Yang, the condition of his empire steadily deteriorated. The extreme severity of the laws against bandits only served to multiply their numbers, for as soon as one horde was dispersed, several others rose in its place.

The mentality of the imperial madman is best illustrated by a sample of his legislation he decreed, as a measure to suppress banditry, that the entire rural population must take up its residence in the cities, only going out to work the fields by day. The villages were to be occupied by troops, so that all persons found outside the city walls at night could be apprehended as robbers. Such absurd laws, obviously incapable of application, only served to infuriate the people; while the bandits, joined together in formidable armies, swept the countryside.

But Yang Ti, living withdrawn amid the delights of his parks and palaces, paid little heed to the affairs of state. He flew into a violent rage if his attention was called to the growth of the rebellions. At last his ministers, realising from some tragic examples that it was folly to provoke him with the truth, soothed the all-powerful tyrant with grotesquely mendacious accounts of the state of the country. On one occasion, some rumour of the menacing progress of the rebellions having reached him, Yang Ti asked Yi-Wen Shu, President of the Board of War, whether the revolt was dangerous. Yu-Wen unhesitatingly replied, “They are only a few bands of petty thieves who will soon be dispersed”. This thundering lie so tickled the sense of humour of another minister present, that he was forced to dodge behind a column, lest the emperor should perceive his uncontrollable mirth. Yang Ti, in fact, did notice his strange conduct, and the minister was only able to explain his behaviour by pretending a sudden indisposition.

On returning from his alarming adventure at Yen Men, the emperor promptly broke the promise he had made to discontinue the Korean war, and decreed a fresh conscription for another invasion of the contumacious kingdom. This order precipitated a general revolt in every part of the empire. Already a rebellion of the people of Kiangnan (the country south-east of the Yangtze) had been suppressed by the general, Wang Shih-Chung, who had resorted to the most despicable treachery. He issued a proclamation saying that all rebels who submitted would he pardoned and that the rigorous laws would be modified. When mote than 30,000 insurgents, who had only taken up arms in desperation, had surrendered on these terms, Wang surrounded these un­fortunates with his troops, and massacred them to the last man. Needless to say, the other rebels were only rendered the more desperate by this gross treachery. Henceforward they would never submit, no matter what terms were offered to them.

The emperor, who, since he was no longer willing to listen to the reports of his ministers, remained in ignorance of these events, derided in the year ad 616 to return to Yang Chou, his southern capital. Yang Ti seems to have had a curious predilection for the south, though his family was of northern origin (Shensi) and his mother of Tartar blood. He could speak the language of Wu, the dialect of the Yangtze delta, and had acquired a taste of r the sophistical customs  and vices which had flourished in the old southern empire. While ordering fresh levies for the Korean war, he determined to spend another year at his beloved Yang Chou, in spite of the earnest remonstrances of the entire court, which was convinced that if the emperor went south, nothing could stop the spread of the rebellions in the northern provinces.

The tyrant not only refused to listen to this advice, but decapitated the more importunate officials. Even after the emperor had embarked he was implored to return by a group of people who lined the banks of the canal, wailing and prophesying woe if he persisted in his design. The incensed monarch's reply to their petition was to order his guards to massacre these loyal, though imprudent subjects. Then, moving in his fleet of gorgeous barges, attended by the picked troops of the empire, who rode along either bank, the emperor journeyed south through a country already seething with revolt.

All the evil consequences which the ministers had predicted followed swiftly upon this fatal voyage. Li Mi, emerging from his hiding-place, put himself at the head of a large host of rebels who were in arms to the east of Lo Yang, and, receiving constant reinforcements on his march, boldly advanced upon the capital. Tou Chien-Te, the bandit leader in Shantung, acquired new strength, and soon dominated the north-east plain, where early in the next year he proclaimed himself king, giving his new dynasty the name of Hsia.

 

 

In that year, ad 617, the Siu empire dissolved into irremediable chaos. Revolts led by men of influence and standing broke out everywhere. The banditry of previous years was succeeded by a general partition of the empire. As these rebels all aspired to the imperial throne, and mostly adopted the imperial tide, it will be convenient to give a brief account of them and the areas they occupied.

(1)    In the extreme north-west corner of China the province now called Kansu passed into the hands of one Hsueh Chu.

(2)   A military officer named Liang Shih-Tu rebelled in the north of Shensi and proclaimed himself emperor. He was supported by the Turks, who gave him the title of khan.

(3)   In north Shansi another rebel, Liu Wu-Chou, assumed the rank of emperor, receiving Turkish support.

(4)   In the far north of Hopei (Chihli), Kao Kai-Tao, calling himself prince of Yen, held court at Yung Ping Fu.

(5)    To the south of Yen, Tou Chien-Te reigned in the coastal plain, later fixing his capital at Kuang Ping Fu in southern Hopei.

(6)   Li Mi assailed Lo Yang in alliance with less well-organised rebels who ravaged the province of Honan.

(7)    Tu Fu-Wei, a sixteen-year-old shepherd-boy, made himself head of a rebellion as early as AD 614. He controlled the lands between the Huai river and the Yangtze.

(8)   South China extended a warm welcome to Hsiao Hsien, a member of the former southern imperial house of Liang. He was accepted without opposition in Hupei, Kiangsi, Hunan, and Kuangtung. He ruled this large empire from Ching Chou Fu on the Yangtze in Hupei.

In other parts less well-organised rebels roamed the country, almost the only part of China remaining unaffected being Szechuan, too remote to feel the weight of Yang Ti’s oppression.

The greatest of all the rebellions was that raised by Li Shih-Min in bis father’s province of Shansi, but the origin and progress of this, which ended in the foundation of the Tang dynasty, will be related in detail in the next chapter. Here only the tragic fate of the Sui house remains to be told. Yang Ti was not insensible to the perils which menaced his grandson and heir, Yang Tung Prince Yueh, in Lo Yang. He despatched the general, Wang Shih-Chung, who had so cruelly massacred the Kiangnan rebels, with a large army to attack Li Mi, who, having mastered all the northern part of Honan, was now besieging the capital. Lo Yang, indeed, was reduced to serious straits. Li Mi had defeated the troops of Prince Yueh outside the city and plundered the great granaries. By distributing the grain to the populace he gained the goodwill of the people, who Steely brought provisions to his army. The rebel leader had also received the support of many influential men, attracting to his standards all the adventurous spirits who found Yang H’s tyranny intolerable. Among those who now joined Li Mi the most noteworthy were Wei Chung and Hsu Shih-Chi. The former, an ex-Taoist priest, was a man of rare ability, who became one of Li Mi’s counsellors. Hsu Shih-Chi, better known to history as Li Shih-Chi (the change of surname dated from his adherence to the Tang cause), was then only seventeen years old. Even at this early age his outstanding ability gained a command in the rebel army for one who was destined to be a very famous general.

Although Wang Shih-Chung and the imperial army reached Lo Yong, Li Mi defeated the relieving force in open battle, and forced it in turn to take refuge inside the walls of the city. The position of Lo Yang was therefore still most precarious. The rebel generals now urged Li Mi to leave Lo Yang alone, and occupy Shensi, thus patting into practice the plan which he had once proposed to Yang Hsuan-Kan. Li Mi was forced to abandon this plan for fear that his soldiers, who were from the eastern provinces, would not be willing to follow him to Shensi, far from their homes. In this decision Li Mi made a mistake; for, as he proved unable to capture Lo Yang, his inaction was in the end fatal to his cause.

But in this year Yang Ti’s generals were no mote successful against the other rebels than at Lo Yang. An army, sent to suppress Tou Chien-Te, was not only totally defeated by that rebel in a battle fought in a fog, but the surviving Sui troops also made common cause with the rebels. The territory north of the Yellow river was henceforward entirely dominated by rebel forces.

The emperor had spent this disastrous year secluded in his palace at Yang Chou, scarcely troubled at all by the deepening shadows which were fest dosing over the dynasty. Accompanied by troops of women, he spent his day in the delightful gardens of his southern palace, feasting, drinking and watching theatrical entertainments, seeking to forget the loss of an empire in the pleasures of the senses. Nevertheless, his privacy was from time to time disturbed by the importunities of his ministers and the growing murmurs of the army. Neither the courtiers nor the soldiers shared the emperor's fondness for the southern capital.

The ministers, mostly members of the northern aristocracy, had left their families and  possessions in the north, where they were exposed to all manner of perils from one or other of the victorious rebel armies. The imperial guard were all men of the north, recruited in Shensi, the home province of the Sui emperors. The troops now wearied of the south, where, cut off by hundreds of hostile miles from their villages and families, they seemed destined to a permanent exile. Indeed, the emperor, when he could be roused to give any consideration to the fate of the dynasty, had expressed the opinion that it was useless to hope to reconquer the north. Instead he toyed with the idea of fixing his permanent capital at Nanking, and contenting himself with the southern part of the empire. The short-lived Sui reunion of China had already foundered, even before the dynasty finally succumbed.

Yang Ti’s new policy was not revealed to the army, but the discontent of the soldiers was appeased for a time by a singular expedient. The emperor, learning that their chief grievance was the long separation from their families, conceived the simple plan of providing them with new families in the south. Orders were given that every soldier must take a wife from a family resident in Yang Chou. This remarkable mass marriage seems to have contented the troops for the moment, though history does not record the opinion which the maidens of Yang Chou formed upon the matter.

But by the spring of AD 618, even foe charms of foe young women of Yang Chou could not silence the  discontent in court and camp. The events of the preceding year had made it plain that, while Yang Ti reigned, there could be no possibility of the Sui dynasty recovering the northern provinces. But the ministers and generals, not less than the soldiers, were opposed to any permanent exile in the south, such as foe emperor contemplated. Plots and evasions became frequent, in spite of the death penalty pronounced against deserters, soldiers, and even high officials, were daily abandoning foe doomed monarch. Yang Ti appears to have realised that the end was near. One morning, as he was combing his hair before a mirror, he exclaimed to the empress, “Such a beautiful head! who would date to cut it off?” The answer to this question was not to be long delayed.

Among the ministers at court were foe two sons of the general, Yu-Wen Shu, who had so boldly lied to his sovereign about foe progress of foe rebellions. Yu-Wen Shu was of Tartar descent, of the same clan as the former imperial house of Northern Chou, which had been dethroned by the first Sui emperor. The general had recently died, leaving three sons—Yu-Wen Hua-Chi, Yu-Wen Chih-Chi and Yu-Wen Shih-Chi. The last, an able general, and later a notable at the Tang court, took no part in foe conspiracy which his elder brothers fomented. But Yu-Wen Hua-Chi was a brutal and debauched character, who, as a youth, had enjoyed foe unworthy favour of the emperor.

Whether because he felt that the time was now ripe to give full rein to his natural ambition, or because he was actuated by some motive of revenge for the fall of his ancestral house, he became the leader of the extreme malcontent party at Yang Chou. The avowed aim of the conspiracy was to compel the emperor to take the northern road, relieve beleaguered Lo Yang, and re-establish the capital in the original home of the dynasty at Chang An.

When, on a dark night, the mutineers, having slain the loyal guards, broke into the palace, these legitimate aims were forgotten. The emperor, startled by the tumult, hid with his youngest son in a secluded room, but his refuge was betrayed by one of the palace women. Dragged forth from his hiding­place, Yang Ti was held under guard till dawn when, Yu-Wen Hua-Chi having seized the city and overcome all opposition, the emperor was carried in his chair to the Hall of Audience, where his former favourite awaited him.

The insolent rebel at this spectacle shouted out roughly, “Why are you carrying that thing about?”. Then, ordering the monarch to be seated on a chair in front of him, Yu-Wen Hua-Chi proceeded to accuse him of his many crimes and follies. But the soldiers, whose blood lust had been aroused, were impatient of formalities. Before the rebel leader had finished his accusations, one of the mutineers drew his sword and with one blow decapitated the young prince, a mere child, Yang Ti’s favourite son, who had accompanied his father ever since the mutiny began. The blood of this wretched boy splashing upon his father’s robes incited the soldiers to complete their work, but the emperor, an actor even in this extremity, exclaimed, “The Son of Heaven has his own way of dying. Do not shed my blood, fetch poison”. The appeal was refused, but the soldiers instead of slaying their sovereign with the sword, strangled him on his throne with his own scarf.

This deed consummated, the mutineers made a general massacre of the princes of the imperial family, and the ministers and generals who had remained faithful to Yang Ti. Yu- Wen Hua-Chi, after permitting the empress to give Yang Ti and his son a hasty burial in the grounds of the palace, carried off the treasure and harem of the murdered emperor, and set out for the north with his mutinous army, along the Grand Canal.

With this sanguinary tragedy die strange reign of Yang Ti came to an end, leaving China, more divided than ever, a prey to a dozen contending aspirants.