CHAPTER VIII.

THE COURT OF CHANG AN

AD 630-640

To the Chinese the name of Li Shih-Min is even more familiar as a wise and beneficent ruler than as the brilliant victor of the battlefield. In the reorganisation of the civil government the emperor accomplished as difficult and as necessary a task as the reunion of the long divided empire. The tyrannical rule of Yang Ti had left a legacy of brigandage and violence, while the short Sui dynasty had done little to restore the vanished prestige of the imperial court. Men had for too long been accustomed to frequent and violent revolutions to fed any great frith in the durability of the new dynasty. The tradition of unswerving loyalty to an established imperial family had to be recreated.

The government of the provinces was in the hands of military officers, often ex-brigands, who had sent in their submission when they realised that the Tang dynasty was likely to triumph in the civil war. The laws were disregarded, indeed unknown, for Yang Ti’s barbarous code had lapsed, although no new system had been formulated to replace it. Education, neglected by the Sui emperors, who had retrenched the provincial colleges existing under their predecessors, had received scant attention in the years of tumult that followed.

Fortunately for the Chinese empire, Shih-Min had the rare gift, equally valuable in the field and in the cabinet, of choosing men of talents, and using them according to their abilities. The glory of the military galaxy which included such men as Li Shi-Chi, Prince Chao and Prince Jen Cheng, Li Ching and Hou Chun-Chi, was matched, if not excelled, by the fame of Shih-Min’s illustrious ministers. The four most prominent of these were Chang-Sun Wu-Chi, his brother-in-law, who was for mote than thirty years the chief minister of the empire, Wei Cheng, Fang Hsuan-Ling and Hsiao Yu.

Of all Shih-Min’s court perhaps the generals, Chin Shu-Pao and Yu-Chih Ching-Te, and the minister, Wei Cheng, have achieved the most enduring popular fame, for these three have been immortalised as the “Gate Gods” whose portraits painted upon the door of a house bat the way to evil spirits. The traditional manner in which these three gained their curious distinction is as follows.

When Shih-Min had succeeded on the throne he fell ill, and his sleep was disturbed by devils who battered upon the door of the imperial bedchamber. The empress, alarmed at these manifestations, summoned a council of the most eminent ministers and generals to devise measures against the demon intruders. Chin Shu-Pao and Yu-Chih Ching-Te offered to guard the doors arrayed in their full war panoply. That night the emperor slept in peace, for the evil spirits did not have the courage to try conclusions with the famous warriors. After several nights, Shih-Min, concerned for the health of the two generals, who had not been able to sleep, suggested that their portraits be painted on two tablets of peach wood and the pictures hung up on the door. This device worked well. The devils, who in China, at least, are notoriously stupid, mistook the portraits for the living men and kept their distance.

But after some days the malignant spirits transferred their attacks to the back door, which had been left unguarded. Upon the advice of the empress the portrait of the minister, Wei Cheng, was placed upon that door, and the demons thereafter did not dare any farther attempt upon the emperor’s peace.

The custom soon spread throughout the nation until today no representations of deities are so popular and ubiquitous as the portraits of Shih-Min’s two generals and the minister, Wei Cheng.

Wei Cheng, formerly an adviser of Li Mi, and later of the Crown Prince Chien-Cheng, was the emperor’s most valued counsellor. The relationship between Wei Cheng and Shih-Min was in many ways peculiar. The minister, as one of the most active partisans of the crown prince, had been an avowed and dangerous enemy of Shih-Min before his acces­sion. Pardoned after the morning of the Hsuan Wu gate, Wei Ching became the most influential member of the new emperor’s council. Nevertheless, between Shih-Min and his minister there was a curious hostility woven into their new friendship. Wei Ching’s value as a counsellor, and apparently also his charm for Shih-Min, was his fearless, devastating, frankness. He not only never hesitated to oppose any project of which he did not approve, but he criticised the emperor’s conduct in the most outspoken terms.

The annals of the time record many such conversations. One of the most famous occurred at a court banquet in AD 637 when Shih-Min had been ten years on the throne. Shih-Min, turning to Wei Cheng, asked him whether in his opinion the government was better conducted than it had been when he first took over the administration. “In matters of magnificence and display, we have progressed, but if popular satisfaction is the test, declined,” replied the minister, adding, “In the beginning, although they still suffered from the wars, the people were delighted by the virtue and bravery of Your Majesty. Now, although in the midst of peace, the monotony of events has made them bored and depressed. Your Majesty yourself has changed. In the beginning you feared that we would not dare to tell you of your mistakes, later you received our admonitions with pleasure; now one must say you accept them with difficulty”.

The emperor replied, “You must prove all this to us with facts”.

“In the first year of your reign”, replied Wei Cheng, “you rewarded, with the gift of a country estate, an officer who pointed out to Your Majesty that you were about to punish with death a criminal who had not merited such a penalty.

When people said that this recompense was excessive, you replied that it was intended to encourage the ministers to point out your mistakes. Is not that fearing lest we should not admonish you? Later you pardoned, for reasons which a minister advanced, a false accuser who had been condemned to die. Is not that accepting advice with pleasure? Recently, when you wished to rebuild the Lo Yang palace, which Your Majesty yourself burned down twelve years ago, a member of your court thought it his duty to oppose you. Your Majesty became enraged, and although, on my entreaty, you refrained from penalising this man, one must say that his pardon was dragged out of you! It is a proof that you no longer take any pleasure in hearing contrary opinions.”

The emperor, greatly struck by these incontestable proofs of Wei Ching’s contention, remarked to the court, “How dangerous it is not to know oneself, I would never have known that my character was changing, unless Wei Ching had proved it to me by these personal instances”.

Shih-Min esteemed Wei Cheng above every member of the court, and relished his uncourtly candour.

Fang Hsuan-Ling and Hsiao Yu were, after Wei Ching, the most eminent men at the Tang court. Fang, expert and prudent financier, an indefatigable worker conversant with every detail of the government business, was the perfect administrator, the brain which guided the working of the government machine, the architect of victories. Throughout the reign of Shih-Min, Fang Hsuan-Ling’s careful and meticulous attention to government affairs, fostered the finances of the empire, making possible victory abroad and reforms at home. Hsiao Yu, younger brother of Yang Ti’s empress, had first risen to fame as the counsellor who had devised the stratagem by which the Turkish siege of Yen Men was raised. Subsequently submitting to the Tang dynasty after the fall of Chang An, he became an influential counsellor on Shih-Min’s staff. When the prince ascended the throne Hsiao Yu became one of the chief ministers of state. Although always rather timid and favouring the cautious plan, Hsiao Yu was upright, honest and loyal, conspicuous in the Tang court as the principal champion of the Buddhist faith, in which he was an ardent believer.

Besides the four chief ministers, there were many notable men, some of whom in later years rose to the highest posts. Ma Chou, who originated the plan for the reform of the provincial administration, first came to Chang An as the guest of a relation who was a military officer. This officer, having in the course of his duties to submit a report to the emperor, and being rather unskilful with the pen, sought the assistance of his learned guest. Ma Chou produced such a scholarly and brilliant piece of work that Shih-Min’s attention was at once attracted. He enquired who the author was, and when the officer frankly avowed the source of his assist­ance, Ma Chou was summoned to court and at once given a responsible post.

Kao Shih-Lien, an uncle of the Empress Chang-Sun, and Tu Ju-Hui were old and trusted friends, who had served Shih-Min as prince, and in whom he often confided. Chu Sui-Liang, President of the Board of History, was one of the most brilliant men at court during the later years of the reign, playing an increasingly influential part in the state business. Indeed, after the death of Wei Ching, Chu Sui-Liang, who had something of the older statesman’s fearless candour, took his place in the inner ring of the emperor’s council.

One day, in the year AD 642, Shih-Min, curious to know how he would be represented to posterity, said to Chu Sui-Liang, “I should like to see what you have recorded concerning about me me in the history”.

“The historians of our department”, replied the minister, “record the actions of Your Majesty whether good or bad, your words, whether praiseworthy or reprehensible, and everything meritorious or unworthy which happens in the government. They are exact in these matters, as it is essential to history, which serves as an example to princes and ministers, often preventing them from committing faults. But I have never heard that any emperor hitherto has lead what was written concerning him.”

“Why!” said Shih-Min, “would you, Chu Sui-Liang, write down something discreditable about me?”

“Being entrusted with a position of the importance of President of the Board of History, how could I avoid doing so?” replied the minister. “And even if Chu Sui-Liang were unwilling”, added one of his subordinates, “we would not hesitate to record the Acts.”

“There ate three things which should be said of me”, remarked the emperor. “First, that I have attempted to imitate the wise conduct of the ancient emperors. Secondly, that with the assistance of the able men whom I have chosen, I have restored the laws, which had perished, and revived the power of the government. Thirdly, that rejecting unworthy ministers and incompetent officers, I have never listened to the flattery of those intriguers who are the principal cause of the bad conduct and misgovernment of princes. If I can continue in this way to my death, what evil can be recorded against me?”

“And even the words which Your Majesty has just spoken will infallibly be recorded in the annals of the empire,” said Chu Sui-Liang.

Two instances among the many anecdotes recording the emperor’s justice and moderation will serve to illustrate Shih-Min’s attitude to the prevailing vices of an eastern court, flattery and corruption. One of the ministers presented a memorial urging the emperor to remove the flatterers from the ministry, but without naming any person as guilty of this failing. Shih-Min called the author of this petition to his presence, and asked him whom he had intended to accuse.

“If Your Majesty wishes to know who are the flatterers in the council,” replied the memorialist, “all Your Majesty has to do is to propose in the next council some foolish course of action. Those who support it will be revealed as the flatterers”

“I admit” replied the emperor, “that this plan would succeed; but if a sovereign uses such deceits to his how can he expect them to be honest and candid with him? The emperor is the spring, and the officers of the state are the waters which flow from it. If the source is pure, the current will be the same. Besides I do not like to use these oblique methods. I prefer to ignore the evil if it exists, rather than discover it by methods which would destroy the frank relationship between sovereign and minister.”

Shortly after his accession Shih-Min was shown proof that a member of the empress’s family had taken as a bribe several bolts of valuable silk. The crime was considered serious in an officer of this high rank. Shih-Min, instead of applying the law, took a large quantity of silk from the imperial storehouses and sent it to the offending general. When the court, surprised at this action, asked why the general should be rewarded rather than punished, the emperor said, “If he has the feelings of an honest man, the silk which I have sent him will cause him mote pain than the penalties established by the law. But if he is not ashamed, I regard him as a brute who would be unaffected by any punishment”.

The kindness and tact with which Shih-Min, an absolute monarch, treated his court was instanced in matters less serious. At the New Year festival in AD 633 the music and dance called Po Chen (Breaking the battle-line) was performed, commemorating the victories which Shih-Min had won over the pretenders before his accession to the throne. Hsiao Yu suggested that another act showing the rival emperors—Tou Chien-Te, Wang Shih-Chung and others—led captive to execution should be included to complete the series. The Po Chen dance was first performed in the sixth month of ad 632 at a feast at the Ching Shan Kung, the old home of the Li family. The music and dance were composed by a musician called Lu Tsai. It was performed by 128 boy dancers dressed in silver armour with lances, who performed evolutions ringing the refrain “Chin Wang Po Chen” (“Prince Chin breaks the battle line”). Traditionally this refrain was originally a marching song of the Tang army after the Shansi campaign against Liu Wu-Chou, when the soldiers picked it up from the people of the province who lined the road along which the army marched, singing and dancing to express their joy and gratitude at their deliverance.

Shih-Min rejected Hsiao Yu’s suggestion on the ground that many of his ministers and officers, such as Yu-Chih Ching-Te and Wei Cheng, had at one time served his enemies, and could not be expected to enjoy a drama representing the humiliation of their former masters. It is, in fact, stated that Wei Ching invariably cast his eyes to the ground when die Po Chen dance was performed, since it reminded him of the period when he had been the enemy of Shih-Min.

The emperor was very little influenced by the superstitions which were current in his age. Even the time-honoured belief in lucky days met with scant consideration if it conflicted with the interests of the state. When the emperor’s son, the Crown Prince Li Cheng-Chien, had attained the age of fourteen, in the year AD 631, the court suggested that the ritual ceremonies connected with “taking the cap” of virility should be performed in the second month of that year. Shih-Min, however, reflecting that this month, being the planting season, was one in which the people were most occupied on the land, the costly and elaborate ceremonies had better be postponed until midsummer, when there was less pressure of business.

The court astrologers remonstrated, pointing out that the second month was the most lucky in the year, whereas the midsummer reason was ill-omened. The emperor refused to listen to these reasons remarking that “Fortune and Calamity a are not dependent upon lucky days but upon the good or bad conduct of men themselves”.

The ceremonies were in fact postponed until midsummer. It is curious to note that in this matter the astrologers might have considered themselves justified by the event, for the crown prince, whose entry into the status of manhood was thus celebrated in an unlucky month, was destined to an unhappy life, and an early, unhonoured death.

The restatement and reform of the law was the first important administrative task undertaken by the emperor when peace with the Turks left time for internal affairs to be considered. The only code in existence, that of the Suu dynasty, had been draconian in the severity of its penalties, and inapplicable on account of its many unreasonable provisions. Since the general revolt against the Emperor Yang Ti, largely due to the severity of that monarch’s legislation, the laws had been disregarded. Magistrates judged cases on their merits, and punished crimes according to their own unguided decisions. In ad 631 the emperor gave orders for the old law to be recodified, and reduced to five hundred articles. The penal offences were classified under twenty heads, the Sui death penalty being abolished in ninety-two cases, and the penalty of exile in seventy-one. That it was possible to make these sweeping changes is sufficient indication of the character of Yang Ti’s code.

While the Tang code reduced other criminal penalties proportionately; custom, which in China had always largely replaced civil law, was regularised, and given legal force. The most convincing proof of the justice and tranquillity which the authority of Shih-Min established in China came to light after his death, when his son and successor was informed by rite President of the Board of Punishments, on the occasion of a proposed amnesty to inaugurate the new reign, that in all the empire there were only fifty men serving penal sentences, and only two under condemnation of death.

The remodelling of the provincial administration was the most important, and the most enduring of Shih-Min’s administrative reforms. During the long period of division the civil service, first adopted by the Han dynasty, had disappeared. Powerful family had usurped feudal authority over wide areas, while elsewhere the government of the country districts was in the hands of military officers or officials appointed direct by the favour of some high personage. Ma Chou, who then held the post of censor, called the emperor’s attention to these irregularities, insisting that the foundation of all internal peace and security depended on the conduct of the district officials. In accordance with his recommendations the emperor personally supervised these appointments, making a careful choice of upright and scholarly men, and gradually eliminating the military element.

This reform was the beginning of a civil service exercising the government authority in the provinces, later known to the west as the Mandarin system. Though it has received abuse in the dosing years of the last dynasty as antiquated and inflexible, it was for more than a thousand years an instrument of government far in advance of anything found outside China. It served to spread throughout the vast empire and its dependencies the culture and customs of the Chinese court, and so became the mainstay of civilisation in the east of Asia.

The educational policy of the emperor was closely allied to this reformed civil service. Education in the seventh century was regarded principally as a training for state service. For this reason the colleges which Shih-Min founded, or re-established, concentrated on the Chinese classics, particularly the works of Confucius and his school; for the writings of those philosophers ate mainly concerned to expound a moral and ethical code for the guidance of kings, ministers and officials. Shih-Min, who had always been noted for his interest in scholarship, paid much personal attention to the progress of these institutions, and left as a monument of his care, the stone tablets, now preserved in the Pei Lin at Chang An, on which the four books of the classics are engraved from his own handwriting.

The Tang dynasty is usually associated with poetry and a great cultural revival, but this splendid outburst of creative genius really belongs to the generation that followed the reign of Shih-Min. In the early years, when the dynasty had but just restored peace to the exhausted state, literature and art had not yet had time to flower. Shih-Min, opposed to the frivolity and licentiousness of Yang Ti’s court, set his face against similar tendencies, and conferred his patronage upon the austere classical scholarship of the Confucian School. Art, however, made progress in his reign, and there are perhaps no finer examples of Chinese sculpture than the famous bas-reliefs of horses which decorated the emperor’s tomb. But the great age of Tang poetry had not yet dawned. Shih-Min’s importance in the cultural history of China is therefore indirect. He made possible the political conditions of security and peace which fostered the cultural glories of a later generation.

During these years, which saw the institution of such far-reaching reforms, the court was not exempt from domestic sorrows and bereavements. Li Yuan, the emperor’s father, died in AD 635 at the age of seventy-one, living lang enough to see the flowering of his son’s magnificent achievements. During the later years of his abdication “The Great Superior Emperor”, as he was entitled, took no part in the life of the court, spending his time at his own palace and hunting­grounds. Shih-Min carefully avoided any action which might give offence to the retired monarch, although his first act on striding the throne implied a certain censure of his father’s morals. Before attending to other business Shih-Min removed from the palace 3000 women, enrolled among the servants and concubines of Li Yuan, whom he sent back to their families.

In the year Ad 636 there occurred a death which was far  more serious loss to the empire than that of Li Yuan. In that year died the Empress Chang-Sun, Shih-Min’s consort, who by her exceptional virtues has won the enthusiastic praises of later generations, and has been held up as a model, all too rarely copied, to the ladies of similar rank in the dynasties that followed. The empress, although possessed of a shrewd and penetrating judgment, consistently refused to play any part in politics, or interfere with the business of the state. She was wont to declare that the history of earlier dynasties contained too many melancholy examples of ambitious empresses whose activities were not only harmful to the state, but brought ruin upon their own families. Nevertheless she had a great influence over Shih-Min, all the more potent since it was so rarely exercised.

On one occasion the emperor left the council in a state of great irritation with Wei Cheng, who had consistently and vigorously opposed him in the discussion. As he entered the apartments of the empress, she heard him exclaim, “I will never be the master as long as that wretch, whom I have raised from the dust, is alive!”

“Who is the wretch, then?” inquired the empress.

“Wei Cheng, who contradicts me in front of the whole court.”

The empress made no further comment, but withdrew to her own room, presently reappearing dressed in her most magnificent robes of ceremony. Shih-Min, surprised, asked the reason for this elaborate toilet. The empress replied, “I have often heard it said that an enlightened emperor will find a faithful minister, upright and sincere. Your Majesty has just admitted that Wei Cheng is such an one. Is this not a proof that you are an enlightened emperor? I have robed myself in honour of the fact, to congratulate you.”

The esteem in which the empress held Wei Cheng weighed greatly with Shih-Min, who never subsequently spoke of dismissing the outspoken minister.

Shih-Min was inconsolable at her death, and indeed het loss was a lasting misfortune to the dynasty, for it removed the one influence capable of controlling the eccentric nature of her eldest son, the crown prince. The tragic story of Prince Cheng-Chien dates from his mother’s untimely death.

Three years later, in Ad 639, the court was shocked by a conspiracy against the emperor’s life. This was the work of a Turk named Qachashar, a half-brother of Tutar Khan. Qachashar planned to slay the emperor to avenge the destruction of the Turkish power, and pave the way for a revolt. Like many of the submitted Turkish khans, he was employed in the imperial stables, and this fact enabled him to enlist some forty confederates of his own race. With this handful of desperate men he made a night attack on the emperor’s palace, hoping to overpower the guards and break in.

But his plans were clumsy. The guards were too numerous and reliable to be overcome by so small a band. After a desperate fight Qachashar, seeing that he had failed, made his way to the imperial stables, where, using his authority, he took one of the fastest horses and attempted to escape to Mongolia. Being closely pursued, he was captured, brought back to Chang An, and executed in the market-place. In consequence of this attempt all the submitted Turks were compelled to leave China and settle in inner Mongolia.

While the interior of the empire enjoyed peace and a better government than ever before under the enlightened rule of Shih-Min and his chosen ministers, the distant frontiers were frequently agitated by wars with the less civilised races of Central Asia. The Turkish question had been settled by the defeat of Qadir Khan, but the western frontier still presented problems. The vast region now called Chinese Turkestan or Sin Kiang, was then divided among a number of kingdoms, small in comparison with the boundless size of the whole country, but in fact covering a wide extent of territory. These states had acquired something of the culture of India and Persia, indeed they were all Buddhist in religion, for the Mohammedan conquerors who later dominated this country had not yet appeared. Under the Han dynasty all Central Asia up to the Caspian and Aral seas had been brought under Chinese rule; but in the subsequent period of partition these conquests had all been lost.

Farther south, in the high mountain land now called Koko-Nor or Ching Hai, was the country of the Tu-yu-hun, nomad Tartars who neither cultivated the soil nor built cities, as did the Central Asiatics. Beyond the Tu-yu-hun were the tribes of Tibet, recently organised and consolidated into a rising kingdom.

The restless conduct of the Tu-yu-hun first provoked the might of the Chinese empire. Unable to learn the lesson of Qadir Khan’s defeat, the Tu-yu-hun resorted to the time-honoured Tartar custom of raiding the border districts. Fu-yun Khan, their ruler, was a very old man, who it first mentioned as early as AD 597, and was now long past his seventieth year. As his powers diminished, the authority over the horde passed into the hands of an ambitious minister, who adopted a definitely anti-Chinese attitude.

When, not content with raids and forays, he seized a Chinese ambassador who was travelling to Central Asia, the emperor decided that it was time to take firm action against the Tu-yu-hun. Frontier troops and vassal Tartars were first employed, but the Tu-yu-hun, undismayed by these forces, entered China in force and severely ravaged the district of Liang Chou in Kansu province. On bearing this news the emperor ordered a general mobilisation of the Tang regular army and decided to undertake the permanent conquest of the Tu-yu-hun.

The supreme command of the expedition was confided to Li Ching, with Hou Quin-Chi, Li Ta-Liang and Prince Jen Cheng (Li Tao-Tsung) as subordinates. Various tribes of vassal Turks were also employed. The army entered the land of the Tu-yu-hun at Ku Shan near Hsi Ning Fu in Kansu, where Prince Jen Cheng inflicted a severe defeat upon the Tartars. Fu-yun Khan then decided to avoid further battles, and in order to hinder the Chinese pursuit, retreated, firing the grass behind him to destroy the pasture.

Li Ching was indeed greatly embarrassed by this device. Many of his generals urged him to abandon the advance. Hou Chun-Chi, however, strongly upheld the opposite view, and his opinion was finally adopted by the commander-in-chief. In order to economise the scanty pasture available, the Chinese army was divided into two corps, Li Ching and Li Ta-Liang moving north, while Hou Chun-Chi and Prince Jen Cheng took a southern route through the high mountains. Li Ching followed the Tartars till he defeated them in the heart of the Koko-Nor mountains, capturing huge herds of beasts, a more important gain than the slaughter of men. He then pursued the flying Tu-yu-hun to the north-west, inflicting further defeats upon them.

Meanwhile Hou Chun-Chi with the southern army had struck into the depths of the Kun Lun maintains, one of the highest ranges in die world, advancing by a route which the Tu-yu-hun naturally supposed to be entirely impassable. The Chinese army made one of the most remarkable marches in history, which can be compared without impropriety to Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps. For over seven hundred miles they toiled through an uninhabited wilderness, so high that even in the middle of summer the ground was covered with snow, upon which the army depended for water.

“The men sucked ice and the horses fed on snow.”

At length they came upon the Tu-yu-hun encamped on the shores of a lake called Wu Hai (either Tsaring Nor or Oring Nor) near the sources of the Yellow river. The Tartars, utterly surprised, for they had never dreamed that an enemy army could pass the mountains to the south, were totally defeated. Hou Chun-Chi, following up this victory, drove the Tartars north-west till they were met by Li Ta-Liang, whom Li Ching had sent in advance to the edge of the Taklamakan desert. Cut off from further retreat, the remnants of the Tu-yu-hun were annihilated in the battle that followed. Fu-yun Khan himself fled almost alone into the desert where he was shortly after murdered by his attendants.

His death ended the war. Already another khan, repudiat­ing the rule of Fu-yun, had slain the minister responsible for the anti-Chinese policy of the late khan, and had sent envoys begging for peace. This was granted on condition that the suzerainty of Chang An was acknowledged, and henceforward nothing more is heard of hostility from the Tu-yu-hun.

The fame of this remarkable campaign spread all over Central Asia. The evidence that the most formidable natural barriers could not arrest the advance of a Tang army produced a deep impression on the peoples of the western kingdoms. The western Turks sent an embassy bearing tribute, or rather gifts, which Chinese court etiquette described as tribute. Northern tribes, living for beyond the confines of outer Mongolia, sent envoys to pay their respects to the emperor in Chang An. The Tibetans demanded a princess for their king.

The tone of their embassy was, however, resented at Chang An, where it was regarded as insolent and even threatening. The emperor therefore refused to accord them a prince .The Tibetans, irritated at this rebuff, promptly invaded the Chinese province bordering their country, now western Szechuan, and laid siege to the fortress of Sung Pan. They did not succeed in taking this place before a Tang army commanded by the redoubtable Hou Chun-Chi arrived to its relief. The Tibetans were completely defeated by this army under the walls of Sung Pan, and forced to fly back to their mountains.

After thus asserting the superiority of the Tang arms, Shih-Min, when the Tibetans sent a mate humble and courteous envoy, permitted them to receive a princess. This lady, it appears, exercised a civilising influence in the newly formed kingdom; among other reforms she induced the mountaineers to give up the custom of painting faces in various colours, a practice which the Chinese princess found revolting.

The defeat of the Tu-yu-hun and Tibetans did not end the wars in the west. Beyond the extreme north-western border of Kansu province the road to the west, the silk road, by which the ancient caravans carried their precious freight across Asia to Persia and Rome, passes through the cities of Harni and Turfan. Harni had surrendered to the Tang empire in AD 650, and was held as a frontier post. But Turfan was then the capital of the kingdom of Karahodjo, one of the wealthiest and most powerful of the Central Asiatic states. When the Chinese empire reached Hai, trnhe king of Karahodjo decided that it would be safer to offer tribute to the new power in the east, and avert any danger of warfare, for which his people were unprepared. On this basis good relations with China had been maintained for nearly ten years.

In the year AD 639 the king of Karahodjo, finding this arrangement inconvenient, decided to discontinue the tribute, and furthermore gave shelter to Chinese criminals and political fugitives who had fled to his kingdom, when the fall of Qadir Khan denied them refuge in Mongolia. When the king was called upon to explain this changed attitude he sent back the reply, “The eagles fly to heaven, the pheasants hide in the brushwood; cats roam through the house, the mice seek safety in holes. If every creature follows its instinct, all can find a way to safeguard their lives”.

The emperor, though displeased at what he considered an impertinent answer, still gave the king time to repent. But the Karahodjan, mistaking leniency for weakness, and trust­ing to the desert which divided his kingdom from China, paid no attention to the envoys from Chang An, and went so far as to menace the Sarinda Turks with war.

The Sarinda, who were ready to hold themselves as vassals of China when that status was convenient, appealed to Chang An for help. Shih-Min, losing patience with Karahodjo, sent Hon Chun-Chi, who had made a great name for himself on the western frontier, to take command of the army and reduce the contumacious king to obedience.

By the middle of summer, ad 640, the slow march of the Chinese army reached the frontiers of Karahodjo. At the news that a Chinese army had really crossed the desert where “the winter wind cuts like a knife and the summer heat sears like hot iron”; the king of Karahodjo was taken ill with apprehension, and died. His son, after attempting a half­hearted defence, fell back to his capital, which was then besieged by Hou Chun-Chi. The Kanihodjans had appealed to the western Turks for assistance, but these hordes, hearing of the advance of the Chinese army, were too much afraid of the name of Hou Chun-Chi to intervene. The besieged city, defrauded of this last hope, surrendered.

The remains of this city of Khocho or Kao Chang (as the Chinese called it) are thus described by A. von Le Coq of the German Turfan archaeological expedition.

“The city is an enormous square, of about 256 acres in extent. The massive wall is almost 22 yards high, made of stamped earth. Numerous towers—there are still seventy existing—strengthen the wall, which diminishes in solidity towards the top. The buildings are too much destroyed to allow the course of the streets to be plainly traced, but two wide streetsone from north to south and the other from cast to west seem to have crossed each other at the centre of the town. The ground plan therefore doubtless follows the pattern of the Roman castra”.

The whole kingdom of Karahodjo, which the imperial commissioners described as having an area of 133,000 square miles, containing twenty-two cities with a population of 8000 families, was garrisoned by Chinese troops, and annexed as an integral province of the empire. This decision was taken against the advice of Wei Cheng, who favoured setting up a new king as vassal ruler of a subject state. His objection to outright annexation was based on the two counts that China did not get an adequate return for the trouble of administering this distant province, while if it should revolt, the empire might be involved in a difficult and expensive war for the sake of prestige. Shih-Min did not deny the weight of these arguments, but nevertheless decided to retain the country as a province. He was justified by the event, for Karahodjo never gave any trouble to the Chinese empire.

Although the Sarinda Turks had appealed for Chinese help when threatened by Karahodjo, they were quite ready to attack the empire the moment they believed the opportunity had come. The western wars induced them to believe that the defences of inner Mongolia had been depleted. The next year, ad 641, profiting by the emperor’s absence on a pilgrimage to make sacrifice at the sacred mountain of Tai Shan in Shantung, the Sarinda crossed the Gobi, and swept down into inner Mongolia, the submitted hordes fleeing before them inside the Great Wall.

The defence of these borders was entrusted to Li Shih-Chi, “my Great Wall”, as the emperor used to call him. Collecting the garrison troops, and assisted by another border force under Li Ta-Liang, the Tang general met the Sarinda north of Kuei Hua Cheng, where he defeated them in a battle which cost the nomads the most terrible loss they had yet sustained. No less than 50,000 were made prisoners, while the remainder, flying back across the Gobi, encountered a snow blizzard in which nine-tenths of the horde perished. For many years the Sarinda were crippled by this disaster, which shattered the power of the northern khan.

These wars and conquests spread the fame and fear of the Tang empire throughout Asia. Embassies from Persia, the states of India, and the most distant tribes of Siberia, flocked to Chang An to pay respects and lay gifts before the Son of Heaven. Never since the Han dynasty had the Chinese empire attained such power and prestige. It was in these years that wandering Syrian missionaries brought Nestorian Christianity to China, where, as the famous tablet now at Chang An records, they were permitted to found a Church which received the protection of the enlightened emperor.

According to Mohammedan tradition it was at this time that Arab traders brought the faith of Islam to Canton. They state that when Mohammed was about to send out his armies to convert the world at the paint of the sword, he addressed a letter, urging acceptance of his creed, to the three greatest emperors in the world—Heraclius of Rome, Chosroes of Persia and Shih-Min who reigned in China. Heraclius ignored the fanatic’s letter. Chosroes tore it across in a rage, whereupon the Arab envoy exclaimed, “So shall God rend your kingdom from you”. Only the sage emperor of China gave careful and tolerant attention to the Prophet’s words, per­mitting the Arabs to build the first mosque in China at Canton.

At this moment, when Li Shih-Min was the acknowledged master of the eastern world, he had to sustain, in the heart of his family, a series of tragedies which cast a shadow over his life and dimmed the glory of the reign.

CHAPTER IX .

THE TRAGEDY OF CROWN PRINCE CHENG-CHIEN,

AD 643