out what a bad effect the flight of the prince from Yenking would have on public opinion, and ordered his son to leave Yenking and repair to a place of safety. It was another edition of the old tale of the decay of a dynasty and the decline in national spirit. In face of a national danger the monarch thought only of the preservation of his life and of fleeting pleasures; and the people put aside resignation and fortitude as useless virtues, and strove to maintain the privileges of their class by a timely recognition of the power that promised to be triumphant.

Notwithstanding the great discouragement produced by these events, the garrison of Yenking defended itself with marked bravery against the Mongols, and had it been promptly succoured it is not improbable that Genghis's army would have failed to capture it. Finding that the defence could no longer be sustained, the governor retired to the ancestral hall of the Kins, where he drank the poisoned wine, and his last act was to indite a petition to Utubu for the dismissal of Kaoki, the murderer of Hushahu, and the worst of the state advisers.

The Mongols entered Yenking a few days after the suicide of the governor, when they put the garrison to the sword, plundered the town, and set fire to the palace. An enormous spoil was captured and sent to Genghis, who distributed it among his followers. With much of it he made preparations for fresh wars, and the quantity of arms and military engines seized in its arsenals proved most valuable in his subsequent expeditions. Genghis gave all the credit of this great success to his general, Mingan, but the victory was chiefly due to the indifference of the Kin ruler.

Genghis resolved to follow up this blow by a forward movement on all sides, and sent Samuka, one of his most trusted lieutenants, to force a way into Honan. The celebrated Tunkwan pass connects Shensi and Honan, and Samuka was instructed to capture it if possible. The Kins had not neglected its defences, however, and when Samuka saw the strength of this natural fortification, and the number of the garrison, he declined to attack it. Samuka therefore made a detour to avoid so formidable an obstacle, and after

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a march under incredible difficulties reached the neighbourhood of Kaifong, where Utubu thought he was in perfect safety. Samuka was nearly paying the price of his temerity. The force under his command had not at the outset been very large, and it had suffered heavy losses during its arduous march. The Kin troops were hastening from all sides for the protection of the capital, and it was only by the rapidity of his movements that Samuka succeeded in regaining the northern side of the Hoangho with the relics of his army. It is doubtful if he would have succeeded in accomplishing this much had it not been that the Hoangho fortunately happened to be frozen that winter. Utubu's pursuit was not of the most vigorous, although this was the first success that had smiled upon his arms since Genghis retired discomfited from before Taitong in the first year of the war.

This victory was not, however, wholly without result, as it so far encouraged Utubu that he sent an army for the recovery of Leaoutung, where Yeliu Liuko had erected a kingdom of his own. For once the Kins were successful, and Liuko was obliged to seek safety in flight. When Genghis heard the news, he at once acted with his usual promptitude, and with the generosity he always showed towards a distressed ally. He sent a large army under the command of Muhule, the most famous of all his lieutenants, to drive out the Kins and to restore the Khitan chief who had done something towards promoting the Mongol success in China. Muhule carried everything before him, and recovered possession of the capital by a stratagem not unique in Mongol annals. One of his scouts took prisoner an officer sent by Utubu to encourage and give information to the commander of the garrison, when Muhule at once substituted a Mongol for the Kin, and threw the garrison off its guard by the favourable news he brought of the state of affairs generally throughout the country. Muhule delivered his attack while the garrison remained wrapped in a false sense of security, and concluded the war by driving the Kin troops out of the whole of Leaoutung. One of the consequences of this campaign was the surrender of the King of Corea, who acknowledged himself a vassal of the Mongols.

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In recognition of this brilliant success, Genghis conferred fresh honours on Muhule, to whom was entrusted by patent the principal charge of the war in China. Muhule showed his worthiness for these honours by the brilliant campaign of A.D. 1218-19, when, having the whole conduct of the war, he invaded Honan, captured numerous cities, and defeated the principal Kin general Changju. For the first time during the struggle, the conquests made by the Mongols were permanently retained. The authority of the Kin ruler waned daily more and more.

Utubu's difficulties were further complicated by the action of Ningtsong, the Sung Emperor. Advantage had been taken of the misfortunes of the Kins to repudiate the treaty by which tribute was paid to the northern ruler; but Utubu had not acquiesced in this repudiation with good grace. Availing himself of a lull in the war with the Mongols, Utubu sent an army across the Sung frontier. He had no better success in this war of offence than he had in that for the defence of his dominions. The Sung general, Mongchin, inflicted several defeats upon his army, and the Kins had definitively to waive their old pretensions to superiority. The rapid progress made by Muhule in the north, and the ill success of the campaign with the Sungs, induced Utubu to propose a suspension of hostilities to the Mongol general; but it was too late. The Mongols had resolved on his complete overthrow. The only terms which Muhule would grant were that the Emperor should resign all his possessions and content himself with the principality of Honan. The Kin Emperor had fallen very low, but he declined to be his own executioner.

In A.D. 1220-21 Muhule continued his measures for the complete subjection of the provinces north of the Hoangho; but his death in the following year nipped his final plans in the bud. For forty years, as he himself said, he had fought the battles of his master against the Kins and the northern tribes. His only regret was that he had to leave to others the task of finally reducing them. In him Genghis lost his right-hand man, the one general to whom he could entrust the direction of a war. Like Napoleon, Genghis had many

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faithful and able lieutenants capable of fighting and winning battles; but Muhule was his best if not his only general, in the highest sense of the word.

The Kins were reduced to such a state of weakness that they were unable to reap any advantage from Muhule's death; and Genghis, in consequence of the death of Muhule, returned in A.D. 1223 from Western Asia, where he had for four years been engaged in humbling the pride of the great Mahomedan states from Kashgar to Armenia, and from the Jaxartes to the Indus, and in obtaining those brilliant military successes which are still among the marvels of all history. Genghis then assumed the personal direction of the war with the Kins. Utubu's death occurred in the same year as that of Muhule and of the King of Hia. The next Kin ruler was named Ninkiassu, and his first acts were to endeavour to conclude an alliance with the new sovereign of Hia, and to arrange his difficulties with the Sungs.

Although the late king of Hia had long been on good terms with Genghis, and although his troops had on several occasions fought in the same ranks with the Mongols, causes of difference were not wanting between such ill-assorted allies. The Hias thought that in many ways the Mongols had derived greater advantage from their aid either than was politic for them to afford, or than they had received any adequate equivalent for. Moreover, the resources of this kingdom were very great, and its military strength far from insignificant. The young ruler of this state declined, therefore, to continue those offices of civility towards the Mongol in which his father had been prudent enough to acquiesce ; and, trusting perhaps too much to the consequences of Muhule's death and to the absence of Genghis, proclaimed his hostility in the clearest manner. Genghis's speedy return spoiled his plans, but he had gone too far to retrace his steps. The year A.D. 1224 was one of inaction on all sides, rendered eventful alone by the death of the Sung Ningtsong. During these twelve months Genghis was busily engaged in preparations for an enterprise which he knew would be of more than ordinary moment and danger. In A.D. 1225 he had assembled the largest army he had ever employed in his Chinese wars,

and took the field in person when the appearance of spring announced that the season available for active operations had arrived.

Powerful as the Hia state must have been, and confident as its king was in the half million of soldiers which he boasted he could place in the field, the success of the Mongols was rapid and unqualified. The principal cities, the rich centres of trade, the strong fortresses, fell into the hands of the invader; and the young king, who had broken the alliance with Genghis and rushed into this war, died of the grief caused by his numerous misfortunes. In a tremendous battle, fought over the frozen waters of the Hoangho, the army of Hia was almost exterminated; and this terrible day bears, in many of its features, including its main incident, a striking resemblance to the scene when Napoleon's artillery swept the frozen lake at Austerlitz. In A.D. 1227 the conquest of Hia was nearly complete; its king then gave in his formal submission, and recognized the triumph of Genghis.

The conquest of Hia was the last military feat in the life of Genghis Khan. He was not destined to behold the consummation of his long wars with the Kins, although he and his general Muhule had shattered their military power, and laid it level with the ground. It is recorded that his last public act was to refuse peace to the supplications of Ninkiassu, who had begun his reign with an abortive effort to form a league against the Mongols, and whose protestations of friendship Genghis had every reason to distrust. With his latest breath he bequeathed to his successor the task of completing what he was not himself destined to accomplish.

There had been some symptoms that the life of the great conqueror was drawing towards its close. He had himself felt for some time that the end was not far distant; and in reckoning up the account of his life he detected the one blot in his system-the excessive, and too often wanton, cruelty with which it had been administered. His death-bed injunction to his successors and his people to refrain from the sanguinary sacrifices which he had exacted from enemies was faithfully obeyed, and henceforth the Mongol mode of warfare became not more terrible or vindictive than that of other