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had been vanquished, and foreign foes compelled to sue for peace; while the people rejoiced at having obtained a ruler capable of governing them without resorting to the arbitrary expedients of the despot.

reward for the brilliant His return to Singan

Lichimin did not go without his successes he obtained in the field. recalls the description of the triumphs of the conquerors of ancient Rome. Dressed in costly armour, with a breast-plate of gold, Lichimin rode into his father's capital at the head of his victorious troops. Ten thousand picked horsemen formed his personal escort, and thirty thousand cuirassiers followed, in the middle of whom appeared a captive king of the Tartars. The spoils of numerous cities, accompanied by the generals who had failed to defend them, were there to grace the triumph of the conqueror. Just as Marcellus or one of the Scipios filed up the Sacred Way when bringing to the Imperial city the plunder of Gaul or of Carthage, did Lichimin proceed to the Hall of his Ancestors, where he apprised the shades of his progenitors of the success which had attended his arms. Having rewarded his principal officers, and accorded their lives to the defeated, Lichimin was feasted in presence of his army by the Emperor, who gave no stinted meed of praise to the son who had rendered such valiant and opportune service both to himself and to the country. The rejoicings of that eventful day, which beheld the popular ratification of the new government, closed with the proclamation of a general amnesty to all, and of a diminution in the taxes; and it still stands out as one of the most remarkable turning-points in Chinese history.

Lichimin's brothers envied while they could not emulate his greatness. His elder brother, unable to appreciate the generosity of character which had impelled him to advise his father to proclaim him heir-apparent, intrigued against him, resolving in the first place to undermine his position at court, and in the next to take his life. Kaotsou's mind was warped by the wiles of this intriguer against his favourite son, who fell into disgrace, and at one time thought of leaving a court which was as little congenial to his tastes as it was full of danger to his person. The course of history might have

been changed, had Lichimin not discovered the quarter whence these hidden shafts were directed against his person and his reputation. His brothers, afraid of his influence with the people and the army, formed a plot for his murder, but their scheme was divulged. The blow which they had intended for Lichimin was turned upon themselves, and their death left this prince the incontestable heir to the throne. He demonstrated his worthiness for the position by the moderation he evinced towards those who had been the keenest partisans in his brothers' cause; and Wei Ching, the ablest of them all, lived to become in later years the most trusted adviser of the man whose death he had plotted.

The same year (A.D. 626) which witnessed these intrigues and the proclamation of Lichimin as heir-apparent, also beheld the retirement of Kaotsou from public life. It may well have been that it was something more than the alleged reason of weight of years that induced this prince to quit the throne at a time when there seemed to be nothing for him to do except to enjoy his hard-won triumph, and that the force of public opinion compelled him to resign the charge of the administration to his son. The transfer of authority was effected in the most regular manner, and with the necessary formalities. Kaotsou expressed his sovereign determination to seek the charm and relaxation of private life, and Lichimin refused to accept a charge for which he said his capacity was inadequate. But when these courtly phrases had served their turn, Lichimin felt constrained to obey the paternal command. Kaotsou descended from the throne, and Lichimin became Emperor under the style of Taitsong. The greater reputation had absorbed the less, and, having long wielded the executive power, Taitsong, by the voluntary retirement of his father, assumed the position to which his personal qualities gave him every right. Kaotsou lived nine years after his deposition, long enough to witness the most remarkable of his son's achievements, and the complete consolidation of his dynasty on the throne.

The first acts of the new ruler showed that he would rest satisfied with no partial degree of success in the task he had set himself to accomplish. It was his first and principal

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object to give the Chinese the benefit of a government which was national in its sympathies and its aims. He had to revive the old sentiment that the Chinese were one people, and that the prosperity of the realm, and the stability of the ruling powers equally depended on the tranquillity and sense of security which should generally prevail. To him also it seemed a matter of the first importance to extend the influence of the Chinese among the neighbouring states, for he knew that by so doing he would alone succeed in preserving what had been won. The surrounding tribes from Corea to Kokonor, and from Tibet to Tonquin, were the inveterate enemies of the Chinese, and nothing but the vigilance of the frontier authorities, and the strength of the border garrisons, could avail to keep them at a respectful distance from the centres of Chinese prosperity. Constantly changing both in name, and perhaps sometimes in race, these nomads were at all times the same relatively to the Chinese. What in the history of this island the Picts and Scots were to the Romans, or the Welsh to the Normans and the first Plantagenets, that were the Huns and the other Turk and Tartar clans to the Celestials. Taitsong fully grasped this fact, and during the whole of his reign he was engaged in a never-ceasing struggle with one or other of his restless neighbours. The result in each case may appear to have been small, and the balance of victory often doubtful; but on the whole the policy was successful. It gave peace to a vast region which for several centuries had been disturbed by all the horrors of war, and thus rendered desolate. Whereas the Great Wall of Tsin Hwangti had failed to secure a permanent result, the activity and foresight of Taitsong accomplished the practical object more efficiently, and with more decisive consequences.

The very year of Taitsong's accession hostilities with these turbulent neighbours broke out on a large scale. They had been vanquished in several encounters a few years before; but, like the snow of early winter, they had melted only to come together again. Scarcely seated on the throne, Taitsong found himself called upon to repel the onslaught of a hundred thousand fierce and implacable assailants.

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This horde, for it would be a mistake to apply the term "army" to most of the expeditions fitted out against China in the regions of Central Asia, carried everything before it on this occasion up to the neighbourhood of the capital; and, although Taitsong haughtily refused to comply with the terms proposed by a Tartar envoy for an arrangement, it does not appear that he drove them back by force of arms. It is recorded that he advanced at the head of a few hundred horsemen to the outside of their encampment, and reproached their leaders with their duplicity and want of faith. The effect of his words is represented to have been electrical. Descending from their horses, the Tartar generals, struck by his majestic air, acknowledged their faults, and promised to amend their ways. A subsequent meeting took place on the Pienkiao bridge over the Weichoui River, where peace was concluded and the Tartars retired. On this occasion the vows of friendship and the other stipulations of the treaty were sworn over the body of a white horse offered up to the deity who presides over the relations of neighbouring states.

Having thus repelled or turned aside this hostile invasion, Taitsong devoted most of his attention to the organization of his army,* and to the improvement of the military knowledge of his officers. Many defects existed in the former, and the state of the latter was at a low ebb. Chinese armies had at the best, up to this point, been little more than a raw militia, and in their constant struggles with their Tartar neighbours it had always been an admitted fact that the Chinese soldier was the inferior of his opponent. Taitsong resolved to remedy this defect, and to make the Chinese soldier individually the match for any antagonist he would be likely to have to encounter. In this he had to first overcome the bitter opposition of the lettered classes, who

*The following description of Taitsong's army is extracted from Pauthier's work: “The military was drawn up after a new fashion. It was divided into 895 corps of the same name, but of three different ranks. Those of the superior rank consisted of 1200 men each, those of the intermediary of 1000 men each, and those of the inferior of 800 men each." This force gave an approximate total of 900,000 men ; 634 of these regiments were retained for service within the frontier, and to the 261 remaining was allotted the task of guarding the western frontiers.

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thought the duties of a military commander derogatory to the dignity of the Emperor; but Taitsong was not to be turned by their representations from the path of duty which he had marked out for himself. The foundation on which he based his policy was that, in order to enjoy peace, it was necessary to be prepared for war; and he therefore passed much of his time in drilling his troops and in accustoming them to the use of arms. Every day he was to be seen inspecting a few companies of his army on the parade-ground in front of his palace, and he rewarded after no stinted fashion those who showed superior skill in the use of the bow or the pike. It was his delight to surround himself with armed men, although this "impropriety" excited the disapproval of his grave courtiers. Undisturbed by either the remonstrances of the slaves of etiquette or the warnings of the over-cautious, Taitsong steadily continued his military reforms, thus obtaining both for himself and his country an element of strength which previous rulers had not possessed.

Within a very few years the occasion offered for testing the efficiency of the machine which he had elaborated. The Turk tribes, who had sworn peace for a second time at the bridge of Pienkiao, were again in a state of agitation and commotion. The cow-tail banner of the Tartars had again been flaunted in the air, and it was evident that the longstanding quarrel between these irreconcilable foes was on the point of breaking out into a fresh flame. A Chinese army marched into the desert and compelled the dissolution of the confederacy that had been hastily formed. The newly organized army earned its first laurels in a bloodless. campaign, and Taitsong had the satisfaction of seeing in the incapacity of his old enemies to resist his arms the clearest proof of the use and value of his preparations. On this occasion Taitsong incorporated with his title of Emperor of China the minor rank of Khan of the Tartars, and it was by the latter that he claimed to have a right to regulate the affairs of those peoples. Several of the most prominent of the Tartar khans submitted to him, and became his faithful and devoted followers. His actual conquests only extended