HAVING expelled the Mongols Choo assumed the style of Hongwou, and he gave his dynasty the name of Ming, which signifies "bright." He then rewarded his generals and officers with titles and pecuniary grants, and in 1369, the first year of his reign after the capture of Pekin, he erected a temple or hall in that city in honour of the generals who had been slain, while vacant places were left for the statues of those generals who still held command. But while he rewarded his army, Hongwou very carefully avoided giving his government a military character, knowing that the Chinese resent the superiority of military officials, and he devoted his main efforts to placing the civil administration on its old and national basis. In this he received the cordial support of the Chinese themselves, who had been kept in the background by their late conquerors, whose administration was essentially military. Hongwou also patronised literature, and endowed the celebrated Hanlin College, which was neglected after the death of Kublai. He at once provided a literary task of great magnitude in the history of the Yuen dynasty, which was entrusted to a commission of eighteen writers. But a still greater literary work was accomplished in the codified Book of Laws, which is known as the Pandects of Yunglo, and which not merely simplified the administration of the law, but also gave the people some idea of the laws under which they lived. He also passed a great measure of gratuitous national education, and, in order to carry out this reform in a thoroughly successful manner, he appointed all the masters himself. He also founded many public libraries, and he wished to establish one in every town, but this was beyond the extent of his power. Not content with providing for the minds of his subjects, Hongwou did his utmost to supply the needs of the aged. He cut down the court expenses and issued sumptuary laws, so that he might devote the sums thus economised to the support of the aged and sick. His last instructions to the new officials, on proceeding to their posts, were to "take particular care of the aged and the orphan." Thus did he show that the Chinese had found in him a ruler who would revive the ancient glories of the kingdom.

The frugality and modesty of his court have already been referred to. The later Mongols were fond of a lavish display, and expended large sums on banquets and amusements. At Pekin one of their emperors had erected in the grounds of the palace a lofty tower of porcelain, at enormous expense, and had arranged an ingenious contrivance at its base for denoting the time. Two statues sounded a bell and struck a drum at every hour. When Hongwou saw this edifice, he exclaimed, "How is it possible for men to neglect the most important affairs of life for the sole object of

G

devoting their attention to useless buildings? If the Mongols in place of amusing themselves with these trifles had applied their energies to the task of contenting the people, would they not have preserved the sceptre in their family?" He then ordered that this building should be razed to the ground. Nor did this action stand alone. He reduced the size of the harem maintained by all the Chinese as well as the Mongol rulers, and he instituted a rigid economy in all matters of state ceremonial. Changtu, the Xanadu of Coleridge, the famous summer palace of Kublai had been destroyed during the campaigns with the Mongols, and Hongwou systematically discouraged any attempt to embellish the northern capital, Pekin, which, under the Kin and Yuen dynasties, had become identified with foreign rulers. Pekin, during the whole of the Ming dynasty, was only a second-rate city, and all the attention of the Ming rulers was given to the embellishment of Nankin, the truly national capital of China.

The expulsion of the Mongols beyond the Great Wall and the death of Chunti, the last of the Yuen emperors, by no means ended the struggle between the Chinese and their late northern conquerors. The whole of the reign of Hongwou was taken up with a war for the supremacy of his authority and the security of his frontiers, in which he, indeed, took little personal part, but which was carried on under his directions by his great generals, Suta and Fuyuta. The former of these generals was engaged for nearly twenty years, from A.D. 1368 to 1385, in constant war with the Mongols. His first campaign, fought when the Chinese were in the full flush of success, resulted in the brilliant and almost bloodless conquest of the province of Shansi. The neighbouring province of Shensi, which is separated from the other by the river Hoangho, was at the time held by a semi-independent Mongol governor named Lissechi, who believed that he could hold his ground against the Mings. The principal fact upon which this hope was based was the breadth and assumed impassability of that river. Lissechi believed that this natural advantage would enable him to hold out indefinitely against the superior numbers of the Chinese armies. But his hope was vain if not unreasonable. The Chinese crossed the Hoangho on a bridge of junks, and Tsin-yuen, which Lissechi had made his capital, surrendered without a blow. The population rose to welcome and assist the army of Suta, and the Mongols experienced the full force of the popular resentment aroused by their tyranny. Lissechi abandoned one fortress after another on the approach of Suta, thinking more of preserving his life than of maintaining his authority. Expelled from Shensi he hoped to find shelter and safety in the adjoining province of Kansuh, where he took up his residence at Lintao. For a moment the advance of the Chinese army was arrested while a great council of war was held to decide the further course of the campaign. The majority of the council favoured the suggestion that did not involve immediate action, and wished Suta to abandon the pursuit of Lissechi and complete the conquest of Shensi where several fortresses still held out. But Suta, fortunately, was of a more resolute temper, and resolved to ignore the decision of the council and to pursue Lissechi to Lintao. By the capture of that place he said, “we may expect to recruit our ranks from its population, and its resources would greatly contribute to our supplies. By pressing him with our main army, if he do not flee to the west, Lissechi will have forthwith to surrender without striking a blow. Lintao occupied, what will the neighbouring towns be able to do against us?" The vigour of

Suta's decision was matched by the rapidity of his march. Before Lissechi had made any arrangements to stand a siege he found himself surrounded at Lintao by the Ming army. In this plight he was obliged to throw himself on the mercy of the victor, who sent him to the capital, where Hongwou granted him his life and a small pension.

The overthrow of Lissechi prepared the way for the more formidable enterprise against Ninghia, where the Mongols had drawn their remaining power to a head. Ninghia, the old capital of Tangut, a principality mentioned at an earlier period of this history, is situated in the north of Kansuh, on the western bank of the Hoangho, and the Great Wall passes through it. Strongly fortified and admirably placed, the Mongols, so long as they possessed this town with its gates through the Great Wall, might hope to recover what they had lost, and to make a fresh bid for power in Northern China. North and west of Ninghia stretched the desert, but while it continued in their possession the Mongols remained on the threshold of China and held open a door through which their kinsmen from the Amour and Central Asia might yet re-enter to revive the feats of Genghis and Bayan. Suta determined to gain this place as speedily as possible, but he did not disguise from himself that it was a far more serious operation than the struggle with Lissechi. Midway between Lintao and Ninghia is the fortified town of Kingyang, which was held by a strong Mongol garrison. Suta laid close siege to this town, the governor of which had only time to send off a pressing appeal for aid to Kuku Timour, the governor at Ninghia, before he was shut in on all sides by the Ming army. Kuku Timour apparently did his best to aid his compatriot, but his forces were not sufficient to oppose those of Suta in the open field, and Kingyang was at last reduced to such straits that the garrison is said to have been compelled to use the slain as food. At last the place made an unconditional surrender, and the commandant was executed, not on account of his stubborn defence, but because at the beginning of the siege he had said he would surrender and had not kept his word. After the fall of Kingyang the Chinese troops were granted a well-earned rest, and Suta visited Nankin to describe the campaign to Hongwou.

The departure of Suta emboldened Kuku Timour so far as to lead him to take the field, and he hastened to attack the town of Lanchefoo, the capital of Kansuh, where there was only a small garrison. Notwithstanding this the place offered a stout resistance, but the Mongols gained a decisive success over a body of troops sent to its relief. This force was annihilated and its general taken prisoner. The Mongols thought to terrify the garrison by parading this general, whose name should be preserved, Yukwang, before the walls, but he baffled their purpose by shouting out, “Be of good courage, Suta is coming to your rescue." Yukwang was cut to pieces, but his timely and courageous exclamation, like that of D'Assas, saved his countrymen. Soon after this incident Suta reached the scene of action, and on his approach Kuku Timour broke up his camp and retired to Ninghia. The Chinese commander then hastened to occupy the towns of Souchow and Kia-yu-kwan, important as being the southern extremity of the Great Wall, and as isolating Ninghia on the west. Their loss was so serious that the Mongol chief felt compelled to risk a general engagement. The battle was keenly contested, and at one moment it seemed as if success was going to declare itself in favour of the Mongols. But Suta had sent a large part of his force to attack the Mongol rear, and

when this movement was completely executed, he assailed the Mongol position at the head of all his troops. The struggle soon became a massacre, and it is said that as many as 80,000 Mongols were slain, while Kuku Timour, thinking Ninghia no longer safe, fled northwards to the Amour. How bitter the struggle had become may be judged from a single incident. When the Ming army reached the town of Hochow, they found that the Mongols had massacred all its inhabitants rather than allow them to again become Chinese subjects, and Suta's soldiers were so horrified at the spectacle that they were only induced with the greatest difficulty to occupy the town. The success of Suta was heightened and rendered complete by the capture of a large number of the ex-Mongol ruling family by Ly Wenchong, another of the principal generals of Hongwou. Among the prisoners was the eldest grandson of Chunti, and several of the ministers advised that he should be put to death. But Hongwou instead conferred on him a minor title of nobility, and expressed his policy in a speech equally creditable to his wisdom as a statesman and his heart as a man:

"The last ruler of the Yuens took heed only of his pleasures. The great, profiting by his indolence, thought of nothing save of how to enrich themselves; the public treasures being exhausted by their malpractices, it needed only a few years of dearth to reduce the people to distress, and the excessive tyranny of those who governed them led to the forming of parties which disturbed the empire even to its foundations. Touched by the misfortunes with which I saw them oppressed, I took up arms, not so much against the Yuens as against the rebels who were engaged in war with them. It was over the same foe that I gained my first successes. And if the Yuen prince had not departed from the rules of wise government in order to give himself up to his pleasures, and had the magnates of his court performed their duty, would all honourable men have taken up arms as they did and declared against him? The misconduct of the race brought me a large number of partisans who were convinced of the rectitude of my intentions, and it was from their hands and not from those of the Yuens that I received the empire. If heaven had not favoured me, should I have succeeded in destroying with such ease those who withdrew into the desert of Shamo? We read in the Chiking that after the destruction of the Chang family there remained more than ten thousand of their descendants who submitted themselves to the Chow, because it was the will of heaven. Cannot men respect its decrees? Let them put in the public treasure-house all the spoil brought back from Tartary so that it may serve to alleviate the people's wants. And with regard to Maitilipala (Chunti's grandson), although former ages supply examples of similar sacrifice, did Wou Wang, I ask you, when exterminating the Chang family, resort to this barbarous policy? The Yuen princes were the masters of this empire for nearly one hundred years, and my forefathers were their subjects, and even although it were the constant practice to treat in this fashion the princes of a dynasty which has ceased to reign, yet could I not induce myself to adopt it."

These noble sentiments, to which there is nothing contradictory in the whole life of Hongwou, would alone place his reign high among the most civilising and humanly interesting epochs in Chinese history. To his people he appeared as a real benefactor as well as a just prince. He was ever studious of their interests, knowing that their happiness depended on what

might seem trivial matters, as well as in showy feats of arms and high policy. He simplified the transit of salt, that essential article of life, to provinces where its production was scanty, and when dearth fell on the land he devoted all the resources of his treasury to its mitigation. His thoughtfulness for his soldiers was shown by sending fur coats to all the soldiers in garrison at Ninghia where the winter was exceptionally severe. A final instance of his justice and consideration may be cited in his ordering certain Mongol colonies established in Southern China, to whom the climate proved uncongenial, to be sent back at his expense to their northern homes, when his ministers exhorted him to proceed to extremities against them and to root them out by fire and sword.

The pacification of the northern borders was followed by the despatch of troops into the southern provinces of Szchuen and Yunnan, where officials appointed by the Mongols still exercised authority. One of these had incurred the wrath of Hongwou by assuming a royal style and proclaiming himself King of Hia. He was soon convinced of the folly of taking a title which he had not the power to maintain, and the conquest of Szchuen was so easily effected that it would not call for mention if it were not rendered interesting as providing Hongwou's other great general Fuyuta with the first opportunity of displaying his skill as a commander. The self-created King of Hia presented himself laden with chains at the Chinese camp and begged the favour of his life. The conquest of Szchuen was little more than completed when the attention of Hongwou was again directed to the north-west frontier, where Kuku Timour was making one more effort to recover the footing he had lost on the fringe of the Celestial Empire, and for a time fortune favoured his enterprise. Even when Suta arrived upon the scene and took the command of the Chinese forces in person, the Mongols more than held their own. Twice did Suta attack the strong position taken up by the Mongol chief in the desert, and twice was his assault repulsed with heavy loss. A detachment under one of his lieutenants was surprised in the desert and annihilated. Supplies were difficult to obtain, and discouraged by defeat and the scarcity of food the Chinese army was placed in an extremely dangerous position. Out of this dilemma. it was rescued by the heroic Fuyuta, who, on the news of the Mongol recrudescence, had marched northwards at the head of the army with which he had conquered Szchuen. He advanced boldly into the desert, operated on the flank and in the rear of Kuku Timour, vanquished the Mongols in many engagements, and so monopolised their attention that Suta was able to retire in safety and without loss. The war terminated with the Chinese maintaining all their posts on the frontier, and the retreat of the Mongols, who had suffered too heavy a loss to feel elated at their repulse of Suta. At the same time no solid peace had been obtained, and the Mongols continued to harass the borders, and to exact blackmail from all who traversed the desert. When Hongwou endeavoured to attain a settlement by a stroke of policy his efforts were not more successful. His kind reception of the Mongol Prince Maitilipala has been referred to, and about the year 1374 he sent him back to Mongolia, in the hope that he would prove a friendly neighbour on his father's death. The gratitude of Maitilipala seems to have been unaffected, but although he was the legitimate heir the Mongols refused to recognise him as Khan on the death of his father. Gradually tranquillity settled down on those borders. The Chinese officials were content to leave the Mongols alone, and the Mongols abandoned their