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Title:       Tartar Invasion Of China By Meha
Author:      Boulger, Demetrius Charles

Tartar Invasion Of China By Meha

B.C. 341

Introduction

     The first Chinese are supposed to have been a nomad tribe in the
provinces of Shensi, which lies in the northwest of China, and among them at
last appeared a ruler, Fohi, whose name at least has been preserved.  His
deeds and his person are mythical, but he is credited with having given his
country its first regular institutions.

     The annalists of the Chinese chronicles placed the date of the Creation
at a point of time two millions of years before Confucius; this interval they
filled up with lines of dynasties.  Preceding the Chow dynasty the chronicles
give ten epochs - prior to the eighth of these there is no authentic history.
Yew-chow She (the "Nest-having") taught the people to build huts of the boughs
of trees.  Fire was discovered by Say-jin She (the "Fire producer"). Fuh-he
(B.C. 2862) was the discoverer of iron.  With Yaou (B.C. 2356) is the period
whence Confucius begins his story.  He says of that epoch: "The house door
could safely be left open." Yaou greatly extended and strengthened the empire
and established fairs and marts over the land.

     One of China's most notable rulers was Tsin Chi Hwangti, who was studious
in providing for the security of his empire, and with this object began the
construction of a fortified wall across the northern frontier to serve as a
defence against the troublesome Hiongnou tribes, who are identified with the
Huns of Attila.  This wall, which he began in the first years of his reign -
about the close of the third century B.C. - was finished before his death.  It
still exists, known as the Great Wall of China, and has long been considered
one of the wonders of the world.  Every third man of the whole empire was
employed on this work.  It is said that five hundred thousand of them died of
starvation.  The contents of the Great Wall would be enough to build two walls
six feet high and two feet thick around the equator.  It is the largest
artificial structure in the world; carried for fourteen hundred miles over
height and hollow, reaching in one place the level of five thousand feet -
nearly one mile - above the sea.  Earth, gravel, brick, and stone were used in
its construction.

     The weak successors of Hwangti finally gave way to the usurper, Kaotsou,
who had been originally the ruler of a small town, and had borne the name of
Lieou Pang.

     The reign of Kaotsou was distinguished by the consolidation of the
empire; the connection of Western with Eastern China by high walls and
bridges, some of which are still in perfect condition, and the institution of
an elaborate code of court etiquette.  His attention to these things was,
however, rudely interrupted by an irruption of the Hiongnou Tartars.

Tartar Invasion Of China By Meha

     The death of Tsin Chi Hwangti proved the signal for the outbreak of
disturbances throughout the realm.  Within a few months five princes had
founded as many kingdoms, each hoping, if not to become supreme, at least to
remain independent.  Moungtien, beloved by the army, and at the head, as he
tells us in his own words, of three hundred thousand soldiers, might have been
the arbiter of the empire; but a weak feeling of respect for the imperial
authority induced him to obey an order, sent by Eulchi, Hwangti's son and
successor, commanding him "to drink the waters of eternal life." Eulchi's
brief reign of three years was a succession of misfortunes.  The reins of
office were held by the eunuch Chow-kow, who first murdered the minister
Lissep and then Eulchi himself.

     Ing Wang, a grandson of Hwangti, was the next and last of the Tsin
emperors.  On coming to power, he at once caused Chow-kow, whose crimes had
been discovered, to be arrested and executed.  This vigorous commencement
proved very transitory, for when he had enjoyed nominal authority during six
weeks, Ing Wang's troops, after a reverse in the field, went over in a body to
Lieou Pang, the leader of a rebel force.  Ing Wang put an end to his
existence, thus terminating, in a manner not less ignominious than any of its
predecessors, the dynasty of the Tsins, which Hwangti had hoped to place
permanently on the throne of China, and to which his genius gave a lustre far
surpassing that of many other families who had enjoyed the same privilege
during a much longer period.

     The crisis in the history of the country had afforded one of those great
men who rise periodically from the ranks of the people to give law to nations
the opportunity for advancing his personal interests at the same time that he
made them appear to be identical with the public weal.  Of such geniuses, if
the test applied be the work accomplished, there have been few with higher
claims to respectful and admiring consideration than Lieou Pang, who after the
fall of the Tsins became the founder of the Han dynasty under the style of
Kaotsou.  Originally the governor of a small town, he had, soon after the
death of Hwangti, gathered round him the nucleus of a formidable army, and
while nominally serving under one of the greater princes, he scarcely affected
to conceal that he was fighting for his own interest.  On the other hand, he
was no mere soldier of fortune, and the moderation which he showed after
victory enhanced his reputation as a general.  The path to the throne being
thus cleared, the successful general became emperor.

     His first act was to proclaim an amnesty to all those who had borne arms
against him.  In a public proclamation he expressed his regret at the
suffering of the people "from the evils which follow in the train of war."
During the earlier years of his reign he chose the city of Loyang as his
capital - now the flourishing and populous town of Honan - but at a later
period he removed it to Singanfoo, in the western province of Shensi.  His
dynasty became known by the name of the small state where he was born, and
which had fallen early in his career into his hands.

     Kaotsou sanctioned or personally undertook various important public
works, which in many places still exist to testify to the greatness of his
character.  Prominent among those must be placed the bridges constructed along
the great roads of Western China.  Some of them are still believed to be in
perfect condition.  No act of Kaotsou's reign places him higher in the scale
of sovereigns than the improvement of the roads and the construction of those
remarkable bridges.  Kaotsou loved splendor and sought to make his receptions
and banquets imposing by their brilliance.  He drew up a special ceremonial
which must have proved a trying ordeal for his courtiers, and dire was the
offence if it were infringed in the smallest particular.  He kept up
festivities at Singanfoo for several weeks, and on one of these occasions he
exclaimed: "To-day I feel I am emperor and perceive all the difference between
a subject and his master."

     Kaotsou's attention was rudely summoned away from these trivialities by
the outbreak of revolts against his authority and by inroads on the part of
the Tartars.  The latter were the more serious.  The disturbances that
followed Hwangti's death were a fresh inducement to these clans to again
gather round a common head and prey upon the weakness of China, for Kaotsou's
authority was not yet recognized in many of the tributary states which had
been fain to admit the supremacy of the great Tsin emperor.  About this time
the Hiongnou ^1 Tartars were governed by two chiefs in particular, one named
Tonghou, the other Meha or Mehe.  Of these the former appears to have been
instigated by a reckless ambition or an overweening arrogance, and at first it
seemed that the forbearance of Meha would allow his pretensions ^2 to pass
unchallenged.

[Footnote 1: Probably the same race as the Huns.]

[Footnote 2: Meha had become chief of his clan by murdering his father,
Teouman, who was on the point of ordering his son's assassination when thus
forestalled in his intention.  Tonghou sent to demand from him a favorite
horse, which Meha sent him.  His kinsmen advised him to refuse compliance; but
he replied: "What!  Would you quarrel with your neighbors for a horse?"
Shortly afterward Tonghou sent to ask for one of the wives of the former
chief.  This also Meha granted, saying: "Why should we undertake a war for the
sake of a woman?" It was only when Tonghou menaced his possessions that Meha
took up arms.]

     Meha's successes followed rapidly upon each other.  Issuing from the
desert, and marching in the direction of China, he wrested many fertile
districts from the feeble hands of those who held them; and while establishing
his personal authority on the banks of the Hoangho, his lieutenants returned
laden with plunder from expeditions into the rich provinces of Shensi and
Szchuen.  He won back all the territory lost by his ancestors to Hwangti and
Moungtien, and he paved the way to greater success by the siege and capture of
the city of Maye, thus obtaining possession of the key of the road to
Tsinyang.  Several of the border chiefs and of the Emperor's lieutenants,
dreading the punishment allotted in China to want of success, went over to the
Tartars, and took service under Meha.

     The Emperor, fully aroused to the gravity of the danger, assembled his
army, and placing himself at its head marched against the Tartars. Encouraged
by the result of several preliminary encounters, the Emperor was eager to
engage Meha's main army, and after some weeks' searching and manoeuvring, the
two forces halted in front of each other.  Kaotsou, imagining that victory was
within his grasp, and believing the stories brought to him by spies of the
weakness of the Tartar army, resolved on an immediate attack.  He turned a
deaf ear to the cautious advice of one of his generals, who warned him that
"in war we should never despise an enemy," and marched in person at the head
of his advance guard to find the Tartars. Meha, who had been at all these
pains to throw dust in the Emperor's eyes and to conceal his true strength, no
sooner saw how well his stratagem had succeeded, and that Kaotsou was rushing
into the trap so elaborately laid for him than by a skilful movement he cut
off his communications with the main body of his army, and, surrounding him
with an overwhelming force, compelled him to take refuge in the city of
Pingching in Shensi.

     With a very short supply of provisions, and hopelessly outnumbered, it
looked as if the Chinese Emperor could not possibly escape the grasp of the
desert chief.  In this strait one of his officers suggested as a last chance
that the most beautiful virgin in the town should be discovered, and sent as a
present to mollify the conqueror.  Kaotsou seized at this suggestion, as the
drowning man will catch at a straw, and the story is preserved, though her
name has passed into oblivion, of how the young Chinese girl entered into the
plan and devoted all her wits to charming the Tartar conqueror.  She succeeded
as much as their fondest hopes could have led them to believe; and Meha
permitted Kaotsou, after signing an ignominious treaty, to leave his place of
confinement and rejoin his army, glad to welcome the return of the Emperor,
yet without him helpless to stir a hand to effect his release.  Meha retired
to his own territory, well satisfied with the material results of the war and
the rich booty which had been obtained in the sack of Chinese cities, while
Kaotsou, like the ordinary type of an oriental ruler, vented his discomfiture
on his subordinates.

     The closing acts of the war were the lavishing of rewards on the head of
the general to whose warnings he had paid no heed, and the execution of the
scouts who had been misled by the wiles of Meha.

     The success which had attended this incursion and the spoil of war were
potent inducements to the Tartars to repeat the invasion.  While Kaotsou was
meditating over the possibility of revenge, and considering schemes for the
better protection of his frontier, the Tartars, disregarding the truce that
had been concluded, retraced their steps, and pillaged the border districts
with impunity.  In this year (B.C. 199) they were carrying everything before
them, and the Emperor, either unnerved by recent disaster or appalled at the
apparently irresistible energy of the followers of Meha, remained apathetic in
his palace.  The representations of his ministers and generals failed to rouse
him from his stupor, and the weapon to which he resorted was the abuse of his
opponent, and not his prompt chastisement.  Meha was "a wicked and faithless
man, who had risen to power by the murder of his father, and one with whom
oaths and treaties carried no weight." In the mean while the Tartars were
continuing their victorious career.  The capital itself could not be
pronounced safe from their assaults, or from the insult of their presence.

     In this crisis counsels of craft and dissimulation alone found favor in
the Emperor's cabinet.  No voice was raised in support of the bold and only
true course of going forth to meet the national enemy.  The capitulation of
Pingching had for the time destroyed the manhood of the race, and Kaotsou held
in esteem the advice of men widely different to those who had placed him on
the throne.  Kaotsou opened fresh negotiations with Meha, who concluded a
treaty on condition of the Emperor's daughter being given to him in marriage,
and on the assumption that he was an independent ruler.  With these terms
Kaotsou felt obliged to comply, and thus for the first time this never-ceasing
collision between the tribes of the desert and the agriculturists of the
plains of China closed with the admitted triumph of the former.  The contest
was soon to be renewed with different results, but the triumph of Meha was
beyond question. ^1

[Footnote 1: One historian had the courage to declare that "Never was so great
a shame inflicted on the Middle Kingdom, which then lost its dignity and
honor."]

     The weakness thus shown against a foreign foe brought its own punishment
in domestic troubles.  The palace became the scene of broils, plots, and
counterplots, and so badly did Kaotsou manage his affairs at this epoch that
one of his favorite generals raised the standard of revolt against him through
apparently a mere misunderstanding.  In this instance Kaotsou easily put down
the rising, but others followed which, if not pregnant with danger, were at
the least extremely troublesome.  The murder of Hansin, to whose aid Kaotsou
owed his elevation to the throne as much as to any other, by order of the
empress, during a reception at the palace, shook confidence still more in the
ruler, and many of his followers were forced into open rebellion through dread
of personal danger.  What wonder that, as he has said, "the very name of
revolt inspired Kaotsou with apprehension."

     In B.C. 195 we find Kaotsou going out of his way to visit the tomb of
Confucius.  Shortly after this event it became evident that he was approaching
his end.  His eldest son Hiaohoei was proclaimed heir apparent. Kaotsou died
in the fifty-third year of his age, having reigned as emperor during eight
years.  The close of his reign did not bear out all the promise of its
commencement; and the extent of his authority was greatly curtailed by the
disastrous effects of the wor with the Tartars and the subsequent revolts
among his generals.

     Despite these reverses there remains much in favor of his character.  He
had performed his part in the consolidation of the Hans; it remained for those
who came after him to complete what he left half finished.

     Under Hoeiti, the Tartar King Meha sent an envoy to the capital, but
either the form or the substance of his message enraged the empress-mother,
who ordered his execution.  The two peoples were thus again brought to the
brink of war, but eventually the difference was sunk for the time, and the
Chinese chroniclers have represented that the satisfactory turn in the
question was due to Meha seeing the error of his ways. ^1 Not long afterward
the Tartar King died, and was succeeded by his son Lao Chang.

[Footnote 1: Meha's letter of excuse is thus given: "In the barbarous country
which I govern both virtue and the decencies of life are unknown. I have been
unable to free myself from them, and, therefore, I blush.  China has her wise
men; that is a happiness which I envy.  They would have prevented my being
wanting in the respect due to your rank."]