souls. We turn from the revolting details to give the great results. By the year 1234 the Mongols, or Western Tartars, were absolute masters of the northern half of modern China. The Kin, or Eastern Tartars, who until then had occupied some of the provinces bordering on the Great Wall, were attacked on one side by the Chinese, ⚫ and on the other by the Mongols, under the command of the celebrated Pih-yen (Hundred Eyes), who is mentioned by Marco Polo. Their principal city, called Kaifung, and described as being then the largest city in the world, containing a population of more than two millions of souls, was invested twice, and taken at the second siege, after another deplorable sacrifice of human life. The last prince of these Eastern Tartars strangled himself in his despair; all his principal officers and five hundred other persons plunged into the river and perished. CHAPTER VIII. THE MONGOL DYNASTY. HE time had come when China should be brought THE into closer communion with the other members of the great family of nations. In the thirteenth century we begin to trace over the whole world the first throes of the regeneration which became manifest when the Cape of Good Hope was circumnavigated, America discovered, society renovated by a flood of inventions in the useful arts, and the Word and Truth of God again given to the waiting souls of men through the labors of the great Reformers. The conquests of the Mongols in Asia and Europe performed the same office in preparing the way for those events, wherever their influence was felt, which the conquests of Rome had performed in preparing that for the Founder of the Dispensation of grace. The history of Zingis Khan and his successors is one of the most stirring and romantic on record. It sounds like a fiction to tell that an obscure, nomadic tribe of Tartars was raised up by the hand of Providence to such a height of greatness and power that in three generations its chiefs conquered the world from the coasts of the Pacific ocean on the east to the heart of Europe on the west; that the empires of China, India, Persia and Russia were all subject to them; that they extended their borders even into Silesia; and that France, Spain, Sweden and Britain gave themselves to fasting and prayer to God as their only hope of protection; and that the fountain and most important centre of this stupendous empire, far more extensive than any that had preceded it on earth, was within the Chinese dominions, in which its great potentate, Kublai Khan, built the new capital, Peking, which is now the seat of another Tartar family, the Manchus. But almost as astonishing as the growth of the Mongol empire was its decay when the ends of the Governor of nations had been subserved by it. Drunk with its sudden and boundless power, its nine emperors followed one after another in short, dissolute and shameful reigns, which only lasted in all for the brief period of eighty-eight years. The causes which led to the introduction of the Mongol power into the north of China have been mentioned in the preceding chapter. It was not to be expected that a people so active and warlike as the Mongols would long remain satisfied with the northern and poorer half of the country, and leave the fertile, rich and delightful regions of the south to a people so unwarlike as the Chinese. This was still less likely when a great warrior, statesman and administrator, such as Kublai Khan, the grandson of Zingis, ascended the Mongol throne. Finding himself in undisturbed possession of all the north of China, and with a countless reserve of light cavalry in the regions beyond the Great Wall, Kublai took advantage of the infancy of the reigning Chinese emperor to use an argument convenient to his purpose. "Your family," said he, "owes its rise to the minority of the last emperor of the preceding dynasty; it is therefore just that you, a child, and the last remnant of the line of Sung, should give place to another family." The Mongols rapidly approached the imperial city; the whole court fled in the utmost consternation, and went on board some junks which were lying near the mouth of the Canton river. Tartar vessels were sent in pursuit of the wretched fugitives, whose terror at the sight of the hostile fleet seems to have amounted to madness; for one of the grandees, seizing the infant emperor in his arms, jumped with him into the sea, and was instantly followed by the empress and the chief ministers, who thus all perished. This was in the year 1281. Thus Kublai Khan was left in undisputed possession of the whole empire, but the conquest had not been achieved without much bloodshed and numerous acts of revolting barbarity. But when the great object was accomplished, and the Mongol emperor acknowledged by the Chinese as their sovereign, he endeavored to win their affections by conferring benefits upon them, and sought to establish his power on the firm basis of popular esteem, rather than suffer it to rest on the uncertain foundation of that terror which his name had hitherto inspired. Never did a more illustrious prince ascend an Eastern throne, and never was there one more revered than Kublai Khan; and, although a conqueror and of a foreign race, he was deservedly called the father of his people, who had no cause to regret, beyond their previous sufferings, the revolution that had placed him at the head of the empire. He wisely abstained from making any alterations in the political institutions of the Chinese, nor did he interfere with any of their ancient customs; the high functionaries who had submitted to his authority were suffered to retain their employment, and in the distribution of offices of state no unjust partiality was shown toward the Tartars; and thus peace was preserved between the conquerors and the conquered. The Chinese gladly accepted an exemption from military service, so that the sword remained almost exclusively in the hands of the Mongols, whose discipline and subordination to the civil authority appear to have been exemplary throughout the reign of this truly illustrious prince. The tribute or rent imposed on the natives of the country was a tenth part of all the silk, rice, wool, hemp and other produce of their land, except sugar and spices, on which only a very small duty was levied; but those duties were not levied on the mechanics, who, for their tribute, were obliged to work for the government one day in nine, which amounted to a ninth part of their labor; and on these days they were employed in keeping the public edifices in repair and making clothes and warlike implements for the army. The new emperor, under the Chinese name of Shitsu, fixed the seat of government at Peking, or Kambalu, as it was styled by the Tartars and our early travelers. Kambalu was near the ancient city of Yen-king, a portion of which was destroyed when it was stormed by the Eastern Tartars. Peking, or Kambalu, in the time of Kublai Khan, was a wealthy and populous city, containing numerous shops well stocked with the rich merchandise of Persia and |