T'ien, c. 200 with the ant. Christ Tsu the Christian æra, a wall of fifteen hundred miles in length was [By Mengconstructed, to defend the frontiers of China against the inroads B.C.] of the Huns; 33 but this stupendous work, which holds a conspicuous place in the map of the world, has never contributed to the safety of an unwarlike people. The cavalry of the Tanjou frequently consisted of two or three hundred thousand men, formidable by the matchless dexterity with which they managed their bows and their horses; by their hardy patience in supporting the inclemency of the weather; and by the incredible speed of their march, which was seldom checked by torrents or precipices, by the deepest rivers or by the most lofty mountains. They spread themselves at once over the face of Their wars the country; and their rapid impetuosity surprised, astonished, Chinese, and disconcerted the grave and elaborate tactics of a Chinese 201 army. The emperor Kaoti, a soldier of fortune, whose per- [Han Kao sonal merit had raised him to the throne, marched against the (founder Huns with those veteran troops which had been trained in the dynasty)] civil wars of China. But he was soon surrounded by the Barbarians; and after a siege of seven days, the monarch, hopeless [Near Ta of relief, was reduced to purchase his deliverance by an ig-in Shan Sil nominious capitulation. The successors of Kaoti, whose lives were dedicated to the arts of peace or the luxury of the palace, submitted to a more permanent disgrace. They too hastily confessed the insufficiency of arms and fortifications. They were too easily convinced that, while the blazing signals announced on every side the approach of the Huns, the Chinese troops, who slept with the helmet on their head and the cuirass on their back, were destroyed by the incessant labour of ineffectual marches.35 A regular payment of money and silk was stipulated as the condition of a temporary and precarious peace; and the wretched expedient of disguising a real tribute under the names of a gift or a subsidy was practised by the emperors The construction of the wall of China is mentioned by Duhalde (tom. ii. p. 45) and de Guignes (tom. ii. p. 59). See the life of Lieoupang, or Kaoti, in the Hist. de la Chine, published at Paris, 1777, &c., tom. i. p. 442-522. This voluminous work is the translation (by the P. de Mailla) of the Tong-Kien-Kang-Mou, the celebrated abridgment of the great History of Semakouang (A.D. 1084) and his continuators. See a free and ample memorial presented by a Mandarin to the emperor Venti [Wên Ti] (before Christ 180-157) in Duhalde (tom. ii. p. 412-426); from a collection of State papers marked with the red pencil by Kamhi himself (p. 384-612). Another memorial from the minister of war (Kang-Mou, t. ii. p. 555) supplies some curious circumstances of the manners of the Huns. t'ung Fu, of China, as well as by those of Rome. But there still remained a more disgraceful article of tribute, which violated the sacred feelings of humanity and nature. The hardships of the savage life, which destroy in their infancy the children who are born with a less healthy and robust constitution, introduce a remarkable disproportion between the numbers of the two sexes. The Tartars are an ugly, and even deformed race; and, while they consider their own women as the instruments of domestic labour, their desires, or rather their appetites, are directed to the enjoyment of more elegant beauty. A select band of the fairest maidens of China was annually devoted to the rude em[Zenghis] braces of the Huns; and the alliance of the haughty Tanjous was secured by their marriage with the genuine, or adopted, daughters of the Imperial family, which vainly attempted to escape the sacrilegious pollution. The situation of these unhappy victims is described in the verses of a Chinese princess, who laments that she had been condemned by her parents to a distant exile, under a Barbarian husband; who complains that sour milk was her only drink, raw flesh her only food, a tent her only palace; and who expresses, in a strain of pathetic simplicity, the natural wish that she were transformed into a bird, to fly back to her dear country, the object of her tender and perpetual regret. Decline and fall of [Wu Ti] 37 38 The conquest of China has been twice achieved by the the Huns pastoral tribes of the North: the forces of the Huns were not inferior to those of the Moguls, or of the Mantcheoux; and their ambition might entertain the most sanguine hopes of success. But their pride was humbled, and their progress was checked, by the arms and policy of Vouti, the fifth emperor of Ant. Christ the powerful dynasty of the Han. In his long reign of fiftyfour years, the Barbarians of the southern provinces submitted to the laws and manners of China; and the ancient limits of the monarchy were enlarged, from the great river of Kiang to the port of Canton. Instead of confining himself to the timid operations of a defensive war, his lieutenants penetrated many 141-87 36 A supply of women is mentioned as a customary article of treaty and tribute (Hist. de la conquête de la Chine par les Tartares Mantcheoux, tom. i. p. 186, 187, with the note of the editor). 37 De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 62. 38 See the reign of the emperor Vouti, in the Kang-Mou, t. iii. p. 1-98. His various and inconsistent character seems to be impartially drawn. hundred miles into the country of the Huns. In those boundless deserts, where it is impossible to form magazines and difficult to transport a sufficient supply of provisions, the armies of Vouti were repeatedly exposed to intolerable hardships; and, of one hundred and forty thousand soldiers, who marched against the Barbarians, thirty thousand only returned in safety to the feet of their master. These losses, however, were compensated by splendid and decisive success. The Chinese generals improved the superiority which they derived from the temper of their arms, their chariots of war, and the service of their Tartar auxiliaries. The camp of the Tanjou was surprised [Zenghi] in the midst of sleep and intemperance; and, though the monarch of the Huns bravely cut his way through the ranks of the enemy, he left above fifteen thousand of his subjects on the field of battle. Yet this signal victory, which was preceded and followed by many bloody engagements, contributed much less to the destruction of the power of the Huns than the effectual policy which was employed to detach the tributary nations from their obedience. Intimidated by the arms, or Ant. Christ allured by the promises, of Vouti and his successors, the most considerable tribes, both of the East and of the West, dis- [Especially claimed the authority of the Tanjou. While some acknowledged Nomads of themselves the allies or vassals of the empire, they all became the implacable enemies of the Huns; and the numbers of that haughty people, as soon as they were reduced to their native strength, might, perhaps, have been contained within the walls of one of the great and populous cities of China.39 The desertion of his subjects, and the perplexity of a civil war, at length compelled the Tanjou himself to renounce the dignity of an (Khuganja) independent sovereign and the freedom of a warlike and highspirited nation. He was received at Sigan, the capital of the Ant. Christ monarchy, by the troops, the Mandarins, and the emperor him-(Süan Ti] self, with all the honours that could adorn and disguise the triumph of Chinese vanity.40 A magnificent palace was prepared for his reception; his place was assigned above all the This expression is used in the memorial to the emperor Venti (Duhalde, tom. ii. p. 417). Without adopting the exaggerations of Marco-Polo and Isaac Vossius, we may rationally allow for Pekin two millions of inhabitants. The cities of the South, which contain the manufactures of China, are still more populous. See the Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 150, and the subsequent events under the proper years. This memorable festival is celebrated in the Eloge de Moukden, and explained in a note by the P. Gaubil, p. 89, 90. 70 the Kuldjal 51 A.D. 48 princes of the royal family; and the patience of the Barbarian king was exhausted by the ceremonies of a banquet, which consisted of eight courses of meat, and of nine solemn pieces of music. But he performed, on his knees, the duty of a respectful homage to the emperor of China; pronounced, in his own name, and in the name of his successors, a perpetual oath of fidelity; and gratefully accepted a seal, which was bestowed as the emblem of his regal dependence. After this humiliating submission, the Tanjous sometimes departed from their allegiance, and seized the favourable moments of war and rapine; but the monarchy of the Huns gradually declined, till it was broken, by civil dissension, into two hostile and separate kingdoms. One of the princes of the nation was urged, by fear and ambition, to retire towards the South with eight hords, which composed between forty and fifty thousand families. He obtained, with the title of Tanjou, a convenient territory on the verge of the Chinese provinces; and his constant attachment to the service of the empire was secured by weakness and the desire of revenge. From the time of this fatal schism, the Huns of the North continued to languish about fifty years; till they were oppressed on every side by their foreign and domestic enemies. The proud inscription" of a column, erected on a lofty mountain, announced to posterity that a Chinese army had marched seven hundred miles into the heart of their country. The Sienpi, a tribe of Oriental Tartars, retaliated the injuries which they had formerly sustained; and the power of the Tanjous, after a reign of thirteen hundred years, was kingdom utterly destroyed before the end of the first century of the Northern Christian æra.43 [A.D. 87] A.D. 93 [End of the of the Zenghis] Their emi The fate of the vanquished Huns was diversified by the A.D. 100, &c. Various influence of character and situation."4 Above one grations. 41 This inscription was composed on the spot by Pankou, President of the Tribunal of History (Kang-Mou, tom. iii. p. 392). Similar monuments have been discovered in many parts of Tartary (Histoire des Huns, tom. ii. p. 122). [Parker, A Thousand Years of the Tartars, p. 100.] 42 M. de Guignes (tom. i. p. 189) has inserted a short account of the Sienpi. 43 The era of the Huns is placed, by the Chinese, 1210 years before Christ. But the series of their kings does not commence till the year 230 (Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. 21, 123). [The southern Zenghis continued till nearly the end of the second cent. A.D.; Parker, op. cit., p. 102.] The various accidents, the downfall, and the Khan-Mou, tom. iii. p. 88, 91, 95, 139, &c. may be ascribed to their losses and divisions. flight of the Huns are related in The small numbers of each hord hundred thousand persons, the poorest, indeed, and the most pusillanimous of the people, were contented to remain in their native country, to renounce their peculiar name and origin, and to mingle with the victorious nation of the Sienpi. Fiftyeight hords, about two hundred thousand men, ambitious of a more honourable servitude, retired towards the South; implored the protection of the emperors of China; and were permitted to inhabit, and to guard, the extreme frontiers of the province of Chansi and the territory of Ortous. But the most warlike and powerful tribes of the Huns maintained, in their adverse fortune, the undaunted spirit of their ancestors. The western world was open to their valour; and they resolved, under the conduct of their hereditary chieftains, to discover and subdue some remote country, which was still inaccessible to the arms of the Sienpi and to the laws of China.45 The course of their emigration soon carried them beyond the mountains of Imaus, and the limits of the Chinese geography; but we are able to distinguish the two great divisions of these formidable exiles, which directed their march towards the Oxus, and towards the The white Volga. The first of these colonies established their dominion Sogdiana in the fruitful and extensive plains of Sogdiana, on the eastern side of the Caspian: where they preserved the name of Huns, with the epithet of Euthalites or Nepthalites.46 Their manners were softened, and even their features were insensibly improved, by the mildness of the climate and their long residence in a flourishing province 47 which might still retain a faint impression of the arts of Greece.48 The white Huns, a name 45 M. de Guignes has skilfully traced the footsteps of the Huns through the vast deserts of Tartary (tom. ii. p. 123, 277, &c., 325, &c.). 46 [The Ephthalites were not part of the Hiung-nu, but seem to have been the Yüeh-chih, who possessed part of "the long straggling province now known as Kan Suh"; were conquered by Meghder, were driven westward by his successor before 162 B.C., and divided Bactria with the Parthians. See Parker, op. cit., p. 29, 30.] Mohammed, Sultan of Carizme, reigned in Sogdiana, when it was invaded (A.D. 1218) by Zingis and his Moguls. The Oriental Historians (see d'Herbelot, Petit de la Croix, &c.) celebrate the populous cities which he ruined, and the fruitful country which he desolated. In the next century, the same provinces of Chorasmia and Mawaralnahr were described by Abulfeda (Hudson, Geograph. Minor. tom. iii.). Their actual misery may be seen in the Genealogical History of the Tartars, p. 423-469. 45 Justin (xli. 6) has left a short abridgment of the Greek kings of Bactriana. To their industry I should ascribe the new and extraordinary trade, which transported the merchandises of India into Europe, by the Oxus, the Caspian, the Cyrus, the Phasis, and the Euxine. The other ways, both of the land and ses, were possessed by the Seleucides and the Ptolemies. See l'Esprit des Loiz, 1. xxi. Huns of |
