Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/206

182 SINLO. Sinchung, the destination of Dsang. As Baiji was trampled under foot and waste, Baiji men were permitted to settle on the eastern borders of Gaoll This desolation proves that Baiji had made another effort for freedom and had been defeated. When King Dsang got to Liaotmig, he either meditated revolt in hopes of Mogo support, or was believed to do so. He was therefore recalled, and banished where "he died," — a phrase which is ofttimes a euphemism for being secretly put to deaiL His immediate followers were banished to various Honan cities, and the returned fugitives fled into the lands of Mogo and the Turk. Loong was afraid to return to his former kingdom, and the families of Gao and Fooyii became extinct The Empress Woo was desirous to exterminate Sinlo in the same manner. But an aged minister rose off his dying bed, to expostulate seriously, as great danger threatened in the west His counsels prevailed. The army was sent westwards instead of eastwards ; but the effort killed the old minister. Sinlo was therefore allowed to follow its own customs and set up its own king, two of whom died within a year. So thoroughly had the work of destruction been done in Corea, that for two generations Gaoli is left in the dark womb of unhistorical time. But she was growing, if silently. Many exiles, and children of exiles, returned to her lovely glens and green hills. During that time much has happened in and around China proper. Just then the frequent census showed China proper possessed by fuU eight million families, or about 60,000,000 souls or " mouths, as the Chinese characteristically phrase it On her north, north-west, and north-east, were always hovering dark clouds of hostile armies, every now and then pouncing ; now on her cities, anon on her granaries, and like harpies, ruining the fruits of her fields. The Turks, in immense numbers in the north-west and north of her border, never desisted during the whole Tang period from plundering Chinese territory. Next to them in numbers and despoiling proclivities were the Ejitan, the eastern neighbours of the Turka East of them again, north-east of Chinese soil, was Mogo, with its now