Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/231

A CLEVEB CHINAMAN. 207 with Kotoogan was the Yagwcm Li Qwoja ; and the two were not on good term& Him, Whi employed to serve his purposes^ and Owoja went by night with a trusty band of men, killed his king and the king-maker Kotoogan, with their chief supporters, and, with the remaining troops, submitted to the Chinese* Showgwei marched out to Tsumungchow at the head of all his army to meet and welcome him. The heads of the king and of Kotoogan were exposed on the south wall of Tientsin. Fijia, the Turkish Kokhan, was poisoned at the same time by one of his ministers, but he did not die before he put to death the minister and his clique. Gwoja was invested King and Doodoo of Soongmo for his noble deeds, — for the secret dagger is usually as honourable as the sun-light sword, in the politics of China. He did not long enjoy his blood-got crown, for he was slain, in that same year, with all his sons, save one who fled to Andoong, the Tang Capital of Liaotung. Niefung, the chief who murdered him, sent a messenger and a memorial to the Chinese court, setting forth the heinous crimes which had brought deserved death on Gwoja ; and he received in reply, the title of Soongmo Doodoo, and the pardon of his crime, though he was reprimanded for it, and told that it was an evil example which might endanger his own life. Niefiing was apparently able to defend what he had thus obtained, for he drove back an army of Tookue which had come to plunder his land. From the conduct of Kotoogan and its long success, together with his subsequent fate, we can learn both the lawlessness then prevailing among the ancestors of the Mongols, and the utter weakness which had crept over the once powerful Tang dynasty, which felt unable to challenge, or attempt to correct, the many reckless changes among its vassal kingdom& The morality and gallantly of war may be estimated from the following incident Shu Soogan, a Chinese official, was censured by his superior official for some fault Whether from fear or pride he fled to Kitan, where he was about to be put to death, when the happy thought occurred to him, that he should declare