Page:A Chinese Biographical Dictionary.djvu/599

580

valuable pearl-fisheries on that coast; but with the disappearance of evil practices the trade soon revived. When forced by ill-health to retire, the people positively wonld not let him depart, crowding round and hanging on to his chariot, so that he was obliged to run away at night and hide himself in the marshes.

1614 Meng Ch*ang ^|^. Third son of M6ng Chih-hsiang, whom he succeeded in A.D. 935 as second sovereign of the Later Shu State. He led a life of debauchery and extravagance until he surrendered in 965 to the generals of the founder of the Sung dynasty.

1615 Meng Ch'ang-ohtin ^ ^ # • Died B.C. 279. A native of the Ch'i State, whose real name was 50 ^ T'ien W6n. In B.C. 299 he became Minister to the Gh'in State; but rumours of his intention to scheme for the ultimate advantage of his native State reached the ears of king Chao Hsiang, and he was thrown into prison. He would have been executed, had not the king's fiAvourite concubine wished to possess a fur robe which M6ng had already given to his Majesty. Que of his retainers, however, was a clever thief, and he recovered the robe and handed it over to the lady, who in return persuaded the king to let M^ng go. But the king soon repented, and sent a courier after him; and M^ng would have been captured at the frontier-gate, which could not be opened before cock-crow, had not another of his retainers been able to imitate the crow of a cock, so that the gate was thrown open and M6ng escaped to Gh4. He then led a campaign against Ch4n, and succeeded in checking for a while the ambitious designs of its ruler. M6ng always lived in great state. He had as many as three thousand retainers, all of whom wore shoes embroidered with pearls; and his abode was popularly styled /\\ ^ "f^ a little empire in itself. In later ages Wang An-shih held him up to ridicule. ^*No true man of genius," he writes, *'would condescend to associate with imitators of cocks and dogs."