Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/133

 CHIN BUIN£D. 109 vast host survived the bitter cold. When the day was lost, the king of Chin leapt off his chariot, mounted a horse, and galloped off; and if the Tsin Court had bit its fingers over the clever stroke by which Mung had outflanked them in taking Yen, they could now rejoice in having checkmated this momentous move ; which they would have found more difficult had Mung been living, but he had been dead eight yeara Woo was the only general who had kept his men together ; and he had 30,000 men unhurt, and in good order. He was now again urged to independence, as his was the only army then in Chin ; and again he declined to be imgrateful to the prince who had treated him so well The lord of Chin retired into Loyang, and soon found himself at the head of 100,000, — ^the remains of his million men. So terrible a disaster — similar to that inflicted by his lost General Mung on Yen — affected him so much, that he took unwell and died. Three years after, in 386, Woo Wang, whom we shall have to call by his name of Chooi, was ordered northwards to look after the borders. He was too powerful, since the great defeat, to be again molested by the Chin ministers, who, however, now believed that he could not but desert, as King Jien was gone. Their belief was justified ; for he felt that he was indebted to the individual king who was gone, and not to the court, which would have had him slain a thousand times over. He, therefore, set up an independent kingdom, making his capital at Joongshan,* where Yen had begun its meteoric career. There was, as we have seen (pp. 92, 106), a large number of Yen men located and scattered in the neighbourhood of Changan. As Chin was now so utterly paralysed, they declared their independence, calling themseves the West Yen ; naming Joong Wang their king, under the title of Foong, dropping the first syllable of Moyoong. Chin was still in possession of the cities, and Changan was still the capital. But it was in such a riotously disordered state — ^fightings and murders being of daily occurrence — ^that Joong Wang believed he could easily pass east beyond
 * The modem Tingchow of ChihU.