Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/167

 EMPEBOB BESIEGED. 143 his ancestors as the representative of the new kingdom annexed to their dominiona He was, however, still bent on the thorough conquest of the country. Pingyang was still standing, at the «nd of the year ; and as the Emperor's thoughts were insanely fixed on that conquest, to the neglect of every other consideration, one minister, with the profoundest deference, deprecated an immediate attack on Gaoli, because of the deep poverty and unspeakable misery of the Chinese people ; stating that after a peace of three or five years had given rest and restored prosperity to the country, Gaoli could be attacked and easily conquered. The Emperor, in a towering passion, ordered the adviser to prison, where he died ;— one authority stating that the Emperor ordered his secret death. Next year the Tookiie pushed in to Yen mun, — the Taichow of Taiyuen, — ^whither the Emperor had just gone. There were in the city 150,000 souls including the soldiers, and they had provisions for twenty daya There were fourty-one fortified cities in the region known as Yen mim, of which thirty-nine had already fallen before the Turks, and as they had failed to capture the fourtieth, they besieged the city of Yen mun, in which the Emperor was located. 'He was in the utmost terror, which is another proof, if any more were necessary, to show that the heartlessly cruel are cowards. In this dilemma there were, of course, many advices. Yii Wun, who was there, gave a soldier's advice^ — ^urging his majesty to take a few thousand of the best horse and pierce through the besiegers' lines. The best, however, was the statesman's advice, who was bold enough to say, that the people were meantime careless whether his majesty escaped or not, as they feared the strain of another Qaoli expedition : but let, advised he, " a proclamation be immediately issued to declare that the Emperor had no intention of marching on Qaoli at present, and the people will rise from all directions and hurl the invaders across the border." Shubi, son of Chimin, was Kokhan of the Turks. He proposed a peace if the Emperor's daughter were given him in marriage. The Emperor believed that the cheapest way out of his scrape.