Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/242

 218 KITAN. least desire for personal aggrandisement He had but to speak, and the savage became civilised, the lawless good citizena We may interpret this to mean that he was the first to impose fixed laws. He was called the Soo or Firm Ancestor ; his son Salidua, the Ti or Generous Ancestor, whose son again taught the people to plow and sow, to tame aud feed domestic animala An easy inference is drawn from the fact that under him wealth began to accumulate; for patient agriculture is much more productive than would be the conquest of Constantinople. Houses and fixed abodes, with villages and cities, necessarily followed the policy of this, the Yuen or Original Ancestor. His son, the Dua or Meritorious Ancestor, was the Tubal-Cain of the Kitan, teaching them to work in iron, to cast metal, to make musical instruments, both stringed and drum ; in all of which he himself took great delight He was the father of the Ti Ancestor, Abaoji, who was contemporary with the famous An Looi^ian. The mother of Abaoji, the Great Ancestor or founder of the Liao dynasty, dreamed that she embraced the sun, whence the birth of Abaoji. When he was being bom there was an unnaturally bright light in the room, and a strange, unknown kind of fragrance floated in the air. He could walk at three months old. The light of his eyes was so powerful that none could stand his look. He fought in the east and conquered in the west, and over a myriad li was spread the terror of his name. He assumed the title of Emperor in 907. He built the capital of Shangking in the land of the ancient Anping of Han. Three years did it take in building. He occupied the throne for twenty years, dying at fifty-five years of age. Such is the summary of a life of one of the great conquerors of mankind ; — strange feature of Chinese story, that every man who is more able than his contemporaries to slay, hany, and destroy, is the specially bom of heaven, which sends such prodigies to indicate the coming greatness of the new-born child ! The prodigies, however, are always written after the fulfilment of their prophecy — ^never during the undeveloped youth of the man