Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/259

 EXTENSION OF BOHAI. 235 Wooyi died in 738, succeeded by his son. But after him Bohai, with its doings, fails to find a place in Chinese story for two centuriea It had, however, been active. Order and military rule were necessary in the "struggle for existence.'* It had early annexed its northern neighbour; and the combination made a powerful and well compacted fortified kingdom, to which the emperor Kaifung of Tang was compelled to bestow the rank of a feudal sovereignty. Having extended its power to the south- em bank of the Amoor, it found it an easy matter to appropriate a large portion of what had been the lands of the once formidable Gaoli,i — ^ts old master. For an itinerary of 930 A.D., states, that sailing from Tungchow of Shantung, passing such and such islands, east fix)m the point now known as Regent's Sword, up the Yaloo 100 li, about the present Aichow; there disem- barking, and travelling 30 li north-east, the port of Posha was reached, which port was then the border of Bohai land. South of which, 600 li, was the city of Wandoo, the ancient Gaoli capital Bohai also found it an easy matter to spread over the whole of Liaotung and part of Liaosi, even though it had lost a considerable slice of pasture land about the present Kirin, at the hands of Eitan. It had then five capitals, 15 prefectural and 62 sub- prefectural cities, and every glen was peopled and every plain cultivated between the gulf of Liaotung and the Amoor ; indeed Manchuria was then more populous than it has ever been since, but not more so than it promises shortly to be again. Then learning flourished and literature abounded. Eitan was extremely anxious to secure land in Chihli, but the powerful Bohai in his rear, prevented Abaoji from penetrating far into China, lest his own lands should be harried or seized. Therefore to drive Bohai back, he sent an army against Liaotung, which returned covered with a shame, which it wiped out on Chinese ground. Eitan, however, sent expedition after expedition, year after year, against Bohai, till, as the Liao dynasty, they ruled over all Liaotung, and annexed the fine plains and mountain ranges between Hinganling and the Eoorha river. The name of Bohai ceased to be, and the