Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/279

 hallam's mistake. 255 must now snatch life out of the jaws of death. The men, seeing death inevitable, attacked the camp in front of them like so many furies, slew many thousands of the enemy, and cut their way eastwards beyond the circle of swords some scores of E The T^i'n did not know the adage of a later age — ^to build a bridge of gold for a flying enemy ; which was all the more necessary in other days when Sedans were impossible, because there was no artillery. In this connection I am astonished to find a mistake made by Hallam ; all the more remarkable in so able a man and so pains- taking an enquirer into the middle agea In mentioning the slain in a certain battle he questions the number, chiefly because those were not the days of improved and scientific firearms. With these, battles are necessarily decided within a shorter space of time, and perhaps more are slain within a given time. But it requires no great reflection to see that the hand to hand combats of early battles, though occupying much more time, must have slain a larger proportion of those engaged in them than modem battles do. Besides, the greatest slaughter was not during the fight, but when the defeated turned his sword from his enemy and fled, with the enemy's sword a few inches behind him. Chinese history is fuU of such battles. Dsua, this brave Chinese officer, believing that the Kin men would return to the captured camp at night, and might inflict serious injury upon his rear, had the camp entirely gutted. The Kin men did return by night, but finding their camp destroyed, were afraid to venture ahead. They retreated, and Dsua got on lus march unmolested The capital of Sung was still besieged by the Kin, though the imbecile emperor would allow no active fighting. He, his heir, lus empress, concubines, and household, 3,000 in all, had to go to live in the camp of Kin, outside of the city. The Vice-president of the Board of Appointments, seeing all was lost, bitterly reviled the Kin, with the hope that they would put him to death. He therefore reviled all the more when they threatened to kill him ; and when he found his efforts to secure the most honourable of deaths unavailing, he cut his own tongue and died. The Kin