Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/35

 YEN. 11 These nine barbarians were all to the east of China* Liaotung and the regions then occupied by Chaosien were included among them ; and if civilization had been introduced among these full five centuries before, it is strange that they were then undistinguished from the Nine Yi, of whom it is said that they folded their hair in a bunch on the top of their head, painted their bodies, ate food without cooking, and knew nothing of grain. The story of Eitsu is not impossible, but it is to be received with suspicion. In the beginning of the Han dynasty, two centuries before the Christian era, How Dsun, who was king, is said to have been the fourteenth generation occupying the Chaosien throne. The emperor who had welded China into one empire, under the title of the Tsin, is known to military men as the original builder of the Great Wall* as a barrier to the Nomadic hordes beyond ; and to literary men as the author of the conflagration, which consumed the Confucian classics, which teach that the prince is for the people, not the people for the prince. He was no sooner dead than his empire crumbled to pieces, like that of Alexander a century before. A frightful anarchy then lorded it over China. The capital of the kingdom of Ten was bounded by Yiigwan, in the neighbourhood of Shanhaigwan, 900 lif to the east, by Yunjooug I (cloud-mist) 700 li to the west, by Hiwngchow 240 li south, and by Qoobeikow 300 li to its nortL This kingdom was thrown into the same disorder as the rest of China ; and most of its people sought the protection of Junfan and Chaosien^ which divided the kingdom of Yen between them. But Wei Man, a chief of Yen, with an army of his fellow-countrymen, oentozies B.O. In the article ''Fire-anmi," in "Chambers's Cyclopedia," a British officer li qnoted inferring the existence of fire-arms in China in the Tsin dynasty, because there are loofdioles in the great wall ! The loopholes, constructed of brick, existing now in good condition after passing through 2000 winters with a cold below sero, and summers with a heat of 90", would certainly be curiosities ! The wall has been twice rebuilt since its foundation was first laid. t Anciently there were four li to an English mile, now a fraction over three. ^Tatung of Shansi.
 * We find it needful to state that the modem wall la by no meani that bnilt two