Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/57

 LIAOTUNa CONQUERED. 33 cannibalism. Yuen sent an ambassador to bargain terms of surrender. That ambassador was beheaded by Ma's orders, who said there were five courses open to a soldier. He could fight ; if he could not fight, he could hold his fort ; if he could not hold his fort, he could flee; beyond these were the alternatives, unconditional surrender or death. A few days more reduced the besieged to desperation, and all discipline was lost Yuen and his son, with a few hundred men, burst through the besiegers, and fled northwards. They were overtaken and slain at the Daliang* river. Su Ma now entered the city, and put to death all under the rank of Goong and Ching, 7000 soldiers. The whole of Liaotung, with Huentoo and Lolang, gave in their allegiance. During the period of unbridled anarchy between A.D. 220 and 420, scores of kingdoms rose and fell ; and war seems to have been the pastime of the broken up Chinese empire and its neighboura But among them all, perhaps the history of the Hienbi, a small Mongolic or Hunnish tribe in the north of Liaotung, is the most remarkable, both in its speedy elevation and its sudden collapse. In the year 337, it had a tussle with Gaogowli and others in Liaotung, in which it snatched victory more by stratagem than by numbers. But on its fall Gaogowli could boast of an empire, for it embraced all Liaotung and some of Liaosi. As the history of the Hienbi gives as good a picture of the times as anything can, it is given below, though it has not always a direct bearing on our proper field. But the reader, interested only in C!orea, may pass it over and go on to Ch. V. Gaogowli hien, the mountain of Liaoshan, flowing south-west, passiiig Hiangping, joining the Daliang, which comes from beyond the northern borders ; the united riyer flowing south-west, and falling into the Da Liao. The small Liao is, therefore, the Taidsn or Teksa, the Daliang the Hwun, and the Da liao, the outer Uao from Mongolia.
 * A note to the original says that "The Siao (small) Llao" flows from Huentoo,