Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/96

 72 YEN WANG. open the gra^e of the late king, take the dead body * and the living mother of the king, and then return ; this plan, together with the plunder of every specially valuable public article and ensign of government, would bring King Jao to his senses. This was done. The dead king was disentombed, and brought away along with his living widow ; together with all the palace valuables, and 50,000 men and women captives. The palace was then burnt, the city walls levelled with the ground and Whang returned. The plan was successful; for King Jao sent his younger brother, early next spring, with the largest and finest pearls, praying for a treaty. Yen Wang sent back the cofiSn along with the messenger, but retamed the queen mother as a hostage; and she was retained for long. The enormous army of Jao Wang had long set sail. The long camping had, doubtless, debilitated many of his huge host, and mads a bad preparation for a stormy passage of several days across the Qulf of Liaotung. Two-thirds of his 500,000 soldiers and 170,000 sailors perished without striking a blow, — most of them at sea. After he landed, his rear was hunted down at every step by an army of a thousand or more wolves and foxes, aided by some tigers ; no bad representatives of the human armies and their officera He was therefore unable to face Whang, and did not attempt a westward march. But his son and heir marched against the north Hienbi under Hoogooti, whom he defeated, slaying 30,000 men. He must therefore have marched north through the present Liaoyang and Mukden, to the north of which was the seat of the Yiiwun Hienbi A curious family incident occurred at this time. Shu Yijien also a Hoo "barbarian/' but a Hiwngnoo, or Hun, was then present reigning house of Corea to the dust of their dead ancestors, led to a disgraceful attempt at body-snatching, to hold to ransom, by a 3roung American citizen, which, fortunately for so-called civilization, signally failed — ^the resur- rectionists being driven away by an outraged people, ere they conld complete their designs.
 * A knowledge — ^imparted by a B. C. priest — of the extreme valne attached by the