Page:Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook - Balfour, 1887.djvu/25

 that it was clear the old order of things was irrevocably doomed; reverses were yet in store for the conquerors, but the day was fast approaching when the great object they had held in view should be once and for all attained.

During this campaign against the states of Han and Chao the King of Ts'in died. But, as if the fates had ordained that nothing should intervene to delay the consummation of his hopes, or retard the accession of the Coming Man, who was to complete the work he had left unfinished, his two successors were speedily cut off. The heir-apparent died a few days after the decease of his father, and I-jên took possession of the throne. He continued the wars which his grandfather had bequeathed to him, and gained great victories over the states of Chao, Han, and Chou; but, in an evil moment, he allowed his energies to be diverted to the state of Wei, and here he received a check. Five princes joined together to resist the rapacious invader, and a bloody engagement took place, in which the ever-victorious army was routed and put to flight. But this disaster was the almost immediate cause of the final triumph of Ts'in. The King took it so much to heart that he sickened and soon died, after a turbulent reign of only five years, thus making way for the son of the adventurer and the courtesan, who was then just thirteen years of age.

To write a sketch, however slight, of the reign of Shih Huang Ti, or the "First Emperor," without giving a detailed account of the steps by which he succeeded in bringing the empire under a single sway, will probably seem to most readers as absurd and vain a task as to write a history of Queen Anne without dwelling upon the great military achievements of the Duke of