> with a fine presence, lofty views, and an elevated soul, qualities sure

to tell in the troubled times that were at hand. When he was seventeen

years of age the deaths of his father and mother left him a penniless

orphan, so destitute of means that he felt obliged to take the vows of a

priest and enter the monastery of Hoangkiose. But the country was now in

disorder, rebels were in the field against the Mongol rule, and the

patriotic and active-minded boy could not long endure the passive life

of a bonze. Leaving the monastery, he entered the service of one of the

rebel leaders as a private soldier, and quickly showed such enterprise

and daring that his chief not only made him an officer in his force but

gave him his daughter in marriage.



The time was ripe for soldiers of fortune. The mantle of Kublai had not

fallen on the shoulders of any of his successors, who proved weak and

degenerate monarchs, losing the firm hold which the great conqueror had

kept upon the realm. It was in the year 1345 that Choo Yuen Chang, to

give the young soldier his full name, joined the rebel band. Chunti, one

of the weakest of the Mongol monarchs, was now upon the throne, and on

every side it was evident that the empire of Kublai was in danger of

falling to pieces under this incapable ruler. Fortune had brought its

protege into the field at a critical time.



Choo was not long in proving himself "every inch a soldier." Wherever he

fought he was victorious. In a year's time he had under him seven

hundred men of his own enlistment, and was appointed the lieutenant of

his chief. Soon after the latter died, and Choo took his place at the

head of the rebel band. In it enlisted another young man, Suta by name,

who was before many years to become China's greatest general and the

bulwark of a new dynasty.



Choo was now able to prove his powers on a larger scale. One of his

first exploits was the capture of the town of Hoyan, where he manifested

a high order of courage and political wisdom in saving the inhabitants

from rapine by his ill-paid and hungry soldiers. Here was a degree of

self-restraint and power of command which none of the Chinese leaders

had shown, and which seemed to point out Choo as the man destined to win

in the coming struggle for a rejuvenated China.



Meanwhile a rival came into the field who for a time threw Choo's

fortunes into the shade. This was a young man who was offered to the

people as a descendant of the dynasty of the Sungs, the emperors whom

the Mongol invaders had dethroned. His very name proved a centre of

attraction for the people, whose affection for the old royal house was

not dead, and they gathered in multitudes beneath his banner. But his

claim also aroused the fear of the Mongols, and a severe and stubborn

struggle set in, which ended in the overthrow of the youthful Sung and

the seeming restoration of the Mongol authority. Yet in reality the war

had only cleared the way for a far more dangerous adversary than the

defeated claimant of the throne.



Masked by this war, the strength and influence of Choo had steadily

grown, and in 1356 he made a daring and masterly move in the capture of

the city of Nanking, which gave him control of some of the wealthiest

provinces of the land. Here he showed the same moderation as before,

preserving the citizens from plunder and outrage, and proving that his

only purpose was to restore to China her old native government. With

remarkable prudence, skill, and energy he strengthened his position.

"The time has now come to drive the foreigners out of China," he said,

in a proclamation that was scattered far and wide and brought hosts of

the young and daring to his ranks. Elsewhere the so-called Chinese

patriots were no better than brigands, all the horrors of war descending

upon the districts they occupied and the cities which fell into their

hands. But where Choo ruled discipline and security prevailed, and as

far as his power reached a firm and orderly government existed.



Meanwhile the Mongols had a host of evils with which to contend. Rebel

leaders had risen in various quarters, some of them making more progress

than Choo, but winning the execration rather than the love of the people

by their rapine and violence. On the contrary, his power grew slowly but

surely, various minor leaders joining him, among them the pirate Fangkue

Chin, whose exploits had made him a hero to the people of the valley of

the Kiang. The events of the war that followed were too many to be here

detailed. Suffice it to say that the difficulties of the Mongol emperor

gradually increased. He was obliged to meet in battle a Mongol pretender

to his throne; Corea rose in arms and destroyed an army sent to subdue

it; and Chahan Timour, Chunti's ablest general, fell victim to an

assassin. Troubles were growing thick around his throne.



In the year 1366, Choo, after vanquishing some leaders who threatened

his position, among them his late pirate ally Fangkue Chin, saw that the

time had arrived for a vigorous effort to expel the foreign rulers, and

set out at the head of his army for a general campaign, at the same time

proclaiming to the people that the period was at hand for throwing off

the Mongol yoke, which for nearly a century had weighed heavily upon

their necks. Three armies left Nanking, two of them being sent to subdue

three of the provinces of the south, a result which was achieved without

a blow, the people everywhere rising and the Mongol garrisons vanishing

from sight,--whether by death or by flight history fails to relate. The

third army, under Suta, Choo's favorite general, marched towards Peking,

the Mongol garrisons, discouraged by their late reverses, retreating as

it advanced.



At length the great Mongol capital was reached. Within its walls reigned

confusion and alarm. Chunti, panic-stricken at the rapid march of his

enemies, could not be induced to fight for his last hold upon the empire

of China, but fled on the night before the assault was made. Suta at

once ordered the city to be taken by storm, and though the Mongol

garrison made a desperate defence, they were cut down to a man, and the

victorious troops entered the Tartar stronghold in triumph. But Suta,

counselled by Choo to moderation, held his army firmly in hand, no

outrages were permitted, and the lives of all the Mongols who submitted

were spared.



The capture of Peking and the flight of Chunti marked the end of the

empire of the Mongols in China. War with them still went on, but the

country at large was freed from their yoke, after nearly a century of

submission to Tartar rule. Elsewhere the vast empire of Genghis still

held firm. Russia lay under the vassalage of the khans. Central and

Southern Asia trembled at the Mongol name. And at the very time that the

Chinese were rising against and expelling their invaders, Timour, or

Tamerlane, the second great conqueror of his race, was setting out from

Central Asia on that mighty career of victory that emulated the deeds

of the founder of the Mongol empire. Years afterwards Timour, after

having drowned Southern Asia in a sea of blood, returned to Samarcand,

where, in 1415, he ordered the collection of a great army for the

invasion of China, with which he proposed to revenge the wrongs of his

compatriots. The army was gathered; it began its march; the mountains of

Khokand were reached and passed; threats of the coming danger reached

and frightened China; but on the march the grim old conqueror died, and

his great expedition came to an end. All that reached China to represent

the mighty Timour was his old war-horse, which was sent as a present

four years afterwards when an embassy from Central Asia reached Peking.



With the fall of the Mongols in China the native rule was restored, but

not with it the old dynasty. Choo, the conqueror, and a man whose

ability and nobleness of mind had been remarkably displayed, was

everywhere looked upon as the Heaven-chosen successor to the throne, the

boy who had begun his career as a penniless orphan having risen through

pure power of intellect and loftiness of soul to the highest position in

the realm. He was crowned emperor under the title of Hongwou, and

instituted the Ming dynasty, which held the throne of China until three

centuries afterwards, when another strange turn in the tide of affairs

again overthrew Chinese rule and brought a new dynasty of Tartar

emperors to the throne.



As regards the reign of Hongwou, it may here be said that he proved one

of the ablest monarchs China ever knew, ruling his people with a just

and strong hand, and, by the aid of his able general Suta, baffling

every effort of the Mongols to regain their lost dominion. Luxury in the

imperial administration was brought to an end, the public money was used

for its legitimate purpose, and even some of the costly palaces which

the Mongol emperors had built were destroyed, that the people might

learn that he proposed to devote himself to their good and not to his

own pleasure. Steps were taken for the encouragement of learning, the

literary class was elevated in position, the celebrated Hanlin College

was restored, and the great book of laws was revised. Schools were

opened everywhere, orphanages and hospitals were instituted, and all

that could be was done for the relief of the sick and the poor.



All this was performed in the midst of bitter and unceasing wars, which

for nearly twenty years kept Suta almost constantly in the field. The

Mongols were still strong in the northwest, Chungti continued to claim

imperial power, and the army was kept steadily employed, marching from

victory to victory under the able leadership of Suta, who in his whole

career scarcely learned the meaning of defeat. His very appearance on

the field on more than one occasion changed the situation from doubt to

victory. In time the Mongols were driven beyond the Great Wall, the

ex-emperor died, and the steppes were invaded by a great army, though

not a successful one, Suta meeting here his first and only reverse. The

war ended with giving the Chinese full control of all the cultivated

country, while the Tartars held their own in the desert. This done,

Suta returned to enjoy in peace the honors he had won, and soon after

died, at the age of fifty-four years, thirty of which had been spent in

war.



The death of the great general did not leave China free from warlike

commotion. There were rebellious risings both in the south and in the

north, but they all fell under the power of Hongwou's victorious arms,

the last success being the dispersal of a final Mongol raid. The closing

eight years of the emperor's reign were spent in peace, and in 1397 he

died, after an administration of thirty years, in which he had freed

China from the last dregs of the Mongol power, and spread peace and

prosperity throughout the realm.