sions to have to do only with tributaries. It had been agreed that the Tatars should bring in so many horses annually, which the Chinese Government undertook to buy. The Tatars looked upon the agreement as entered into for their own interest, and brought in all their worn-out beasts, to the disgust of the Chinese officers. On appealing, however, to the emperor in 773, they were instructed not to trouble themselves about the quality of the horses, but to pay a fixed price in silk for every animal, and take their chance of finding a few available as cavalry mounts: an arrangement with which the Tatars were graciously pleased to rest contented for a while.1

By the accession of Te-tsong, the ninth Emperor of this dynasty (779-802 A.D.), open rebellion had been suppressed, and his reign began peaceably and in good hope. He ordered exact registers to be kept of all that was brought into the imperial treasuries to check waste and peculation, and he won great popularity by establishing a special tribunal to hear appeals from the people who considered themselves wronged by any of the officers of State. He also revived the legendary use of the drum, by which those who had vainly sought to obtain justice elsewhere made their appeal resound in the ears of the emperor himself. But the time for this primitive remedy was found to have gone by, and so many frivolous cases were brought before the emperor that he ordered all causes to be first considered by the new tribunal and only those of importance finally referred to himself. The same edict forestalled the more stringent prohibitions of Hien-tsong, by making it illegal to erect any new temples, or receive fresh candidates for Buddhist orders.

In the year 780 A.D. the census returns showed an increase of about a million families since the disasters which were at their height in 764; the army at the same period consisted of 868,000 effective soldiers, and the revenue is given at 20,557,000 measures of grain,3 and 30,898,000 taels; but internal peace was not long maintained; local governors drove the people to revolt by oppressive taxes, and when the revenue fell off it was impossible to pay the soldiers, who were ready to follow any leader who offered them a chance of plunder. In 784 the Emperor proclaimed a general amnesty, and in one of the penitent manifestoes, to which Chinese. sovereigns are addicted, he takes to himself the blame for the misdeeds of all his subordinates and appeals to them to help him to behave better in future. The curious document served its purpose for a time, peace was restored, the harvests were abundant, and the emperor allowed himself to believe that the people must be prosperous at last. In 787 A.D., complaints were made of a dearth of horses, animals which seem never to have been really naturalized in China. In 793 a tax was for the first time levied on tea.

1 De Mailla, vi. p. 311. An abridged history of the Tang Dynasty, translated by P. Gaubil, supplements De Mailla for this period.

2 Journ. As., 1836, p. 457.

8 Of 100 lbs. each.

The reign of Hien-tsong (805-820) began with virtuous protestations that "not a piece of silk is used in the palace without being recorded," 1 whereby he was enabled to use the more liberality in dealing out grain to the distressed; but later in the reign he is accused both of wasting his treasures in lavish gifts to unworthy favourites, and of accepting large gifts (one of a million pieces of silk) from officers, who it was notorious could only have obtained them by oppressing the people. This reign is also memorable for the revival of the political power of the eunuchs, with results to the dynasty like those of a similar development in the last century of the Han rule. In 809 A.D., an eunuch was appointed general, in defiance of public opinion, and the division between the officers of the interior, and those of the exterior, began to assume importance. The eunuchs succeeded in nominating a majority of the officers of State, and resented as an interference with their rights the attempt of Wen-tsong (826– 840 A.D.) to promote meritorious officers for their services without money or interest.

In 828 the subject for an essay given at the public examination was that of duty and fidelity to princes. The most brilliant composition sent in was an elaborate attack on the eunuchs, and an appeal to the emperor to suppress their brigandage and cruelty. The examiners, while privately loud in the praise of this piece, did not dare to select its author, and recommended twenty-two others, who were at once provided with places. The twenty-two memorialized the emperor against the injustice, but without obtaining redress for their daring comrade.2

In 834 A.D., the Emperor complained that the dissensions of the nobles gave him more trouble than the raids of Tatars or Tibetans. He attempted to reduce the power of the chamberlains by degrees, but with so little success, that in 835 he joined in a kind of conspiracy with two officers to have them massacred. The plot failed, apparently because the officers in command of the palace guard were not in the secret; and the eunuchs' party was so strengthened by the abortive attack, that they compelled the emperor to decree that henceforward all affairs should be discussed and decided in their tribunal (that of the interior), and the rest of the Government reduced to purely ministerial functions.

Between 839 and 845, the census returns showed a falling off in the population of over 40,000 families, which caused some surprise, as there had been no war, famine, or pestilence to account for the loss. In the eighteenth reign of the dynasty, disorders prevailed everywhere; a popular minister was poisoned by the eunuchs; rebellion was rife, and popular subscriptions had to be invited to provide funds for the imperial troops. Loyang was captured without resistance by a rebel leader, and, though it is said that the inhabitants were not molested, a few years later the once rich and populous city and suburbs are described as ruined and deserted.

The corruption and insolence of the eunuchs still increased; in 886 A.D. 2 Zb., p. 453.

1 De Mailla, vi. p. 381.

one of them attempted to obtain control of some salt mines, which under honest management were bringing in a large revenue to the State, and on the refusal of the governor to surrender his charge, an accusation of disloyalty was brought against him by the eunuch's adopted son. From henceforward to the close of the dynasty, the palace officials fought vigorously, and with ability worthy of a better cause, in defence of their own disastrous supremacy, and they would probably have succeeded in holding their own against domestic rivals for imperial favour, if their parasitic clutch had not once more proved fatal to the imperial house, to which they clung and which buried them in its fall.

Formerly the eunuchs had been content with personal influence within the palace, and the opportunities of enriching themselves so afforded. For them to form a political party shows the weakness of other interests, as well as the Chinese aptitude for association under the least encouraging conditions. It was said on one occasion, when it had been attempted to weaken them by detaching some from the cabal or sowing dissension among them, that they all held together, and that if one was attacked, the others would all sink their differences and come to his assistance. Such instances of esprit de corps, apart from family ties, are of course not unknown, and the partisanship of a celibate clergy, of mercenary troops, or a mixed society like the Knights Templars, is not altogether unlike the spirit of these Chinese officers of the Interior. Politically their influence would naturally differ from that of outside politicians, as the temper of the permanent staff in a Government office differs from that of the responsible statesmen from time to time placed at the head of the department.

But to make themselves formidable beyond the palace as well as in it, it was indispensable for them to obtain adherents outside their own body; and about this time the chief eunuchs set themselves to strengthen their party by adopting young men of promise as their sons, whose promotion they were of course able to ensure, and who, as great officers or generals, were entirely devoted to their "fathers' " interests. In 891 there were as many as 600 of these adopted sons, most of whom held office. The adherence of other officers and troops, and especially of the palace guards, was secured by largesses, while the soldiery were instigated to mutiny against hostile nobles.

The climax was reached in 900 A.D., when the emperor was imprisoned in his own palace by the eunuchs. He was released by force of arms the next year, but even then the proposal to exterminate the rebels was rejected on the ground of the immense number of them employed about the palace. They thought themselves powerful enough to refuse all offers, even of honourable employment, which would take them away from the court; but in 903 the coalition between a successful general and a loyal minister prevailed. An edict was published abolishing the custom of reporting affairs of State, first to an "inner tribunal" of eunuchs, who were, it was claimed, able to discuss them more intimately with the emperor, and therefore decide them better; though, in fact, the only decision taken was often to keep the

whole matter from the emperor's knowledge. The ministers were now required to report direct to the emperor himself, and the emperor's new masters demanded the abolition of all the "interior tribunals," and the recall of the provincial inspectors employed by the eunuchs to terrorize the local officials.

As in the days of the Warring States, local governors seized provinces for themselves, only asking formally for the emperor's sanction to the fait accompli. The country was desolated by their private wars, and these revolts too were laid to the eunuchs' charge, since they were caused by impatience of the authority exercised by such unfit menials. After this the massacre began, and thousands were put to death; only a few boys and old men were spared to sweep the courts of the palace, and the emperor's orders were conveyed directly to the nobles; but so deeply rooted had the habit of employing go-betweens become, that women were employed in the mechanical office of receiving the memorials to be handed to the emperor, and of transmitting his replies to the ministers.

The emperor had long been treated only as a puppet, the charge of whose person gave a certain advantage, in the game of civil war, to the leader who secured it. The chiefs of the movement against the eunuchs had fallen out amongst themselves, and in 904 A.D. the emperor's gaoler, the general Tchu-wen, put him and his family to death, sparing only one younger son, whom he proclaimed emperor. Then follow massacres of the best remaining nobles, and as the patriotic clubs or secret societies, which had tried to stem the disorders of the last reign or to pave the way for a new order, had been stamped out, no further resistance was possible. The titular monarch abdicated in favour of his father's murderer, and so the dynasty ends; but the usurper was not held to have succeeded by the appointment of heaven, as his elder brother condemned his disloyalty and refused to accept rank or honours at his hands.

During the Tang Dynasty the intercourse between China and other considerable powers was not only closer but conducted on more nearly equal terms than at any other time. In 632 the ancient settlement of Khotan, or the "breast of the world," reappears in Chinese history as sending an ambassador, while the account of the people given by our Chinese authorities is still strangely sympathetic. "They understand rites and justice, are respectful, gentle, studious, and ingenious," 1 possessing, that is, just those qualities in the cultivation of which the Chinese esteem their own superiority to lie, and for the want of which they pity and despise all the outer barbarians with whom they are brought in contact. The men of Khotan, it was reported, even went beyond the Chinese in ceremoniousness, for they were said formerly to put a knee to the ground in greeting each other. Hiouen-thsang speaks of their capital as a city which no one has been able to capture, and notices the decorous and equitable manners of 1 Hist. de la ville de Khotan. A. Remusat, p. 32 ff.

the people, their courteous and law-abiding temper, their love of music and dancing, and their skill in weaving fine felt and taffetas.

The neighbouring kingdom of Tibet is first mentioned in the annals for 634 A.D. as sending ambassadors with tribute and being able to raise a large and formidable army. The first conquests attempted by it are over the petty kingdoms of the West, and in 669 the intercourse with China is still of a friendly character, by which the Tibetan envoy profited to give a glowing description of the simple virtue and patriotism of his people. But half a century later, when in reply to an embassy from Cashmere, the Chinese Government had sent to assist Cashgar and the neighbouring States against the troops of the Caliphs, the Tibetans formed an alliance with the Turks against China. The relations were, however, more often friendly than not; and in 731, when the question of sending copies of the Chinese Classics to the king of Tibet was discussed, it was decided not to withhold from him those means of spiritual improvement. The profit thence derived must have been small, for in 787 A.D. China was actually induced to seek alliances in Yunnan and India with the Caliph and the Uigours against the Tibetans, whose incursions were felt in Shensi and the settlements north of the desert as well as in Sz'chuen, till peace was restored in 821 A.D., by a treaty, which is said to be still preserved at Lhassa.

Appeals from Persia and India for help against the Saracens were addressed to China more than once in the 7th and 8th centuries; and the heir apparent to the Persian throne resided for a time as hostage at the court of China. An embassy was actually sent from Constantinople in the time of Leo the Isaurian to the great power of the East. In 798 the kotow was performed-not without reluctance-by an embassy from a Caliph Galun, but a politic mandarin in Central Asia received Turkish princes according to their own rites, and rebuked the Chinese officers who ridiculed all strange usages as barbarous. But for the physical structure of the continent, which isolates India and China, while freezing Tibet and nomadizing Tartary, the spread of Arab conquest round or across the desert would have reached a point near enough to bring about a collision with China. As it was, a general impetus was given to foreign travel and foreign commerce; and while the court was filled every year by strangers coming peaceably from regions that Han-wu-ti had vainly endeavoured to subdue by force of arms, colonies of traders established themselves in the southern ports, as well as along the continental trade routes.

In 648 A.D. a kingdom hitherto unknown sent ambassadors, who are described as tall, martial men with red hair and blue eyes; and they had been preceded by messengers from a kingdom in the far North-west, where the days are long and the nights short, and not dark, even when the sun has set, because of the twilight that never leaves the horizon. About the year 700 A.D. a market for strangers was opened at Canton, and an

1 The famous Harun al Raschid, 786-808 A.D., correspondent also of Charlemagne. Gaubil's Histoire des Thang, 798 a.d. : Mém, conc. les Chinois, vol. xvi. p. 144.