ortance and vanity.

"Go and tell your emperor," added Genghis Khan, "that I am a sovereign
ruler, and that I will never acknowledge him as my master."

When the messenger returned with this defiant answer, Yong-tsi was
very much enraged, and immediately began to prepare for war. Genghis
Khan also at once commenced his preparations. He sent envoys to the
leading khans who occupied the territories outside the wall inviting
them to join him. He raised a great army, and put the several
divisions of it under the charge of his ablest generals. Yong-tsi
raised a great army too. The historians say that it amounted to three
hundred thousand men. He put this army under the command of a great
general named Hujaku, and ordered him to advance with it to the
northward, so as to intercept the army of Genghis Khan on its way, and
to defend the wall and the fortresses on the outside of it from his
attacks.

In the campaign which ensued Genghis Khan was most successful. The
Monguls took possession of a great many towns and fortresses beyond
the wall, and every victory that they gained made the tribes and
nations that inhabited those provinces more and more disposed to join
them. Many of them revolted against the Chinese authority, and turned
to their side. One of these was a chieftain so powerful that he
commanded an army of one hundred thousand men. In order to bind
himself solemnly to the covenant which he was to make with Genghis
Khan, he ascended a mountain in company with the envoy and with others
who were to witness the proceedings, and there performed the ceremony
customary on such occasions. The ceremony consisted of sacrificing a
white horse and a black ox, and then breaking an arrow, at the same
time pronouncing an oath by which he bound himself under the most
solemn sanctions to be faithful to Genghis Khan.

To reward the prince for this act of adhesion to his cause, Genghis
Khan made him king over all that portion of the country, and caused
him to be every where so proclaimed. This encouraged a great many
other khans and chieftains to come over to his side; and at length one
who had the command of one of the gates of the great wall, and of the
fortress which defended it, joined him. By this means Genghis Khan
obtained access to the interior of the Chinese dominions, and Yong-tsi
and his great general Hujaku became seriously alarmed.

At length, after various marchings and counter-marchings, Genghis Khan
learned that Hu