important risings of princes; in
some of them the Toba had a hand. They hoped by supporting one or
another of the pretenders to gain overlordship over the whole of the
southern empire. In these struggles in the south the Hsiao family,
thanks mainly to General Hsiao Tao-ch'eng, steadily gained in power,
especially as the family was united by marriage with the imperial house.
In 477 Hsiao Tao-ch'eng finally had the emperor killed by an accomplice,
the son of a shamaness; he set a boy on the throne and made himself
regent. Very soon after this the boy emperor and all the members of the
imperial family were murdered, and Hsiao Tao-ch'eng created the
"Southern Ch'i" dynasty (479-501). Once more the remaining followers of
the deposed dynasty fled northward to the Toba, and at once fighting
between Toba and the south began again.

This fighting ended with a victory for the Toba and with the final
establishment of the Toba in the new capital of Loyang. South China was
heavily defeated again and again, but never finally conquered. There
were intervals of peace. In the years between 480 and 490 there was less
disorder in the south, at all events in internal affairs. Princes were
more often appointed to governorships, and the influence of the cliques
was thus weakened. In spite of this, a stable regime was not built up,
and in 494 a prince rose against the youthful emperor. This prince, with
the help of his clique including the Ch'en family, which later attained
importance, won the day, murdered the emperor, and became emperor
himself. All that is recorded about him is that he fought unsuccessfully
against the Toba, and that he had the whole of his own family killed
out of fear that one of its members might act exactly as he had done.
After his death there were conflicts between the emperor's few remaining
relatives; in these the Toba again had a hand. The victor was a person
named Hsiao Yen; he removed the reigning emperor in the usual way and
made himself emperor. Although he belonged to the imperial family, he
altered the name of the dynasty, and reigned from 502 as the first
emperor of the "Liang dynasty".

[Illustration: 8 Detail from the Buddhist cave-reliefs of Lungmen. _From
a print in the author's possession_.]

[Illustration: 9 Statue of Mi-lo (Maitreya, the next future Buddha), in
the 'Great Buddha Temple' at Chengting (Hopei). _Photo H.
Hammer-Morrisson_.]

4 _The Liang dynasty_ (A.D. 502-556)

The fighting wit