part from his
vegetarian diet and eat eggs. When he was told that his capital was
taken he merely said, "I obtained the kingdom through my own efforts
and through me it has been lost. So I need not complain."

Hou-Ching proceeded to the palace, but,[638] overcome with awe, knelt
down before Wu-Ti who merely said, "I am afraid you must be fatigued
by the trouble it has cost you to destroy my kingdom." Hou-Ching was
ashamed and told his officers that he had never felt such fear
before and would never dare to see Wu-Ti again. Nevertheless, the aged
Emperor was treated with indignity and soon died of starvation. His
end, though melancholy, was peaceful compared with that in store for
Hou-Ching who, after two years of fighting and murdering, assumed the
imperial title, but immediately afterwards was defeated and slain. The
people ate his body in the streets of Nanking and his own wife is said
to have swallowed mouthfuls of his flesh.

One of Wu-Ti's sons, Yuan-Ti, who reigned from 552 to 555, inherited
his father's temper and fate with this difference that he was a
Taoist, not a Buddhist. He frequently resided in the temples of that
religion, studied its scriptures and expounded them to his people. A
great scholar, he had accumulated 140,000 volumes, but when it was
announced to him in his library that the troops of Wei were marching
on his capital, he yielded without resistance and burnt his books,
saying that they had proved of no use in this extremity.

This alternation of imperial patronage in the south may have been the
reason why Wen Hsuan Ti, the ruler of Northern Ch'i,[639] and for the
moment perhaps the most important personage in China, summoned
Buddhist and Taoist priests to a discussion in 555. Both religions
could not be true, he said, and one must be superfluous. After hearing
the arguments of both he decided in favour of Buddhism and ordered the
Taoists to become bonzes on pain of death. Only four refused and were
executed.

Under the short Ch'en dynasty (557-589) the position of Buddhism
continued favourable. The first Emperor, a mild and intelligent
sovereign, though circumstances obliged him to put a great many people
out of the way, retired to a monastery after reigning for two years.
But in the north there was a temporary reaction. Wu-Ti, of the
Northern Chou dynasty,[640] first of all defined the precedence of the
three religions as Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism and then, in 575,
prohibited the two