such daring inroads that the capital itself was not
safe from their assaults. Instead of trusting to his army, the emperor
now bought off his enemy in a more discreditable method than before,
concluding a treaty in which he acknowledged Mehe as an independent
ruler and gave him his daughter in marriage.

This weakness led to revolts in the empire, Kaotsou being forced again
to take the field against his foes. But, worn out with anxiety and
misfortune, his end soon approached, his death-bed being disturbed by
palace intrigues concerning the succession, in which one of his favorite
wives sought to have her son selected as the heir. Kaotsou, not heeding
her petition, chose his eldest son as the heir-apparent, and soon after
died. The tragic results of these intrigues for the crown will be seen
in the following tale.

[Illustration: Reproduced by permission of The Philadelphia Museums.
AN ITINERANT COBBLER. CANTON, CHINA.]

_THE EMPRESS POISONER OF CHINA._

About two centuries before Christ a woman came to the head of affairs in
China whose deeds recall the worst of those which have long added infamy
to the name of Lucretia Borgia. As regards the daughter of the Borgias
tradition has lied: she was not the merciless murderess of fancy and
fame. But there is no mitigation to the story of the empress Liuchi,
who, with poison as her weapon, made herself supreme dictator of the
great Chinese realm.

The death of the great emperor Kaotsou left two aspirants for the
throne, the princes Hoeiti, son of Liuchi, and Chow Wang, son of the
empress Tsi. There was a palace plot to raise Chow Wang to the throne,
but it was quickly foiled by the effective means used by the ambitious
Liuchi to remove the rivals from the path of her son. Poison did the
work. The empress Tsi unsuspiciously quaffed the fatal bowl, which was
then sent to Chow Wang, who innocently drank the same perilous draught.
Whatever may have been the state of the conspiracy, this vigorous method
of the queen-mother brought it to a sudden end, and Hoeiti ascended the
throne.

The young emperor seemingly did not approve of ascending to power over
the dead bodies of his opponents. He reproved his mother for her cruel
deed, and made a public statement that he had taken no part in the act.
Yet under this public demonstration secret influences seem to have been
at work within the palace walls, for the imperial poisoner retained her
power at court and her influence