deration, held his army firmly in hand, no
outrages were permitted, and the lives of all the Mongols who submitted
were spared.

The capture of Peking and the flight of Chunti marked the end of the
empire of the Mongols in China. War with them still went on, but the
country at large was freed from their yoke, after nearly a century of
submission to Tartar rule. Elsewhere the vast empire of Genghis still
held firm. Russia lay under the vassalage of the khans. Central and
Southern Asia trembled at the Mongol name. And at the very time that the
Chinese were rising against and expelling their invaders, Timour, or
Tamerlane, the second great conqueror of his race, was setting out from
Central Asia on that mighty career of victory that emulated the deeds
of the founder of the Mongol empire. Years afterwards Timour, after
having drowned Southern Asia in a sea of blood, returned to Samarcand,
where, in 1415, he ordered the collection of a great army for the
invasion of China, with which he proposed to revenge the wrongs of his
compatriots. The army was gathered; it began its march; the mountains of
Khokand were reached and passed; threats of the coming danger reached
and frightened China; but on the march the grim old conqueror died, and
his great expedition came to an end. All that reached China to represent
the mighty Timour was his old war-horse, which was sent as a present
four years afterwards when an embassy from Central Asia reached Peking.

With the fall of the Mongols in China the native rule was restored, but
not with it the old dynasty. Choo, the conqueror, and a man whose
ability and nobleness of mind had been remarkably displayed, was
everywhere looked upon as the Heaven-chosen successor to the throne, the
boy who had begun his career as a penniless orphan having risen through
pure power of intellect and loftiness of soul to the highest position in
the realm. He was crowned emperor under the title of Hongwou, and
instituted the Ming dynasty, which held the throne of China until three
centuries afterwards, when another strange turn in the tide of affairs
again overthrew Chinese rule and brought a new dynasty of Tartar
emperors to the throne.

As regards the reign of Hongwou, it may here be said that he proved one
of the ablest monarchs China ever knew, ruling his people with a just
and strong hand, and, by the aid of his able general Suta, baffling
every effort of the Mongols to regain their lost dominion. Luxury