n was taken, and the heroic Wen T'ien-hsiang
was captured through the treachery of a subordinate. In 1279 the last
stronghold of the Sungs was beleaguered by land and sea. Shut up in
their ships which they formed into a compact mass and fortified with
towers and breastworks, the patriots, deprived of fresh water, harassed
by attacks during the day and by fire-ships at night, maintained the
unequal struggle for a month. But when, after a hard day's fighting, the
Sung commander found himself left with only sixteen vessels, he fled up
a creek. His retreat was cut off; and then at length despairing of his
country, he bade his wife and children throw themselves overboard. He
himself, taking the young emperor on his back, followed their example,
and thus brought the great Sung dynasty to an end.

The grandeur of Kublai Khan's reign may be gathered from the pages
of Marco Polo, in which, too, allusion is made to Bayan, the skilful
general to whom so much of the military success of the Mongols was due.
Korea, Burma, and Annam became dependencies of China, and continued to
send tribute as such even up to quite modern times. Hardly so successful
was Kublai Khan's huge naval expedition against Japan, which, in
point of number of ships and men, the insular character of the enemy's
country, the chastisement intended, and the total loss of the fleet in
a storm, aided by the stubborn resistance offered by the Japanese
themselves--suggests a very obvious comparison with the object and fate
of the Spanish Armada.

Among the more peaceful developments of Mongol rule at this epoch may
be mentioned the introduction of a written character for the Mongol
language. It was the work of a Tibetan priest, named Baschpa, and was
based upon the written language of a nation known as the Ouigours (akin
to the Turks), which had in turn been based upon Syraic, and is written
in vertical lines connected by ligatures. Similarly, until 1599 there
was no written Manchu language; a script, based upon the Mongol, was
then devised, also in vertical lines or columns like Chinese, but read
from left to right.

Under Kublai Khan the calendar was revised, and the Imperial Academy was
opened; the Yellow River was explored to its source, and bank-notes were
made current. The Emperor himself was an ardent Buddhist, but he took
care that proper honours were paid to Confucius; on the other hand, he
issued orders that all Taoist literature of the baser kind was to be