that, as tradition has it "he made horses
and oxen out of wood."

Entrusted by his dying master with the education of the young prince,
he has left two papers full of wise counsels which afford no little
help in drawing the line between fact and fiction. Unquestionably
Chu-koh Liang was the first man of his age in intellect and in such
arts and sciences as were known to his times. Yet no one invention
can be pointed to as having been certainly derived from Chu-koh
Liang. The author of the above-mentioned romance, who lived as
late as the end of the thirteenth century, constantly speaks of
his use of gunpowder either to terrify the enemy or to serve for
signals; but it is never used to throw a cannon-ball. It probably was
known to the Chinese of that date, as the Arab speaks of gunpowder
under the designation of "Chinese snow," meaning doubtless the
saltpetre which forms a leading ingredient. The Chinese had been
dabbling in alchemy for many centuries, and it is scarcely possible
that they
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should have failed to hit on some such explosive. It is, however,
believed on good authority that they never made use of cannon in
war until the beginning of the fifteenth century.

There are, however, three other inventions or improvements of the
known arts, which deserve notice in this connection, namely, the
"three Ps"--pen, paper and printing--all preeminently instruments
of peaceful culture. The pen in China is a hair pencil resembling
a paint-brush. It was invented by Mung-tien in the third century
B. c. Paper was invented by Tsai Lun, 100 B. c., and printing by
Fungtao in the tenth century of the present era. What is meant
by printing in this case is, however, merely the substitution of
wood for stone, the Chinese having been for ages in the habit of
taking rubbings from stone inscriptions. It was not long before they
divided the slab into movable characters and earned for themselves
the honour of having anticipated Gutenberg and Faust. Their divisible
types were never in general use, however, and block printing continues
in vogue; but Western methods are rapidly supplanting both.

The three states were reunited under the Tsin dynasty, 265 A. D.
This lasted for a century and a half and then, after a succession
of fifteen emperors, went down in a sea of anarchy, from the froth
of which arose more than half a score of contending factions, among
which four were sufficiently prominent to make for themselves a
place