saying, "Would you quarrel with your neighbor
for a horse?" Tonghou soon after sent to demand of Mehe one of his
wives. Mehe again complied, saying to his friends, "Would you have me
undertake a war for the sake of a woman?" Tonghou, encouraged by these
results of his insolence, next invaded Mehe's dominions. The patient
chief, now fully prepared, took the field, and in a brief time had
dispersed Tonghou's army, captured and executed him, and made himself
the principal chief of the clans.

This able leader, having punished his insolent desert foe, soon led his
warlike followers into China, took possession of many fertile
districts, extended his authority to the banks of the Hoang-ho, and sent
plundering expeditions into the rich provinces beyond. In the war that
followed the emperor himself took command of his troops, and, too
readily believing the stories of the weakness of the Tartar army told by
his scouts, resolved on an immediate attack. One of his generals warned
him that "in war we should never despise an enemy," but the emperor
refused to listen, and marched confidently on, at the head of his
advance guard, to find the enemy.

He found him to his sorrow. Mehe had skilfully concealed his real
strength for the purpose of drawing the emperor into a trap, and now, by
a well-directed movement, cut off the rash leader from his main army and
forced him to take refuge in the city of Pingching. Here, vastly
outnumbered and short of provisions, the emperor found himself in a
desperate strait, from which he could not escape by force of arms.

In this dilemma one of his officers suggested a possible method of
release. This was that, as a last chance, the most beautiful virgin in
the city should be sent as a peace-offering to the desert chief. Kaotsou
accepted the plan,--nothing else presenting itself,--and the maiden was
chosen and sent. She went willingly, it is said, and used her utmost
arts to captivate the Tartar chief. She succeeded, and Mehe, after
forcing Kaotsou to sign an ignominious treaty, suffered his prize to
escape, and retired to the desert, well satisfied with the rich spoils
he had won. Kaotsou was just enough to reward the general to whose
warning he had refused to listen, but the scouts who had misled him paid
dearly for their false reports.

This event seems to have inspired Kaotsou with an unconquerable fear of
his desert foe, who was soon back again, pillaging the borders with
impunity and making