Vouti failed to lead his
all-conquering army against the desert foe, and when, in a later year,
the steppes were invaded, the imperial army found the warlike tribes
ready for the onset. The war continued for twenty years more, with
varied fortune, and when, after fifty years of almost incessant warfare
with the nomad warriors, Vouti laid down his sword with his life, the
Tartars were still free and defiant. Yet China had learned a new way of
dealing with the warlike tribes, and won a wide reputation in Asia,
while her frontiers were much more firmly held.

The long reign of the great emperor had not been confined to wars with
the Tartars. In his hands the empire of China was greatly widened by
extensions in the west. The large provinces of Yunnan, Szchuen, and
Fuhkien were conquered and added to the Chinese state, while other
independent kingdoms were made vassal states. And "thereby hangs a tale"
which we have next to tell.

Far west in Northern China dwelt a barbarian people named the Yuchi,
numerous and prosperous, yet no match in war for their persistent
enemies the Tartars of the steppes. In the year 165 B.C. they were so
utterly beaten in an invasion of the Heung-nou that they were forced to
quit their homes and seek safety and freedom at a distance. Far to the
west they went, where they coalesced with those warlike tribes of
Central Asia who afterwards became the bane of the empire of Rome.

The fate of this people seemed a bitter one to Vouti, when it was told
to his sympathetic ear, and, in the spirit in which King Arthur sent out
his Round Table Knights on romantic quests, he turned to his council and
asked if any among them was daring enough to follow the track of these
wanderers and bring them back to the land they had lost. One of them,
Chang Keen, volunteered to take up the difficult quest and to traverse
Asia from end to end in search of the fugitive tribes.

This knight of romance was to experience many adventures before he
should return to his native land. Attended by a hundred devoted
companions, he set out, but in endeavoring to cross the country of the
Heung-nou the whole party were made prisoners and held in captivity for
ten long years. Finally, after a bitter experience of desert life, the
survivors made their escape, and, with a courage that had outlived their
years of thraldom, resumed their search for the vanished tribes. Many
western countries were visited in the search, and much strange k