hoisted the flag of rebellion
against the emperor.

Lieouyu had chosen his substitute well. Conveying his army by water as
far as possible, Wangchinon, on leaving his ships, ordered them to be
cast adrift. To the soldiers he made the following Napoleonic oration:

"We have neither supplies nor provisions, and the swift waters of the
Weiho bear from us the ships in which we came. Soldiers of the empire,
only two things lie before us. Let us beat the enemy, and we will
regain a hundredfold all we have lost, besides covering ourselves with
glory. If the enemy beat us, there is no escape; death will be the lot
of us all. To conquer or to die,--that is our destiny. You have heard;
prepare to march against the enemy."

With so resolute a commander victory was almost assured. Changnan,
vigorously assailed, quickly surrendered, and the captive prince of Chin
was executed as a rebel taken in arms. Lieouyu, who had been winning
victories elsewhere, now arrived, having marched in all haste to the aid
of his valorous lieutenant. Praising Wangchinon for the brilliancy of
his achievement, the commander was about putting his forces on the march
for new victorious deeds, when peremptory orders recalled him to the
capital, and his career of conquest was for the time checked. The
absence of the strong hand was quickly felt. The rebels rose again in
force, Changnan was lost and with it all the conquests Lieouyu had made,
and the forces of the empire were everywhere driven back in defeat.

Meanwhile Lieouyu, at the capital, found himself in the midst of
political complications that called for decisive measures. The weakness
of the emperor troubled him, while he felt a deep resentment at what he
considered ill treatment on the part of the throne. He had, as Prince of
Song, been raised to the third rank among the princes of the realm, but
he thought his deeds entitled him to rank among the first; while the
success of the rebels in the absence of his master had redoubled his
reputation among the people.

Ganti, the emperor, was destined to experience the dangerous
consequences of raising a subject to such a height and yet leaving him
below the rank to which he aspired. Lieouyu, now all-powerful in
military circles, and virtually master of the realm, caused the emperor
to be strangled, and named his brother Kongti as successor to the
throne. But the ambition of the shoemaker's boy had not reached its
summit. This was but a provisional st