At this date the literary glory of the Sungs had hardly begun to grow dim. Ma Tuan-lin carried on his voluminous work through all the troublous times, and at his death bequeathed to the world “The Antiquarian Researches,” in three hundred and forty-eight books, which have made his name famous to every student of Chinese literature. Plane and spherical trigonometry were both known to the Chinese by this time, and mathematics generally began to receive a larger share of the attention of scholars. It was also under the Mongol dynasty that the novel first made its appearance, a fact pointing to a definite social advancement, if only in the direction of luxurious reading. Among other points may be mentioned a great influx of Mohammedans, and consequent spread of their religion about this time.
The Grand Canal was completed by Kublai Khan, and thus Cambaluc, the Peking of those days, was united by inland water communication with the extreme south of China. The work seems to have been begun by the Emperor Yang Ti seven centuries previously, but the greater part of the undertaking was done in the reign of Kublai Khan. Hardly so successful was the same emperor’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 of the Japanese themselves, suggests a very obvious comparison with the object and fate of the Spanish Armada.
The age of the Sungs carries us from a hundred years previous to the Norman Conquest down to about the death of Edward III. It was the epoch of Venetian commerce and maritime supremacy; and of the first great lights in Italian literature, Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio[Boccaccio]. English, French, German and Spanish literature had yet to develop, only one or two of the earlier writers, such as Chaucer, having yet appeared on the scene.
The founder of the Ming dynasty rose from starvation and obscurity to occupy the throne of the Chinese empire. In his youth he sought refuge from the pangs of hunger in a Buddhist monastery; later on he became a soldier of fortune, and joined the ranks of the insurgents who were endeavoring to shake off the alien yoke of the Mongols. His own great abilities carried him on. He speedily obtained the leadership of a large army, with which he totally destroyed the power of the Mongols, and finally established a new Chinese dynasty over the thirteen provinces into which the empire was divided. He fixed his capitol at Nanking, where it remained until the accession of the third emperor, the conqueror of Cochin China and Tonquin, who transferred the seat of government back to Peking, the capitol of the Mongols, from which it has never since been removed.
CHINESE CANNONIERS.
For nearly three hundred years, from 1370 to 1650, the Mings swayed the destinies of China. Their rule was not one of uninterrupted peace, either within or without the empire; but it was on the whole a wise and popular rule, and the period which it covers is otherwise notable for immense literary activity and for considerable refinement in manners and material civilization.
From without, the Mings were constantly harrassed by the encroachments of the Tartars; while from within the ceaseless intriguing of the eunuchs was a fertile cause of trouble.
ANCIENT CHINESE ARCH.