is now North Chosen and the eastern section of the valleys of the Sungari and the Hurka in Manchuria. "Corea" is doubtless a corruption of Kaoli.

The State of Fuyu spread over the plains of the Nonni and into the western valley of the Sungari and centered about where the present cities of Changchunthe northern terminus of the South Manchuria Railway -and Nungan stand. Unlike the Kaoli, the people of Fuyu were farmers.

These two states maintained their supremacy for many years, until toward the close of the Han Dynasty. The Fuyu went first, and then the Kaoli were crushed by the aggressive imperialism of the Tang Dynasty of China. On the wreck of the two states rose the Kingdom of Pohai, which marked the triumphal entry of a northern tribe called Kitan into the plains of Manchuria. The Kingdom of Pohai extended its sway from the Yalu valley on the east up along the valley of the Sungari and its tributaries past the present Mukden (which in those days was known under the name of Shenchou), and took in the old state of Fuyu around Changchun and Nungan. The Pohai lasted about 300 years. With the decline of the Kingdom of Pohai the old Manchu stock came again to power under the name of the Kingdom of Kin, the Golden. It was some 800 years ago. With the coming of the Kingdom of Gold Manchuria entered into the practical politics of continental Asia as one of the leading actors.

KINGDOM OF KIN

From its base at Paicheng near the present city of Harbin the Kin extended its domain eastward into north Chosen. To the west and south it overran the old state of Pohai of the Kitan. The Chinese under the Sung Dynasty entered into a secret understanding with the

Kin-whom, by the by, the Celestials had ridiculed and despised as northern barbarians-to destroy the declining Kitan power of the Pohai Kingdom.

This was not the first time the foxy method of Chinese diplomacy played such tricks. It was one of the barefaced examples of it, however. Long before this the Chinese had entered into the intimate alliance of brother states with the Kitan under blood oath. It was due to this alliance with the Kitan that China had escaped invasion from the northwest and otherwise had gained a great deal of prestige and actual advantage. Now dastardly betrayal of the brother state did not seem to weigh heavily on the Sung Dynasty.

The Chinese secret understanding with the Kin was that they would co-operate in destroying the Kitan. The bargain was that China was to get the seventeen prefectures in the Liao valley, but under no condition were the Kin to push their conquering march south of the Eternal Wall. Because the Chinese exacted this promise from the Kin not to march south of the Wall, the Chinese on their part agreed to take the southern capital of the Kitan state. But a battlefield is not always as smooth as a Chinese diplomat's tongue. When the Kin forces made good their part of the bargain the Chinese were found powerless to take the southern capital of the Kitans according to promise.

The Chinese, therefore, had to break their part of the bargain and ask, demand hysterically, the immediate aid of the Kin, who marched south to assist the Chinese in taking the southern capital city. In other words, the Chinese were forced to invite the Kin to make the southern entry which it was particularly stipulated that the northern barbarians should never do. The Chinese, not for the first time, became the victims of their own double-crossing cleverness.

In an incredibly short time the Kin forces drove every

thing before them in their southern descent. They captured the capital of the Sung emperor and made their victorious way across the great Yangtze River into Kiangning and Hanchow. The Kin were the masters of the northern half of the Chinese Empire. The Kin capital was moved from near the present city of Harbin south to Peking.

Here was the first chapter in the "barbarization" of the Central Bloom. Here out in the Far East the Kin warriors were tracing the same historic trail which the Visigoths and the Vandals had tread into the Eternal City some seven hundred years before them. In the China of the Sung Dynasty the continental culture of Asia had come to its apogee. Last year I wandered through the rooms of the Palace in the Forbidden City of Peking where the art treasures of the Imperial collection were displayed. There were many works of art from the Sung Dynasty there. The perfection achieved by them was nothing short of miraculous. It was difficult indeed to conceive how the ablest artists of these our boasted days can come within a hundred miles of the pictorial and the glyptic art attained by the craftsmen of the Sung period whose handiwork was before us.

But did the Kin "barbarize" the Sung culture?

Here History has a curious and happy surprise: it was the Sung culture of China which conquered the conquerors. Within less than thirty-eight years, it was said, the Kin conquerors actually forgot even their own primitive language. They surrendered body and soul to the soft lure and the glittering magic of the Chinese culture. The ease and luxury of the Sung civilization softened the hardy warriors of the victor race with astounding rapidity. In little more than ten years after the founding of the Kingdom of Kin they had brought the northern half of China under their banners. And almost in as short a time they were completely overwhelmed by the deadly