This is how the writer calls up in imagination the ghastly scene of long ago:-- “And now the cruel spear does its work, the startled sand blinds the combatants locked fast in the death-struggle; while hill and vale and stream groan beneath the flash and crash of arms. By and by, the chill cold shades of night fall upon them, knee-deep in snow, beards stiff with ice. The hardy vulture seeks its nest: the strength of the war-horse is broken. Clothes are of no avail; hands frost-bitten, flesh cracked. Even nature lends her aid to the Tartars, contributing a deadly blast, the better to complete the work of slaughter begun. Ambulance waggons block the way: our men succumb to flank attacks. Their officers have surrendered: their general is dead. The river is choked with corpses to its topmost banks: the fosses of the Great Wall are swimming over with blood. All distinctions are obliterated in that heap of rotting bones.... “Faintly and more faintly beats the drum. Strength exhausted, arrows spent, bow-strings snapped, swords shattered, the two armies fall upon one another in the supreme struggle for life or death. To yield is to become the barbarian’s slave: to fight is to mingle our bones with the desert sand.... “No sound of bird now breaks from the hushed hillside. All is still save the wind whistling through the long night. Ghosts of the dead wander hither and thither in the gloom: spirits from the nether world collect under the dark clouds. The sun rises and shines coldly over the trampled grass, while the fading moon still twinkles upon the frost flakes scattered around. What sight more horrible than this!” * * * * * [Sidenote: MEN OF T‘ANG] The havoc wrought by the dreaded Tartars is indeed the theme of many a poem in prose as well as in verse. The following lines by CH’ÊN T‘AO, of about this date, record a patriotic oath of indignant volunteers and the mournful issue of fruitless valour:-- “_They swore the Huns should perish: they would die if needs they must.... And now five thousand, sable-clad, have bit the Tartar dust. Along the river-bank their bones lie scattered where they may, But still their forms in dreams arise to fair ones far away._” Among their other glories, the T‘angs may be said to have witnessed the birth of popular literature, soon to receive, in common with classical scholarship, an impetus the like of which had never yet been felt. But we must now take leave of this dynasty, the name of which has survived in common parlance to this day. For just as the northerners are proud to call themselves “sons of Han,” so do the Chinese of the more southern provinces still delight to be known as the “men of T‘ang.” BOOK THE FIFTH _THE SUNG DYNASTY_ (A.D. 900-1200) CHAPTER I THE INVENTION OF BLOCK-PRINTING