In 1366, Choo, having carefully made all the necessary preparations for war on a large scale, dispatched from Fankin two large armies to conquer the provinces north of the Yangtsekiang, which were all that remained in the possession of the Mongols. A third army was intrusted with the task of subjecting the provinces dependent on Canton, and this task was accomplished with rapidity and without a check. Such Mongol garrisons as were stationed in this quarter were annihilated. The main Chinese army of 250,000 men was intrusted to the command of Suta, Choo's principal lieutenant and best general, and advanced direct upon Pekin. In 1367 Suta had overcome all resistance south of the Hoangho, which river he crossed in the autumn of that year. The Mongols appeared demoralized, and attempted little or no resistance. Chunti fled from Pekin to Mongolia, where he died in 1370, and Suta carried the capital by storm from the small Mongol garrison which remained to defend it. Choo hastened to Pekin to receive the congratulations of his army, and to prove to the whole Chinese nation that the Yuen dynasty had ceased to rule. The resistance offered by the Mongols proved surprisingly slight, and, considering the value of the prize for which they were fighting, quite unworthy of their ancient renown. The real cause of their overthrow was that the Mongols never succeeded in propitiating the good opinion and moral support of the Chinese, who regarded them to the end as barbarians, and it must also be admitted that the main force of the Mongols had drifted to Western Asia, where the great Timour revived some of the traditions of Genghis. At the end of his career that mighty conqueror prepared to invade China, but he died shortly after he had begun a march that boded ill to the peace and welfare of China. Thus, with the flight of Chunti, the Mongol or Yuen dynasty came to an end, and the Mongols only reappear in Chinese history as the humble allies of the Manchus, when they undertook the conquest of China in the seventeenth century. CHAPTER VII THE MING DYNASTY