A tribe inhabiting one of the ravines or rich river flats of the Sungari region increases in wealth and numbers. A powerful chief leads them to war and victory. Tribes and lands are annexed. Martial valor, wealth, and strength increase. Ambition and the pressure of numbers tempt to farther conquest. Over and beyond the Great Wall is the ever-glittering prize—teeming China. The march begins southward. After many a battle, and only, it may be, after a generation of war against the imperial legions beyond the frontiers, the goal is reached. The Middle Kingdom is conquered and a new dynasty sits on the Dragon Throne, until long peace enervates and luxury weakens. Then out of the old northern seats of population rolls a new flood of conquest, and a new swarm of conquerors is hived off. Thus we see the original land embracing the Amur and Sungari valleys has had its periods of power and decay, of historical and unhistorical life. Unity and movement make history, disintegration and apathy cause the page of history to be blank. But the land is still there with the people and the possibilities of the future. In spite of the associations of hoary antiquity that cluster around Asiatic countries, the reader of history does not expect to hear of single empires enduring through many centuries. With the exception of Japan, no nation of Asia can show a dynastic line extending through a millennium. The empires founded by Asiatic conquerors are short-lived. The countries and the people remain, but the rulers constantly change, and the building up, flourishing, decay, and dissolution suggest the seasons rather than the centuries. No enduring political fabrics, like those of Rome or Britain, are known in Asia. Though China and India abide like the oak, their rulers change like the leaves. Socially, these countries are the symbols of petrifaction, politically they are as the kaleidoscope. From this law of continuous political mutation, Corea has not been free.