In the mean time the victorious forces of the south had reached the suburbs of Yedo, and were threatening to apply the torch to that tinder-box of a city unless it were immediately surrendered. Their commander, being advised of the purpose of the shogun, promised to spare the city, but assailed and burned the magnificent temple of Uyeno, in which the rebels still in arms had taken refuge. For a year longer the war went on, victory everywhere favoring the imperial army. By the 1st of July, 1869, hostilities were at an end, and the mikado was the sole lord of the realm. Thus ended a military domination that had continued for seven hundred years. In 1167, Kiyomori had made himself military lord of the empire. In 1869, Mutsuhito, the one hundred and twenty-third mikado in lineal descent, resumed the imperial power which had so long been lost. Unlike China, over which so many dynasties have ruled, Japan has been governed by a single dynasty, according to the native records, for more than twenty-five hundred years. The fall of the shogun was followed by the fall of feudalism. The emperor, for the first time for many centuries, came from behind his screen and showed himself openly to his people. Yedo was made the eastern capital of the realm, its name being changed to Tokio. Hither, in September, 1871, the daimios were once more summoned, and the order was issued that they should give up their strongholds and feudal retainers and retire to private life. They obeyed. Resistance would have been in vain. Thus fell another ancient institution, eight centuries old. The revolution was at an end. The shogunate and the feudal system had fallen, to rise no more. A single absolute lord ruled over Japan. As regards the cry of "expel the barbarians," which had first given rise to hostilities, it gradually died away as the revolution continued. The strength of the foreign fleets, the advantages of foreign commerce, the conception which could not be avoided that, instead of being barbarians, these aliens held all the high prizes of civilization and had a thousand important lessons to teach, caused a complete change of mind among the intelligent Japanese, and they quickly began to welcome those whom they had hitherto inveterately opposed, and to change their institutions to accord with those of the Western world. _HOW THE EMPIRE OF CHINA AROSE AND GREW._ From the history of Japan we now turn to that of China, a far older and more extensive kingdom, so old, indeed, that it has now grown decrepit, while Japan seems still in the glow of vigorous youth. But, as our tales will show, there was a long period in the past during which China was full of youthful energy and activity, and there may be a time in the future when a new youth will come to that hoary kingdom, the most venerable of any existing upon the face of the earth.