Yet, if we can believe all we are told, the historians of China were at any time ready to become martyrs in the cause of truth, and gave the story of the different reigns with singular fidelity and intrepidity. Mailla relates the following incident: "In the reign of the emperor Ling Wang of the Chow dynasty, 548 B.C., Chang Kong, Prince of Tsi, became enamoured of the wife of Tsouichow, a general, who resented the affront and killed the prince. The historians attached to the household of the prince recorded the facts, and named Tsouichow as the murderer. On learning this the general caused the principal historian to be arrested and slain, and appointed another in his place. But as soon as the new historian entered upon his office he recorded the exact facts of the whole occurrence, including the death of his predecessor and the cause of his death. Tsouichow was so much enraged at this that he ordered all the members of the Tribunal of History to be executed. But at once the whole literary class in the principality of Tsi set to work exposing and denouncing the conduct of Tsouichow, who soon perceived that his wiser plan would be to reconstitute the Tribunal and to allow it to follow its own devices." Other stories to the same effect are told. They are very likely exaggerated, but there is good reason to believe that the literary class of China were obstinate to the verge of martyrdom in maintaining the facts and traditions of the past, and that death signified to them less than dishonor. We shall see a striking instance of this in the story of Hoang-ti, the burner of the books. In the period to which we have now come, China was far from being the great empire it is to-day. On the south it did not extend beyond the great river Yang-tse-Kiang, all the region to the south being still held by the native tribes. On the north the Tartar tribes occupied the steppes. At the fall of the Chow dynasty, in 255 B.C., the empire extended through five degrees of latitude and thirteen of longitude, covering but a small fraction of its present area. And of this region only a minor portion could fairly be claimed as imperial soil. The bulk of it was held by feudal princes, whose ancestors had probably conquered their domains ages before, and some of whom held themselves equal to the emperor in power and pride. They acknowledged but slight allegiance to the imperial government, and for centuries the country was distracted by internal warfare, until the great Hoang-ti, whose story we have yet to tell, overthrew feudalism, and for the first time united all China into a single empire.