Between the city and the Chinese frontier is the largest and richest plain in Korea; to the east where the violet shadows lay are the valleys of the two branches of the Tai-döng, rich in silk, iron, and cotton, while within 10 miles there are at least five coal-mines,[37] and for all produce there is easy communication with the sea, 36 miles distant, for vessels of light draught, by means of the river which flows below the city wall. Timber is rafted down the Tai-döng in summer. The Peking road, which I had followed thus far, and which for centuries has linked Phyöng-yang with the outer world and the capital, is another element in the former prosperity of the city. It was to photograph for the widow and family of General Tso of Mukden, the commander of the best-disciplined and best-equipped cavalry brigade in the Chinese army, the scenes connected with his last days and death that I visited the hill within the wall. The river wall of Phyöng-yang, after 2 miles of an undulating ascent, turns sharply at a pavilion, outside of which the ground falls precipitously, to rise again in a knife-like ridge, the three highest points of which are crowned with Chinese forts. From this pavilion the wall, following the lie of the hill, slopes rapidly down to a very picturesque and narrow gate, the _Chil-sung Mön_ or Seven Star Gate, after which it trends in a northwesterly direction to the _Potong Mön_. In the pine wood, at the highest part of the angle formed by the wall, General Tso had built three mud forts or camps with walls 10 feet high. The ground under the trees is dotted with the stone-lined cooking holes of his men, blackened with the smoke of their last fires. On the afternoon of the 15th of September, 1894, General Tso and his force, which mustered 5,000 men when it left Mukden, but must have been greatly diminished by desertion and death, made his fatal sally, passing through the _Chil-sung Mön_ and down the steep zigzag descent below it to the plain, meeting his death probably within 300 yards of the gate. The Koreans say that some of his men took up the body, but were shot by the Japanese while removing it, and that it was lost in the slaughter which ensued. A neat obelisk, railed round, was erected by the Japanese at the supposed spot, bearing on one face the inscription:-- Tso Pao-kuei, commander-in-chief of the Fengtien division. Place of death. And on the other---- Killed while fighting with the Japanese troops at Phyöng-yang. A graceful tribute to their ablest foe. General Tso’s troops, demoralized by his death, sought refuge everywhere from the deadly fire of the Japanese, a part flying back to their forts within the wall, while many, probably blinded and desperate, rode along the pine woods which densely cover the broken ground outside, by a path along a wide dry moat, which, three weeks later, when Mr. Moffett returned, was piled with the dead bodies of their horses.