It Was With The Reputation Gained By This Nominal
Success, And By Having Made The Sungs His Tributaries, That Kublai
Hastened Northward To Settle His Rivalry With Arikbuka.
Having
accomplished that object with complete success, he decided to put an end
to the Sung dynasty.
The Chinese emperor, acting with strange fatuity, had
given fresh cause of umbrage, and had provoked a war by many petty acts of
discourtesy, culminating in the murder of the envoys of Kublai, sent to
notify him of his proclamation as Great Khan of the Mongols. Probably the
Sung ruler could not have averted war if he had shown the greatest
forbearance and humility, but this cruel and inexcusable act precipitated
the crisis and the extinction of his attenuated authority. If there was
any delay in the movements of Kublai for the purpose of exacting
reparation for this outrage, it was due to his first having to arrange a
difficulty that had arisen in his relations with the King of Corea. That
potentate had long preserved the peace with his Mongol neighbors, and
perhaps he would have remained a friend without any interruption, had not
the Mongols done something which was construed as an infraction of Corean
liberty. The Corean love of independence took fire at the threatened
diminution of their rights, they rose en masse in defense of their
country, and even the king, Wangtien, who had been, well disposed to the
Mongol rulers, declared that he could not continue the alliance, and
placed himself at the head of his people.
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of 191255