This Satisfaction Was Denied Him, For A Chinese Officer Dragged Him From The Flames, Slew Him, And Sent His Head To The General Li Jusong, Who Conducted The Siege, And Of Whom We Shall Hear A Great Deal More.

The gratification caused by the overthrow of Popai had scarcely abated when the attention of the Chinese government was drawn away from domestic enemies to a foreign assailant who threatened the most serious danger to China.

Reference was made in the last chapter to the relations between the Chinese and the Japanese, and to the aggressions of the latter, increased, no doubt, by Chinese chicane and their own naval superiority and confidence. But nothing serious might have come out of these unneighborly relations if they had not furnished an ambitious ruler with the opportunity of embarking on an enterprise which promised to increase his empire and his glory. The old Japanese ruling family was descended, as already described, from a Chinese exile; but the hero of the sixteenth century could claim no relationship with the royal house, and owed none of his success to the accident of a noble birth. Fashiba, called by some English writers Hideyoshi; by the Chinese Pingsiuki; and by the Japanese, on his elevation to the dignity of Tycoon, Taiko Sama, was originally a slave; and it is said that he first attracted attention by refusing to make the prescribed obeisance to one of the daimios or lords. He was on the point of receiving condign punishment, when he pleaded his case with such ingenuity and courage that the daimio not only forgave him his offense, but gave him a post in his service.

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Words from 56309 to 56585 of 191255