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Another had been proclaimed and had died, and the last emperor of the Sung dynasty, a young prince named Tiping, was now with Chang Chikie, whose small army constituted his only hope, and the remains of the fleet his only empire.
The Mongols lay in fancied security, not dreaming that there was in all China the resolution to strike another blow, and probably unsuspicious that a fleet was bearing down upon one of their captured ports. What would have been the result had Chang Chikie been able to deliver his attack it is impossible to say.
But the last blow for the empire had not been struck so long as Chang Chikie survived. With him had escaped the mother of the drowned prince, and on learning of his loss the valiant leader requested her to name some member of the Sung family to succeed him.
Finally the hopes of China were centred upon a single man, Chang Chikie, a general of unflinching zeal and courage, who recaptured several towns, and, gathering a great fleet, said to have numbered no fewer than two thousand war-junks, sailed up the Yang-tse-Kiang with the purpose of attacking the Mongol positions below Nanking.
The result would have been utterly disastrous had not a heavy mist fallen at this opportune moment, under cover of which Chang Chikie, followed by sixteen vessels of his fleet, made his way out to sea. The vessel which held the young emperor was less fortunate. Caught in the press of the battle, its capture was inevitable, and with it that of the last emperor of the Sung dynasty.
But the mother, overwhelmed with grief at the death of her son, was in no mood to listen to anything not connected with her loss, and at length, hopeless and inconsolable, she put an end to her own existence by leaping overboard from the vessel's side. Chang Chikie was left alone, with the destinies of the empire dependent solely upon him.
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