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Updated: June 5, 2025
He drew off his forces and retired behind the Great Wall at the very moment when Pekin seemed at his mercy. During four years of more or less tranquillity Taitsong confined his attention to political designs, and to training a corps of artillery, and then he resumed his main project of the conquest of China.
The Chinese, relying altogether on Ningyuen as a defense, had made no preparation to hold their ground on this side, and Taitsong encountered no opposition until he reached Kichow. Then Chungwan, realizing that he had been outmaneuvered, and that the defenses of Ningyuen had been turned, hastened back by forced marches to defend Pekin.
Taitsong was as determined to humiliate the Mings as his father had been. He commenced his offensive measures by an attack on Corea, which he speedily reduced to such a pass that it accepted his authority and transferred its allegiance from the Mings to the Manchus. This was an important success, as it secured his eastern flank and deprived the Chinese of a useful ally in the Forbidden Kingdom.
There need be no hesitation in calling Taitsong one of the greatest rulers who ever sat on the Dragon Throne, and his death was received with extraordinary demonstrations of grief by the people he had ruled so well.
With these turbulent neighbors, and with others of different race but of the same disposition on the southern frontier, Taitsong was engaged in a bitter and arduous struggle during the whole of his life; and there can be little or no doubt that he owed his success to the care he bestowed on his army.
The method is not to be approved on general grounds, but Taitsong conceived that he was justified in bribing persons in Pekin to discredit Chungwan and compass his ruin. The emperor was persuaded that Chungwan was too powerful a subject to be absolutely loyal, and it was asserted that he was in communication with the enemy.
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