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Then came the Later Tsins, who only held their authority on the sufferance of the powerful Khitan king, who reigned over Leaoutung and Manchuria.
In the presence of the great officials of the realm Kongti paid homage to Lieouyu, thus completing a ceremony which was without parallel in the history of the Chinese empire. With this act the dynasty of the Tsins came to an end, and was replaced by that of the Songs, of which Lieouyu was the first and worthiest representative.
But Ssemachow preferred a slower and surer mode of action, with the result that the conquest of Ou was put off for twenty years. Ssemachow died in A.D. 265, and his son Ssemachu founded the new dynasty of the Later Tsins under the name of Vouti, or the warrior prince.
In the year 246 B.C. came to the throne of China the most famous of all the monarchs of that ancient empire, the celebrated Hoangti, Tsin Chi Hoang-ti, or "first sovereign emperor of the Tsins," to give him his full title. Various stories are told by Chinese historians of the origin of this great monarch, they denying that he was of royal blood.
With him the dynasty of the Tsins passed away and that of the Han monarchs succeeded. Hoangti stands alone as the great man of his race. After the death of the great Hoangti, two of his generals fought for the throne of China, Lieou Pang, who represents, in the Chinese annals, intellect, and Pa Wang, representing brute force, uninspired by thought.
When Nan Wang was approaching the end of his career, the Tsin princes had obtained everything of the supreme power short of the name and the right to wear the imperial yellow robes. Ching Wang, or, to give him his later name as emperor, Tsin Chi Hwangti, was the reputed great-grandson of Chow Siang Wang, and under him the fame and power of the Tsins reached their culminating point.
He proved himself a good soldier and able leader against the successors of the Lin family on one side, and a formidable pirate named Sunghen on the other. Dissatisfied with his position, Linyu murdered one emperor and placed another on the throne, and in two years he compelled his puppet, the last of the Later Tsins, to make a formal abdication in his favor.
The feudal principalities, which had been the successors of the independent kingdoms into which the Chinese territory was originally divided, were thus overthrown, the ancient local dynasties being exterminated, and their territories added to the dominion of the Tsins. The unity of the empire was at length established, and the great conqueror became "the first universal emperor."
The Tsins had fairly earned by their ability the confidence of the Chinese nation, and their principal representative showed no diminution of energy on attaining the throne, and exhibited in a higher post, and on a wider field, the martial and statesmanlike qualities his ancestors had displayed when building up the fabric of their power as princes of the empire.
Wherever Mongkwan commanded in person victory attended his efforts, but the defeats of the other generals of the Tsins neutralized his success. At this moment there was a recrudescence of Tartar activity which proved more fatal to the Chinese ruler than his many domestic enemies.
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