224 KITAN. taken by them, and frequently plundered at the very gates of the city. A fortified city had to be erected on Tengow,* in order to keep open the communication with Yowchow. A fort was also built at Loochung, another at Sanho, a hundred li north-east of Yowchow. On Sanho fort all the border people leaned, and not in vain ; for the commandant drove back many forays of the Kitan. Tatung also gave them such a warm reception, and its commander made such formidable preparations to resume the offensive, that the Eitan thought it best to retire to their homes. But a native of Shamo, highly esteemed by the emperor, opened the gate of Weichow f to Kitan, because he had a private feud against Shi Jingtang, generallissimo of the laige army marching north. Jingtang afterwards himself founded a short lived dynasty of Tsin. We have followed the Kitan closely enough from their dawn till we find them masters of the north of the present Chihli, and of all Inner Mongolia ; of Liaotung which they wrenched out of the hands of Bohai ; and of the province of Kirin or Ninguta west of the Hoorha, then distinguished from those districts east of the Hoorha, as the civilized Nujun. "We need not detail the assumption of imperial state and power by Kitan under the title of the Liao or " Iron " dynasty ; its harshness to the emperor of Tsin which it overthrew, its bargainings and profits among the contending aspirants to empire, and its subsequent incessant wars with the Sung dynasty, in defiance of which it established a powerful kingdom north of the Yellow river ; a kingdom which extended northwards to the Songari and the Hoorha rivers. Abaoji built, as we have seen, Shangking or Silow on the south of the Sira muren. His second son and successor began to reign in 927. He seems to have made Silow or Shangking his capital ; for, when three years after, he built the capital which stood where Liaoyang now stands, he called it the East City, Doongping Kiin, It was afterwards nsgned Nanking, or South Capital, when he must have been living in Fooyii, which is north of it But the name was again and finally changed to Doongking or
- The modem Lianghiang hiexL f The modem Linchiw of ChihlL
