Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 115

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The Rebellion of the Yellow Caps.

FEB.

known,) with his own hand destroyed two of the rebels who were at- tempting to climb over the palace walls. This bold act caused the other rebels to fall back with terror, and thus the sacred abode was preserved in quiet. Judging from the protrait which we have seen, his majesty is tall, thin, and of a dark complexion. He is now sixty years of age, and apparently strong and robust. He is reputed to be "of a generous disposition, diligent, attentive to government, and economical in his expenditure." He is greatly revered by his subjects, and apparently much swayed by the counsels of his minis- ters, of whom some are very able men,-though we much fear as he says, "they know not what truth is." Of the emperor's present line of policy much remains to be said. It will be questioned and scanned as that of his predecessors never was. The old order of things is passing away, and now-

Magnus ab integro séclorum nascitur ordo.

ART. V. The Rebellion of the Yellow Caps, compiled from the

History of the Three States.*

As the insurrection, that ended in that dismemberment of the Chi- nese empire which became the foundation of the popular San Kwă Che, or "History of the Three States," forms the subject of an in- teresting passage in the records of former times, we take the liberty of inserting, in the pages of the Repository, a short digest of the account of the rise and progress of the Yellow Caps to the death of their first leaders, as given in the first and second sections of that work.

The history of the Three States-Shuh, Wei, and Woo-opens by dating the origin of those causes, which led to the division of the empire into three kingdoms, at the reigns of Hwan (A. D. `147) and Ling (A. D. 168), the immediate predecessors of Heuen, the last emper- or of the Han dynasty. The historian finds occasion for the civil wars, that caused the downfall of that house and disjointed the whole em- pire, in the corrupt state of the government, which had shut up the avenues to preferment against the good and the wise, and admitted See volume seventh, number fifth, pp 232-249, for a brief account of this

work.

薯