Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 179

1860.

Notice of Japan in the Hải-koooh Ta Chi. 153

to surround their enemy. When their forces were encamped opposite ours, they used to send one or two men who, by alternately leaping up and crouching down, contrived to exhaust our fire of stones and arrows. In an action with artillery, they waited until their antagonists had fired; then they broke in on them impetuously, and following up their advantage, would drive them to a distance. In the heat of an engage- ment they would suddenly come forth from ambush on all sides, and surround their enemy's flanks, by which manœuvre they forced our army to disperse in great consternation. They constantly resorted to strange stratagems, such as tying sheep together, or driving wo- men on in front so as to perplex the beholder; the eyes of our people were dazzled by this, and the arms of the Japanese were thus enabled to take effect. They used the double sword exercise; with one sword they made feints above, and struck with the other below, which ren- dered defense difficult. They hid the shafts or but-ends of their halberds and lances, and then all of a sudden they would hurl them forth so that it was impossible to anticipate [the blow]; their bows were long, their arrows large, and as they discharged them close, their shot was deadly. If they lay pardu, they had a marauding expedi tion in contemplation; if they spread a report abroad (so as to keep people on the alert), they were moving off. Thus they drew up their injured vessels across the stream to make a show of lying by, and straightway they sallied forth and invested Kinshán. At Shingshán they made ladders of bamboo to signify that they were about to storm it, and then they raised the siege When they were going to take to the country, they pressed upon a city; if they had a march to make by land, they would provide themselves with oars. Sometimes they dug holes as pitfalls for their enemy, sometimes they plaited stubble to entangle him as he fled, or they stuck slips of bamboo in the ground to run into the feet of the fugitives. They used, too, to make a decoy of precious stones, cloth, gold, silver, or women, by which they were enabled to inveigle our troops into ambuscades, and they were pleased when these lay in wait for them or pursued them.* They gashed the

• Yếu chui Yớu as above in yớu kih not in its more ordinary Gonçalves has 將邀

邀追 Vicheme above in yêu kinh tế. Đặc

signification of "to invite," but "to lie in wait for."

#Ź esperon-o e matou-o. In the Shang-Mang, "[His disciple] sent

severalpersons to wait for him by the way;" but the Pei Wan Yun-fa, Cap. 17.; states that it is a synonym of in this, as also in three other passages quoted from the Tre Chuon, Hản-chú and Ping-skú, in which it is either linked with kik, or divided simply by an 'rh, the power of which particle to mean ul as

VOL. XIX. NO. III.

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