Seite 99 von 266

[Ch'en Hao quotes the saying: "Birds and beasts when brought to

bay will use their claws and teeth." Chang Yu says: "If your

adversary has burned his boats and destroyed his cooking-pots,

and is ready to stake all on the issue of a battle, he must not

be pushed to extremities." Ho Shih illustrates the meaning by a

story taken from the life of Yen-ch'ing. That general, together

with his colleague Tu Chung-wei was surrounded by a vastly

superior army of Khitans in the year 945 A.D. The country was

bare and desert-like, and the little Chinese force was soon in

dire straits for want of water. The wells they bored ran dry, and

the men were reduced to squeezing lumps of mud and sucking out

the moisture. Their ranks thinned rapidly, until at last Fu

Yen-ch'ing exclaimed: "We are desperate men. Far better to die

for our country than to go with fettered hands into captivity!" A

strong gale happened to be blowing from the northeast and

darkening the air with dense clouds of sandy dust.