from the Chinese frontier. Although he enjoyed the confidence of his
successive sovereigns, the imperial sanction was long withheld from this
vast scheme, but during the life of Changti he began to put in operation
measures for the realization of this project that were only matured under
Hoti. He raised and trained a special army for frontier war. He enlisted
tribes who had never served the emperor before, and who were specially
qualified for desert warfare. He formed an alliance with the Sienpi tribes
of Manchuria, who were probably the ancestors of the present Manchus, and
thus arranged for a flank attack on the Huns. This systematic attack was
crowned with success. The pressure brought against them compelled the
Hiongnou to give way, and as they were ousted from their possessions, to
seek fresh homes further west. In this they were, no doubt, stimulated by
the example of their old opponents, the Yuchi, but Panchow's energy
supplied a still more convincing argument. He pursued them wherever they
went, across the Gobi Desert and beyond the Tian Shan range, taking up a
strong position at modern Kuldja and Kashgar, sending his expeditions on
to the Pamir, and preparing to complete his triumph by the invasion of the
countries of the Oxus and Jaxartes. When Hoti was still a youth, he
completed this programme by overrunning the region as far as the Caspian,
which was probably at that time connected with the Aral, and it may be
supposed that Khiva marked the limit of the Chinese general's triumphant
progress. It is affirmed with more or less show of truth that he came into
contact with the Roman empire or the great Thsin, as the Chinese called
it, and that he wished to establish commercial relations with it. But
however uncertain this may be, there can be no doubt that he inflicted a
most material injury on Rome, for before his legions fled the Huns, who,
less than four centuries later, debased the majesty of the imperial city,
and whose leader, Attila, may have been a descendant of that Meha at whose
hands the Chinese suffered so severely.