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[[underlined]] APPENDIX II. [[/underlined]]  16.

Yüeh (the conqueror of Wu, just mentioned), which it overthrew and in part annexed, in 334 B.C. Ch'u's long rivalry with Ch'in culminated, during the following (3rd) century, in a succession of defeats administered by the latter power (then on the way to establishing the first true Chinese empire). [[superscript]] (44) [/superscript]] Ch'u, resisting doggedly, was compelled to withdraw its capital step by step toward the north and northeast. After a protracted struggle, fought with the same determination and ferocity that marked the approximately contemporary wars between Rome and Carthage, it was forced entirely out of the Yangtze basin (where alone it had a genuine mission) into that of the Huai, in what is now the province of Anhui. There Ch'in, relentlessly following, finally conquered and annexed it, in 223 B.C. [[superscript]] (45) [[/superscript]]
That Ch'u (and presumably all the other states up and down the Yangtze River) had writing, closely similar to but not quite identical with that used in ancient China proper, can no longer be doubted. [[superscript]] (46) [[/superscript]] It
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(44)
Though the somewhat laconic records are silent on the point, it seems not unlikely that Ch'in's success in this regard may have have been due, at least in part, to her employment of forces of horse-archers, just then coming into use in northwestern China, and of iron (steel?) weapons. 
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(45)
On the final overthrow of Ch'u, see the [[underlined]] Shih chi [[/underlined]], chapt. XL, fol. 30-a; [[underlined]] cf. [[/underlined]] also pp. 143 [[underlined]] sq. [[/underlined]] and note 143-a (on page 144) of the text. 
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(46)
Dr. J. C. Ferguson made this suggestion to me in conversation, several years ago; but the fact is now definitely established by the discovery recently of actual inscriptions on Ch'u bronze vessels. 
On the writing in use in Ch'u, see Creel,[[underlined]] Studies [[/underlined]], page 119. 
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seems highly probable, therefore, that it kept records of some sort;
and though these have all perished, it is no doubt due ultimately to them, in large part, that we have in the surviving Chinese accounts so many incidental references to the civilization which existed in Ch'u.