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+Project Gutenberg's Ancient China Simplified, by Edward Harper Parker
+
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+Title: Ancient China Simplified
+
+Author: Edward Harper Parker
+
+Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6624]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on January 5, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANCIENT CHINA SIMPLIFIED ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Steve Schulze, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+Page images courtesy of Case Western Reserve University Library -
+Preservation Department
+
+
+
+
+
+ANCIENT CHINA SIMPLIFIED
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Tripod of the Chou dynasty, date 812 B.C. In 1565
+A.D. it was placed by the owner for safety in a temple on Silver
+Island (near Chinkiang), where it may be seen now. Taken (by kind
+permission of the author) from Dr. S. W. Bushell's "Chinese Art,"
+vol. i. p. 82.]
+
+
+
+
+ANCIENT CHINA SIMPLIFIED
+
+BY EDWARD HARPER PARKER, M.A., (Manc.)
+
+PROFESSOR OF CHINESE AT THE VICTORIA UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
+LONDON
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+Boswell once remarked to Dr. Johnson that "the history of England
+is so strange that, if it were not well vouched as it is, it would
+be hardly credible." To which Johnson replied in his usual style:
+"Sir, if it were told as shortly, and with as little preparation
+for introducing the different events, as the history of the Jewish
+kings, it would be equally liable to objections of improbability."
+Dr. Johnson went on to illustrate what he meant, by specific
+allusion to the concessions to Parliament made by Charles I. "If,"
+he said, "these had been related nakedly, without any detail of
+the circumstances which generally led to them, they would not have
+been believed."
+
+This is exactly the position of ancient Chinese history, which may
+be roughly said to coincide in time with the history of the Jewish
+kings. The Chinese Annals are mere diaries of events, isolated
+facts being tumbled together in order of date, without any regard
+for proportion. Epoch-making invasions, defeats, and cessions of
+territory are laconically noted down on a level with the prince's
+indiscretion in weeping for a concubine as he would weep for a
+wife; or the Emperor's bounty in sending a dish of sacrificial
+meat to a vassal power by express messenger. In one way there is a
+distinct advantage in this method, for, the historian being seldom
+tempted to obtrude his own opinion or comments, we are left a
+clear course for the formation of our own judgments upon the facts
+given. On the other hand, it is unfortunate that what may be
+called the philosophy of history has never been seized by the
+Chinese mind: the annalists do not trouble themselves with the
+rights and aspirations of the masses; the results to general
+policy that naturally follow upon increase of population,
+perfecting of arms and munitions of war, admixture of foreign
+blood with the body politic, and such like matters. The heads of
+events being noted, it seems to be left to the reader to fill in
+the details from his imagination, and from his knowledge of
+contemporary affairs. For instance, suppose the reign of Queen
+Victoria were to begin after this fashion:--"1837, 5th moon,
+Kalends, Victoria succeeded: 9th moon, Ides, Napoleon paid a
+visit: 28th day, London flooded; 10th moon, 29th day, eclipse of
+the sun"; and so on. At the time, and for many years--possibly
+centuries--afterwards, there would be accurate general traditional,
+or even written, information as to who Victoria was; why Napoleon
+paid a visit; in what particular way the flood affected England generally;
+from what parts the eclipse was best visible, etc. These details would
+fade in distinctness with each successive generation; commentators
+would come to the rescue; then commentators upon commentators;
+and discussions as to which man was the most trustworthy of them all.
+
+Under these circumstances it is difficult enough for the Chinese
+themselves to construct a series of historical lessons, adequate
+to guide them in the conduct of modern affairs, out of so
+heterogeneous a mass of material. This difficulty is, in the case
+of Westerners, more than doubled by the strange, and to us
+inharmonious, sounds of Chinese proper names: moreover, as they
+are monosyllabical, and many of them exactly similar when
+expressed in our letters, it is almost impossible to remember
+them, and to distinguish one from the other. Thus most persons who
+make an honest endeavour by means of translations to master the
+leading events in ancient Chinese history soon throw down the book
+in despair; while even specialists, who may wish to shorten their
+labours by availing themselves of others' work, can only get a
+firm grip of translations by comparing them with the originals: it
+is thus really impossible to acquire anything at all approaching
+an accurate understanding of Chinese antiquity without possessing
+in some degree the controlling power of a knowledge of the
+pictographs.
+
+It is in view of all these difficulties that an attempt has been
+made in this book to extract principles from isolated facts; to
+avoid, so far as is possible, the use of Chinese proper names; to
+introduce these as sparingly and gradually as is practicable when
+they must be used at all; to describe the general trend of events
+and life of the people rather than the personal acts of rulers and
+great officers; and, generally, to put it into the power of any
+one who can only read English, to gain an intelligible notion of
+what Chinese antiquity really was; and what principles and
+motives, declared or tacit, underlay it. It is with this object
+before me that I have ventured to call my humble work "Ancient
+China Simplified," and I can only express a hope that it will
+really be found intelligible.
+
+EDWARD HARPER PARKER.
+
+18, GAMBIER TERRACE, LIVERPOOL, May 18, 1908.
+
+
+
+
+AIDS TO MEMORY
+
+There is much repetition in the book, the same facts being
+presented, for instance, under the heads of Army, Religion,
+Confucius, and Marriages. This is intentional, and the object is
+to keep in the mind impressions which in a strange, ancient, and
+obscure subject are apt to disappear after perusal of only one or
+two casual statements.
+
+The Index has been carefully prepared so that any allusion or
+statement vaguely retained in the mind may at once be confirmed.
+The chapter headings, or contents list, which itself contains
+nearly five per cent of the whole letterpress, is so arranged that
+it omits no feature treated of in the main text.
+
+In the earlier chapters uncouth proper names are reduced to a
+minimum, but the Index refers by name to specific places and
+persons only generally mentioned in the earlier pages. For
+instance, the states of Lu and CHÊNG on pages 22 and 29: it is
+hard enough to differentiate Ts'i, Tsin, Ts'in, and Ts'u at the
+outstart, without crowding the memory with fresh names until the
+necessity for it absolutely arises.
+
+The nine maps are inserted where they are most likely to be
+useful: it is a good plan to refer to a map each time a place is
+mentioned, unless the memory suffices to suggest exactly where
+that place is. After two or three patient references, situations
+of places will take better root in the mind.
+
+The chapters are split up into short discussions and descriptions,
+because longer divisions are apt to be tedious where ancient
+history is concerned. And the narrative of political movement is
+frequently interrupted by the introduction of new matter, in order
+to provide novelty and stimulate the imagination. Moreover, all
+chapters and all subjects converge on one general focus.
+
+On page 15 of "China, her Diplomacy, etc." (John Murray, 1901), I
+have confessed how tedious I myself had found ancient Chinese
+history, and how its human interest only begins with foreign
+relations. I have, however, gone systematically through the mill
+once more, and my present object is to present general results
+only obtainable at the cost of laboriously picking out and
+resetting isolated and often apparently unconnected records of
+fact.
+
+
+
+
+NAMES OF CHIEF LOCALITIES
+
+CHOU: at first a principality in South Shen Si and part of Kan
+Suh, subject to Shang dynasty; afterwards the imperial dynasty
+itself.
+
+TS'lN: principality west of the above. When the Chou dynasty moved
+its capital east into Ho Nan, Ts'in took possession of the old
+Chou principality.
+
+TSIN: principality (same family as Chou) in South Shan Si (and in
+part of Shen Si at times).
+
+TS'I: principality, separated by the Yellow River from Tsin and
+Yen; it lay in North Shan Tung, and in the coast part of Chih Li.
+
+TS'U: semi-barbarous principality alone preponderant on the Yang-
+tsz River.
+
+WU: still more barbarous principality (ruling caste of the same
+family as Chou, but senior to Chou) on the Yang-tsz _embouchure_
+and Shanghai coasts.
+
+YÜEH: equally barbarous principality commanding another
+_embouchure_ in the Hangchow-Ningpo region. Wu and Yüeh were
+at first subordinate to Ts'u.
+
+YEN: principality (same family as Chou) in the Peking plain, north
+of the Yellow River mouth,
+
+SHUH and PA: in no way Chinese or federal; equivalent to Central
+and Eastern Sz Ch'wan province.
+
+CHÊNG: principality in Ho Nan (same family as Chou).
+
+SUNG: principality taking in the four corners of Ho Nan, Shan
+Tung, An Hwei, and Kiang Su (Shang dynasty family).
+
+CH'ÊN: principality in Ho Nan, south of Sung (family of the
+Ploughman Emperor, 2250 B.C., preceding even the Hia dynasty).
+
+WEI: principality taking in corners of Ho Nan, Chih Li, and Shan
+Tung (family of the Chou emperors).
+
+TS'AO: principality in South-west Shan Tung; neighbour of Lu, Wei,
+and Sung (same family as Chou).
+
+TS'AI: principality in Ho Nan, south of CH'ÊN (same family as
+Chou).
+
+LU: principality in South-west Shan Tung, between Ts'ao and Ts'i
+(its founder was the brother of the Chou founder).
+
+HÜ: very small principality in Ho Nan, south of Cheng (same
+obscure eastern ancestry as Ts'i),
+
+K'I: Shan Tung promontory and German sphere (of Hia dynasty
+descent); it is often confused with, or is quite the same as,
+another principality called _Ki_ (without the aspirate).
+
+The above are practically all the states whose participation in
+Chinese development has been historically of importance,
+
+
+
+
+NAMES OF CHIEF PERSONAGES
+
+CONFUCIUS: after 500 B.C. premier of Lu; traced his descent back
+through the Chou dynasty vassal ruling family of Sung to the Shang
+dynasty family.
+
+TSZ-CH'AN: elder contemporary of Confucius; premier of Cheng;
+traced his descent through the vassal ruling family of Cheng to
+the Chou dynasty family: date of death variously stated.
+
+KWAN-TSE: died between 648 and 643 B.C., variously stated; premier
+of Ts'i; traced his descent to the same clan as the ruling dynasty
+of Chou.
+
+YEN-TSZ: died 500 B.C.; premier of Ts'i; traced his descent to a
+local clan, apparently eastern barbarian by origin.
+
+WEI YANG: died 338 B.C.; premier of Ts'in; was a concubine-born
+prince of the vassal state of Wei, and was thus of the imperial
+Chou dynasty clan.
+
+SHUH HIANG: lawyer and minister of Tsin; belonged to one of the
+"great families" of Tsin; was contemporary with Tsz-ch'an. HIANG
+SÜH: diplomat of the state of Sung; pedigree not ascertained,
+
+KI-CHAH: son, brother, and uncle of successive barbarian kings of
+Wu, whose ancestors, however, were the same ancestors as the
+orthodox imperial rulers of the Chou dynasty; contemporary of Tsz-
+ch'an.
+
+NAMES OF THE SO-CALLED "FIVE PROTECTORS"
+
+(ONLY THE TWO FIRST OF THE FIVE WERE SO OFFICIALLY; THE TWO LAST
+WERE SO, EVEN OFFICIALLY, THOUGH NEVER COUNTED AMONGST THE FIVE.)
+
+1. MARQUESS OF Ts'i (not of imperial Chou clan, perhaps of
+"Eastern Barbarian" origin).
+
+2. MARQUESS OF TSIN (imperial Chou clan).
+
+3. DUKE OF SUNG (imperial Shang dynasty descent),
+
+4. "KING" OF T'SU (semi-barbarian, but with remote imperial
+Chinese legendary descent).
+
+5. EARL OF TS'IN (semi-Tartar, with legendary descent from remote
+imperial Chinese).
+
+6. "KING" OF Wu (semi-barbarian, but of imperial Chou family
+descent).
+
+7. "KING" OF YÜEH (barbarian, but with legendary descent from
+ultra-remote imperial Chinese).
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+_OPENING SCENES_
+
+Beginning of dated history--Size of ancient China--Parcelled out
+into fiefs--Fiefs correspond to modern _hien_ districts--
+Mesne lords and sub-vassals--Method of migration and colonizing--
+Course of the Yellow River in 842 B.C.--Distant fiefs in Shan Tung
+and Chih Li provinces of to-day--A river which subsequently became
+part of the Grand Canal--The Hwai River system of waters--
+Europeans always regard China from the sea inwards--Corea, Japan,
+and Liao Tung unknown in 842 B.C. except, perhaps, to the vassal
+state in Peking plain--Orthodox Chinese adopting barbarian usages
+in Shan Tung--Eastern barbarians on the coast to Shanghai--No
+knowledge of South or West Asia--Left bank of Yellow River was
+mostly Tartar, except in South Shan Si--Ancient capital in Shan
+Si--Ancient colonization of the Wei River valleys in Shen Si--
+Possibilities of Western ideas having been carried by Tartar
+horsemen from Persia and Turkestan--Traditions of western,
+eastern, and southern intercourse previous to 842 B.C.--Early
+knowledge of the River Yang-tsz and its three mouths--Explorations
+by ancient emperors--Development of China followed much the same
+normal course as that of Greece or England.
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+_SHIFTING SCENES_
+
+Character of the early colonizing Chinese satraps--Revolt of the
+western satrap and flight of the Emperor in 842 B.C.--Daughter of
+a later satrap marries the Emperor--Tartars mix up with questions
+of imperial succession and kill the Emperor--Transfer of the
+imperial metropolis from Shen Si to Ho Nan--The Chou dynasty,
+dating from 1122 B.C.--Before its conquest, the vassal house of
+Chou occupied the same relation to the imperial dynasty of Shang
+that the Wardens of the Western Marches, or Princes of Ts'in, did
+in turn to the imperial dynasty of Chou--The Shang dynasty had in
+1766 B.C., for like reasons, supplanted the Hia dynasty-No events
+of great interest recorded in limited area of China before 771
+B.C.--Decline of the imperial power until its extinction in 250
+B.C.--The Five Tyrant or Protector period--Natural movement to
+keep pace with political development--Easier system of writing--
+Development of trade and industry--Living interests clash with
+extinct aspirations--From 722 B.C. to 480 B.C. is the period of
+change covered by Confucius' history
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+_THE NORTHERN POWERS_
+
+The state of Tsin in Shan Si--In 771 B.C.: its ruler escorts the
+Emperor to his new capital--Only in 671 B.C. does Confucius
+mention Tsin--Divided from Ts'in by the Yellow River--Important
+difference between the sounds Tsin and Ts'in--Importance of the
+whole Yellow River as a natural boundary--The state of Ts'i also
+engaged in buffer work against Tartar inroads--Remote origin of
+Ts'i-Ts'in, Tsin, and Ts'i grow powerful as the Emperor grows
+weaker--The state of Yen in the Peking plain--The founder of Yen
+immortalized in song--Complete absence of tradition concerning
+Yen's origin--Its possible relations with Corea and Japan--Centre
+of political gravity transferred for ever to the north--Tartar
+movements in Asia generally 800-600 B.C.--Never was a Tarter
+empire--Reason for using the loose word "Tartars"--Race divisions
+then probably very much as now--Attempt to classify the Tartars in
+definite groups--Ch'wan unknown by any name--Nothing at all was
+known in China of the north and west: _á fortiori_ of Central
+Asia
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+_THE SOUTHERN POWER_
+
+The collapse of the Emperor led to restlessness in the south too--
+The Jungle country south of the River Han--Ancient origin of its
+kings--Claim to equality--Buffer state to the south--Ruling caste
+consisted of educated Chinese--Extension of the Ts'u empire--
+Annamese connections--Claims repeated 704 B.C.--Capital moved to
+King-thou Fu near Sha-shï--First Ts'u conquests of China--Five
+hundred years of struggle with Ts'in for the possession of all
+China
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+_EVIDENCE OF ECLIPSES_
+
+How far is history true?--Confucius and eclipses--Evidence
+notwithstanding the destruction of literature in 213 B.C.--
+Retrospective calculations of eclipses and complications of
+calendars--Eclipse of 776 B.C.--Errors in Confucian history owing
+to rival calendars
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+_THE ARMY_
+
+Paraphernalia of warfare--Ten thousand and one thousand chariot
+states--Use of war-chariots, leather or wood--Chariots allotted
+according to rank--Seventy-five men to one cart--War-chariots date
+back to 1800 B.C.--Tartar house-carts--Rivers mostly unnavigable
+in north--Introduction of canals and boat traffic--Population and
+armies--Vague descriptions--Early armies never exceeded 75,000
+men--The use of flags--Used in hunting as well as in war--Victims
+sacrificed to drums--A modern instance of this in 1900  A.D.
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+_THE COAST STATES_
+
+The coast states in possession of the Yang-tsz delta--The state of
+Wu really of the same origin as the imperial dynasty of Chou--
+Comparison with Phoenician colonists--Wu induced by Tsin to attack
+Ts'a-Ancient name was _Keugu_--Wu falls into the whirl of
+Chinese politics--Confucius and his contemptuous treatment of
+barbarians-Lu, in South Shan Tung, the place where Confucius held
+official posts--Great Britain and Duke Confucius--Five ranks for
+rulers of vassal states--Sacking of the Ts'u capital by Wu in 506
+B.C.--Wu's vassal Yüeh turns against Wu--_Uviet_ the native
+name of Yüeh--Bloody wars between Wu and Yiieh--Extinction of Wu
+in 483 B.C.--Yüeh was always a coast power--Reasons for
+Confucius' endeavours to re-establish the old feudal system
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+_FIRST PROTECTOR OF CHINA_
+
+The first Hegemon or Protector of China and his own vassal kingdom
+of Ts'i--Limits of Ts'i and ancient course of the Yellow River--
+Absence of ancient records--Shiftings of capital in the ninth
+century B.C.--Emperor's collapse of 842 and its effect upon Ts'i--
+Aid rendered by Ts'i in suppressing the Tartars--Inconsiderable
+size of Ts'i--Revenges a judicial murder two centuries old--Rapid
+rise of Ts'i and services of the statesman--philosopher Kwan-tsz--
+The governing caste in China--Declares self Protector of China 679
+B.C.--Tartar raids down to the Yellow River in Ho Nan-Chinese
+durbars and the duties of a Protector--Ts'in and Ts'u too far off
+or too busy for orthodox durbars--Little is now known of the
+puppet Emperor's dominions--Effeminate character of all the
+Central Chinese orthodox stales--Fighting instincts all with semi-
+Chinese states--Struggle for life becoming keener throughout China
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+_POSITION OF ENVOYS_
+
+Sanctity of envoys--Rivalry of Tsin north and Ts'u south for
+influence over orthodox centre--The state of CHÊNG (imperial
+clan)--The state of Sung (Shang dynasty clan)--Family sacrifices--
+Instances of envoy treatment--The philosopher Yen-tsz: his irony--
+The statesman Tsz-ch'an of CHÊNG--Ts'u's barbarous and callous
+conduct to envoys--Greed for valuables among high officers--
+squabble for precedence at Peace Conference--Confucius manipulates
+history--Yen-& and Confucius together at attempted assassination
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+_THE SECOND PROTECTOR_
+
+Death of First Protector and his henchman Kwan-tsz, 648-643 B.C.--
+Ts'i succession and Sung's claim to Protectorate--Tartar influence
+in Ts'i--Ts'u's claim to the hegemony--Ridiculous orthodox
+chivalry--Great development of Tsin--A much-married ruler--
+Marriage complications--Interesting story of the political
+wanderings of the Second Protector--Tries to replace Kwan-tsz
+deceased--Pleasures of Ts'i life--Mean behaviour of orthodox
+princes to the Wanderer--Frank attitude of Ts'u--Successive
+Tartar-born rulers of Tsin, and war with T&n--Second Protector
+gains his own Tsin throne--Puppet Emperor at a durbar--Tsin
+obtains cession of territory--Triangular war between the Powers--
+Description of the political situation--China 2500 years ago
+beginning to move as she is now doing again
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+_RELIGION_
+
+I'Jo religion except natural religion--Religion not separate from
+administrative ritual--The titles of "King" and "Emperor"--Prayer
+common, but most other of our own religious notions absent--Local
+religion in barbarous states--Distinction between loss and
+annihilation of power--Ducal rank and marquesses--Distinction
+between grantee sacrifices and personal sacrifices--Prayer and the
+ancient Emperor Shun, whose grave is in Hu Nan--Chou Emperor's
+sickness and brother's written prayer--Offers to sacrifice self--
+Messages from the dead--Lao-tsz's book--Ts'in and conquered Tsin
+Sacrifices--Further instances of prayer
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+_ANCESTRAL WORSHIP_
+
+Ancestral tablets carried in war-Shrines graduated according to
+rank--Description of shrines--Specific case of the King of Ts'u--
+Instance of the First August Emperor much later--Temple of Heaven,
+Peking, and the British occupation of it--Modern Japanese instance
+of reporting to Heaven and ancestors--Tsin and Ts'i instances of
+it--Sacrificial tablets--Writing materials--Lu's special spiritual
+status--Desecration of tombs and flogging of corpses--Destruction
+of ancestral temples--Imperial presents of sacrificial meat--
+Fasting and purification--Intricate mourning rules. So-65
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+_ANCIENT DOCUMENTS FOUND_
+
+History of Tsin and the Bamboo Annals discovered after 600 years'
+burial--Confirmatory of Confucius' history--Obsolete and modern
+script--Ancient calendars--Their evidence in rendering dates
+precise--The Ts'in calendar imposed on China--Rise of the Ts'in
+power--Position as Protector--Vast Tartar annexations by Ts'in--
+Duke Muh of Ts'in and Emperor Muh of China--Posthumous names--
+Discovery of ancient books--Supposed travels of Emperor Muh to
+Tartary--Possibility of the Duke Muh having made the journeys--
+Ts'in and Tsin force Tartars to migrate--Surreptitious vassal
+"emperors"--Instances of Annam and Japan--Tsin against Ts'in and
+Ts'u after Second Protector's death--Ts'i never again Protector--
+Ts'in's Chinese and Tartar advisers--Foundations for Ts'in's
+future empire.
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+_MORE ON PROTECTORS_
+
+The Five Protectors of China more exactly defined--No such period
+as the "Five Tyrant period" can be logically accepted as accurate--
+Chinese never understand the principles of history as distinct
+from the detailed facts--International situation defined--Flank
+movements--Appearance of barbarous Wu in the Chinese arena--
+Phonetic barbarian names--The State of Wei--Enlightened prince
+envoy to China from Wu--Wu rapidly acquires the status of
+Protector--Confucius tampers with history--Risky position of the
+King of Wu--Yüeh conquers Wu, and poses as Protector--The River Sz
+(Grand Canal).
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+_STATE INTERCOURSE_
+
+Further explanations regarding the grouping of states, and the
+size of the smallest states--Statesmen of all orthodox states
+acquainted with one another--No dialect difficulties in ancient
+times--Records exist for everything--Absence of caste, but
+persistence of the hereditary idea--The great political economist
+Kwan-tsz--Tsz-ch'an, the prince-statesman of Cheng--Shuh Hiang,
+statesman of Tsin--Reference to Appendix No. r--The statesman Yen-
+tsz of Ts'i--Confucius' origin as a member of the royal Sung
+family--Confucius' wanderings not so very extensive--Confucius no
+mere pedant, but a statesman and a humorist--Hiang Suh of Sung,
+inventor of "Hague" Conferences--Ki-chah, prince-envoy of Wu--K'u-
+peh-yuh, an authority in Wei--Ts'in had no literary men--Lao-% of
+Ts'u--Reasons why Confucius does not mention him
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+_LAND AND PEOPLE_
+
+Ancient land and land-tax-Combination of military service with
+land cultivation--Studious class had to study _tao_ (in its
+pre-Lao-tsz sense)--Next the trading classes--Next the cultivators--
+Last the handicraftsmen--Another division of the people--Responsibility
+of rulers to God--Classification of rulers and ruling ranks--Eunuchs
+and slaves--Cadastral survey in Ts'u state--Reserves for sporting--
+Cemeteries--Salt-flats Another land and military service system in
+Ts'u--Kwan-tsz's system in Ts'i--Poor relief--Shrewd diplomacy--His
+master becomes First Protector--commerce and fairs--"The people"
+ignored in history--Tsin reforms and administration--The "great family"
+nuisance--Roads, supplies, post-stages--Ts'i had developed even
+before Kwan-tsz--Restlessness of active minds under the yoke of ritual.
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+_EDUCATION AND LITERARY_
+
+Very little mention of ancient writing or education--Baked
+inscribed bricks unknown to the _loess_ region--Cession of
+land inscribed upon metal--The Nine Tripods--Ts'u claims them--
+Instances of written grants and prayers--Proof of teaching--A
+written public notice--Probable use of wood--Conventions upon
+stone--Books in sixth century B.C.--Maps, cadastre, and census
+records--A doubtful instance--A closed letter--Indentures--A
+military map--Treaties--Ancient theory _of_ juvenile education
+for office--Invention of new-written script 827 B.C.--Patriarchal rule
+inconsistent with enlightenment--Unification of script, weights, measures,
+and axle-breadths by the First August Emperor Further invention of script
+and first dictionary--Facility of Chinese writing for reading purposes--
+Chinese now in a state of flux.
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+_TREATIES AND VOWS_
+
+Treaties and imprecations--Smearing with blood of victims--
+Squabble _re_ precedence in the treaty-making--Shuh Niang's
+philosophy--Confucius' tampering with history condoned--Care of
+Chinese in preserving first-hand evidence--Emperor ignored by
+treaty-makers--Form of a treaty, with imprecation--Mesne lords and
+their vassals--Negotiations and references for instructions--
+Ts'u's first protectorate in 538--Ts'u's difficulty with Wu--The
+Six Families of Tsin--Sacrificing cocks as sanction to vows--
+Drawing human blood as sanction--Pigs for the same purpose--Kwan-
+tsz's honourable behaviour in keeping treaty--Confucius not so
+honourable: instances given--Casuistry backed up by a proverb.
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+_CONFUCIUS AND LITERATURE_
+
+Life-time of Confucius--Secret of his influence--Visit of the Wu
+prince to Confucius' state--Lu's "powerful" family plague--Lu's
+position between Tsin and Ts'u influences--Ts'i studies the ritual
+in Lu: Yen-tsz goes thither--Sketch of Lu history in its
+connection with Confucius--What were his practical objects?--
+Authorities in support of what Confucius' Annals tell us--Original
+conception of natural religion--Spread of the earliest patriarchal
+Chinese state--No other people near them possessed letters--The
+way in which the Chinese spread--Lines of least resistance--The
+spiritual emperor compared with some of the Popes--Lu's spiritual
+position--Confucius of Sung descent, and at first not an
+influential official in Lu--Lu's humiliation--Ts'i's intrigues to
+counteract Confucius' genius--Travels of Confucius and his
+history--His edited works.
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+_LAW_
+
+Original notion of law--War and punishment on a level--Secondary
+punishments--Judgment given as each breach occurs--No distinction
+between legislative and judicial--Private rights ignored by the
+State--Public weal is Nature's law--First law reform for the
+Hundred Families--Dr. Legge's translation of the Code--
+Proclamation of the Emperor's laws--Themistes or decisions--
+Capricious instances: boiling alive by Emperor--Interference of
+Emperor in Lu succession--Tsang Wen-chung's coat--Barbarity of
+the Ts'u laws--Lu's influence with the Emperor--Tsin's engraved
+laws--Tsz-ch'an's laws on metal in Cheng--Confucius disapproves of
+published law--English judge-made law--All rulers accepted Chou
+law--Reading law over sacrificial victim--Laconic ancient laws--
+Command emanates from the north--Definition of imperial power--The
+laws of Li K'wei in Ngwei state (part of old Tsin)--Direct
+influence on modern law.
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+_PUBLIC WORKS_
+
+Engineering works of old Emperors--Marvellous chiselled gorge
+above Tch'ang--Pa and Shuh kingdoms (= Sz Ch'wan)--The engineer Li
+Ping in Sz Ch'wan: his sluices still in working order after 2200
+years of use--Chinese ideas about the sources of the Yang-tsz--The
+Lolo country and its independence--The Yellow River and its
+vagaries--Substitution of the Chou dynasty for the Shang dynasty--
+First rulers of Wu make a canal--Origin of the Grand Canal--
+Explanation of the old riverine system of Shan Tung--Extension of
+the Canal by the First August Emperor--Kublai Khan's share in it--
+The old Wu capital--Soochow and its ancient arsenals--No bridges
+in old clays: fords used--Instances--Limited navigability of
+northern rivers--Various Great Walls--Enormous waste of human
+life--New Ts'in metropolis--Forced labour and eunuchs.
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+_CITIES AND TOWNS_
+
+Ancient cities mere hovels--Soul, the capital of modern Corea--
+Modern cities still poor affairs--Want of unity causes downfall of
+Ts'in and China--Magnificence of Ts'i capital--Ts'u's palaces
+imitated in Lu--The capital of Wu--Modern Soochow--Nothing known
+of early Ts'in towns--Reforms of Wei Yang in Ts'in--Probable
+population--Magnificent buildings at new Ts'in metropolis--
+Facility with which vassal states shifted their capitals--
+Insignificant size of ancient principalities--Walled cities.
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+_BREAK-UP OF CHINA_
+
+Collapse of Wu, flight in boats to Japan--Ground to believe that
+the ruling caste of Japan was influenced by Chinese colonists in
+the fifth century B.C.--Rise of Yueh, and action in China as
+Protector--Changes in the Hwai River system--Last days of the Chou
+dynasty--The year 403 B.C. is the second great pivot point in
+history--Undermining of Ts'i state by the T'ien or Ch'en family--
+Confucius shocked at the murder of a Ts'i prince--Sudden rise of
+Ts'in after two centuries of stagnation--The reforms of Wei Yang
+lead to the conquest of China--Orthodox China compared with
+Greece--The "Fighting State" Period.
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+_KINGS AND NOBLES_
+
+Titles of the Emperors of the Chou dynasty--The word "King" in
+modern times--Posthumous names--The title "Emperor" and the word
+"Imperial"--"God" confused with "Emperor"--Lao-tsz's view--
+Comparison with Babylonia, Egypt, etc.--No feudal prince was
+recognized by the Emperor as possessing the same title as the
+Emperor--The Roman Emperors--The five ranks of nobles--The
+Emperor's private "dukes" compared with cardinals--The state of
+Lu--The state of Ts'i--The state of Tsin--No race hatreds in
+China--The state of Wei--Clanship between dynasties--Sacrificial
+rights--The state of Cheng: a fighting ground for all--The state
+of Ch'en--Explanation of the term "duke" as applied to all
+sovereign princes.
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+_VASSALS AND EMPEROR_
+
+The vassal princes of the Chou and previous dynasties--Vassal
+princes and their relations with the Emperors--Protectors make
+great show of defending the Emperors rights--The Emperor's
+sacrifices to God--Rules and rights concerning fees--All China
+belongs to the Emperor--Peculiar notions about the Emperor's
+territory--Respect due to imperial envoys--Direct and indirect
+vassals--Ts'u's group of vassals--Ts'u compared with Macedon--
+Never subject to the Emperors--Right of passage for armies--
+Special complimentary use of the term "viscount"--Titles not
+inherited during mourning--Forms of address--Rival Protectors and
+their respective subordinate states--Tribute from the states to
+the Emperor, and presents from the Emperor to the vassal states--
+The Emperor accepts _faits accomplis_, and takes what he can
+get.
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+_FIGHTING STATE PERIOD_
+
+Period of fighting states--Tsin divided into Han, Ngwei, and Chao-
+Ts'in developing herself in Tartary and in Sz Ch'wan--Want of
+orderly method in Chinese history--How the statesmen of each
+vassal state developed resources--Ts'in's military development
+compared with that of Prussia from 1815 to 1870--"Perpendicular
+and Horizontal" period--Object to crush Ts'in--Rival claimants for
+universal empire--First appearance of the Huns or Turks-Helpless
+position of Old China--Bloody battles in Ts'in's final career of
+conquest--A million men decapitated--Immense cavalry fights-
+Ts'in's supreme effort for conquest of China.
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+_FOREIGN BLOOD_
+
+_Resume_ of Chinese historical development--General lines of
+Chinese advance--Methods of Chinese colonization--Equal pedigree
+claims of half-Chinese states--Tsin and Ts'i were even more
+ancient than orthodox China--Degree of foreignness in Ts'u-Ts'u
+native words and music--Ts'u peculiarities-Succession laws in Ts'u
+and Lu compared--Further evidence of Ts'u's foreign ways--Beards--
+Titles, posthumous and other--Ts'u admits her own savagery--Ts'u's
+claim to the Nine Tripods--Ts'u and the Chou rites--Ts'u's gradual
+civilization--Confucius' admiration of Ts'u--Confucius' style in
+speaking of barbarians--Distinction between "beat" and "battle"--
+German distinctions of rank compared with Chinese--The historical
+honour of "naming"--Vagueness of testimony and the way to test
+evidence.
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+_BARBARIANS_
+
+The state of Wu--First Chinese princely emigrants adopted
+barbarian usages--The Jungle country and Wu--Wu's way of doing the
+hair and Wu's confession of barbarism--Federal China uses Wu
+against Ts'u--Wu the same language and manners as Yueh--Native Wu
+words--Wu's ignorance of war--Wu's early isolation--Ts'i enters
+into marriage relations with Wu--Mencius objects retrospectively--
+Wu ruling caste--The Wu language--Succession laws of Wu--A Wu
+prince's views on the soul--Confucius' views on ghosts--Ki-chah's
+intimacy with orthodox statesmen--Rumours of Early Japan--Japan
+and Wu tattooing customs alike--Japanese traditions of a
+connection with Wu--Dangers of etymological guess-work--Doubts
+about racial matters in Wu--Small value of Japanese history and
+tradition--General conclusions.
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+_CURIOUS CUSTOMS_
+
+Small size of ancient China--Description of ancient nucleus and
+surrounding barbarians--Amount of foreign element in each vassal
+state--Policy of the Ts'i and Lu administrations--The savage
+tribes of the eastern coasts--Persistency of some down to 970
+A.D.--Ts'in's unliterary quality--Her human sacrifices--Her
+Turkish blood--Late influence of the Emperors over Ts'in--Ts'in's
+gradual civilization--Ki-chah on Ts'in music--Ts'u treats Ts'in as
+barbarian still in 361 B.C.--Ts'in's isolation previous to 326
+B.C.--Tartar rule of succession at one time in Ts'in--Yiieh's
+barbarism--Its able king--Native name--Mushroom existence as a
+power--The various branches of the Yiieh race in Foochow, W&chow,
+and Tonquin--Wu and Yiieh spoke the same language--Ruling caste of
+Wu--Stern military discipline in Wu and Yiieh--Neither state
+proved to have had human sacrifices--Crawling customs--Ancient
+Chinese descent of rulers--Yiieh's later capital in the German
+sphere--Her power always marine.
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+_LITERARY RELATIONS_
+
+Literary relations between vassal states--Confucius set the ball
+of philosophy a-rolling--The fourfold "Bible" of China--Odes were
+generally known by heart--Comparison with President Kruger and his
+texts--Quotations from Odes and Book enable us to fix dates--Books
+were heavy weights in those days--People trusted to memory--The
+Rites more exclusively understood by the ruling classes--
+Comparison with Johnsonian wits--Instances cited, with side
+proofs--History and Classics corroborate each other-Evidences--
+Confucius' ancestor composes odes--Political song by the children
+of Tsin--Another still-existing ode in reference to the Second
+Protector--Ts'u's early literary knowledge--General knowledge of
+Odes and History--Ignorance of Ts'in-Ts'in ancient documents the
+only ones now remaining--First definite notion of abolishing the
+feudal system--The pivot point 403 B.C.--Ts'in's conquests in
+north, south, east, and west--The First August Emperor's travels--
+Lao-tsz's Taoist philosophy becomes fashionable--Ts'in's hatred of
+orthodox literature, and of the Odes and Book in particular--The
+Book of Changes escapes his hatred--Revolutionary decree of the
+First August Emperor-Lost annals of all feudal states but Ts'in--
+Learned Tartars of Tsin-Confucius used Tsin annals too--Origin of
+the name _Shi-ki,_ or "Historical Annals"--Further evidence
+of lost histories--Curious name for Ts'u Annals--Ts'u poetry-
+Ts'u's knowledge of past history--The term "Springs and Autumns"--
+Baldness of early Chinese annals.
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+_ORIGIN OF THE CHINESE_
+
+Whence did the Chinese come?--All men of equal age and ancestry--
+Records make civilization and nobility--Evidences of antiquity--
+China and the West totally unknown to each other in ancient times--
+Tartars the connecting link--Though tamed by religion they are
+not much changed now--Traders then, as now, but no through
+travellers--Chinese probably in China for myriads of years before
+their records began--Tonic peculiarities of all tribes near China
+except the Tartars--Chinese followed lines of least resistance--
+Tartars driven back, but difficult to absorb--So with Coreans and
+Japanese-Indo-China not so favourable for Chinese absorption--
+Records decided the direction taken by culture--Southern half-
+Chinese have equal claims with orthodox Chinese--Traditions of
+ancient emperors in north, coast, and south parts--Suggestions as
+to how the most ancient Chinese spread themselves--No hint of
+immigration from anywhere--The old suggestion of immigration from
+the Tarim Valley and Babylonia--Suggested compromise with Western
+religious views--Creation and Nature--Compromise with the
+supernatural and imaginative--Summing up.
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+_THE CALENDAR_
+
+The Chinese calendar--Confucius and eclipses--Proclaiming the new
+moon--Celestial observations in different states--Chinese year is
+luni-Solar--Difficulty with the exact length of a moon--Ingenious
+devices for bringing the solar and lunar years, the seasons,
+solstices, and equinoxes into harmony with agricultural needs--The
+sixty-year cycle--Various reforms of the calendar, and various
+changes in the month beginning the year--Effect of calendar
+changes on Confucius' birthday--All is evidence in favour of
+accuracy of the Chinese records.
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+_NAMES_
+
+The difficulty of proper names--Instances-Clans and detached
+families--Surnames and personal names--Strange personal
+appellations--Interchange of names by all states--Eunuchs and
+priests-Minute rules about "naming" individuals--Confucius conveys
+praise or censure by "naming" persons--The principles upon which
+several names are applied to one person--Tabu-Instances, and Roman
+parallel--The Duke of Chou virtual founder of posthumous name
+system--Dying king and posthumous choice of name--Incestuous
+marriages in own clan--Hushing up incest in high places--
+Complication of names connected--Bearing of names upon the
+political events connected therewith.
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+_EUNUCHS, HUMAN SACRIFICES, FOOD_
+
+Eunuchs and their origin--criminals with feet chopped off as
+keepers--Noseless criminals for isolated picket duty--The branded
+were gate-keepers--Eunuchs for the harem--"Purified men"--
+Comparative antiquity of Persia and China--Eunuchs in Tsin--Ts'i
+eunuchs and Confucius--Eunuchs in Wu--Ts'u's uses for eunuchs--
+Eunuch intrigues in connection with the First August Emperor--The
+First Emperor's putative father--His works--Eunuch witnesses
+assassination of Second August Emperor--General employ of eunuchs
+in China--Human sacrifices in Ts'in and Ts'u: also in Ts'i--Doubts
+as to its existence in orthodox China--Han Emperor's prohibition--
+No fruit wine in ancient China--Spirits universal--Vice around
+ancient China rather than in it--Instances of heavy drinking in
+Ts'i and Ts'u--Tsin drinking--Confucius and liquor--Drinking in
+Ts'in--Ancient Chinese were meat-eaters--Horse-flesh and Tartars--
+Horse-liver in Prussia--Anecdote of Duke Muh and the hippophagi--
+Bears' paws as food--Elephants in Ts'u--Dogs as food.
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+_KNOWLEDGE OF THE WEST_
+
+The Emperor Muh's voyages to the West in 984 B.C.--The question of
+destroyed state annals-Exaggerated importance of the expedition,
+even if facts true--King Muh's father was killed in a similar
+expedition--Discovery of the Bamboo Books of 299 B.C. in 281 A.D.--
+Imaginary interpretations put upon King Muh's expedition by
+European critics--The Queen of Sheba--Professor Chavannes
+attributes the travels of Duke Muh of Ts'in 650 B.C.--Description
+of first journey--Along the great road to Lob Nor-Modern evidence
+that he got as far as Urumtsi--Six hundred days, or 12,000 miles--
+Specific evidence as to distance travelled each day--Various
+Tartar incidents of the journey--The Emperor's infatuation on the
+second journey--Lieh-tsz, the Taoist philosopher, on the Emperor
+Muh's travels--Arguments qualifying M. Chavannes' view that Duke
+Muh, and not the Emperor Muh, undertook the journeys.
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+_ANCIENT JAPAN_
+
+Wu kingdom--Name begins 585 B.C.--This is the year Japanese
+"history" begins--The first king and his four sons--Prince Ki-
+chah--War with Ts'u and sacking of its capital--King Fu-ch'ai and
+his wars against Yiieh--Offered an asylum in Chusan--Suicide of
+Fu-ch'ai--Escape of his family across the seas to Japan--China
+knew nothing of Japan, even if Wu did--Story reduced to its true
+proportions--Traces of prehistoric men in Japan--Possible
+movements of original inhabitants--Existing evidence better than
+none at all--East from Ningpo must be Japan--Like early Greeks and
+Egyptian colonists--Natural impulses to emigration--Refugees from
+China compared to Will Adams--Natural desire to improve pedigrees--
+No shame to Japan's ruling caste to hail from China--European
+comparisons--How the Japanese manufactured their past history--
+Imagination must be kept separate from evidence.
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+_ETHICS_
+
+Peculiar customs--Formalities of surrender--A number of instances
+of succession rules--Status of wives-Cases where the Emperor
+himself breaks the rules--Instances of irregular succession in
+various states--Customs of war--Cutting off the left ear as
+trophy--Rewards for heads--Principles of facing north and south--
+Turning towards Mecca--Left and Right princes--Modern instances of
+official seating--North and south facing houses--Chivalrous rules
+about mourning--Funeral missions--The feudal yearnings of
+Confucius explained--Respect even of barbarians for mourning--Many
+other quaint instances of funeral and mourning rules--Promises
+made to a dying _non compos_ of no avail--Mencius and the
+diplomatists.
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+_WOMEN AND MORALS_
+
+Rights of women in ancient China--The legal rule and the actual
+fact--Instances of irregularity in female status, both in ancient
+and modern China--Instances of incest and irregular marriage even
+in orthodox states-Women, once married, not to come back--The
+much-married Second Protector--Hun and Turk customs about taking
+over Wives--Clan marriages of doubtful legality--Succession rules--
+Ts'u irregularities and caprice--Elder brothers by inferior
+wives--Paranymphs, or under-studies of the wife--Women always
+under some man's power--Incestuous fathers--_Lex Julia_ introduced
+into Yiieh by its vengeful King--The evil morals of the Shanghai-Ningpo
+region of ancient Yiieh--No prostitution in ancient China, except perhaps
+in Ts'i--No infanticide--Incest and names.
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+_GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE_
+
+Orthodox China compared with orthodox Greece--Our persistent
+"traditions" about the Tower of Babel and the Tarim Valley-Wu,
+Yiieh, and ancient traditions--The "Tribute of Yii" says nothing
+of Western origin of Chinese--No ancient knowledge of the West,
+nor of South China--The Blackwater River and the Emperor Muh--The
+"Tribute of Yii" says nothing of the supposed Western emigration
+of the Chinese--Some traditions of Chinese migrations from the
+south--Traditions of enfeoffment of vassals in Corea, about 1122
+B.C.--Knowledge of China as defined by the First Protector, and as
+visited by the Second in the seventh century B.C.--Evidence of the
+Emperor's limited knowledge of China in 670 B.C.--Yiieh first
+appears in 536 B.C.--Tsin never saw the sea till 589 B.C.--Ts'i's
+ignorance of the south-u, Yiieh, and Ts'u all purely Yang-tsz
+riverine states--Ts'u alone knew the south--CHÊNG's ignorance of
+the south--Ts'u and orthodox China of the same ancient stock--
+Tsin's ignorance of Central China--Tsin defines Chinese limits for
+Ts'u--Ancient orthodox nucleus was the "Central State," a name
+still employed to mean "China" as a whole.
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+_TOMBS AND REMAINS._
+
+Evidences still remaining in the shape of the tombs of great
+historical personages--Elephants used to work at the Wu tombs--
+Royal Ts'u tomb desecrated--Relics of 1122 B.C. found in Lu--Ts'in
+destitute of relics--Confucius and the Duke of Chou's relics--Each
+generation of Chinese sees and doubts not of its own antiquities--
+No reason for European scepticism--Native critics know much more
+than we do.
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+_THE TARTARS_
+
+From ancient times Tartars intimately connected with the Chinese--
+How the Chou state had to migrate to avoid the Tartars--Chou
+ancestors had originally fled from China to the Tartars--Chou
+family's subsequent dealings with the Tartars--How Ts'in replaced
+Chou as the semi-Tartar or westernmost state of China--Tartars for
+many centuries in possession of Yellow River north bank--Once
+extended to Kiang Su province--Confucius' knowledge of the
+Tartars--Tartar attacks in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C.--
+Causes of the Protector system--Incompetence of Emperors to stave
+off Tartar attacks--Ts'i's extensive relations with the Tartars--
+The Second Protector and his adviser--Rude treatment of the Second
+Protector by the orthodox Chinese states--Ts'u's bluff hospitality--
+Second Protector had to check Chinese instead of Tartar ambitions--
+Tsin's Tartar admixture--Comparison with Roman adventurers--How
+Tartars have in modern times ruled China and Asia.
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+_MUSIC_
+
+Music in Chinese life--Confucius' present dwelling and the ancient
+instruments therein--Comparison with Wagner's Ring--Musicians as
+corrupters of simplicity--Tsin and Ts'in dialects--Music as an
+adjunct to government--Confucius' views on music--Ts'u music--The
+effect of music on the mind--Rewards in the shape of right to play
+certain tunes--The Emperor Muh's music--Music coupled with
+soothsaying--Lao-tsz on benevolence and justice-Playing the banjo--
+Music at sacrifice or worship--Modern abstinence from music--
+First August Emperor compared with Saul and his music.
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+_WEALTH, SPORTS, ETC._
+
+Ancient and modern ideas of wealth--Ts'in and Ts'u valuables--
+Furniture--Mats and divans--Tea and wine--Tartar couches--Inlaid
+ivory sofas--State treasure--Wealth in horses-Silks and furs in
+Tsin and Ts'u--Women as property--Pearls and jade as portable
+property--A Chinese Crocesus--Escape by sea to Shan Tung--Gold as
+money--Bribery with "metal"--Iron and gold mines in Wu--Fine Wu
+swords--"Cash" as coins--Ts'u money--Weight of a gold piece--Cooks
+important personages--"Meat-eaters" meant the ruling classes--
+Silk universal--Poor wore hemp--No cotton--Ts'in custom of wearing
+swords--Jade marks of rank--Sports--Egret fights-war hunts--Horses
+in Peking plain--Hunting chariots and "shaft-gates"--_Yamen,
+ya_, and Turkish encampments--Cockfighting-Lifting heavy
+weights--Ball games--Women at looms--Little said of family life--
+No homely pastimes--No squeezed feet--Helplessness of the people
+under their taskmasters.
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+_CONFUCIUS_
+
+Confucius--His merits--His imperial and ducal origin--Migration of
+his family from Sung to Lu--His warrior father--His quaint
+childish fancies--Lu officer foretells his greatness--His first
+pupils--His appointment as steward--His visit to Laos--No reason
+for mentioning this visit in history--Neither philosopher yet
+"great"--Lu in a quandary--Helplessness of the Emperor under Tsin,
+Ts'i, and Ts'u pressure--Yen-tsz sees Confucius, and discusses
+Ts'in's greatness--Studying the Rites at Lu-Date of Confucius'
+visit to Lao-tsz--Struggle of great families for popular rights--
+Confucius offers services to Ts'i--Examines Rites of Hia--Yen-
+tsz's jealousy of Confucius--Confucius back in Lu--His literary
+labours--His official posts and his views on law--Ts'i overborne
+by Wu--Ts'i's attempt at assassination defeated by Confucius'
+diplomacy--Treaty between Lu and Ts'i--Civil war in Lu--Confucius
+Premier--Successful administration--Confucius leaves Lu in
+disgust--His treatment in Wei state--Leaves Wei, but returns to
+old friend there--Confucius' suspicious visit to a lady--Leaves
+disgusted _via_ Sung for Ts'ao--Visits to Cheng (mistaken for
+Tsz-ch'an) and Ch'en--A prey to rival ambitions--Episode of the
+Manchurian bustard--Revisits Wei--Arrested; solemn promise broken--
+Base behaviour--Starts to visit Tsin--Confucius' enemy repents--
+Arrangements to get Confucius back to Lu--He first visits Ts'ai-
+Excursion to Ts'u--Three years more in Ts'ai--T-s'u's literary
+status--Competition amongst princes for Confucius' services--
+Confucius and war--Reaches Lu after fourteen years of wandering--
+Confucius' travels the same as the Second Protector's--Consoles
+himself with literature--Popularizes history-Edits the Changes and
+the Odes--His history--The Tso Chwan.
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+_CONFUCIUS AND LAO-TSZ_
+
+Historians had to be careful--Reverence for rulers--Confucius'
+feelings--His failings--All on the surface--His concealments--His
+artful censures--Sanctity of the classes--Confucius' meannesses
+and indiscretions--Allowances must be made for time and place--
+Tsz-ch'an quite as good a man--Reasons for permanency of Confucian
+system--Reasons for Lao-tsz not being mentioned--All Chinese
+statesman-philosophers were, or tried to be, practical--First
+mention of Lao-tsz's new Taoism--Lao-tsz well known 400 B.C.--
+State intercourse before Confucius' time--Philosophy taught by
+word of mouth--Cheapening of books accounts for spread of
+knowledge--Description of ancient books--Confucius was young when
+he visited Lao-tsz--Lao-t&s book in ancient character--Meagreness
+of details evidence of rigid truth--Obscurity of the Emperor--
+Difficult questions of fact answered--How Lao-tsz was visited--
+Proofs of genuineness--Originals must be studied by foreign
+critics.
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+_ORACLES AND OMENS_
+
+Consulting the oracles--The Changes, or Book of Diagrams--Ts'u and
+Ts'i as instructors of Chou--Tortoise augury--Consulting
+ancestors--Heaven's decree--Heaven's spontaneous, manifestations
+of favour--Astrology--Prognostication--Text of the Changes
+survives unmutilated--Ts'in consults oracles about moving capital--
+Ts'in's greatness foretold--Omens--_Dies_ n&s--Oracles in
+the battlefield--Prophecy in Tsin, Ts'u, and Lu--Shuh Hiang's
+scepticism--Tsz-ch'an and the omen of fighting snakes--Children
+sing prophetic songs--"Passing on" threatened evil--Tortoise
+oracles in Ts'o and Wu--High status of diviners-"-Transferring"
+evil in Ts'u--Rivers as gods--Our own prophecies--Good faith and
+truth.
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+
+_RULERS AND PEOPLE_
+
+Personal character of wars--People's interests ignored--Instances--
+Comparisons with the Golden Fleece and Naboth's vineyard--Second
+Protector avenges scurvy treatment--The halt, the maim, and the
+blind--Jephthah's rash vow-Divinity of kings--Ts'u more tyrannical
+than China--Responsibility of Chinese before Heaven--The King can
+do no wrong--Emperors reign under Heaven--Heaven in the confidence
+of rulers--Sacred person of kings--Distinction between official
+and private death--Double chivalry of a Tsin general--The gods and
+Tsz-ch'an's scepticism.
+
+APPENDICES
+
+INDEX
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+[For the illustration of the Wuchuan vase, and the inscription
+thereon, I am indebted to Dr. S. W. Bushell M.D., from whose work
+on "Chinese Art" (vol. i. p. 82) the plates (kindly lent by H.M.
+Stationery Office) are taken. For the photograph of the Duke of
+"Propagating Holiness" (i.e. Confucius) I am indebted to the
+Jesuit Fathers of Shanghai, and to Father Tschepe, who obtained it
+from his Grace.]
+
+1. Tripod of the Chou dynasty, date 8l2 B.C. In 1565 A.D. it was
+placed by the owner for safety in a temple on Silver Island (near
+Chinkiang), where it may be seen now.
+
+Taken (by kind permission of the author) from Dr. S. W. Bushell's
+"Chinese Art," vol. i. p. 82. _Frontispiece_
+
+2. K'ung Ling-i, the hereditary Yen-shêng Kung, or "Propagating
+Holiness Duke"; 76th in descent from K'ung K'iu, alias K'ung
+Chung-ni, the original philosopher, 551-479 B.C.
+
+This portrait was presented to "the priest P'êng" (Father Tschepe,
+S.J.), on the occasion of his visit last autumn (7th moon, 33rd
+year). To _face page 81_
+
+3. Original inscription on the Sacrificial Tripod, together with
+(1) transcription in modern Chinese character (to the right), and
+(2) an account of its history (to the left). Taken from Dr.
+Bushell's "Chinese Art".
+
+[Illustration: MAP]
+
+LIST OF MAPS
+
+1. The other small maps will explain each section more in detail.
+
+2. This map is intended to give a general idea of the extremely
+limited area of the empire in the sixth century B.C.
+
+3. Like the modern Sultan, the Chow Emperor was gradually driven
+into a corner, surrounded by Bulgarias, Servias, Egypts, and other
+countries once under his effective rule; and, like the Sultan, the
+Chou Emperor remained spiritual head for many centuries after the
+practical dismemberment of his empire.
+
+4. Until quite recent times, the true source of the Yang-tsz had
+been unknown to the Chinese, and the River Min has been, and even
+still is, considered to be the chief head-water. It flows through
+the rich country of ancient Shuh, now the administrative centre of
+Sz Ch'wan province.
+
+5. Even now the Yang-tsz River is practically the only great route
+from China into Sz Ch'wan, and in ancient times the rapids were
+probably not negotiable by large craft.
+
+6. The land routes into Sz Ch'wan from the head-waters of the Wei
+and Ilan Rivers are all extremely precipitous. It was not until
+200 B.C. that any military road was attempted.
+
+7. Ancient China meant the Yellow River. Then the Han and the
+Hwai. Next the Yang-tsz. Last the Sz Ch'wan tributaries of the
+Yang-tsz. It was through the lakes and rivers south of the Yang-
+tsz that China at last colonized the south.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+OPENING SCENES
+
+The year 842 B.C. may be considered the first accurate date in
+Chinese history, and in this year the Emperor had to flee from his
+capital on account of popular dissatisfaction with his tyrannical
+ways: he betook himself northward to an outlying settlement on the
+Tartar frontier, and the charge of imperial affairs was taken over
+by a regency or duumvirate.
+
+At this time the confederation of cultured princes called China--
+or, to use their own term, the Central Kingdom--was a very
+different region from the huge mass of territory familiar to us
+under those names at the present day. It is hardly an exaggeration
+to say that civilized China, even at that comparatively advanced
+period, consisted of little more than the modern province of Ho
+Nan. All outside this flat and comparatively riverless region
+inhabited by the "orthodox" was more or less barbaric, and such
+civilization as it possessed was entirely the work of Chinese
+colonists, adventurers, or grantees of fiefs _in partibus
+infidelium_ (so to speak). Into matters of still earlier
+ancient history we may enter more deeply in another chapter, but
+for the present we simply take China as it was when definite
+chronology begins.
+
+The third of the great dynasties which had ruled over this limited
+China had, in 842 B.C., already been on the imperial throne for
+practically three hundred years, and, following the custom of its
+predecessors, it had parcelled out all the land under its sway to
+vassal princes who were, subject to the general imperial law and
+custom, or ritual, together with the homage and tribute duty
+prescribed thereunder, all practically absolute in their own
+domains. Roughly speaking, those smaller fiefs may be said to have
+corresponded in size with the walled-city and surrounding district
+of our own times, so well known under the name of _hien_.
+About a dozen of the larger fiefs had been originally granted to
+the blood relations of the dynastic founder in or after 1122 B.C.;
+but not exclusively so, for it seems to have been a point of
+honour, or of religious scruple, not to "cut off the sacrifices"
+from ruined or disgraced reigning families, unless the attendant
+circumstances were very gross; and so it came to pass that
+successive dynasties would strain a point in order to keep up the
+spiritual memory of decayed or rival houses.
+
+Thus, at the time of which we speak (842 B.C.), about ten of the
+dozen or so of larger vassal princes were either of the same clan
+as the Emperor himself, or were descended from remoter branches of
+that clan before it secured the imperial throne; or, again, were
+descended from ministers and statesmen who had assisted the
+founder to obtain empire; whilst the two or three remaining great
+vassals were lineal representatives of previous dynasties, or of
+their great ministers, keeping up the honour and the sacrifices of
+bygone historical personages. As for the minor fiefs, numbering
+somewhere between a thousand and fifteen hundred, these play no
+part in political history, except as this or that one of them may
+have been thrust prominently forward for a moment as a pawn in the
+game of ambition played by the greater vassals. Nominally the
+Emperor was direct suzerain lord of all vassals, great or small;
+but in practice the greater vassal princes seem to have been what
+in the Norman feudal system were called "mesne lords"; that is,
+each one was surrounded by his own group of minor ruling lords,
+who, in turn, naturally clung for protection to that powerful
+magnate who was most immediately accessible in case of need; thus
+vassal rulers might be indefinitely multiplied, and there is some
+vagueness as to their numbers.
+
+Just as the oldest civilizations of the West concentrated
+themselves along the banks of the Euphrates and the Nile, so the
+most ancient Chinese civilization is found concentrated along the
+south bank of the Yellow River. The configuration of the land as
+shown on a modern map assists us to understand how the industrious
+cultivators and weavers, finding the flat and so-called
+_loess_ territory too confined for their ever-increasing
+numbers, threw out colonies wherever attraction offered, and
+wherever the riverine systems gave them easy access; whether by
+boat and raft; or whether--as seems more probable, owing to the
+scanty mention of boat-travel--by simply following the low levels
+sought by the streams, and tilling on their way such pasturages as
+they found by the river-sides. When it is said that the earliest
+Chinese we know of clung to the Yellow River bed, it must be
+remembered that "the River" (as they call it simply) turned sharp
+to the north at a point in Ho Nan province very far to the west of
+its present northerly course, near a city marked in the modern
+maps as Jung-t&h, in lat. 35 degrees N., long, 114 degrees E., or
+thereabouts; moreover, its course further north lay considerably to the
+westward of the present Grand Canal, taking possession now of the
+bed of the Wei River, now of that of the Chang River, according to
+whether we regard it before or after the year 602 B.C.; but always
+entering the Gulf near modern Tientsin. Hence we need not be
+surprised to find that the Conqueror or Assertor of the dynasty
+had conferred upon a staunch adviser, of alien origin, and upon
+two of his most trusty relatives, the three distant fiefs which
+commanded both sides of the Yellow River mouth, at that time near
+the modern Tientsin. There was no Canal in those days, and the
+river which runs past Confucius' birth-place, and now goes towards
+feeding the Grand Canal, had then a free course south-east towards
+the lakes in Kiang Su province to the north of Nanking. It will be
+noticed that quite a network of tributary rivers take their rise
+in Ho Nan province, and trend in an easterly direction towards the
+intricate Hwai River system. The River Hwai, which has a great
+history in the course of Chinese development, was in quite recent
+times taken possession of by the Yellow River for some years, and
+since then the Grand Canal and the lakes between them have so
+impeded its natural course that it may be said to have no natural
+delta at all; to be dissipated in a dedalus of salt flats,
+irrigation channels, and marshes: hence it is not so obvious to us
+now why the whole coast-line was at the period we are now
+describing, when there was no Grand Canal, quite beyond the reach
+of Chinese colonization from the Yellow River valley: this was
+only possible in two directions--firstly to the south, by way of
+the numerous ramifications of the Han River, which now, as then,
+joins the Yang-tsz Kiang at Hankow; and secondly to the south-
+east, by way of the equally numerous ramifications of the Hwai
+River, which entered the sea in lat. 34ø N. No easy emigration to
+the westward or south-westward was possible in those comparatively
+roadless days, for not a single river pointed out the obvious way to
+would-be colonists.
+
+Accustomed as we now are to regard China as one vast homogeneous
+whole, approachable to us easily from the sea, it is not easy for
+us to understand the historical lines of expansion without these
+preliminary explanations. Corea and Japan were totally unknown
+even by name, and even Liao Tung, or "East of the River Liao,"
+which was then inhabited by Corean tribes, was, if known by
+tradition at all, certainly only in communication with the remote
+Chinese colony, or vassal state, in possession of the Peking
+plain: on the other hand, this vassal state itself (if it had
+records of its own at all), for the three centuries previous to
+842 B.C., had no political relations with the federated Chinese
+princes, and nothing is known of its internal doings, or of its
+immediate relations (if any) with Manchus and Coreans. The whole
+coast-line of Shan Tung was in the hands of various tribes of
+"Eastern Barbarians." True, a number of Chinese vassal rulers held
+petty fiefs to the south and the east of the two highly civilized
+principalities already described as being in possession of the
+Lower Yellow River; but the originally orthodox rulers of these
+petty colonies are distinctly stated to have partly followed
+barbarian usage, even despite their own imperial clan origin, and
+to have paid court to these two greater vassals as mesne lords,
+instead of direct to the Emperor. South of these, again, came the
+Hwai group of Eastern barbarians in possession of the Lower Hwai
+valley, and the various quite unknown tribes of Eastern barbarians
+occupying the marshy salt flats and shore accretions on the Kiang
+Su coast right down to the River Yang-tsz mouth.
+
+As we shall see, a century or two later than 842 B.C. powerful
+semi-Chinese states began to assert themselves against the
+federated orthodox Chinese princes lying to their north; but, when
+dated history first opens, Central China knew nothing whatever of
+any part of the vast region lying to the south of the Yang-tsz;
+nothing whatever of what we now call Yiin Nan and Sz Ch'wan, not
+to say of the Indian and Tibetan dominions lying beyond them; _
+fortiori_ nothing of Formosa, Hainan, Cochin-China, Tonquin,
+Burma, Siam, or the various Hindoo trading colonies advancing from
+the South Sea Islands northwards along the Indo-Chinese coasts;
+nothing whatever of Tsaidam, the Tarim Valley, the Desert, the
+Persian civilization, Turkestan, Kashgaria, Tartary, or Siberia.
+
+It is, and will here be made, quite clear that the whole of the
+left bank of the Yellow River was in possession of various Turkish
+and Tartar-Tibetan tribes. The only exception is that the south-
+west corner of Shan Si province, notably the territory enclosed
+between the Yellow River and the River F&n (which, running from
+the north, bisects Shan Si province and enters the Yellow River
+about lat. 35" 30' N., long. 110 degrees 30' E.) was colonized by a branch
+of the imperial family quite capable of holding its own against
+the Tartars; in fact, the valley of this river as far north as
+P'ing-yang Fu had been in semi-mythical times (2300 B.C.) the
+imperial residence. It will be noticed that the River Wei joins
+the Yellow River on its right bank, just opposite the point where
+this latter, flowing from the north, bends eastwards, the Wei
+itself flowing from the west. This Wei Valley (including the sub-
+valleys of its north-bank tributaries) was also in 842 B.C.
+colonized by an ancient Chinese family--not of imperial extraction
+so far as the reigning house was concerned--which, by adopting
+Tartar, or perhaps Tartar--Tibetan, manners, had for many
+generations succeeded in acquiring a predominant influence in that
+region. Assuming that--which is not at all improbable--the nomad
+horsemen in unchallenged possession of the whole desert and Tartar
+expanse had at any time, as a consequence of their raids in
+directions away from China westward, brought to China any new
+ideas, new commercial objects, or new religious notions, these
+novelties must almost necessarily have filtered through this semi-
+Chinese half-barbarous state in possession of the Wei Valley, or
+through other of their Tartar kinsmen periodically engaged in
+raiding the settled Chinese cultivators farther east, along the
+line of what is now the Great Wall, and the northern parts of Shan
+Si and Chih Li provinces.
+
+We shall allude in a more convenient place and chapter to specific
+traditions touching the supposed journeys about 990 B.C. of a
+Chinese Emperor to Turkestan; the alleged missions from Tonquin to
+a still earlier Chinese Emperor or Regent; and the pretended
+colonization of Corea by an aggrieved Chinese noble-all three
+events some centuries earlier than the opening period of dated
+history of which we now specially speak. For the present we ignore
+them, as, even if true, these events have had, and have now, no
+specific or definite influence whatever on the question of Chinese
+political development as expounded here. It seems certain that for
+many centuries previous to 842 B.C. the ruling and the literary
+Chinese had known of the existence of at least the Lower Yang-tsz
+and its three mouths (the Shanghai mouth and the Hangchow mouth
+have ceased long ago to exist at all): they also seem to have
+heard in a vague way of "moving sands" beyond the great northerly
+bend of the Yellow River in Tartarland. It is not even impossible
+that the persistent traditions of two of their very ancient
+Emperors having been buried south of the Yang-tsz--one near the
+modern coast treaty-port of Ningpo, the other near the modern
+riverine treaty-port of Ch'ang-sha--may be true; for nothing is
+more likely than that they both met their death whilst exploring
+the tributaries of the mysterious Yang-tsz Kiang lying to their
+south; because the father of the adventurous Emperor who is
+supposed to have explored Tartary in ggo B.C. certainly lost his
+life in attempting to explore the region of Hankow, as will be
+explained in due course.
+
+All this, however, is matter of side issue. The main point we wish
+to insist upon, by way of introduction, in endeavouring to give
+our readers an intelligible notion of early Chinese development,
+is that Chinese beginnings were like any other great nation's
+beginnings--like, for instance, the Greek beginnings; these were
+centred at first round an extremely petty area, which, gradually
+expanding, threw out its tentacles and branches, and led to the
+final inclusion of the mysterious Danube, the gloomy Russian
+plain, the Tin Islands, Ultima Thule, and the Atlantic coasts into
+one fairly harmonious Graeco-Roman civilization. Or it may be
+compared to the development of the petty Anglo-Saxon settlements
+and kingdoms and sub-kingdoms, and their gradual political
+absorption of the surrounding Celts. In any case it may be said
+that there is nothing startlingly new about it; it followed a
+normal course.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+SHIFTING SCENES
+
+Having now seen how the Chinese people, taking advantage of the
+material and moral growth naturally following upon a settled
+industrial existence, and above all upon the exclusive possession
+of a written character, gradually imposed themselves as rulers
+upon the ignorant tribes around them, let us see to what families
+these Chinese emigrant adventurers or colonial satraps belonged.
+To begin with the semi-Tartar power in the River Wei Valley--
+destined six hundred years later to conquer the whole of China as
+we know it to-day--the ruling caste claimed descent from the most
+ancient (and of course partly mythological) Emperors of China; but
+for over a thousand years previous to 842 B.C. this remote branch
+of the Chinese race had become scattered and almost lost amongst
+the Tartars. However, a generation or two before our opening
+period, one of these princes had served the then ruling imperial
+dynasty as a sort of guardian to the western frontier, as a rearer
+of horses for the metropolitan stud, and perhaps even as a guide
+on the occasion of imperial expeditions into Tartarland. The
+successor of the Emperor who was driven from his capital in 842
+B.C. about twenty years later employed this western satrap to
+chastise the Tartar nomads whose revolt had in part led to the
+imperial flight. After suffering some disasters, the conductors of
+this series of expeditions were at last successful, and in 815
+B.C. the title of "Warden of the Western Marches" was officially
+conferred on the ruler for the time being of this western state,
+who in 777 B.C. had the further honour of seeing one of his
+daughters married to the Emperor himself. This political move on
+the part of the Emperor was unwise, for it led indirectly to the
+Tartars, who were frequently engaged in war with the Warden,
+interfering in the quarrels about the imperial succession, in
+which question the Tartars naturally thought they had a right to
+interfere in the interests of their own people. The upshot of it
+was that in 771 B.C. the Emperor was killed by the Tartars in
+battle, and it was only by securing the military assistance of the
+semi-Tartar Warden of the Marches that the imperial dynasty was
+saved. As it was, the Emperor's capital was permanently moved east
+from the immediate neighbourhood of what we call Si-ngan Fu in
+Shen Si province to the immediate neighbourhood of Ho-nan Fu in
+the modern Ho Nan province; and as a reward for his services the
+Warden was granted nearly the whole of the original imperial
+patrimony west of the Yellow River bend and on both sides of the
+Wei Valley. This was also in the year 771 B.C., and this is really
+one of the great pivot-points in Chinese history, of equal weight
+with the almost contemporaneous founding of Rome, and the gradual
+substitution of a Roman centre for a Greek centre in the
+development and civilization of the Far West. The new capital was
+not, however, a new city. Shortly after the imperial dynasty
+gained the possession of China in 1122 B.C., it had been surveyed,
+and some of the regalia had been taken thither; this, with a view
+of making it one of the capitals at least, if not the sole
+capital.
+
+As Chinese names sound uncouth to our Western ears, and will,
+therefore, in these introductory chapters only be used sparingly
+and gradually, it becomes correspondingly difficult to explain
+historical phenomena adequately whilst endeavouring to avoid as
+far as possible the use of such unintelligible names: it will be
+well, then, to sum up the situation, and even repeat a little, so
+that the reader may assimilate the main points without fatigue or
+repulsion. The reigning dynasty of Chou had secured the adhesion
+of the thousand or more of Chinese vassal princes in 1122 B.C.,
+and had in other words "conquered" China by invitation, much in
+the same way, and for very much the same general reasons, that
+William III. had' accepted the conquest of the British Isles; that
+is to say, because the people were dissatisfied with their
+legitimate ruler and his house. But, before this conquest, the
+vassal princes of Chou had occupied practically the same
+territory, and had stood in the same relation to the imperial
+dynasty subsequently ousted by them in 1122, that the Wardens of
+the Marches occupied and stood in when the imperial house of Chou
+in turn fled east in 771 B.C. The Shang dynasty thus ousted by the
+Chou princes in 1122, had for like misgovernment driven out the
+Hia dynasty in 1766 B.C. Thus, at the time when the Wardens of the
+Marches (whose real territorial title was Princes of Ts'in)
+practically put the imperial power into commission in 771 B.C.,
+the two old-fashioned dynasties of Shang and Chou had already
+ruled patriarchally for almost exactly one thousand years, and
+nothing of either a very startling, or a very definite, character
+had taken place at all within the comparatively narrow area
+described in our first chapter.
+
+From this date of 771 B.C., and for five hundred years more down
+to 250 B.C., when the Chou dynasty was extinguished, the rule of
+the feudal Emperors of China was almost purely nominal, and except
+in so far as this or that powerful vassal made use of the moral,
+and even occasionally of the military power of the metropolitan
+district when it suited his purpose, the imperial ruler was
+chiefly exercised in matters of form and ritual; for under all
+three patriarchal dynasties it was on form and ritual that the
+idea of government had always been based. Of course the other
+powerful satraps--especially the more distant ones, those not
+bearing the imperial clan-name, and those more or less tinged with
+barbarian usages--learning by degrees what a helpless and
+powerless personage the Emperor had now become, lost no time in
+turning the novel situation to their own advantage: it is
+consequently now that begins the "tyrant period," or the period of
+the "Five Dictators," as the Chinese historians loosely term it:
+that is to say, the period during which each satrap who had the
+power to do so took the lead of the satrap body in general, and
+gave out that he was restoring the imperial prestige, representing
+the Emperor's majesty, carrying out the behests of reason,
+compelling the other vassals to do their duty, keeping up the
+legitimist sacrifices, and so on. In other words, the population
+of China had grown so enormously, both by peaceful in-breeding and
+by imperceptible absorption of kindred races, that more elbow-room
+was needed; more freedom from the shackles of ritual, rank, and
+feudal caste; more independence, and more liberty to take
+advantage of local or changed traditions. Besides all this, the
+art of writing, though still clumsy, expensive, and confined in
+its higher and literary aspects to the governing classes, had
+recently become simplified and improved; the salt trade, iron
+trade, fish industry, silk industry, grain trade, and art of usury
+had spread from one state to the other, and had developed: though
+the land roads were bad or non-existent, there were great numbers
+of itinerant dealers in cattle and army provisions. In a word,
+material civilization had made great strides during the thousand
+years of patriarchal rule immediately preceding the critical
+period comprised between the year 842 B.C. and the year 771 B.C.
+The voices of the advocates and the preachers of ancient
+patriarchal virtues were as of men crying in a wilderness of
+substantial prosperity and manly ambition. Thus political and
+natural forces combined with each other to prepare the way for a
+radical change, and this period of incipient revolution is
+precisely the period (722-480) treated of in Confucius' history,
+the first history of China--meagre though it be--which deals with
+definite human facts, instead of "beating the air" (as the Chinese
+say) with sermons and ritualistic exhortations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE NORTHERN POWERS
+
+We have already alluded to a princely family, of the same clan-
+name as the Chou Emperor, which had settled in the southern part
+of modern Shan Si province, and had thus acted as a sort of buffer
+state to the imperial domain by keeping off from it the Tartar-
+Turk tribes in the north. This family was enfeoffed by the new
+Chou dynasty in 1106 B.C. to replace the extremely ancient
+princely house which had reigned there ever since the earliest
+Emperors ruled from that region (2300 B.C.), but which had
+resisted the Chou conquest, and had been exterminated. Nothing
+definite is known of what transpired in this principality
+subsequently to the infeoffment of 1106 B.C., and prior to the
+events of 771 B.C., at which latter date the ruling prince,
+hearing of the disaster to his kinsman the Emperor, went to meet
+that monarch's fugitive successor, and escorted him eastwards to
+his new capital. This metropolis had, as we have explained
+already, been marked out some 340 years before this, and had
+continued to be one of the chief spiritual and political centres
+in the imperial domain; but for some reason it had never before
+771 B.C. been officially declared a capital, or at all events
+_the_ capital. Confucius, in his history, does not mention at
+all the petty semi-Tartar state of which we are now speaking
+before 671 B.C., and all that we know of its doings during this
+century of time is that rival factions, family intrigues, and
+petty annexations at the cost of various Tartar tribes, and of
+small, but ancient, Chinese principalities, occupied most of its
+time. It must be repeated here, however, that, notwithstanding
+Tartar neighbours, the valley of the River Fen had been the seat
+of several of China's oldest semi-mythical emperors-possibly even
+of dynasties,-and at no time do the Tartars seem to have ever
+succeeded in ousting the Chinese from South Shan Si. The official
+name of the region after the Chou infeoffment of 1106 B.C. was the
+State of Tsin, and it was roughly divided off to the west from its
+less civilized colleague Ts'in by the Yellow River, on the right
+bank of which Tsin still possessed a number of towns. It is
+particularly difficult for Europeans to realize the sharp
+distinction in sound between these two names, the more especially
+because we have in the West no conception whatever of the effect
+of tone upon a syllable It may be explained, however, that the
+sonant initial and even-voiced tone in the one case, contrasted
+with the surd initial and the scaled tone in the other, involves
+to the Chinese mind a distinction quite as clear in all dialects
+as the European distinction in all languages between the two
+states of Prussia and Russia, or between the two peoples Swedes
+and Swiss: it is entirely the imperfection of our Western
+alphabet, not at all that of the spoken sounds or the ideographs,
+that is at fault.
+
+The Yellow River, running from north to south, not only roughly
+separated from each other these two Tartar-Chinese buffer states
+in the north-west, but the same Yellow River, flowing east, and
+its tributary, the River Wei, also formed a rough boundary between
+the two states of Tsin and Ts'in (together) to the north, and the
+innumerable petty but ancient Chinese principalities surrounding
+the imperial domain to the south. These principalities or
+settlements were scattered about among the head-waters of the Han
+River and the Hwai River systems, and their manifest destiny, if
+they needed expansion, clearly drove them further southwards,
+following the courses of all these head-waters, towards the Yang-
+tsz Kiang. But, more than that, the Yellow River, after thus
+flowing east for several hundred miles, turned sharp north in
+long. 114ø E., as already explained, and thence to the north-east
+formed a second rough boundary between Tsin and nearly all the
+remaining orthodox Chinese states. Tsin's chief task was thus to
+absorb into its administrative system all the Tartar raiders that
+ventured south to the Yellow River.
+
+But there was a third northern state engaged in the task of
+keeping back the Tartar tribes, and in developing a civilization
+of its own-based largely, of course, upon Chinese principles, but
+modified so as to meet local exigencies. This was the state of
+Ts'i, enclosed between the Yellow River to the west and the sea to
+the east, but extending much farther north than the boundaries of
+modern Shan Tung province, if, indeed, the embouchure of the
+Yellow River, near modern Tientsin, did not form its northern
+boundary; but the promontory or peninsula, as well as all the
+coast, was still in the hands of "barbarian" tribes (now long
+since civilized and assimilated), of which for many centuries past
+no separate trace has remained. We have no means of judging now
+whether these "barbarians" were uncultured, close kinsmen of the
+orthodox Chinese; or remote kinsmen; or quite foreign. When the
+Chou principality received an invitation by acclamation to conquer
+and administer China in 1122, an obscure political worthy from
+these eastern parts placed his services as adviser and organizer
+at the command of the new Chou Emperor, in return for which
+important help he received the fief of Ts'i. Although obscure,
+this man traced his descent back to the times when (2300 B.C.) his
+ancestors received fiefs from the most ancient Emperors. From that
+time down to the year 1122 B.C., and onwards to the events of 771
+B.C., nothing much beyond the fact of the Chou infeoffment is
+recorded; but after the Emperor had been killed by the Tartar-
+Tibetans, this state of Ts'i also began to grow restive; and the
+seventh century before Christ opens with the significant statement
+that "Ts'in, Tsin, and Ts'i, now begin to be powerful states." Of
+the three, Tsin alone bore the imperial Chou clan-name of
+_Ki_.
+
+[Illustration: Map.
+
+1. In 2200 B.C. the Yellow River was divided at the point where
+our map begins, and the main waters were conducted to the River
+Chang, which thus formed one river with it. But a secondary branch
+was conducted eastwards to the Rivers T'ah and Tsi (now, 1908, the
+Yellow River).
+
+2. In 602 B.C. this secondary branch suddenly turned north,
+followed the line of the present (1908) Grand Canal, and joined
+the main branch, i.e. the River Chang.
+
+3. The capitals of Ts'i and Lu are shown. The Yellow River divided
+Tsin from Ts'i, but Tartars harried the whole dividing line.]
+
+ North of the Yellow River, where it then entered the sea near the
+modern treaty-port of Tientsin, there was yet another great
+vassal state, called Yen, which had been given by the founders of
+the Chou dynasty to a very distinguished blood relative and
+faithful supporter: this noble prince has been immortalized in
+beautiful language on account of the rigid justice of his
+decisions given under the shade of an apple-tree: it was the
+practice in those days to render into popular song the chief
+events of the times, and it is not improbable, indeed, that this
+Saga literature was the only popular record of the past, until, as
+already hinted, after 827 B.C., writing became simplified and thus
+more diffused, instead of being confined to solemn manifestoes and
+commandments cast or carved on bronze or stone.
+
+"Oh! woodman, spare that tree,
+Touch not a single bough,
+His wisdom lingers now."
+
+The words, singularly like those of our own well-known song, are
+known to every Chinese school-boy, and with hundreds, even
+thousands, of other similar songs, which used to be daily quoted
+as precedents by the statesmen of that primitive period in their
+political intercourse with each other, were later pruned,
+purified, and collated by Confucius, until at last they received
+classical rank in the "Book of Odes" or the "Classic of Poetry,"
+containing a mere tenth part of the old "Odes" as they used to be
+passed from mouth to ear.
+
+Even less is known of the early days of Yen than is known of
+Ts'in, Tsin, and Ts'i; there is not even a vague tradition to
+suggest who ruled it, or what sort of a place it was, before the
+Chou prince was sent there; all that is anywhere recorded is that
+it was a very small, poor, and feeble region, dovetailed in
+between Tsin and Ts'i, and exposed north to the harassing attacks
+of savages and Coreans (_i.e._ tribes afterwards enumerated
+as forming part of Corea when the name of Corea became known). The
+mysterious region is only mentioned here at all on account of its
+distinguished origin, in order to show that the Chinese
+cultivators had from the very earliest times apparently succeeded
+in keeping the bulk of the Tartars to the left bank of the Yellow
+River all the way from the Desert to the sea; because later on
+(350 B.C.) Yen actually did become a powerful state; and finally,
+because if any very early notions concerning Corea and Japanese
+islands had ever crept vaguely into China at all, it must have
+been through this state of Yen, which was coterminous with Liao
+Tung and Manchuria. The great point to remember is, the extensive
+territory between the Great Wall and the Yellow River then lay
+almost entirely beyond the pale of ancient China, and it was only
+when Ts'in, Tsin, Ts'i, and Yen had to look elsewhere than to the
+Emperor for protection from Tartar inroads that the centre of
+political gravity was changed once and for ever from the centre of
+China to the north.
+
+We know nothing of the precise causes which conduced to unusual
+Tartar activity at the dawn of Chinese true history: in the
+absence of any Tartar knowledge of writing, it seems impossible
+now that we ever can know it. Still less are we in a position to
+speculate profitably how far the movements on the Chinese
+frontier, in 800-600 B.C., may be connected with similar
+restlessness on the Persian and Greek frontiers, of which, again,
+we know nothing very illuminating or specific. It is certain that
+the Chinese had no conception of a Tartar empire, or of a coherent
+monarchy, under the vigorous dominion of a great military genius,
+until at least five centuries after the Tartars, killed a Chinese
+Emperor in battle as related (771 B.C.). It is even uncertain what
+were the main race distinctions of the nomad aggregations, loosely
+styled by us "Tartars," for the simple reason that the ambiguous
+Chinese terminology does not enable us to select a more specific
+word. Nevertheless, the Chinese do make certain distinctions; and,
+as what remains of aboriginal populations in the north, south,
+east, and west of China points strongly to the probability of
+populations in the main occupying the same sites that they did
+3000 years ago (unless where specific facts point to a contrary
+conclusion), we may fairly assume that the distribution was then
+very much as now-beginning from the east, (1) Japanese, (2)
+Corean, (3) Tungusic, (4) Mongol-Turkish, (5) Turkish, (6)
+Turkish-Tibetan, and Mongol-Tibetan (or Mongol-Turkoid Tibetan),
+(7) Tibetan. The Chinese use four terms to express these relative
+quantities, which may be called X, Y, Z, and A. The term "X," pure
+and simple, never under any circumstances refers to any but
+Tibetans (of whom at this time the Chinese had no recorded
+knowledge whatever except by name); but "X + Y" also refers to
+tribes in Tibetan regions. The term "West Y" seems to mean
+Tibetan-Tartars, and the term "North Y" seems to mean Mongoloid-
+Tunguses. There is a third Y term, "Dog Y," evidently meaning
+Tartars of some kind, and not Tibetans of any sort. The term "Z"
+never refers to Tibetans, pure or mixed, but "Y + Z" loosely
+refers to Turks, Mongols, and Tunguses. The terms "Red Z", "White
+Z," and "North Z" seem to indicate Turks; and what is more, these
+colour distinctions--probably of clothing or head-gear-continue to
+quite modern times, and always in connection with Turks or Mongol-
+Turks. The fourth term "A" never occurs before the third century
+before Christ, and refers to all Tartars, Coreans, etc.; but not
+to Tibetans: it need not, therefore, be discussed at present. The
+modern province of Sz Ch'wan was absolutely unknown even by name;
+but several centuries later, as we shall shortly see, it turned
+out to be a state of considerable magnitude, with quite a little
+imperial history of its own: probably it was with this unknown
+state that the bulk of the Tibetans tried conclusions, if they
+tried them with China at all.
+
+Be that as it may, the present wish is to make clear that at the
+first great turning-point in genuine Chinese history the whole of
+north and west China was in the hands of totally unknown powers,
+who completely shut in the Middle Kingdom; who only manifested
+themselves at all in the shape of occasional bodies of raiders;
+and who, if they had any knowledge, direct or indirect, of India,
+Tibet, Turkestan, Siberia, Persia, etc., kept it strictly to
+themselves, and in any case were incapable of communicating it in
+writing to the frontier Chinese populations of the four buffer
+states above enumerated.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE SOUTHERN POWER
+
+But the collapse of the imperial power in 771 B.C. led to
+restlessness in the south as well as in the north, north-western,
+and north-eastern regions: except for a few Chinese adventurers
+and colonists, these were exclusively inhabited by nomad Tartars,
+and perhaps some Tibetans, destitute of fixed residences, cities,
+and towns; ignorant of cultivation, agriculture, and letters; and
+roving about from pasture to pasture with their flocks and herds,
+finding excitement and diversion chiefly in periodical raids upon
+their more settled southern and western neighbours.
+
+The only country south of the federated Chinese princes in Ho Nan
+province (as we now call it) was the "Jungle" or "Thicket," a term
+which vaguely designated the lower waters of the Han River system,
+much as, with ourselves, the "Lowlands" or the "Netherlands" did,
+and still does, designate the outlying marches of the English and
+German communities. "Jungle" is still the elegant literary name
+for Hu Peh, just as Ts'in, Tsin, and Ts'i are for Shen Si, Shan
+Si, and Shan Tung. The King of the Jungle, like the Warden of the
+Western Marches, traced his descent far back to the same ancient
+monarchs whose blood ran also in the veins of the imperial house
+of Chou; and moreover this Jungle King's ancestors had served the
+founders of the Chou dynasty in 1150 B.C., whilst they were still
+hesitating whether to accept the call to empire: hence in later
+times (530 B.C.) the King made it a grievance that his family had
+not received from the founder of the Chou dynasty presents
+symbolical of equality of birth, as had the Tsin and Lu (South
+Shan Tung) houses. If any tribes, south, south-east, or south-west
+of this vague Jungle, whose administrative centre at first lay
+within a hundred miles' radius of the modern treaty-port of
+Ich'ang, were in any way known to Central China, or were affected
+by orthodox Chinese civilization, it was and must have been
+entirely through this kingdom of the Jungle, and in a second-hand
+or indirect way. The Jungle was as much a buffer to the south as
+Ts'in was to the north-west, Tsin to the north, and Ts'i to the
+north-east. The bulk of the population was in one sense non-
+Chinese; that is, it was probably a mixture of the many
+uncivilized mountain tribes (all speaking monosyllabic and tonic
+dialects like the Chinese) who still survive in every one of the
+provinces south of the Yang-tsz Kiang; but the ruling caste, whose
+administrative centre lay to the north of these tribes, though
+affected by the grossness of their barbarous surroundings, were
+manifestly more or less orthodox Chinese in origin and sympathy,
+and, even at this early period (771 B.C.), possessed a considerable
+culture, a knowledge of Chinese script, and a general capacity
+to live a settled economical existence. As far back as 880 B.C.
+the King of the Jungle is recorded to have governed or conciliated
+the populations between the Han and the Yang-tsz Rivers; but,
+though he arrogated to himself for a time the title of "Emperor" or
+"King" in his own dominions, he confessed himself to be a barbarian,
+and disclaimed any share in the honorific system of titles, living or
+posthumous, having vogue in China, reserving it for his successors
+to assert higher rights when they should feel strong enough. Like
+an eastern Charlemagne, he divided his empire between his three
+sons; and this empire, which gradually extended all along the
+Yang-tsz down to its mouths, may have included in one of its
+three subdivisions a part at least of the Annamese race, as will be
+suggested more in detail anon.
+
+The first really historical king, who once more arrogated the
+supreme title in 704 B.C., took advantage of imperial weakness to
+extend his conquests not only to the south but to the north of the
+River Han, attacking petty Chinese principalities, and boldly
+claiming recognition by the Emperor of equality in title. "I am a
+barbarian," said he, "and I will avail myself of the dissensions
+among the federal princes to inspect Chinese ways for myself." The
+Emperor displayed some irritation at this claim of equal rank, but
+the King retorted by referring to the services rendered by his
+(the King's) ancestor, some five hundred years earlier, to the
+Emperor's ancestor, virtual founder of the Chou dynasty. In 689
+B.C. the next king moved his capital from its old site above the
+Ich'ang gorges to the commanding central situation now known as
+King-thou Fu, just above the treaty-port of Sha-shi': this place
+historically continues the use of the old word Jungle (_King_),
+and has been all through the present Manchu dynasty (1644-1908)
+the military residence of a Tartar-General with a Banner garrison;
+that is, a garrison of privileged Tartar soldiers living in cantonments,
+and exempt from the ordinary laws, or, at least, the application of
+them. It is only in 684 B.C. that the Jungle state is first honoured
+with mention in Confucius' history: it was, indeed, impossible then
+to ignore its existence, because, for the first time in the annals
+of China, Chinese federal princes between the Han River and the
+westernmost head-waters of the Hwai River had been deliberately
+annexed by these Jungle "barbarians." History for the next 450 years
+from this date consists mainly of the intricate narration how Ts'in, Tsin,
+Ts'i, and the Jungle struggled, first for hegemony, and finally for the
+possession of all China, The Jungle was now called Ts'u.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+EVIDENCE OF ECLIPSES
+
+Having now shown, as shortly and as intelligibly as we can, how
+the germs of Chinese development were sown at the dawn of true
+history, let us proceed to examine how far that history, as it has
+come down to us, contains within it testimony to its own truth. We
+shall revert to the description of wars and ambitions in due
+course; but, as so obscure a subject as early Chinese civilization
+is only palatable to most Western readers in small, varied, and
+sugared doses, we shall for the moment vary the nourishment
+offered, and say a few words upon eclipses.
+
+Confucius, whose bald "Spring and Autumn" annals, as expanded by
+three separate commentators (one a junior contemporary of
+himself), is really the chief authority for the period 722-468
+B.C., was born on the 20th day after the eclipse of the sun which
+took place in the 10th month of 552 B.C., or the 27th of the 8th
+moon as worked out to-day (for 1908 this means the 22nd
+September). Confucius himself records thirty-seven eclipses of the
+sun between 720 and 481, those of 709, 601, and 549 being total.
+Of course, as Confucius primarily recorded the eclipses as seen
+from his own petty vassal state of Lu in Shan Tung province (lat.
+35" 40' N., long, 117" E.), any one endeavouring to identify these
+eclipses, and to compare them with Julian or Gregorian dates,
+must, in making the necessary calculations, bear this important
+fact in mind. It so happens that nearly one-third of Confucius'
+thirty-seven eclipses are recorded as having taken place between
+the two total eclipses of 601 and 549. This being so, I referred
+the list to an obliging officer attached to the Royal Observatory,
+who has kindly furnished me with the following comparative list:-
+
+CONFUCIUS' DATE.    OPPOLZER'S JULIAN DATE.
+B.C. 601, 7th moon.---600, September 20.
+   " 599, 4th   "  ---598, March 5.
+   " 592, 6th   "  ---591, April 17.
+   " 575, 6th   "  ---574, May 9.
+   " 574, 12th  "  ---573, October 22.
+   " 559, 2nd   "  ---558, January 14.
+   " 558, 8th   "  ---557, June 29.
+   " 553, 10th  "  ---552, August 31.
+   " 552, 9th   "
+   " 552, 10th  "  ---551, August 20.
+   " 550, 2nd   "  ---549, January 5.
+   " 549, 7th   "  ---548, April 19.
+
+It will be observed that there is no Oppolzer's date to compare
+with the first of the two eclipses of 552; this is because I
+omitted to notice that there had been recorded in the "Springs and
+Autumns" two so close together, and therefore I did not include it
+in the list sent to the Observatory; but with the exception of the
+total eclipse of 601, all the other eclipses, so far as days of
+the moon and month go, are as consistent with each other as are
+modern Chinese dates with European (Julian) dates. As regards the
+year, Oppolzer's dates are the "astronomical" dates, that is, the
+astronomical year--x is the same as the year (x + 1) B.C.; or, in
+other words, the year _of_ Christ's birth is, for certain
+astronomical exactitude purposes, interpolated between the years 1
+B.C. and A.D. 1, as we vulgarly compute them: that is to say, the
+eclipses of the sun recorded 2,400 years ago by Confucius, from
+notes and annals preserved in his native state's archives as far
+back as 700 B.C., are found to be almost without exception fairly
+correct, with a uniform "error" of about one month, despite the
+fact that attempts were made by the First August Emperor to
+destroy all historical literature in 213 B.C. This being so in the
+matter of a dozen eclipses, there still remain two dozen for
+specialists to experiment upon, not to mention comets and other
+celestial phenomena. From this collateral evidence, imperfect
+though it be, we are reasonably entitled to assume that the three
+expanded versions of Confucius' history are trustworthy, or at the
+very least written in the best of faith.
+
+Just as our mathematicians find no difficulty either in
+foretelling or retrospecting eclipses to a minute, so does the
+ancient "sixty" cycle, which the Chinese have from time immemorial
+used for computing or noting days and years, enable them, or for
+the matter of that ourselves, to calculate back unerringly any
+desired day. Thus, suppose the 1st January, 1908, is the 37th day
+of the perpetual cycle of sixty days; then, if the Chinese
+historians say that an eclipse took place on the first day of the
+new moon, which began the 9th Chinese month of the year
+corresponding in the main to our 800 B.C., and that the 1st day of
+the moon was also the 37th day of the sixty-day perpetual cycle,
+all we have to do is to take roughly six cycles for each year, six
+thousand cycles for each thousand years, allowing at the same time
+two extra cycles every third year for intercalary moons, and then
+dealing with the fractions or balance of days. If our calculation
+does not bring the two 37th cyclic days together accurately, we
+must of course go into the question of how and when the Chinese
+calendars were altered, a subject that will be treated of in a
+subsequent chapter. It must be remembered that there can never be
+any question of so much as a whole year being involved in the
+balance of error; for, with the Chinese as with us, one year,
+whenever modified, always means that space of time, however
+irregularly computed at each end of it, within which two solstices
+and two equinoxes have taken place, Voltaire, in the article on
+"China" of his Universal Dictionary, remarks that "of 32 ancient
+Chinese eclipses, 28 have been identified by Western mathematicians";
+and M. Edouard Chavannes, who has given a great deal of time
+and labour to working out the mysteries of the Chinese calendar,
+does not hesitate to claim accuracy to the very day (29th August)
+for the eclipse of the sun recorded in the Book of Odes (as re-edited
+by Confucius) as having taken place on the 28th cyclic day of the
+beginning of the both moon in 776 B.C. (i.e. of--775). This eclipse
+is of course not recorded in the "Springs and Autumns," which
+begins with the year 722 B.C.
+
+The Chou dynasty, which came into power in 1122, for the second
+time put back the year a month because the calendar was getting
+confused. That is, they made what we should call January begin the
+legal year instead of February; or the still more ancient March;
+but some of the vassals either used computations of their own, or
+kept up those handed down by the two dynasties previous to that of
+Chou: hence in the Confucian histories, as expanded, there are
+frequent discrepancies in consequence of events apparently copied
+from the records of one vassal state having been reported to the
+historian of a second vassal state without steps having been taken
+to adjust the different new years.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE ARMY
+
+As the struggle for pre-eminency which we are about to describe
+involved bloodthirsty combats extending almost uninterruptedly
+over five centuries, it may be of interest to inquire of what
+consisted the paraphernalia of warfare in those days. It appears
+that among the Chinese federal princes, who, as we have seen, only
+occupied in the main the flat country on the right bank of the
+Yellow River, war-chariots were invariably used, which is the more
+remarkable in that after the Conquest in 220 B.C. of China by the
+First August Emperor of Ts'in, and down to this day, war-chariots
+have scarcely ever once been even named, at least as having been
+marshalled in serious battle array. The Emperor alone was supposed
+in true feudal times to possess a force of 10,000 chariots, and
+even now a "10,000-chariot" state is the diplomatic expression
+for "a great power," "a power of the first rank," or "an empire."
+No vassal was entitled to more than 1000 war-chariots. In the
+year 632 B.C., when Tsin inflicted a great defeat upon its chief
+rival Ts'u, the former power had 700 chariots in the field. In 589
+B.C. the same country, with 800 chariots included in its forces,
+marched across the Yellow River and defeated the state of Ts'i,
+its rival to the east. Again in 632 Tsin offered to the Emperor
+100 chariots just captured from Ts'u, and in 613 sent 800 chariots
+to the assistance of a dethroned Emperor. The best were made of
+leather, and we may assume from this that the wooden ones found it
+very difficult to get safely over rough ground, for in a
+celebrated treaty of peace of 589 B.C. between the two rival
+states Tsin and Ts'i, the victor, lying to the west, imposed a
+condition that "your ploughed furrows shall in future run east and
+west instead of north and south," meaning that "no systematic
+obstacles shall in future be placed in the way of our invading
+chariots."
+
+One of the features in many of the vassal states was the growth of
+great families, whose private power was very apt to constrain the
+wishes of the reigning duke, count, or baron. Thus in the year
+537, when the King of Ts'u was meditating a treacherous attack
+upon Tsin, he was warned that "there were many magnates at the
+behest of the ruler of Tsin, each of whom was equal to placing 100
+war-chariots in the field." So much a matter of course was it to
+use chariots in war, that in the year 572, when the rival great
+powers of Ts'u and Tsin were contesting for suzerainty over one of
+the purely Chinese principalities in the modern Ho Nan province,
+it was considered quite a remarkable fact that this principality
+in taking the side of Ts'u brought no chariots with the forces led
+against Tsin. In 541 a refugee prince of Ts'u, seeking asylum in
+Tsin, only brought five chariots with him, on which the ruler,
+ashamed as host of such a poor display, at once assigned him
+revenue sufficient for the maintenance of 100 individuals. It so
+happened that at the same time there arrived in Tsin a refugee
+prince from Ts'in, bringing with him 1000 carts, all heavily
+laden. On another occasion the prince (not a ruler) of a
+neighbouring state, on visiting the ruler of another, brings with
+him as presents an eight-horsed chariot for the reigning prince, a
+six-horsed conveyance for the premier, a four-horsed carriage for
+a very distinguished minister in the suite, and a two-horsed cart
+for a minor member of the mission.
+
+Besides the heavy war-chariots, there were also rather more
+comfortable and lighter conveyances: in one case two generals are
+spoken of ironically because they went to the front playing the
+banjo in a light cart, whilst their colleague from another state--
+the very state they were assisting--was roughing it in a war-
+chariot. These latter seem to have connoted, for military
+organization purposes, a strength of 75 men each, and four horses;
+to wit, three heavily armed men or cuirassiers in the chariot
+itself, and 72 foot-soldiers. At least in the case of Tsin, a
+force of 37,500 men, which in the year 613 boldly marched off
+three hundred or more English miles upon an eastern expedition, is
+so described. On the other hand, thirty years later, a small Ts'u
+force is said to have had 125 men attached to each chariot, while
+the Emperor's chariots are stated to have had 100 men assigned to
+each. In the year 627 a celebrated battle was fought between the
+rival powers of Ts'in and Tsin, in which the former was utterly
+routed; "not a man nor a wheel of the whole army ever got back."
+War-chariots are mentioned as having been in use at least as far
+back as 1797 B.C. by the Tartar-affected ancestors of the Chou
+dynasty, nearly 700 years before they themselves came to the
+imperial power. The territory north of the River Wei, inhabited by
+them, is all yellow _loess_, deeply furrowed by the stream in
+question, and by its tributaries: there is no apparent reason to
+suppose that the gigantic cart-houses used by the Tartars, even to
+this day, had any historical connection with the swift war-
+chariots of the Chinese.
+
+Little, if anything, is said of conveying troops by boat in any of
+the above-mentioned countries north of the Yang-tsz River. None
+of the rivers in Shen Si are navigable, even now, for any
+considerable stretches, and the Yellow River itself has its strict
+limitations. Later on, when the King of Ts'u's possessions along
+the sea coast, embracing the delta of the Yang-tsz, revolted from
+his suzerainty and began (as we shall relate in due course) to
+take an active part in orthodox Chinese affairs, boats and
+gigantic canal works were introduced by the hitherto totally
+unknown or totally forgotten coast powers; and it is probably
+owing to this innovation that war-chariots suddenly disappeared
+from use, and that even in the north of China boat expeditions
+became the rule, as indeed was certainly the case after the third
+century B.C.
+
+Some idea of the limited population of very ancient China may be
+gained from a consideration of the oldest army computations. The
+Emperor was supposed to have six brigades, the larger vassals
+three, the lesser two, and the small ones one; but owing to the
+loose way in which a _Shi_, or regiment of 2,500 men, and a
+_Kun_, or brigade of 12,500 men, are alternately spoken of,
+the Chinese commentators themselves are rather at a loss to
+estimate how matters really stood after the collapse of the
+Emperor in 771: but though at much later dates enormous armies,
+counting up to half a million men on each side, stubbornly
+contended for mastery, at the period of which we speak there is no
+reason to believe that any state, least of all the imperial
+reserve, ever put more than 1000 chariots, or say, 75,000 men,
+into the field on any one expedition.
+
+Flags seem to have been in use very much as in the West. The
+founder of the Chou dynasty marched to the conquest of China
+carrying, or having carried for him, a yellow axe in the left, and
+a white flag in the right hand. In 660 one of the minor federal
+princes was crushed because he did not lower his standard in time;
+nearly a century later, this precedent was quoted to another
+federal prince when hard-pressed, in consequence of which a sub-
+officer "rolled up his master's standard and put it in its
+sheath." In 645 "the cavaliers under the ruler's flag "--defined
+to mean his body-guard--were surrounded by the enemy.
+
+During the fifth century B.C., when the coast provinces, having
+separated from the Ts'u suzerainty, were asserting their equality
+with the orthodox Chinese princes, and two rival "barbarian"
+armies were contending for the Shanghai region, one royal scion
+was indignant when he saw the enemy advance "with the flag
+captured in the last battle from his own father the general."
+Flags were used, not only to signal movements of troops during the
+course of battle, but also in the great hunts or battues which
+were arranged in peace times, not merely for sport, but also in
+order to prepare soldiers for a military life.
+
+For victories over the Tartars in 623, the Emperor presented the
+ruler of Ts'in with a metal drum; and it seems that sacrificing to
+the regimental drum before a fight was a very ancient custom,
+which has been carried down to the present day. In 1900, during
+the "Boxer" troubles, General (now Viceroy) Yiian Shi-k'ai is
+reported to have sacrificed several condemned criminals to his
+drum before setting out upon his march.
+
+[Illustration: Hilly County Dividing Wei Valley from Han Valley.
+
+1. Si-ngan Fu is at the junction of the King River and Wei River.
+The encircled crosses mark the oldest and the newest Ts'in
+capitals; all other Ts'in capitals lay somewhere between the King
+and the Wei.
+
+2. From 643 B.C. to 385 B.C. Ts'in was in occupation of the
+territory between the Yellow River and the River Loh, taken from
+Tsin and again lost to Tsin at those dates.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE COAST STATES
+
+Before we enter into a categorical description of the hegemony or
+Protector system, under which the most powerful state for the time
+being held durbars "in camp," and in theory maintained the shadowy
+rights of the Emperor, we must first introduce the two coast
+states of the Yang-tsz delta, just mentioned as having asserted
+their independence of Ts'u, each state being in possession of one
+of the Great River branches, In ancient times the Yang-tsz was
+simply called the _Kiang_ ("river"), just as the Yellow River
+was simply styled the _Ho_ (also "river"). In those days the
+Great River had three mouths-the northernmost very much as at
+present, except that the flat accretions did not then extend so
+far out to sea, and in any case were for all practical purposes
+unknown to orthodox China, and entirely in the hands of "Eastern
+barbarians"; the southerly course, which branched off near the
+modern treaty-port of Wuhu in An Hwei province, emerging into the
+sea at, or very near, Hangchow; and the middle course, which was
+practically the combined beds of the Soochow Creek and the Wusung
+River of Shanghai. Before the Chou dynasty came to power in 1122
+B.C., the grandfather of the future founder, as a youth, displayed
+such extraordinary talents, that, by family arrangement, his two
+eldest brothers voluntarily resigned their rights, and exiled
+themselves in the Jungle territory, subsequently working their way
+east to the coast, and adopting entirely, or in part, the rude
+ways of the barbarous tribes they hoped to govern. We can
+understand this better if we picture how the Phoenician and Greek
+merchants in turn acted when successively colonizing Marseilles,
+Cadiz, and even parts of Britain. Excepting doubtful genealogies
+and lists of rulers, nothing whatever is heard of this colony
+until 585 B.C.--say, 800 years subsequent to the original
+settlement. A malcontent of Ts'u had, as was the practice among
+the rival states of those, times, offered his services to the
+hated Tsin, then engaged in desperate warfare with Ts'u: he
+proposed to his new master that he should be sent on a mission to
+the King of Wu (for that was, and still is, for literary purposes,
+the name of the kingdom comprising Shanghai, Soochow, and Nanking)
+in order to induce him to join in attacking Ts'u. "He taught them
+the use of arrows and chariots," from which we may assume that
+spears and boats were, up to that date, the usual warlike
+apparatus of the coast power. Its capital was at a spot about
+half-way between Soochow and Nanking, on the new (British)
+railway line; and it is described by Chinese visitors during the
+sixth century B.C. as being "a mean place, with low-built houses,
+narrow streets, a vulgar palace, and crowds of boats and
+wheelbarrows." The native word for the country was something like
+Keugu, which the Chinese (as they still do with foreign words, as,
+for instance, _Ying_ for "England") promptly turned into a
+convenient monosyllable Ngu, or Wu. The semi-barbarous King was
+delighted at the opening thus given him to associate with orthodox
+Chinese princes on an equal footing, and to throw off his former
+tyrannical suzerain. He annexed a number of neighbouring barbarian
+states hitherto, like himself, belonging to Ts'u; paid visits to
+the Emperor's court, to the Ts'u court, and to the petty but
+highly cultivated court of Lu (in South Shan Tung), in order to
+"study the rites"; and threw himself with zest into the whirl of
+interstate political intrigue. Confucius in his history hardly
+alludes to him as a civilized being until the year 561, when the
+King died; and as his services to China (i.e. to orthodox Tsin
+against unorthodox Ts'u) could not be ignored, the philosopher-
+historian condescends to say "the Viscount of Wu died this year."
+It must be explained that the Lu capital had been celebrated for
+its learning ever since the founder of the Chou dynasty sent the
+Duke of Chou, his own brother, there as a satrap (1122 B.C.).
+Confucius, of course, wrote retrospectively, for he himself was
+only born in 551 and did not compose his "Springs and Autumns"
+history for at least half a century after that date. The old Lu
+capital of K'uh-fu on she River Sz (both still so called) is the
+official headquarters of the Dukes Confucius, the seventy-sixth in
+descent from the Sage having at this moment direct semi-official
+relations with Great Britain's representative at Wei-hai-wei. It
+must also be explained that the vassal princes were all dukes,
+marquises, earls, viscounts, or barons, according to the size of
+their states, the distinction of their clan or gens, and the
+length of their pedigrees; but the Emperor somewhat contemptuously
+accorded only the courtesy title of "viscount" to barbarian
+"kings," such as those of Ts'u and Wu, very much as we vaguely
+speak of "His Highness the Khedive," or (until last year) "His
+Highness the Amir," so as to mark unequality with genuine crowned
+or sovereign heads.
+
+The history of the wars between Wu and Ts'u is extremely
+interesting, the more so in that there are some grounds for
+believing that at least some part of the Japanese civilization was
+subsequently introduced from the east coast of China, when the
+ruling caste of Wu, in its declining days, had to "take flight
+eastwards in boats to the islands to the east of the coast." But
+we shall come to that episode later on. In the year 506 the
+capital of Ts'u was occupied by a victorious Wu army, under
+circumstances full of dramatic detail. But now, in the flush of
+success, it was Wu's turn to suffer from the ambition of a vassal.
+South of Wu, with a capital at the modern Shao-hing, near Ningpo,
+reigned the barbarian King of Yiieh (this is a corrupted
+monosyllable supposed to represent a dissyllabic native word
+something like Uviet); and this king had once been a 'vassal of
+Ts'u, but had, since Wu's conquests, transferred, either willingly
+or under local compulsion, his allegiance to Wu. Advances were
+made to him by Ts'u, and he was ultimately induced to declare war
+as an ally of Ts'u. There is nothing more interesting in our
+European history than the detailed account, full of personal
+incident, of the fierce contests between Wu and Yiieh. The
+extinction of Wu took place in 483, after that state had played a
+very commanding part in federal affairs, as we shall have occasion
+to specify in the proper places. Yiieh, in turn, peopled by a race
+supposed to have ethnological connection with the Annamese of
+Vietnam or "Southern Yiieh," became a great power in China, and in
+468 even transferred its capital to a spot on or near the coast,
+very near the German colony of Kiao Chou in Shan Tung. But its
+predominance was only successfully asserted on the coasts; to use
+the historians' words: "Yiieh could never effectively administer
+the territory comprised in the Yang-tsz Kiang and Hwai River
+regions."
+
+It was precisely during this barbarian struggle, when federated
+China, having escaped the Tartars, seemed to be running the risk
+of falling into the clutches of southern pirates, that Confucius
+flourished, and it is in reference to the historical events
+sketched above-(1) the providential escape of China from
+Tartardom, (2) the collapse of the imperial Chou house, (3) the
+hegemony or Protector system, (4) the triumph of might over rite
+(right and rite being one with Confucius), and (5) the desirability of
+a prompt return to the good old feudal ways--that he abandoned
+his own corrupt and ungrateful principality, began his peripatetic
+teaching in the other orthodox states, composed a warning history
+full of lessons for future guidance, and established what we
+somewhat inaccurately call a "religion" for the political guidance of
+mankind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+FIRST PROTECTOR OF CHINA
+
+The first of the so-called five hegemons or lords-protector of the
+federated Chinese Empire (after the collapse of the imperial
+power, and its consequent incapacity to protect the vassal states
+from the raids of the Tartars and other barbarians) was the Lord
+of Ts'i, whose capital was at the powerful and wealthy city of
+Lin-tsz (lat. 37ø, long. 118ø 30'; still so called on the modern
+maps), in Shan Tung province. Neither the Yellow River nor the
+Grand Canal touched Shan Tung in those days, and Lin-tsz was
+evidently situated with reference to the local rivers which flow
+north into the Gulf of "Pechelee," so as to take full political
+advantage of the salt, mining, and fishing industries. A word is
+here necessary as to this Protector's pedigree: we have seen that
+his ancestor, thirteen generations back, had inspired with his
+counsels and courage the founder of the imperial Chou dynasty in
+1122 B.C.; he had further given to the new Emperor a daughter of
+his own in marriage, had served him as premier, and had finally
+been enfeoffed in reward for his services as Marquess of Ts'i, the
+economic condition of which far-eastern principality he had in a
+very few years by his energy as ruler mightily improved, notably
+with reference to the salt and fish industries, and to general
+commerce. The Yellow River, then flowing along the bed of what is
+now called the Chang River, and the sea, respectively, were the
+western and eastern limits of this state, which embraced to the
+north the salt flats now under the administration of a special
+Tientsin Commissioner, and extended south to the present Manchu
+Tartar-General's military garrison at Ts'ing-thou Fu. Of course,
+later on, during the five-hundred-year period of unrest,
+extensions and cessions of territory frequently took place, both
+within and beyond these vague limits, usually at the expense of Lu
+and other small orthodox states. Across the Yellow River, whose
+course northwards, as already stated, lay considerably to the west
+of the present channel, was the extensive state of Tsin; and south
+was the highly ritual and literary Weimar of China, the unwarlike
+principality of Lu, destined in future times to be glorified by
+Confucius.
+
+Scarcely anything is recorded of a nature to throw specific light
+upon the international development of these far-eastern parts. But
+in the year 894 B.C. the reigning prince of Ts'i was boiled alive
+at the Emperor's order for some political offence, and his
+successor thereupon moved his capital, only to be transferred back
+to the old place by his son thirty-five years later. The imperial
+flight of 842 naturally caused some consternation even in distant
+Ts'i, and in 827 the next Emperor on his accession commanded the
+reigning Marquess of Ts'i to assist in chastising the Western
+Tartars. When this last Emperor's grandson was driven from his old
+hereditary domain in 771, and the semi-Tartar ruler of Ts'in took
+possession of the same, as already narrated, Ts'i was still so
+inconsiderable a military power that even two generations after
+that event, in the year 706, it was fain to apply for assistance
+against Northern Tartar raids to one of the small Chinese
+principalities in the Ho Nan province. (Roughly speaking,
+"Northern Tartars" were Manchu-Mongols, and "Western Tartars" were
+Mongol-Turks.) In 690 the prince, whose sister had married the
+neighbouring ruler of Lu, made an armed attack by way of vengeance
+upon the descendant of the adviser who had counselled the Emperor
+to boil his ancestor alive in 894: his power was now so
+considerable that the Emperor commissioned him to act with
+authority in the matter of a disputed succession to a minor
+Chinese principality. This was in the year 688 B.C., and it was
+the first instance of a vassal acting as dictator or protector on
+behalf of the Emperor; only, however, in a special or isolated
+case. Two years later this prince of Ts'i was himself assassinated,
+and the disputes between his sons regarding the succession
+terminated with the advent to the throne of one of the great
+characters in Chinese history, who was magnanimous and politic
+enough to take as his adviser and premier a still greater character,
+and one that almost rivals Confucius himself in fame as an author,
+a statesman, a benefactor of China; and a moralist.
+
+This personage, who, like most Chinese of the period, carried many
+names, is most generally known as the philosopher Kwan-tsz, and
+his chief writings have survived, in part at least, until our own
+day. He was, in fact, a distant scion of the reigning imperial
+family of Chou, and bore its clan name of _Ki_. Here it may
+be useful to state parenthetically that most prominent men in all
+the federated states seem to have belonged to a narrow aristocratic
+circle, among whose members the craft of government, the
+knowledge of letters, and the hereditary right to expect office,
+was inherent; at the same time, there was never at any date
+anything in the shape of a priestly or military caste, and power
+appears to have been always within the reach of the humblest,
+so long as the aspirant was competent to assert himself.
+
+The new ruler of Ts'i officially proclaimed himself Protector in
+the year 679 B.C., which is one of the fixed dates in Chinese
+history about which there is no cavil or doubt, He soon found
+himself embroiled in war with the Tartars, who were raiding both
+the state to his north in the Peking plain, and also the minor
+state, south of the Yellow River, that his predecessor has
+protected specially in 688. This was the state of Wei (imperial
+clan), through or near the capital town of which, near the modern
+Wei-hwei Fu, the Yellow River then ran northwards.
+
+The way these successive Protectors of China afterwards exercised
+their preponderant influence in a general sense was this: When it
+appeared to them, or when any orthodox vassal state complained to
+them, that injustice was being done; whether in matters of duty to
+the Emperor, right of succession, legitimacy of birth, great
+crime, or inordinate ambition; the recognized Protector summoned a
+durbar, usually somewhere within the territory of the central
+area, or China proper as previously defined, and consulted with
+the princes, his colleagues, as to what course should be pursued.
+A distinction was drawn between "full-dress durbars" and "military
+durbars"; the etiquette in either case was very minute, and
+external behaviour at least was exquisitely courteous, though
+treachery was far from rare, and treaties never lasted long
+unbroken. But to return to the First Protector. Towards the end of
+his glorious reign of forty-three years the Marquess of Ts'i grew
+arrogant, vainglorious, and licentious, so much so that his
+western neighbour, the powerful state of Tsin, declined to attend
+the durbars. Of the other great powers Ts'in (to the west of Tsin)
+was much too far off to take active part in these parliaments;
+Ts'u was too busy in spreading civilization among the barbarous
+states or tribes south of the Yang-tsz. The Emperor was
+practically a _roi fainéant_ by this time, and, curiously
+enough, less is known of what went on within his dominions or
+appanage after the western half of it fell to Ts'in in 771, than
+of what transpired in the territories of his three menacing
+vassals to the north, north-west, and north-east, and of his half-
+civilized satrap to the south. The fact is, all four rising powers
+were now carefully engaged in watching each other, and in playing
+a profound political game around their prey. This prey was the
+eastern half of the Emperor's original domain (the western half
+now, since 771 B.C., belonging to Ts'in) and the dozen or so of
+purely Chinese, highly cultured, vassal states making up the rest
+of modern Ho Nan province, together with small parts or wedges of
+modern Chih Li, Shan Tung, An Hwei, and Kiang Su. From first to
+last none of these ritual and literary states showed any real
+fight; there is hardly a single record of a really crushing
+victory gained by any one of them. The fighting instincts all lay
+with the new Chinese, that is, with the Chinese adventurers who
+had got their hand well in with generations of fighting against
+barbarians--Tartars, Tunguses, Annamese, Shans, and what not--and
+had invigorated themselves with good fresh barbarian blood. The
+fact is, the population of China had enormously increased; the
+struggle for life and food was keener; the old patriarchal
+appetite for ritual was disappearing; the people were beginning to
+assert themselves against the land-owners; the land-owners were
+encroaching upon the power of the ruling princes; and China was in
+a parlous state.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+POSITION OF ENVOYS
+
+It was a fixed rule in ancient China that envoys should be treated
+with courtesy, and that their persons should be held sacred,
+whether at residential courts, in durbar, or on the road through a
+third state. During the wars of the sixth century B.C. between
+Tsin in the north and Ts'u in the south, when these two powers
+were rival aspirants to the Protectorate of the original and
+orthodox group of principalities lying between them, and were
+alternately imposing their will on the important and diplomatic
+minor Chinese state of CHÊNG (still the name of a territory in Ho
+Nan), there were furnished many illustrations of this recognized
+rule. The chief reason for thus making a fighting-ground of the
+old Chinese principalities was that it was almost impossible for
+Ts'u to get conveniently at any of the three great northern
+powers, and equally difficult for Ts'in, Tsin, and Ts'i to reach
+Ts'u, without passing through one or more Chinese states, mostly
+bearing the imperial clan name, and permission had to be asked for
+an army to pass through, unless the said Chinese state was under
+the predominancy of (for instance) Tsin or Ts'u. It was like
+Germany and Italy with Switzerland between them, or Germany and
+Spain with France between them. Another important old Chinese
+state was Sung, lying to the east of CHÊNG. Both these states were
+of the highest caste, the Earl of CHÊNG being a close relative of
+the Chou Emperor, and the Duke of Sung being the representative or
+religious heir of the remains of the Shang dynasty ousted by the
+Chou family in I 122 B.C., magnanimously reinfeoffed "in order
+that the family sacrifices might not be entirely cut off" together
+with the loss of imperial sway. In the year 595 B.C. Sung went so
+far as to put a Ts'u envoy to death, naturally much to the wrath
+of the rising southern power. Ts'u in turn arrested the Tsin envoy
+on his way to Sung, and tried in vain to force him to betray his
+trust. In 582 Tsin, in a fit of anger, detained the CHÊNG envoy,
+and finally put him to death for his impudence in coming
+officially to visit Tsin after coquetting with Tsin's rival Ts'u.
+All these irregular cases are severely blamed by the historians.
+In 562 Ts'u turned the tables upon Tsin by putting the CHÊNG envoy
+to death after the latter had concluded a treaty with Tsin.
+Confucius joins, retrospectively of course, in the chorus of
+universal reprobation. In 560 Ts'u tried to play upon the Ts'i
+envoy a trick which in its futility reminds us strongly of the
+analogous petty humiliations until recently imposed by China,
+whenever convenient occasion offered, upon foreign officials
+accredited to her. The Ts'i envoy, who was somewhat deformed in
+person, was no less an individual than the celebrated philosopher
+Yen-tsz, a respected acquaintance of Confucius (though, of course,
+much his senior), and second only to Kwan-tsz amongst the great
+administrative statesmen of Ts'i. The half-barbarous King of Ts'u
+concocted with his obsequious courtiers a nice little scheme for
+humiliating the northern envoy by indicating to him the small door
+provided for his entry into the presence, such as the Grand
+Seigneurs in their hey-day used to provide for the Christian
+ambassadors to Turkey. Yen-tsz, of course, at once saw through
+this contemptible insult and said: "My master had his own reasons
+for selecting so unworthy an individual as myself for this
+mission; yet if he had sent me on a mission to a dog-court, I
+should have obeyed orders and entered by a dog-gate: however, it
+so happens that I am here on a mission to the King of Ts'u, and of
+course I expect to enter by a gate befitting the status of that
+ruler." Still another prank was tried by the foolish king: a
+"variety entertainment" was got up, in which one scene represented
+a famished wretch who was being belaboured for some reason.
+Naturally every one asked: "What is that?" The answer was: "A Ts'i
+man who has been detected in thieving."  Yen-tsz said: "I
+understand that the best fruits come from Ts'u, and they say we
+northern men cannot come near the quality of their peaches. We are
+honest simpletons, too, and do not look natural on the variety
+stage as thieves. The true rogue, like the true peach, is a
+southern speciality. I did see rogues on the stage, it is true,
+but none of them looked like a Ts'i man; hence I asked, 'What is
+it?'" The king laughed sheepishly, and, for a time at least, gave
+up taking liberties with Yen-tsz.
+
+In 545, when Ts'u for the moment had the predominant say over
+CHÊNG's political action, it was insisted that the ruler of CHÊNG
+should come in person to pay his respects: this was after a great
+Peace Conference, held at Sung, on which occasion Tsin and Ts'u
+arranged a _modus operandi_ for their respective subordinate
+or allied vassals. There was no help for it, and the Earl
+accordingly went. The minister in attendance was Tsz-ch'an-a very
+great name indeed in Chinese history; he was a lawyer, statesman,
+"democratic conservative," sceptic, and philosopher, deeply
+lamented on his death alike by the people of CHÊNG, and by his
+friend or correspondent Confucius of Lu state. The Chinese
+diplomats then, as now, had the most roundabout ways of pointing a
+moral or delicately insinuating an innuendo. On arrival at the
+outskirts of the capital, instead of building the usual daïs for
+formalities and sacrifices, Tsz-ch'an threw up a mean hut for the
+accommodation of his mission, saying: "Altars are built by great
+states when they visit small ones as a symbol of benefits
+accorded, and by way of exhortation to continue in virtuous ways."
+Four years later Ts'u sent a mission of menacing size to CHÊNG,
+ostensibly to complete the carrying out of a marriage agreed upon
+by treaty between Ts'u and CHÊNG. Tsz-ch'an insisted that the bows
+and arrows carried by the escort should be left outside the city
+walls, adding: "Our poor state is too small to bear the full
+honour of such an escort; erect your altar daïs outside the wall
+for the service of the ancestral sacrifices, and we will there
+await your commands about the marriage."
+
+In 538, when Ts'u was, for the first time, holding a durbar as
+recognized Protector, being at the time, however, on hostile terms
+with her former vassal, Wu, the King of Ts'u committed the gross
+outrage of seizing the ruler of a petty state, who was then
+present at the durbar, because that ruler had married (being
+himself of eastern barbarian descent) a princess of Wu. The
+following year, when two very distinguished statesmen from the
+territory of his secular enemy Tsin came on a political mission,
+the King of Ts'u consulted his premier about the advisability of
+castrating the one for a harem eunuch, and cutting off the feet of
+the other for a door-porter. "Your Majesty can do it, certainly,"
+was the reply, "but how about the consequences?" This was the
+occasion, mentioned in Chapter VI., on which the king was reminded
+how many great private families there were in Tsin quite capable
+of raising a hundred chariots apiece.
+
+It appears that envoys, at least in Lu, were hereditary in some
+families, just as other families provided successive generations
+of ministers. A Lu envoy to Tsin, who carried a very valuable gem-
+studded girdle with him, had very great pressure put upon him by a
+covetous Tsin minister who wanted the girdle. The envoy offered to
+give some silk instead, but he said that not even to save his life
+would he give up the girdle. The Tsin magnate thought better of
+it; but it is remarkable how many cases of sordid greed of this
+kind are recorded, all pointing to the comparative absence of
+commercial exchanges, or standards of value between the feudal
+states.
+
+Ts'u seems to have thoroughly deserved Yen-tsz's imputations of
+treachery and roguery. At the great Peace Conference held outside
+the Sung capital in 546, the Ts'u escort was detected wearing
+cuirasses underneath their clothing. One of the greatest of the
+Tsin statesmen, Shuh Hiang (a personal friend of Yen-tsz,
+Confucius, and Tsz-ch'an) managed diplomatically to keep down the
+rising indignation of the other powers and representatives present
+by pooh-poohing the clumsy artifice on the ground that by such
+treachery Ts'u simply injured her own reputation in the federation
+to the manifest advantage of Tsin: it did not suit Tsin to
+continue the struggle with Ts'u just then. Then there was a
+squabble as to precedence at the same Peace Conference; that is,
+whether Tsin or Ts'u had the first right to smear lips with the
+blood of sacrifice: here again Shuh Hiang tactfully gave way, and
+by his conciliatory conduct succeeded in inducing the federal
+princes to sign a sort of disarmament agreement. This is one of
+the numerous instances in which Confucius as an annalist tries to
+_menager_ the true facts in the interests of orthodoxy.
+
+Even the more fully civilized state of Ts'i attempted an act of
+gross treachery, when in 500 B.C. the ruler of Lu, accompanied by
+Confucius as his minister in attendance, went to pay his respects.
+But Confucius was just as sharp as Yen-tsz and Tsz-ch'an, his
+friends, neighbours, and colleagues: he at once saw through the
+menacing appearance of the barbarian "dances" (introduced here,
+again, as a "variety entertainment"), and by his firm behaviour
+not only saved the person of his prince, but shamed the ruler of
+Ts'i into disclaiming and disavowing his obsequious fellow-
+practical jokers. Yen-tsz was actually present at the time, in
+attendance upon his own marquis; but it is nowhere alleged that he
+was responsible for the disgraceful manoeuvre. As a result T'si
+was obliged to restore to Lu several cities and districts
+wrongfully annexed some years before, and Lu promised to assist
+Ts'i in her wars.
+
+[Illustration: MAP
+
+1. The River Sz still starts at Sz-shui (cross in circle; means
+"River Sz"), and runs past Confucius' town, K'iih-fu, into the
+Canal in two branches. But in Confucius' time what is now the
+Canal continued to be the River Sz, down to its junction with the
+Hwai. The River I starts still from I-shui (also a cross in
+circle; means "River I"), passes I-thou, and used to join the Sz
+(now the Canal) at the lower cross in a circle. The neck (dotted)
+of the Hwai embouchure no longer exists, and the Lake Hung-tseh
+now dissipates itself into lakelets and canals. The Wu fleets, by
+sailing up the Hwai, Sz, and I, could get up to Lu, and threaten
+Ts'i.
+
+2. In Confucius' time the Yellow River turned north near the
+junction of the Emperor's territory with Cheng: it passed through
+Wei, and there divided. Its main branch, after coursing through
+part of the River Wei bed, left it and took possession of the
+River Chang bed. Up to 602 B.C. the secondary branch took the more
+easterly dotted line (the present Yellow River, once the River
+Tsi); but after 602 B.C. it cut through Hing, followed the Wei,
+and took the line of the present Canal. Hing was a Tartar-harried
+state contested by Ts'i and Tsin: it fell at last to Tsin.
+
+3. The capitals of Ts'i, Wei, Ts'ao, Cheng, Sung, Ch'en, Ts'ai
+(three) are marked with encircled crosses. K'iih-fu, the capital
+of Lu, is marked with a small circle. In 278 B.C. the Ts'u capital
+was moved east to Ch'en. In 241 B.C., under pressure of Ts'in, the
+Ts'u capital had to be moved to the double black cross on the
+south bank of the Hwai.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE SECOND PROTECTOR
+
+We must now go back a little. The first of the so-called Five
+Tyrants, or the Five successive Protectors of orthodox China, had
+died in 643, his philosopher and friend, Kwan-tsz, having departed
+this life a little before him. Their joint title to fame lies in
+the fact that "they saved China from becoming a Tartar province,"
+and even Confucius admits the truth of this--a most important
+factor in enabling us to understand the motive springs of Chinese
+policy. Under these circumstances the Duke of Sung, who, as we
+have seen, had special moral pretensions to leadership on account
+of his being the direct lineal representative of the Shang dynasty
+which perished in 1122 B.C., immediately put forward a claim to
+the hegemony. He rather prejudiced his reputation, however, by
+committing the serious ritual offence of "warring upon Ts'i's
+mourning," that is, of engaging the allies in hostilities with the
+late Protector's own country whilst his body lay unburied, and his
+sons were still wrangling over the question of succession. The
+Tartars, however, came to the rescue of, and made a treaty with,
+Ts'i--this is only one of innumerable instances which show how the
+northern Chinese princes of those early days were in permanent
+political touch with the horse-riding nomads. The orthodox Duke of
+Sung, dressed in his little brief authority as Protector, had the
+temerity to "send for" the ruler of Ts'u to attend his first
+durbar. (It must be remembered that the "king" in his own
+dominions was only "viscount" in the orthodox peerage of ruling
+princes.) The result was that the King unceremoniously took his
+would-be protector into custody at the durbar, and put in a claim
+to be Protector himself. During the military operations connected
+with this political manoeuvre, the Duke of Sung was guilty of the
+most ridiculous piece of ritual chivalry; highly approved, it is
+true, by the literary pedants of all subsequent ages, but ruinous
+to his own worldly cause. The Ts'u army was crossing a difficult
+ford, and the Duke's advisers recommended a prompt attack. "It is
+not honourable," said the Duke, "to take advantage even of an
+enemy in distress." "But," said his first adviser, "war is war,
+and its only object is to punish the foe as severely and promptly
+as possible, so as to gain the upper hand, and establish what you
+are fighting for."
+
+Meanwhile important events had been going on in the marquisate of
+Tsin, which, during the thirty-five years' hegemony of Ts'i, had
+been engaged in extending its territory in all directions, in
+fighting Ts'in, and in annexing bordering Tartar tribes. At its
+greatest development Tsin practically comprised all between the
+Yellow River in its turns south, east, and north; but, though
+probably half its population was Tartar, it never ceased to be
+"orthodox" in administrative principle. The energetic but
+licentious ruler of Tsin had married a Tartar wife in addition to
+his more legitimate spouse (daughter of the late Protector,
+Marquess of Ts'i); or, rather, he took two wives, the one being
+sister of the other, but the younger sister brought him no
+children. Before this he had already married two sisters of quite
+a different Tartar tribe, and each of his earlier wives had
+brought him a son. His last pair of Tartar lady-loves gained such
+a strong hold upon his affections that he was induced by the
+mother, being the elder sister of the two, to nominate her own son
+as his heir to the exclusion of the three elder brethren, who were
+sent on various flimsy pretexts to defend the northern frontiers
+against the more hostile Tartars. To complicate matters, the
+Marquess's legitimate or first spouse, the Ts'i princess, besides
+bearing a son, had also given him a daughter, who had married the
+powerful ruler of Ts'in to the west. Thus not only were Ts'in and
+Tsin both half-Tartar in origin and sympathy, but at this period
+three out of four of the Tsin possible heirs were actually sons of
+Tartar women. The legitimate heir, whose mother was of Ts'i
+origin, and, who himself was a man of very high character, ended
+the question so far as he was concerned, by committing dutiful
+suicide; the three sons by Tartar mothers succeeded to the throne
+one after the other, but in the inverse order of their respective
+ages. The story of the wanderings of the eldest brother, who did
+not come to the throne until he was sixty-two years of age, is one
+of the most interesting and romantic episodes in the whole history
+of China; and, even with the unfamiliar proper names, would make a
+capital romantic novel, so graphically and naturally are some of
+the scenes depicted. First he threw himself heart and soul into
+Tartar life, joined the rugged horsemen in their internecine wars,
+married a Tartar wife, and gave her sister to his most faithful
+henchman; then, hearing of the death of the Ts'i premier, Kwan-
+tsz, he vowed he would go to Ts'i and try to act as political
+adviser in his place. Hospitably received by the Marquess of Ts'i,
+he was presented with a charming and sensible Ts'i princess, who
+for five years exercised so enervating an influence upon his
+virility, ambition, and warlike ardour, that he had to be
+surreptitiously smuggled away from the gay Ts'i capital whilst
+drunk, by his Tartar father-in-law and by his chief Chinese
+henchman and brother-in-law. Then he commenced a series of visits
+to the petty orthodox courts which separated Ts'i from Ts'u.
+Several of them were rude and neglectful to this unfortunate
+prince in distress; but Sung was an exception, for Sung ambition,
+as above narrated, had been roughly checked by Ts'u, and Sung now
+wished to make overtures to Tsin instead, and to conciliate a
+prince who was as likely as not to come to the throne of Tsin. In
+637 the prince reached the court of Ts'u, whose ruler had quite
+recently begun to take formal and official rank as a "civilized"
+federal prince. Meanwhile, news came that his brother (by his own
+mother's younger sister) was dead; this younger brother had taken
+refuge in Ts'in during the reign of his youngest brother (the one
+born of the last Tartar favourite), and had, after that brother's
+death, been most generously assisted to the throne in turn by the
+ruler of Ts'in, on the understanding, however, that Tsin should
+cede to Ts'in all territory on the right bank of the Yellow River,
+i.e. in the modern province of Shen Si: but the new Tsin ruler had
+been persuaded by his courtiers to go back on this humiliating
+bargain, in consequence of which war had been declared by Ts'in
+upon Tsin, and the faithless ruler of Tsin had been for some time
+a prisoner of war in Ts'in; but, regaining his throne through the
+influence of his half-sister, the wife of the Ts'in ruler, had
+died in harness in 637 B.C. This deceased ruler's young son was
+not popular, and Ts'in was now instrumental in welcoming the
+refugee back from Ts'u, and in leading him in triumph, after
+nineteen years of adventurous wandering, to his own ancestral
+throne; his rival and nephew was killed.
+
+All orthodox China seemed to feel now that the interesting
+wanderer, after all his experiences of war, travel, Tartars,
+Chinese, barbarians, and politics, was the right man to be
+Protector. But it was first necessary for Tsin to defeat Ts'u in a
+decisive battle; a war had arisen between Tsin and Ts'u out of an
+attempt on the part of CHÊNG (one of the orthodox Chinese states
+that had been uncivil to the wanderer), to drag in the preponderant
+power of Ts'u by way of shielding itself from punishment at Tsin's
+hands for past rude behaviour. The Emperor sent his own son to
+confer the status of "my uncle" upon him,--which is practically
+another way of saying "Protector" to a kinsman,--and in the year
+632 accordingly a grand durbar was held, in which the Emperor
+himself took part. The Tsin ruler, who had summoned the durbar,
+and had even "commanded the presence" of the Emperor, was the
+guiding spirit of the meeting in every respect, except in the nominal
+and ritualistic aspect of it; nevertheless, he was prudent and careful
+enough scrupulously to observe all external marks of deference,
+and to make it appear that he was merely acting as mouthpiece to
+ the puppet Emperor; he even went the length of dutifully offering
+to the Emperor some Ts'u prisoners, and the Emperor in turn "graciously
+ceded" to Tsin the imperial possessions north of the Yellow River.
+Thus Ts'in and Tsin each in turn clipped the wings of the Autocrat
+of All the Chinas, so styled.
+
+During these few unsettled years between the death of the first
+real Protector in 643 and the formal nomination by the Emperor of
+the second in 632, Ts'u and Sung had, as we have seen, both
+attempted to assert their rival claims. A triangular war had also
+been going on for some time between Ts'i and Ts'u, the bone of
+contention being some territory of which Ts'i had stripped Lu; and
+there was war also between Tsin and Ts'i, Tsin and Ts'in, and Tsin
+and Ts'u, which latter state always tried to secure the assistance
+of Ts'in when possible. From first to last, there never was,
+during the period covered by Confucius' history, any serious war
+between Tartar Ts'in and barbarian Ts'u; rather were they natural
+allies against orthodox China, upon which intermediate territory
+they both learned to fix covetous eyes.
+
+The situation is too involved, in view of the uncouthness of
+strange names and the absence of definite frontiers--changing as
+they did with the result of each few years' campaigning--to make
+it possible to give a full, or even approximately intelligible,
+explanation of each move. But the following main features are
+incontestable:--Ts'in, Tsin, Ts'i, and Ts'u were growing,
+progressive, and aggressive states, all of them strongly tinged
+with foreign blood, which foreign blood was naturally assimilated
+the more readily in proportion to the power, wealth, and culture
+of the assimilating orthodox nucleus. The imperial domain was an
+extinct political volcano, belching occasional fumes of
+threatening, sometimes noxious, but not ever fatally suffocating
+smoke, always without fire. "The Hia," that is, the federation of
+princes belonging to pure Hia, or (as we now say) "Chinese" stock,
+were evidently unwarlike in proportion to the absence of foreign
+blood in their veins; but they were all of them equally
+_rusés_, and all of them past-masters in casuistic diplomacy.
+Trade, agriculture, literature, and even law, were now quite
+active, and (as we shall gradually see in these short chapters)
+China was undoubtedly beginning to move, as, after 2500 years of a
+second "ritual" sleep, she is again now moving, at the beginning
+of the twentieth century A.D.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+RELIGION
+
+All through these five centuries of struggle, between the flight
+of the Emperor with the transfer of the metropolis in 771 B.C.,
+and the total destruction of the feudal system by the First August
+Emperor of Ts'in in 221 B.C., it is of supreme interest to note
+that religion in our Western sense was not only non-existent
+throughout China, but had not yet even been conceived of as an
+abstract notion; apart, that is to say, from government, public
+law, family law, and class ritual. No word for "religion" was
+known to the language; the notion of Church or Temple served by a
+priestly caste had not entered men's minds. Offences against "the
+gods" or "the spirits," in a vague sense, were often spoken of;
+but, on the other hand, too much belief in their power was
+regarded as superstition. "Sin" was only conceivable in the sense
+of infraction of nature's general laws, as symbolized and
+specialized by imperial commands; direct, or delegated to vassal
+princes; in both cases as representatives, supreme or local, of
+Heaven, or of the Emperor Above, whose Son the dynastic central
+ruler for the time being was figuratively supposed to be. No
+vassal prince ever presumed to style himself "Son of Heaven,"
+though nearly all the barbarous vassals called themselves "King"
+(the only other title the Chou monarchs took) in their own
+dominions. "In the Heaven there can only be one Sun; on Earth
+there can only be one Emperor"; this was the maxim, and, ever
+since the Chou conquest in 1122 B.C., the word "King" had done
+duty for the more ancient "Emperor," which, in remote times had
+apparently not been sharply distinguished in men's minds from God,
+or the "Emperor on High."
+
+Prayer was common enough, as we shall frequently see, and
+sacrifice was universal; in fact, the blood of a victim was almost
+inseparable from solemn function or record of any kind. But such
+ideas as conscience, fear of God, mortal sin, repentance,
+absolution, alms-giving, self-mortification, charity, sackcloth
+and ashes, devout piety, praise and glorification,--in a word,
+what the Jews, Christians, Mussulmans, and even Buddhists have
+each in turn conceived to be religious duty, had no well-defined
+existence at all. There are some traces of local or barbarous gods
+in the semi-Turkish nation of Ts'in, before it was raised to the
+status of full feudal vassal; and also in the semi-Annamese nation
+of Ts'u (with its dependencies Wu and Yiieh); but the orthodox
+Chinese proper of those times never had any religion such as we
+now conceive it, whatever notions their remote ancestors may have
+conceived.
+
+Notwithstanding this, the minds of the governing classes at least
+were powerfully restrained by family and ancestral feeling, and,
+if there were no temples or priests for public worship, there were
+invariably shrines dedicated to the ancestors, with appropriate
+rites duly carried out by professional clerks or reciters.
+Whenever a ruler of any kind undertook any important expedition or
+possible duty, he was careful first to consult the oracles in
+order to ascertain the will of Heaven, and then to report the fact
+to the _manes_ of his forefathers, who were likewise notified
+of any great victory, political change, or piece of good fortune.
+There is a distinction (not easy to master) between the loss of a
+state and the loss of a dynasty; in the latter case the population
+remain comparatively unaffected, and it is only the reigning
+family whose sacrifices to the gods of the place and of the
+harvest are interrupted. Thus in 567, when one of the very small
+vassals (of whom the ruler of Lu was mesne lord) crushed the
+other, it is explained that the spirits will not spiritually eat
+the sacrifices (i.e. accept the worship) of one who does not
+belong to the same family name, and that in this case the
+annihilating state was only a cousin through sisters: "when the
+country is 'lost,' it means that the strange surname succeeds to
+power; but, when a strange surname becomes spiritual heir, we say
+'annihilated.'" We have seen in the ninth chapter how the Shang
+dynasty lost the empire, but was sacrificially maintained in Sung.
+From the remotest times there seems to have been a tender
+unwillingness to "cut off all sacrifices" entirely, probably out
+of a feeling that retribution in like form might at some future
+date occur to the ruthless condemner of others. There is another
+reason, which is, nearly all ruling families hailed from the same
+remote semi-mythical emperors, or from their ministers, or from
+their wives of inferior birth. Thus, although the body of the last
+tyrannical monarch of the Shang dynasty just cited was pierced
+through and through by the triumphant Chou monarch, that monarch's
+brother (acting as regent on behalf of the son and successor)
+conferred the principality of Sung upon the tyrant's elder half-
+brother by an inferior wife, "in order that the dynastic
+sacrifices might not be cut off"; and to the very last the Duke of
+Sung was the only ruling satrap under the Chou dynasty who
+permanently enjoyed the full title of "duke." His neighbour, the
+Marquess of Wei (imperial clan), was, it is true, made "duke" in
+770 B.C. for services in connection with the Emperor's flight; but
+the title seems to have been tacitly abandoned, and at durbars he
+is always styled "marquess." Of the Shang tyrant himself it is
+recorded: "thus in 1122 B.C. he lost all in a single day, without
+even leaving posterity." Of course his elder brother could not
+possibly be his spiritual heir. In 597 B.C., when Ts'u, in its
+struggle with Tsin for the possession of CHÊNG, got the ruling
+Earl of CHÊNG in its power, the latter referred appealingly to his
+imperial ancestors (the first earl, in 806, was son of the Emperor
+who fled from his capital north in 842), and said: "Let me
+continue their sacrifices." There are, at least, a score of
+similar instances: the ancestral sacrifices seem to refer rather
+to posterity, whilst those to gods of the land and grain appear
+more connected with rights as feoffee.
+
+Prayer is mentioned from the earliest times. For instance Shun,
+the active ploughman monarch (not hereditary) who preceded the
+three dynasties of Hia (2205-1767), Shang (1766-1123), and Chou
+(1122-249), prayed at a certain mountain in the centre of modern
+Hu Nan province, where his grave still is, (a fact which points to
+the possibility of the orthodox Chinese having worked their way
+northwards from the south-west). When the Chou conqueror,
+posthumously called the Martial King, fell ill, his brother, the
+Duke of Chou (later regent for the Martial King's son), prayed to
+Heaven for his brother's recovery, and offered himself as a
+substitute; the clerk was instructed to commit the offer to
+writing, and this solemn document was securely locked up. The same
+man, when regent, again offered himself to Heaven for his sick
+nephew, cutting his nails off and throwing them into the river, as
+a symbol of his willingness to give up his own body. The Emperor
+K'ang-hi of the present Manchu dynasty, perhaps in imitation of
+the Duke of Chou, offered himself to Heaven in place of his sick
+Mongol grandmother. A very curious instance of prayer occurs in
+connection with the succession to the Tsin throne; it will be
+remembered that the legitimate heir committed dutiful suicide, and
+two other half-brothers (and, for a few months, one of these
+brother's sons) reigned before the second Protector secured his
+ancestral rights. The suicide's ghost appears to his usurping
+brother, and says: "I have prayed to the Emperor (God), who will
+soon deliver over Tsin into Ts'in's hands, so that Ts'in will
+perform the sacrifices due to me." The reply to the ghost was:
+"But the spirits will only eat the offerings if they come from the
+same family stock." The ghost said: "Very good; then I will pray
+again. . . . God now says my half-brother will be overthrown at
+the battle of Han" (the pass where the philosopher Lao-tsz is
+supposed to have written his book 150 years later). In 645 the
+ruler of Tsin was in fact captured in battle by his brother-in-law
+of Ts'in, who was indeed about to sacrifice to the Emperor on High
+as successor of Tsin; but he was dissuaded by his orthodox wife
+(the Tsin princess, daughter of a Ts'i princess as explained on
+page 51).
+
+In 575 Tsin is recorded as "invoking the spirits and requesting a
+victory." A little later one of the Tsin generals, after a defeat,
+issued a general order by way of concealing his weakness: to
+deceive the enemy he suggested that the army should amongst other
+things make a great show of praying for victory. There are many
+other similar analogous instances of undoubted prayer. Much later,
+in the year 210 B.C., when the King (as he had been) of Ts'in had
+conquered all China and given himself the name, for the first time
+in history, of August Emperor (the present title), he consulted
+his soothsayers about an unpleasant dream he had had. He was
+advised to pray, and to worship (or to sacrifice, for the two are
+practically one) with special ardour if he wished to bring things
+round to a favourable conclusion: and this is a monarch, too, who
+was steeped in Lao-tsz's philosophy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+ANCESTRAL WORSHIP
+
+We have just seen that, when a military expedition started out,
+the event was notified, with sacrifice, to the ancestors of the
+person most concerned: it was also the practice to carry to
+battle, on a special chariot, the tablet of the last ancestor
+removed from the ancestral hall, in order that, under his aegis so
+to speak, the tactics of the battle might be successful. Ancestral
+halls varied according to rank, the Emperor alone having seven
+shrines; vassal rulers five; and first-class ministers three;
+courtiers or second-class ministers had only two; that is to say,
+no one beyond the living subject's grandfather was in these last
+cases worshipped at all. From this we may assume that the ordinary
+folk could not pretend to any shrine, unless perhaps the house-
+altar, which one may see still any day in the streets of Canton.
+In 645 B.C. a first-class minister's temple was struck by
+lightning, and the commentator observes: "Thus we see that all,
+from the Emperor down to the courtiers, had ancestral shrines",--a
+statement which proves that already at the beginning of our
+Christian era such matters had to be explained to the general
+public. The shrines were disposed in the following fashion:--To
+the left (on entrance) was the shrine of the living subject's
+father; to the right his grandfather; above these two, to the left
+and right again, the great-grandfather and great-great-
+grandfather; opposite, in the centre, was that of the founder,
+whose tablet or effigy was never moved; but as each living
+individual died, his successor of course regarded him in the light
+of father, and, five being the maximum allowed, one tablet had to
+be removed at each decease, and it was placed in the more general
+ancestral hall belonging to the clan or gens rather than to the
+specific family: it was therefore the, tablet or effigy of the
+great-great-grandfather that was usually carried about in war. The
+Emperor alone had two special chapels beyond the five shrines,
+each chapel containing the odds (left) and evens (right) of those
+higher up in ascent than the great and great-great-grandfathers
+respectively. The King of Ts'u who died in 560 B.C. said on his
+death-bed: "I now take my place in the ancestral temple to receive
+sacrifices in the spring and autumn of each year." In the year
+597, after a great victory over Tsin, the King of Ts'u had been
+advised to build a trophy over the collected corpses of the enemy;
+but, being apparently rather a high-minded man, after a little
+reflection, he said: "No! I will simply erect there a temple to my
+ancestors, thanking them for the success." After the death in 210
+B.C. of the First August Emperor, a discussion arose as to what
+honours should be paid to his temple shrine: it was explained that
+"for a thousand years without any change the rule has been seven
+shrines for the Son of Heaven, five for vassal princes, and three
+for ministers." In the year 253, after the conquest of the
+miserable Chou Emperor's limited territory, the same Ts'in
+conqueror "personally laid the matter before the Emperor Above in
+the suburb sacrifice";--which means that he took over charge of
+the world as Vicar of God. The Temple of Heaven (outside the
+Peking South Gate), occupied in 1900 by the British troops, is
+practically the "suburb sacrifice" place of ancient times. It was
+not until the year 221 B.C. that the King of Ts'in, after that
+date First August Emperor, formally annexed the whole empire:
+"thanks to the shrines in the ancestral temple," or "thanks to the
+spiritual help of my ancestors' shrines the Under-Heaven (i.e.
+Empire) is now first settled." These expressions have been
+perpetuated dynasty by dynasty, and were indeed again used but
+yesterday in the various announcements of victory made to Heaven
+and his ancestors by the Japanese _Tenshi,_ or Mikado; that
+is by the "Son of Heaven," or T'ien-tsz of the ancient Chinese,
+from whom the Japanese Shinto ritual was borrowed in whole or in
+part.
+
+In the year 572 B.C., on the accession of a Tsin ruler after
+various irregular interruptions in the lineal succession, he says:
+"Thanks to the supernatural assistance of my ancestors--and to
+your assistance, my lords--I can now carry out the Tsin
+sacrifices." In the year 548 the wretched ruler of Ts'i, victim of
+a palace intrigue, begged the eunuch who was charged with the task
+of assassinating him at least "to grant me permission to commit
+suicide in my ancestral hall." The wooden tablet representing the
+ancestor is defined as being "that on which the spirit reclines";
+and the temple "that place where the ancestral spiritual
+consciousness doth dwell." Each tablet was placed on its own
+altar: the tablet was square, with a hole in the centre, "in order
+to leave free access on all four sides." The Emperor's was twelve
+inches, those of vassal princes one foot (i.e. ten inches) in
+length, and no doubt the inscription was daubed on in varnish
+(before writing on silk became general, and before the hair-brush
+and ink came into use about 200 B.C.). The rulers of Lu, being
+lineal descendants of the Duke of Chou, brother of the first
+Emperor of the Chou dynasty (1122 B.C.) had special privileges in
+sacrificial matters, such as the right to use the imperial music
+of all past dynasties; the right to sacrifice to the father of the
+Duke of Chou and the founder; the right to imperial rites, to
+suburban sacrifice, and so on; besides the custody of certain
+ancient symbolic objects presented by the first Chou Emperors, and
+mentioned on page 22.
+
+Of course no punishment could be spiritually greater than the
+destruction of ancestral temples: thus on two occasions, notably
+in 575 B.C. when a first-class minister traitorously fled his
+country, his prince, the Marquess of Lu, as a special act of
+grace, simply "swept his ancestral temple, but did not cut off the
+sacrifices." The second instance was also in Lu, in 550: the Wei
+friend with whom Confucius lived seventy years later, when
+wandering in Wei, retrospectively gave his ritual opinion on the
+case--a proof of the solidarity in sympathy that existed between
+the statesmen of the orthodox principalities. In the bloodthirsty
+wars between the semi-barbarous southern states of Wu and Ts'u,
+the capital of the latter was taken by storm in the year 506, the
+ancestral temple of Ts'u was totally destroyed, and the renegade
+Ts'u ministers who accompanied the Wu armies even flogged the
+corpse of the previous Ts'u king, their former master, against
+whom they had a grievance. This mutilation of the dead (in cases
+where the guilty rulers have contravened the laws of nature and
+heaven) was practised even in imperial China; for (see page 57)
+the founder of the dynasty, on taking possession of the last Shang
+Emperor's palace, deliberately fired several arrows into the body
+of the suicide Emperor. Decapitating corpses and desecrating tombs
+of great criminals have frequently been practised by the existing
+Manchu government, in criticizing whom we must not forget the
+treatment of Cromwell's body at the Restoration. In the year 285
+B.C., when the Ts'i capital was taken possession of by the allied
+royal powers then united against Ts'i, the ancestral temple was
+burnt. In 249 B.C. Ts'u extinguished the state of Lu, "which thus
+witnessed the interruption of its ancestral sacrifices."
+
+Frequent instances occur, throughout this troublous period, of the
+Emperor's sending presents of meat used in ancestral sacrifices to
+the vassal princes; this was intended as a special mark of honour,
+something akin to the "orders" or decorations distributed in
+Europe. Thus in 671 the new King of Ts'u who had just murdered his
+predecessor, which predecessor had for the first time set the bad
+example of annexing petty orthodox Chinese principalities,
+received this compliment of sacrificial meat from the Emperor,
+together with a mild hint to "attack the barbarians such as Yiieh,
+but always to let the Chinese princes alone." Ts'i, Lu, Ts'in, and
+Yiieh on different occasions between that date and the fourth
+century B.C. received similar donations, usually, evidently, more
+propitiatory than patronizing. In 472 the barbarous King of Yiieh
+was even nominated Protector along with his present of meat; this
+was after his total destruction of Wu, when he was marching north
+to threaten North China. Presents of private family sacrificial
+meat are still in vogue between friends in China.
+
+Fasting and purification were necessary before undertaking solemn
+sacrifice of any kind. Thus the King of Ts'u in 690 B.C. did this
+before announcing a proposed war to his ancestors; and an envoy
+starting from Ts'u to Lu in 618 reported the circumstance to his
+own particular ancestors, who may or may not have been (as many
+high officers were) of the reigning caste. On another occasion the
+ruler of Lu was assassinated whilst purifying himself in the
+enclosure dedicated to the god of the soil, previous to
+sacrificing to the _manes_ of an individual who had once
+saved his life. Practically all this is maintained in modern
+Chinese usage.
+
+A curious distinction is mentioned in connection with official
+mourning tidings in the highly ritual state of Lu. If the deceased
+were of a totally different family name, the Marquess of Lu wept
+outside his capital, turning towards deceased's native place, or
+place of death; if of the same name, then in the ancestral temple:
+if the deceased was a descendant of the same founder, then in the
+founder's temple; if of the same family branch, then in the
+paternal temple. All these refinements are naturally tedious and
+obscure to us Westerners; but it is only by collating specific
+facts that we can arrive at any general principle or rule.
+
+[Illustration: MAP
+
+1. Ts'u's five capitals, in order of date, are marked. In 504 B.C.
+the king had to leave the Yang-tsz for good in order to escape Wu
+attacks. In 278 B.C. Ts'in captured No. 4, and then the ancient
+Ch'ta capital (No. 5, already annexed by Ts'u) became the Ts'u
+capital (see maps showing Ch'en's position). Ts'u was now a Hwai
+River power instead of being a Han River and Yang-tsz power. Shuh
+and Pa are modern Sz Ch'wan, both inaccessible from the Han
+system. The Han system to its north was separated from the Wei
+system and the country of Ts'in by a common watershed.
+
+2. Wu seems to have been the only power besides Ts'u possessing
+any knowledge of the Yang-tsz River, and Wu was originally part
+of, or vassal to Ts'u. 3. Pa had relations with Ts'u so early as
+600 B.C. Later Pa princesses married Ts'u kings.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+ANCIENT DOCUMENTS FOUND
+
+The reign of the Tsin marquess (628-635), second of the Five
+Protectors, only lasted eight years, and nothing is recorded to
+have happened during this period at all commensurate with his
+picturesque figure in history while yet a mere wanderer. But it is
+very interesting to note that the Bamboo Annals or Books, i.e. the
+History of Tsin from 784 B.C., and incidentally also of China from
+1500 years before that date, are one of the corroborative
+authorities we now possess upon the accuracy of Confucius' history
+from 722 B.C., as expanded by his three commentators; and it is
+satisfactory to know that the oldest of the three commentaries,
+that usually called the Tso _Chwan_, or "Commentary of Tso
+K'iu-ming," a junior contemporary of Confucius, and official
+historiographer at the Lu Court, is the most accurate as well as
+the most interesting of the three. These Bamboo Books were only
+discovered in the year 281 A.D., after having been buried in a
+tomb ever since the year 299 B.C. The character in which they were
+written, upon slips of bamboo, had already become so obsolete that
+the sustained work of antiquarians was absolutely necessary in
+order to reduce it to the current script of the day; or, in other
+words, of to-day. Another interesting fact is, that whilst the
+Chou dynasty, and consequently Confucius of Lu (which state was
+intimately connected by blood with the Chou family), had
+introduced a new calendar, making the year begin one (Shang) or
+two (Hia) months sooner than before, Tsin had continued to compute
+(see page 27) the year according to the system of the Hia dynasty:
+in other words, the intercalary moons, or massed fractions of time
+periodically introduced in order to bring the solar and lunar
+years into line, had during the millennium so accumulated (at the
+rate apparently of, roughly, sixty days in 360,000, or, say, three
+half-seconds a day) that the Chou dynasty found it necessary to
+call the Hia eleventh moon the first and the Hia first moon the
+third of the year. A parallel distinction is observable in modern
+times when the Russian year (until a few years ago twelve days
+later than ours), was declared thirteen days later; and when we
+ourselves in 1900 (and in three-fourths of all future years making
+up a net hundred), omit the intercalary day of the 29th February,
+which otherwise occurs every fourth year of even numbers divisible
+by four. Thus the very discrepancies in the dates of the Bamboo
+Books (where the later editors, in attempting to accommodate all
+dates to later calendars, have accidentally left a Tsin date
+unchanged) and in the dates of Confucius' expanded history,
+pointed out and explained as they are by the Chinese commentators
+themselves, are at once a guarantee of fact, and of good faith in
+recording that fact.
+
+But the neighbour and brother-in-law of the Tsin marquess (himself
+three parts Turkish), the Earl of Ts'in, who reigned from 659 to
+621 B.C., and during that reign quietly laid the foundations of a
+powerful state which was destined to achieve the future conquest
+of all China, was himself a remarkable man; and there is some
+reason to believe that he, even at this period, also possessed a
+special calendar of his own, as his successors certainly did 400
+years later, when they imposed their own calendar reckoning upon
+China. We have already seen (page 52) what powerful influence he
+exercised in bringing the semi-Tartar Tsin brethren to the Tsin
+throne in turn. He had invited several distinguished men from the
+neighbouring petty, but very ancient, Chinese principalities to
+settle in his capital as advisers; he was too far off to attend
+the durbars held by the, First Protector, but he sent one of these
+Chinese advisers as his representative, He is usually himself
+counted as one of the Five Protectors; but, although he was
+certainly very influential, and for that reason was certainly one
+of the Five Tyrants, or Five Predominating Powers, it is certain
+that he never succeeded in obtaining the Emperor's formal sanction
+to act as such over the orthodox principalities, nor did he ever
+preside at a durbar of Chinese federal princes. Long and bloody
+wars with his neighbour of Tsin were the chief feature of his
+reign so far as orthodox China was concerned; but his chief glory
+lies in his great Tartar conquests, and in his enormous extensions
+to the west. These extensions, however, must not be exaggerated,
+and there is no reason to suppose that they ever reached farther
+than Kwa Chou and Tun-hwang (long. 95ø, lat. 40ø), two very
+ancient places which still appear under those names on the most
+modern maps of China, and from which roads (recently examined by
+Major Bruce) branch off to Turkestan and Lob Nor respectively.
+
+Most Emperors and vassal princes are spoken of in history by their
+posthumous names, that is by the names voted to them after death,
+with the view of tersely expressing by that name the essential
+features (good or bad) of the deceased's personal character; just
+as we say in Europe, officially or unofficially, Louis le
+Bienaimé, Albert the Good, or Charles the Fat. The posthumous name
+of this Ts'in earl was "the Duke Muh" (no matter whether duke,
+marquess, earl, viscount, or baron when living, it was customary
+to say "duke" when the ruler was dead), and the posthumous name of
+the Emperor who died in 947 B.C. was "the King Muh"; for, as
+already stated, the Chou dynasty of Sons of Heaven were called
+"King," and not "Emperor" though their supreme position was as
+fully imperial as that of previous dynastic monarchs, and they
+were, in fact, "Emperors" as we now understand that word in
+Europe. At the same time that the Bamboo Annals were unearthed,
+there were also found copies of some of the old "classics" or
+"Scripture," and a hitherto unknown book called "the Story of the
+Son of Heaven Muh," all, of course, written in the same ancient
+script. This Son of Heaven (a term applied to all the Emperors of
+China, no matter whether they styled themselves Emperor, King, or
+August Emperor) was supposed to have travelled far west, and to
+have had interviews with a foreign prince, who, as his land too,
+was transcribed as _Siwangmu_. The subject will be touched
+upon more in detail in another chapter; but, for the present, it
+will be useful to say that, in the opinion of one very learned
+sinologist, all evidence points clearly to this expedition having
+been undertaken by Duke Muh of Ts'in, installed as he was in the
+old appanage of the emperors lost to the Tartars (as we have
+explained) in 771, and made over at the same time by the Emperor
+involved to the ancestors of Duke Muh. This view of the case is
+supported by the fact that in 664 B.C. Ts'in and Tsin, for some
+unknown reason, forced the Tartars of Kwa Chou to migrate into
+China, which migration was subsequently alluded to by a Tartar
+chief (when attending a Chinese durbar in 559 B.C.) as a well-
+known historical fact. It was undoubtedly the practice of semi-
+Chinese states, such as Ts'u, Wu, Yueh, and Shuh (the last is the
+modern Sz Ch'wan province, and its history was only discovered
+long after Confucius' time), to call themselves "Kings,"
+"Emperors," and "Sons of Heaven," in their own country (just as
+the tributary King of Annam always did until the French assumed a
+protectorate over him; and just as the tributary Japanese did
+before they officially announced the fact to China in the seventh
+century A.D.); and there are many indications that Ts'in did, or
+at least might have done and would like to have done, the same
+thing. Hence, when the story of Muh was discovered, the literary
+manipulators--even if they did not really believe that it
+positively must refer to the Emperor Muh-might well have honestly
+doubted whether the story referred to Ts'in or to the Emperor; or
+might well have decided to incorporate it with orthodox history,
+as a strengthening factor in support of the theory of one single
+and indivisible imperial dignity; just as, again, in the seventh
+century and eighth century A.D., the Japanese manipulators of
+their traditional history incorporated hundreds, not to say
+thousands of Chinese historical facts and speeches, and worked
+them into their own historical episodes and into their own
+emperors' mouths, for the honour and glory of Dai Nippon (Great
+Japan).
+
+After the death of the Second Protector in 628 B.C., there was a
+continuous struggle between Tsin and Ts'in on the one hand, and
+between Tsin and Ts'u on the other. Meanwhile Ts'i had all its own
+work cut out in order to keep the Tartars off the right bank of
+the Yellow River in its lower course, and in order to protect the
+orthodox Chinese states, Lu, Sung, Wei, etc., from their attacks;
+but Ts'i never again after this date put in a formal claim to be
+Protector, although in 610 she led a coalition of princes against
+an offending member, and thus practically acted as Protector.
+
+In addition to the Chinese adviser at the disposal of Ts'in, in
+the year 626 the King (or a king) of the Tartars supplied Duke Muh
+with a very able Tartar adviser of Tsin descent; i.e. his
+ancestors had in past times migrated to Tartarland, though he
+himself still "spoke the Tsin dialect," and must have had
+considerable literary capacity, as he was an author. Ts'in was
+now, in addition to being, if only informally, a federal Chinese
+state, also supreme suzerain over all the Tartar principalities
+within reach; well supplied, moreover, with expert advisers for
+both classes of work. All this is important in view of the pre-
+eminency of Ts'in when the time came, 400 years later, to abolish
+the meticulous feudal system altogether.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MORE ON PROTECTORS
+
+The Five Tyrants, or Protectors, are usually considered to be the
+five personages we have mentioned; to wit, in order of succession,
+the Marquess of Ts'i (679-643), under whose reign the great
+economist, statesman, and philosopher Kwan-tsz raised this far
+eastern part of China to a hitherto unheard-of pitch of material
+prosperity; the Marquess of Tsin (632-628), a romantic prince,
+more Turkish than Chinese, who was the first vassal prince openly
+to treat the Emperor as a puppet; the Duke of Sung (died 637),
+representing the imperial Shang dynasty ejected by the Chou family
+in 1122, whose ridiculous chivalry failed, however, to secure him
+the effective support of the other Chinese princes; the Earl of
+Ts'in (died 621) who was, as we see, quietly creating a great
+Tartar dominion, and assimilating it to Chinese ways in the west;
+and the King of Ts'u (died 591), who, besides taking his place
+amongst the recognized federal princes, and annexing innumerable
+petty Chinese principalities in the Han River and Hwai River
+basins, had been for several generations quietly extending his
+dominions at the expense of what we now call the provinces of Sz
+Ch'wan, Kiang Si, Hu Kwang-perhaps even Yun Nan and Kwei Chou;
+Certainly Kiang Su and Cheh Kiang, and possibly in a loose way the
+coast regions of modern Fuh Kien and the Two Kwang; but it cannot
+be too often repeated that if any thing intimate was known of the
+Yang-tsz basin, it was only Ts'u (in its double character of
+independent local empire as well as Chinese federal prince) that
+knew, or could have known, any thing about it; just as, if any
+thing specific was known of the Far West, Turkestan, the Tarim
+valley, and the Desert, it was only Ts'in (in its double character
+of independent Tartar empire as well as Chinese federal prince)
+that knew, or could know, any thing about them. Ts'i and Tsin were
+also Tartar powers, at least in the sense that they knew how to
+keep off the particular Tartars known to them, and how to make
+friendly alliances with them, thus availing themselves, on the one
+hand, of Tartar virility, and faithful on the other to orthodox
+Chinese culture. So that, with the exception of the pedantic Duke
+of Sung, who was summarily snuffed out after a year or two of
+brief light by the lusty King of Ts'u, all the nominal Five
+Protectors of China were either half-barbarian rulers or had
+passed through the crucible of barbarian ordeals. Finally, so
+vague were the claims and services of Sung, Ts'u, and Ts'in, from
+a protector point of view, that for the purposes of this work, we
+only really recognize two, the First Protector (of Ts'i) and,
+after a struggle, the Second Protector (of Tsin): at most a
+third,--Ts'u.
+
+But although the Chinese historians thus loosely confine the Five-
+Protector period to less than a century of time, it is a fact that
+Ts'u and Tsin went on obstinately struggling for the hegemony, or
+for practical predominance, for at least another 200 years;
+besides, Ts'in, Ts'u, and Sung were never formally nominated by
+the Emperor as Protectors, nor were they ever accepted as such by
+the Chinese federal princes in the permanent and definite way that
+Ts'i and Tsin had been and were accepted. Moreover, the barbarian
+states of Wu and Yüeh each in turn acted very effectively as
+Protector, and are never included in the Five-Great-Power series.
+The fact is, the Chinese have never grasped the idea of principles
+in history: their annals are mere diaries of events; and when once
+an apparently definite "period" is named by an annalist, they go
+on using it, quite regardless of its inconsistency when confronted
+with facts adverse to a logical acceptance of it.
+
+The situation was this: Tsin and Ts'u were at perpetual
+loggerheads about the small Chinese states that lay between them,
+more especially about the state of Cheng, which, though small, was
+of quite recent imperial stock, and was, moreover, well supplied
+with brains. Tsin and Ts'in were at perpetual loggerheads about
+the old Tsin possessions on the west bank of the Yellow River,
+which, running from the north to the south, lay between them; and
+about their rival claims to influence the various nomadic Tartar
+tribes living along both the banks, Tsin and Ts'i were often
+engaged in disputes about Lu, Wei, and other orthodox states
+situated in the Lower Yellow River valley running from the west to
+the east and north-east; also in questions concerning eastern
+barbarian states inhabiting the whole coast region, and concerning
+the petty Chinese states which had degenerated, and whose manners
+savoured of barbarian ways. Thus Ts'in and Ts'u, and also to some
+extent Ts'i and Ts'u, had a regular tendency to ally themselves
+against Tsin's flanks, and it was therefore always Tsin's policy
+as the "middle man" to obstruct communications between Ts'in and
+Ts'u, and between Ts'i and Ts'u. In 580 Tsin devised a means of
+playing off a similar flanking game upon Ts'u: negotiations were
+opened with Wu, which completely barbarous state only begins to
+appear in history at all at about this period, all the kings
+having manifestly phonetic barbarian names, which mean absolutely
+nothing (beyond conveying the sound) as expressed in Chinese, Wu
+was taught the art of war, as we have seen, by (page 34) a Ts'u
+traitor who had fled to Tsin and taken service there; and the King
+of Wu soon made things so uncomfortable for Ts'u that the latter
+in turn tried by every means to block the way between Tsin and Wu.
+Within a single generation Wu was so civilized that one of the
+royal princes was sent the rounds of the Chinese states as special
+ambassador, charged, under the convenient cloak of seeking for
+civilization, ritual, and music, with the duty of acquiring
+political and strategical knowledge. This prince so favourably
+impressed the orthodox statesmen of Ts'i, Lu, Tsin, and Wei (the
+ruling family of this state, like that of Sung, was, until it
+revolted in 1106 B.C. against the new Chou dynasty, of Shang
+dynasty origin, and the Yellow River ran through it northwards),
+that he was everywhere deferentially received _as_ an equal:
+his tomb is still in existence, about ten miles from the treaty-
+port of Chinkiang, and the inscription upon it, in ancient
+characters, was written by Confucius himself, who, though a boy of
+eight when the Wu prince visited Lu in 544, may well have seen the
+prince in the flesh elsewhere, for the latter lived to prevent a
+war with Ts'u in 485; i.e. he lived to within six years of
+Confucius' death: he is known, too, to have visited Tsin on a
+spying mission in 515 B.C. The original descent of the first
+voluntarily barbarous Wu princes from the same grandfather as the
+Chou emperors would afford ample basis for the full recognition of
+a Wu prince by the orthodox as their equal, especially when his
+manners were softened by rites and music. It was like an oriental
+prince being feted and invested in Europe, so long as he should
+conform to the conventional dress and mannerisms of "society."
+
+Just as Wu had been quietly submissive to Ts'u until the
+opportunity came to revolt, so did the still more barbarous state
+of Yueh, lying to the south-east of and tributary to Wu as her
+mesne lord, eagerly seize the opportunity of attacking Wu when the
+common suzerain, Ts'u, required it. The wars of Wu and Yueh are
+almost entirely naval, and, so far as the last-named state is
+concerned, it is never reported as having used war-chariots at
+all. Wu adopted the Chinese chariot as rapidly as it had re-
+adopted the Chinese civilization, abandoned by the first colonist
+princes in 1200 B.C.; but of course these chariots were only for
+war in China, on the flat Chinese plains; they were totally
+impracticable in mountainous countries, except along the main
+routes, and useless (as Major Bruce shows) in regions cut up by
+gulleys; even now no one ever sees a two-wheeled vehicle in the
+Shanghai-Ningpo region. It must, therefore, always be remembered
+that Wu, though barbarous in its population, was, in its origin as
+an organized system of rule, a colony created by certain ancestors
+of the founder of the Chou dynasty, who had voluntarily gone off
+to carve out an appanage in the Jungle; i.e. in the vague unknown
+dominion later called Ts'u, of which dominion all coast regions
+were a part, so far as they could be reduced to submission. This
+gave the Kings of Wu, though barbarian, a pretext for claiming
+equality with, and even seniority over Tsin, the first Chou-born
+prince of which was junior in descent to most of the other
+enfeoffed vassals of the imperial clan-name. In 502 Wu armies even
+threatened the northern state of Ts'i, and asserted in China
+generally a brief authority akin to that of Protector. Ts'i was
+obliged to buy itself off by marrying a princess of the blood to
+the heir-apparent of Wu, an act which two centuries later excited
+the disgust of the philosopher Mencius. The great Ts'i statesman
+and writer Yen-tsz, whom we have already mentioned more than once,
+died in 500, and earlier in that year Confucius had become chief
+counsellor of Lu, which state, on account of Confucius' skill as a
+diplomat, nearly obtained the Protectorate. It was owing to the
+fear of this that the assassination of the Lu prince was attempted
+that year, as narrated in Chapter IX. In order to understand how
+Wu succeeded in reaching Lu and Ts'i, it must be recollected that
+the river Sz, which still runs from east to west past Confucius's
+birthplace, and now simply feeds the Grand Canal, then flowed
+south-east along the line of the present canal and entered the
+Hwai River near Sü-chou. Moreover, there was at times boat-
+communication between the Sz and the Yellow River, though the
+precise channel is not now known. Consequently, the Wu fleets had
+no difficulty in sailing northwards first by sea and then up the
+Hwai and Sz Rivers. Besides, in 485, the King of Wu began what we
+now call the Grand Canal by joining as a beginning the Yang-tsz
+River with the Hwai River, and then carrying the canal beyond the
+Hwai to the state of Sung, which state was then disputing with Lu
+the possession of territory on the east bank of the Sz, whilst
+Ts'u was pushing her annexations up to the west bank of the same
+river. There were in all twelve minor orthodox states between the
+Sz and the Hwai. In 482 the all-powerful King of Wu held a genuine
+durbar as Protector, at a place in modern Ho Nan province, north
+of the Yellow River as it now runs, but at that time a good
+distance to the south-east of it. This is one of the most
+celebrated meetings in Chinese history, partly because Wu
+successfully asserted political pre-eminence over Tsin; partly
+because Confucius falsifies the true facts out of shame (as we
+have seen he did when Ts'u similarly seized the first place over
+Tsin); and partly owing to the shrewd diplomacy of the King of Wu,
+who had learnt by express messenger that the King of Ytieh was
+marching on his capital, and who had the difficult double task to
+accomplish of carrying out a "bluff," and operating a retreat
+without showing his weak hand to either side, or losing his army
+exposed between two foes.
+
+In 473, after long and desperate fighting, Wu was, however, at
+last annihilated by Yiieh, which state was now unanimously voted
+Protector, _Vae victis!_ The Yueh capital was promptly removed
+from near the modern Shao-hing (west of Ningpo) far away north
+to what is now practically the German colony of Kiao Chou; but,
+though a maritime power of very great-strength, Yiieh never succeeded
+in establishing any real land influence in the Hwai Valley. During her
+short protectorate she rectified the River Sz question by forcing
+Sung to make over to Lu the land on the east bank of the River Sz.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+STATE INTERCOURSE
+
+Whatever may be the reason why details of interstate movement are
+lacking up to 842 B.C., it is certain that, from the date of the
+Emperor's flight eastwards in 771, the utmost activity prevailed
+between state and state within the narrow area to which, as we
+have seen, the federated Chinese empire was confined. Confucius'
+history, covering the 250-year period subsequent to 722, consists
+largely of statements that this duke visited that country, or
+returned from it, or drew up a treaty with it, or negotiated a
+marriage with it. "Society," in a political sense, consisted of
+the four great powers, Ts'in, Tsin, Ts'i, and Ts'u, surrounding
+the purely Chinese enclave; and of the innumerable petty Chinese
+states, mostly of noble and ancient lineage, only half a dozen of
+them of any size, which formed the enclave in question, and were
+surrounded by Ts'in, Tsin, Ts'i, and Ts'u, to the west, north,
+east, and south. Secondary states in extent and in military power,
+like Lu, CHÊNG, and Wei, whilst having orthodox and in some cases
+barbarian sub-vassals of their own, were themselves, if not
+vassals to, at all events under the predominant influence of, one
+or the other of the four great powers. Thus Lu was at first nearly
+always a handmaid of Ts'i, but later fell under the influence of
+Tsin, Ts'u, and Wu; Cheng always coquetted between Tsin and Ts'u,
+not out of love for either, but in order to protect her own
+independence; and so on with the rest. If we inquire what a really
+small state meant in those days, the answer is that the modern
+walled city, with its district of several hundred square miles
+lying around it, was (and usually still is) the equivalent of the
+ancient principality; and proof of that lies in the fact that one
+of the literary designations of what we now term a "district
+magistrate" is still "city marquess." Another proof is that in
+ancient times "your state" was a recognized way of saying "your
+capital town"; and "my poor town" was the polite way of saying
+"our country"; both expressions still used in elegant diplomatic
+composition.
+
+This being so, and it having besides been the practice for a
+visiting duke always to take along with him a "minister in
+attendance," small wonder that prominent Chinese statesmen from
+the orthodox states were all personal friends, or at least
+correspondents and acquaintances, who had thus frequent
+opportunity of comparing political notes. To this day there are no
+serious dialect differences whatever in the ancient central area
+described in the first chapter, nor is there any reason to suppose
+that the statesmen and scholars who thus often met in conclave had
+any difficulty in making themselves mutually understood. The
+"dialects"' of which we hear so much in modern times (which, none
+the less, are all of them pure Chinese, except that the syllables
+differ, just as _coeur, cuore, and _corazon, coraçao_, differ from
+_cor_), all belong to the southern coasts, which were practically
+unknown to imperial China in Confucius' time. The Chinese word which
+we translate "mandarin" also means "public" or "common," and
+"mandarin dialect" really means "current" or "common speech,"
+such as is, and was, spoken with no very serious modifications all
+over the enclave; and also in those parts of Ts'in, Tsin, Ts'i, and
+Ts'u, which immediately impinged upon the enclave, in the ratio
+of their proximity. Finally, Shen Si, Shan Si, Shan Tung, and Hu
+Kwang are still called Ts'in, Tsin, Ts'i, and Ts'u in high-class official
+correspondence; and so with all other place-names. China has never
+lost touch with antiquity.
+
+There is record for nearly every thing: the only difficulty is to
+separate what is relevant from what is irrelevant in the mass of
+confused _data_.
+
+Another matter must be considered. Although the Chinese never had
+a caste system in the Hindoo sense, there is, as we have stated
+once before, every reason to believe that the ruling classes and
+the educated classes were nearly all nobles, in the sense that
+they were all lineal or branch descendants, whether by first-
+class wife or by concubine, of either the ruling dynastic family
+or of some previous imperial dynastic family. Some families were
+by custom destined for hereditary ministers, others for hereditary
+envoys, others again for hereditary soldiers; not, it is true, by
+strict rule, but because the ancient social idea favoured the
+descent of office, or land, or trade, or craft from father to son.
+This, indeed, was part of the celebrated Kwan-tsz's economic
+philosophy. Thus generation after generation of statesmen and
+scholars kept in steady touch with one another, exactly as our
+modern scientists of the first rank, each as a link, form an
+unbroken intimate chain from Newton down to Lord Kelvin, outside
+which pale the ordinary layman stands a comparative stranger to
+the _arcana_ within.
+
+Kwan-tsz, the statesman-philosopher of Ts'i, and in a sense the
+founder of Chinese economic science, was himself a scion of the
+imperial Chou clan; every writer on political economy subsequent
+to 643 B.C. quotes his writings, precisely as every European
+philosophical writer cites Bacon. Quite a galaxy of brilliant
+statesmen and writers, a century after Kwan-tsz, shed lustre upon
+the Confucian age (550-480), and nearly all of them were personal
+friends either of Confucius or of each other, or of both. Thus
+Tsz-ch'an of CHÊNG, senior to Confucius, but beloved and admired
+by him, was son of a reigning duke, and a prince of the ducal
+CHÊNG family, which again was descended from a son of the Emperor
+who fled in 842 B.C.
+
+If Tsz-ch'an had written works on philosophy and politics, it is
+possible that he might have been China's greatest man in the place
+of Confucius; for he based his ideas of government, as did
+Confucius, who probably copied much from him, entirely upon
+"fitting conduct," or "natural propriety"; in addition to which he
+was a great lawyer, entirely free from superstition and hypocrisy;
+a kind, just, and considerate ruler; a consummate diplomat; and a
+bold, original statesman, economist, and administrator. The
+anecdotes and sayings of Tsz-ch'an are as numerous and as
+practical as those about Julius Caesar or Marcus Aurelius.
+
+Another great pillar of the state praised by Confucius was Shuh
+Hiang of Tsin, whose reputation as a sort of Chinese Cicero is not
+far below that of Tsz-ch'an. He belonged to one of the great
+private families of Tsin, of whom it was said in Ts'u that "any of
+them could bring 100 war-chariots into the field." Nothing could
+be more interesting than the interviews and letters (see Appendix
+No. 1) between these two friends and their colleagues of Ts'i,
+Ts'u, Lu, and Sung.
+
+Yen-tsz of Ts'i almost ranks with Kwan-tsz as an administrator,
+philosopher, economist, author, and statesman. Confucius has a
+good word for him too, though Yen-tsz's own opinion of Confucius'
+merits was by no means so high. The two men had to "spar" with
+each other behind their respective rulers like Bismarck and
+Gortschakoff did. Yen-tsz's interview with Shuh Hiang, when the
+pair discussed the vices of their respective dukes, is almost as
+amusing as a "patter" scene in the pantomime, a sort of by-play
+which takes place whilst the curtain is down in preparation for
+the next formal act (see Appendix No. 2).
+
+[Illustration: K'ung Ling-i, the hereditary _Yen-sheng Kung,_
+or "Propagating Holiness Duke"; 76th in descent from K'ung K'iu,
+_alias_ K'ung Chung-ni, the original philosopher, 551--479
+B.C.
+
+This portrait was presented to "the priest P'eng" (Father Tschepe,
+S.J.), on the occasion of his visit last autumn (7th moon, 33rd
+year).]
+
+Confucius himself had descended in the direct line from the ducal
+family of Sung; but Sung, like the other states, was cursed with
+the "great family" nuisance, and one of his ancestors, having
+incurred a grandee's hostility, had met with his death in a palace
+intrigue, in consequence of which the Confucian family, despairing
+of justice, had migrated to Lu. When we read of Confucius'
+extensive wanderings (which are treated of more at length in a
+subsequent chapter), the matter takes a very different complexion
+from what is usually supposed, especially if it be recollected
+what a limited area was really covered. He never got even so far
+as Tsin, though part of Tsin touched the Lu frontier, and it is
+doubtful if he was ever 300 miles, as the crow flies, from his own
+house in Lu; true, he visited the fringe of Ts'u, but it must be
+remembered that the place he visited was only in modern Ho Nan
+province, and was one of the recent conquests of Ts'u, belonging
+to the Hwai River system. As we explained in the last chapter,
+Ts'u's policy then was to work up eastwards to the river Sz; that
+is, to the Grand Canal of to-day. Confucius, it is plain, was no
+mere pedant; for we have seen how, in the year 500, when he first
+enjoyed high political power, he displayed conspicuously great
+strategical and diplomatic ability in defeating the treacherous
+schemes of the ruler of Ts'i, who had been endeavouring to filch
+Lu territory, and who was dreadfully afraid lest Lu should,
+through Wu's favour, acquire the hegemony or protectorship. He
+could even be humorous, for when the barbarian King of Wu put in a
+demand for a "handsome hat," Confucius contemptuously observed
+that the gorgeousness of a hat's trimmings appealed to this
+ignorant monarch more than the emblem of rank distinguishing one
+hat from another.
+
+Sung provided one distinguished statesman in Hiang Suh, whose fame
+is bound up with a kind of Hague Disarmament or Peace Conference,
+which he successfully engineered in 546 B.C. (see Appendix No. 3).
+In the year 558 he had been sent on a marriage mission to Lu. Ki-
+chah of Wu, who died at the ripe age of 90, was quite entitled to
+be king of that country, but he repeatedly waived his claims in
+favour of his brothers. K'ü-pêh-yüh of Wei, is mentioned in the
+Book of Rites, and in many other works. With him Confucius lodged
+on the two occasions of long sojourn in Wei: he is the man
+mentioned in Chapter XII who gave his authoritative "ritual"
+opinion about traitors. Ts'in never seems to have produced a
+native literary statesman on its own soil. During this 500-year
+period of isolated development, and also during the later period
+of conquest in the third century B.C., all its statesmen were
+borrowed from Tsin, or from some orthodox state of China proper;
+in military genius, however, Ts'in was unrivalled, and a special
+chapter will be devoted to her huge _battues_. The literary
+reputation of Ts'u was high at a comparatively early date, and
+even now the "Elegies of Ts'u" include some of the very finest of
+the Chinese poems and _belles lettres_; but in Confucius'
+time no Ts'u man, except possibly Lao-tsz, had any reputation at
+all; and Lao-tsz, being a mere archive keeper, not entrusted with
+any influential office, naturally lacked opportunity to emerge
+from the chrysalis stage. Moreover, the imperial dynasty, which
+Lao-tsz served, had no political influence at all: it was an
+ironical saying of the times; "the best civilians are Ts'u's, but
+they all serve other states," (meaning that the Ts'u rule was too
+capricious to attract talent). Hence, apart from the fact that
+Confucius doubted the wisdom of Lao-tsz's novel philosophy,
+Confucius had no occasion whatever to mention the secluded, self-
+contained old man in his political history, or, rather, in his
+bald annals of royal-movements.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+LAND AND PEOPLE
+
+What sort of folk were the masses of China, upon whom the ruling
+classes depended, then as now, for their support? In the year 594
+B.C. the model state of Lu for the first time imposed a tax of ten
+per cent, upon each Chinese "acre" of land, being about one-sixth
+of an English acre: as the tax was one-tenth, it matters not what
+size the acre was. Each cultivator under the old system had an
+allotment of 100 such acres for himself, his parents, his wife,
+and his children; and in the centre of this allotment were 10
+acres of "public land," the produce of which, being the result of
+his labour, went to the State; there was no further taxation. A
+"mile," being about one-third of an English mile, and, therefore,
+in square measure one-ninth of an English square mile, consisted
+of 300 fathoms (taking the fathom roughly), and its superficies
+contained 900 "acres" of which 80 were public under the above
+arrangement, 820 remaining for the eight families owning this
+"well-field"--so called because the ideograph for a "well"
+represents nine squares: a four-sided square in the centre, four
+three-sided squares impinging on it; and four two-sided squares at
+the corners; i.e. 100 "acres" each, plus 2-1/2 "acres" each for
+"homestead and onions"; or 20 of these last in all. Nine
+cultivators in one "well," multiplied by four, formed a township,
+and four townships formed a "cuirass" of 144 armed warriors; but
+this was under a modified system introduced four years later
+(590). It will be observed that the arithmetic seems confused, if
+not faulty; but that does not seriously affect the genuineness of
+the picture, and may be ignored as mere detail.
+
+The ancient classification of people was into four groups. The
+scholar people employed themselves in studying _tao_ and the
+sciences, from which we plainly see that the doctrine of
+_tao,_ or "the way," existed long before Lao-tsz, in Confucius'
+time, superadded a mystic cosmogony upon it, and made of it a socialist
+or radical instead of an imperialist or conservative doctrine. The second
+class were the trading people, who dealt in "produce from the four
+quarters"; there is evidence that this meant chiefly cattle, grain, silk,
+horses, leather, and gems. The third class were the cultivators, and
+in those days tea and cotton, amongst other important products of
+to-day, were totally unknown. The fourth class consisted of handicraftsmen,
+who naturally made all things they could sell, or knew how to make.
+
+Another classification of men is the following, which was given to
+the King of Ts'u by a sage adviser, presumably an importation from
+orthodox China. He divided people into ten classes, each inferior
+class owing obedience to its superior, and the highest of all
+owing obedience only to the gods or spirits. First, the Emperor;
+secondly, the "inner" dukes, or grandees of estates within the
+imperial domain: these grandees were dukes proper, not dukes by
+posthumous courtesy like the vassal princes after decease, and the
+Emperor used to send them on service, when required, to the vassal
+states; they were, in fact, like the "princes of the Church" or
+cardinals, who surround the Pope. Thirdly, "the marquesses," that
+is the semi-independent vassal states, no matter whether duke,
+marquess, earl, viscount, or baron; this term seems also to
+include the reigning lords of very small states which did not
+possess even the rank of baron, and which were usually attached to
+a larger state as clients, under protectorate; in fact, the
+recognized stereotyped way of saying "the vassal rulers" was "the
+marquesses." Then came what we should call the "middle classes,"
+or bourgeoisie, followed by the artisans and cultivators: it will
+be noticed that the artisans are here given rank over the
+cultivators, which is not in accord with either very ancient or
+very modern practice; this, indeed, places cultivators before both
+traders and artisans. Lastly came the police, the carriers of
+burdens, the eunuchs, and the slaves. By "police" are meant the
+runners attached to public offices, whose work too often involves
+"squeezing" and terrorizing, torturing, flogging, etc. To the
+present day police, barbers, and slaves require three generations
+of purifying, or living down, before their descendants can enter
+for the public examinations; or, to use the official expression,
+their "three generations" must be "clear"; at least so it was
+until the old Confucian examination system was abolished as a test
+for official capacity a few years ago. Of eunuchs we shall have
+more to say shortly; but very little indeed is heard of private
+slaves, who probably then, as now, were indistinguishable from the
+ordinary people, and were treated kindly. The callous Greek and
+still more brutal Roman system, not to mention the infinitely more
+cowardly and shocking African slavery abuses of eighteenth-
+century Europe and nineteenth-century America, have never been
+known in China: no such thing as a slave revolt has ever been
+heard of there.
+
+In the year 548 the kingdom of Ts'u ordered a cadastral survey,
+and also a general stock-taking of arms, chariots, and horses.
+Records were made of the extent and value of the land in each
+parish, the extent of the mountains and forests, and the resources
+they might furnish. Observation was also made of lakes and marshes
+suitable for sport, and it was forbidden to fill these in. Note
+was taken of such hills and mounds as might be available for
+tombs--a detail which shows that modern graves in China differ
+little if at all from the ancient ones; in fact in Canton "my
+hill," or "mountain," is synonymous with "my cemetery." In order
+to fix the taxes at a just figure, stock was taken of the salt-
+flats, the unproductive lands, and the tracts liable to periodical
+inundation. Areas rescued from the waters were protected by dykes,
+and subdivided for allotment by sloping banks, but without
+introducing the rigid nine-square system. Good lands, however,
+were divided according to the method introduced by the Chou
+dynasty; that is to say, six feet formed a "fathom," 100 fathoms
+an "acre," 100 "acres" the allotment of one family; these English
+terms are, of course, only approximately correct. Nine families
+still formed a hamlet or "well," and they cultivated together 1000
+"acres," the central hundred going to pay the imposts. Taxes,
+direct and indirect, were fixed with exactitude, and also the
+number of war-chariots that each parish had to furnish; the number
+of horses; their value, age, and colour; the number of armoured
+troopers and foot soldiers, with a return of their cuirasses and
+shields. Regarding this colour classification, of the horses, it
+may be mentioned that the Tartars, in the second century B.C.,
+were in the habit of equipping whole regiments of cavalry on
+mounts of the same colour, and it is, therefore, possible that
+this practice may have been imitated in South China; but Ts'u
+never once herself engaged in warfare with the Tartars; at all
+events with Tartars other than Tartars brought into Chinese
+settlements.
+
+Long before this, the philosopher-statesman Kwan-tsz of Ts'i had
+so developed the agriculture, fisheries, trade, and salt gabelle,
+and had governed the country in such a way that his State,
+hitherto of minor importance, soon took the lead amongst the
+Chinese powers for wealth and for military influence. His
+classification of the people was into scholars, artisans, traders,
+and agriculturalists. He is generally credited with having
+introduced the "Babylonian woman" into the Ts'i metropolis, in
+order that traders, having sold their goods there, might leave as
+much as possible of their money behind in the houses of pleasure.
+There are many accounts of the luxury of this populous city, where
+"every woman possessed one long and one short needle," and where a
+premium levied upon currency, fish, and salt was applied to the
+relief of the poor and (!) to the rewarding of virtue. Kwan-tsz
+also maintained a standing army, or perhaps a militia force, of
+30,000 men; but he was careful so to husband his strength that
+Ts'i should not have the external appearance of dominating; his
+aim was that she should rather hold her power in reserve, and only
+use it indirectly: as we have seen, his master was, in consequence
+of Kwan-tsz's able administration, raised to the high position of
+the first of the Five Protectors.
+
+From this it will be plain that there was considerable commercial
+activity in China even before the time of Confucius: there was
+quite a string of fairs or market towns extending from the
+imperial reserve eastwards along the Yellow River to Choh-thou
+(still so called, south of Peking), which was then the most
+northernly of them: apparently each considerable state possessed
+one of these fairs. The headwaters of the River Hwai system were
+served by the great mart (now called Yii Chou) belonging to the
+state of Cheng. As with our own histories, Chinese annals consist
+chiefly of the record of what kings and grandees did, and mention
+of the people is only occasional; and, even then, only in
+connection with the policy of their leaders.
+
+As soon as the second of the Protectors, the Marquess of Tsin, was
+seated on his ancestral throne (637), his first act was to reduce
+the tolls and make the roads safer; to facilitate trade, and to
+encourage agriculture. Also to "make friends of the eleven great
+families" (already mentioned twice in preceding pages), whose
+development, however, in time led to the collapse of this princely
+power, and to its division between three of the "great families."
+A century after this, a minister of the Ts'u state praised very
+highly the efficiency of the Tsin administration. "The common
+people are devoted to agriculture; the merchants, artisans, and
+menials are all dutiful." For the conveyance of grain between the
+Ts'in and the Tsin capitals, both carts and boats were requisitioned,
+from which we must assume that there were practicable roads of some
+sort for two-wheeled vehicles. In the year 546, when some important
+reserves were made by Tsin at the Peace Conference, an express
+messenger was sent from Sung to the Ts'u capital to take the king's
+pleasure: this means an overland journey from the sources of the Hwai
+to the modern treaty port of Sha-shr above Hankow.
+
+It may be added that, five centuries before Kwan-tsz existed, the
+founder of the Ts'i state, as a vassal to the new Chou dynasty,
+had already distinguished himself by encouraging trade,
+manufactures, fisheries, and the salt production; so that Kwan-tsz
+was an improver rather than an inventor.
+
+Thus we see that, from very early times, China was by no means a
+sleepy country of ignorant husbandmen, but was a place full of
+multifarious activities; and that her local rulers, at least from
+the time when the patriarchal power of the Emperors decayed in
+771, were often men of considerable sagacity, quite alive to the
+necessity of developing their resources and encouraging their
+people: this helps us to understand their restlessness under the
+yoke of "ritual."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+EDUCATION AND LITERARY
+
+There is singularly little mention of writing or education in
+ancient times, and it seems likely that written records were at
+first confined to castings or engravings upon metal, and carvings
+upon stone. In the days when the written character was cumbrous,
+there would be no great encouragement to use it for daily
+household purposes. It is a striking fact, not only that writings
+upon soft clay, afterwards baked, were not only non-existent in
+China, but have never once been mentioned or conceived of as being
+a possibility. This fact effectually disposes of the allegation
+that Persian and Babylonian literary civilization made its way to
+China, for it is unreasonable to suppose that an invention so well
+suited to the clayey soil (of _loess_ mud with cementing properties)
+in which the Chinese princes dwelt could have been ignored by them,
+if ever the slightest inkling of it had been obtained.
+
+In 770 B.C., when the Emperor, having moved his capital to the
+east, ceded his ancestral lands in the west to Ts'in on condition
+that Ts'in should recover them permanently from the Tartars, the
+document of cession was engraved upon a metal vase. Fifteen
+hundred years before this, the Nine Tripods of the founder of the
+Hia dynasty, representing tributes of metal brought to the Emperor
+by outlying tribes, were inscribed with records of the various
+productions of China: these tripods were ever afterwards regarded
+as an attribute of imperial authority; and even Ts'u, when it
+began to presume upon the Chou Emperor's weakness, put in a claim
+(probably based upon his ancestors' own ancient Chinese descent,
+as explained in Chapter IV.) to possess them.
+
+In distributing the fiefs amongst relatives and friends, the first
+Chou emperors "composed orders" conferring rights upon their new
+vassals; but it is not stated what written form these orders took.
+Written prayers for the recovery of the first Emperor's health are
+mentioned, but here again we are ignorant of the material on which
+the prayers were written by the precentor. Four hundred years
+later, in 65, when Ts'in had assisted to the throne his neighbour
+the Marquess of Tsin, the latter gave a promise in writing to
+Ts'in that he would cede to her all the territory lying to the
+west of the Yellow River. The next ruler of Tsin, the celebrated
+wanderer who afterwards became the second Protector, is distinctly
+stated to have had an adviser who taught him to read; it is added
+that the same marquess also consulted this adviser about a
+suitable teacher for his son and heir. About the same time one of
+the Marquess's friends, objecting to take office, took to flight:
+his friends, as a protest, hung up "a writing" at the palace gate.
+In 584 a Ts'u refugee in Tsin sends a writing to the leading
+general of Ts'u, threatening to be a thorn in his side. It is
+presumed that in all these cases the writing was on wood. The text
+of a declaration of war against Ts'u by Ts'in in 313 B.C., at a
+time when these two powers had ceased to be allies, and were
+competing for empire, refers to an agreement made three centuries
+earlier between the King of Ts'u and the Earl of Ts'in; this
+declaration was carved upon several stone tablets; but it does not
+appear upon what material the older agreement was carved. In 538,
+at a durbar held by Ts'u, Hiang Suh, the learned man of Sung, who
+has already been mentioned in Chapter XV. as the inventor of Peace
+Conferences in 546, and as one of the Confucian group of friends,
+remarked: "What I know of the diplomatic forms to be observed is
+only obtained from books." A few years later, when the population
+of one of the small orthodox Chinese states was moved for
+political convenience by Ts'u away to another district, they were
+allowed to take with them "their maps, cadastral survey, and
+census records."
+
+There is an interesting statement in the _Kwoh Yü_, an
+ancillary history of these times, but touching more upon personal
+matters, usually considered to have been written by the same man
+that first expanded Confucius' annals, to the effect that in 489
+B.C. (when Confucius was wandering about on his travels, a
+disappointed and disgusted man) the King of Wu inflicted a
+crushing defeat upon Ts'i at a spot not far from the Lu frontier,
+and that he captured "the national books, 800 leather chariots,
+and 3000 cuirasses and shields." If this translation be perfectly
+accurate, it is interesting as showing that Ts'i did possess
+_Kwoh-shu_, or "a State library," or archives. But unfortunately
+two other histories mention the capture of a Ts'i general named Kwoh
+Hia, _alias_ Kwoh Hwei-tsz, so that there seems to be a doubt
+whether, in transcribing ancient texts, one character (_shu_) may
+not have been substituted for the other (_hia_). Two years later
+the barbarian king in question entered Lu, and made a treaty with that
+state upon equal terms.
+
+Shortly after this date, the Chinese adviser who brought about the
+conquest of Wu by the equally barbarous Yiieh, had occasion to
+send a "closed letter" to a man living in Ts'u. When we come to
+later times, subsequent to the death of Confucius, we find written
+communications more commonly spoken of. Thus, in 313, Ts'i,
+enraged at the supposed faithlessness of Ts'u, "broke in two the
+Ts'u tally" and attached herself to Ts'in instead. This can only
+refer to a wooden "indenture" of which each party preserved a
+copy, each fitting 'in, "dog's teeth like," as the Chinese still
+say, closely to the other. A few years later we find letters from
+Ts'i to Ts'u, holding forth the tempting project of a joint attack
+upon Ts'in; and also a letter from Ts'in to Ts'u, alluding to the
+escape of a hostage and the cause of a war. In the year 227, when
+Ts'in was rapidly conquering the whole empire, the northernmost
+state of Yen (Peking plain), dreading annexation, conceived the
+plan of assassinating the King of Ts'in; and, in order to give the
+assassin a plausible ground for gaining admittance to the tyrant's
+presence, sent a map of Yen, so that the roads available for
+troops might be explained to the ambitious conqueror, who would
+fall into the trap. He barely escaped.
+
+All these matters put together point to the clear conclusion that
+such states as Ts'in, Tsin, Ts'i, Yen, and Ts'u (none of which
+belonged, so far as the bulk of their population was concerned, to
+the purely Chinese group concentrated in the limited area
+described in the first chapter) were able to communicate by letter
+freely with each other: _á fortiori_, therefore, must the
+orthodox states, whose civilization they had all borrowed or
+shared, have been able to communicate with them, and with each
+other. Besides, there is the question of the innumerable treaties
+made at the durbars, and evidently equally legible by all the
+dozen or so of representatives present; and the written prayers,
+already instanced, which were probably offered to the gods at most
+sacrifices. A special chapter will be devoted to treaties.
+
+In the year 523 the following passage occurs, or rather it occurs
+in one of the expanded Confucian histories having retrospective
+reference to matters of 523 B.C:--"It is the father's fault if, at
+the binding up of the hair (eight years of age), boys do not go to
+the teacher, though it may be the mother's fault if, before that
+age, they do not escape the dangers of fire and water: it is their
+own fault if, having gone to the teacher, they make no progress:
+it is their friends' fault if they make progress but get no repute
+for it: it is the executive's fault if they obtain repute but no
+recommendation to office: it is the prince's fault if they are
+recommended for office but not appointed." Here we have in effect
+the nucleus at least of the examination system as it was until a
+year or two ago, together with an inferential statement that
+education was only meant for the governing classes.
+
+It is rather remarkable that the invention of the "greater seal"
+character in 827 B.C. practically coincides with the first signs
+of imperial decadence; this is only another piece of evidence in
+favour of the proposition that enlightenment and patriarchal rule
+could not exist comfortably together. When Ts'in conquered the
+whole of modern China 600 years later, unified weights and
+measures, the breadth of axles, and written script, and remedied
+other irregularities that had hitherto prevailed in the rival
+states, it is evident that the need of a more intelligible script
+was then found quite as urgent as the need of roads suitable for
+all carts, and of measures by which those carts could bring
+definite quantities of metal and grain tribute to the capital.
+Accordingly the First August Emperor's prime minister did at once
+set to work to invent the "lesser seal" character, in which (so
+late as A.D. 200) the first Chinese dictionary was written; this
+"lesser seal" is still fairly readable after a little practice,
+but for daily use it has long been and is impracticable and
+obsolete. If we reflect how difficult it is for us to decipher the
+old engrossed charters and written letters of the English kings,
+we may all the more easily imagine how even a slight change in the
+form of "letters," or strokes, will make easy reading of Chinese
+impossible. It is a mistake to suppose that the Chinese have to
+"spell their way" laboriously through the written character so
+familiar to them: it is just as easy to "skim over" a Chinese
+newspaper in a few minutes as it is to "take in" the leading
+features of the _Times_ in the same limited time; and volumes
+of Chinese history or literature in general can be "gutted" quite
+easily, owing to the facility with which the so-called pictographs,
+once familiar, lend themselves to "skipping."
+
+The Bamboo Books, dug up in A.D. 281, the copies of the classics
+concealed in the walls of Confucius' house, the copy of Lao-tsz's
+philosophical work recorded to have been in the possession of a
+Chinese empress in 150 B.C.--all these were written in the
+"greater seal," and the painstaking industry of Chinese
+specialists was already necessary when the Christian era began, in
+order to reduce the ancient characters to more modern forms. Since
+then the written character has been much clarified and simplified,
+and it is just as easy to express sentiments in written Chinese as
+in any other language; but, of course, when totally new ideas are
+introduced, totally new characters must be invented; and
+inventions, both of individual characters and of expressions, are
+going on now.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+TREATIES AND VOWS
+
+Treaties were always very solemn functions, invariably accompanied
+by the sacrifice of a victim. A part of the victim, or of its
+blood, was thrown into a ditch, in order that the Spirit of the
+Earth might bear witness to the deed; the rest of the blood was
+rubbed upon the lips of the parties concerned, and also scattered
+upon the documents, by way of imprecation; sometimes, however, the
+imprecations, instead of being uttered, were specially written at
+the end of the treaty. Just as we now say "the ink was scarcely
+dry before, etc., etc.," the Chinese used to say "the blood of the
+victim was scarcely dry on their lips, before, etc., etc." When
+the barbarian King of Wu succeeded for a short period in
+"durbaring" the federal Chinese princes, a dispute took place (as
+narrated in Chapter XIV.) between Tsin and Wu as to who should rub
+the lips with blood first--in other words, have precedence. In
+the year 541 B.C., sixty years before the above event, Tsin and
+Ts'u had agreed to waive the ceremony of smearing the lips with
+blood, to choose a victim in common, and to lay the text of the
+treaty upon the victim after a solemn reading of its contents.
+This modification was evidently made in consequence of the
+disagreement between Tsin and Ts'u at the Peace Conference of 546,
+when a dispute had arisen (page 47), as to which should smear the
+lips first. This was the occasion on which the famous Tsin
+statesman, Shuh Hiang, in the face of seventeen states'
+representatives, all present, had the courage to ignore Ts'u's
+treachery in concealing cuirasses under the soldiers' clothes. He
+said: "Tsin holds her pre-eminent position as Protector by her
+innate good qualities, which will always command the adhesion of
+other states; why need we care if Ts'u smears first, or if she
+injures herself by being detected in treachery?" It has already
+been mentioned that Confucius glosses over or falsifies both the
+above cases, and gives the victory in each instance to Tsin.
+Though these little historical peccadilloes on the part of the
+saint _homme_ are considered even by orthodox critics to be
+objectionable, it must be remembered that it was very risky work
+writing history at all in those despotic times: even in
+comparatively democratic days (100 B.C.), the "father of Chinese
+history" was castrated for criticizing the reigning Emperor in the
+course of issuing his great work; and so late as the fifth century
+A.D. an almost equally great historian was put to death "with his
+three generations" for composing a "true history" of the Tartars
+then ruling as Emperors of North China; i.e. for disclosing their
+obscure and barbarous origin, Moreover, foreigners who fix upon
+these trifling specific and admitted discrepancies, in order to
+discredit the general truth of all Chinese history, must remember
+that the Chinese critics, from the very beginning, have always,
+even when manifestly biased, been careful to expose errors; the
+very discrepancies themselves, indeed, tend to prove the
+substantial truth of the events recorded; and the fact that
+admittedly erroneous texts still stand unaltered proves the
+reverent care of the Chinese as a nation to preserve their
+defective annals, with all faults, in their original condition.
+
+At this treaty conference of 546 B.C., held at the Sung capital,
+the host alone had no vote, being held superior (as host) to all;
+and, further, out of respect for his independence, the treaty had
+to be signed outside his gates: the existence of the Emperor was
+totally ignored.
+
+A generation before this (579) another important treaty between
+the two great rivals, Tsin and Ts'u, had been signed by the high
+contracting parties outside the walls of Sung. The articles
+provided for community of interest in success or failure; mutual
+aid in every thing, more especially in war; free use of roads so
+long as relations remained peaceful; joint action in face of
+menace from other powers; punishment of those neglecting to come
+to court. The imprecation ran: "Of him who breaks this, let the
+armies be dispersed and the kingdom be lost; moreover, let the
+spirits chastise him." Although both orthodox powers professed
+their anxiety to "protect" the imperial throne, yet, seeing that
+the Emperor was quietly shelved in all these conventions, the
+reference to "court duty" probably refers to the duty of Cheng and
+the other small orthodox states to render homage to Tsin or Ts'u
+(as the case might be) as settled by this and previous treaties.
+In fact, at the Peace Conference of 546, it was agreed between the
+two mesne lords that the vassals of Ts'u should pay their respects
+to Tsin, and _vice versa_. But, during the negotiations, a
+zealous Tsin representative went on to propose that the informal
+allies of the chief contracting powers should also be dragged in:
+"If Ts'in will pay us a visit, I will try and induce Ts'i to visit
+T'su." These two powers had _ententes_, Ts'i with Tsin, and
+Ts'u with Ts'in, but recognized no one's hegemony over them. It
+was this surprise sprung upon the Ts'u delegates that necessitated
+an express messenger to the king, as recounted at the end of
+Chapter XVI. The King of Ts'u sent word: "Let Ts'in and Ts'i
+alone; let the others visit our respective capitals." Accordingly
+it was understood that Tsin and Ts'u should both be Protectors,
+but that neither Ts'in nor Ts'i should recognize their status to
+the point of subordinating themselves to the joint hegemons. This
+was Ts'u's first appearance as effective hegemon, but her official
+_debut_ alone did not take place till 538. Ts'i and Ts'in had
+both approved, in principle, the terms of peace, but Ts'in sent no
+representative, whilst Ts'i sent two. It is very remarkable that
+Sz-ma Ts'ien (the great historian of 100 B.C., who was castrated)
+does not mention this important meeting in his great work, either
+under the heading of Ts'i, or of Tsin, or under the headings of
+Sung and Ts'u. It seems, however, really to have had good effect
+for several generations; but there was some thing behind it which
+shows that love for humanity was not the leading motive of the
+chief parties. Two years later it was that the philosophical
+brother of the King of Wu went his rounds among the Chinese
+princes, and it is evident that Ts'u only desired peace with North
+China whilst she tackled this formidable new enemy on the coast.
+Tsin, on the other hand, was in trouble with the "six great
+families" (the survivors of the "eleven great families"
+conciliated by the Second Protector), who were gradually
+undermining the princely authority in Tsin to their own private
+aggrandisement. In 572 B.C., when the legitimate ruler of Tsin,
+who had been superseded by irregular successors, was fetched back
+from the Emperor's court, to which he had gone for a quiet asylum,
+he drew up a treaty of conditions with his own ministers, and
+immolated a chicken as sanction; this idea is still occasionally
+perpetuated in British courts of justice, where Chinese, probably
+without knowing it, draw upon ancient history when asked by the
+court how they are accustomed to sanction an oath; cocks are often
+also carried about by modern Chinese boatmen for purposes of
+sacrifice. In the year 504, after Wu had captured the Ts'u
+capital, one of the petty orthodox Chinese states taken by Ts'u--
+the first to be so taken by barbarians--in 684, but left by Ts'u
+internally independent, declined to render any assistance to Wu,
+unless she could prove her competence to hold permanently the Ts'u
+territory thus conquered. The King of Ts'u was so grateful for
+this that he drew some blood from the breast of his own half-
+brother, and on the spot made a treaty with the vassal prince. It
+662, even in a love vow, the ruler of Lu cut his own arm and
+exchanged drops of blood with his lady-love. In 481 the people of
+Wei (the small orthodox state on the middle Yellow River between
+Tsin and Lu) forced one of their politicians to swear allegiance
+to the desired successor under the sanction of a sacrificial pig.
+
+The great Kwan-tsz insisted on his prince carrying out a treaty
+which had been extorted in times of stress; but, as a rule, the
+most opportunistic principles were laid down, even by Confucius
+himself when he was placed under personal stress: "Treaties
+obtained by force are of no value, as the spirits could not then
+have really been present." In 589 Ts'u invaded the state of Wei,
+just mentioned, and menaced the adjoining state of Lu, compelling
+the execution of a treaty. Confucius, who once broke a treaty
+himself, naturally retrospectively considered this ducal treaty of
+no effect, and he even goes so far as to avoid mentioning in his
+annals some of the important persons who were present; he
+especially "burkes" two Chinese ruling princes, who were shameless
+enough to ride in the same chariot with the King of Ts'u, under
+whose predominancy they were, and who were therefore themselves
+under a kind of stress. In 482 one of Confucius' pupils made the
+following casuistical reply to the government of Wu on their
+application for renewal of a treaty with her: "It is only fidelity
+that gives solidity to treaties; they are determined by mutual
+consent, and it is with sacrifices that they are laid before our
+ancestors; the written words give expression to them, and the
+spirits guarantee them. A treaty once concluded cannot be changed:
+otherwise it were vain to make a new one. Remember the proverb:
+"What needs warming up more may just as well be eaten cold." The
+ordinary rough-and-ready form of oath or vow between individuals
+was: "If I break this, may I be as this river"; or, "may the river
+god be witness." There were many other similar forms, and it was
+often customary to throw something valuable into the river as a
+symbol.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+CONFUCIUS AND LITERATURE
+
+Let us return for a moment to the history of China's development.
+Confucius was born in the autumn of 551, B.C., and he died in 479.
+If we survey the condition of the empire during these seventy
+years, we may begin to understand better the secret of his
+teachings, and of his influence in later times. When he was a boy
+of seven or eight years, the presence in Lu of Ki-chah, the
+learned and virtuous brother of the barbarian King of Wu, must
+have opened his eyes widely to the ominous rise, of a democratic
+and mixed China. Lu, like Tsin, was now beginning to suffer from
+the "powerful family" plague; in other words, the story of King
+John and his barons was being rehearsed in China. Tsin and Ts'u
+had patched up ancient enmities at the Peace Conference; Tsin
+during the next twenty years administered snub after snub to the
+obsequious ruler of Lu, who was always turned back at the Yellow
+River whenever he started west to pay his respects. Lu, on the
+other hand, declined to attend the Ts'u durbar of 538, held by
+Ts'u alone only after the approval of Tsin had been obtained. In
+522 the philosopher Yen-tsz, of Ts'i, accompanied his own marquess
+to Lu in order to study the rites there: this fact alone proves
+that Ts'i, though orthodox and advanced, had not the same lofty
+spiritual status that was the pride of Lu. In 517 the Marquess of
+Lu was driven from his throne, and Ts'i took the opportunity to
+invade Lu under pretext of assisting him; however, the fugitive
+preferred Tsin as a refuge, and for many years was quartered at a
+town near the common frontier. But the powerful families (all
+branches of the same family as the duke himself) proved too strong
+for him; they bribed the Tsin statesmen, and the Lu ruler died in
+exile in the year 510. In the year 500 Confucius became chief
+counsellor to the new marquess, and by his energetic action drove
+into exile in Tsin a very formidable agitator belonging to one of
+the powerful family cliques. In 488 the King of Wu, after marching
+on Ts'i, summoned Lu to furnish "one hundred sets of victims" as a
+mark of compliancy; the king and the marquess had an interview;
+the next year the king came in person, and a treaty was made with
+him under the very walls of K'üh-fu, the Lu capital (this shameful
+fact is concealed by Confucius, who simply says: "Wu made war on
+us"). In 486 Lu somewhat basely joined Wu in an attack upon
+orthodox Ts'i. In 484-483 Confucius, who had meanwhile been
+travelling abroad for some years in disgust, was urgently sent
+for; four years later he died, a broken and disappointed man.
+
+Now, it is one thing to be told in general terms that Confucius
+represented conservative forces, disapproved of the quarrelsome
+wars of his day, and wished in theory to restore the good old
+"rules of propriety"; but quite another thing to understand in a
+human, matter-of-fact sort of way what he really did in definite
+sets of circumstances, and what practical objects he had in view.
+The average European reader, not having specific facts and places
+under his eye, can only conceive from this rough generalization,
+and from the usual anecdotal tit-bits told about him, that
+Confucius was an exceedingly timid, prudent, benevolent, and
+obsequious old gentleman who, as indeed his rival Lao-tsz hinted
+to him, was something like a superior dancing-master or court
+usher, But when the disjointed apothegms of his "Analects" (put
+together, not by himself, but by his disciples) are placed
+alongside the real human actions baldly touched upon in his own
+"Springs and Autumns," and as expanded by his three commentators,
+one of them, at least, being a contemporary of his own, things
+assume quite a different complexion, Moreover, this last-mentioned
+or earliest in date of the expanders (see p. 91) also composed a
+chatty, anecdotal, and intimately descriptive account of Lu, Ts'i,
+Tsin, CHÊNG, Ts'u, Wu, and Yiieh (of no other states except quite
+incidentally); and we have also the Bamboo Books dug up in 281
+A.D., being the Annals of Tsin and a sketch of general history
+down to 299 B.C. Finally, the "father of history," in about go
+B.C., published, or issued ready for publication, a _resumé_
+of all the above (except what was in the Bamboo Books, which were
+then, of course, unknown to him); so that we are able to compare
+dates, errors, misprints, concealments, and so on; not to mention
+the advantage of reading all that the successive generations of
+commentators have had to say.
+
+The matter may be compendiously stated as follows. Without
+attempting to go backward beyond the conquest by the Chou
+principality and the founding of a Chou dynasty in 122 B.C.
+(though there is really no reason to doubt the substantial
+accuracy of the vague "history" of patriarchal times, at least so
+far back beyond that as to cover the 1000 years or more of the two
+previous dynasties' reigns), we may state that, whilst in general
+the principles and ritual of the two previous dynasties were
+maintained, a good many new ideas were introduced at this Chou
+conquest, and amongst other things, a compendious and all-
+pervading practical ritual government, which not only marked off
+the distinctions between classes, and laid down ceremonious rules
+for ancestral sacrifice, social deportment, family duties,
+cultivation, finance, punishment, and so on, but endeavoured to
+bring all human actions whatsoever into practical harmony with
+supposed natural laws; that is to say, to make them as regular, as
+comprehensible, as beneficent, and as workable, as the perfectly
+manifest but totally unexplained celestial movements were; as were
+the rotation of seasons, the balancing of forces, the growth and
+waning of matter, male and female reproduction, light and
+darkness; and, in short, to make human actions as harmonious as
+were all the forces of nature, which never fail or go wrong except
+under (presumed) provocation, human or other. The Emperor, as
+Vicar of God, was the ultimate judge of what was _tao_, or
+the "right way."
+
+Now this simple faith, when the whole of the Chinese Empire
+consisted of about 50,000 square miles of level plain, inhabited
+probably by not more than 2,000,000 or 3,000,000 homogeneous
+people, was admirably suited for the patriarchal rule of a central
+chief (the King or Emperor), receiving simple tribute of metals,
+hemp, cattle, sacrificial supplies, etc.; entertaining his
+relatives and princely friends when they came to do annual homage
+and to share in periodical sacrifice; declaring the penal laws
+(there were no other laws) for all his vassals; compassionating
+and conciliating the border tribes living beyond those vassals.
+But this peaceful bucolic life, in the course of time and nature,
+naturally produced a gradual increase in the population; the
+Chinese cultivators spread themselves over the expanse of
+_loess_ formed by the Yellow River and Desert deposits and by
+aeons of decayed vegetation in the low-lying lands; no other
+nation or tribe within their ken having the faintest notion of
+written character, there was consequently no political cohesion of
+any sort amongst the non-Chinese tribes; the position was akin to
+that of the European powers grafting themselves for centuries upon
+the still primitive African tribes, comparatively few of which
+have seen fit to turn the art of writing to the practical purpose
+of keeping records and cementing their own power. Wherever a
+Chinese adventurer went, there he became founder of a state; to
+this day we see enterprising Chinamen founding petty "dynasties"
+in the Siamese Malay Peninsula; or, for instance, an Englishman
+like Rajah Brooke founding a private dynasty in Borneo.
+
+Some of these frontier tribes, notably the Tartars, were of
+altogether too tough a material to be assimilated. They even
+endeavoured to check the Chinese advance beyond the Yellow River,
+and carried fire and sword themselves into the federal conclave.
+Where resistance was _nil_ or slight, as, for instance, among
+some of the barbarians to the east, there the Chinese adventurers,
+either adopting native ways, or persuading the autochthones to
+adopt their ways, by levelling up or levelling down, developed
+strong cohesive power; besides (owing to the difficulties of
+inter-communication) creating a feeling of independence and a
+disinclination to obey the central power. The emperors who used in
+the good old days to summon the vassals--a matter of a week or two
+in that small area--to chastise the wicked tribes on their
+frontiers, gradually found themselves unable to cope with the more
+distant Tartar hordes, the eastern barbarians of the coast, the
+Annamese, Shans, and other unidentified tribes south of the Yang-
+tsz, as they had so easily done with nearer tribes when the
+Chinese had not pushed out so far. Moreover, new-Chinese, Chinese-
+veneered, and half-Chinese states, recognizing their own
+responsibilities, now interposed themselves as "buffers" or
+barriers between the Emperor and the unadulterated barbarians;
+these hybrid states themselves were quite as formidable to the
+imperial power as the displaced barbarians had formerly been.
+Hence, as we have seen, the pitiful flight from his metropolis of
+one Emperor after the other; the rise of great and wealthy persons
+outside the former limited sacred circle; the pretence of
+protecting the Emperor, advanced by these rising powers, partly in
+order to gain prestige by using his imperial name in support of
+their local ambitions, and partly because--as during the Middle
+Ages in the case of the Papacy--no one cared to brave the moral
+odium of annihilating a venerable spiritual power, even though
+gradually shorn of its temporal rights and influence.
+
+Lu was almost on a par with the imperial capital in all that
+concerns learning, ritual, music, sacrifice, deportment, and
+spiritual prestige. Confucius, in his zeal for the recovery of
+imperial rights, was really no more of a stickler for mere form
+than were Tsz-ch'an of Cheng, Ki-chah of Wu, Hiang Suh of Sung,
+Shuh Hiang of Tsin, and others already enumerated; the only
+distinguishing feature in his case was that he was not a high or
+influential official in his earlier days; besides, he was a Sung
+man by descent, and all the great families were of the Lu princely
+caste. Thus, for want of better means to assert his own views, he
+took to teaching and reading, to collecting historical facts, to
+pointing morals and adorning tales. As a youth he was so clever,
+that one of the Lu grandees, on his death-bed, foretold his
+greatness. It was a great bitterness for him to see his successive
+princely masters first the humble servants of Ts'i, then buffeted
+between Tsin and Ts'u, finally invaded and humiliated by barbarian
+Wu, only to receive the final touches of charity at the hands of
+savage Yiieh. His first act, when he at last obtained high office,
+was to checkmate Ts'i, the man behind the ruler of which jealous
+state feared that Lu might, under Confucius' able rule, succeed in
+obtaining the Protectorate, and thus defeat his own insidious
+design to dethrone the legitimate Ts'i house. The wily Marquess of
+Ts'i thereupon--of course at the instigation of the intriguing
+"great families"--tried another tack, and succeeded at last in
+corrupting the vacillating Lu prince with presents of horses,
+racing chariots, and dancing women. Then it was (497) that
+Confucius set out disheartened on his travels. Recalled thirteen
+years later, he soon afterwards began to devote his remaining
+powers to the Annals so frequently referred to above, and it was
+whilst engaged in finishing this task that he had presentiments of
+his coming end; he does not appear to have been able to exercise
+much political or advisory power after his return to Lu.
+
+During his thirteen years of travel (a more detailed account of
+which will be given in a subsequent chapter), he found time to
+revise and edit the books which appear to have formed the common
+stock-in-trade for all China; one of his ideas was to eliminate
+from these all sentiments of an anti-imperial nature. They were
+not then called "classics," but simply "The Book" (of History),
+"The Poems" (still known by heart all over China), "The Rites" (as
+improved by the Chou family), "The Changes" (a sort of cosmogony
+combined with soothsaying), and "Music."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+LAW
+
+Let us now consider the notions of law as they existed in the
+primitive Chinese mind. As all government was supposed to be based
+on the natural laws of the universe, of which universal law or
+order of things, the Emperor, as "Son of Heaven," was (subject to
+his own obedience to it) the supreme mouthpiece or expression,
+there lay upon him no duty to define that manifest law; when it
+was broken, it was for him to say that it was broken, and to
+punish the breach. Nature's bounty is the spring, and therefore
+rewards are conferred in spring; nature's fall is in the autumn,
+which is the time for decreeing punishments; these are carried out
+in winter, when death steals over nature. A generous table
+accompanies the dispensing of rewards, a frugal table and no music
+accompanies the allotment of punishments; hence the imperial
+feasts and fasts. Thus punishment rather than command is what was
+first understood by Law, and it is interesting to observe that
+"making war" and "putting to death" head the list of imperial
+chastisements, war being thus regarded as the Emperor's rod in the
+shape of a posse of punitory police, rather than as an expression
+of statecraft, ambitious greed, or vainglorious self-assertion.
+Then followed, in order of severity, castration, cutting off the
+feet or the knee-cap, branding, and flogging. The Emperor, or his
+vassals, or the executive officers of each in the ruler's name,
+declared the law, _i.e._ they declared the punishment in each
+case of breach as it occurred. Thus from the very beginning the
+legislative, judicial, and executive functions have never been
+clearly separated in the Chinese system of thought; new words have
+had to be coined within the last two years in order to express
+this distinction for purposes of law reform. Mercantile Law,
+Family Law, Fishery Laws--in a word, all the mass of what we call
+Commercial and Civil Jurisprudence,--no more concerned the
+Government, so far as individual rights were concerned, than
+Agricultural Custom, Bankers' Custom, Butchers' Weights, and such
+like petty matters; whenever these, or analogous matters, were
+touched by the State, it was for commonwealth purposes, and not
+for the maintenance of private rights. Each paterfamilias was
+absolutely master of his own family; merchants managed their own
+business freely; and so on with the rest. It was only when public
+safety, Government interests, or the general weal was involved
+that punishment-law stepped in and said,--always with _tao_,
+"propriety," or nature's law in ultimate view: "you merchants may
+not wear silk clothes"; "you usurers must not ruin the agriculturalists";
+"you butchers must not irritate the gods of grain by killing cattle":--
+these are mere examples taken at random from much later times.
+
+The Emperor Muh, whose energies we have already seen displayed in
+Tartar conquests and exploring excursions nearly a millennium
+before our era, was the first of the Chou dynasty to decide that
+law reform was necessary in order to maintain order among the
+"hundred families" (still one of the expressions meaning "the
+Chinese people"). A full translation of this code is given in Dr.
+Legge's Chinese classics, where a special chapter of The Book is
+devoted to it: in charging his officer to prepare it, the Emperor
+only uses the words "revise the punishments," and the code itself
+is only known as the "Punishments" (of the marquess who drew it
+up); although it also prescribes many judicial forms, and lays
+down precepts which are by no means all castigatory. The mere fact
+of its doing so is illustrative of reformed ideas in the embryo.
+There is good ground to suppose that the Chinese Emperor's "laws,"
+such as they were at any given time, were solemnly and periodically
+proclaimed, in each vassal kingdom; but, subject to these general imperial
+directions, the _themis_, _diké_ or inspired decision of the
+magistrate, was the sole deciding factor; and, of course, the ruler's
+arbitrary pleasure, whether that ruler were supreme or vassal, often
+ran riot when he found himself strong enough to be unjust. For instance,
+in 894 B.C., the Emperor boiled alive one of the Ts'i rulers, an act that
+was revenged by Ts'i 200 years later, as has been mentioned in previous
+chapters.
+
+In 796 B.C. a ruler of Lu was selected, or rather recommended to
+the Emperor for selection, in preference to his elder brother,
+because "when he inflicted chastisement he never failed to
+ascertain the exact instructions left by the ancient emperors."
+This same Emperor had already, in 817, nominated one younger
+brother to the throne of Lu, because he was considered the most
+attractive in appearance on an occasion when the brethren did
+homage at the imperial court. For this caprice the Emperor's
+counsellor had censured him, saying: "If orders be not executed,
+there is no government; if they be executed, but contrary to
+established rule, the people begin to despise their superiors."
+
+In 746 B.C. the state of Ts'in, which had just then recently
+emerged from Tartar barbarism, and had settled down permanently in
+the old imperial domain, first introduced the "three stock" law,
+under which the three generations, or the three family connections
+of a criminal were executed for his crime as well as himself. In
+596 and 550 Tsin (which thus seems to have taken the hint from
+Ts'in) exterminated the families of two political refugees who had
+fled to the Tartars and to Ts'i respectively. Even in Ts'u the
+relatives of the man who first taught war to Wu were massacred in
+585, and any one succouring the fugitive King of Ts'u was
+threatened with "three clan penalties"; this last case was in the
+year 529. The laws of Ts'u seem to have been particularly harsh;
+in 55 the premier was cut into four for corruption, and one
+quarter was sent in each direction, as a warning to the local
+districts. About 650 B.C. a distinguished Lu statesman, named
+Tsang Wen-chung, seems to have drawn up a special code, for one of
+Confucius' pupils (two centuries later) denounced it as being too
+severe when compared with Tsz-ch'an's mild laws--to be soon
+mentioned. Confucius himself also described the man as being "too
+showy." This Lu statesman, about twenty years later, made some
+significant and informing observations to the ruler of Lu when
+report came that Tsin (the Second Protector) was endeavouring to
+get the Emperor to poison a federal refugee from Wei, about whose
+succession the powers were at the moment quarrelling. He said:
+"There are only five recognized punishments: warlike arms, the
+axe, the knife or the saw, the branding instruments, the whip or
+the bastinado; there are no surreptitious ones like this now
+proposed." The result was that Lu, being of the same clan as the
+Emperor, easily succeeded in bribing the imperial officials to let
+the refugee prince go. The grateful prince eagerly offered Tsang
+W&n-chung a reward; but the statesman declined to receive it, on
+the ground that "a subject's sayings are not supposed to be known
+beyond his own master's frontier." About, a century later a
+distinguished Tsin statesman, asking what "immortality" meant, was
+told: "When a man dies, but when his words live; like the words of
+this distinguished man, Tsang W&n-chung, of Lu state." This same
+Tsin statesman is said to have engraved some laws on iron (513),
+an act highly disapproved by Confucius. It is only by thus piecing
+together fragmentary allusions that we can arrive at the
+conclusion that "there were judges in those days." Mention has
+been several times made in previous chapters of Tsz-ch'an, whose
+consummate diplomacy maintained the independence and even the
+federal influence of the otherwise obscure state of Cheng during a
+whole generation. In the year 536 B.C. he decided to cast the laws
+in metal for the information of the people: this course was
+bitterly distasteful to his colleague, Shuh Hiang of Tsin (see
+Appendix I.), and possibly the Tsin "laws on iron" just mentioned
+were suggested by this experiment, for it must be remembered that
+Tsin, Lu, Wei, and Cheng were all of the same imperial clan.
+Confucius, who had otherwise a genuine admiration for Tsz-ch'an,
+disapproved of this particular feature in his career. In a minor
+degree the same question of definition and publication has also
+caused differences of opinion between English lawyers, so far as
+the so-called "judge-made law" is concerned; it is still
+considered to be better practice to have it declared as
+circumstances arise, than to have it set forth beforehand in a
+code. The arguments are the same; in both cases the judges profess
+to "interpret" the law as it already exists; that is, the Chinese
+judge interprets the law of nature, and the English judge the
+common and statute laws; but neither wishes to hamper himself by
+trying to publish in advance a scheme contrived to fit all future
+hypothetical cases.
+
+About 680 B.C. the King of Ts'u is recorded to have passed a law
+against harbouring criminals, under which the harbourer was liable
+to the same penalty as the thief; and at the same time reference
+is made by his advisers to an ancient law or command of the
+imperial dynasty, made before it came to power in 1122 B.C.-"If
+any of your men takes to flight, let every effort be made to find
+him." Thus it would seem that other ruling classes, besides those
+of the Chou clan, accepted the general imperial laws, Chou-
+ordained or otherwise. Although it is thus manifest that the
+vassal states, at least after imperial decadence set in, in 771
+B.C., drew up and published laws of their own, yet, at the great
+durbar of princes held by the First Protector in 651 B.C., it is
+recorded that the "Son of Heaven's Prohibitions" were read over
+the sacrificial victim. They are quite patriarchal in their
+laconic style, and for that reason recall that of the Roman Twelve
+Tables. They run: "Do not block springs!" "Do not hoard grain!"
+"Do not displace legitimate heirs!" "Do not make wives of your
+concubines!" "Do not let women meddle with State affairs!" From
+the Chinese point of view, all these are merely assertions of what
+is Nature's law. In the year 640, the state of Lu applied the term
+"Law Gate" to the South Gate, "because both Emperor and vassal
+princes face south when they rule, and because that is,
+accordingly, the gate through which all commands and laws do
+pass." It is always possible, however, that this "facing south" of
+the ancient ruler points to the direction whence some of his
+people came, and towards which, as their guide and leader, he had
+to look in order to govern them.
+
+In the year 594 there is an instance cited where two dignitaries
+were killed by direct specific order of the Emperor. In explaining
+this exceptional case, the commentator says: "The lord of all
+below Heaven is Heaven, and Heaven's continuer or successor is the
+Prince; whilst that which the Prince holds fast is the Sanction,
+which no subject can resist."
+
+Not very long after Confucius' death in 479 B.C., the powerful and
+orthodox state of Tsin, which had so long held its own against
+Ts'in, Ts'i, and Ts'u, tottered visibly under the disintegrating
+effects of the "great family" intrigues: of the six great families
+which had, as representatives of the earlier eleven, latterly
+monopolized power, three only survived internecine conflicts, and
+at last the surviving three split up into the independent states
+of Han, Wei, and Chao, those names being eponymous, as being their
+sub-fiefs, and, therefore, their "surnames," or family names. In
+the year 403 the Emperor formally recognized them as separate,
+independent vassaldoms. Wei is otherwise known as Liang, owing to
+the capital city having borne that name, and the kings of Liang
+are celebrated for their conversations with the peripatetic
+philosopher, Mencius, in the fourth century B.C. In order to
+distinguish this state from that of Wei (imperial clan) adjoining
+Lu and Sung, we shall henceforth call it Ngwei, as, in fact, it
+originally was pronounced, and as it still is in some modern
+dialects. The first of the Ngwei sovereigns had in his employ a
+statesman named Li K'wei, who introduced, for taxation purposes, a
+new system of land laws, and also new penal laws. These last were
+in six books, or main heads, and, it is said, represented all that
+was best in the laws of the different feudal states, mostly in
+reference to robbery: the minor offences were roguery, getting
+over city walls, gambling, borrowing, dishonesty, lewdness,
+extravagance, and transgressing the ruler's commands--their exact
+terms are now unknown. This code was afterwards styled the "Law
+Classic," and its influence can be plainly traced, dynasty by
+dynasty, down to modern times; in fact, until a year or two ago,
+the principles of Chinese law have never radically changed; each
+successive ruling family has simply taken what it found; modifying
+what existed, in its own supposed interest, according to time,
+place, and circumstance. Li K'wei's land laws singularly resembled
+those recommended to the Manchu Government by Sir Robert Hart four
+years ago.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+PUBLIC WORKS
+
+It is difficult to guess how much truth there is in the ancient
+traditions that the water-courses of the empire were improved
+through gigantic engineering works undertaken by the ancient
+Emperors of China. There is one gorge, well known to travellers,
+above Ich'ang, on the River Yang-tsz, on the way to Ch'ung-k'ing,
+where the precipitous rocks on each side have the appearance and
+hardness of iron, and for a mile or more--perhaps several miles--
+stand perpendicularly like walls on both sides of the rapid Yang-
+tsz River: the most curious feature about them is that from below
+the water-level, right up to the top, or as far as the eye can
+reach, the stone looks as though it had been chipped away with
+powerful cheese-scoops: it seems almost impossible that any
+operation of nature can have fashioned rocks in this way; on the
+other hand, what tools of sufficient hardness, driven by what
+great force, could hollow out a passage of such length, at such a
+depth, and such a height? It is certain that after Ts'in conquered
+the hitherto almost unknown kingdoms of Pa and Shuh (Eastern and
+Western Sz Ch'wan) a Chinese engineer named Li Ping worked wonders
+in the canalization of the so-called CH'ÊNg-tu plain, or the rich
+level region lying around the capital city of Sz Ch'wan province,
+which was so long as Shuh endured also the metropolis of Shuh. The
+consular officers of his Britannic Majesty have made a special
+study of these sluices, which are still in full working order, and
+they seem almost unchanged in principle from the period (280 B.C.)
+when Li Ping lived. The Chinese still regard this branch of the
+Great River as the source; or at least they did so until the
+Jesuit surveys of two centuries ago proved otherwise; it was quite
+natural that they should do so in ancient times, for the true
+upper course, and also Yiin Nan and Tibet through which that
+course runs, were totally unknown to them, and unheard of by name;
+even now the so-called Lolo country of Sz Ch'wan and Yiin Nan is
+mostly unexplored, and the mountain Lolos are quite independent of
+China. The fact that they have whitish skins and a written script
+of their own (manifestly inspired by the form of Chinese
+characters) makes them a specially interesting people. Li Ping's
+engineering feats also included the region around Ya-thou and Kia-
+ting, as marked on the modern maps.
+
+The founder of the Hia dynasty (2205 B.C.) is supposed to have
+liberated the stagnant waters of the Yellow River and sent them to
+the sea; as this is precisely what all succeeding dynasties have
+tried to do, and have been obliged to try, and what in our own
+times the late Li Hung-chang was ordered to do just before his
+death, there seems no good reason for suspecting the accuracy of
+the tradition; the more especially as we see that the founder of
+the Chou dynasty sent his chief political adviser and his two most
+distinguished relatives to settle along this troublesome river's
+lower course, as rulers of Ts'i, Yen, and Lu; the other
+considerable vassals were all ranged along the middle course.
+
+The original Chinese founder of the barbarian colony of Wu
+belonged, as already explained, to the same clan or family as the
+founder of the Chou dynasty, and in one respect even took
+ancestral or spiritual precedence of him, because the emigrant had
+voluntarily retired into obscurity with his brother in order to
+make way for a third and more brilliant younger brother, whose
+grandson it was that afterwards, in 1122 B.C., conquered China,
+and turned the Chou principality, hitherto vassal to the Shang
+dynasty, into the Chou dynasty, to which the surviving Shang
+princes then became vassals in the Sung state and elsewhere. Even
+though the founder of Wu may have adopted barbarian ways, such as
+tattooing, hair-cutting, and the like, he must have possessed
+considerable administrative power, for he made a canal (running
+past his capital) for a distance of thirty English miles along the
+new "British" railway from Wu-sih to Ch'ang-shuh, as marked on
+present maps; his idea was to facilitate boat-travelling, and to
+assist cultivators with water supplies for irrigation.
+
+In the year 485 B.C. the King of Wu, who was then in the hey-day
+of his success, and by way of becoming Protector of China, erected
+a wall and fortifications round the well-known modern city of
+Yangchow (where Marco Polo 1700 years later acted as governor); he
+next proceeded for the first time in history to establish water
+communication between the Yang-tsz River and the River Hwai; this
+canal was then (483-481) continued farther north, so as to give
+communication with the southern and central parts of modern Shan
+Tung province.
+
+His object was to facilitate the conveyance of stores for his
+armies, then engaged in bringing pressure upon Ts'i (North Shan
+Tung) and Lu (South Shan Tung). He succeeded in getting his boats
+to the River Tsi, running past Tsi-nan Fu, and to the River I,
+running past I-thou Fu, thus dominating the whole Shan Tung
+region; for these two were then the only navigable rivers in Shan
+Tung besides the Sz. The River Tsi is now taken possession of by
+the Yellow River, which, as we have shown, then ran a parallel
+course much to the westward of it; and the River I then ran south
+into the River Sz, which, as already explained, has in its lower
+course, in comparatively modern times, been taken possession of
+permanently by the Grand Canal; but the upper course of the Sz,
+now, as then, ran past Confucius' town, the Lu metropolis, of
+K'üh-fu. In 483 B.C. the same king cast his faithful adviser (of
+Ts'u origin) into the canal by which the waters of lake T'ai Hu
+now run to modern Soochow, and thence to Hangchow. Ever since that
+date the unfortunate man in question has been a popular "god of
+the waters" in those parts. It follows, therefore, that the Wu
+founder's modest canal must have been from time to time extended,
+at least in an easterly direction. It was only after the conquest
+of China by Ts'in, 250 years later, that the First August Emperor
+extended this system of canals northwards and westwards, from
+Ch'ang-thou Fu to Tan-yang and Chinkiang, as marked on the modern
+maps. Thus the barbarian kings of Wu have found the true alignment
+of our "British", railway for us; and, so far as the northern
+canal is concerned, have really achieved the task for which credit
+is usually given to Kublai Khan, the Mongol patron of Marco Polo.
+Kublai merely improved the old work. The ancient Wu capital was 10
+English miles south-east of Wu-sih, and 17 miles north of Soochow,
+to which place the capital was transferred in the year 513 B.C.,
+as it was more suitable than the old capital for the arsenals and
+ship-building yards then, for the first time, being built on an
+extensive scale by the King of Wu.
+
+The first bridge over the Yellow River was constructed by the
+kingdom of Ts'in in 257 B.C., on what is still the high-road
+between T'ung-thou Fu and P'u-chou Fu. Previous to that date
+armies had to cross the Yellow River at the fords; and, as an
+instance of this, it may be stated that the founder of the Chou
+dynasty in 1122 B.C. summoned his vassals to meet him at the Ford
+of Mêng, a place still so marked on the maps, and lying on the
+high-road between the two modern cities of Ho-nan Fu and Hwai-
+k'ing Fu; thus there was no excuse for the feudal princes failing
+to arrive at the rendezvous. It was not far from the same place,
+but on the north bank of the river, that Tsin in 632 B.C. held the
+great durbar as Second Protector, on the notorious occasion when
+the puppet Emperor was "sent for" by the Tsin dictator. To conceal
+this outrage on "the rites," Confucius says: "The Son of Heaven
+went in camp north of the river." To go on hunt, or in camp, is
+still a vague historical expression for "go on fief inspection,"
+and it was so used in 1858, when the Manchu Emperor Hien-fêng took
+refuge from the allied troops at Jêhol in Tartary.
+
+The first thing Ts'in did when it united the empire in 221 B.C.
+was to occupy all the fords and narrow passes, and to put them in
+working order for the passage of armies. As even now the lower
+Yellow River is only navigable for large craft for 20 miles from
+its mouth (now in Shan Tung), it is easy to imagine how many fords
+there must have been in its shallow waters, and also how it came
+to pass that boats were so little used to convey large bodies of
+troops with their stores.
+
+The great wall of China of 217 B.C. was by no means the first of
+its kind. A century before that date Ts'in built a long wall to
+keep off the Tartars; and, half a century before that again, Ngwei
+(one of the three powerful families of Tsin, all made independent
+princes in 403) had built a wall to keep off its western neighbour
+Ts'in; both these walls seem to have been in the north part of the
+modern Shen Si region, and they were possibly portions of the
+later continuous great wall of the August Emperor, which occupied
+the forced energies of 700,000 men. There is a statement that the
+same Emperor set 700,000 eunuchs to work on the palaces and the
+tomb he was constructing for himself at his new metropolis (moved
+since 350 B.C. to the city of Hien-yang, north of the river Wei,
+opposite the present Si-ngan Fu). This probably means, not that
+eunuchs were common in those times as palace _employés_, but
+that castration still was the usual punishment inflicted
+throughout China for grave offences not calling for the penalty of
+death, or for the more serious forms of maiming, such as foot-
+chopping or knee-slicing; and that all the prisoners of that
+degree were told off to do productive work: although humiliatingly
+deformed, they were still available for the common purposes of
+native life, and their defenceless and forlorn plight would
+probably make it an easier matter to handle them in gangs than to
+handle sound males; and if they died off under the rough treatment
+of task-masters, they would have no families to mourn or avenge
+them in accordance with family duty; for a eunuch has no name and
+no family. The palaces in question were joined by a magnificent
+bridge on the high-road between Hien-yang and Si-ngan. This very
+year a German firm has contracted to build an iron bridge over the
+Yellow River at Lan-thou Fu, where crossed by Major Bruce.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CITIES AND TOWNS
+
+There are singularly few descriptions of cities in ancient Chinese
+history, but here again we may safely assume that most of them
+were in principle, if only on a small scale, very much what they
+are now, mere inartistic, badly built collections of hovels. Sõul,
+the quaint capital of Corea, as it appeared in its virgin
+condition to its European discoverers twenty-five years ago,
+probably then closely resembled an ancient vassal Chinese prince's
+capital of the very best kind. Modern trade is responsible for the
+wealthy commercial streets now to be found in all large Chinese
+cities; but a small _hien_ city in the interior--and it must
+be remembered that a _hien_ circuit or district corresponds
+to an old marquisate or feudal principality of the vassal unit
+type--is often a poor, dusty, dirty, depressing, ramshackle
+agglomeration of villages or hamlets, surrounded by a disproportionately
+pretentious wall, the cubic contents of which wall alone would more
+than suffice to build in superior style the whole mud city within; for half
+the area of the interior is apt to be waste land or stagnant puddles: it
+was so even in Peking forty years ago, and possibly is so still except
+in the "Legation quarter."
+
+In 745 B.C., when the Tsin marquess foolishly divided his
+patrimony with a collateral branch, the capital town of this
+subdivided state is stated to have been a greater place than the
+old capital. They are both of them still in existence as
+insignificant towns, situated quite close together on the same
+branch of the River Fên (the only navigable river) in South Shan
+Si; marked with their old names, too; that is to say, K'iih-wuh
+and Yih-CH'ÊNg. It was only after the younger branch annexed the
+elder in 679 that Tsin became powerful and began to expand; and it
+was only when a policy of "home rule" and disintegration set in,
+involving the splitting up of Tsin's orthodox power into three
+royal states of doubtful orthodoxy, that China fell a prey to
+Ts'in ambition. _Absit_ omen to us.
+
+In 560, when the deformed philosopher Yen-tsz visited Ts'u, and
+entertained that semi-barbarous court with his witticisms, he took
+the opportunity boastfully to enlarge upon the magnificence of
+Lin-tsz (still so marked), the capital of Ts'i. "It is," said he,
+"surrounded by a hundred villages; the parasols of the walkers
+obscure the sky, whose perspiration runs in such streams as to
+cause rain; their shoulders and heels touch together, so closely
+are they packed." The assembled Ts'u court, with mouths open, but
+inclined for sport at the cost of their visitor, said: "If it is
+such a grand place, why do they select you?" Yen-tsz played a
+trump card when he replied: "Because I am such a mean-looking
+fellow,"--meaning, as explained in Chapter IX., that "any pitiful
+rascal is good enough to send to Ts'u." Exaggerations apart,
+however, there is every reason to believe that the statesman-
+philosopher Kwan-tsz, a century before that date, had really
+organized a magnificent city. A full description of how he
+reconstructed the economic life of both city and people is given
+in the _Kwoh-yü_ (see Chapter XVII.), the authenticity of
+which work, though not free from question, is, after all, only
+subject to the same class of criticism as Rénan lavishes upon one
+or two of the Gospels, the general tenor of which, be says, must
+none the less be accepted, with all faults, as the _bonâfide_
+attempt of some one, more or less contemporary, to represent what
+was then generally supposed to be the truth.
+
+Ts'u itself must have had something considerable to show in the
+way of public buildings, for in the year 542 B.C. after paying a
+visit to that country in accordance with the provisions of the
+Peace Conference of 546, the ruler of Lu built himself a palace in
+imitation of one he saw there. The original capital of Wu (see
+Chapter VII.) was a poor place, and is described as having
+consisted of low houses in narrow streets, with a vulgar palace;
+this was in 523. In 513 a new king moved to the site now occupied
+by Soochow, and he seems to have made of it the magnificent city
+it has remained ever since--the place, of course it will be
+remembered, where General Gordon and Li Hung-chang had their
+celebrated quarrel about decapitating surrendered rebels. There
+were eight gates, besides eight water-gates for boats; it was
+eight English miles in circuit, and contained the palace, several
+towers (pagodas, being Buddhist, were then naturally unknown),
+kiosks, ponds, and duck preserves. The extensive arsenal and ship-
+yard was quite separate from the main town. No city in the
+orthodox part of China is so closely described as this one, nor is
+it likely that there were many of them so vast in extent.
+
+Judging by the frequency with which Ts'in moved its capitals (but
+always within a limited area in the Wei valley, between that river
+and its tributary the K'ien), they cannot have been very important
+or substantial places; in fact, there are no descriptions of early
+Ts'in economic life at all; and, for all we know to the contrary,
+the headquarters of Duke Muh, when he entered upon his reforms in
+the seventh century B.C., may have resembled a Tartar encampment.
+The _Kwoh-yü_ has no chapter devoted to Ts'in, which (as indeed
+stated) for 500 years lived a quite isolated life of its own. In later
+times, especially after the reforms introduced by the celebrated
+Chinese princely adventurer, Wei Yang, during the period 360--340,
+the land administration was reconstituted, the capital was finally moved
+to Hien-yang, and every effort was made to develop all the resources
+of the country. Ts'in then possessed 41 _hien,_ those with a
+population of under 10,000 having a governor with a lower title than
+the governors of the larger towns, Probably the total population of
+Ts'in by this time reached 3,000,000. A century later, when the First
+August Emperor was conquering China, armies of half a million men
+on each side were not at all uncommon. When his conquests were
+complete, he set about building palaces on both banks of the Wei in
+most lavish style, as narrated in the last chapter. It is said of him that,
+"as he conquered each vassal prince, he had a sketch made of his
+palace buildings," and, with these before him as models, he lined
+the river with rows of beautiful edifices,--evidently, from the
+description given, much resembling those lying along the Golden
+Horn at Constantinople; if not in quality, at least in general
+spectacular arrangement.
+
+As to the minor orthodox states grouped along the Yellow River,
+they seem to have shifted their capitals on very slight
+provocation; scarcely one of them remained from first to last in
+the same place. To take one as an instance, the state of Hu, an
+orthodox state belonging to the same clan name as Ts'i. The
+history of this petty principality or barony is only exactly known
+from the time when Confucius' history begins, and it was
+continually being oppressed by Cheng and Ts'u, its more powerful
+neighbours; in 576, 533, 524 and onwards from that, there were
+incessant removals, so that even the native commentators say: "it
+was just like shifting a village, so superficial an affair was
+it." The accepted belles _lettres_ style (see p. 78) of saying
+"my country" is still the ancient _pi-yih_ or "unworthy village":
+the Empress of China once (about 190 B.C.) used this expression,
+even after the whole of China had been united, in order to reject
+politely the offer of marriage conveyed to her by a powerful Tartar
+king. The expression is particularly interesting, inasmuch as it recalls,
+as we have already pointed out, a time when the "country" of each
+feudal chief was simply his mud village and the few square miles of
+fields around it, which were naturally divided off from the next chief's
+territory by hills and streams. On the Burmo-Chinese frontier there are
+at this moment many Kakhyen "kings" of this kind, each of them ruling
+over his mountain or valley, and supreme in his own domain.
+
+That there were walled cities in China (apart from the Emperor's,
+which, of course, would be "the city" par _excellence_) is
+plain from the language used at durbars, which were always held
+"outside the walls." In the _loess_ plains there could not
+have been any stone whatever for building purposes, and there is
+little, if any, specific mention of brick. Probably the walls were
+of adobe, i.e. of mud, beaten down between two rigid planks,
+removed higher as the wall dries below. This is the way most of
+the houses are still built in modern Peking, and perhaps also in
+most parts of China, at least where stone (or brick) is not
+cheaper; the "barbarian" parts of China are still the best built;
+for instance, CH'ÊNg-tu in Sz Ch'wan, Canton in the south. Hankow
+(Ts'u) is a comparatively poor place; Peking the dingiest of all.
+Chinkiang is a purely _loess_ country.
+
+At the time of the unification of China, during the middle of the
+third century B.C., the Ts'in armies found it necessary to flood
+Ta-liang or "Great Liang," the capital of Ngwei (otherwise called
+Liang), corresponding to the modern K'ai-fêng Fu, the Jewish
+centre in Ho Nan province: the waters of the Yellow River were
+allowed to flood the country (this was again done by the Tai-p'ing
+rebels fifty years ago, when the Jews suffered like other people,
+and lost their synagogue), the walls of which collapsed. It is
+evident that the ancient city walls could not have been such
+solid, brick-faced walls as we now see round Peking and Nanking,
+but simply mud ramparts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+BREAK-UP OF CHINA
+
+We must turn to unorthodox China once more, and see how it fared
+after Confucius' death. After only a short century of international
+existence, the vigorous state of Wu perished once for all in the
+year 473 B.C., and the remains of the ruling caste escaped
+eastwards in boats. When for the first time embassies between
+the Japanese and the Chinese became fairly regular, in the
+second and third centuries of our era, there began to be
+persistent statements made in standard Chinese history that the
+then ruling powers in Japan considered themselves in some way
+lineally connected with a Chinese Emperor of 2100 B.C., and with
+his descendants, their ancestors, who, it was said, escaped from
+Wu to China. This is the reason why, in Chapter VII., we have
+suggested, not that the population of Japan came from China, but
+that some of the semi-barbarous descendants of those ancient
+Chinese princes who first colonized the then purely barbarous Wu,
+finding their power destroyed in 473 B.C. by the neighbouring
+barbarous power of Yüeh, settled in Japan, and continued their
+civilizing mission in quite a new sphere. Many years ago I
+endeavoured, in various papers published in China and Japan, to
+show that, apart from Chinese words adopted into Japanese ever
+since A.D. 1 from the two separate sources of North China by land
+and Central China by sea, there is clear reason to detect, in the
+supposed pure Japanese language, as it was anterior to those
+importations, an admixture of Chinese words adopted much earlier
+than A.D. 1, and incorporated into the current tongue at a time
+when there was no means or thought of "nailing the sounds down" by
+any phonetic system of writing. There is much other very sound
+Chinese historical evidence in favour of the migration view, and
+it has been best summarized in an excellent little work in German,
+by Rev. A. Tschepe, S.J., published in the interior of Shan Tung
+province only last year.
+
+The ancient native names for Wu and Yiieh, according to the clumsy
+Confucian way of writing them, were something like _Keu-ngu_
+and _O-viet_ (see Chapter VII.); but it is quite hopeless to
+attempt reconstruction of the exact sounds intended then to be
+expressed by syllables which, in Chinese itself, have quite
+changed in power. The power of Yüeh was supreme after 473; its
+king was voted Protector by the federal princes, and in 472 he
+held a grand durbar at the "Lang-ya Terrace," which place is no
+longer exactly identifiable, but is probably nothing more than the
+German settlement at Kiao Chou; in 468 he transferred his capital
+thither, and it remained there for over a century, till 379: but
+his power, it seems, was almost purely maritime, and he never
+succeeded in obtaining a sure footing north of or even in the Hwai
+valley, the greater part of which he subsequently returned to
+Ts'u. It must be remembered that the Hwai then had a free course
+to the sea, and of a part of it, the now extinct Sui valley, the
+Yellow River took possession for several centuries up to 1851 A.D.
+He also returned to Sung the territory Wu had taken from her, and
+made over to Lu 100 _li_ square (30 miles) to the east of the
+River Sz; to understand this it must be remembered, at the cost of
+a little iteration, that Sung and Lu were the two chief powers of
+the middle and lower Sz valley, which is now entirely monopolized
+by the Grand Canal.
+
+[Illustration: MAP
+
+1. The dotted lines mark the boundaries of modern Shen Si, Shan
+Si, Chih Li, Ho Nan, Shan Tung, An Hwei, and Kiang Su.
+
+2. The names Chao, Ngwei, and Han show how Tsin was split up into
+three in 403 B.C.
+
+3. The crosses (in the line of each name) show the successive
+capitals as Ts'in encroached from the west, the _last_ capital in
+each case having a circle round the cross.]
+
+The imperial dynasty went from bad to worse; in 440 there were
+family intrigues, assassinations, and divisions. The imperial
+metropolis, which was towards the end about all the Emperors had
+left to them, was divided into two, each half ruled by an Eastern
+and a Western Emperor respectively; unfortunately, no literature
+has survived which might depict for us the life of the inhabitants
+during those wretched days. Meanwhile, the ambitious great
+families of Tsin very nearly fell under the dictatorship of one of
+their number; in 452 he was himself annihilated by a combination
+of the others, and the upshot of it was that next year the three
+families that had crushed the dictator and, emerged victorious,
+divided up the realm of Tsin into three separate and practically
+independent states, called respectively Wei or Ngwei (the Shan Si
+parts), Han (the Ho Nan parts), and Chao (the Chih Li parts). The
+other ancient and more orthodox state of Wei, occupying the Yellow
+River valley to the west of Sung and Lu, was now a mere vassal to
+these three Tsin powers, which had not quite yet declared
+themselves independent, and which had for the present left the old
+Tsin capital to the direct administration of the legitimate
+prince. It was only in the year 403 that the Emperor's administration
+formally declared them to be feudal princes. This year is really the
+next great turning-point in Chinese history, in order of date, after the
+flight of the Emperors from their old capital in 771 B.C.; and it is, in
+fact, with this year that the great modern historical work of Sz-ma
+Kwang begins; it was published A.D. 1084, and brings Chinese
+events down to a century previous to that date.
+
+As to the state of Ts'i, it also had fallen into evil ways. So
+early as 539 B.C., when the two philosophers Yen-tsz and Shuh
+Hiang had confided to each other their mutual sorrows (see
+Appendix No. 2), the former had predicted that the powerful local
+family of T'ien or Ch'en was slowly but surely undermining the
+legitimate princely house, and would certainly end by seizing the
+throne; one of the methods adopted by the supplanting family was
+to lend money to the people on very favourable terms, and so to
+manipulate the grain measures that the taxes due to the prince
+were made lighter to bear; in this ingenious and indirect way, all
+the odium of taxation was thrown upon the extravagant princes who
+habitually squandered their resources, whilst the credit for
+generosity was turned towards this powerful tax-farming family,
+which thus took care of its own financial interests, and at the
+same time secured the affections of the people. In 481 the
+ambitious T'ien Hêng, _alias_ CH'ÊN Ch'ang, then acting as
+hereditary _maire du palais_ to the legitimate house, assassinated
+the ruling prince, an act so shocking from the orthodox point of view that
+Confucius was quite heartbroken on learning of it, notwithstanding that his
+own prince had narrowly escaped assassination at the hands of the
+murdered man's grandfather. It was not until the year 391, however, that
+the T'ien, or CH'ÊN, family, after setting up and deposing princes at
+their pleasure for nearly a century, at last openly threw off the
+mask and usurped the Ts'i throne: their title was officially
+recognized by the Son of Heaven in the year 378.
+
+As to Ts'in ambitions, for a couple of centuries past there had
+been no further advance of conquest, at least in China. The
+hitherto almost unheard of state of Shuh (Sz Ch'wan) now begins to
+come prominently forward, and to contest with Ts'in mastery of the
+upper course of the Yang-tsz River. After being for 260 years in
+unchallenged possession of all territory west of the Yellow River,
+Ts'in once more lost this to Tsin (_i.e._ to Ngwei) in 385.
+It was not until the other state of Wei, lower down the Yellow
+River, lost its individuality as an independent country that the
+celebrated Prince Wei Yang (see Chapter XXII.), having no career
+at home, offered his services to Ts'in, and that this latter
+state, availing itself to the full of his knowledge, suddenly shot
+forth in the light of real progress. We have seen in Chapter XX.
+that an eminent lawyer and statesman of Ngwei, Ts'in's immediate
+rival on the east, had inaugurated a new legal code and an
+economic land system. This man's work had fallen under the
+cognizance of Wei Yang, who carried it with him to Ts'in, where it
+was immediately utilized to such advantage that Ts'in a century
+later was enabled to organize her resources thoroughly, and thus
+conquered the whole empire,
+
+We have now arrived at what is usually called the Six Kingdom
+Period, or, if we include Ts'in, against whose menacing power the
+six states were often in alliance, the period of the Seven
+Kingdoms. These were the three equally powerful states of Ngwei,
+Han, and Chao (this last very Tartar in spirit, owing to its
+having absorbed nearly all the Turko-Tartar tribes west of the
+Yellow River mouth); the northernmost state of Yen, which seems in
+the same way to have absorbed or to have exercised a strong
+controlling influence over the Manchu-Corean group of tribes
+extending from the Liao River to the Chao frontier; Ts'u, which
+now had the whole south of China entirely to itself, and managed
+even to amalgamate the coast states of Yiich in 334; and finally Ts'i.
+In other words, the orthodox Chinese princes, whose comparatively
+petty principalities in modern Ho Nan province had for several centuries
+formed a sort of cock-pit in which Ts'in, Tsin, Ts'i, and Ts'u fought out
+their rivalries, had totally disappeared as independent and even as
+influential powers, and had been either absorbed by those four great
+powers (of which Tsin and Ts'i were in reconstituted form), or had
+become mere obedient vassals to one or the other of them. In former
+times Tsin had been kinsman and defender; but now Tsin, broken up
+into three of strange clans, herself afforded an easy prey to Ts'in
+ambition; the orthodox states were in the defenceless position of the
+Greek states after Alexander had exhausted Macedon in his Persian
+wars, and when their last hope, Pyrrhus, had taught the Romans the art
+of war: they had only escaped Persia to fall into the jaws of
+Rome.
+
+In the middle of the fourth century B.C. all six powers began to
+style themselves _wang_, or "king," which, as explained before,
+was the title borne by the Emperors of the Chou dynasty. Military,
+political, and literary activities were very great after this at the
+different emulous royal courts, and, however much the literary
+pedants of the day may have bewailed the decay of the good
+old times, there can be no doubt that life was now much more
+varied, more occupied, and more interesting than in the sleepy,
+respectable, patriarchal days of old. The "Fighting State" Period,
+as expounded in the _Chan-Kwoh Ts'eh,_ or "Fighting State
+Records," is the true period of Chinese chivalry, or knight-
+errantry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+KINGS AND NOBLES
+
+The emperors of the dynasty of Chou, which came formally into
+power in 1122 B.C., we have seen took no other title than that of
+wang, which is usually considered by Europeans to mean "king"; in
+modern times it is applied to the rulers of (what until recently
+were) tributary states, such as Loochoo, Annam, and Corea; to
+foreign rulers (unless they insist on a higher title); and to
+Manchu and Mongol princes of the blood, and mediatized princes.
+Confucius in his history at first always alludes to the Emperor
+whilst living as _t'ien-wang_, or "the heavenly king"; it is
+not until in speaking of the year 583 that he uses the old term
+_t'ien-tsz_, or "Son of Heaven," in alluding to the reigning
+Emperor. After an emperor's death he is spoken of by his
+posthumous name; as, for instance, Wu Wang, the "Warrior King,"
+and so on: these posthumous names were only introduced (as a
+regular system) by the Chou dynasty.
+
+The monarchs of the two dynasties Hia (2205-1767) and Shang (1766-
+1123) which preceded that of Chou, and also the somewhat mythical
+rulers who preceded those two dynasties, were called _Ti_, a
+word commonly translated by Western nations as "Emperor." For many
+generations past the Japanese, in order better to assert _vis-á-
+vis_ of China their international rank, have accordingly made
+use of the hybrid expression "_Ti_-state," by which they seek
+to convey the European idea of an "empire," or a state ruled over
+by a monarch in some way superior to a mere king, which is the
+highest title China has ever willingly accorded to a foreign
+prince; this royal functionary in her eyes is, or was, almost
+synonymous with "tributary prince." Curiously enough, this "dog-
+Chinese" (Japanese) expression is now being reimported into
+Chinese political literature, together with many other excruciating
+combinations, a few of European, but mostly of Japanese manufacture,
+intended to represent such Western ideas as "executive and legislative,"
+"constitutional," "ministerial responsibility," "party," "political view,"
+and so on. But we ourselves must not forget, in dealing with the particular
+word "imperial," that the Romans first extended the military title of
+imperator to the permanent holder of the "command," simply because
+the ancient and haughty word of "king" was, after the expulsion of
+the kings, viewed with such jealousy by the people of Rome that
+even of Caesar it is said that he did thrice refuse the title, So
+the ancient Chinese Ti, standing alone, was at first applied both
+to Shang Ti or "God" and to his Vicar on Earth, the Ti or Supreme
+Ruler of the Chinese world. Even Lao-tsz (sixth century B.C.), in
+his revolutionary philosophy, considers the "king" or "emperor" as
+one of the moral forces of nature, on a par with "heaven,"
+"earth," and "Tao (or Providence)." When we reflect what petty
+"worlds" the Assyrian, Egyptian, and Greek worlds were, we can
+hardly blame the Chinese, who had probably been settled in Ho Nan
+just as long as the Western ruling races had been in Assyria and
+Egypt respectively, for imagining that they, the sole recorders of
+events amongst surrounding inferiors, were the world; and that the
+incoherent tribes rushing aimlessly from all sides to attack them,
+were the unreclaimed fringe of the world.
+
+It does not appear clearly why the Chou dynasty took the new title
+of wang, which does not seem to occur in any titular sense
+previous to their accession: the Chinese attempts to furnish
+etymological explanation are too crude to be worth discussing. No
+feudal Chinese prince presumed to use it during the Chou
+_régime_ and if the semi-barbarous rulers of Ts'u, Wu, and
+Yiieh did so in their own dominions (as the Hwang Ti, or "august
+emperor," of Annam was in recent times tacitly allowed to do),
+their federal title in orthodox China never went beyond that of
+viscount. When in the fourth century B.C. all the powers styled
+themselves _wang_, and were recognized as such by the insignificant
+emperors, the situation was very much the same as that produced in
+Europe when first local Caesars, who, to begin with, had been
+"associates" of the Augustus (or two rival Augusti), asserted their
+independence of the feeble central Augustus, and then set themselves
+up as Augusti pure and simple, until at last the only "Roman Emperor"
+left in Rome was the Emperor of Germany.
+
+It is not explained precisely on what grounds, when the first Chou
+emperors distributed their fiefs, some of the feudal rulers, as
+explained in Chapter VII., were made dukes; others marquesses,
+earls, viscounts, and barons. Of course these translated terms are
+mere makeshifts, simply because the Chinese had five ranks, and so
+have we. In creating their new nobility, the Japanese have again
+made use of the five old Chinese titles, except that for some
+reason they call Duke Ito and Duke Yamagata "Prince" in English.
+The size of the fiefs had something to do with it in China; the
+pedigree of the feoffees probably more; imperial clandom perhaps
+most of all. The sole state ruled by a duke in his own intrinsic
+right from the first was Sung, a small principality on the
+northernmost head-waters of the River Hwai, corresponding to the
+modern Kwei-t&h Fu: probably it was because this duke fulfilled
+the sacrificial and continuity duties of the destroyed dynasty of
+Shang that he received extraordinary rank; just as, in very much
+later days, the Confucius family was the only non-Manchu to
+possess "ducal" rank, or, as the Japanese seem to hold in German
+style, "princely" rank. But it must be remembered that the Chou
+emperors had imperial dukes within their own appanage, precisely
+as cardinals, or "princes of the Church," are as common around
+Rome as they are scarce among the spiritually "feudal" princes of
+Europe; for feudal they once practically were.
+
+Confucius' petty state of Lu was founded by the Duke of Chou,
+brother of the founder posthumously called the Wu Wang, or the
+"Warrior King": for many generations those Dukes of Lu seem to
+have resided at or near the metropolis, and to have assisted the
+Emperors with their advice as counsellors on the spot, as well as
+to have visited at intervals and ruled their own distant state,
+which was separated from Sung by the River Sz and by the marsh or
+lakes through which that river ran. Yet Lu as a state had only the
+rank of a marquisate ruled by a marquess.
+
+Another close and influential relative of the founder or "Warrior
+King" was the Duke of Shao, who was infeoffed in Yen (the Peking
+plain), and whose descendants, like those of the Duke of Chou,
+seem to have done double duty at the metropolis and in their own
+feudal appanage. Confucius' history scarcely records anything of
+an international kind about Yen, which was a petty, feeble region,
+dovetailed in between Tsin and Ts'i, quite isolated, and occupied
+in civilizing some of the various Tartar and Corean barbarians;
+but it must have gradually increased in wealth and resources like
+all the other Chinese states; for, as we have seen in the last
+chapter, the Earls of Yen blossomed out into Kings at the
+beginning of the fourth century B.C., and the philosopher Mencius,
+when advising the King of Ts'i, even strongly recommended him to
+make war on the rising Yen power. The founder of Ts'i was the
+chief adviser of the Chou founder, but was not of his family name;
+his ancestors--also the ancestors later on claimed by certain
+Tartar rulers of China--go back to one of the ultra-mythical
+Emperors of China; his descendants bore, under the Chou dynasty,
+the dignity of marquess, and reigned without a break until, as
+already related, the T'ien or Ch'en family, emanating from the
+orthodox state of Ch'en, usurped the throne. Ts'i was always a
+powerful and highly civilized state; on one occasion, in 589 B.C.,
+as mentioned in Chapter VI., its capital was desecrated by Tsin;
+and on another, a century later, the overbearing King of Wu
+invaded the country. After the title of king was taken in 378
+B.C., the court of Ts'i became quite a fashionable centre, and the
+gay resort of literary men, scientists, and philosophers of all
+kinds, Taoists included.
+
+Tsin, like Ts'i, was of marquess rank, and though its ruling
+family was occasionally largely impregnated with Tartar blood by
+marriage, it was not much more so than the imperial family itself
+had sometimes been, The Chinese have never objected to Tartars
+_quâ_ Tartars, except as persons who "let their hair fly,"
+"button their coats on the wrong side," and do not practise the
+orthodox rites; so soon as these defects are remedied, they are
+eligible for citizenship on equal terms. There has never been any
+race question or colour question in China, perhaps because the
+skin is yellow in whichever direction you turn; but it is
+difficult to conceive of the African races being clothed with
+Chinese citizenship.
+
+Wei was a small state lying between the Yellow River as it now is
+and the same river as it then was: it was given to a brother of
+the founder of the Chou dynasty, and his subjects, like those of
+the Sung duke, consisted largely of the remains of the Shang
+dynasty; from which circumstance we may conclude that the so-
+called "dynasties," including that of Chou, were simply different
+ruling clans of one and the same people, very much like the
+different Jewish tribes, of which the tribe of Levi was the most
+"spiritual": that peculiarity may account for the universal
+unreadiness to cut off sacrifices and destroy tombs, an outrage we
+only hear of between barbarians, as, for instance, when Wu sacked
+the capital of Ts'u. We have seen in Chapter XII. that a reigning
+duke even respected at least some of the sacrificial rights of a
+traitor subject.
+
+The important state of CHÊNG, lying to the eastward of the
+imperial reserve, was only founded in the ninth century B.C. by
+one of the then Emperor's sons; to get across to each other, the
+great states north and south of the orthodox nucleus had usually
+to "beg road" of CHÊNG, which territory, therefore, became a
+favourite fighting-ground; the rulers were earls. Ts'ao (earls)
+and Ts'ai (marquesses) were small states to the north and south of
+CHÊNG, both of the imperial family name. The state of CH'ÊN was
+ruled by the descendants of the Emperor Shun, the monarch who
+preceded the Hia dynasty, and who, as stated before, is supposed
+to have been buried in the (modern) province of Hu Nan, south of
+the Yang-tsz River: they were marquesses. These three last-named
+states were always bones of contention between Tsin and Ts'u, on
+the one hand, and between Ts'i and Ts'u on the other. The
+remaining feudal states are scarcely worth special mention as
+active participators in the story of how China fought her way from
+feudalism to centralization; most of their rulers were viscounts
+or barons in status, and seem to have owed, or at least been
+obliged to pay, more duty to the nearest great feudatory than
+direct to the Emperor.
+
+No matter what the rank of the ruler, so soon as he had been
+supplied with a posthumous name (expressing, in guarded style, his
+personal character) he was known to history as "the Duke So-and-
+So." Even one of the Rings of Ts'u, is courteously called "the
+Duke Chwang" after his death, because as a federal prince he had
+done honour to the courtesy title of viscount. Princes or rulers
+not enjoying any of the five ranks were, if orthodox sovereign
+princes over never so small a tract, still called posthumously,
+"the Duke X."
+
+Hence Western writers, in describing Confucius' master and the
+rulers of other feudal states, often speak of "the Duke of Lu," or
+"of Tsin"; but this is only an accurate form of speech when taken
+subject to the above reserves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+VASSALS AND EMPEROR
+
+The relations which existed between Emperor and feudal princes are
+best seen and understood from specific cases involving mutual
+relations. The Chou dynasty had about 1800 nominal vassals in all,
+of whom 400 were already waiting at the ford of the Yellow River
+for the rendezvous appointed by the conquering "Warrior King";
+thus the great majority must already have existed as such before
+the Chou family took power; in other words, they were the vassals
+of the Shang dynasty, and perhaps, of the distant Hia dynasty too.
+The new Emperor enfeoffed fifteen "brother" states, and forty more
+having the same clan-name as himself: these fifty-five were
+presumably all new states, enjoying mesne-lord or semi-suzerain
+privileges over the host of insignificant principalities; and it
+might as well be mentioned here that this imperial clan name of
+_Ki_ was that of all the ultra-ancient emperors, from 2700
+B.C. down to the beginning of the Hia dynasty in 2205 B.C. Fiefs
+were conferred by the Chou conqueror upon all deserving ministers
+and advisers as well as upon kinsmen. The more distant princes
+they enfeoffed possessed, in addition to their distant satrapies,
+a village in the neighbourhood of the imperial court, where they
+resided, as at an hotel or town house, during court functions;
+more especially in the spring, when, if the world was at peace,
+they were supposed to pay their formal respects to the Emperor.
+The tribute brought by the different feudal states was, perhaps
+euphemistically, associated with offerings due to the gods,
+apparently on the same ground that the Emperor was vaguely
+associated with God. The Protectors, when the Emperors degenerated,
+made a great show always of chastising or threatening the other
+vassals on account of their neglect to honour the Emperor.
+Thus in 656 the First Protector (Ts'i) made war upon Ts'u for not
+sending the usual tribute of sedge to the Emperor, for use in
+clarifying the sacrificial wine. Previously, in 663, after assisting the
+state of Yen against the Tartars, Ts'i had requested Yen "to go
+on paying tribute, as was done during the reigns of the two first
+Chou Emperors, and to continue the wise government of the
+Duke of Shao." In 581, when Wu's pretensions were rising in a
+menacing degree, the King of Wu said: "The Emperor complains to me
+that not a single _Ki_ (_i.e._ not a single closely-related
+state) will come to his assistance or send him tribute, and thus
+his Majesty has nothing to offer to the Emperor Above, or to the
+Ghosts and Spirits."
+
+Land thus received in vassalage from the Emperor could not, or
+ought not to, be alienated without imperial sanction. Thus in 711
+B.C. two states (both of the _Ki_ surname, and thus both such
+as ought to have known better) effected an exchange of territory;
+one giving away his accommodation village, or hotel, at the
+capital; and the other giving in exchange a place where the
+Emperor used to stop on his way to Ts'i when he visited Mount
+T'ai-shan, then, as now, the sacred resort of pilgrims in Shan
+Tung. Even the Emperor could not give away a fief in joke. This,
+indeed, was how the second Chou Emperor conferred the (extinct or
+forfeited) fief of Tsin upon a relative. But just as
+
+_Une reine d'Espagne ne regarde pas par la fenêtre,_
+
+so an Emperor of China cannot jest in vain. An attentive scribe
+standing by said: "When the Son of Heaven speaks, the clerk takes
+down his words in writing; they are sung to music, and the rites
+are fulfilled." When, in 665 B.C., Ts'i had driven back the
+Tartars on behalf of Yen, the Prince of Yen accompanied the Prince
+of Ts'i back into Ts'i territory. The Prince of Ts'i at once ceded
+to Yen the territory trodden by the Prince of Yen, on the ground
+that "only the Emperor can, when accompanying a ruling prince,
+advance beyond the limits of his own domain." This rule probably
+refers only to war, for feudal princes frequently visited each
+other. The rule was that "the Emperor can never go out," i.e. he
+can never leave or quit any part of China, for all China belongs
+to him. It is like our "the King can do no wrong."
+
+The Emperor could thus neither leave nor enter his own particular
+territory, as all his vassals' territory is equally his. Hence his
+"mere motion" or pleasure makes an Empress, who needs no formal
+reception into his separate appanage by him. If the Emperor gives
+a daughter or a sister in marriage, he deputes a ruling prince of
+the Ki surname to "manage" the affair; hence to this day the only
+name for an imperial princess is "a publicly managed one." A
+feudal prince must go and welcome his wife, but the Emperor simply
+deputes one of his appanage dukes to do it for him. In the same
+way, these dukes are sent on mission to convey the Emperor's
+pleasure to vassals. Thus, in 651 B.C., a duke was sent by the
+Emperor to assist Ts'in and Ts'i in setting one of the four
+Tartar-begotten brethren on the Tsin throne (see Chapter X.). In
+649 two dukes (one being the hereditary Duke of Shao, supposed to
+be descended from the same ancestor as the Earl reigning in the
+distant state of Yen) were sent to confer the formal patent and
+sceptre of investiture on Tsin. The rule was that imperial envoys
+passing through the vassal territory should be welcomed on the
+frontier, fed, and housed; but in 716 the fact that Wei attacked
+an imperial envoy on his way to Lu proves how low the imperial
+power had already sunk.
+
+The greater powers undoubtedly had, nearly all of them, clusters
+of vassals and clients, and it is presumed that the total of 1800,
+belonging, at least nominally, to the Emperor, covered all these
+indirect vassals. Possibly, before the dawn of truly historical
+times, they all went in person to the imperial court; but after
+the _débâcle_ of 771 B.C., the Emperor seems to have been
+left severely alone by all the vassals who dared do so. So early
+as 704 B.C. a reunion of princelets vassal to Ts'u is mentioned;
+and in the year 622 Ts'u annexed a region styled "the six states,"
+admittedly descended from the most ancient ministerial stock,
+because they had presumed to ally themselves with the eastern
+barbarians; this was when Ts'u was working her way eastwards, down
+from the southernmost headwaters of the Hwai River, in the extreme
+south of Ho Nan. It was in 684 that Ts'u first began to annex the
+petty orthodox states in (modern) Hu Pêh province, and very soon
+nearly all those lying between the River Han and the River Yang-
+tsz were swallowed up by the semi-barbarian power. Ts'u's relation
+to China was very much like that of Macedon to Greece. Both of the
+latter were more or less equally descended from the ancient and
+somewhat nebulous Pelasgi; but Macedon, though imbued with a
+portion of Greek civilization, was more rude and warlike, with a
+strong barbarian strain in addition. Ts'u was never in any way
+"subject" to the Chou dynasty, except in so far as it may have
+suited her to be so for some interested purpose of her own. In the
+year 595 Ts'u even treated Sung and Cheng (two federal states of
+the highest possible orthodox imperial rank) as her own vassals,
+by marching armies through without asking their permission. As an
+illustration of what was the correct course to follow may be taken
+the case of Tsin in 632, when a Tsin army was marching on a
+punitory expedition against the imperial clan state of Ts'ao; the
+most direct way ran through Wei, but this latter state declined to
+allow the Tsin army to pass; it was therefore obliged to cross the
+Yellow River at a point south of Wei-hwei Fu (as marked on modern
+maps), near the capital of Wei, past which the Yellow River then
+ran.
+
+Lu, though itself a small state, had, in 697, and again in 615,
+quite a large number of vassals of its own; several are plainly
+styled "subordinate countries," with viscounts and even earls to
+rule them. Some of these sub-vassals to the feudal states seem
+from the first never to have had the right of direct communication
+with the Emperor at all; in such cases they were called fu-yung,
+or "adjunct-functions," like the client colonies attached to the
+colonial _municipia_ of the Romans. A fu-yung was only about
+fifteen English miles in extent (according to Mencius); and from
+850 B.C. to 771 BC. even the great future state of Ts'in had only
+been a _fu-yung_,--it is not said to what mesne lord. Sung is
+distinctly stated to have had a number of these _fu-yung_.
+CH'ÊN is also credited with suzerainty over at least two sub-
+vassal states. In 661 Tsin annexed a number of orthodox petty
+states, evidently with the view of ultimately seizing that part of
+the Emperor's appanage which lay north of the Yellow River (west
+Ho Nan); it was afterwards obtained by "voluntary cession." The
+word "viscount," besides being applied complimentarily to
+barbarian "kings" when they showed themselves in China, had
+another special use. When an orthodox successor was in mourning,
+he was not entitled forthwith to use the hereditary rank allotted
+to his state; thus, until the funeral obsequies of their
+predecessors were over, the new rulers of Ch'en and Ts'ai were
+called "the viscount," or "son" (same word).
+
+The Emperor used to call himself "I, the one Man," like the
+Spanish "Yo, el Rey." Feudal princes styled themselves to each
+other, or to the ministers of each other, "The Scanty Man."
+Ministers, speaking (to foreign ministers or princes) of their own
+prince said, "The Scanty Prince"; of the prince's wife, "The
+Scanty Lesser Prince"; of their own ministers, "The Scanty
+Minister." It was polite to avoid the second person in addressing
+a foreign prince, who was consequently often styled "your
+government" by foreign envoys particularly anxious not to offend.
+The diplomatic forms were all obsequiously polite; but the stock
+phrases, such as, "our vile village" (our country), "your
+condescending to instruct" (your words), "I dare not obey your
+commands" (we will not do what you ask), probably involved nothing
+more in the way of humility than the terms of our own gingerly
+worded diplomatic notes, each term of which may, nevertheless,
+offend if it be coarsely or carelessly expressed.
+
+In some cases a petty vassal was neither a sub-kingdom nor an
+adjunct-function to another greater vassal, but was simply a
+political hanger-on; like, for instance, Hawaii was to the United
+States, or Cuba now is; or like Monaco is to France, Nepaul to
+India. Thus Lu, through assiduously cultivating the good graces of
+Ts'i, became in 591 a sort of henchman to Ts'i; and, as we have
+seen, at the Peace Conference of 546, the henchmen of the two
+rival Protectors agreed to pay "cross respects" to each other's
+Protector. It seems to have been the rule that the offerings of
+feudal states to the Emperor should be voluntary, at least in
+form: for instance, in the year 697, the Emperor or his agents
+begged a gift of chariots from Lu, and in 618 again applied for
+some supplies of gold; both these cases are censured by the
+historians as being undignified. On the other hand, the Emperor's
+complimentary presents to the vassals were highly valued. Thus in
+the year 530, when Ts'u began to realize its own capacity for
+empire, a claim was put in for the Nine Tripods, and for a share
+of the same honorific gifts that were bestowed by the founders
+upon Ts'i, Tsin, Lu, and Wei at the beginning of the Chou dynasty.
+In the year 606 Ts'u had already "inquired" at the imperial court
+about these same Tripods, and 300 years later (281 B.C.), when
+struggling with Ts'in for the mastery of China, Ts'u endeavoured
+to get the state of Han to support her demand for the Tripods,
+which eventually fell to Ts'in; it will be remembered that the
+Duke of Chou had taken them to the branch capital laid out by him,
+but which was not really occupied by the Emperor until 771 B.C.
+
+In 632, after the great Tsin victory over Ts'u, the Emperor
+"accepted some Ts'u prisoners," conferred upon Tsin the
+Protectorate, ceded to Tsin that part of the imperial territory
+referred to on page 53, and presented to the Tsin ruler a chariot,
+a red bow with 1000 arrows, a black bow with 1000 arrows, a jar of
+scented wine, a jade cup with handle, and 300 "tiger" body-guards.
+In 679, when Old Tsin had been amalgamated by New Tsin (both of
+them then tiny principalities), the Emperor had already accepted
+valuable loot from the capture of Old Tsin. In a word, the Emperor
+nearly always sided with the strongest, accepted _faits accomplis_,
+and took what he could get. This has also been China's usual policy
+in later times.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+FIGHTING STATE PERIOD
+
+The period of political development covered by Confucius' history--
+the object of which history, it must be remembered, was to read
+to the restless age a series of solemn warnings--was immediately
+succeeded by the most active and bloodthirsty period in the
+Chinese annals, that of the Fighting States, or the Six Countries;
+sometimes they (including Ts'in) were called the "Seven Males,"
+i.e. the Seven Great Masculine Powers. Tsin had been already
+practically divided up between the three surviving great families
+of the original eleven in 424 B.C.; but these three families of
+Ngwei, Han, and Chao were not recognized by the Emperor until 403;
+nor did they extinguish the legitimate ruler until 376, about
+three years after the sacrifices of the legitimate Ts'i kings were
+stopped. Accordingly we hear the original name Tsin, or "the three
+Tsin," still used concurrently with the names Han, Ngwei, and
+Chao, as that of Ts'u's chief enemy in the north for some time
+after the division into three had taken place.
+
+Tsin's great rival to the west, Ts'in, now found occupation in
+extending her territory to the south-west at the expense of Shuh,
+a vast dominion corresponding to the modern Sz Ch'wan, up to then
+almost unheard of by orthodox China, but which, it then first
+transpired, had had three kings and ten "emperors" of its own,
+nine of these latter bearing the same appellation. Even now, the
+rapids and gorges of the Yang-tsz River form the only great
+commercial avenue from China into Sz Ch'wan, and it is therefore
+not hard to understand how in ancient times, the tribes of "cave
+barbarians" (whose dwellings are still observable all over that
+huge province) effectively blocked traffic along such subsidiary
+mountain-roads as may have existed then, as they exist now, for
+the use of enterprising hawkers.
+
+The Chinese historians have no statistics, indulge in fen (few?)
+remarks about economic or popular development, describe no popular
+life, and make no general reflections upon history; they confine
+themselves to narrating the bald and usually unconnected facts
+which took place on fixed dates, occasionally describing some
+particularly heroic or daring individual act, or even sketching
+the personal appearance and striking conduct of an exceptionally
+remarkable king, general, or other leading personality: hence
+there is little to guide us to an intelligent survey of causes and
+effects, of motives and consequences; it is only by carefully
+piecing together and collating a jumble of isolated events that it
+is possible to obtain any general coup d'oeil at all: the wood is
+often invisible on account of the trees.
+
+But there can be no doubt that populations had been rapidly
+increasing; that improved means had been found to convey
+accumulated stores and equipments; that generals had learnt how to
+hurl bodies of troops rapidly from one point to the other; and
+that rulers knew the way either to interest large populations in
+war, or to force them to take an active part in it. The marches,
+durbars, and gigantic canal works, undertaken by the barbarous
+King of Wu, as described in Chapter XXI., prove this in the case
+of one country. Chinese states always became great in the same
+way: first Kwan-tsz developed, on behalf of his master the First
+Protector, the commerce, the army, and the agriculture of Ts'i. He
+was imitated at the same time by Duke Muh of Ts'in and King Chwang
+of Ts'u, both of which rulers (seventh century B.C.) set to work
+vigorously in developing their resources. Then Tsz-ch'an raised
+Cheng to a great pitch of diplomatic influence, if not also of
+military power. His friend Shuh Hiang did the same thing for Tsin;
+and both of them were models for Confucius in Lu, who had,
+moreover, to defend his own master's interests against the policy
+of the philosopher Yen-tsz of Ts'i. After his first defeat by the
+King of Wu, the barbarian King of Yueh devoted himself for some
+years to the most strenuous life, with the ultimate object of
+amassing resources for the annihilation of Wu; the interesting
+steps he took to increase the population will be described at
+length in a later chapter. In 361, as we have explained in Chapter
+XXII., a scion of Wei went as adviser to Ts'in, and within a
+generation of his arrival the whole face of affairs was changed in
+that western state hitherto so isolated; the new position, from a
+military point of view, was almost exactly that of Prussia during
+the period between the tyranny of the first Napoleon, together
+with the humiliation experienced at his hands, and the patient
+gathering of force for the final explosion of 1870, involving the
+crushing of the second (reigning) Napoleon.
+
+Very often the term "perpendicular and horizontal" period is
+applied to the fourth century B.C. That is, Ts'u's object was to
+weld together a chain of north and south alliances, so as to bring
+the power of Ts'i and Tsin to bear together with her own upon
+Ts'in; and Ts'in's great object was, on the other hand, to make a
+similar string of east and west alliances, so as to bring the same
+two powers to bear upon Ts'u. The object of both Ts'in and Ts'u
+was to dictate terms to each unit of; and ultimately to possess,
+the whole Empire, merely utilizing the other powers as catspaws to
+hook the chestnuts out of the furnace. No other state had any
+rival pretensions, for, by this time, Ts'in and Ts'u each really
+did possess one-third part of China as we now understand it,
+whilst the other third was divided between Ts'i and the three
+Tsin. In 343 B.C. the Chou Emperor declared Ts'in Protector, and
+from 292 to 288 B.C., Tsin and Ts'i took for a few years the
+ancient title of _Ti_ or "Emperor" of the West and East respectively:
+in the year 240 the Chou Emperor even proceeded to Ts'in to do
+homage there. Tsin might have been in the running for universal
+empire had she held together instead of dividing herself into
+three. Yen was altogether too far away north,--though, curiously
+enough, Yen (Peking) has been the political centre of North
+China for 900 years past,--and Ts'i was too far away east.
+Moreover, Ts'i was discredited for having cut off the sacrifices
+of the legitimate house. Ts'u was now master of not only her old
+vassals, Wu and Yiieh, but also of most of the totally unknown
+territory down to the south sea, of which no one except the Ts'u
+people at that time knew so much as the bare local names; it bore
+the same relation to Ts'u that the Scandinavian tribes did to the
+Romanized Germans. Ts'in had become not only owner of Sz Ch'wan--
+at first as suzerain protector, not as direct administrator--but
+had extended her power down to the south-west towards Yiin Nan and
+Tibet, and also far away to the north-west in Tartarland, but not
+farther than to where the Great Wall now extends. It is in the
+year 318 B.C. that we first hear the name Hiung-nu (ancestors of
+the Huns and Turks), a body of whom allied themselves in that year
+with the five other Chinese powers then in arms against the
+menacing attitude of Ts'in; something remarkable must have taken
+place in Tartarland to account for this sudden change of name, The
+only remains of old federal China consisted of about ten petty
+states such as Sung, Lu, etc., all situated between the Rivers Sz
+and Hwai, and all waiting, hands folded, to be swallowed up at
+leisure by this or that universal conqueror.
+
+Ts'in _s'en va t'en guerre_ seriously in the year 364, and
+began her slashing career by cutting off 60,000 "Tsin" heads; (the
+legitimate Tsin sacrifices had been cut off in 376, so this "Tsin"
+must mean "Ngwei," or that part of old Tsin which was coterminous
+with Ts'in); in 331, in a battle with Ngwei, 80,000 more heads
+were taken off. 'In 318 the Hiung-nu combination just mentioned
+lost 82,000 heads between them; in 314 Han lost 10,000; in 312
+Ts'u lost 80,000; in 307 Han lost 60,000; and in 304 Ts'u lost
+80,000. In the year 293 the celebrated Ts'in general, Pêh K'i, who
+has left behind him a reputation as one of the greatest
+manipulators of vast armies in Eastern history, cut off 240,000
+Han heads in one single battle; in 275, 40,000 Ngwei heads; and in
+264, 50,000 Han heads. "_Enfin je vais me mesurer avec ce
+Vilainton_" said the King of Chao, when his two western friends
+of Han and Ngwei had been hammered out of existence. In the year
+260 the Chao forces came to terrible grief; General Pêh K'i
+managed completely to surround their army of 400,000 men he
+accepted their surrender, guaranteed their safety, and then
+proceeded methodically to massacre the whole of them to a man. In
+257 "Tsin" (presumably Han or Ngwei) lost 6,000 killed and 20,000
+drowned; in 256 Han lost 40,000 heads, and in 247 her last 30,000,
+whilst also in 256 Chao her last 90,000. These terrible details
+have been put together from the isolated statements; but there can
+be no mistake about them, for the historian Sz-ma Ts'ien, writing
+in 100 B.C., says: "The allies with territory ten times the extent
+of the Ts'in dominions dashed a million men against her in vain;
+she always had her reserves in hand ready, and from first to last
+a million corpses bit the dust."
+
+No such battles as these are even hinted at in more ancient times;
+nor, strange to say, are the ancient chariots now mentioned any
+more. Ts'in had evidently been practising herself in fighting with
+the Turks and Tartars for some generations, and had begun to
+perceive what was still only half understood in China, the
+advantage of manoeuvring large bodies of horsemen; but, curiously
+enough, nothing is said of horses either; yet all these battles
+seem to have been fought on the flat lands of old federal China,
+suitable for either chariots or horses. The first specific mention
+of cavalry manoeuvres on a large scale was in the year 198 B.C.
+when the new Han Emperor of China in person, with a straggling
+army of 320,000 men, mostly infantry, was surrounded by four
+bodies of horsemen led by the Supreme Khan, in white, grey, black,
+and chestnut divisions, numbering 300,000 cavalry in all: his name
+was Megh-dun (? the Turkish Baghatur).
+
+Whilst all this was going on, Mencius, the Confucian philosopher,
+and the two celebrated diplomatists (of Taoist principles), Su
+Ts'in and Chang I, were flying to and fro all over orthodox China
+with a view of offering sage political advice; this was the time
+_par excellence_ when the rival Taoist and Confucian prophets
+were howling in the wilderness of war and greed: but Ts'in cared
+not much for talkers: generals did her practical business better:
+in 308 she began to cast covetous eyes on the Emperor's poor
+remaining appanage. In 301 she was called upon to quell a revolt
+in Shuh; then she materially reduced the pretensions of her great
+rival Ts'u; and finally rested a while, whilst gathering more
+strength for the supreme effort-the conquest of China.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+FOREIGN BLOOD
+
+The history of China may be for our present purposes accordingly
+summed up as follows. The pure Chinese race from time immemorial
+had been confined to the flat lands of the Yellow River, and its
+one tributary on the south, the River Loh, the Tartars possessing
+most of the left bank from the Desert to the sea. However, from
+the beginning of really historical times the Chinese had been in
+unmistakable part-possession of the valleys of the Yellow River's
+two great tributaries towards the west and north, the Wei (in Shen
+Si) and the Fen (in Shan Si). Little, if any, Chinese colonizing
+was done much before the Ts'in conquests in any other parts of
+Tartarland; none in Sz Ch'wan that we know of; little, if any,
+along the coasts, except perhaps from Ts'i and Lu (in Shan Tung),
+both of which states seem to have always been open to the sea,
+though many barbarian coast tribes still required gathering into
+the Chinese fold. The advance of Chinese civilization had been
+first down the Yellow River; then down the River Han towards the
+Middle Yang-tsz; and lastly, down the canals and the Hwai network
+of streams to the Shanghai coast. Old colonies of Chinese had,
+many centuries before the conquest of China by the Chou dynasty,
+evidently set out to subdue or to conciliate the southern tribes:
+these adventurous leaders had naturally taken Chinese ideas with
+them, but had usually found it easier for their _own_ safety
+and success to adopt barbarian customs in whole or in part. These
+mixed or semi-Chinese states of the navigable Yang-tsz Valley,
+from the Ich'ang gorges to the sea, had generally developed in
+isolation and obscurity, and only appeared in force as formidable
+competitors with orthodox Chinese when the imperial power began to
+collapse after 771 B.C. The isolation of half-Roman Britain for
+several centuries after the first Roman conquest, and the
+departure of the last Roman legions, may be fitly compared with
+the position of the half-Chinese states. Ts'u, Wu, and Yüeh all
+had pedigrees, more or less genuine, vying in antiquity with the
+pedigree of the imperial Chou family; and therefore they did not
+see why they also should not aspire to the overlordship when it
+appeared to be going a-begging. Even orthodox Tsin and Ts'i in
+the north and north-east were in a sense colonial extensions,
+inasmuch as they were governed by new families appointed thereto
+by the Chou dynasty in 1122 B.C., in place of the old races of
+rulers, presumably more or less barbarian, who had previously to
+1122 B.C. been vassal--in name at least--to the earlier imperial
+Hia and Shang dynasties: but these two great states were never
+considered barbarian under Chou sway; and, indeed, some of the
+most ancient mythological Chinese emperors anterior to the Hia
+dynasty had their capitals in Tsin and Lu, on the River Fên and
+the River Sz.
+
+It is not easy to define the exact amount of "foreignness" in
+Ts'u. One unmistakable non-Chinese expression is given; that is
+_kou-u-du_, or "suckled by a tigress." Then, again, the syllable
+_ngao_ occurs phonetically in many titles and in native personal
+names, such as _jo-ngao_, _tu-ngao_, _kia-ngao_, _mo-ngao_.
+There are no Ts'u songs in the Odes as edited by Confucius,  and
+the Ts'u music is historically spoken of as being "in the southern
+sound"; which may refer, it is true, to the accent, but also possibly
+to a strange language. The Ts'u name for "Annals," or history, was
+quite different from the terms used in Tsin and Lu, respectively;
+and the Ts'u word for a peculiar form of lameness, or locomotor
+ataxy, is said to differ from the expressions used in either Wei and
+Ts'i. So far aspossible, all Ts'u dignities were kept in the royal family,
+and the king's uncle was usually premier. The premier of Ts'u was
+called _Zing-yin,_ a term unknown to federal China; and Ts'u
+considered the left-hand side more honourable than the right,
+which at that time was not the case in China proper, though it is
+now. The "Borough-English" rule of succession in Ts'u was to give
+it to one of the younger sons; this statement is repeated in
+positive terms by Shuh Hiang, the luminous statesman of Tsin, and
+will be further illustrated when we come to treat of that subject
+specially. The Lu rule was "son after father; or, if none, then
+younger after eldest brother; if the legitimate heir dies, then
+next son by the same mother; failing which, the eldest son by any
+mother; if equal claims, then the wisest; if equally wise, cast
+lots": Lu rules would probably hold good for all federal China,
+because the Duke of Chou, founder of Lu, was the chief moral force
+in the original Chou administration. In the year 587 Lu, when
+coquetting between Tsin and Ts'u, was at last persuaded not to
+abandon Tsin for Ts'u, "who is not of our family, and can never
+have any real affection." Once in Tsin it was asked, about a
+prisoner: "Who is that southernhatted fellow?" It was explained
+that he was a Ts'u man. They then handed him a guitar, and made
+him sing some "national songs." In 597 a Ts'u envoy to the Tsin
+military durbar said: "My prince is not formed for the fine and
+delicate manners of the Chinese": here is distinct evidence of
+social if not ethnological cleaving. The Ts'u men had beards,
+whilst those of Wu were not hirsute: this statement proves that
+the two barbarian populations differed between themselves. In 635
+the King of Ts'u spoke of himself as "the unvirtuous" and the
+"royal old man"--designations both appropriate only to barbarians
+under Chinese ritual. In 880 B.C., when the imperial power was
+already waning, and the first really historical King of Ts'u was
+beginning to bring under his authority the people between the Han
+and the Yang-tsz, he said: "I am a barbarian savage, and do not
+concern myself with Chinese titles, living or posthumous." In 706,
+when the reigning king made his first conquest of a petty Chinese
+principality (North Hu Pêh), he said again: "I am a barbarian
+savage; all the vassals are in rebellion and attacking each other;
+I want with my poor armaments to see for myself how Chou governs,
+and to get a higher title." On being refused, he said: "Do you
+forget my ancestor's services to the father of the Chou founder?"
+Later on, as has already been mentioned, he put in a claim for the
+Nine Tripods because of the services his ancestor, "living in rags
+in the Jungle, exposed to the weather," had rendered to the
+founder himself. In 637, when the future Second Protector and
+ruler of Tsin visited Ts'u as a wanderer, the King of Ts'u
+received him with all the hospitalities "under the Chou rites,"
+which fact shows at least an effort to adopt Chinese civilization.
+In 634 Lu asked Ts'u's aid against Ts'i, a proceeding condemned by
+the historical critics on the ground that Ts'u was a "barbarian
+savage" state. On the other hand, by the year 560 the dying King
+of Ts'u was eulogized as a man who had successfully subdued the
+barbarian savages. But against this, again, in 544 the ruler of Lu
+expressed his content at having got safely back from his visit to
+Ts'u, i.e. his visit to such an uncouth and distant court. Thus
+Ts'u's emancipation from "savagery" was gradual and of uncertain
+date. In 489 the King of Ts'u declined to sacrifice to the Yellow
+River, on the ground that his ancestors had never presumed to
+concern themselves with anything beyond the Han and Yang-tsz
+valleys. Even Confucius, (then on his wanderings in the petty
+state of CH'ÊN) declared his admiration at this, and said: "The
+King of Ts'u is a sage, and understands the Great Way (_tao_)."
+On the other hand, only fifty years before this, when in 538 Ts'u,
+with Tsin's approval, first tried her hand at durbar work, the king
+was horrified to hear from a fussy chamberlain (evidently orthodox)
+that there were six different ways of receiving visitors according to
+their rank; so that Ts'u's ritual decorum could not have been of
+very long standing. The following year (537) a Tsin princess is
+given in marriage to Ts'u-- a decidedly orthodox feather in Ts'u's
+cap. Confucius affects a particular style in his history when he speaks
+of barbarians; thus an orthodox prince "beats" a barbarian, but "battles"
+with an orthodox equal. However, in 525, Ts'u and Wu "battle" together,
+the commentator explaining that Ts'u is now "promoted" to battle
+rank, though the strict rule is that two barbarians, or China and
+one barbarian, "beat" rather than "battle." In 591 Confucius had
+already announced the "end" of the King of Ts'u, not as such, but
+as federal viscount. Under ordinary circumstances "death" would
+have been good enough: it is only in speaking of his own ruler's
+death that the honorific word "collapse" is used. All these fine
+distinctions, and many others like them, hold good for modern
+Chinese. These (apparently to us) childish gradations in mere
+wording run throughout Confucius' book; but we must remember that
+his necessarily timid object was to "talk at" the wicked, and to
+"hint" at retribution. Even a German recorder of events would
+shrink from applying the word _haben_ to the royal act of a
+Hottentot King, for whom _hat_ is more than good enough, without
+the _allergnädigst._ And we all remember Bismarck's story of the
+way mouth-washes and finger-bowls were treated at Frankfurt by those
+above and below the grade of serene highness. _Toutes les vices et
+toutes les moeurs sont respectables._
+
+In 531 the barbarian King of Ts'u is honoured by being "named" for
+enticing and murdering a "ruler of the central kingdoms." The
+pedants are much exercised over this, but as the federal prince in
+question was a parricide, he had a _lupinum caput,_ and so
+even a savage could without outraging orthodox feelings wreak the
+law on him. On the other hand, in 526, when Ts'u enticed and
+killed a mere barbarian prince, the honour of "naming" was
+withheld. This delicate question will be further elucidated in the
+chapter on "Names."
+
+It will be observed that none of the testimony brought forward
+here to show that Ts'u was, in some undefined way, a non-Chinese
+state is either clear or conclusive: its cumulative effect,
+however, certainly leaves a very distinct impression that 'there
+was a profound difference of some sort both in race and in
+manners, though we are as yet quite unable to say whether the bulk
+of the Ts'u population was Annamese, Shan, or Siamese; Lolo or
+Nosu; Miao-tsz, Tibetan, or what. There is really no use in
+attempting to advance one step beyond the point to which we are
+carried by specific evidence, either in this or in other matters.
+It has been said that no great discovery was ever made without
+imagination, which may be true; but evidence and imagination must
+be kept rigidly separate. What we may reasonably hope is that, by
+gradually ascertaining and sifting definite facts and data
+touching ancient Chinese history, we shall at least avoid coming
+to wrong positive conclusions, even if the right negative ones are
+pretty clearly indicated. It is better to leave unexplained
+matters in suspense than to base conclusions upon speculative
+substructures which will not carry the weight set upon them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+BARBARIANS
+
+The country of Wu is in many respects even more interesting
+ethnologically than that of Ts'u. When, a generation or two before
+the then vassal Chou family conquered China, two of the sons of
+the ruler of that vassal principality decided to forego their
+rights of succession, they settled amongst the Jungle savages, cut
+their hair, adopted the local raiment, and tattooed their bodies;
+or, rather, it is said the elder of the two covered his head and
+his body decently, while the younger cut his hair, went naked, and
+tattooed his body. The words "Jungle savages" apply to the country
+later called Ts'u; but as Wu, when we first hear of her, was a
+subordinate country belonging to Ts'u; and as in any case the word
+"Wu" was unknown to orthodox China, not to say to extreme western
+China, in 1200 B.C. when the adventurous brothers migrated; this
+particular point need not trouble us so much as it seems to have
+puzzled the Chinese critics. About 575 the first really historical
+King of Wu paid visits to the Emperor's court, to the court of his
+suzerain the King of Ts'u, and to the court of Lu: probably the
+Hwai system of rivers would carry him within measurable distance
+of all three, for the headwaters almost touch the tributaries of
+the Han, and the then Ts'u capital (modern King-thou Fu) was in
+touch with the River Han. He observed when in Lu: "We only know
+how to knot our hair in Wu; what could we do with such fine
+clothes as you wear?" It was the policy of Tsin and of the other
+minor federal princes to make use of Wu as a diversion against the
+advance of Ts'u: it is evident that by this time Ts'u had begun to
+count seriously as a Chinese federal state, for one of the
+powerful private families behind the throne and against the throne
+in Lu expressed horror that "southern savages (i.e. Wu) should
+invade China (i.e. Ts'u)," by taking from it part of modern An
+Hwei province: as, however, barbarian Ts'u had taken it first from
+orthodox China, perhaps the mesne element of Ts'u was not in the
+statesman's mind at all, but only the original element,--China. An
+important remark is made by one of the old historians to the
+effect that the language and manners of Wu were the same as those
+of Yiieh. In 483, when Wu's pretensions as Protector were at their
+greatest, the people of Ts'i made use of ropes eight feet long in
+order to bind certain Wu prisoners they had taken, "because their
+heads were cropped so close": this statement hardly agrees with
+that concerning "knotted hair," unless the _toupet_ or chignon
+was very short indeed. 'There are not many native Wu words quoted,
+beyond the bare name of the country itself, which is something like
+_Keu-gu,_ or _Kou-gu:_ an executioner's knife is mentioned under
+the foreign name _chuh-lu,_ presented to persons expected to commit
+suicide, after the Japanese _harakiri_ fashion. In 584 B.C., when the first
+steps were taken by orthodox China to utilize Wu politically, it was
+found necessary, as we have seen, to teach the Wu folk the use
+of war-chariots and bows and arrows: this important statement
+points distinctly to the previous utter isolation of Wu from the
+pale of Chinese civilization. In the year 502 Ts'i sent a princess
+as hostage to Wu, and ended by giving her in marriage to the Wu
+heir: (we have seen how Tsin anticipated Ts'i by twenty-five years
+in conferring a similar honour upon Ts'u). A century or more
+later, when Mencius was advising the bellicose court of Ts'i, he
+alluded with indignation to this "barbarous" act. In 544 the Wu
+prince Ki-chah had visited Lu and other orthodox states.
+
+[Illustration: Map of the Hwai system and Valley
+
+1. The two lines indicated by...............to the north are (1)
+the River Sz (now Grand Canal), from Confucius' birthplace, and
+(2) the River I (from modern I-shui city south of the German
+colony). After receiving the I, the Sz entered the Hwai as it
+emerged from Lake Hung-t&h; but this Hwai mouth no longer exists;
+the waters are dissipated in canals.
+
+The Wu fleets coasting up to the Hwai, were thus able to creep
+into the heart of Shan Tung province, east and west.
+
+2. The Yang-tsz had three branches: (1) northern, much as now; (2)
+middle, branching at modern Wuhu, crossing the T'ai-hu Lake, and
+following the Soochow Creek and Wusung River past Shanghai; (3)
+southern, carrying part of the Tai-hu waters by a forgotten route
+(probably the modern Grand Canal), to near Hangchow.
+
+3. The three crosses [Image: Circle with an 'X' in it] mark the
+capitals of Wu (respectively near Wu-sih and Soochow) and Yiieh
+(near Shao-hing). The modern canal from Hangchow to Shan Tung is
+clearly indicated. Orthodox China knew absolutely nothing of Cheh
+Kiang, Fuh Kien, or Kiang Si provinces south of lat. 300.]
+
+In recognition of this civilized move on the part of an ancient
+family, Confucius in his history grants the rank of "viscount" to
+the King of Wu, but he does not style Ki-chah by the complimentary
+title Ki _Kung-tsz_, or "Ki, the son of a reigning prince";
+that is, the king's title thus accorded retrospectively is only a
+"courtesy one," and does not carry with it a posthumous name, and
+with that name the posthumous title of _Kung_, or "duke"'
+applied to all civilized rulers. Yet it is evident that the ruling
+caste of Wu considered itself superior to the surrounding tribes,
+for in the year 493 it was remarked: "We here in Wu are entirely
+surrounded by savages"; and in 481 the Emperor himself sent a
+message through Tsin to Wu, saying: "I know that you are busy with
+the savages you have on hand at present." In the year 482, when
+the orthodox princes of Sung, Wei, and Lu were holding off from an
+alliance with Wu, the prince of Wei was detained by a Wu general,
+but escaped, and set to work to learn the language of Wu. The
+motive is of no importance; but the clear statement about a
+different language, or at least a dialect so different that it
+required special study, is interesting. When Ki-chah was on his
+travels, he explained to his friends that the law of succession
+is: "By the rites to the eldest, as established by our ancestors
+and by the customs of the country." In 502 the King of Wu was
+embarrassed about his successor, whose character did not commend
+itself to him, His counsellor (a refugee from Ts'u) said: "Order
+in the state ceases if the succession be interrupted; by ancient
+law son should succeed father deceased." Thus it seems that the
+ancient Chou rules had been conveyed to Wu by the first colonists
+in 1200 B.C., and that the succession laws differed from those of
+Ts'u. Ki-chah's son died whilst he was on his travels, and
+Confucius is reported to have said: "He is a man who understands
+the rites; let us see what he does." Ki-chah bared his left arm
+and shoulder, marched thrice round the grave, and said: "Flesh and
+bone back to the earth, as is proper; as to the soul, let it go
+anywhere it chooses!" This language was approved by Confucius, who
+himself always declined to dogmatize on death and spirits,
+maintaining that men knew too little of themselves, when living,
+to be justified in groping for facts about the dead. At first
+sight it would appear strange that a barbarous country like Wu
+should suddenly produce a learned prince who at once captivated by
+his culture Yen-tsz of Ts'i, Confucius of Lu, Tsz-ch'an of Cheng,
+K'u-peh-yu of Wei, Shuh Hiang of Tsin, and, in short, all the
+distinguished statesmen of China; but if we reflect that, within
+half a century, the greatest naval, military, and scientific
+geniuses have been produced on Western lines in Japan (as we shall
+soon see, in some way connected with Wu), at least we find good
+modern parallels for the phenomenon.
+
+When Wu, after a series of bloody wars with Ts'u and Yiieh, was in
+473 finally extinguished by the latter power, a portion of the
+King of Wu's family escaped in boats in an easterly direction. At
+this time not only was Japan unknown to China under that name, but
+also quite unheard of under any name whatever. It was not until
+150 years later that the powerful states of Yen and Ts'i, which,
+roughly speaking, divided with them the eastern part of the modern
+province of Chih Li, the northern part of Shan Tung, and the whole
+coasts of the Gulf of "Pechelee," began to talk vaguely of some
+mysterious and beautiful islands lying in the sea to the east.
+When the First August Emperor had conquered China, he made several
+tours to the Shan Tung promontory, to the site of the former Yueh
+capital (modern Kiao Chou), to the treaty-port of Chefoo (where he
+left an inscription), to the Shan-hai Kwan Pass, and to the
+neighbourhood of Ningpo. He also had heard rumours of these
+mysterious islands, and he therefore sent a physician of his staff
+with a number of young people to make inquiry, and colonize the
+place if possible. They brought back absurd stories of some
+monstrous fish that had interfered with their landing, and they
+reported that these fish could only be frightened away by
+tattooing the body as the natives did, The people of Wu, who were
+great fisherfolk and mariners, were also stated to have indulged
+in universal tattooing because they wished to frighten dangerous
+fish away. The first mission from Japan, then a congeries of petty
+states, totally unacquainted with writing or records, came to
+China in the first century of our era; it was not sent by the
+central King, but only by one of the island princes. Later
+embassies from and to Japan disclose the fact that the Japanese
+themselves had traditions of their descent both from ancient
+Chinese Emperors and from the founder of Wu, i.e. from the Chou
+prince who went there in 1200 B.C.; of the medical mission sent by
+the First August Emperor; of the flight from Wu in 473 B.C. of
+part of the royal Wu family to Japan; and of other similar
+matters--all apparently tending to show that the refugees from Wu
+really did reach Japan; that a very early shipping intercourse had
+probably existed between Japan, Ts'i, and Wu; and that, in
+addition to the statements made by later Chinese historians to the
+effect that the Japanese considered themselves in some way
+hereditarily connected with Wu, the early Japanese traditions and
+histories (genuine or concocted) themselves separately repeated
+the story. One of the later Chinese histories says of Wu: "Part of
+the king's family escaped and founded the kingdom of Wo" (the
+ancient name for the Japanese race): the temptation to connect
+this word with _Wu_ is obvious; but etymology will not tolerate
+such an identification, either from a Chinese or a Japanese point of
+view; the etymological "values" are _Ua_ and Gu respectively.
+
+As in the case of Ts'u, there is no really trustworthy evidence to
+show of what race or races, and in what proportions, the bulk of
+the Wu population consisted; still less is there any specific
+evidence to show to what race the barbarian king who committed
+suicide in 473 belonged; or if those of his family who escaped
+were wholly or partly Chinese; or if any pure descent existed at
+all in royal circles, dating, that is to say, from the ancient
+colonists of the imperial Chou family in 1200 B.C.
+
+So far as purely Chinese traditions and history go, the cumulative
+evidence, such as it is, needs careful sifting, and is, perhaps,
+worth a more thorough examination; but as to the Japanese
+traditions and early "history," these, as the Japanese themselves
+admit, were only put together in written form retrospectively in
+the eighth century A.D., and throughout they show signs of having
+been deliberately concocted on the Chinese lines; that is, Chinese
+historical incidents and phraseology are worked into the narrative
+of supposed Japanese events, and Japanese emperors or empresses
+are (admittedly) fitted with posthumous names mostly copied from
+imperial Chinese posthumous names. By themselves they are almost
+valueless, so far as the fixing of specific dates and the
+identification of political events are concerned; and even when
+taken as ancillary to contemporary Chinese evidence, except in so
+far as a few Chinese misprints or errors may be more clearly
+indicated by comparison with them, they seem equally valueless
+either to confirm, to check, to modify, or to contradict the
+Chinese accounts, which, indeed, are absolutely the sole
+trustworthy written evidence either we or the Japanese themselves
+possess about the actual condition of the Japanese 2000 years ago.
+
+Meanwhile, as to Wu, all we can say with certainty is, that there
+is a persistent rumour or tradition that some of its royal
+refugees (themselves of unknown race) who escaped in boats
+eastward, may have escaped to Japan; may have succeeded in
+"imposing themselves" on the people, or a portion of the people
+(themselves a mixed race of uncertain _provenance_); and may
+have quietly and informally introduced Chinese words, ideas, and
+methods, several centuries before known and formal intercourse
+between Japan and China took place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+CURIOUS CUSTOMS
+
+In laying stress upon the barbarous, or semi-barbarous, quality of
+the states (all in our days considered pure Chinese), which
+surrounded the federal area at even so late a period as 771 B.C.,
+we wish to emphasize a point which has never yet been made quite
+clear, perhaps not even made patent by their own critics to the
+Chinese themselves; that is to say, the very small and modest
+beginnings of the civilized patriarchal federation called the
+Central Kingdom, or _Chu Hia_--"All the Hia"--just as we say,
+"All the Russias."
+
+In allotting precedence to the various states, the historical
+editors, of course, always put the Emperor first in order of
+mention; then comes CHÊNG, the first ruler of which state was son
+of an Emperor of the then ruling imperial house; next, the three
+Protectors Ts'i, Tsin, and Sung; then follow the petty states of
+Wei, Ts'ai, Ts'ao, and T'êng, all of the imperial family name, or,
+as we say in English, "surname," and all lying between the Hwai
+and the Sz systems (T'êng was a "belonging state" of Lu). Then
+come half a dozen petty orthodox states of less honourable family
+names; next, three Eastern barbarian states, which had become
+"Central Kingdom," or which, once genuine Chinese, had become half
+barbarian; and finally, Ts'u, Ts'in, Wu, and Yiieh, which were
+frankly, if vaguely, "outer barbarian-Tartar."
+
+It has already been demonstrated that there is evidence, however
+imperfect, to show that the mass of the population of Ts'u and Wu
+were of decidedly foreign origin. Even as to Ts'i, which was
+always treated as an orthodox principality, it is stated that the
+founder sent there in or about 1100 B.C. "conformed to the manners
+of the place, and encouraged manufactures, commerce, salt and fish
+industries." On the other hand, the son of the Duke of Chou (the
+first vassal prince appointed by his brother the Emperor) changed
+the customs of Lu, modified the local rites, and induced the
+people to keep on their mourning attire for three full years. It
+was considered that the Ts'i policy was the wiser of the two, and
+it was foretold that Lu would always "look up to" Ts'i in
+consequence of this superior judgment on the part of Ts'i. On
+frequent occasions the petty adjoining "Chinesified" states, of
+which Lu was practically the mesne lord, are stated to have been
+"tainted with Eastern barbarian rites." From and including modern
+Sü-chou (North Kiang Su) and eastward, all were "Eastern
+barbarians"; in fact, the city just named (mentioned by the name
+of _Sü_ in 1100 B.C., and again about 950 B.C., as revolting
+against the Emperor) perpetuates the "Sü barbarians" country,
+which was for long a bone of contention between Ts'i and Ts'u, and
+afterwards Wu; and the name "Hwai savages" proves that the Lower
+Hwai Valley was also independent. The Hwai savages, who appear in
+the Tribute of Yü, founder of the Hia dynasty, 2205 B.C., revolted
+1000 years later against the founders of the Chou dynasty. They
+were present at Ts'u's first durbar in 538 B.C., and are mentioned
+as barbarians still resisting Chinese methods so late as A.D. 970.
+In Confucius' time the Lai barbarians (modern Lai-thou Fu in the
+German sphere) were employed by Ts'i, who had conquered them in
+567 B.C., to try and effect the assassination of Confucius'
+master. Six hundred years before that, these same barbarians were
+among the first to give in their submission to the founder of
+Ts'i; and in 602 B.C. both Ts'i and Lu had endeavoured to crush
+them.
+
+As to the state of Ts'in, there is not a single instance given of
+any literary conversation or correspondence held by an orthodox
+high functionary with a Ts'in statesman. While it is not yet quite
+clear that orthodox China can shake herself entirely free of the
+reproach of human sacrifices in all senses, it is quite certain
+that Ts'in had a barbarous and exclusive notoriety in this
+regard'; and, as the Hiung-nu Tartars also practised it, and Ts'in
+was at least half Tartar in blood, it is probable that she derived
+her sanguinary notions from this blood connection with the Turko-
+Scythian tribes. On the death of the Ts'in ruler in 678 B.C., the
+first recorded human sacrifices were made, "sixty-six individuals
+following the dead." In 621, on the death of the celebrated Duke
+Muh, 177 persons lost their lives, and the people of Ts'in, in
+pity, "composed the Yellow Bird Ode" (of these popular Chinese
+odes more anon). This holocaust was given as one reason why Ts'in
+could never "rule in the East," _i.e._ assume the Protectorate over
+the orthodox powers all lying to its east, on account of this cruel defect
+in its laws. In 387 B.C., the new Earl of Ts'in (who succeeded a nephew,
+and therefore could, having no paternal duty to fulfil, introduce the
+innovation more cheaply) abolished the principle of human sacrifices
+at the death of a ruler. Ten years later, the Emperor's astrologer paid
+a visit to Ts'in;--evidence that the imperial civilizing influence was
+still, at least morally, active, This astrologer and historiographer,
+whose name was Tan, is interesting, inasmuch as he has been
+confused with Li Tan (the personal name of the philosopher Lao-
+tsz, who was also an imperial official employed in the historiographical
+department). It is added that, previous to this visit, for five hundred
+years Ts'in and Chou had kept apart from each other. Notwithstanding
+this prohibition of human sacrifices, when the First August Emperor of
+Universal China died in 210 B.C., the old Ts'in custom was reintroduced,
+and all his women who had not given birth to children were buried with
+him. Besides this, all the workmen who had made the secret door and
+passage to his grave were cemented in alive, so that they might never
+disclose the secret of its approaches.
+
+It was only after gradually adopting Chinese civilization that
+Ts'in began to be a considerable power; thus, when Ki-chah of Wu
+was entertained at Lu with specimens of the various styles of
+music, he observed, on being regaled with Ts'in music: "Ah!
+civilized sounds; it has succeeded in refining itself; it is in
+occupation of the old Chou appanage." So late as 361 B.C., when
+Ngwei (one of the three royal subdivisions of old Tsin) built a
+wall to keep off Ts'in, both Ngwei and Ts'u (which by this time
+was quite as good orthodox Chinese as any other state) treated
+Ts'in as though the latter were still barbarian, In 326 Ts'in
+first introduced into her realm the well-known year-end sacrifices
+of the orthodox Chinese, which fact alone points to a long
+isolation of Ts'in before this date.
+
+The rule of succession in Ts'in seems to have been of the Tartar
+kind at one time. Duke Muh, in 660 B.C., succeeded his brother,
+though that brother had seven sons of his own living: that brother
+again, had also succeeded a brother.
+
+As to Yüeh, there is no question as to its barbarism, though the
+one single king around whose name centres the whole glory of Yiieh
+(Kou-tsien, 496-475) seems to have been a man of great ability and
+some fine feeling. The native name for Yiieh was _Yü-yüeh_,
+as stated in Chapter VII.; and it seems likely that all the coast
+of China down to Tonquin, or Northern Annam, was then inhabited by
+cognate tribes, all having the syllable _Yüeh_, or _Viét_, in
+their names. The great empire or kingdom of Yiieh, founded upon
+the ruins of Wu, soon split up into the "Hundred Yiieh," i.e. (probably)
+it relapsed into its native barbarism, and ceased to cohere as a
+political factor. "Southern Yüeh" (the Canton region) has undoubted
+historical connections with the Tonquin part of Annam, and several
+other of the subdivisions of Yiieh, corresponding to Foochow, Wênchow,
+etc., show distinct traces of having belonged to the same race. But it is
+unsafe to say how the Chinese-transcribed name Yii-yiieh was
+pronounced; still more unsafe is it to argue that it must have been _U_
+or _O-viêt_ simply because the Annamese so pronounce the word
+now. We have seen that, according to one historical statement, the
+Wu and Yiieh people spoke the same language; in which case the
+members of the ruling Wu caste who fled to Japan in 473 B.C. were
+probably not of the same race as the "savages around them." As an
+act of bravado, in 481, the King of Wu made five condemned
+centurions cut their own throats before the Tsin envoy, in order
+to show what effectively stern discipline he kept, In 484 the King
+of Yiieh had already committed a similar act of bravado; but
+neither of these barbarian states is distinctly recorded to have
+indulged in human sacrifices at the death of a sovereign. Previous
+to the crushing of Wu by Yiieh, in 473 B.C., Yiieh was nearly
+annihilated by Wu, and on this occasion Kou-tsien's envoy
+advanced crawling on his knees to beg for mercy; this is hardly an
+orthodox Chinese custom. However barbarous Yiieh may have been,
+its ruling house possessed traditions of descent, through a
+concubine, from an emperor of the Hia dynasty; for which reason
+the founder was enfeoffed, near modern Shao-hing, west of Ningpo,
+in order to fulfil the sacrifices to the founder of the Hia
+dynasty, who was, and is, supposed to be buried there: like the
+first colonists who migrated to Wu, he cut his hair, tattooed
+himself, opened up the jungle, and built a town. In 330 B.C. Kou-
+tsien's descendant spoke of "taking the road left to _Chu-
+hia_," through modern Ho Nan province; that means taking the
+high-road to China proper. The term originated in times when Ts'u
+had not yet become a recognized "Hia." The fact that Yüeh, with
+its new capital then in Shan Tung, could never govern the Yang-tsz
+and Hwai inland regions, seems to prove that her power was always
+purely a water power, and that she was comparatively ignorant of
+land campaigns.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+LITERARY RELATIONS
+
+It is instructive to inquire what were the literary relations
+between the distinguished statesmen and active princes who moved
+about quite freely within the limited area so frequently alluded
+to in foregoing pages as being sacrosanct to civilization and the
+rites. There seems good reason to suppose that the literary
+activity which so disgusted the destroyer of the books in 213 B.C.
+did not really begin until after Confucius' death in 479;
+moreover, that the avalanche of philosophical works which drenched
+the royal courts of the Six Kingdoms was in part the consequence
+of Confucius' own efforts in the literary line. In the pre-
+Confucian days there is little evidence of the existence of any
+literature at all beyond the Odes, the Changes, the Book, and the
+Rites, which, after a lapse of 2500 years or more, are still the
+"Bible" of China. The Odes, of which 3000 were popularly known
+previous to Confucius' recension, seem to have been originally
+composed here and there, and passed from mouth to mouth, by the
+people of each orthodox state under impulse of strong passion,
+feeling, or suffering; or some of them may even have been
+committed to writing by learned folk in touch with the people.
+Naturally, those songs which specially treated of local matters
+would be locally popular; but it would seem that a large number of
+them must have been generally known by heart by the whole educated
+body all over orthodox China, It will be remembered that in the
+year 1900, an enterprising American newspaper correspondent took
+advantage of President Kruger's penchant for quoting Scripture,
+and telegraphed to him daily texts, selected as applicable to the
+event, for which the replies to be sent were always prepaid. For
+instance, on news of a British victory, the American would
+telegraph: "Victory stayeth not always with the righteous"; on
+which President Kruger would promptly rejoin: "Yet shall I smite
+him, even unto the end." This was the plan followed by Chinese
+envoys, statesmen, and princes in their intercourse with each
+other: no matter what event transpired, Ki-chah, or Tsz-ch'an, or
+Shuh Hiang would illustrate it with an ode, or with a reference to
+the "Book" (of history), or by an appeal to the Rites of Chou, or
+to some obscure astrological or cosmogonical development extracted
+from the mystic diagrams of "The Changes." As often as not, the
+quotations given from the Odes and Book no longer exist in the
+editions of those two classics which have come down to us. This
+fact is interesting as proving that the _Tso Chwan_--or Commentary of
+Confucius' pupil Tso K'iu-ming on Confucius' own bare notes of history--
+must have been written before Confucius' expurgated Book of Odes
+reduced and fixed the number of selected songs; or, at all events,
+the records from which Tso K'iu-ming took his quotations must have
+existed before either he or Confucius composed their respective annals
+and comments. In the times when a book the size of a three-volume
+novel of to-day would mean a mule-load of bamboo splinters or wooden
+tablets, it is absurd to suppose that generals in the field, or envoys on
+the march, could carry their Odes bodily about with them: it is even
+probable that the four "scriptural" books in question were
+exclusively committed to memory by the general public, and that
+not more than half a dozen varnish-written copies existed in any
+state; possibly not more than one copy. In fact, the only
+available literary exhilaration then open to cultured friends was
+to check the memory on visiting strange lands by comparing the
+texts of Odes, Changes, or Book. A knowledge of the Rites would
+perhaps be confined to the ruling classes almost entirely, for
+with them it lay to pronounce the religious, the ritual, the
+social, or the administrative sanction applicable to each
+contested set of circumstances. It is very much as though,--as was
+indeed the case in Johnsonian times,--the French, English, and
+German wits of the day, and occasionally distinguished literary
+specimens of even more "barbarous" countries, should at a literary
+conference indulge in quotations from Horace or Juvenal by way of
+passing the time: they would not select the Twelve Tables or the
+Laws of the Pr'tors as matter for the testing of learning.
+
+To take a few instances. In 559 the ruler of Wei had severely
+beaten his court music-master for failing to teach a concubine how
+to play the lute. One day the prince invited to dinner some
+statesmen, the father of one of whom had taken offence at the
+prince's rudeness; and he ordered the same musician to strike up
+the last stanza of a certain ode hinting at treason, which the
+malicious performer did in such a way as to give further offence
+to the father through his son, and to bring about the dethronement
+of the indiscreet prince. It gives us confidence in the truth of
+these anecdotes when we find that K'ü-pêh-yüh was consulted by the
+offended father as to what course he ought to pursue. This Wei
+statesman, who has already been twice mentioned in connection with
+other matters, met Ki-chah of Wu when the latter visited that
+state in 544, and he was also an admired senior acquaintance of
+Confucius himself, whom he twice lodged at his house for many
+months. Three chapters of the "Book" still remain, after
+Confucius' manipulations of it, to prove how Wei was first
+enfeoffed by the Duke of Chou, and one of the Odes actually sings
+the praises of a Ts'i princess who married the prince of Wei in
+753 B.C. Thus we see that the ancient classics are intertwined and
+mutually corroborative.
+
+When the Second Protector (the last of the four Tartar-born
+brothers to succeed to the Tsin throne) was on his wanderings in
+644 B.C., the Marquess of Ts'i gave him a daughter, of whom he
+became so enamoured that he seemed to be neglecting his political
+chances amid the pleasures of a foreign country, instead of
+endeavouring to regain his rightful throne at home. This princess
+first of all quoted an ode from the group treating of CHÊNG
+affairs, and secondly cited an apt saying from what she "had
+heard" the great Ts'i philosopher Kwan-tsz had said, her object
+being to promote her lively husband's political interests. This
+all took place a few years after Kwan-tsz's death, and 200 years
+after the founding of CHÊNG state, and is therefore indirect
+confirmation of the fact that Kwan-tsz was already a well-known
+authority, and that contemporary affairs were usually "sung of" in
+all the orthodox states.
+
+When the Duke of Sung, after the death in 628 B.C. of the
+picturesque personality just referred to, was ambitious to become
+the Third Protector of orthodox China and of the Emperor;
+Confucius' ancestor, then a Sung statesman, approved of this
+ambition, and proceeded to compose some complimentary sacrificial
+odes on the Shang dynasty (from which the Sung ducal family was
+descended): some learned critics make out that it was the music-
+master of the Emperor who really composed these odes for the
+ancestor of Confucius. In any case, there the odes are still, in
+the Book of Odes as revised by Confucius himself about 150 years
+later; and here accordingly--we have specific indirect evidence of
+Confucius' own origin; of the "spiritual" power still possessed by
+the Emperor's court; and of the "Poet Laureate"-like political
+uses to which odes were put in the international life of the
+times. This foolish Duke of Sung, who was so anxious to pose as
+Protector, was the one already mentioned in Chapters X. and XIV.,
+who would not attack an enemy whilst crossing a stream.
+
+Again, in the year 651, when one of the least popular of the four
+Tartar-born brethren was, with the assistance of the Ts'in ruler
+(who had been over-persuaded against his own better judgment),
+reigning in Tsin, the children of this latter state sang a ballad
+in the streets, prophesying the ultimate success of the self-
+sacrificing elder brother, then still away on his wanderings in
+Tartarland. This song was apparently never included among the 3000
+odes generally known in China; but it illustrates how such popular
+songs and popular heroes were created and perpetuated.--It is,
+perhaps, time now that we should give the personal name of this
+popular prince, of whom we have spoken so often, and who is as
+well known to Chinese tradition as the severe Brutus 'is, or as
+the ravishing Tarquin was, to old Roman history. His name was
+Ch'ung-êrh, or "the double-eared," in allusion to some peculiarity
+in the lobes of his ears; besides which, two of his ribs were
+believed to be joined in one piece: his great success is perhaps
+largely owing to his robust and manly appearance, which certainly
+secured for him the eager attentions of the ladies, whether Turks
+or Chinese. His Turkish wife had been as disinterestedly
+solicitous for his success, before he went to Ts'i, as his Ts'i
+wife was when she induced him to leave that country. On arrival in
+Ts'in, he was presented with five princesses, including one who
+had already been given to his nephew and immediate predecessor in
+Tsin. The "rites" were of course decidedly wrong here, but his
+ally Ts'in was at this time hesitating between Chinese and Tartar
+culture, and in any case he was probably persuaded in his mind to
+let the rites go by the board for urgent political purposes. On
+this occasion his brother-in-law and faithful henchman during
+nineteen years of wanderings, sang "the song of the fertilized
+millet" (still existing), meaning that Ch'ung-êrh was the gay
+young stalk fertilized by the presents and assistance of the ruler
+of Ts'in: he was, by the way, not so young, then well over sixty.
+He had married the younger of two Tartar sisters, and had given
+her elder sister as wife to the henchman in question. (One account
+reverses the order.)
+
+ [Illustration: Original inscription on the Sacrificial Tripod,
+together with (1) transcription in modern Chinese character (to
+the right), and (2) an account of its history (to the left). Taken
+from Dr. Bushell's "Chinese Art."]
+
+Ts'u seems to have possessed a knowledge of ancient history and of
+literature at a very early date. In 597 B.C., after his victory
+over Tsin, the King of Ts'u had, as previously narrated, declined
+to rear a barrow over the corpses slain, and had said: "No! the
+written or pictograph character for 'soldierly' is made up of two
+parts, one signifying 'stop,' and the other 'weapons.'" By this he
+meant to say what the great philosopher Lao-tsz, himself a Ts'u
+man, over and over again inculcated; namely, that the true soldier
+does not glory in war, but mournfully aims at victory with the
+sole view of attaining rightful ends. Not only was this half-
+barbarian king thus capable of making a pun which from the
+pictograph point of view still holds good to-day, but he goes on
+in the same speech to cite the "peace-loving war" of Wu Wang, or
+the Martial King, founder of the Chou dynasty, and to cite several
+standard odes in allusion to it.
+
+These examples might be multiplied a hundredfold, For instance, in
+the year 589 a Ts'u minister cites the Odes; in 575 a Tsin officer
+quotes the Book; in 569 another makes allusion to the ancient
+attempt made by the ruler of the then vassal Chou state, the
+father of the imperial Chou founder, and who was at the same time
+adviser at the imperial court, to reconcile the vassal princes to
+the legitimate Shang dynasty Emperor (who had already imprisoned
+him once out of pique at his remonstrances), before finally
+deciding to dethrone him. In 546 a Sung envoy cites the Odes to
+the Ts'u government, and also quotes from that section of the
+"Book" called the Book of the Hia Dynasty, In connection with the
+year 582 an ode is cited for the benefit of the King of Ts'u,
+which is not in Confucius' collection. In 541 a Ts'u envoy, who
+was being entertained in Tsin at a convivial wine party, indulges
+in apt quotations from the Odes.
+
+There does not seem to be one single instance where any one in
+Ts'in either sings an ode, quotes orthodox history, or in any way
+displays literary knowledge. Even the barbarian Kou-tsien, King of
+Yüeh, has wise saws and modern instances quoted to him in his
+distress. For instance, whilst hesitating about utterly
+annihilating the Wu reigning family, he was advised: "If one will
+not take gifts from Heaven, Heaven may send one misfortune." This
+is a very hackneyed saying in ancient Chinese history, and is as
+much used to-day as it was 2500 years ago: it comes from the Book
+of Chou (now partly lost). It will be remembered that the
+distinguished Japanese statesman, Count Okuma, in his now
+notorious speech before the Kobé Chamber of Commerce on the 20th
+October, 1907, used these identical words to point the moral of
+Indian commerce. It is doubtful if any other really pregnant
+Japanese philosophical saying exists which cannot be similarly
+traced to China. In any case, Count Okuma was only literally
+carrying out in Kobé the policy of Tsin, Ts'u, Ts'i, and Wei
+statesmen of China 2500 years ago.
+
+If, as we have assumed, standard books were usually committed to
+memory (and it must be remembered that the Odes, and much of the
+Book, the Changes, and the Rites are still so committed to memory
+in our own times), and were practically confined to the
+headquarters or the wealthy families of each state, the cognate
+question inevitably arises: What about the historical records? It
+has already been observed that Ts'in, the half-Tartar power in the
+extreme west, was the only state belonging to the recognized
+federal system (and that only since 771 B.C.) of which nothing
+literary is recorded, and which, though powerful enough to assist
+in making Emperors of Chou and rulers of Tsin, was never in
+Confucian times thought morally fit to act as Protector of the
+Imperial Federal Union, _i.e._ of _Chu Hia_, or "All the Chinas."
+By a singular irony of fate, however, it so happens that a few Ts'in
+inscriptions are the only political ones remaining to us of ancient
+Chinese documents.
+
+When the outlying semi-Chinese states surrounding the inner
+conclave of orthodox Chinese states, after four centuries of
+fighting and intrigue for the Protectorate, or at least for
+preponderance, at last, during the period 400-375 B.C. became the
+Six Powers, all equally royal, none of them owing any real,
+scarcely even any nominal, allegiance to the once solitary King or
+Emperor, then it was that the idea began to enter the heads of the
+Ts'in statesmen and the rulers of at least three of the Six Royal
+Powers opposed to Ts'in that it would be a good thing to get rid
+of the old feudal vassal system root and branch. So unquestionably
+is this period 400-375 B.C. taken as one of the great pivot points
+in Chinese history, that the great historian Sz-ma Kwang begins
+his renowned history, the _Tsz-chi Tung-kien_, published in
+1084 A.D., with the words: "In 403 B.C. the states of Han, Ngwei,
+and Chao were recognized as vassal ruling princes by the Emperor."
+Ts'in took to educating herself seriously for her great destiny,
+and at last, in 221 B.C., after the wars already described in
+Chapter XXVI., succeeded in uniting all known China under one
+centralized sway; rounding off the Tartars so as to make the Great
+Wall (rather than the Yellow River, as of old) their southern
+limit; conquering the remains of the "Hundred Yüeh" (the vague
+unknown South China which had hitherto been the special preserve
+of Ts'u;) and assimilating the ancient empire of Shuh (i.e. Sz
+Ch'wan, hitherto only vaguely known to orthodox China at all, and
+politically connected only with Ts'in).
+
+During this process of universal assimilation and annexation, the
+almost supernaturally active First August Emperor made tour after
+tour throughout his new dominions, showing a special predilection
+for the coasts, for Tartarland, and for the Lower Yang-tsz River;
+but not venturing far up or far south of that Great River; and
+even when he did so venture a short distance, never leaving the
+old and well-known water routes: nor did he risk a land journey to
+Sz Ch'wan, to which country there were at the time no roads of any
+kind at all possible for armies. It is well known that both he and
+the legal, international, political, and diplomatical adventurers
+who had been for a century or more from time to time at his court
+had been strongly imbued with the somewhat revolutionary and then
+fashionable democratic principles of the new Taoism, as defined by
+the philosopher Lao-tsz; but he showed no particular hostility to
+orthodox literature until, whilst on his travels, deputations of
+learned men, especially in the ritual centres of Lu and Ts'i,
+began to suggest to him the re-establishment of the old feudal
+system, and to "quote the ancient scriptures" to him by way of
+protesting mildly against his too drastic political changes. It
+has been explained in Chapter XIII. that in 626 B.C., when his
+great ancestor Duke Muh had availed himself of the advisory
+services of an educated Tartar (of Tsin descent), this Tartar had
+made use of the expression: "The King of the Tartars governs in a
+simple, ready way, without the aid of the Odes and the Book as in
+the case of China." Thus it was that, possibly with this ancient
+warning in his mind, he conceived a sudden, violent, and
+passionate hatred for didactic works generally, and two books in
+particular-the very two, passages from which pedants, philosophers,
+ambassadors, and ministers had for centuries hurled at each other's
+heads alike in convivial, argumentative, and solemn moments. In
+other words, the Odes and the Book, together with Confucius'
+"Springs and Autumns," with its censorious hints for rulers, and all
+the other local Annals and Histories, were under anathema, But
+more detestable even than these were the new philosophical
+treatises of a polemical kind, which girded at monarchs through
+their subtle choice of words and anecdotes, or which recalled the
+good old times of the feudal emperors and their not very obsequious
+vassals. His self-laudatory inscriptions upon stone, scattered about
+as he travelled from place to place, tell us plainly, in his own royal
+words, that this hatred of presumptuous vassal claims was his prime
+motive in destroying all the pedants and books he could secure. He
+denounces the vassals of bygone times who ignored the Supreme
+Emperor, fought with each other, and had the insolence to "carve stone
+and metal in order to record their own deeds." The Changes are quoted
+in history often enough by statesmen, as well as the Odes and the Book;
+but, even if the First August Emperor did not entertain the suspicion that
+the first were (as, indeed, they are according to our Western
+lights) all "hocus-pocus," he was himself very credulous and
+superstitious, and the learned word-juggling of the Changes was in
+any case harmless to him; so that really his rage was confined to
+the four or five books, known by heart throughout China, setting
+forth the ancient ritual system of previous dynasties, as
+perfected by the Chou government; the subordination of all other
+kings (Ts'in included) to the Chou family; the wrath of Heaven,
+the divinity of the people, and so on. Things had been made worse
+during the Fighting State Period (480-230) by the extraordinary
+literary activity prevailing at the different royal courts, when
+the old royal _tao_ had been interpreted in one way by Lao-
+tsz and his followers, in another by Confucius and his school; in
+countless others by the schools of Legists, Purists, Scholastics,
+Cosmogonists, Pessimists, Optimists, and so on. A clean sweep was
+accordingly made, so far as it was possible and practicable, of
+all literature, with the exception (amongst old books) of the
+Changes, and of practical modern or ancient books on astronomy,
+medicine, and agriculture. At the same time copies of the
+proscribed Odes and Book were kept on record at court for the use
+of the learned in the service of the Emperor. All "histories,"
+except that of Ts'in, were utterly destroyed, and _á fortiori_ all
+argumentative works on history or on administrative policy of any kind.
+The old Tartar blood and Tartar sympathies of the First August Emperor
+must surely re-appear in a policy so incompatible with all orthodox
+teaching? In one sense the blight upon Chinese civilization was akin
+to the blight cast upon that of Eastern Europe 500 years ago by the
+"unspeakable Turk." The new ruler boldly said: "The world begins
+afresh, with me. No posthumous condemnatory titles for me! My
+successor will be 'August Emperor Number Two,' and so on for ever."
+It was like the Vendémiaire in 1793.
+
+Thus, except in so far as Confucius may have borrowed from local
+histories besides that of Lu in making up his "Springs and
+Autumns," the Annals of Ts'in are the only annals of the feudal
+states (except the Bamboo Books, or Annals of Tsin, dug up in A.D.
+281) now left to us. That there were such annals in each state is
+certain, for in 627 B.C. the "great historian" of Tsin is spoken
+of; and in 607 and 510 the names of the Tsin historians are given,
+in the first case apparently a Tartar. That there should be a Tsin
+Tartar versed in Chinese literature is not remarkable, for it was
+shown at the close of Chapter XIII. how a learned Tsin Tartar had
+acted as adviser to Duke Muh of Ts'in, and had left behind him a
+work in two chapters, which was still in existence in 50 B.C.
+Under the year 628 B.C., one of the expanded versions of
+Confucius' history explains how the anarchy which had then been
+for some time prevailing in Tsin led to certain Tsin events of the
+year 630 being omitted by Confucius; this is a very important
+statement, for it infers that Confucius made use of the Tsin
+annals. It is recorded of Confucius that when reading the _Shi-
+ki_ ("Historical Annals"), he expressed very strong views when
+he came to the events of 632 and 598 B.C., that is, to the place
+where the "ordering up" of the Emperor by Tsin is described, and
+to the noble action of the "sage" King of Ts'u; it is interesting
+to know that this old name, _Shi-ki_, was chosen by the author of
+the first real history of China published under that title about 90 B.C.,
+and that he was not the inventor of the name, which had already for
+centuries been applied in a general sense to the historical annals either
+of Lu or of China generally.
+
+In 547 B.C. it is stated that the "great historian" of Ts'i made
+certain remarks: we have already seen in the present chapter how
+the Ts'i wife of the Second Protector was in 640 B.C. perfectly
+well acquainted with the historical and philosophical works of
+Kwan-tsz, the great administrative innovator of Ts'i under the
+First Protector. In the second century B.C. Kwan-tsz's work of
+eighty-six chapters was placed at the head of the Taoist works (of
+course before Taoism became Lao-tsz's speciality). It is
+mentioned, quite casually, in the year 538, in a political
+conversation which took place with the King of Ts'u, that the
+First Protector of Ts'i in the year 647 B.C. had had to contend
+with the serious rebellion of a subject (who is named). All
+circumstances point to the truth of this isolated, but otherwise
+most specific statement; yet it is not mentioned elsewhere,--
+evidence, if it were wanted, that many historical works, from
+which facts were borrowed as though the details were well known to
+all, must have disappeared entirely.
+
+As to Ts'u, its Annals were known by the curious name of "Stinking
+Wood," by which it is supposed that the evil recorded of men upon
+wooden tablets was meant. That Ts'u subsequently developed a high
+literary capacity is evident, for the anniversary of the suicide
+of the celebrated Ts'u poet K'üh Yiian (envoy to Ts'i during the
+fierce diplomatic intrigues of 31 B.C.) has been kept up as the
+annual "dragon festival" down to our own times, in memory of his
+suicide by drowning in the Tung-t'ing Lake district; and his poems
+are amongst the most beautiful in the Chinese language. In 656
+B.C. the dictatorial First Protector tried to play the _rôle_
+of the wolf, with Ts'u in the character of the lamb: he said: "How
+is it you have not for so many generations past sent your tribute
+of sedge to the Emperor? How about the other Emperor who visited
+(modern) Hankow in 1003 B.C. and was never heard of again?" The
+King replied: "As to our failure to send tribute, we admit it; as
+to the supposed murder of the Emperor 350 years ago, you had
+better ask the people of Hankow themselves what they know of it."
+(Ts'u had hardly yet permanently advanced so far east.)
+
+In 496 B.C. it is recorded of a scholar at the Emperor's court
+that, being anxious to see his own name in the "Springs and
+Autumns," he suggested to the Emperor that for a long time no
+complimentary mission had been sent to Lu. The result was that he
+was sent himself, and is thus immortalized: it does not follow
+from this that the knowledge of Confucius' coming book had
+penetrated to the Chou court, because "Springs and Autumns" was
+already the accepted term in Lu for "Annals," long before
+Confucius adopted the already existing general name for his own
+particular work. In 496 Confucius had left Lu in disgust, and had
+gone to Wei--the capital of Wei was then on, or near, the then
+Yellow River (now the River Wei), between the two towns marked
+"Hwa" and "K'ai" on modern maps--where he collected materials for
+his History; but he did not begin it until the year 481; so
+probably the ambitious scholar simply hoped to appear in the
+"Springs and Autumns" of Lu, as they had already been called
+before Confucius borrowed the name, just as Sz-ma Ts'ien borrowed
+the name _Shi-ki_.
+
+As to Ts'in, Ts'in's own Annals tell us that "in 753 B.C.
+historians were first established to keep record of events." Hence
+even the Ts'in records, the sole annals preserved from the flames,
+must be retrospective from that date. In any case they contain
+nothing of historical importance farther back than 753 B.C.,
+except the wars with Tartars; the accompanying of the Emperor Muh,
+as charioteer, by a Ts'in prince on the occasion of his "going to
+examine his fiefs in the west"; and the cession of the old Chou
+appanage to Ts'in in 771. By their baldness, and by the baldness
+of the Bamboo Books, and of Confucius' own "Springs and Autumns,"
+we may fairly judge of the probable insufficiency and dryness of
+the Annals of Ts'u, Ts'i, Wei, CHÊNG, Sung, and other states
+interested in the welter of the Fighting State Period. Early
+Chinese annals contain little more satisfying than the "generations of
+Adam" in the fifth chapter of Genesis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+ORIGIN OF THE CHINESE
+
+Having now derived some definite notions of how the Chinese
+advanced from the patriarchal to the feudal, from the submissive
+and monarchical to the emulous and democratic, finally to collapse
+under the overpowering grasp of a single Dictator or Despot, whose
+centralized system in the main, still survives; having also seen
+how the nucleus of China proper was encompassed on three sides by
+Tibetans, Tartars, Tunguses, Coreans, and by various ill-defined
+tribes to the south; let us see if there is any evidence whatever
+to show, or even to suggest to us, whence the orthodox Chinese
+originally came, and who they were.
+
+First and foremost, it seems primarily unnecessary to suggest at
+all that they came from anywhere; for, if the position be once
+assumed as an axiom that all people must have immigrated from some
+place to the place in which we first find them, or hear of them,
+then the double question arises: "Why should the persons we find
+in A., and who, we think, may have come from B., not have migrated
+from A. to B. before they migrated back from B. to A.?" Or: "If
+the people we find at A. must have come from B., whence did the
+people at B. come, before they went to A.?" To put it in another
+way: given the existence 4000 or 5000 years ago of Chinese in
+China, Egyptians in Egypt, and Babylonians in Babylonia--why
+should one group be assumed to be older than the other? The only
+ground for suggesting that these groups had not each a separate
+evolution, is the assumption that man was "created" once for all,
+and created summarily; in which case it follows with mathematical
+precision that the ultimate ancestry of every man living extends
+back to exactly the same date. That is to say, the highest and the
+lowest, the blackest and the whitest, only differ in this, that
+some men began to keep records earlier than others; for the man
+who keeps no records loses track of his ancestors, and that is
+all. Not to mention other races, some of our own noblest English
+families trace back their ancestry to a favoured or successful
+person, who was of no hereditary distinction before he distinguished
+himself; whilst on the other hand the tramp and the street-walker
+may have as "royal" blood in their veins as any lineal princely personage.
+It is records, therefore, that differentiate "civilized" from uncivilized
+people, blue blood from plebeian; and as we see millions of people
+living without records to-day in various parts of the world,
+notwithstanding that for centuries, or even for millenniums, they
+have been surrounded by or in immediate contact with neighbours
+possessing records, it seems to follow that a nation's greatness may
+begin at any time, independently of the blueness of its blood, the
+robustness of its warriors, the beauty of its women; that is, whenever
+it chooses to keep records, and thus to cultivate itself: for records are
+nothing more than the means of keeping experiences in stock,
+instead of having to repeat them every day; they are thus
+accumulations of national wealth. It by no means follows that
+because records can be traced back farther in the case of one
+nation than in the case of another, that the first nation is older
+than the other; for instance, although in the West our various
+alphabets appear to refer themselves back to one same source, or
+to a few sources which probably all hark back ultimately to one
+and the same, there seems no reason to believe that the Chinese
+did not independently invent, develop, and perfect their own
+scheme of written records: the mere fact that we learnt how to
+write is some evidence in support of the proposition that they
+also, being men like ourselves, learnt how to write.
+
+There is no documentary evidence for the barest existence of
+ancient China, or of any part of it, which is not to be found in
+the Chinese records, and in them alone; no nation anywhere near
+China has any record or tradition of either its own or of China's
+existence at a period earlier than the Chinese records indicate.
+Those records do not contain the faintest allusion to Egypt,
+Babylonia, India, or any other foreign country or place whatever
+outside the extremely limited area of the Central Nucleus, and the
+larger area occupied by the semi-Chinese colonial powers
+surrounding it. Nor is there the faintest evidence that the
+Biblical "land of Sinim" had any reference to China, which seems
+to have been as absolutely unknown to the West previous to, say,
+250 B.C., as America was unknown to Europe, or Europe to America
+previous to 1400 A.D. If any ideas were derived from China by the
+West, or from the West by China, the records of both China and the
+West alike point, however, to one obvious connecting link, and
+that is, the horse-riding nomads of the north, who are now, it is
+true, in some parts a little more settled than they used to be,
+and who have been tamed in various degrees by dogmatic religions
+unknown to them in ancient times, but who remain in many respects
+now very much what they were 3000 years ago. Of course pedlars,
+hawkers, and even long-course caravans travelled, whenever the
+routes were free, from place to place in ancient times as they do
+now; but it is exceedingly improbable that there would be any
+through-travellers from Europe to China, except one or two
+occasional waifs or adventurers buffeted through by chance. If 600
+years ago, Marco Polo's through-route adventures were regarded in
+Europe as almost incredible, notwithstanding the then recent and
+well-trodden war-path of the Mongol armies, what chances are there
+of through-travel 2000 years before that? And, even if a rare case
+occasionally occurred, what chances are there of any one recording
+it?
+
+The probability is, so far as sane experience takes us, that the
+Chinese had been exactly where we first find them for many
+thousand years, or even for myriads of years, before their own
+traditions begin. With the exception of the discovery of America,
+which brought a flood of strangers into a strange land, and
+speedily exterminated the aborigines, there do not appear to be
+any authenticated instances in history of extensive and robust
+populations being entirely displaced like flocks of sheep by
+others. Any one who travels widely in China can see for himself
+that, wherever unassimilated tribes live in complete or partial
+independence, and, _á fortiori_, where the assimilation has
+been carried out, all those tribes possess at least this point in
+common with the original Chinese or the assimilated speakers of
+Chinese--that their language is monosyllabic, uninflected, not
+agglutinative, and tonic; i.e. that each word is "sung" in a
+particular way, besides being pronounced in a particular way.
+Probably those tribes before they were absorbed, or, despite their
+not having yet been absorbed by the Chinese, had been there as
+long as the Chinese had been in the contiguous Chinese parts. It
+seems reasonable to suppose that the Chinese would absorb their
+own race-classes more readily than they would absorb Tartars,
+Japanese, and Coreans, all of whom belong to the same dissyllabic,
+long-worded, agglutinative family. And so it is: the Chinese
+followed the lines of least resistance (after themselves becoming
+cultured) and worked their way down the rivers and other
+watercourses towards what we call South China. From the very
+first, their passage northwards across the Yellow River was
+contested by the Tartars, whom they have since partly driven back,
+and partly (with great effort) absorbed. They have never been able
+to assimilate the Coreans, not to say the Japanese, though both
+peoples took very kindly to Chinese civilization after our
+Christian era, when first friendly missions began to be
+interchanged. Indo-China contains many more of the monosyllabic
+and tonic tribes than of others; if, indeed, there are any at all
+of the dissyllabic and non-tonal classes; and the Chinese have no
+difficulty in merging themselves with Annamese, Tonquinese,
+Cambodgians, Siamese, Shans, Thos, Laos, Mons, and such like
+peoples: but their own administrative base is too far north; the
+conditions of food and climate in Indo-China are not quite
+favourable for the marching of armies, especially when it is
+remembered that the best troops used have always been Tartars,
+used to warm clothes and heating food. There have, besides, always
+been rival Indian religion, rival Indian colonization, rival
+Indian language, and rival Indian trade influence to contend with.
+No absorption of Indian races has ever been anywhere effected by
+China. Tibetans never came into question in ancient times; if they
+were known, it could only have been to Shuh (Sz Ch'wan) and Ts'in
+or early Chou (Shen Si).
+
+If it had not been the Chinese of Ho Nan who first used records,
+it is just as probable that the tonic and monosyllabic absorption
+which, as things were and are, moved from north to south, might
+have moved from south to north. During the Chou dynasty (1122
+B.C.-222 B.C.), when the extension of the Chinese race took place
+(which had probably already for long gone on) in the clear light
+of history, it will be noticed that the rulers of all the great
+colony nations of the south--Ts'u, Wu, and Yüeh--had, in turn, to
+remind the Emperor of China of their perfect equality with him in
+spiritual claim and ancient descent; of their connection with
+dynasties precedent to his; of times when his ancestor was a mere
+vassal like themselves. No Tartars of those times ever put forth
+claims like these, though, it is true, in much later times some of
+the (non-Turkish) Tartar rulers of North China traced their
+ancestors back to the mythical Chinese emperors who reigned in
+Shan Tung. Again, the founder of the Hia dynasty (2205 B.C.) is
+repeatedly said to have been buried at modern Shao-hing (between
+Hangchow and Ningpo), and the King of Yüeh even sacrificed to him
+there. So the Emperor Shun, the predecessor and patron of the same
+founder, was traditionally buried near Ch'ang-sha in modern Hu Nan
+province. The First August Emperor included both these "lions" in
+his pleasure tours among the great sights of China. No sound
+historical deduction, of course, can be drawn from these
+traditions, however persistent: if false, they were, at any rate,
+open to the criticism of a revolutionary and all-powerful Emperor
+over 2000 years ago, and to a second, almost equally powerful, who
+visited both places a century later; the suggestion inevitably
+follows from the existence of these traditions in the south that
+either the cultured Chinese whom we first find in Ho Nan had moved
+northwards from Hu Nan, Kiang Si, and the lake districts
+generally, before they spread themselves backwards; or that the
+uncultured Chinese had moved north before the cultured Chinese
+moved south; or that both north and south Chinese were at first
+equally cultured, until within historical times the north Chinese
+(i.e. in Ho Nan, along the Yellow River) so perfected their system
+of records that they carried all before them. After all there is
+no strain on the imagination in suggesting this, for early Western
+civilization grew up in the same way.
+
+There is not the smallest hint of any immigration of Chinese from
+the Tarim Valley, from any part of Tartary, from India, Tibet,
+Burma, the Sea, or the South Sea Islands: in fact, there is no
+hint of immigration from anywhere even in China itself, except as
+above hypothetically described. There the Chinese are, and there
+they were; and there is an end to the question, so far as
+documentary evidence goes. Of course, the persistent Tarim Valley
+scheme proposed is only a means to get in the thin end of the
+wedge, in order to drive home the thick end in the shape of a
+definite start from the Tower of Babel, and an ultimate reference
+to the Garden of Eden. If there are still people who believe it
+their duty on Scriptural principle to accept this naïve Western
+origin of the Chinese, there is no reason why religious belief or
+imagination should not be perfectly respected, and even find a
+working compromise with the principle of strict adherence to human
+evidence. If supernatural agencies be once admitted (as the
+limited human intellect understands Nature), there seems to be no
+more reason for accepting the creation of a complete whale
+(already a hundred years old, according to the growth period of
+later whales), than for accepting the creation of complete men
+with 1000 years' history behind them instead of 100; or that of
+the earth with 20,000, or even 20,000,000 years' history behind
+it, and even before it; for as the first whale, or pair of whales,
+must set the standard of natural history for all future whales, so
+the man created with history behind him may equally well have
+history created in front of him. "Nature," according to the
+imperfect human understanding, is no more outraged in one case
+than in the other, nor can mere time or size count as anything
+towards increasing our wonder when we tell ourselves what
+supernatural things unseen powers superior to ourselves may have
+done. This amounts to the same thing as saying that dogmatic
+belief, personal religious conviction, agnosticism, superstition,
+and imagination are all on equal terms, and are equally
+respectable factors when confronted with human historical
+evidence, so long as they are kept rigidly apart from the latter,
+As an eminent Catholic has recently said: "The Church has no more
+reason to be afraid of modern science than it was of ancient
+science." In other words, however pious and religious a man may be
+(as we understand the words in Europe), there is no reason why, as
+a recreation apart from his faith, he should not rigidly adhere to
+the human evidence of history so far as it goes. On the other
+hand, however sceptical and discriminating a man may be, from the
+point of view of imperfect human knowledge, in the admittance of
+humanly proved fact, there is no reason why, from the emotional
+and imaginative side of his existence, he should not rigidly
+subscribe to dogma or personal conviction, whether the abstract
+idea of virtue, the concrete idea of love for some cherished human
+being, or the yearning for some supernatural state of sinlessness
+be concerned. A distinguished financier, for instance, may regale
+his imagination with socialistic dreams of a perfect Utopia; but,
+when the weekly household bills are presented to him, he deals
+with overcharges in pence like any other practical individual.
+
+From one point of view, the Chinese, already provided with their
+tonic language at the Confusion of Tongues, marched to the Yellow
+River, where we find them. From the other, there is no evidence
+whatever to connect the Chinese with any people other than those
+we find near them now, and which have from the earliest times been
+near them; no evidence that their language, their civilization,
+their manners, ever received anything from, or gave anything to,
+India, Babylonia, Persia, Egypt, or Greece, except so far as has
+been suggested above, or will be suggested below.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+THE CALENDAR
+
+Allusion has already been made to the eclipses mentioned in
+Confucius' history as a means by which the probability of his
+general truth as a historian may in a certain measure be gauged. A
+few words upon the Chinese calendar, as it is and was, may
+therefore not be amiss. The Chinese month has from first to last
+been uncompromisingly lunar; that is to say, the first day of each
+month, or "moon" as it may strictly and properly be called, always
+falls within the day (beginning at midnight) during which the new
+moon occurs. Of course, Peking is the administrative centre now,
+and therefore the observations are taken there with reference to
+the Peking meridian. As Confucius took his facts and records
+mainly from the Lu archives, and (we must suppose) noted celestial
+movements from what was seen by the Lu astronomers, it has always
+been presumed that the eclipses mentioned by him were observed
+from Lu too; that is, from a station over four degrees of
+longitude and one of latitude removed from the imperial capital as
+it then was (modern Ho-nan Fu). It was the duty of all sovereign
+princes to proclaim the first day of the moon at their ancestral
+temple; and even if the Chinese of those days had discovered the
+difference in "time" between east and west, these princes must
+each of them have proclaimed the day during which the new moon
+occurred as it occurred to themselves, in their own State, and not
+as it occurred to the Emperor's astronomers. On the other hand,
+when eclipses were observed from the comparatively small territory
+of Lu, it must have occurred, at least occasionally, that visitors
+from other states had either the same eclipse or other eclipses to
+report. If the Emperor's astronomer reported eclipses in Ho-nan-
+Fu on a given day, it is difficult to see how Lu, which was a
+centre almost of equal standing with the imperial capital for
+orthodoxy in rites and records, could have entirely ignored such
+reports.
+
+But the Chinese year has always been luni-solar. From the earliest
+times they had observed the twelve ecliptical "mansions" and
+zodiacal signs, and also that the time occupied by the sun in
+travelling through a mansion was rather longer than one lunation,
+or the time intervening between two new moons. Their object has
+accordingly always been to bring the lunar and solar years into
+manageable combination, so that the equinoxes, solstices, and
+"seasons" might occur with as much regularity as possible in the
+same months, and so that the husbandman might know when to sow his
+grain. Formerly they regulated this discrepancy according to the
+mean movements of the sun and moon; but, ever since the Jesuits
+first instructed them more accurately, they have regulated the two
+years, that is, the solar year and the twelve lunations, according
+to the true movements, and with reference to the meridian of
+Peking. If the moons were each exactly 29 1/2 days in length,
+instead of being 44 minutes 2.87 seconds longer, it would have
+been a simple matter to halve the ordinary lunar year, and make
+six months "large" (30 days) and six "small" (29 days); but the
+extra 44 minutes and a fraction accumulate, and the result is that
+there must always be a larger number of "great" months than
+"small" in the year. The way the Chinese arranged this was to call
+a month "great" (30 days) if the interval between mid-night
+(beginning of the new-moon day) and the hour of the _next_
+new moon was full 30 days or over in duration; if less than 30
+days, then the month was a "small" one (29 days). Not more than
+two long months ever followed in succession, and two short months
+never did so.
+
+But, in any case, even twelve regular moons of 291/2 days only
+make 354 days, whereas a solar year is about 3651/4 days, whilst
+the sun's time in passing through a "mansion" (one-twelfth of the
+solar year) is about 301/2 days. Thus there was a "superfluity"
+of about ten days in every lunar year, or about one lunation in
+every third year; not to mention that a "mansion" was about a day
+longer than a lunation, and that therefore the husbandman was
+liable to be thrown out of his reckoning. In order to remedy this,
+the Chinese intercalated a month once in about thirty-three moons,
+and called the intercalary month by the same name as the one
+preceding it, both with regard to the common numbers 1-12, and
+with regard to the two endless cycles of twelve signs and sixty
+signs, by which moons are calculated for ever, in the past and in
+the future. Regarding the difficulty of seasons, the solar year
+was divided into twenty-four "joints," and each "joint" was about
+half a "mansion" (the difference rarely exceeding one hour).
+However, the spring equinox is always the sixth "joint," and is
+the middle of spring season: this and the other "joints" being all
+about 151/4 days in length, the Chinese seasons can be symmetrically
+divided with relation to both equinoxes and both solstices; for the
+intercalary moon (judiciously made unobtrusive, and kept out of vulgar
+sight as far as possible) settles the lunar year difficulty; and the
+seasons conform, as of course they should do, to the heat of the
+sun, which is  a much more natural and practical arrangement than
+our own arbitrarily assorted and unequal months.
+
+The endless sixty-year cycle of years is usually referred back to
+for a beginning to either 2697 or 2637 B.C.; but, apart from the
+fact that there is little or no accurate knowledge anterior to 842
+B.C., it is of no importance when it began, so long as sixty pairs
+of equinoxes and solstices are calculated backwards indefinitely.
+It goes back, in any case, to a date beyond which the memory of
+Chinese man runneth not to the contrary; it is unbroken and
+continuous; we are free to take up any date we like at sixty-year
+intervals, and say "here I agree to begin": we cannot deny that
+1908 is the cycle year it purports to be; and even if we did,
+batches of sixty years backwards from any other cyclic year called
+1908, would always have a fixed relation to the other 4604 years
+recorded; nor, having accepted 1908, can we deny 1808, 1708, and
+so on, as far back as we like, in order to test how any given
+event, eclipse or other, coincides relatively with our own date:
+it is not a question of beginning, but of counting back, and
+stopping. We find Confucius of Lu (Chou clan state) using the
+calendar of the Chou dynasty (1122 B.C.-249 B.C.); whose founder
+had said: "In future we make the eleventh month the beginning of
+the year instead of the twelfth month." The previous dynasty of
+Shang (1766-1123) had similarly said: "In future we make the
+twelfth month begin the year instead of the first." The previous
+dynasty of Hia (2205-1767) and the individual emperors before had
+all said (or taken for granted): "The year begins in the first
+month," from which we may naturally conclude that there could not
+have been an earlier calendar, as no "sage" could reasonably begin
+anywhere but at the beginning. At the same time, it must be
+explained that the astronomical order of the months, counting the
+first as being that when the sun enters Capricorn, is different
+from the civil order. Thus the Hia, Shang, and Chou first civil
+months were the third, second, and first astronomical months,
+representing the sun's entry into Pisces, _Aquarius_, and
+_Capricorn_, respectively. When the First August Emperor
+conquered the whole of China, and proceeded to unify cart-axles,
+weights and measures, written characters, and many other
+discrepant popular arrangements, he said: "Let the tenth month be
+in future the first in the year instead of the eleventh." That is
+to say, he took as civil first month the twelfth astronomical
+month, or that in which the sun enters _Sagittarius_. Thus we
+see that in 2000 years the calendar had got about 90 days out of
+gear; or, roughly, about an hour a year.
+
+All the above may, perhaps, be understood more clearly by
+considering the following unmistakably genuine statement made by
+the Emperor in 104 B.C., a hundred years after the Ts'in dynasty
+had been destroyed; after he had contemplated the tombs of the
+ancient monarchs as explained in the last chapter; after the West
+of Asia had been discovered; and when it is _possible_ (though
+there is no record of it) that Persians, Indians, Greeks, etc., may have
+intervened in discussion upon the calendar. He says: "After the
+Emperors Yu and Li (the two who fled from their metropolis in 771 B.C.
+and 842 B.C. respectively, as related), the Chou dynasty went wrong,
+and those who were doubly subjects began to wield power; astrologers
+ceased to keep reckoning of seasons; the princes no longer proclaimed
+the first day of each moon. Hereditary astronomers got scattered; some
+remained in All the Hia (orthodox China); others betook themselves to
+the various barbarians. In the twenty-sixth year of the Emperor Siang (626
+B.C.) there was an intercalary third month, which arrangement the
+'Springs and Autumns' condemns (it should have been at the end of
+the year)... The First August Emperor took the tenth month as the
+beginning of the year... The present Emperor (of the Han dynasty)
+appointed two astronomers, the second of whom (a native of East Sz
+Ch'wan) advanced the calculations and improved the calendar. Then
+it was found that the measures of the Sun and the Mansions agreed
+with the principles adopted by the Hia dynasty... The first cyclic
+day and also the first lunar day of the eleventh moon has now been
+proved to be the winter solstice. I change the seventh year (of my
+present reign-period), and I make of it the first year of the new
+reign-period, to be called 'Great Beginning.'"--Accordingly what
+had up to that date been the seventh year (of a reign-period
+bearing another name) now became a year of 442 days; that is to
+say, the three months postponed in turn by the Hia, Shang, and
+Chou dynasties were taken up again, and accordingly that one
+correcting year consisted of fifteen months. With slight changes,
+always adopted only to be again rejected after a few years of
+trial, this has been the basis of all later calendars; and for
+this reason Confucius' birthday is kept on the twenty-seventh day
+of the eighth moon instead of during the tenth moon, as it would
+have been according to Chou dates.
+
+The above examination into the calendar question tends to show
+still more clearly the good faith of the historians and the
+administration; it also illustrates the continuity and painstaking
+accuracy of the Chinese records, whatever other defects they may
+otherwise disclose.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+NAMES
+
+One of the difficulties of Chinese ancient history is the
+unravelling of proper names; but, as with other difficulties, this
+one is owing rather to the novelty and strangeness of the subject,
+to the unfamiliarity of scene and of atmosphere, than to any
+inherent want of clearness in the matter itself. In reading
+Scottish history, no one is much disconcerted to find a man called
+upon the same page (as an imaginary instance), Old John, John
+McQuhirt, the Master of Weel, the McQuhirt, the Laird o' Airton,
+the Laird of the Isle, and the Earl of Airton and Weel; there are
+many such instances to be found in Boswell's account of the
+Johnsonian trip to the Hebrides; but the puzzled Englishman has at
+least his own language and a fairly familiar ground to deal with.
+When, however, we come to unpronounceable Chinese names of strange
+individuals, moving about amid hitherto unheard-of surroundings
+2500 years ago, with a suspicion of uncertainty added about the
+genuineness and good faith of the whole story, things are apt to
+seem hopelessly involved, even where the best of good-will to
+understand is present. Thus Confucius may be called K'ung-tsz,
+K'ung Fu-tsz, or Chung-ni, besides other personal applications
+under the influence of _tabu_ rules, Tsz-ch'an may be spoken
+of as Kung-sun K'iao, or (if he himself speaks) simply as K'iao.
+And so on with nearly all prominent individuals. In those times
+the family names, or "surnames" as we say in English, were not
+used with the regularity that prevails in China now, when every
+one of standing has a fixed family name, such as Li or Yiian,
+followed by an official personal name, like Hung-chang or Shï-
+k'ai. In old times the clan or tribe counted first; for instance
+the imperial clan of _Ki_ included princes of several vassal
+states. But, after five generations, it was expected that any
+given family unit should detach itself. Thus, in 710 B.C.,
+Confucius' ancestor, son of the composer of odes mentioned on page
+175, took, or was given by the ruler of his native state, Sung,
+the detached family name of K'ung-fu (Father K'ung), "Father"
+being the social application, and K'ung the surname, which thence
+became the family name of a new branch. The old original clan-
+names were little used by any one in a current sense, just as the
+English family name of Guelph is kept in the dim background so far
+as current use goes. Nor were the personal names, even of Chinese
+emperors and kings, so grave and decorous in style as they have
+always been in later times. For instance, "Black Buttocks," "Black
+Arm," "Double Ears";--such names (decidedly Turkish in style) are
+not only used of Tsin princes with an admixture of Tartar blood
+nearly always coursing more or less in their veins, but also in
+such states as the orthodox Lu. The name "Black Arm," for
+instance, is used both by Lu and by Ts'u princes; also by a Ts'u
+private individual; whilst an orthodox Duke of Sung bears the
+purely Turkish name of T'ouman, which (and exactly the same
+pictograph characters, too) was also the name of the first
+historical Hiung-nu (later Turkish) Khan several centuries later.
+The name _Luh-fu_ or "Emoluments Father," belonging to the
+son of the last Emperor of the Shang dynasty in 1123 B.C., was
+also the personal name of one of the rulers of Ts'i many centuries
+later. In the same way we find identical personal names in CH'ÊN
+and Lu, and also in Ts'u and Lu princes. Eunuchs were not
+considered to possess family names, or even official personal
+names. If there had been then, as now, a celibate priestly caste,
+no doubt then, as now, priests would also have been relieved of
+their family name rights.
+
+It seems quite clear that many if not most family names began in
+China with the name of places, somewhat after the Scotch style:
+even in Lancashire the title of the old lord of the manor is often
+the family surname of many of the village folk around. Take the
+Chinese imperial domain for instance; in the year 558 one Liu Hia
+goes to meet his master the new Emperor. His name (Hia) and
+surname (Liu) would serve just as well for current use to-day, as
+for example with the late viceroy Liu K'un-yih; but we are told
+Liu Hia was so "named" by the historian in full because his rank
+was not that of first-class statesman, and it is explained that
+Liu was the name of his tenancy in the imperial appanage. At a Lu
+funeral in 626 B.C. the Emperor's representative to the vassal
+state is spoken of complimentarily by his social appellation in
+view of his possessing first-class ministerial rank: he cannot be
+spoken of by his detached clan-name, or family name, "because he
+has not yet received a town in fee." A few years later, another
+imperial messenger is spoken of as King-shuh (Glory Uncle),
+"Glory" being the name of his manor or fee, and "Uncle" his social
+appellation. In 436 B.C. the Emperor sent a present of sacrificial
+meat to Lu by X. As X is thus "named," he must be of "scholar"
+rank, as an imperial "minister" (it is explained) could not be
+thus named. The ruler alone has the right to "affront a man" at
+all times with his personal name, but even a son in speaking of
+his own father to the Emperor may "affront" his father, because
+both his father and himself are on equal subject footing before
+the Emperor. To "name" a man in history is not always like
+"naming" a member in the House of Commons. For instance, the King
+of Ts'u, as mentioned in Chapter XXVII., was named for killing a
+Chinese in 531, but not for killing a barbarian prince in 526 B.C.
+It was partly by these delicate shades of naming or not naming,
+titling or not titling, that Confucius hinted at his opinions in
+his history: in the Ts'u case, it seems to have been an honour to
+"name" a barbarian. Wei Yang, Kung-sun Yang, or Shang Kiin, or
+Shang Yang, the important personage who carried a new civilization
+to Ts'in, and practically "created" that power about 350 B.C.,
+was, personally, simply named Yang, or "Bellyband." As he came
+originally from the orthodox state or principality of Wei, he
+might be called Wei Yang, just as we might say Alexander of Fife.
+As he received from Ts'in, as a reward for his services, the petty
+principality of Shang (taken in war by Ts'in from Ts'u), he might
+be called the prince or laird (_kün_) of Shang (of. Lochiel),
+or Shang Kün. As he was the grandson (sun) of a deceased earl
+(called _kung_, or "duke," as a posthumous compliment), he
+was entitled to take the family name of Kung-sun, just as we say
+"Fitzgeorge" or "Fitzwilliam." Finally, he was Yang (= John) of
+Shang (= Lochiel). In speaking of this man to an educated Chinese,
+it does not in the least matter which of the four names be used.
+In the same way, Tsz-ch'an (being a duke's grandson) was Kung-sun
+K'iao. The word _tsz_, or "son," _after_ a family name, as for
+instance in K'ung-tsz (Confucius), is defined as having the effect of
+"gracefully alluding to a male." It seems really to be the same in effect
+as the Latin _us_, as in Celsius, Brutus, Thompsonius, etc. When
+it _precedes_, not the family name or the _tabu_'d personal
+name, but the current or acquaintance name, then it seems to have
+the effect of Don or _Dom_, used with the most attenuated
+honorificity; or the effect of "Mr." _Fu-tsz_ means "The Master."
+
+As to _tabus_, the following are curious specific instances.
+King, or "Jungle," was the earliest name for Ts'u, or "Brushwood,"
+the uncleared region south of the River Han, along the banks of
+the Yang-tsz; and it afterwards became a powerful state. But one
+of the most powerful kings of Ts'in (249-244) was called Tsz-ts'u,
+or "Don Brushwood," so his successor the First August Emperor (who
+was really a bastard, and not of genuine Ts'in blood at all)
+_tabu'd_ the word Ts'u, and ordered historians to use the old
+name King instead. In the same way the philosopher Chwang Chou, or
+Chwang-tsz, was spoken of by the Han historians as Yen Chou,
+because _chwang_ was an imperial personal name. Both words
+mean "severe": it is as though private Romans and public scribes
+had been commanded to call themselves and to write _Austerus_,
+instead of _Severus_, out of respect for the Emperor Septimius
+Severus. The business-like First August Emperor, himself, evidently
+had no hand in the pedantic King and Ts'u _tabu_ business,
+for one of his first general orders when he became Supreme Emperor
+in 221 B.C., was to proclaim that "in ancient times there were no
+posthumous names, and they are hereby suppressed. I am Emperor
+the First. My successor will simply be Emperor the Second, and so
+on for ever." There is no clear record of posthumous names and titles
+anterior to the Chou dynasty; the first certain instance is the father of
+the founder, whose personal name was Ch'ang, and who had been
+generally known as the "Earl of the West." His son, the founder, made
+him W&n Wang, or the "Civilian King," posthumously. In the same way the
+Duke of Chou, a son of the Civilian King, made his brother the
+founder, personally called _Fah_, Wu Wang, or the "Warrior
+King." The same Duke of Chou (the first ruler of Lu, and
+Confucius' model in all things) was the virtual founder of the
+Chou administrative system in general, and also of the posthumous
+name rules which were "intended to punish the bad and encourage
+the good"; but counsellors have naturally always been very
+gingerly and roundabout in wounding royal family feeling by
+selecting too harsh a "punishing" name.
+
+Not only royal and princely personages had posthumous names. In
+817 and 796 B.C., each, we find a counsellor of the Emperor spoken
+of both by the real and the posthumous name. In 542 B.C. a
+concubine of one of the Lu rulers is spoken of by her clan-name
+and her posthumous name. In 560 B.C. the dying King of Ts'u
+modestly alludes to the choice of an inferior posthumous name
+befitting him and his poor talents, for use at the times of
+biennial sacrifice to his manes, and adds: "I am now going to take
+my place _á la_ suite, in company with my ancestors in the
+temple."
+
+Persons of the same clan-name could not properly intermarry. Thus
+the Emperor Muh, who is supposed to have travelled to Turkestan in
+the tenth century B.C., had a mysterious _liaison_ during his
+expedition with a beauteous Miss _Ki_ (_i.e._ a girl of his own
+clan), who died on the way. The only way tolerant posterity can make
+a shift to defend this "incest," is by supposing that in those times the
+names of relatives were "arranged differently." However, the mere
+fact that the funeral ceremonies were carried out with full imperial
+Chou ritual, and that incest is mentioned at all, seems to militate against
+the view (noticed in Chapter XIII.) that it was Duke Muh of Ts'in who
+(400 years later) undertook this journey, for he did not belong to
+the _Ki_ family at all. Curiously enough, it fell to the lot
+of the son and successor of the Emperor Muh to have to punish and
+destroy a petty vassal state whose ruler had committed the
+incestuous act of marrying three sisters of his own clan-name. In
+483 B.C. the ruler of Lu also committed an indiscretion by
+marrying a _Ki_ girl. As her clan-name must, according to
+rule, be mentioned at her burial, she was not formally buried at
+all, but the whole affair was hushed up, and she was called by the
+fancy name of Mêng-tsz (exactly the same characters as "Mencius"),
+
+Another instance serves to illustrate the above-mentioned imperial
+journey west, and the fief questions jointly. When the Emperor Muh
+went west, he was served as charioteer by one of the ancestors of
+the future Ts'in principality, who for his services was enfeoffed
+at Chao (north of Shan Si province). Chao was one of the three
+states into which Tsin broke up in 403 B.C., and was very Tartar
+in its sympathies. Thus, as both Ts'in and Chao bore the same
+original clan-name of Ying, granted to the Ts'in family as
+possessions of the Ts'in fief (Eastern Kan Suh province) by the
+early Chou emperors in 870 B.C., Ts'in is often spoken of as
+having the sub-clan-name of Chao. These facts, again, all militate
+against the theory that it was Duke Muh of Ts'in who made the
+voyage of discovery usually attributed to the Chou Emperor Muh;
+for Duke Muh's lineal ancestor, ancestor also of the original
+Ts'in Ying, himself acted as guide in Tartary to the Emperor Muh.
+The First August Emperor, who was, as already stated, really a
+bastard, was borne by the concubine of a Chao merchant, who made
+over the concubine whilst _enceinte_ to his (the Emperor's)
+father, when that father was a royal Ts'in hostage dwelling in the
+state of Chao; hence the Emperor is often called Chao CHÊNG
+(_CHÊNG_ being his personal name). He had thus a double claim
+to the family name of Chao, first because--granting his
+legitimacy--his Ts'in ancestor (also the ancestor of all the Chao
+family) was, during the ninth century B.C., enfeoffed in Chao; and
+secondly because, when Chao became an independent kingdom, he was,
+during the third century B.C., himself born in Chao to a Chao man
+of a Chao woman.
+
+A great deal more might of course be said upon the subject of
+names, and of their effect in sometimes obscuring, sometimes
+elucidating, historical facts; but these few remarks will perhaps
+suffice, at least, to suggest the importance of scrutinizing
+closely the possible bearing of each name upon the political
+events connected with it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+EUNUCHS, HUMAN SACRIFICES, FOOD
+
+Mention has been made of eunuchs, a class which seems to have
+originated with the law's severity rather than from a callous
+desire of the rich to secure a craven and helpless medium and
+means for pandering to and enjoying the pleasures of the harem
+without fear of sexual intrigue. Criminals whose feet were cut off
+were usually employed as park-keepers simply because there could
+be no inclination on their part to gad about and chase the game.
+Those who lost their noses were employed as isolated frontier
+pickets, where no boys could jeer at them, and where they could
+better survive their misfortune in quiet resignation. Those
+branded in the face were made gate-keepers, so that their
+livelihood was perpetually marked out for them. It is sufficiently
+obvious why the castrated were specially charged with the duty of
+serving females in a menial capacity. One name for eunuch is
+"cleanse man," and it is explained by a very old commentator that
+the duty of these functionaries was to sweep and cleanse the
+court; but it is perhaps as likely that the original idea was
+really "purified man," or man deprived of incentive to certain
+evils. It is often said disparagingly of the Chou dynasty that
+they introduced the effeminate Persian custom of keeping eunuchs;
+but the Chou family, which was in full career before Zoroaster
+existed, is perhaps entitled to a much greater antiquity in
+civilization than Persia--Cyrus himself was a contemporary of Lao-
+tsz and Confucius--and probably the castrated were only utilized
+as menials because they already were eunuchs by law, and were not
+made eunuchs against the spirit of natural law simply in order
+that their services as menials should be conveniently rendered.
+
+In 655 B.C. the Tsin ruler despatched a eunuch to try and
+assassinate his half-brother (the future Second Protector of
+China) when in Tartar exile. When the Second Protector in 636 at
+last came to his rights as ruler of Tsin, the same eunuch offered
+to commit an assassination in his interest; arguing, by way of
+justifying his previous attempt, that a servant's duty was to
+serve his _de facto_ master for the time being, and not to
+question de _jure_ claims, which were a matter beyond the
+competence of a menial. In 548 the ruler of Ts'i was assassinated
+by a eunuch who would not even grant his master permission to
+commit suicide decently in the ancestral hall; (see p. 62). A year
+later, the succeeding ruler under urgent circumstances secured the
+services of a eunuch as coachman. In contrast to these traitors,
+in 481 a faithful eunuch tries to save the ruler of Ts'i from
+assassination by one of the supplanting great families: this was
+the case that so horrified Confucius that he died soon after, in
+despair of ever seeing "divine right" regain the upper hand in
+China. In 544 B.C. the ruler of Wei was assassinated by a eunuch
+door-keeper. In 537 the King of Ts'u conceived the idea of
+castrating and cutting the feet off the two Tsin envoys for use as
+a palace gate-keeper and for service in his harem; but he was
+prudently dissuaded by his chief counsellor from incurring the
+risks consequent upon such an international outrage; (see p. 46).
+Three centuries later, in the year 239, the First August Emperor's
+(real) father, for his own spying purposes, got a sham eunuch
+appointed to a post in the service of the ex-concubine made over,
+as explained in the last chapter, to the First Emperor's father;
+by the dowager-queen, as she then was, the supposed eunuch had
+two sons. When subsequently this dangerous person revolted, the
+First August Emperor's own real eunuchs took part in opposing his
+murderous designs.--It must be mentioned that this objectionable
+father of the Emperor was himself a very distinguished man
+notwithstanding, and has left a valuable historical and
+philosophical work of twenty-six chapters behind him, put together
+under his direction by a number of clever writers. It is usually
+considered a Taoist work, because it savours in parts of Lao-tsz's
+doctrine; but, like the works of Hwai-nan-tsz (an imperial prince
+of the Han dynasty 150 years later) it was classified in 50 B. C.
+as a "miscellany."--Finally, a eunuch played an important part as
+witness when the Second August Emperor was assassinated. Thus all
+the states--those around the original nucleus of Old China at
+least--employed eunuchs in the royal harems, even if the vassal
+princes of orthodox China as a general rule did not.
+
+It is much the same thing with another disagreeable feature in the
+manners of those times--human sacrifices. Many instances have
+already been given of such practices in the state of Ts'in. The
+tomb of the King of Ts'u who died in 591--of that king whose death
+Confucius condescended to record, decently and in ritual terms,
+because of his many good qualities--which tomb appears to be still
+in existence near King-chou Fu, is surrounded by ten other smaller
+tombs, supposed so be those of the persons who "followed him to
+the grave." At all events, when in the year 529 a later king of
+Ts'u hanged himself, a faithful follower buried two of his own
+daughters with the royal body. In A. D. 312 the tomb of the first
+Protector, who died in 643 B.C., was opened under circumstances so
+graphically described that there can scarcely be a doubt of the
+substantial truth: the stench was so great that dogs had to be
+sent in first to test the effects of the poisoned atmosphere; so
+many bones were found lying about that there can be little doubt
+many women and concubines were buried with him. It is often said
+by modern writers that it was a general custom to do so all over
+ancient China, and possibly the fact that in the second century
+B.C. a humane Chinese emperor (of Taoist principles) ordered the
+discontinuance of the practice may be thought to give colour to
+this supposition. But it must be remembered that the great house
+of Han had only then recently overthrown the dynasty of Ts'in, and
+had incorporated nearly the whole of China as we now view it: the
+Emperor would naturally therefore be referring to Ts'i, Ts'in,
+Ts'u, and possibly also to Wu and Yüeh, three of which states had,
+as we see, once practised this cruel custom.
+
+Wine, or rather spirit, was known everywhere; in Confucian times
+the Far West had not yet been discovered, and there were neither
+grapes nor any names for grapes; no grape wine, nor any other
+fruit wine. Even now, though the Peking grapes are as good as
+English grapes, no one nearer than Shan Shi makes wine from them.
+Spirits seem to have been served from remote times at the imperial
+and princely feasts. Here, once more, as with the two vicious
+practices described, the drunkards appear to be found more among
+those peoples surrounding orthodox China than in the ancient
+nucleus. In 694 B.C., when the ruler of Lu was on a visit to his
+brother-in-law, the ruler of Ts'i, whose sister he had married,
+brother and sister had incestuous intercourse; which being
+detected, the ruler of Ts'i made his Lu brother-in-law drunk, and
+suborned a powerful ruffian to squeeze his ribs as he was assisted
+into his chariot. Thus the Duke Hwan of Lu perished. In 640 B.C.,
+as we have seen, when the future Second Protector was dallying
+with his Ts'i wife, it was found by his henchman necessary to make
+him drunk in order to get him away. In 574 a Ts'u general was
+found drunk when sent for by his king to explain a defeat by Tsin
+troops. In 560 the Ts'i envoy--the philosopher Yen-tsz--was
+entertained by the Ts'u court at a wine. In 531 the ruler of Ts'u
+first made drunk, and then killed, one of the petty rulers of
+orthodox China. In 537 it had already been explained to the King
+of Ts'u that on the occasions of the triennial visits of vassals
+to the Emperor (probably only theoretical visits at that date)
+wine was served at long tables in full cups, but was only drunk at
+the proper ritualistic moment. Two years after that the King of
+Ts'u was described as being at his wine, and therefore in the
+proper frame of mind to listen to representations.
+
+In 541 the Ts'u envoy was entertained at a _punch d'honneur_
+by the Tsin statesmen, one of whom seized the occasion to chant
+one of the Odes warning people against drunkenness. It is well
+known that Confucius enjoyed his dram; indeed, it is said of him:
+"As to wine, he had no measure, but he did not fuddle himself." In
+the year 506 the ruler of Ts'in is described as being a heavy
+drinker. In 489 a Ts'i councillor is described as being drunk. A
+few years later the ruler of Ts'i and his wife are seen drinking
+together on the verandah, and some prisoners escape owing to the
+gaoler having been judiciously plied with drink.
+
+Meat seems to have been much more generally consumed in old China
+(by those who could afford it) than in modern times; and, as we
+might expect, among the Tartar infected people, horse-flesh in
+particular. In the second century B.C. the question of eating
+horse-liver is compared by a witty Emperor with the danger of
+revolutionary talk. He said: "We may like it, but it is
+dangerous." (Last year, when in Neu Brandenburg, I came across a
+man whose brother was a horse-butcher in Pomerania, and,
+remembering this imperial remark, I asked about horse-liver. The
+man said he always had a feast of horse-liver when he visited his
+brother, and that he much preferred it to cows' liver, or to any
+other part of the horse; but, he added, "you must be careful about
+eating it in summer.") In 645 Duke Muh of Ts'in was rescued from
+the Tsin troops by what was described to him as a body-guard of
+horse-flesh eaters. It appeared, when he sought for explanation,
+that the same Ts'in ruler had, some time before, been robbed of a
+horse by some "wild men," who proceeded to cut it up and eat it.
+They were arrested; but the magnanimous duke said: "I am told
+horse-flesh needs spirits to make it digest well," and, instead of
+punishing them, he gave them a keg of liquor, adding: "no sage
+would ever injure men on account of a mere beast.", He had
+forgotten the circumstance, but it now transpired that these men
+had, out of gratitude, since then enlisted as soldiers. This story
+is the more interesting as it proves how incompletely civilized
+the neighbourhood of Ts'in then was.--Bears' paws are often spoken
+of as a favourite dish. In 626 the King of Ts'u, about to be
+murdered by his son and successor, said: "At least, let me have a
+bear's paw supper before I die." But it takes many hours to cook
+this dish to a turn, and the son easily saw through the paternal
+manoeuvre, pleaded only to gain time. It may be here mentioned,
+too, that Ts'u made regular use of elephants in battle, which
+circumstance is another piece of testimony in favour of the
+Annamese connection of Ts'u. In the _Rites of Chou_, supposed
+to be the work of the Duke of Chou, mention is made of ivory as
+one of the products of the "Jungle province," as then called. In
+modern times Annam has regularly supplied the Peking Government
+with elephants, the skin of which is eaten as a tonic. After the
+annihilation of Wu by Yiieh, the cunning Chinese adviser of Yiieh
+decided to retire with his fortune to Ts'i, on the ground that the
+"good sleuth-hound, when there is no more work for him, is apt to
+find his way to the cooking-pot." Dogs (fed up for the purpose)
+are still eaten in some parts of China, and (as we shall soon see)
+they were eaten in ancient Yiieh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+KNOWLEDGE OF THE WEST
+
+The question of the expedition of the Emperor Muh to the West in
+the year 984 B.C., or during that year and the two following, is
+worthy of further consideration for many reasons; and after all
+that has been said about the rise of the Chou dynasty, the decay
+of the patriarchal system, the emulous ambitions of the vassals,
+the destruction of the feudal Empire, and the substitution of a
+centralized administration under a new dynasty of numbered August
+Emperors, it will now be comparatively easier to understand.
+
+We have seen that, if any local annals besides those of Lu have
+been in part preserved, those of Ts'in at least were deliberately
+intended by the First August Emperor to be wholly preserved, and
+must therefore hold first rank among all the restored vassal
+annals published by Sz-ma Ts'ien in or about 90 B.C.; and it must
+be remembered that the original Lu annals have perished equally
+with those of Ts'i, Sung, and other important states; it is only
+Confucius' "Springs and Autumns,"--evidently composed from the Lu
+archives,--that have survived. Well, the Ts'in Annals, as given by
+Sz-ma Ts'ien, record that one of the early Ts'in ancestors "was in
+favour with the Emperor Muh on account of his admirable skill in
+manipulating horses" [names of four particularly fine horses
+given]. The Emperor "went west to examine his fiefs"; he was so
+"charmed with his experiences that he forgot the administrative
+duties which should have called him back." Meanwhile, a revolt
+broke out in East (uncivilized) China, and the manipulator of
+horses was sent by the Emperor back to China at express speed, in
+order to stave off trouble till the Emperor could get back
+himself. It is also stated of him that, in spite of remonstrances,
+he made extensive war upon the Tartars, and that, in consequence,
+his uncivilized vassals ceased to present themselves at court. No
+other mention is made of this expedition by Sz-ma Ts'ien in the
+imperial annals, and, so (apart from the fictitious importance
+afterwards given to the expedition, and especially by European
+investigators in quite recent times), there is really no reason to
+attach any more political weight to it than to the other
+innumerable exploring expeditions of emperors into the almost
+unknown regions surrounding the nucleus of orthodox China so often
+defined in these chapters. We have already (page 184) cited the
+case in which the father and predecessor of King Muh had ventured
+on a tour of inspection as far as modern Hankow on the Yang-tsz
+River, or, as some say, as far as some place on the River Han,
+where he was murdered; in 656 the First Protector raked up this
+affair against Ts'u, whose capital was very near King-thou Fu,
+above Hankow. Finally, scant though Sz-ma Ts'ien's two references
+to this affair may be, they at least agree with each other, i.e.
+the Emperor did actually go to Tartar regions, and a revolt of
+non-Chinese tribes did actually break out in the immediate sequel.
+
+But in A.D. 281 a certain tomb at a place once belonging to Wei,
+but later attached to the kingdom of Ngwei formerly part of Tsin,
+was desecrated by thieves, and, amongst other books written in
+ancient characters found therein (unfortunately all more or less
+injured by the rummaging thieves), were two of paramount interest.
+One was an account of, and was entirely devoted to, the Emperor
+Muh's voyage to the West; the other was the Annals of Ngwei (i.e.
+of that third part of old Tsin which in 403 B.C. was formally
+recognized by the Emperor as the separate state of Ngwei),
+including those of old Tsin, and also what may be termed the
+general history of China, narrated incidentally. These Annals of
+Tsin or Ngwei are usually styled the Bamboo Books, because they
+were written in ink on bamboo tablets strung together at one end
+like a fan or a narrow Venetian blind. They also speak shortly of
+the Emperor Muh's expedition, and thus they also are useful for
+comparing hiatuses, names, faults, and dates; both in general
+history, and in the account of King Muh's expedition. Since the
+discovery of these old documents (which had been buried for well-
+nigh 600 years, and of which no other record whatever had been
+preserved either in writing or by tradition), Chinese literary
+wonder-mongers have exercised their wits upon the task of
+identifying the unheard-of places mentioned; the more so in that
+one place, and one king bearing the same foreign name as the
+place--_Siwangmu_--was so written phonetically that it might
+mean "Western-King-Mother." They endeavoured to show how this and
+other places _might_ have lain in relation to the genuine
+places discovered by Chinese generals after these ancient
+documents were buried, seven centuries after the events recorded
+therein. Then came the foreigner with his Jewish Creation,
+Confusion of Tongues, Accadian and Babylonian origin of all
+science, etc., etc. Of course Marco Polo's adventures at once
+suggested to the European, thus biased, that 3000 years ago the
+Emperor Muh _might_ have found his way to Persia, and _might_
+have been this or that Babylonian, Egyptian, or Persian hero; in fact,
+Professor Forke of Berlin even takes his Chinese majesty as far as Africa,
+and introduces him to the Queen of Sheba (= Western-King-Mother).
+
+The distinguished Professor Edouard Chavannes of Paris has
+recently attempted to show, not only that the Emperor Muh never
+got beyond the Tarim (which, indeed, is absolutely certain from
+the text itself), but that it was not the Emperor Muh at all who
+went, but the semi-Turkish Duke Muh of Ts'in, in the seventh
+century B.C., who made the expedition.
+
+To begin with, let us see what the expedition purports to be. In
+the first place, the thieves used as torches, or otherwise
+destroyed, the first few pages of the bamboo sheaf book, and we do
+not know, consequently, whence the Emperor started: there is much
+indirect evidence, however, to show that he started from some
+place on the headwaters of the Han River, in what must then have
+been his own territory (South Shen Si); especially as his three
+expeditions all ended there. It is certain, however, that he had
+not travelled many days on his first journey before he reached a
+tribe of Tartars very frequently mentioned in all histories, and
+bearing the same name as the Tartars whom Sz-ma Ts'ien says the
+Emperor Muh _did_ conquer. He crossed the Yellow River on the
+169th day, came to two rivers, the Redwater (222nd day), and the
+Blackwater (248th day), which rivers in after ages have been
+frequently mentioned in connection with Tibetan, Turkish, and
+Ouigour wars, and are apparently in the Si-ning and Kan-chou Fu,
+or possibly Kwa Chou regions (_cf_. p. 68); but first he passed,
+after the 170th day, a place called "Piled Stones," a name which
+has never been lost to history, and which corresponds to Nien-po,
+between Lan-thou Fu and Si-ning, as marked on modern maps.
+In other words, he went by the only high-road there was in existence,
+and ever since then has continued in existence (just traversed by Bruce),
+leading to the Lob Nor region; whence again he branched off,
+presumably to Turfan, or to Harashar; thence to Urumtsi, and possibly
+Kuché, as they are respectively now called; but on the whole it is not
+likely that he got beyond Harashar and Urumtsi. Even 800 years later,
+when the Chinese had thoroughly explored all the west up to the Hindu
+Kush, their expeditions had all to proceed from Lob Nor to Khoten, or
+from Lob Nor (or near it) _viâ_ Harashar and Kuché along the
+Tarim Valley: it was not for long after the discovery of these routes that
+the later Chinese discovered the northerly Hami route, and the possibility
+of avoiding Lob Nor altogether. His charioteer is said in this
+account to have been a man (named) whose name is exactly the name,
+written in exactly the same way, as the name of the ancestor of
+Ts'in, who, Sz-ma Ts'ien tells us, actually was the charioteer of
+the Emperor when he marched forth against the Tartars, and who
+hurried back to China when the revolts broke out owing to the
+Emperor's absence. As the Emperor received, from various princes,
+presents of wine, silk, and rice, it is almost certain that he
+must have avoided bleak, out-of-the-way places, and have made for
+the productive regions of Harashar, Turfan, and possibly Kuché,
+any or all three of these. With a little more care and patience we
+may yet succeed in identifying, and by the same names, several
+more of the places mentioned by the old chronicler. In about ten
+months (286 days from the first day already mentioned, and 17 days
+out from "Piled Stones") he reached _Siwangmu_. This is not
+at all unlikely to be Urumtsi, or a place near it, possibly Ku-
+CH'ÊNg or Gutchen, because _Siwangmu_ (also the name of the
+king of that place), gave him a feast on a certain lake, which
+lake, written in exactly the same way, became the name of a quite
+new district in 653 A.D., when it was abolished; and that district
+was at or near Urumtsi; the presumption being that, in the seventh
+century A.D., it was so named on account of old traditions, then
+well known. Roughly speaking, it took the Emperor 300 days to go,
+and a second 300 to get back; stoppages, feasts, functions, all
+included. The total distance travelled, as specified from chief
+station to chief station, is 13,300 _li_ (say 4000 miles) to
+_Siwangmu_ and to the hunting grounds near but beyond it.
+When 200 days out he came to the place where his feet were washed
+with kumiss; this place is frequently mentioned in history; even
+Confucius names it, as one of the northernmost conquests of the
+Chou dynasty. The only doubt is whether it is near Lan-thou Fu in
+Kan Suh province, or near the northern bend of the Yellow River.
+The journey back was hurried and shorter (as we might well suppose
+from Sz-ma Ts'ien's accounts above given), that is to say, only
+10,000 _li_. But the total for the whole double journey of
+660 days in all, including all by-trips, excursions, and hunts,
+was 38,000 _li_, or about 12,000 miles--say 20 miles a day. I
+have myself travelled several thousand miles in China and Tartary,
+always at the maximum rate of 30 miles a day; more usually 20,
+allowing for delays, bad roads, and accidents. In Dr. Legge's
+translation of the "Book of Odes," p. 281, there is a song about a
+great expedition against the Tartars in 827 B.C., one line of
+which is precisely, as translated by Dr. Legge: "and we marched
+thirty _li_ every day,"-which means only ten miles.
+
+This is the chief journey; and whether the Chou Emperor in 984
+B.C., or the Ts'in Duke in 650 B.C., made it, there are really no
+difficulties, no contradictions. Four important places at least
+are named which are known by exactly the same names, and are
+frequently mentioned, in very much later history. The Emperor had
+hundreds of carts or chariots with him, and we have seen that
+these were a special feature of orthodox China. He came across a
+huge moulting-ground of birds in the desert regions, and the later
+Chinese very frequently speak of it in Tartar-land. Being caught
+in the waterless desert, he had to cut the throats of some of his
+best horses and drink their warm blood: two friends of my own,
+travelling through Siberia and Mongolia, were only too glad, when
+nearly starving from cold, to cut a sheep's throat and drink its
+warm blood from the newly-gashed throat itself. Fattening up
+horses for food is mentioned, and washing the feet with kumiss--
+both incidents purely Tartar. "Cattle," distinct from horses and
+oxen, are alluded to--probably camels, for which no Chinese word
+existed until about the time of our era.
+
+The second and third journeys, which occupied another 600 days
+between them, both ended at, and therefore it is assumed began at,
+the same place as the first journey's terminus; that is, at a
+place marked on modern maps as Pao-CH'ÊNg, on the Upper Han River.
+In later times it belonged to the semi-Chinese kingdoms of Shuh
+and Ts'u in turn. One of these narratives is taken up with a
+description of the Emperor's infatuation for a clever wizard from
+a far country, and of his liaison with a girl bearing his own
+clan-name, who died about two months before he reached home, and
+was buried on the road with great pomp. These two later journeys
+have no geographical value at all; but as the Emperor in each case
+again crossed the Yellow River, it is plain that he was amusing
+himself somewhere along the main Tartar roads, as in the first
+case.
+
+It may be added that the Taoist author Lieh-tsz, in his third
+chapter, repeats the story of the magician, who, he says, came
+from the "Extreme West Country." He also explains that it was
+through listening to this man's wonderful tales that the Emperor
+"neglected state affairs, and abandoned himself to the delights of
+travel,"--thus anticipating by three centuries the language of Sz-
+ma Ts'ien in 90 B.C. The story of the particular tribe of Tartars
+(named with the same sounds, but not with the same characters) who
+washed the Emperor's feet with kumiss is also told by Lieh-tsz.
+The position of the Redwater River is defined, to which textual
+remarks the commentators add more about the River Blackwater.
+Curiously enough, in himself commenting upon the Emperor Muh's
+conversations with the chieftain of _Siwangmu_, Lieh-tsz mentions
+the traditional departure, west, of the philosopher Lao-tsz, his own
+master.
+
+Now, although there is considerable doubt as to the authorship,
+date, and genuineness of Lieh-tsz's book, which at any rate was
+well known to Chinese bibliophiles long before our era, the fact
+that it mentions and repeats even part of the Emperor Muh's
+travels 600 years before the ancient book describing those travels
+was found, proves that the manipulators of the ancient book thus
+found did not invent the whole story after our era. It also seems
+to prove that in Lieh-tsz's time (i.e. immediately after
+Confucius) the story was already known (and probably the book of
+travels too), Confucius himself having mentioned one of the tribes
+visited by the Emperor. The Bamboo Books bring history down to 299
+B.C., and were found, together with the travels of the Emperor
+Muh, in A.D. 281. The Bamboo Books not only support part of the
+story of the Emperor Muh's travels, but their accuracy in dates
+has been shown by Professor Chavannes to strengthen the
+credibility of Confucius' own history: a reference to Chapter
+XXXII. on the Calendar will explain what is meant by "accuracy in
+dates." Finally, we have Sz-ma Ts'ien's history of go B.C.,
+citing the Chou Annals and the Ts'in Annals, or what survived of
+them after incessant wars between 400 and 200 B.C., and after the
+destruction of literature in 213 B.C.
+
+This point settled, the next thing is to consider Professor
+Chavannes' reasons for supposing that Duke Muh of Ts'in (650 B.C.)
+and not the Emperor Muh of Chou (984 B.C.) was the real
+traveller:--
+
+1. He shows that the ruling princes of Ts'in and Chao hailed from
+the same ancestors, were contiguous states, and, besides being
+largely Tartar themselves, ruled all the Tartars along the
+(present) Great Wall line: also that the naming of individual
+horses and other features of the Emperor's travels recalls
+features equally prominent in later Turkish history. This is all
+undoubtedly true: compare page 206.
+
+2. He shows that the Duke Muh's chief claim to glory was his
+successes against the Tartars of the West. This is also quite
+certain. 3. He thinks that in 984 B.C. the literary capacity of
+China was not equal to the composition of such a sustained work as
+the Travels.
+
+4. He also thinks that the real Chinese found in Ts'in the
+traditions relating to Duke Muh, and then, for the glory of China,
+appropriated them to the Emperor Muh, and foisted them upon
+orthodox history.
+
+There is a great deal to be said for this view, which has,
+besides, many other minor points of detail in its favour. But it
+may be answered:--
+
+1. Chou itself was in the eyes of China proper, once a "barbarian"
+tribe of the west, as the founder of the Chou dynasty in 1122 B.C.
+himself showed when he addressed his neighbours and allies, the
+eight other states of the west, and exhorted them, as equals, to
+assist him in the conquest of China. It was only in 771 B.C. that
+the original Chou appanage (since 1122 the western half of the
+imperial appanage) had been ceded to Ts'in, which in 984 was a
+petty state, still of the "adjunct-function" (_cf._ page 144)
+type, and not "sovereign." In 984 there was no intermediate
+sovereign "power" between the Emperor and the Tartars, with whom,
+in fact, he had been directly engaged in war independently of
+Ts'in. He was as much under Tartar social influences as was Ts'in:
+in fact, the Chou principality, under the Shang dynasty, was a
+sort of first edition of Ts'in principality under the Chou
+dynasty. Just as in 1122 B.C. Chou ousted Shang as the imperial
+house, so in 221 B.C. Ts'in definitely replaced Chou.
+
+2. If Duke Muh distinguished himself by Tartar conquests, so did
+the Emperor Muh before him, and the authorities are all agreed on
+this point.
+
+3. If in 984 B.C. the long-standing orthodox Chinese literary
+capacity was unequal to this effort, how is it that semi-barbarous
+Ts'in, the least literary of all the states (not only Chinese, but
+also half-Chinese), into which state records had only been
+introduced at all in 753 B.C., was able to compose such a book;
+or, if not to write the book, then to dictate so sustained and
+connected a story? Besides, the Emperor Muh left several
+inscriptions carved on stone during the progress of his travels.
+
+4. The instances M. Chavannes cites of the tombs of Yü and Shun in
+South China, as being parallel instances of appropriation by
+orthodox Chinese of semi-Chinese traditions have already been put
+to quite another use above, as tending to show, on the contrary,
+that those two Emperors either came from the south, or had
+ancestral traditions in the south; (see pp. 138,191).
+
+5. Finally, about a third of the Travels is taken up with a
+description of the incestuous intrigue with Lady _Ki_, and of
+her sumptuous ritual funeral. Why should Duke Muh trouble himself
+about the rites due to members of the Ki family, to which the
+Emperor belonged, but he himself did not? Why should the warlike
+Duke Muh (who had just then been recommended by an adviser (an ex-
+Chinese, since become a Tartar) to adopt simple Tartar ways
+instead of worrying himself with the Odes and the Book "as _the
+Chinese did_") waste his time in pomp and ritual? ( see p.
+180). Again, when, as the Travels tell us, various vassal rulers
+from orthodox China (even so far as Shan Tung in the extreme east)
+arrived to pay their respects to the Emperor as their liege-lord,
+how is it possible to suppose that these orthodox counts and
+barons would come to pay court to a semi-barbarian count (for that
+was all he was) like Duke Muh (as he is posthumously called), one
+of their equals, a man who took no part in the durbar affairs, and
+who, on account of his human sacrifices, was not even thought fit
+to become an emergency Protector of China? What could the semi-
+Tartar ruler of Ts'in have known of all these wearisome
+refinements in pomp, mourning, and music? Once more, the place the
+Emperor started from and came back to, though part of _his_
+appanage in 984 B.C. and possessing an ancestral Chou temple, was
+not part of the Ts'in dominions in 650 B.C., and never possessed a
+Ts'in temple: if not independent, it was at that time a bone of
+contention between Ts'in and Ts'u, and by no means a safe place
+for equipping pleasure expeditions. Finally, if it is marvellous
+that the Chou Annals of Sz-ma Ts'ien do not give full details of
+the voyage, is it not at least equally marvellous that the Ts'in
+Annals should not mention it in 650 B.C., when M. Chavannes
+supposes it took place, whilst they do so mention it under 984
+B.C., when he thinks it did not take place? All accounts agree
+that the ancestor of Ts'in (named) was there with the Emperor as
+charioteer; he was, as we have seen, equally ancestor of Chao, and
+the Chao Annals of Sz-ma Ts'ien say exactly what the Ts'in Annals
+say.
+
+Hence we may gratefully accept Professor Chavannes' most
+illuminating proofs, so far as they tend to show that the Travels
+of the Emperor Muh are genuine history for a tour no farther than
+the middle Tarim Valley; but, so far as Duke Muh of Ts'in is
+concerned, he must be eliminated from all consideration of the
+matter, and we must ascribe the tour, as the Chinese do, to the
+Emperor Muh. Lastly, are there any _proved_ instances of such
+radical tamperings with history by the Chinese annalists as M.
+Chavannes suggests? I do not know of any; and such superficial
+tamperings as there are the Chinese critics always expose, _coûte_
+que _coûte_, even though Confucius himself be the tamperer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+ANCIENT JAPAN
+
+The development of China is not only elucidated by documents and
+events probably antecedent to the strictly historical period, such
+as the supposed voyage of an Emperor to the Far West, but it is
+also made easier to understand when we consider its possible
+indirect effects upon Japan. The barbarian kingdom of Wu does not
+really appear in Chinese history at all, even by name, until the
+year 585 B.C. It was found then that it had traditions of its own,
+and a line of kings extending back to the beginning of the Chou
+dynasty (1122 B.C.), and even farther beyond. In 585 B.C. the new
+King, Shou-mêng, hitherto an unknown and obscure vassal of Ts'u,
+altogether beyond the ken of orthodox China, felt quite strong
+enough, as we have seen in Chapter VII., to strike out an
+independent line of his own. It is a singular thing that, when the
+Japanese set about constructing a nomenclature (on Chinese
+posthumous lines) for their newly discovered back history in the
+eighth century A.D., they should have fixed upon exactly this year
+585 B.C. for the death of their supposed first Mikado Jimmu (i.e.
+_Shên-wu_, the "divinely martial"). The next three Kings of
+Wu, all of whom, like himself, bore dissyllabic and meaningless
+barbarian names, were sons of Shou-mêng, and a fourth son was the
+cultured Ki-chah, who visited orthodox China several times, both
+as a spy and in order to improve himself. Then follow two sons of
+the last and first, respectively, of the said three brothers. The
+second of these royal cousins was killed in battle, and his son
+Fu-ch'ai vowed a terrible, vengeance against Ts'u, whose capital
+he subsequently took and sacked in 506 B.C. Now appears upon the
+scene his own vassal, Yiieh, and at first Wu gets the best of it
+in battle. Bloodthirsty wars follow between the two, full of
+picturesque and convincing detail, until at last the King of
+Yiieh, in turn, has the King of Wu at his mercy; but he was,
+though a barbarian, magnanimously disposed, and accordingly he
+offered Fu-ch'ai the island of Chusan (so well known to us on
+account of our troops having occupied it in 1840) and three
+hundred married families to keep him company. But Fu-ch'ai was too
+proud to accept this Elba, the more especially so because he had
+it on his conscience that he had been acting throughout against
+the earnest advice of his faithful minister (a Ts'u renegade),
+whom he had put to death for his frankness. This adviser as he
+perished had cried out: "Don't forget to pluck my eyes out and
+stick them on the east gate, so that I may witness the entry of
+the Yiieh troops!" He therefore committed suicide, first veiling
+his face because, as he said: "I have no face to offer my adviser
+when I meet him in the next world; if, on the other hand, the dead
+have no knowledge, then it does not matter what I do." After the
+beginning of our Christian era, when the direct communication
+between Japan (overland _viâ_ Corea) and China (also by sea
+to Wu) was first officially noticed by the historians, it was
+recorded by the Chinese annalists that part of Fu-ch'ai's personal
+following had escaped in ships towards the east, and had founded a
+state in Japan. But it must not be forgotten that then (473 B.C.)
+orthodox China had never yet heard of Japan in any form, though of
+course it is possible that the maritime states of Wu and Yiieh may
+have had junk intercourse with many islands in the Pacific.
+
+We have already ventured upon a few remarks upon this subject in
+Chapter XXIII., but so much is apt to be made out of slight
+historical materials-such, for instance, as the pleasure
+expedition of a Chinese emperor in 984 B.C. to the Tarim Valley--
+that it may be useful to suggest the true proportions, and the
+modest possible bearing of this "Japanese" migration--assuming the
+slender record of it to be true; and the basis of truth is by no
+means a broad one; still less is it capable of sustaining a heavy
+superstructure.
+
+Any one visiting Japan will notice that there are several distinct
+types of men in that country, the squat and vulgar, the oval-faced
+and refined, and many variations of these two; just as, in
+England, we have the Norman, Saxon, Irish, and Scotch types of
+face, with many other _nuances_. It is also clear from the
+kitchen-midden and other prehistoric remains; from the presence,
+even now, in Japan of the bearded Ainus (a word meaning in their
+own language "men"); and from the numerous accounts of Ainu-
+Japanese wars in both Chinese and Japanese history, that there
+were (as there still are) manners, and possibly yet other men, in
+ancient Japan, both very different from the manners and appearance
+of the cultured and gifted race, viewed as a homogeneous whole, we
+are now so proud to have as our political allies. But that brings
+us no nearer a historical solution, It is a persistent way with
+all ethnologists to search out whence this or that race came. Of
+course all races move and mingle, and must always have moved and
+mingled, when by so doing they could better their circumstances of
+life; but even if movement has taken place in Japan as it has
+elsewhere, there is no reason why, if comparatively uncivilized
+Japanese displaced Ainus, Ainus should not have, before that,
+displaced quite uncivilized Japanese; or, if other races came over
+the seas to displace the people already there, the natives already
+there should not have, later on, ejected these new-comers by sea
+routes.
+
+In other words, it is quite futile (unless we can lay hands on
+definite objects, or definite facts recorded--even definite
+traditions) to try and account for hypothetical movements in
+prehistoric times. We are totally ignorant of early Teutonic,
+Hungarian, and Celtic movements-though, thanks solely to Chinese
+records, we are pretty certain, within defined limits, about early
+Turkish movements. How much more, then, must we be ignorant about
+the Japanese movements? If "people" must have come from somewhere,
+whence did these arrivals start, and why should they not go back;
+or why not meet other movers going to the place whence they
+themselves started? If we are to accept the only historical
+records or quasi-records we possess at all, that is, the Chinese
+records, then we must accept them for what they are worth on the
+face of them, and neither add to nor mutilate them; imperfect
+things that do exist are necessarily better than imaginary things
+that might have existed in their place. A few hundred families at
+most, we are told, escaped; and if it be true that they went
+intentionally to Japan, it is probable that the expert Wu sailors
+(none existed elsewhere in China) had already for long known the
+way thither, or to Quelpaert and Tsushima, which practically means
+to both Corea and Japan; in fact, if they sailed east from Ningpo,
+there is no other place to knock up against, even if the special
+intention were not there. Everything tends to show that Fu-ch'ai,
+though perhaps a barbarian in 473 B.C., was of orthodox if remote
+pedigree dating from 1200 B.C., and that the ruling class of Wu
+was very different from the "barbarians" by whom (as we are
+specifically told) Wu was surrounded; the situation was like that
+of the Egyptians and Phoenicians, like Cecrops and Cadmus, amongst
+the earliest barbarous Greeks. It amounts, then, to this, that,
+just as Chinese colonies and adventurers emerged under the stress
+of increased population, or under the impulses of curiosity,
+tyranny, and ambition, to found states in Ts'u, Ts'in, Tsin, Ts'i,
+Lu, Wu, Yüeh, and other places round the central nucleus, so (they
+being the sole possessors of that magic _POWER_, "records")
+other parties would from time to time sally forth either from the
+same orthodox centre, or from the semi-orthodox places surrounding
+that centre, to still remoter spots, such as, for instance, Corea,
+Japan, Formosa, Annam, Burma, Tibet, and Yiin Nan. Fu-ch'ai's
+surviving friends had indeed a very lively stimulus indeed-the
+fear of instant death-to drive them tumultuously over the seas;
+and doubtless, as they must have been perfectly harmless after
+tossing about hungry in open boats for weeks together, they would
+be as welcome to the Japanese king, or to the petty chief or
+chiefs who received the waifs, as in our own times was the honest
+sailor Will Adams when he drifted friendless to Japan, and whose
+statue now adorns a great Japanese city as that of a man who was,
+in a humble way, also a "civilizer" of Japan (600 A.D.).
+Doubtless, many Wu words, or Chinese words as then pronounced in
+Wu, had already been brought over by fishermen; but here at last
+was a great haul of (possibly) books and the way to interpret
+them; at least there was a great haul of the best class of the Wu
+ruling folk. It is true that the first Japanese envoys who came to
+China made as much of their Wu "origin" as they could; firstly,
+because it probably paid them as traders to do so; secondly,
+because it necessarily gave them a respectable status in China;
+and, thirdly, because they were, in the first century of our era,
+gradually beginning to understand the mystic power of the Chinese
+written character, and they would therefore naturally take an
+intense interest in all records, rumours, traditions, and fables
+about themselves, which they would embellish and "confirm"
+whenever it suited their interests to do so. Which of us does not
+begin to furbish up his pedigree when he is made a peer of the
+realm?
+
+As to the bulk of the Japanese race, be it mixed or unmixed, it is
+surely in the main to be found now where it always was, or close
+by? It is no more depreciating to early Japan to give her a
+dynasty of Chinese adventurers, or perhaps to give her only
+hereditary Chinese advisers and scribes, than it is derogatory to
+the states of Europe to possess dynasties which belong by their
+origin, as a general rule, to almost any place but the countries
+they now govern as sovereigns. As to the ancient chiefs or kings
+of Japan, some of their genuine native names may have been
+preserved in the memories of men; whether they were or not, they
+were, even without records, as "ancient" chiefs as the best
+recorded chiefs of Egypt, Babylonia, or China; and it must be
+remembered that Egyptian and Babylonian records were non-existent
+to us for all practical purposes during many thousands of years,
+until we recently discovered how to read them: that is to say,
+what was once no history at all--the present condition of the
+prehistoric races of High Asia--suddenly becomes history when we
+find the records and know how to read them.
+
+When, a few centuries later on, the Japanese had begun thoroughly
+to understand Chinese books, they decided to have an historical
+outfit of their own; they took what vague traditions they had,
+and, in the absence of any long-forgotten genuine records, or
+visible remains having part of the effect of records, simply
+fitted on to their heroes, real or imaginary, the Chinese
+posthumous system, and a selection of the historical facts
+recorded about the Chinese. Even the Emperor Muh in China was not
+so named until he died. If a man can be given a complimentary
+title three years after death (that was the Chinese rule at
+first), why not give it him 300 years after his death? The king or
+chief hitherto known, whether accurately or not, whether honestly
+or not, as X, had most certainly existed; that is, the tenth
+great-grandfather of the reigning prince; the ninth, eighth, and
+so on; must positively have been there at some remote period of
+the past. By calling him Jimmu (a Chinese emperor had already been
+posthumously so called) he is none the less there than he was
+before he was called Jimmu, and his new title therefore does not
+make him less of an entity than he was before. And so on with all
+the other Japanese emperors who, in the eighth century A.D., were
+similarly provided with imaginary names. Possibly this is how the
+Japanese argued with themselves when they set about the task. The
+situation is a curious one, and perhaps unique in the world; but
+it does not matter much (as suggested in Chapter XXXI.) so long as
+we keep imagination separate from real evidence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+ETHICS
+
+We propose to say a few words now about peculiar customs which had
+vogue all over or in certain parts of China; of course some of
+them may be traced back to the "Rites of Chou," and to what is
+prescribed therein; but general administrative schemes representing
+in general terms things as they ought to be, or as the Chou federal
+and feudal oligarchy would have liked them to be, do not give us
+such a life-like picture of ancient China as specific accounts of
+definite events which really did happen. Take, for instance, the
+peculiar formalities connected with abject surrender.
+
+After a great defeat in 699 B.C., just when Ts'u was beginning to
+emerge from its narrow confines between the Han and Yang-tsz
+Rivers, the defeated Ts'u generals had themselves bound in
+fetters, or with ropes, in order to await their king's pleasure.
+In 654, when Ts'u had one of the small orthodox states (in the Ho
+Nan nucleus) at its mercy, the baron presented himself with his
+hands tied behind, a piece of jade in his mouth, followed by his
+suite in mourning, carrying his coffin. It is evident that at this
+date Ts'u was still "barbarous," for the king had to ask what it
+all meant. It was explained to him that, when the Chou founder
+conquered China, and mutilated the last Shang dynasty emperor,
+that emperor's elder brother by an inferior mother had presented
+himself before the founder half naked, with his hands tied behind
+his back, his left hand leading a ram (or goat), and his right
+carrying sedge for wrapping round the sacrificial victim; he was
+enfeoffed as Duke of Sung. In 537 the same thing happened to a
+later King of Ts'u in connection with another petty principality,
+and the king had to be reminded of the 654 precedent. Thus there
+must have been records of some kind in Ts'u at an early date. In
+645 B.C., when the ruler of Ts'in took prisoner his brother-in-
+law, the ruler of Tsin, and was seriously contemplating the
+annexation of Tsin, together with the duty of discharging Tsin
+sacrifices, his own sister, with bare feet, wearing mourning, and
+bound with a mourning belt, intercedes successfully for her
+husband. In 597 B.C. the ruler of the important orthodox state of
+Cheng went through the form of dragging along, with the upper part
+of his own body uncovered, a ram or goat into the presence of the
+King of Ts'u. In 511, when the ruler of Lu had to fly the country
+and throw himself upon the generosity of Tsin, in order to escape
+from the dangerous machinations of the intriguing great families
+of Lu, the six Tsin statesmen (who were themselves at that moment,
+as heads of great private clans, gradually undermining their own
+prince's rights) sent for the arch-intriguer, and called upon him
+to explain his conduct. At that time Lu was coquetting between its
+two powerful neighbours, Tsin and Ts'i. The conspirator duly
+presented himself before the Areopagus of Tsin grandees, barefoot
+and attired in common cloth (_i.e._ not of silk, but of hemp), in order
+to explain to them the circumstances of the duke's exile: it is
+characteristic of the times, and also of the frankness of history, to
+find it added that he succeeded in bribing the grandees to give an
+unjust decision. When the Kings of Yüeh and Wu were in turn at
+each other's mercy, in 494 and 473 respectively, their envoys, in
+offering submission, in each case advanced to the conqueror "walking
+on the knees," with bust bared: this knee-walking suggests Annamese,
+Siamese, and possibly Japanese forms rather than Chinese. The Wu
+servants at dinner are said to have "waited" on their knees. The third
+and last August Emperor in 207 submitted to the conquering Han
+dynasty seated in an unadorned chariot, drawn by a white horse
+(with signs of mourning), carrying his seal-sash round his neck
+(figurative of hanging or strangling himself), and offered the seals of
+the Son of Heaven to the Prince of Han.
+
+Something has already been said about the rules of succession in
+Ts'u and Ts'in. When the Duke of Sung just mentioned died, in 1078
+B.C., he was succeeded by his younger brother because his own son
+was dead; this was in accordance with the Shang dynasty's ritual
+laws. Even the Warrior King himself, founder of the Chou dynasty,
+was not the eldest son of his father, the (posthumously) Civilian
+King; the latter had set aside the elder of the two sons; and it
+will be remembered that, several generations before that, two of
+the royal Chou brothers had voluntarily retired to colonize the Wu
+Jungle country, in order that their younger brother, father of the
+future Civilian King, might succeed to the then extremely limited
+vassal state of Chou. Later on, in 729, a Duke of Sung on his
+death-bed bequeathed the succession to his younger brother instead
+of to his own son, on the ground that the rule is, "son to father,
+younger to elder brother"--a "universal rule" approved by Mencius
+in later times. The younger brother in this case thrice refused
+the kingly crown, but at last accepted, and Confucius in his
+history censures the act, which, it is considered, contributed to
+Sung's ultimate downfall. (It must be remembered that Confucius'
+ancestors were themselves of royal Sung extraction.) In 652 the
+younger brother by the superior spouse wished, at his father's
+death-bed, to cede his right to the succession of Sung to his
+elder brother by an inferior wife; the dying father commended the
+spirit, but forbade the proposed sacrifice of prior right, and the
+elder therefore served the younger as counsellor. In 493 a Duke of
+Sung, irritated on account of his eldest son having left the
+country, nominated a younger son as successor, and after his death
+his wife confirmed by decree her late husband's nomination; but
+the younger brother firmly declined, on the ground that the rule
+of succession was a fixed one, and that he was unworthy to perform
+the sacrifices to the gods of the land and grain. It is a curious
+coincidence that the question of status in wives affects the
+present rulers of both China and Japan. Though the dowager was
+Empress-Mother, she always ceded the pas to the senior dowager,
+who had no children. And as to the Mikado's mother, who died last
+October, she was, it seems, never officially considered as an
+Empress.
+
+In 817 B.C. the Emperor himself is censured by history for having,
+"contrary to rule," wished to set up as ruler of Lu a second son
+in preference to the elder son; he repeated the act in 796, as has
+already been explained in Chapter XX., when a few other instances
+were cited to illustrate the general rule in China. At this time
+the waning power of the emperors still evidently flickered. In
+608, through the meddlesome political interference of Ts'i, a
+concubine's son succeeded to the Lu throne in preference to the
+legitimate wife's son; curiously enough, the legitimate wife was a
+Ts'i princess. The result of this irregularity was that the "three
+powerful families" of Lu (themselves descendants of the ruling
+family) grew restless, and the state began to decline. On the
+death of a King of Ts'u in 516, it was proposed to put on the
+throne, instead of the king's young son, the king's younger
+brother by an inferior mother, on the ground that the mother of
+the young son in question was the wife obtained from Ts'in by the
+king for marriage to his eldest son (who had since joined the
+king's enemies), which young lady the king had subsequently
+decided to marry himself. Even under this irregular and
+complicated family tangle, the proposed succession was disapproved
+by the counsellors, on the ground that irregular successions
+invariably produced trouble in the state. In the year 450 B.C. the
+ruler of Ts'i insisted, against advice, on the succession of a
+younger son by a favourite concubine in preference to his elder
+sons by superior mothers, including the first and most dignified
+spouse. But here, again, the powerful families intervened; one of
+the elder sons, who had fled to Lu, was brought back secretly in a
+sack; the wrongful successor was murdered, and the "powerful
+family" which took the lead in state affairs soon afterwards, to
+the horror of Confucius, by intrigue and by further assassination,
+secured the Ts'i throne for itself. It will thus be noticed that
+all the great states except Ts'in had their full share of
+succession troubles.
+
+There were several customs practised in warfare which are worthy
+of short notice. In 633 B.C. a Ts'u general, in the interests of
+discipline, flogged several military men, and "had the ears of
+others pierced by arrows, according to military regulation." In
+639 this same king had sent as a present to some princesses of
+other states, who had congratulated him on his victory over Sung,
+"a pile of the enemy's left ears." As the historians express their
+disgust at this indelicate act, it was presumably not an orthodox
+practice, at all events in this particular form. In 607 there were
+captured from Sung 450 war-chariots and 250 soldiers; the latter
+had their left ears cut off; in this case the victors were CHÊNG
+troops, acting under Ts'u's orders, and it is presumed that CHÊNG
+officers cut off the ears under Ts'u's commands. A few years later
+two or three Ts'u generals were discussing what the ancients did
+when they challenged for a battle; it was decided that the best
+"form" was to rush up to the entrenchments, cut off an enemy's
+left ear, carry him away in your chariot, and rush back to your
+own camp. As there is a special Chinese character or pictograph
+for "ears cut off in battle," it thus appears that to a certain
+extent even the orthodox Chinese practised the "scalping" art,
+which was doubtless intended to furnish easy proof of claims for
+reward based upon prowess; in fact, even in modern official
+Chinese, a decapitated head is called a "head-step," an expression
+evidently dating from the time when a step in rank was given for
+each head or group of heads taken.
+
+Rulers, whether the Emperor or vassals, faced south in the
+exercise of their sovereign powers. Thus, when the Duke of Chou,
+after the death of his brother the Martial King, acted as Regent
+pending the minority of the Martial King's son, his own nephew, he
+faced south; but he faced north once more when he resumed his
+status of subject. It has already been mentioned, in Chapter XX.,
+that in 640 B.C. the state of Lu made the south gate of the Lu
+capital the Law Gate, because it was by the south gates that all
+rulers' commands emanated. In 546 a counsellor of Ts'u explained
+to the king how, since Tsin influence had predominated in the
+orthodox state of CHÊNG, this last had ceased to "face south
+towards its former protector." Thus, though the Emperor faces
+south towards the sun, and his subjects in turn face north in his
+honour, those subjects face their other protector in whatever
+direction he may lie, supposing the Emperor's protection to be
+inadequate. It is evidently the same principle as "bowing towards
+the east," and "turning towards Mecca," both of which formalities
+must be modified according to place. In 315 B.C., when Yen (the
+Peking plain) had become one of the six independent kingdoms, a
+usurper (to whom the King of Yen had foolishly committed full
+powers) "turned south" to perform acts of sovereignty in the
+king's name. In 700 B.C., in the orthodox state of Wei, we hear of
+"princes of the left and right," which is explained to mean "sons
+of mothers whose official place is left or right of the principal
+spouse." Right used to be more honourable than left in China, but
+left now takes precedence of right. Thus the provinces of Shan
+Tung and Shan Si are also called "Left of the Mountains" and
+"Right of the Mountains," because the Emperor faces south.
+Notwithstanding, the ancient phraseology sometimes survives; for
+instance, "stands right of him" means "is better than he is," and
+"to left him" means "to prove him wrong or worse." All _yamêns_
+in China face south; there are rare exceptions, usually owing to
+building difficulties. Once, in the province of Kwei Chou, I was
+officially invited by the mandarin to take my seat on his right instead of
+on his left, because, as he explained, his _yamên_ door did not
+face south, but _west_; and, he added, it was more honourable
+for me, as an official guest,  to sit north, facing west, than to sit
+south, facing west. In Canton,  the Viceroy used out of courtesy to sit
+south, facing north, and  make his own interpreter sit north, facing south;
+the consul sat east,  facing west, and the consul's interpreter sat west,
+facing east. But the consul could not have presumed to occupy the
+north seat thus given to an inferior on the principle of de _minimis_
+non _curat lex_; nor was the Viceroy willing to assert his "command"
+to a guest. In 436 the armies  of Yiieh marching north through Ho Nan
+called the Chinese places  lying to their west the "left" towns; but that
+was perhaps because  Yiieh came marching from the south. In 221 B.C.,
+when for the first time South China to the sea became part of the imperial
+dominions, the Emperor's territory was described as extending
+southward to the "north-facing houses." Hong Kong and Canton are
+just on the tropical line; but the island of Hainan, and also
+Tonquin, are actually in the tropics. Whether the houses there do
+really face north--which I have never noticed--or whether the
+expression is merely symbolical, I cannot say; but the idea is "to
+the regions where, when the sun is on the tropic, you have to turn
+north to see him."
+
+A point of honour in China was not to make war on an enemy who was
+in mourning, but this rule seems to have been honoured in the
+breach as much as in the observance thereof. Two centuries before
+the Chou dynasty came into power, an emperor of the Shang dynasty
+distinguished himself by not speaking at all during the three
+years he occupied the mourning hut near the grave. As we have
+seen, the first rulers of Lu (as a Chou fief) modified existing
+customs, and introduced the three years' mourning rule there. In
+connection with a Sung funeral in 651 B.C., it is explained that
+the bier lay between the two front pillars, and not, as with the
+Chou dynasty, on the top of the west side steps; it will be
+remembered that Sung represented the sacrifices of the extinct
+Shang dynasty. That same year the future Second Protector (then a
+refugee among the Tartars) declined to put in a claim to the Tsin
+succession against his brothers "because he had not been in
+mourning whilst a fugitive." In 642 Sung and her allies made war
+on Ts'i, which was then mourning for the First Protector; by a
+just Nemesis the Tartars came to the rescue and saved Ts'i. In
+627, after the Second Protector's death, Ts'in declared war,
+whilst Tsin was mourning, upon a petty orthodox principality
+belonging to the same clan as Tsin and the Emperor, and belonging
+also to the Tsin vassal system. This so enraged the new ruler of
+Tsin that he dyed his white mourning clothes black, so as to
+avenge the insult, and yet not to outrage the rites: moreover,
+white was unlucky in warfare: victorious over Ts'in, he then
+proceeded to mourn for his father, and ever after that black was
+adopted, by way of memento, as the national colour of Tsin. In 626
+and 622 the Emperor sent high officers to represent him at Lu
+funerals, and to carry gems to place in deceased's mouth, "to show
+that he (the Emperor) had not the heart to leave the deceased
+unsupplied with food." In 581 the ruler of Lu, being on a visit to
+Tsin, was forcibly detained by Tsin, in order to swell the
+importance of a Tsin ruler's funeral. Lu (like the petty orthodox
+states of Wei, Sung, CHÊNG, etc., further south) was nearly always
+under the rival political constraint of either Ts'i, Tsin, or
+Ts'u; and this factor must accordingly also be taken into account
+in explaining Confucius' longing for the good old days of imperial
+predominance. In 572 Tsin attacked Cheng, though of the same clan
+as itself, whilst in mourning; but in 567 semi-barbarian Ts'u set
+a good example to orthodox Tsin by withdrawing its troops out of
+deference to a later official mourning then in force in Cheng: in
+564 the King of Ts'u withdrew his armies home altogether on
+account of the mourning due to his own deceased mother. In 560
+barbarian Wu attacked Ts'u whilst in mourning for the above king
+(the one who first conquered the Canton region for Ts'u); but,
+here again, by a just Nemesis, Wu's army was cut to pieces, and
+Wu's own ally, Tsin, censured her for having done such an improper
+thing. In 544 the prime minister of Tsin mourned for his Ts'u co-
+signatory of the celebrated Peace Conference Treaty of 546; and
+this graceful act is explained to be in accordance with the rites.
+In 544 Ts'u herself was in mourning, and in accordance with the
+terms of the Peace Conference Treaty, under which the Tsin vassals
+and the Ts'u vassals were to pay their respects to Ts'u and Tsin
+respectively--Ts'in and Ts'i, as great powers, being excused, or,
+rather, discreetly left alone--Ts'u put great pressure on Lu to
+secure the personal presence of the Lu ruler at the Ts'u funeral.
+The orthodox duke did not at all like this "truckling to a
+barbarian"; but one of his counsellors suggested behaving before
+the corpse as he would behave to a vassal of his own: this was
+done, and the unsophisticated Ts'u was none the wiser at the time,
+though, later on, the king discovered the pious fraud. In 514 B.C.
+Wu wished to attack Ts'u while, mourning, and the virtuous Ki-
+chah was promptly sent by Wu to sound Tsin about the _facheuse
+situation._ At a Lu funeral in 509, it was explained that the
+new duke could only mount the throne after the burial was over; it
+was added "even the Son of Heaven's commands do not run in Lu
+during this critical period; _á fortiori_ is the duke not
+capable of transacting his own subjects' business." But long
+before this, when the First Protector died, in 643, his body lay
+for sixty-seven days in the coffin unattended, whilst his five
+sons were wrangling about the succession; in fact, the worms were
+observed crawling out of the coffin. These painful details have a
+powerful historical interest, for when (as mentioned on p. 209)
+his tomb was opened nearly 1000 years later, dogs had to be sent
+in ahead to test the air, as the stench was so great. In 492 an
+unpopular prince of Wei was in Tsin, which state had an interest
+in placing him on the throne. There happened to be in Tsin at that
+moment a scoundrel who had fled to Tsin from Lu, because he had
+found Confucius too strong for him in Lu; and this man suggested
+to Tsin that it would be a good plan to send seventy Wei men back
+to Wei in mourning clothes and sash, so as to make the Wei people
+think that the prince was dead, and thus gain an opportunity to
+"run him in" by surprise, and set him up as ruler. In 489, when
+the King of Ts'u died in the field of battle, his three brothers,
+all of whom had declined his offer of the throne, but one of whom
+had at last accepted in order to give the dying man peace, decided
+to conceal the king's death from the army whilst they sent for his
+son by a Yiieh mother, pleading that the king had been non
+_compos mentis_ when he proposed an irregular succession, and
+that the promise made to him was, therefore, of no avail. In 485
+Lu and Wu joined in an attack upon Ts'i during the latter's
+mourning--a particularly disgraceful political combination: no
+wonder Confucius was hastily sent for from the state of CH'ÊN,
+whither he had previously retired in disgust at the corruption of
+his native land. In 481 a conspiracy which was going on in Ts'i
+was delayed because one of the chief actors, being in mourning,
+could not attend to public business of any kind. In 332 B.C. Ts'i
+took ten towns from Yen by successfully attacking her whilst in
+mourning; one of the travelling diplomats and intriguers so common
+in China at that period insisted upon the towns being restored.
+This was at the exact moment when the philosopher Mencius, who
+seems to have also been a great political _dilettante_, was
+circulating to and fro between such monarchs as the Kings of Ts'i
+and Ngwei, alias _Liang_, as is fully explained in the still
+extant book of Mencius.
+
+All the above quaint instances, novel though they may be in
+detail, strongly recall to us in principle our own "rules" of
+international law, which are always liable to unexpected
+"construction" according to the exigencies of war and the power
+wielded by the "constructor." Inter _arma leges silent_. As
+usual in these ritual matters, Ts'in is distinguished by total
+absence of mention.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+WOMEN AND MORALS
+
+So far as it is possible to judge from the concrete instances in
+which women are mentioned, it appears that in ancient Chinese
+times their confinement and seclusion was neither nominally nor
+actively so strict as it has been in later days, and they seem to
+have been much more companionable to men than they have been ever
+since the ridiculous foot-squeezing fashion came into vogue over a
+thousand years ago. When the Martial King addressed his semi-
+barbarous western allies, as he prepared his march upon the last
+Shang Emperor in 1122 B.C., he observed: "The ancient proverb says
+the hen crows not in the morn; when she does, the house will
+fall"--in allusion to the interference of the debauched Emperor's
+favourite concubine in public affairs; and we have seen, under the
+heading of Law in Chapter XX., how one of the imperial statutes,
+proclaimed or read regularly in the vassal kingdoms, prohibited
+the meddling of women in public business. But, in spite of this,
+so far as promoting the succession rights and political interests
+of their own children goes, wives and concubines certainly exerted
+considerable influence, whether legitimate or not, in all the
+states. The murder of an Emperor and flight of his successor in
+771 B.C. was in its inception owing to the intrigues of women
+about Court. A few years only after that event, we find the
+orthodox ruler of Wei marrying a beautiful Ts'i princess (her
+beauty is a matter of history, and is celebrated in the Odes,
+which are themselves a popular form of history); and then, because
+she had no children, further marrying a princess of Ch'en. This
+princess unfortunately lost her offspring; but her sister also
+enjoyed the prince's favour, and her son was, after her death,
+given in adoption to the first childless Ts'i wife. This son
+succeeded to the Wei throne, but was ultimately murdered by a
+younger brother born of a concubine, who was next succeeded by
+still another younger brother, whose queen had also been one of
+his father's concubines. Thus in the most orthodox states (Wei was
+of the imperial clan), the rites often seem not to have counted
+for much in practice.--This book, it must here be repeated, deals
+with specific recorded facts, and not with civilization as it
+_ought_ to have been under the Rites of _Chou._--So, even in
+comparatively modern China, 1500 years later, the third emperor of the
+T'ang dynasty married his father's concubine, and she ultimately
+reigned as empress in her own right, which is in itself an outrage
+upon the "rites."
+
+In 694 B.C. the ruler of Lu (also of the imperial clan) married a
+Ts'i princess, who, as has been stated in Chapter XXXIV., not only
+had incestuous relations with her brother of Ts'i, but led that
+brother to procure the murder of her husband. In connection with
+this woman's further visit to Ts'i two years later, the rule is
+cited: "Women, when once married, should not recross the
+frontier." The same rule is quoted in 655 when a Lu princess, who
+had married a petty mesne-vassal of Lu in 670, recrossed the Lu
+frontier in order to visit her son in Lu.
+
+The Second Protector, during his wanderings, we know, married
+first a Tartar wife and then a Ts'i wife, both of whom showed
+disinterested affection for him, and genuine regard for his rights
+to the Tsin succession, Yet the ruler of Ts'in supplied him with
+five more royal girls, of whom one had already been married to the
+Second Protector's predecessor and nephew, the Marquess of Tsin.
+It is but fair to the memory of this uxorious Tsin ruler to say
+that he only took her over under protest, and under the immediate
+stress of political urgencies; he ultimately made her his
+principal spouse at the expressed desire of his ally the Ts'in
+ruler. He must have later married a daughter of the Emperor too,
+for, after the succession of a son and grandson, another of his
+sons named "Black Buttocks," being the youngest, and also "son of
+a Chou mother," came to the throne. Thus in those troublous times
+the honour of imperial princesses evidently did not count for very
+much at the great vassal courts. The readiness of Ts'in to induce
+the Tsin ruler to take over his nephew's wife (being a Ts'in
+princess) accentuates the semi-Tartar civilization of Ts'in at
+least, if not of Tsin too; for both Hiung-nu (200 B.C.) and Turks
+(A.D. 500) had a fixed rule that a Khan successor should take over
+all his predecessor's women, with the single exception of his own
+natural mother. In the year 630 the King of Ts'u married or
+carried off two CHÊNG sisters (of the imperial clan). The ruler of
+CHÊNG had been insolent to the future Second Protector during his
+wanderings in the year 637, and, in order to avoid that
+Protector's vengeance, had been subsequently obliged to throw
+himself under Ts'u protection. "This ignoring of the rites by the
+King of Ts'u will result in his failing to secure the Protectorship," it
+was said. However, these princesses, though of the imperial _Ki_
+clan by marriage into it, were really daughters  of a CHÊNG ruler by
+two separate Ts'i and Ts'u wives: moreover,  previous to the accession
+of the Hia dynasty (in 2205 B.C.), a Chinese elective Emperor had
+married the two daughters of his predecessor,  whose own son was
+unworthy to succeed: and, generally, apart from this precedent, the
+rule against marrying two sisters, even if it  existed, seems to have been
+loosely applied (_cf._ Chapter XXXIII.).
+
+In connection with the Cheng succession in 629, it is mentioned
+that "the wife's sons being all dead, X, being wisest of the
+secondary wives' or concubines' sons, is most eligible"
+(_cf._ Chapter XXXVII.).
+
+Great political complications arose in connection with a clever
+and beautiful princess of Cheng who had had various _liaisons_
+with high personages in the state of Ch'en and elsewhere; in the end
+she was carried off in 589 by a treacherous Ts'u statesman to Tsin;
+and indirectly this adventure led to his being charged by Tsin with a
+mission to Wu; to the subsequent entry of Wu into the conclave of
+federal princes; and to the ultimate sacking of the Ts'u capital by
+the King of Wu in 506: it is easy to read between the lines that
+the Kings of Ts'u were considered unusually arbitrary and tyrannical
+rulers; over and over again we find that their most capable statesmen
+took service with powers inimical to Ts'u. In 581 the ruler of Cheng,
+being forcibly detained in Tsin whilst on a political visit there, was
+temporarily replaced in Cheng by his elder brother, born of an
+inferior wife.
+
+A marriage between the two states of Sung and Lu having been
+arranged, the imperial clan states of Lu and Wei had certain
+duties to perform at the wedding, which took place in 583; and it
+is recorded that the latter sent "handmaids" The explanation given
+is a little involved, but it seems to throw some light on the
+marriage of sisters question. It seems that the legitimate spouse
+and her "left and right handmaids" were each entitled to three
+"cousins or younger sisters" of the same clan-name as themselves,
+"thus making a total of nine girls, the idea being to broaden the
+base of succession." Not content with this, Lu sent a special
+envoy to Sung the next year to "lecture" the princess. It is
+explained that "women at home are under the power of their father;
+married, under that of their husbands." Tsin also sent handmaids
+this year. It is further explained that "handmaids are a trifling
+matter, and they are only mentioned in this Lu princess case
+because her marriage turned out so badly." The following year Ts'i
+despatched handmaids, but, "being of a different clan-name, Ts'i
+was not ritual in doing so."
+
+The precise functions of these paranymphs, or under-studies of
+wives, together with the rules governing their selection, are
+doubtless clearly enough described in the Rites of _Chou_;
+but we are only dealing here with concrete facts as recorded.
+
+In 526 B.C., when Ts'in gave a princess in marriage to the Ts'u
+heir, the Ts'u king decided to keep her for himself (see p. 234).
+Only a few years before that, Ts'u had given a princess of her own
+in marriage to the heir-apparent of one of the petty orthodox
+states (imperial clan), and the reigning father had had improper
+relations with her, which in the end led to his murder by his son;
+thus Ts'u, however delinquent, had already been given a bad
+example by the imperial clan.
+
+After his humiliating defeat by the King of Wu in 494 B.C., the
+King of Yiieh introduced a veritable _Lex Julia_ into his
+dominions, in order to increase the population more quickly, and
+to prepare for his great revenge. Robust men were forbidden to
+marry old women, and old men to marry robust women. Parents were
+punished if girls were not married by the time they were
+seventeen, and if boys were not married by twenty. _Enceinte_
+women had to be placed under the care of public midwives. For
+every boy born, a royal bounty of two pots of wine and a dog were
+given: for every girl born, two pots of wine and a sucking-pig;--
+the dog, it is explained, being figurative of outdoor, the pig of
+internal economy. Triplets were to be suckled at the public
+expense; twins to be fed, when big enough, at the public expense.
+The chief wife's son must be mourned, with absence from official
+duty, for three years; other sons for two; and both kinds of son
+were to be equally buried with weeping and wailing. Orphans, and
+the sons of sick or poor widows, were to receive official
+employment. Distinguished sons were to have their apartments
+cleansed for them, and had to be well fed and handsomely clothed.
+Learned men from other states were to be officially welcomed in
+the ancestral temple. With reference to this curious law, which is
+totally un-Chinese in its startling originality, it may be
+mentioned that it seems to have gradually led to that laxity of
+morals in ancient Yiieh which is still proverbial in those parts;
+for, when the First August Emperor was touring over his new empire
+in 212 B.C., he left an inscription (still on record) at the old
+Yiieh capital, denouncing the "pig-like adultery" of the region,
+and, more especially, the remarrying of widows already in
+possession of children. Only a few years ago, proclamations
+appeared in this region denouncing the pernicious custom of
+forcing widows to remarry. Although Kwan-tsz is supposed to have
+"invented" the Babylonian woman for Ts'i, nothing is said in any
+ancient Chinese history about common prostitution; nor is female
+infanticide ever mentioned. In 502 B.C. the Lu revolutionary,
+already mentioned in Chapter XXXVII., who was driven to Tsin by
+Confucius' astute measures, had, before leaving Lu, formed a plot
+to murder all the sons, by wives, of the three "powerful families"
+who were intriguing against the ducal rights, and to put concubine
+sons-being creatures of his own-in their place; thus the
+succession principles applied not only to ruling families, but
+also to private houses; though, as a matter of fact, these three
+were all, in their origin, descended from previous ruling dukes.
+As explained in Chapters XII. and XXXIII., after five generations
+a fresh "family" is supposed to spring out of the common clan.
+
+In spite of Wu's barbarism, the fact of its belonging, by remote
+origin, to the imperial clan (through its first: ruler having
+magnanimously migrated from Chou before Chou conquered China in
+1122), made it technically incest for Lu to intermarry with Wu;
+thus, when in 482 B.C., a Wu princess (evidently forced for
+political purposes upon Lu) died, her husband, the ruler of Lu,
+was obliged to refrain from a public burial, as has been explained
+in Chapter XXXIII. on Names.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE
+
+It will have been noticed that, even in strictly historical times
+subsequent to 842 B.C., orthodox China was, _mutatis mutandis_,
+like orthodox Greece, a petty territory surrounded by a fringe of
+little-known regions, such as Macedonia, Asia Minor, Phoenicia,
+Egypt, and Italy; not to say distant Marseilles, and the Pillars of
+Hercules-all places at best very little visited except by navigators,
+and even then only by a few specially enterprising navigators or
+desperate adventurers; though later on Greek influence and Greek
+colonies soon began to replace the Phoenician, and to exhibit surrounding
+countries in a more correct and definite light.
+
+As touches the surrounding regions of ancient China, and the
+knowledge of it possessed by the orthodox nucleus, such traditions
+as there are all point to acquaintance with the south and east
+rather than with the north and west. Persons who are persistently
+bent on bringing the earliest Chinese from the Tower of Babel by
+way of the Tarim Valley, are eager to seize upon the faintest
+tradition, or what seems to them an apparent tradition, in support
+of these preconceived views; ignoring the obviously just argument
+that, if we are to pay any attention to mere traditions at all, we
+must in common fairness give priority in value to such traditions
+as there are, rather than such traditions as are not, but only as
+might be. For instance, there was a Chinese tradition that the
+founder of the Hia dynasty (2205 B.C.) was, in a sense, somehow
+connected with the barbarous kingdom of Yiieh, inasmuch as the
+great-great-grandson of the founder of the Hia empire a century
+later enfeoffed a son by a concubine in that remote region. The
+earliest Chinese mention of Japan is that it lay to the east of
+Yiieh, and that the Japanese used to come and trade with Yiieh. If
+the Japanese traditions, on the other hand, as first put into
+independent writing in the eighth century A.D., are worth
+anything, then the Japanese pretend that their ancestors were
+present at a durbar held by the above-mentioned great-great-
+grandson of the Hia founder; and they also firmly derive their
+ruling houses (both king and princes) from the kingdom of Wu. We
+have seen in former chapters that both Wu and Yiieh, the most
+ancient capitals of which were within 200 miles of each other,
+spoke one language, and that both were derived (_i.e._, the
+administrative caste was derived) from two separate Chinese
+imperial dynasties. Now, the founder of the Hia dynasty is
+celebrated above all things for his travels in, and his geography
+of China, usually called the "Tribute of Yii" (his name),--a still
+existing work, the real origin of which may be obscure, but which
+has come down to us in the Book (of History). This geography is
+not only accurate, but it even now throws great light upon the
+original direction of river-courses which have since changed; in
+this work there is not the faintest tradition or indirect mention
+of any Chinese having ever migrated into China from the west.
+
+There is no foundation, however, for the supposition, favoured by
+some European writers, that the Nine Tripods (frequently mentioned
+above) contained upon their surface "maps" of the empire; they
+merely contained a summary, or a collection of pictures,
+symbolizing the various tribute nations. On the other hand, there
+is no trace in the "Tribute of Yii" of any knowledge of China
+south of the Yarig-tsz River, south of its mouths, and south of
+its connection with the lakes of Hu Nan. The "province" of Yang
+Chou is vaguely said to extend from the Hwai River "south to the
+sea." The "Blackwater" is the only river mentioned which exhibits
+any knowledge of the west (i.e. of the west half of modern Kan Suh
+province), and this "Blackwater" was crossed in 984 B.C. by the
+Emperor Muh.
+
+Then there is the tradition of Vii's predecessor, the Emperor
+Shun, who, as mentioned in the last chapter, married the two
+daughters of the Emperor Yao, and is buried at a point just south
+of the Lake Tung-t'ing, in the modern province of Hu Nan: it is
+certain that in 219 B.C., when the First August Emperor was on
+tour, the mountain where the grave lay was pointed out to him at a
+distance, if he did not actually go up to it. Again, the
+grandfather of the Warrior King who founded the Chou dynasty in
+1122 B.C. was, as already repeatedly pointed out, only a younger
+brother, his two elder brothers having migrated to the Jungle,
+and, proceeding thence eastward, founded a colony in Wu (half-way
+between Nanking and Shanghai). Both Wu and Yiieh, for very many
+centuries after that, were extremely petty states of only 50 or 60
+miles in extent, and for all practical purposes of history may be
+considered to have been one and the same region, to wit, the flat,
+canal-cut territory through which the much-disputed Shanghai-
+Hangchow railway is to run. After the death of the Martial King,
+when his brother the Duke of Chou was Regent for his son, the duke
+incurred the suspicion of other brethren and relatives as to his
+motives, and had to retire for some time to Ts'u, or, as it was
+then called, the Jungle country, for two years. There is a
+tradition that a mission from one of the southern Yiieh states
+found its way to the Duke of Chou, who is supposed to have fitted
+up for the envoys a cart with a compass attached to it, in order
+to keep the cart's head steadily south. This tradition, which only
+appears as a _tradition_ in one of the dynastic histories of
+the fifth century A. D., is not given at all in the earlier
+standard history, and it is by no means proved that the
+undoubtedly early Chinese knowledge of the loadstone extended to
+the making of compasses. Yet, as Rénan has justly pointed out in
+effect, in his masterly evidences of Gospel truth, a weak
+tradition is better worth considering than no tradition at all.
+Besides, there is some slight indirect confirmation of this, for
+in 880 B.C. or thereabout, a King of Ts'u gave one of his younger
+sons a Yiieh kingdom bearing almost the same double name as that
+Yüeh kingdom from which the envoys in 1080 B.C. came to the Duke
+of Chou; in each case the first part of the double name was Yiieh,
+and the second part only differed slightly. Again, in or about
+820, some of the sons of the king exiled themselves to a place
+vaguely defined as "somewhere south of the Han River," which can
+scarcely mean anything other than "the country of the Shan or
+Siamese races," who lived then in and around Yiin Nan, and some of
+whom are still known by the vague name used as here in 820 B.C.
+The vagueness of habitat simply means that all south of the Han
+and Yang-tsz was _terra_ incognita to China proper. There is
+another tradition, unsupported by standard history, to the effect
+that the Martial King enfeoffed a faithful minister of the emperor
+and dynasty he had just supplanted as a vassal in Corea. Here,
+again, if the emperor's own grandfather, or grand-uncles and
+trusted friends, could find their way to Wu, and, later, to Japan,
+not to mention Shan Tung and the Peking plain, it is reasonable to
+permit a respected adherent of the dethroned monarch to find his
+way to Corea, the more in that the centre of administrative
+gravity of Corea was then Liao Tung and South Manchuria--at the
+utmost the north part of modern Corea--rather than the Corean
+peninsula.
+
+In the year 649 the First Protector began to boast of having done
+as much as any of the' three dynasties, Hia, Shang, and Chou,
+during the 1500 years before him; he then defines the area of his
+glory, which is circumscribed by (at the very utmost) the west
+part of Shan Si, the south part of Ho Nan, the north part of the
+Peking plain, and the Gulf of "Pechelee." The Second Protector,
+when he safely reached his ancestral throne after nineteen years
+of wanderings as Pretender, said to his faithful Tartar henchman
+and father-in-law: "I have made the tour of the whole world (or
+whole empire) with you." As a matter of fact, he had been with the
+Tartars, certainly in central, and possibly also in northern Shan
+Si; in Ts'i, which means the northern part of Shan Tung and
+southern part of Chih Li; thence across the four small orthodox
+states of Sung, Wei, Ts'ao, and CHÊNG (which simply means up the
+Yellow River valley into Ho Nan), to Ts'u; and thence Ts'in
+fetched him to put him on the Tsin throne. The Emperor was already
+an obscure figure-head beneath all political notice, and no other
+parts of what we now call China were known to the Protector, even
+by name. As we shall see in a later chapter, Confucius covered the
+same ground, except that he never went to Tsin or to Tartarland.
+The first bare mention of Yiieh is in 670 B.C., when the new King
+of Ts'u, who had assassinated his elder brother, and who therefore
+wished to make amends for this crime and for his father's rude
+conquests, and to consolidate his position by putting himself on
+good behaviour to federal China, made dutiful advances to Lu and
+to the Emperor (these two minor powers then best representing the
+old ritual civilization). The Emperor replied: "Go on conquering
+the barbarians and Yiieh, but let the Hia (i.e. orthodox Chinese)
+states alone." In 601 Ts'u and Wu came to a friendly understanding
+about their mutual frontiers, and Yiieh was also admitted to the
+conclave or _entente_; but this was a local act, and had nothing
+whatever to do with China proper, which first hears of Yiieh as an
+independent or semi-independent power in 536, when the King
+of Ts'u, with a string of conquered orthodox Chinese princes
+in train as his allies, and also a Yiieh contingent, makes war on
+Wu. In later days there is evidence showing that there was not
+much general knowledge of China as a whole, and that interstate
+intercourse was chiefly confined to next-door neighbours. For
+instance, when Tsin boldly marched an army upon Ts'i in 589 B.C.,
+it was considered a remarkable thing that Tsin chariots should
+actually gaze upon the sea. In 560, when the Ts'i minister and
+philosopher, Yen-tsz, was in Ts'u as envoy, and the Ts'u courtiers
+were playing tricks upon him (as previously narrated in Chapter
+IX.) he said: "I have heard it stated that when once you get south
+of the Hwai River the oranges are good. In the same way, we
+northerners produce but sorry rogues; the genuine article reaches
+its perfection in Ts'u." Thus, even at this date, the Yang-tsz was
+regarded much as the Romans of the Empire regarded the Danube--as
+a sort of vague barrier between _civis_ and _barbarus_. In
+no sense was the Ts'u capital--at no time were the bulk of the
+Ts'u dominions--south of that Great River; nor, in fact, were the
+capitals of Wu and Yiieh south of it either, for one of the three
+mouths (the northernmost was as now), corresponded to the Soochow
+Creek and the Wusung River, as they pass through the Shanghai
+settlement of to-day; whilst the other ancient mouth entered the
+sea at modern Hangchow. We have given various other evidence above
+to show that, even earlier than this, the Yang-tsz was an
+unexplored region, known, and that only imperfectly and locally,
+to the Ts'u government alone. In the year 656 B.C. the First
+Protector called Ts'u to book because, in 1003 B.C., the Emperor
+had made a tour to the Great River and had never returned (see
+Chapter XX-XV.). Again, when the imperial power collapsed in 771
+B.C., the first Earl of CHÊNG (a relative of the Emperor)
+consulted the imperial astrologer as to where he had better
+establish his new fief: his own idea was to settle southwards on
+the borders of the Yang-tsz; but he was dissuaded from this step
+on the ground that the Ts'u power would grow accordingly as the
+Chou power declined, and thus CHÊNG would all the easier fall a
+prey to Ts'u in the future if she migrated now so far south. The
+astrologer makes another observation which supports the view that
+Ts'u and orthodox China were originally of the same prehistoric
+stock. He says: "When the remote ancestor of Ts'u did good service
+to the Emperor (2400 B.C.), his renown was great, yet his
+descendants never became so flourishing as those of the Chou
+family." In 597 B.C., when the Earl of CHÊNG really was at the
+mercy of Ts'u, he said: "If you choose to send me south of the
+Yang-tsz towards the South Sea, I shall not have the right to
+object"; meaning, "no exile, however remote, is too severe for my
+deserts." In 549, when the Tsin generals were marching against
+Ts'u, they were particularly anxious to find good CHÊNG guides who
+knew the routes well. Finally, in 541, a Tsin statesman made the
+following observations to a prince (afterwards king) of Ts'u, who
+was then on a mission to Tsin, by way of illustrating for his
+visitor the conquests and distant expeditions of ancient times:--
+
+"The Emperor Shun (who married Yao's two daughters, and employed
+the founder of the Hia dynasty as his minister) was obliged to
+imprison the prince of the Three Miao (in Hu Nan; the savages of
+Hu Nan and Kwei Chou provinces are still called _Miao_); the
+Hia dynasty had to deal with quarrels in (modern) Shan Tung and
+Shen Si; the Shang dynasty had to do the same in (modern) Kiang
+Su; the early Chou monarchs the same in (modern) North Kiang Su
+and South Shan Tung: but, now that there are no able emperors, all
+the vassals are at loggerheads. Wu and P'uh (the supposed Shan or
+Siamese region above referred to) are giving you trouble; but it
+is no one's concern but yours."
+
+From all this it is quite plain, though the Chinese historians and
+philosophers never seem to have discerned it clearly themselves,
+that the cultivated or orthodox Chinese, that is, the group of
+closely related monosyllabic and tonic tribes which alone
+possessed the art of writing, and thus inevitably took the lead
+and gradually civilized the rest, covered but a very small area of
+ground even at the time of Confucius' death in 479 B.C., and were
+completely ignorant of everything but the bare names of all the
+regions surrounding this orthodox nucleus, which nucleus was
+therefore rightly called the "Central State," as China is, by
+extension, now still called.
+
+[Illustration: MAP
+
+1. Si-ngan Fu (and Hien-yang opposite, on the north bank of the
+River Wei), marked with circles in a lozenge, were the capitals of
+China, off and on, from 220 B.C. for over a thousand years. The
+ancient capital of the Chou dynasty, forsaken in 771 B.C., is
+marked with a cross in a circle and is west of Si-ngan. In 771
+B.C. the Emperor fled east to his "east capital" (founded 300
+years before that date), which then became the sole metropolis,
+called _Loh_ (from the river on which it stands); it is also
+marked with a cross inside a circle and is practically the modern
+Ho-nan Fu; it has, off and on, been the capital of all China,
+alternately with Si-ngan Fu, in later times.
+
+2. The ford where the first Chou Emperor (122 B.C.) made an
+appointment with all his vassals is marked by two dotted lines
+across the Yellow River.
+
+3. The two dots in a half-circle mark the spot whither Tsin
+"summoned" the Emperor to the durbar of 632 B.C. After this, Tsin
+obtained from the Emperor cession of the strip between the Yellow
+River and the Ts'in River (nothing to do with Ts'in state).
+
+4. There is a second River Loh separating Ts'in state from Tsin
+state. The territory between this River Loh and the Yellow River
+was alternately held by Tsin and Ts'in.
+
+5. The territory between the more southerly River Loh and the
+Yellow River and River I was the shorn imperial appanage after
+Ts'in had in 771 B.C. obtained the west half; after Tsin in 632
+had obtained the remaining north half; and after Ts'u had nibbled
+away the petty orthodox vassals south of latitude 34".]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+TOMBS AND REMAINS
+
+The Chinese, with the single exception of their Great Wall, have
+always been flimsy builders, and there is accordingly very little
+left in the way of monuments to prove the antiquity of their
+civilization. Mention has already been made of the tombs of the
+Emperors Shun and Yii (2200 B.C.). The tomb of another Hia dynasty
+emperor (1837 B.C.) lay twenty miles north of Yung-ning in Ho
+Nan,' where Ts'in, in 627 B.C., was annihilated by Tsin (see p.
+30). The tomb (long. 115ø, lat. 33ø) of the King of Ts'u who died
+in 689 B.C. was pillaged about 500 years later, but landslips
+defeated the thieves' objects. The First Protector's tomb, seven
+miles south of his capital in Shan Tung--the town still marked on
+the maps as Lin-tsz--was desecrated in A.D. 312. A small pond of
+mercury was found inside, besides arms, valuables, and the bones
+of those buried with him. The palace of the Ts'u king of 617
+B.C.,--son of the one whose death that year was respectfully
+chronicled by Confucius--is still the yam&. or _protorium_ of
+the district magistrate at King-thou Fu, and can perhaps even yet
+be seen from any passing steamers that circulate above the treaty-
+port of Sha-shf. There is a doubt about the date of this king's
+tomb (d. 593); some place it near the palace, others over 100
+miles north, near the modern city of Siang-yang. It is possible
+that, after the sacking of the capital by Wu, in 506, the bodies
+of former kings were at once removed to the new temporary capital
+(far to the north) to which the old name was given. For instance,
+it is certain that the king who died in 545 was buried quite close
+to the capital (King-thou Fu). Ki-chah's tomb, with Confucius'
+inscription upon it in ancient character, is still shown at a
+place ten miles west of Kiang-yin (where the modern forts are,
+below Nanking) and twenty miles east of Ch'ang-chou; probably the
+new "British" railway passes quite close to the place, as do the
+steamers: for the past 400 years sacrifices have been annually
+offered to Ki-chah's memory: as Confucius never visited Wu, the
+inscription, if genuine, must have been sent thither. The tomb of
+Ki-chah's nephew, King of Wu, is still to be seen outside one of
+the gates of Soochow; or, rather, the temple built on the site is
+there, for the tomb itself was desecrated and pillaged by the
+armies of Yueh, when they sacked the capital in 482. There was,
+originally, a triple copper coffin, a small pond, and some water
+birds made of gold (probably symbolic of sport), arms, valuables,
+etc.; but nothing is said of human beings having been sacrificed.
+It was said (2000 years ago) that elephants had been employed in
+carrying the earth and building materials for this tomb. In 506
+the vengeful Ts'u officer who had fled to Wu, and had incited the
+King of Wu to do all he could to ruin Ts'u, actually opened the
+royal grave, in or near the capital, and flogged the corpse of the
+dead king who had so grievously offended him and his family.
+
+In the year 501 the original bow and sceptre given by the warrior
+king to his brother, the Duke of Chou, founder of the State of Lu,
+was stolen from its resting-place, but was luckily recovered the
+following year. Incidentally this statement is of value; for when
+the King of Ts'u, as narrated above, was making his demands upon
+the Emperor, one of his grievances was that he possessed no relics
+of the founder such as the presents which had been made by him to
+Ts'i, Lu, Yen, Tsin, and other favoured states of no greater
+status than his own. The above are only a few instances out of
+many which show how, from age to age, the Chinese have seen with
+their own eyes things which in the vista of the distance now seem
+to us uncertain and incredible. As usual, Ts'in gives us nothing
+in the way of antiquity; another proof that, until she conceived
+the idea of conquering China, she was totally unknown (internally)
+to orthodox China. Confucius' own house, temple, grave, and park
+form an absolutely unbroken link with the past. There are remains
+and the relics of the Duke of Chou in the immediate neighbourhood,
+and it must not be forgotten that the Duke of Chou and his ritual
+system were Confucius' models: as Confucius insisted, "I am only a
+transmitter of antiquity." Moderns, and especially foreigners,
+have forgotten or reck nothing about the Duke of Chou; yet his
+remains and temples were just as much a matter of visible history
+to Confucius as Confucius' grounds are to us. Each successive
+generation in China alludes to existing antiquities, or to
+contemporaneous objects which have since become antiquities, with
+the quiet confidence of those who actually possess, and who doubt
+not of their possessions. The very _lacunae_ are pointed out
+by themselves--no scepticism of ours is required; for whenever any
+historian, or any less formal writer, has outstepped the bounds of
+truth or probability, the critics are immediately there, and they
+always frankly say what they believe. In a word, the Chinese
+documents, be they iron, stone, wood, silk, paper, buildings, or
+graves; and their traditions, are the sole evidence we possess:
+Chinese critics were the sole critics of that evidence; and they
+are the sole light by which we foreigners can become critics. The
+great Chinese defect in criticism is the failure to work out
+general principles, and to criticize constructively as well as
+analytically. Their history is a rule of thumb, hand to mouth,
+diary sort of arrangement, like a vast museum of genuine but
+unclassified and unticketed objects. But there is no good reason
+whatever for our doubting the genuineness of either traditions or
+documents beyond the point of scepticism to which native Chinese
+doubts go, for it must be remembered that no foreigner possesses
+one tenth of the mass of Chinese learning that the professional
+literatus easily assimilates. All we can do is to re-group, and
+extract principles.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+THE TARTARS
+
+It is important to insist on the very close relations that existed
+between the Chinese and the Tartars from the very earliest times.
+All that we are told for certain is that they were north and west
+of the older dynasties, and especially in occupation of the Upper
+Wei River, on the lower part of which the old metropolis of Si-
+ngan Fu lies; which means that they were exactly where we find
+them in Confucian times, and where we find them now, except that
+they have been pushed a little further back, and that Chinese
+colonists have appropriated most of the oases. The Chou ancestor
+who died in 1231, _i.e._ the father of the founders of Wu,
+and the great-grandfather of the founder of the Chou dynasty
+(1122), had to abandon to the encroaching Tartars his appanage on
+the Upper King River (a northern tributary of the Wei, which runs
+almost parallel with it, and joins it at Si-ngan Fu), and was
+obliged to move southwards to the Upper Wei River. For nearly 1000
+years previous to this, his ancestors, who had originally been
+forced to fly to the Tartars in order to avoid the misgovernment
+of the third Hia emperor, had lived among and had, whilst
+continuing the Chinese art of cultivating, partly become Tartars;
+for in 1231 B.C. the migrating host is said to have renounced
+Tartar manners, and to have devoted themselves seriously to
+building and cultivating; from which it necessarily follows that
+Tartar manners must for some time have been definitely adopted by
+the Chou family. The grandson of the migrator, the father of the
+Chou founder, had various little wars with a tribe called the Dog
+Tartars. Over 1000 years after that first flight to Tartardom, we
+have seen that the Emperor Muh, great-grandson of the Chou
+founder, not only had brushes with the Tartars, but extended his
+tours amongst them to the Lower Tarim Valley, Turfan, Harashar,
+and possibly even as far as Urumtsi and Kuché; but certainly no
+farther. Two hundred years later, again, the then ruling Emperor
+was defeated by the Tartars in (modern) Central Shan Si province,
+and the descendant in the sixth generation of the Ts'in Jehu who
+had conducted the Emperor Muh's chariot into Tartarland, only just
+succeeded in saving the Emperor's life; but this family of Chao,
+which was thus (_cf._ p. 206) of one and the same descent
+with the Ts'in family, subsequently found its account in
+abandoning the imperial interest altogether, and in serving the
+rising principality of Tsin (Shan Si), where it became one of the
+"six families," three of which six in 403 B.C. were ultimately
+recognized by the Emperor as independent rulers. As we have said
+over and over again, in 772 B.C. the Chou Emperor, through female
+intrigues, got into trouble with the Tartars, and was killed: his
+successor had to move the metropolis east to (modern) Ho-nan Fu,
+thus abandoning the western part of his patrimony--the semi-Tartar
+half--to Ts'in. Thus Ts'in in 771 B.C. was to the Chou Emperors
+what Chou, previous to 1200 B.C., had been to the Shang Emperors.
+
+We now come to strictly historical times, and we shall have no
+difficulty in showing that even then--h _fortiori_ in times
+not strictly historical--the various Tartar tribes were still in
+practical possession of the whole north bank of the Yellow River,
+all the way from the Desert to the sea. In fact, in 494 B.C., when
+the King of Wu sent a giant's bone to Lu for further explanation,
+Confucius said that the "Long Tartars" (who had frequent fights
+with Lu in the seventh century B.C.) used to extend south-east
+into (modern) Kiang Su, almost as far as the mouth of the Yang-tsz
+River: he also says that, had it not been for the energy of the
+First Protector and his statesman adviser, the philosopher Kwan-
+tsz of Ts'i, orthodox China would certainly have become
+Tartarized. It was Confucius also whose learning enabled him to
+recognize a (Manchu) arrow found in the body of a migrating goose.
+In the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. the Tartars made repeated
+and obstinate attacks upon Yen (Peking plain), Ts'i (coast Chih Li
+and north Shan Tung), Wei (south Chih Li and north Ho Nan), Sung
+(extreme east Ho Nan), Ts'ao (central Ho Nan), and the Emperor's
+territory (west Ho Nan). This situation explains to us why the
+Protector system arose in China, in competition with the waning
+imperial power. Ts'in and Tsin, being already half Tartar
+themselves, were always well able to cope with and even to annex
+the Tartar tribes in their immediate vicinity; but orthodox China
+was ever a prey to the more easterly Tartar attacks; and thus the
+Emperors, threatened by Ts'u to their south, and in a measure also
+by Ts'in and Tsin to their north and west, not only could not any
+longer protect their orthodox vassals lying towards the east from
+Tartar attacks, but could not even protect themselves.
+
+It was Ts'i that drove back the Mongol-Manchu tribes and rescued
+Yen in 662; it was the Ts'i ruler who led a coalition of princes
+against other groups of Tartars and placed back on his ancestral
+throne the ruler of Wei, who had been driven from his country by
+Tartars in 658; it was the First Protector, ruler of Ts'i, who
+managed to pacify the more westerly Tartars we find persistently
+menacing the Emperor in 648; to whose rescue the Tartars came in
+642, when a coalition of orthodox Chinese princes shamelessly took
+advantage of the First Protector's death to attack Ts'i during the
+mourning period. Now it was that the Second Protector, still a
+refugee among his Tartar relatives, started for Ts'i, his original
+idea being to replace the philosopher Kwan-tsz as adviser to the
+First Protector; but, shortly after he reached Ts'i, the First
+Protector died, and it was only by stratagem that his friends
+succeeded in rescuing the future Second Protector from the arms of
+his Ts'i Delilah and his _d'elices de_ Capue. His chief adviser,
+and at the same time his brother-in-law from a Tartar point of view,
+was the lineal descendant of the Chao man who had saved the
+Emperor in 800 B.C. He set out, _via_ the orthodox states,
+for his own country. These petty orthodox states, such as Wei,
+Cheng, and Ts'ao, which did not then see their way to profit
+politically by the Pretender's visit, paid the penalty of their
+meanness and their rudeness to him later on. Sung was polite, as
+at that time Sung and Ts'u were both aiming at the Protectorship.
+Ts'u's hospitality was bluff and good-natured, the King being too
+strong to fear, and too unsophisticated to intrigue after Chinese
+fashion. Just then news coming from Ts'in that the Pretender's
+brothers had all resigned or died, and that his chance had now
+come, the Pretender hurried to Tsin, regained his throne, and was
+acclaimed Protector of China exactly at the critical moment when a
+strong hand was urgently required to check the particular
+ambitions of Ts'in, Ts'i, and Ts'u. Ts'u was too barbarous; Sung
+was too pedantic; Tsin alone had unrivalled experience both of
+Tartars and Eastern barbarians, and also of Southern barbarians
+(Ts'u). Probably it was only the fact of the Tsin ruling family
+bearing the same clan-name as the Emperor that had decided Tsin
+throughout to be orthodox Chinese instead of Tartar. The Tartar
+family into which the Second Protector had married as a
+comparatively young man was, however, also of the imperial clan-
+name, i.e. it was of orthodox Chinese origin, but (even like the
+Chou imperial family at one time) it had adopted Tartar customs. A
+large number of the one thousand or more petty Chinese principalities,
+attached not directly to the Emperor, but to the greater vassals
+as mesne lords, were in the same predicament; that is to say,
+they were of Chinese origin, but they had found that it paid them
+best to adopt barbarian ways. It was exactly as though Scipio
+should settle in Carthage, and become a Carthaginian: C'sar
+in Gaul, and adopt Gallic customs; and so on with other Roman
+adventurers who should find a comfortable _gîte_ in Persia,
+Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, or even in Britain and Germany.
+
+The main point upon which to fix the attention is this. The
+Chinese nucleus was very small, and only by rudely thrusting aside
+incompetent emperors and fussy ritual did it succeed in
+emancipating itself from Tartar bondage. That this is not an
+exaggerated view is additionally plain from the fact that Tartars
+have, even since Confucian times, ruled more and longer than have
+Chinese over North China; the Mongols (1260-1368) were the first
+Tartars to rule over all China, and nominally over all West Asia;
+the Manchus (1643-1908) are the first Tartars to rule all China,
+all Manchuria, and all Mongolia, at all effectively; and they have
+even added parts of Turkestan, with Tibet, Nepaul, and other
+countries over which the Peking imperial Mongol influence was
+always very shadowy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+MUSIC
+
+In these pictures of ancient Chinese life which we are
+endeavouring to present, the idea is to repeat from every point of
+view the main characteristics of that life, so that a strange and
+unfamiliar subject, very loosely depicted in the straggling annals
+of antiquity, may receive fresh rays of light from every possible
+quarter, and thus stand out clearer as a connected whole.
+
+Take, for instance, the subject of music, which always played in
+Chinese ceremonial a prominent part not easy for us now to
+understand. One of the chief sights of the modern Confucian
+residence is the music-room, containing specimens of all the
+ancient musical instruments, which, on occasion, are still played
+upon in chorus; a picture of them has been published by Father
+Tschepe. (See page 128.) According to the description given by
+this European visitor, the music is of a most discordant and ear-
+splitting description: but that does not necessarily dispose of
+the question; for even parts of Wagner's Ring are a meaningless
+clang to those who hear the music for the first time, and who are
+unable to read the score or to follow out the "classical" style.
+As we have said before, the ancient emperors, at their banquets
+given to vassals and others, always had musical accompaniment.
+
+In 626 B.C., when the ruler of Ts'in received a mission from "the
+Tartar king" (probably a local king or chief), he was much struck
+with the sagacity of the envoy sent to him. This envoy still spoke
+the Tsin language or dialect; but his parents, who were of Tsin
+origin, had adopted Tartar manners. The envoy was also an author,
+and his work, in two sections, had survived at least up to the
+second century B.C.: he is classed amongst the "Miscellaneous
+Writers." The subject of the conversation was the superiority of
+simple Tartar administration as compared with the intricate ritual
+of the Odes, the Book, the Rites, and the "Music" of orthodox
+China. The beginnings of Lao-tsz's Taoism seem to peep out from
+this Tartar's words, just as they do with other "Miscellaneous"
+authors. The wily Ts'in ruler, in order to secure this clever
+envoy for his own service, sent two bands of female musicians as a
+present to the Tartar king, so as to make him less virile; 140
+years later the cunning ruler of Ts'i did much the same thing in
+order to prevent the Duke of Lu from growing too strong; and the
+immediate consequence was that Confucius left his fickle master in
+disgust. Ki-chah, Prince of Wu, was entertained whilst at Lu with
+specimens of music from the different states. When he came to the
+Ts'in music, he said: "Ha! ha! the words are Chinese! When Ts'in
+becomes quite Chinese, it will have a great future." This remark
+suggests a Ts'in language or dialect different from that of Tsin,
+and also from that of more orthodox China. In 546 B.C., when a
+mission from Ts 'u to Tsin was accompanied by a high officer from
+the disputed orthodox state of Ts'ai lying between those two great
+powers, the theory of music as an adjunct to government was
+discussed. Confucius' view a century later was that music best
+reflected a nation's manners, and that in good old times authority
+was manifested quite as much in rites and ceremonies as in laws
+and pronouncements. Previous to that, in 582, it had been
+discovered that Ts'u had a musical style of her own; and in 579,
+when the Tsin envoy was received there in state, among other
+instruments of music observed there were suspended bells.
+
+Thus both Ts'in and Ts'u at this date were still in the learning
+stage. Before ridiculing the idea that music could in any way
+serve as a substitute for preaching or commanding, we must reflect
+upon the awe-inspiring contribution of music to our own religious
+services, not to mention the "speaking" effect of our Western
+nocturnes, symphonies, and operatic music generally.
+
+In 562 B.C., when a statesman of Tsin (whose fame in this
+connection endures to our own days) succeeded in establishing a
+permanent understanding with the Tartars, based upon joint trading
+rights and reasonable mutual concessions, the principle of
+interesting the Tartars in cultivation, industry, and so on; as a
+reward for his distinguished services, he was presented with
+certain music, which meant that he had the political right to have
+certain musical airs performed in his presence. This concession
+ceases to seem ridiculous or even strange to us if we reflect what
+an honour it would have been to, say, the Duke of Wellington, or
+to Nelson, had the right to play "God Save the King" at dinner
+been granted to his family band of musicians. Four centuries
+before this, when the Emperor Muh made his tour amongst the
+Tartars, he always commanded that one particular musical air
+(named) should be struck up by his musicians on certain occasions
+(always stated in the narrative). In Tsin, and probably elsewhere,
+music-masters seem to have combined soothsaying and philosophy
+with their functions; thus, in 558 the music-master of that state
+was questioned on the arts of good government, to which he
+replied: "Goodness and justice"--two special antipathies, by the
+way, of Lao-tsz the Taoist, who lived about this time as an
+archive-keeper at the metropolis. In the year 555, either this
+same man or another musical prophet in Tsin reassured his fellow-
+countrymen who were dreading a Ts'u invasion with the following
+words: "I have just been conducting a song consisting of north and
+south airs, and the latter sound as though the south would be
+defeated." But music also had its lighter uses, for we have seen
+in Chapter VI. how in 549 two Tsin generals took their ease in a
+comfortable cart, playing the banjo, whilst passing through Cheng
+to attack Ts'u. Music was used at worship as well as at court; in
+527 the ruler of Lu, as a mark of respect for one of his deceased
+ministers, abandoned the playing of music, which otherwise would
+have been a constituent part of the sacrifice or worship he had in
+hand at the moment. Even in modern China, music is prohibited
+during solemn periods of mourning, and officials are often
+degraded for attending theatrical performances on solemn fasts. In
+212 B.C., when the First August Emperor was, like Saul or
+Belshazzar, beginning to grow sad at the contemplation of his
+lonely and unloved greatness, he was suddenly startled at the fall
+of a meteoric stone, bearing upon it what looked like a warning
+inscription. He at once ordered his learned men to compose some
+music treating of "true men" and immortals, in order to exorcise
+the evil omen; it may be mentioned that this emperor's Taoist
+proclivities have apparently had the indirect result that the word
+"true man" has come century by century down to us, with the
+meaning of "Taoist priest," or "Taoist inspired person."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+WEALTH, SPORTS, ETC.
+
+A traveller in modern China may still wonder at the utter absence
+of any sign of wealth or luxury except in the very largest towns.
+Fine clothes, jewels, concubines, rich food, aphrodisiacs, opium,
+land, cattle--these represent "wealth" as conceived by the Chinese
+rich man's mind. In 655 Ts'in is said to have paid five ram-skins
+to Ts'u in order to secure the services of a coveted adviser. Not
+many years after that, when the future Second Protector was making
+his terms with the King of Ts'u, he remarked: "What can I do for
+you in return? You already possess all the slaves, musicians,
+treasures, silks, feathers, ivory, and leather you can want." In
+606 a magnificent turtle was sent as a new year's dinner present
+from Ts'u to Cheng; in modern China this form of politeness would
+never do at all, as the turtle has acquired an evil reputation as
+a term of abuse, akin to the Spanish use or abuse of the word
+"garlic": however, I myself once experienced, when inland, far
+away from the sea, a curious compliment in the shape of a live
+crab two inches long (sent to me as a great honour) in a small
+jar. Of course chairs were unknown, and even the highest sat or
+squatted on mats; not necessarily on the ground, but spread on
+couches. Hence the word survives the object, just as with us
+("covers" at dinner are "provided" but never seen; thus in China a
+host is "east mat" and a guest "west mat.") In 626, when the ruler
+of Ts'in was talking politics with the Tartar envoy just mentioned
+above, he allowed him, as a special favour, to sit alongside of
+his own mat (on the couch). These couches probably resembled the
+modern settee, sofa, _k'ang,_ or divan, such as all visitors
+to China have seen and sat on. Tea was quite unknown in those
+days, and is not mentioned before the seventh century A.D.; but
+possibly wine may have been served, as tea is now, on a low table
+between the two seats. "Tartar couches" (possibly Turkish divans)
+are frequently mentioned, even in the field of battle, and in
+comparatively modern times. In 300 B.C. Ts'u made a present to a
+distinguished renegade prince of the Ts'i house of an "elephant
+couch," by which is probably meant a couch inlaid with ivory, in
+the present well-known Annamese style.
+
+In 589 B.C., when Tsin troops reached the Ts'i capital and the sea
+(as already related in Chapters VI. and XXXIX. under the heads of
+Armies and Geographical Knowledge), T'si endeavoured to purchase
+peace by offering to the victor the state treasure in the shape of
+precious utensils. In 551 a rich man of Ts'u was considered
+insolently showy because he possessed forty horses. In 545 the
+envoy from Cheng, acting under the Peace Conference agreement so
+often previously described and alluded to, brings presents of furs
+and silks to Ts'u; and in 537 Tsin speaks of such articles as
+often being presented to Ts'u. In 494, when the King of Yiieh
+received his great defeat at the hands of the King of Wu, his
+first desperate idea was to kill his wives and children, burn his
+valuables, and seek death at the head of his troops; but the
+inevitable wily Chinese adviser was at hand, and the King ended by
+taking his mentor's advice and successfully bribing the Wu general
+(a Ts'u renegade) with presents of women and valuables. When this
+shrewd Chinese adviser of the Yueh king had, by his sagacious
+counsels, at last secured the final defeat of Wu, he packed up his
+portable valuables, pearls, and jades, collected his family and
+clients, and went away by sea, never to come back. As a matter of
+fact, he settled in Ts'i, where he made an enormous fortune in the
+fish trade, and ultimately became the traditional Croesus of
+China, his name being quite as well known to modern Chinese
+through the Confucian historians, as the name of Croesus is to
+modern Europeans through Herodotus. He had, between the two
+defeats of Yiieh by Wu and Wu by Yiieh, served for several years
+as a spy in Wu, and the fact of his reaching Shan Tung by sea
+confirms in principle the story of the family of his contemporary,
+the King of Wu, having similarly escaped to Japan. The place where
+he landed was probably the same as where the celebrated pilgrim
+Fah Hien landed, after his Indian pilgrimage, in 415 A.D., i.e.,
+at the German port of Ts'ing-tao.
+
+We do not hear much of gold in the earlier times, but in 237 B.C.,
+when Ts'in was straining every nerve to conquer China, the
+(future) First August Emperor was advised that "it would not cost
+more than 300,000 pounds weight in gold to bribe the ministers of
+all the states in league against Ts'in." Yet in 643 B.C., on the
+death of the First Protector, the orthodox state of Cheng (lying
+between Ts'i and Tsin to the north and Ts'u to the south), was
+bribed with "metal" of some sort--probably gold or silver--to
+abandon Ts'i. In 538 the celebrated Cheng statesman Tsz-ch'an
+informs his Ts'u colleagues that the Tsin officers "think of
+nothing but money." What kind of money this was is doubtful, but
+it will be remembered that about this time the "powerful family"
+of Lu had succeeded in bribing the Tsin ministers, or the "six
+great families" then managing Tsin, to deny justice to the
+fugitive Lu duke. In 513 B.C. the powerful Wu king who made
+(modern) Soochow his capital is said to have possessed both iron
+and gold mines, and it is stated that not even China proper could
+turn out better weapons. Large "cash" are said to have been coined
+by the Emperor who reigned from 540 to 520 B.C.; and in 450 B.C.
+the King of Ts'u is reported to have "closed his _depot_ of
+the three moneys." As only copper was coined, it is not easy to
+say now what the other two "moneys" were. In 318 B.C. a bribe of
+"one hundred golds" was given by Yen to one of the well-known
+political diplomats or intriguers then forming leagues with or
+against Ts'in; it is not known for certain how much this was at
+that particular time and place; but a century or two later it
+meant, under the Ts'in dynasty, twenty-four ounces; during the Han
+dynasty, conquerors of the Ts'in dynasty, it was only about half
+that. Cooks seem to have held official positions of considerable
+dignity. "Meat-eaters" in Confucian times was a term for
+"officials" or "the rich." Thus when the haughty King of Wu was
+suddenly recalled home, from his high-handed durbar with Tsin, Lu,
+and other orthodox states, to go and deal with his formidable
+enemy of Yueh, he turned quite pale. By dint of bold "bluff" he
+managed after all to gain most of his political points, and to
+retire from an awkward corner with honour; but Chinese spies had
+their eyes on him none the less, and reported to the watchful
+enemy that "meat-eaters are not usually blackfaced"--meaning that
+the King of Wu evidently had some very recent bad news on his
+mind, for "the well-fed do not usually look care-worn."
+
+Silk was universally known. When the Second Protector (to be) was
+dallying with his lady-love in Ts'i, the maid of his mistress
+happened to overhear important conversations from her post in a
+mulberry tree; the presumption is that she was collecting leaves
+for the silkworms. Again in 519, a century later, there was a
+dispute on the Ts'u-Wu frontier (North An Hwei province), about
+the possession of certain mulberry trees. Cotton (_Gossypium_)
+was unknown in China, and the poorer classes wore garments of
+hempen materials; the cotton tree (_Bombyx_) was known in
+the south, but then (as now) the catkins could not be woven
+into cloth. It was never the custom of officers in China to wear
+swords, until in 409 B.C. Ts'in introduced the practice; but it
+probably never extended to orthodox China, so far, at least, as
+civilians' were concerned. The three dynasties of Hia, Shang, and
+Chou had all made use of jade or malachite rings, tablets,
+sceptres, and so on, as marks of official rank.
+
+As to sports, hunting, and especially fowling, seem to have been
+the most popular pastimes. In 660 a prince of Wei (orthodox) is
+said to have had a passion for egret fights. In 539 four-horsed
+chariots are mentioned as being used in a great Ts'u hunt south of
+the modern Teh-an in northern Hu Peh province, then mostly jungle:
+these hunts were used as a sort of training for war as well as for
+sport. The celebrated "stone drums" discovered in the seventh
+century A.D. near the old Chou capital describe the war-hunts of
+the active emperor mentioned in Chapter XLI. As might be expected,
+Yen (Peking plain) would be well off for horses-to this day
+brought by the Mongols in droves to Peking: in 539 it is said of
+Yen: "She was never a strong power, in spite of her numerous
+horses." In 534 a great hunt in Lu is described with much detail;
+here also chariots were used, and their shafts were reared in
+opposite rows with their tips meeting above, so as to form a
+"shaft gate," on which, besides, a flag was kept flying. The
+entrance to Chinese official _yamens_ is still called "the
+shaft gate";-in fact, the _ya_ was orginally a flag, and "_yamen_"
+simply means "flag gate." In the Middle Ages the Turkish Khans'
+encampments were always spoken of as their ya--thus: "from
+hence 1500 miles north-west to the Khan's _ya_." Cockfighting
+was a common sport in Ts'i and Lu. In 517 B.C. two prominent
+Lu functionaries had a quarrel because one had put metal
+spurs on his bird, whilst the other had scattered mustard in the
+feathers of his fighting cock: owing to the ambiguity or double
+meaning of one of the pictographs employed, it is not quite
+certain that "mustard in the wings" may not mean "a metal helmet
+on the head." Lifting weights was (as now) a favourite exercise;
+in 307 a Ts'in prince died from the effects of a strain produced
+in trying to lift a heavy metal tripod. In Ts'i games at ball,
+including a kind of football, were played. As a rule, however, it
+is to be feared that the wealthy Chinese classes in ancient (as in
+modern) times found their chief recreation in feasting, literary
+bouts, and female society. Curiously enough, nothing is said of
+gambling. Women are depicted at their looms, or engaged upon the
+silk industry; but it is singular how very little is said of home
+life, of how the houses were constructed, of how the hours of
+leisure were passed. In modern China the bulk of the male rural
+population rises with or before the dawn, and is engaged upon
+field or garden work until the shades of evening fall in; there is
+no artificial light adequate for purposes of needlework or private
+study; even the consolations of tobacco and tea--not to say opium,
+and now newspapers--were unknown in Confucian days. It is
+presumed, therefore, that life was even more humdrum than it is
+now, except that women at least had feet to walk upon. We gain
+some glimpses of excessive taxation and popular misery, forced
+labour and the press-gang; of callous luxury on the part of the
+rich, from the pages of Lao-tsz and Mencius; the Book of Odes also
+tells us much about the pathetic sadness of the people under their
+taskmasters' hands. In all countries popular habits change slowly;
+in none more so than in China. We are driven, therefore, by
+comparison with the life of to-day to conclude that life in those
+times was sufficiently wretched, and it is therefore not to be
+wondered at that the miserable people readily sold their services
+to the first ambitious adventurer who could protect them, and feed
+them from day to day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+CONFUCIUS
+
+Confucius has hitherto appeared to many of us Westerners as a
+stiff, incomprehensible individual, resting his claim to
+immortality upon sententious nothingnesses directed to no obvious
+practical purpose; but, from the slight sketches of the manners of
+the times in which he lived given above, it will be apparent that
+he was a practical man with a definite object in view, and that
+both his barebones history and his jerky moral teachings were the
+best he could do with sorry material, and in the face of
+inveterate corruption and tyranny. It has been explained how the
+Warrior King who conquered China for the Chou family in 1122,
+about a dozen years later enfeoffed the elder brother of the last
+Shang dynasty emperor in the country of Sung, where he ruled the
+greater part of what was left of the late dynasty's immediate
+_entourage_, and kept up the sacrifices. This is what Confucius
+meant when he said: "There remain not in K'i sufficient indications
+of what the institutions of the Hia dynasty were; but I have studied
+in Sung what survives of the Shang dynasty institutions. In practice
+I follow the Chou dynasty institutions, as I have studied them at
+home in Lu." K'i was a very petty state of marquess rank situated
+near Lu, to which, indeed, it was subordinate; but just as Sung had,
+as representatives of the Shang dynasty, the privilege of carrying out
+certain imperial sacrifices, so had K'i, as representatives of the Hia
+dynasty (enfeoffed by Chou in 1122), an equal right to distinction.
+Confucius' ancestors were natives of Sung and scions of the ducal
+family reigning there; in fact, in 893 his ancestor ought to have
+succeeded to the Sung throne: in 710 B.C. the last of these
+ancestors to hold high official rank in Sung was killed, together
+with his princely master; and several generations after that the
+great-grandfather of Confucius, in order to avoid the secular
+spite of the powerful family who had so killed his ancestor,
+decided to migrate to Lu. In other words, he just crossed the
+modern Grand Canal (then the river Sz, which rose in Lu), and
+moved a few days' journey north-east to the nearest civilized
+state of any standing. Confucius' father is no mythical personage,
+but a stout, common soldier, whose doughty deeds under three
+successive dukes are mentioned in the Lu history quite in a casual
+and regular way. When still quite a child, Confucius disclosed a
+curious fancy for playing with sacrificial objects and practising
+ceremonies, just as English children in the nursery sometimes play
+at "being parson and sexton," and at "having feasts." When he grew
+up to manhood, a high officer of Lu foretold his future greatness,
+not only on account of his precociously grave demeanour, but also
+because he was in direct descent from the Shang dynasty, and
+because the intrigues that had taken place in Sung had deprived
+him of his succession rights there also. This high officer's two
+sons, both frequently mentioned by various contemporary authors,
+and one of whom subsequently went with Confucius to visit Lao-tsz
+at the imperial court, thereupon studied the rites under the man
+of whom their father had spoken so well. The only official
+appointment in Lu that Confucius was able to obtain at this period
+was that of steward to one of the "powerful families" then engaged
+in the task, so congenial in those times all over China, of
+undermining the ducal authority; this appointment was a kind of
+stewardship, in which his duties consisted in tallying the
+measures of grain and checking the heads of cattle. One of the two
+sons of the above-mentioned statesman who had foreseen Confucius'
+distinction, some time after this submitted a request to the ruler
+of Lu that he might proceed in company with Confucius to visit the
+imperial capital; and it is supposed by Sz-ma Ts'ien, the
+historian of 100 B.C., that this was the occasion on which took
+place the philosopher's famous interview with Lao-tsz. In this
+connection there are two or three remarks to make. In the first
+place, it is recorded of nearly all the vassal states that they
+either did pay visits to, or wished to visit, the metropolis; and
+that royal dukes and royal historians, either at vassal request or
+under imperial instruction, took part in advising vassal states.
+In the second place, as Confucius then held no high office, his
+visit, being a private affair, would not be considered worth
+mentioning in the Lu annals, and it would therefore almost follow
+as a matter of course that the young man who accompanied him,
+being of official status by birth, would count as the chief
+personage. In the third place, there is no instance in the
+Confucian histories of a mere archive-keeper or a mere philosopher
+being mentioned on account of his importance in that capacity.
+Such men as Tsz-ch'an, Shuh Hiang, Ki-chah, and the other
+distinguished "ritualists" of the time, are not mentioned so much
+on account of their abstract teachings as they are on account of
+their being able statesmen, competent to stave off the rising tide
+of revolutionary opinions. Even Confucius himself only appears in
+contemporary annals as an able administrator and diplomat; there
+is no particular mention of his "school," and, _a fortiori,_
+he himself does not mention Lao-tsz's "school," even if Lao-tsz
+had one; for he disapproved of Lao-tsz's republican and democratic
+way of construing the ancient _tao._ Finally, neither Confucius
+nor Lao-tsz, however great their local reputations, were
+yet universally "great"; they were consequently as little the
+objects of hero-worship as was Shakespeare when he was at the
+height of his activity; and of the living Shakespeare we know next
+to nothing. At this time Lu was in a quandary, surrounded by the
+rival great powers of Tsin, Ts'i, and Ts'u, all three of which
+absolutely ignored the Emperor, except so far as they might
+succeed in using him and his ritualistic prestige as a cat's-paw
+in their own selfish interests. When Confucius was thirty years of
+age (522 B.C.) the ruler of Ts'i, accompanied by his minister the
+philosopher Yen-tsz, paid a visit to Lu, and had a discussion with
+Confucius upon the question: "How did Ts'in, from beginnings so
+small and obscure, reach her present commanding position?" Besides
+this, the Ts'i ruler and his henchman Yen-tsz both took the
+opportunity to study the rites at Lu. This fact seems to support
+the (later) statement that Confucius had himself been to study the
+rites at the metropolis, and also to explain Confucius' own
+confession that he did not understand much about the Hia dynasty
+institutions that used to exist in K'i,--a state lying eastward of
+Ts'i. In 520 the last envoy ever sent from Lu to the Chou
+metropolis reported on his return that the imperial family was in
+a state of feud and anarchy: if, as it is stated, this was really
+the last envoy from Lu, then Confucius and his friend must have
+visited Lao-tsz before the former reached the age of thirty. Tsin
+and Lu were both now in a revolutionary condition, and a struggle
+with the "powerful families" was going on in each case; it was
+also beginning in Ts'i, and in principle seems to have been
+exactly akin to our English struggle between King John and his
+barons (as champions of popular rights) against the greed of the
+tax-collector. To avoid home troubles, Confucius at the age of
+thirty-five went to Ts'i, in order, if possible, to serve his
+friend the Marquess, who had a few years before consulted him
+about the rise of Ts'in. There perhaps it was that he found an
+opportunity to study the music of the Hia dynasty at the petty
+state of K'i, only one day's journey east of the Ts'i capital, on
+the north-east frontier of Lu; and then it must have been that he
+formed his opinion about the surviving Hia rites. His advice to
+the reigning prince of Ts'i was so highly appreciated that it was
+proposed to confer an estate upon him. It is interesting to note
+that the jealous Yen-tsz (who was much admired as a companionable
+man by Confucius) protested against this grant, on the ground that
+"men of his views are sophistical rhetoricians, intoxicated with
+the exuberance of their own verbosity; incompetent to administer
+the people; wasting time and money upon expensive funerals. Life
+is too short to waste in trying to get to the bottom of these
+inane studies." From this it will be seen that Lao-tsz was by no
+means alone in despising Confucius' conservative and ritualistic
+views, though it is quite possible that Yen-tsz may still have
+respected him as a man and a politician. Finally, Confucius,
+finding that the Ts'i ministers were all arrayed against him, and
+that the Marquess fain confessed himself too old to fight his
+battles for him, quitted the country and returned home. His own
+duke died in exile in 510 B.C., power remaining in the intriguing
+hands of an influential private family; and for at least ten years
+Confucius held no office in his native land, but spent his time in
+editing the Odes, the Book, the Chou Rites, and the Music; by some
+it is even thought that he not only edited but composed the Book
+(of History), or put together afresh such parts of the old Book as
+suited his didactic purposes. Meanwhile the private family
+intrigues went on more actively than ever; until at last, in 501,
+when Confucius was fifty years of age, the most formidable
+agitator of them all, finding his position untenable, escaped to
+Ts'i; it even seems that Confucius placed, or thought of placing,
+his services at the disposal of one of these rebel subjects.
+Possibly it was in view of such contingencies that the reigning
+duke at last gave Confucius a post as governor of a town, where
+his administration was so admirable that he soon passed through
+higher posts to that of Chief Justice, or Minister of Justice.
+Confucius' views on law are well known. He totally disapproved of
+Tsz-ch'an's publication of the law in the orthodox state of Cheng,
+as explained in Chapter XX., holding that the judge should always
+"declare" the law, and make the punishment fit the crime, instead
+of giving the people opportunities to test how far they could
+strain the literal terms of the law. He also said: "I am like
+others in administering the law; I apply it to each case; it is
+necessary to slay one in order not to have to slay more. The
+ancients understood prevention better than we do now; at present
+all we can hope to do is to avoid punishing unjustly. The ancients
+strove to save a prisoner's life; now we can only do our best to
+prove his guilt. However, better let a guilty man go free than
+slay an innocent one."
+
+Confucius' old friend the ruler of Ts'i was still alive (he
+reigned fifty-eight years, one of the longest reigns on record in
+Chinese history), and he had just suffered serious humiliation at
+the hands of the barbarous King of Wu, to whose heir-apparent he
+had been obliged to send one of his daughters in marriage. The
+Protectorate of China was going a-begging for want of a worthy
+sovereign, and it looked at one time as though Confucius' stern
+and efficient administration would secure the coveted prize for
+Lu. The Marquess of Ts'i therefore formed a treacherous plot to
+assassinate both master and man, and with this end in view sent an
+envoy to propose a friendly conference. It was on this occasion
+that Confucius uttered his famous saying (quoted, however, from
+what "he had heard") that "they who discuss by diplomacy should
+always have the support of a military backing." A couple of
+generals accordingly accompanied the party to the trysting-place;
+and it is presumed that the generals had a force of soldiers with
+them, even though the indispensable common people be not worth
+mention in Chinese history. In conformity with practice, an altar
+or dai's was constructed; wine was offered, and the usual rites
+were being fulfilled to the utmost, when suddenly a Ts'i officer
+advanced rapidly and said: "I now propose to introduce some
+foreign musicians," a band of whom at once entered the arena, with
+brandished weapons, waving feathers, and noisy yells. Confucius
+saw through this sinister manoeuvre at once, and, hastily mounting
+the dais (except, out of respect, the last step), expostulated in
+the plainest terms. The ruler of Ts'i was so ashamed of his
+position that he at once sent the dancers away. But a second group
+of mountebanks were promptly introduced in spite of this check.
+Confucius was so angry, that he demanded their instant execution
+under the law (presumably a general imperial law) "providing the
+punishment of death for those who should excite animosity between
+princes." Heads and legs soon covered the ground; and Confucius
+played his other cards so well that he secured, in the sequel, a
+formal treaty, actually surrendering to Lu certain territories
+that had unlawfully been held for some years by Ts'i. On the other
+hand, Lu had to promise to aid Ts'i with 22,500 men in case Ts'i
+should engage in any "foreign" war--probably alluding to Wu. Two
+or three years after that stirring event there was civil war in
+Lu, owing to Confucius having insisted on the "barons" dismantling
+their private fortresses.
+
+At the age of fifty-six Confucius left his post as Minister of
+Justice to take up that of First Counsellor: his first act was to
+put to death a grandee who was sowing disorder in the state. It
+was during these years of supreme administration that complete
+order was restored throughout the country; thieves disappeared;
+"sucking-pigs and lambs were sold for honest prices"; and there
+was general content and rejoicing throughout the land. All this
+made the neighbouring people of Ts'i more and more uneasy, even to
+the point of fearing annexation by Lu. The wily old Marquess
+therefore, again at the instigation of the man who had planned the
+attempted assassination of 500 B.C., made a selection of eighty of
+the most beautiful women Ts'i could produce, besides thirty four-
+horsed chariots of the most magnificent description. The reigning
+Marquess of Lu, as well as his "powerful family" friend against
+whom Confucius had once thought of taking arms (who, indeed, acted
+as intermediary) both fell into the trap: public duty and
+sacrifices were neglected; and the result was that Confucius at
+once threw up his offices and left the country in disgust. His
+first visit was to Wei (imperial clan), the capital city of which
+state then stood on the Yellow River, in the extreme north-east
+part of modern Ho Nan province; and through this capital the river
+then ran: the metropolis of one of the very ancient emperors
+previous to the Hia dynasty had nearly 2000 years before been in
+the immediate neighbourhood, as also had been the last capital of
+the Shang dynasty, of which, as we have seen, Confucius was a
+distant scion. After a few months' stay there, he was suspected
+and calumniated; so he decided to move on, although the ruler of
+Wei had generously appropriated to him a salary (in grain)
+suitable to his high rank. He accordingly proceeded eastwards to a
+town belonging to Sung (in the extreme south of modern Chih Li
+province): here he had the misfortune to be mistaken for the
+dangerous individual who had fled from Lu to Ts'i in 501, in
+consequence of which he returned to stay in Wei with his friend
+K'u-peh-yuh, who, as mentioned in Chapter XXVIII., had been
+visited by Ki-chah of Wu in 544 B.C. Here, as a distinguished
+traveller, he was asked (practically commanded) by one of the
+ruler's wives to pay her a visit; and, though the reluctant visit
+was paid with all propriety and reserve, the fact that this woman
+was at the time suspected of having committed incest with her own
+brother is considered by uncompromising native critics to leave a
+slight stain on Confucius' character. Worse still, the reigning
+prince took his wife out for a drive with a eunuch sitting in the
+same carriage, ordering the sage to follow the party in an
+inferior carriage. This was too much for Confucius, who then
+resumed his original journey through Sung, from which he had
+turned back, and proceeded to the small state of Ts'ao (imperial
+clan; still called Ts'ao-thou, extreme south-west of modern Shan
+Tung province). To-day he would have had to cross the Yellow
+River, but of course none is here mentioned, as Confucius had
+already left it behind at the Wei capital: in fact, he had been on
+the right bank ever since he left his own country. This was 495
+B.C. After a short stay in Ts'ao, the philosopher proceeded south
+towards the capital of Sung (modern Kwei-teh Fu in the extreme
+east of Ho Nan). For some reason the Minister of War there wished
+to assassinate him--probably because the arch-intriguer whom
+Confucius had driven out of Lu in 501, and who had taken refuge
+first in Ts'i and then in Sung, had calumniated him there.
+Confucius thereupon made his way westwards, over the various
+headwaters of the River Hwai, to Cheng (imperial clan), the state
+which had been for a generation so admirably administered by Tsz-
+ch'an: in fact, a man outside the city gate observed "how like
+Tsz-ch'an" the stranger looked. Some accounts make out that Tsz-
+ch'an was then only just dead, but the better opinion is that he
+had already then been dead for twenty-seven years: in any case it
+is curious that Confucius, who was a very tall man, should twice
+be mistaken for other persons. Thence Confucius turned back south-
+east to the orthodox state of Ch'en (modern Ch'en-chou Fu in
+Eastern Ho Nan). This was one of the very oldest principalities in
+China, dating from even before the Hia dynasty (2205 B.C.); and
+the Warrior King of Chou, after conquering the empire in 1122
+B.C., had industriously sought out the most suitable lineal
+descendant to take over the ancient fee of his remote ancestor,
+and continue the sacrifices.
+
+Confucius remained in Ch'en over three years, and during that time
+the barbarian King of Wu annexed several neighbouring towns,
+whilst Tsin and Ts'u ravaged the surrounding country in turn, in
+their rival efforts to secure a predominant influence there. Here
+it was, too, that a bird of prey, pierced with a strange arrow,
+fell near the prince's palace: from the wood used in making the
+arrow and the peculiar stone barb employed to tip it, Confucius
+was able to explain that the bird must have flown from (modern)
+Manchuria. (This annual flight of bustards and geese, to and from
+the Steppes, may be observed any winter to-day.) He next turned
+north, and arrived once more at the spot in Sung he had visited in
+496: here he was arrested, but set free on his solemn promise that
+he would not go to Wei, which state at the moment was considering
+the advisability of attacking that very Sung town. Confucius
+deliberately broke his plighted word, on the ground that "promises
+extorted by violence are void, and are not recognized by the
+gods." (These words, which, after all, are good English law, were
+quoted by the irate Chang Chf-tung when Russia "extorted" the
+Livadia Treaty from Ch'unghou.) On his arrival in Wei, he advised
+his old friend, the Wei duke, to attack the Sung town he had just
+left. But the duke thought it best to have the Yellow River
+between himself and the rival states of Ts'u and Tsin (this
+specific mention of the Yellow River as being west of a city in
+long. 114ø 30' E. is interesting). The latter state, Tsin, then
+held most of the left bank. Confucius even thought of accepting
+the invitation of a Tsin rebel to go and assist him: this was just
+at the moment when the "six families" were gradually breaking up
+the once powerful northern orthodox state. He also hesitated
+whether he would not do better, as the prince of Wei would not
+employ him, to proceed west to Tsin in order there to serve one of
+the contending six families: in fact he actually got as far as the
+Yellow River (another proof that it must then have run on the west
+side of Wei-hwei Fu in Ho Nan); but turned back to Wei on hearing
+unfavourable news from the Tsin capital (in south Shan Si). As the
+Wei prince treated him somewhat cavalierly during an interview, he
+decided to go back once more due south to the ancient state of
+Ch'en. Here (492) he heard news of the destruction by fire of some
+of the Lu ancestral temples, and of the death of the "powerful
+family" minister whose disgraceful conduct with the singing girls
+had led to his departure from Lu in disgust. This minister was a
+sort of hereditary _maire du palais_, an arrangement which
+seems to have been customary in many states, and his last words to
+his son were: "When you succeed me, send for Confucius: my
+administration has failed: I did wrong in dismissing him." The son
+had not the courage to ask Confucius himself, but he sent instead
+for one of the philosopher's disciples, and it was arranged with
+Confucius' friends that this disciple on taking office should send
+for Confucius himself, who really wished to be employed in Lu
+again. Meanwhile Confucius decided to visit the orthodox state of
+Ts'ai (imperial clan), lying to the south of Che'n: the capital of
+this state had been originally a town on the upper waters of the
+Hwai River, right in the heart of modern Ho Nan province; but,
+under stress of the Tsin and T'su wars, it had twice moved its
+chief city eastwards, and owing to a Ts'u invasion, it was now
+(491) on the main Hwai River in modern An Hwei province, and was
+at the moment under the political influence of Wu; it is not
+clear, however, whether Confucius visited the old or the new
+capital. After a year's stay here, Confucius went further
+westwards to a certain Ts'u town (near Nan-yang Fu in Ho Nan),
+passing, on his way, near the place in which Lao-tsz was born. He
+soon returned to Ts'ai, where he stayed three years. It will be
+observed that ever since 700 B.C. it had been the deliberate
+policy of Ts'u to annex or overshadow as many of the orthodox
+states as possible, so that Ts'u's undoubtedly high literary
+output, in later years, is easily accounted for: in other words,
+Ts'u's northern population was now already orthodox Chinese.
+Moreover, it must not be forgotten that, even before the Chou
+conquest, one of the early Ts'u rulers was an author himself, and
+had been tutor to the father of the Chou founder: that means to
+say Ts'u was possibly always as literary as China.
+
+Meanwhile Ts'u and semi-barbarian Wu were contesting possession of
+Ch'en, and the King of Ts'u tried to secure by presents the
+services of Confucius, who had prudently transferred himself to a
+safe place in the open country lying between Ch'en and Ts'ai The
+ministers of these two orthodox states, fearing the results to
+their own people should Confucius (as he seems in fact to have
+contemplated) decide to accept the Ts'u offer, with a police force
+surrounded the Confucian party; they were only able to escape from
+starvation by sending word to the King, who at once sent a
+detachment to free the sage. He would have conferred a fief upon
+Confucius, but his ministers advised him of the danger of such a
+proceeding, seeing that the Chou dynasty conquered the empire
+after beginning with a petty fief, and that the great kingdom of
+Ts'u itself had arrived at its present greatness after beginning
+with a still smaller fief. Accordingly the sage decided to return
+to Wei (489), where several of his disciples received official
+posts, and where Confucius himself seems to have acted as
+unofficial adviser, especially in the matter of a contested
+succession. All this competition for, or at least jealousy of,
+Confucius' services proves that his repute as an administrator
+(not necessarily as a philosopher) was already widely spread. The
+following year the King of Wu appeared before the Lu capital, and
+one of Confucius' former disciples holding office there (the one
+who went in advance in 492) just succeeded in moderating the
+barbarians' demands, which, however, only took the comparatively
+harmless "spiritual" form of orthodox sacrificial victims.
+
+[Illustration: Map
+
+1. The dotted line shows the present Grand Canal; the part between
+the Yang-tsz and Hwai Rivers was made by the King of Wu. The part
+north of the Hwai is chiefly the channel of the River Sz, flowing
+from the Lu capital into the Hwai.
+
+2. The old Hwai embouchure, running from the Lake Hung-tseh to the
+sea, no longer exists; it dissipates itself in canals and salt
+flats.
+
+3. From 1852 the Yellow River has flowed north as depicted in the
+other maps. For several centuries previous to 1851 it flowed as
+shown by the long-link-and-dot line, and took possession of the
+now extinct Hwai embouchure.
+
+4. The crosses mark capitals. Ts'ai (two marked) and Hii (one
+marked) frequently shifted capitals.]
+
+In 484 Confucius was still in Wei, for in that year he is stated
+to have declined to discuss there a question connected with making
+war. In the year 484 or 483 the disciple sent by Confucius to Lu,
+as stated, in 492 conducted an expedition against Ts'i: this was
+the shameful period when orthodox Lu, in compulsory league with
+barbarous Wu, was playing a double and treacherous game under
+stress, and the question of recalling Confucius to save his native
+country was on the _tapis_. Hearing of this, and despite the
+heavy bribes offered him to stay by the ruler of Wei, Confucius
+started with alacrity for Lu, where he arrived safely after
+fourteen years of wandering. He is often stated to have visited
+over forty states in all; but it must be remembered that each of
+the important countries he visited had in turn a number of
+satellites of its own; as, for instance, the extremely ancient
+"marquess state" of Ki, or K'i, subordinate to Lu, which, though
+possessing great spiritual authority, had no weight in lay policy.
+An interesting point to notice is that Confucius' travels almost
+exactly coincide with those of the Second Protector 150 years
+earlier (see Chapter XXXIX); both of them ignored the Emperor, and
+both of them visited Ts'i, Ts'ao, Sung, and Cheng on their way to
+the Ts'u frontiers; but Confucius was not able to get much farther
+west so as to reach the Ts'u capital; nor was he able to get to
+Tsin; not to say the still more distant Ts'in. In other words, the
+limited centre of orthodox China remained for many centuries the
+same, and the vast regions surrounding it were still semi-
+barbarian in the fifth century B.C. Now it was that Confucius,
+seeing that the imperial power had diminished almost to nothing;
+that the Odes and Book, the Rites, and the Music no longer
+possessed their former influence; employed himself in making
+systematic search for documents, in re-editing the Book (of
+History), and in endeavouring to ascertain the exact ritual or
+administration of the preceding dynasties. "Henceforth the Rites
+could be understood and transmitted,"--from which we may assume
+that, up to this time, they had been practically a monopoly of the
+princely caste. He did not go further back into the mythical
+period than the two emperors who preceded the Hia dynasty, nor did
+he bring the Book farther down than to the time of Duke Muh of
+Ts'in, which practically means the time of the first Protectors.
+He really did for rites and history what he had blamed Tsz-ch'an
+for doing with the law: he popularized it. He also attempted with
+persistent study to master the Changes, to which incomprehensible
+work he added features of his own--very little more understandable
+than the original texts. As to the Odes, 3000 in number, he used
+the pruning knife much more vigorously, and nine-tenths of them
+were rejected as unsuitable for the purposes of good didactic
+lessons or conservative precedents. If we substitute, as we are
+entitled to do, the vague word "religion" for the equally vague
+word "rites" (which in fact were the only ancient Chinese
+religion); if we substitute the empty Christian churches of to-
+day, and the too little scrupulous ambitions of rival European
+Powers, for the neglected _tao_ of the Chou ideal, and for
+the savage rivalry of the great Chinese vassals; we obtain an
+almost precisely similar situation in modern Europe. If we can
+imagine a great Pope, or a great philosopher, taking advantage of
+a turn in the European conscience to bring back the simple ideals
+of Christianity, we can easily imagine this European Confucius
+being universally hailed in future times as the saviour of a
+parlous situation; which, in Europe now, as 2000 years ago in
+China, entails on the people so much misery and suffering.
+Confucius was, in short, in a way, a Chinese Pius X. declaiming
+against Modernism.
+
+Confucius' only certain original work was the "Springs and
+Autumns," which is practically a continuation (with the necessary
+introductory years) of the ancient Book edited or, as some think,
+composed by him. He brought the former, this history of his, down
+from 722 to 481 B.C. and died in 479. His pupil Tso K'iu-ming,
+who was official historian to the Lu court, annotated and
+expounded Confucius' bald annals, bringing the narrative down from
+481 to 468; and Tso's delightful work forms the chief, but by no
+means the sole, basis for what we have to say in the present book
+of sketches.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+CONFUCIUS AND LAO-TSZ
+
+Apart from the fact that reverence for rulers was the pivot of the
+Chou religious system, or, what was then the same thing,
+administrative system; official historiographers, who were mere
+servants of the executive, had to be careful how they offended the
+executive power in those capricious days; all the more had a
+private author and a retired official like Confucius carefully to
+mind the conventions. For instance, two historians had been put to
+death by a king-maker in Ts'i for recording the murder by him of a
+Ts'i reigning prince; and Ts'i was but next door to Lu. Hence we
+find the leading feature of his work is that he hints rather than
+criticizes, suggests rather than condemns, conceals rather than
+exposes, when it is a question of class honour or divine right;
+just as, with us, the Church prefers to hush up rather than to
+publish any unfortunate internal episode that would redound to its
+discredit. So shocked was he at the assassination of the ruler of
+Ts'i by an usurping family in 481, that, even at his venerable
+age, he unsuccessfully counselled instant war against Ts'i. His
+motive was perhaps doubtful, for the next year we find a pupil of
+his, then in office, going as a member of the mission to the same
+usurper in order to try and obtain a cession of territory
+improperly held. This pupil was one of the friends who assisted at
+the arrangement made in Wei in 492. Confucius' failings--for after
+all he was only a man, and never pretended to be a genius--in no
+way affect the truth of his writings, for they were detected
+almost from the very beginning, and have never been in the least
+concealed. Notable instances are the mission from Lu to Ts'u in
+634; Confucius conceals the fact that, not courtesy to barbarian
+Ts'u, but a desire to obtain vengeance against orthodox Ts'i was
+the true motive. Again, in 632, when the _faineant_ Emperor
+was "sent for" by the Second Protector to preside at a durbar;
+Confucius prefers to say: "His Majesty went to inspect his fiefs
+north of the river," thus even avoiding so much as to name the
+exact place, not to say describe the circumstances. He punishes
+the Emperor for an act of impropriety in 693 by recording him as
+"the King," instead of "the Heavenly King." On the other hand, in
+598, even the barbarian King of Ts'u was "a sage," because, having
+conquered the orthodox state of Ch'en, he magnanimously renounced
+his conquest. In 529 the infamous ruler of the orthodox state of
+Ts'ai is recorded as being "solemnly buried"; but the rule was
+that no "solemn funeral" should be accorded to (1) barbarians, (2)
+rulers who lose their crown, (3) murderers. Now, this ruler was a
+murderer; but it was a barbarian state (Ts'u) that killed him,
+which insult to civilization must be punished by making two blacks
+one white, _i.e._ by giving the murdered murderer an orthodox
+funeral. Again, in 522, a high officer was "killed by robbers"; it
+is explained that there were no robbers at all, in fact, but that
+the mere killing of an officer by a common person needs the
+assumption of robbery. It is like the legal fiction of lunacy in
+modern Chinese law to account for the heinous crime of parricide,
+and thus save the city from being razed to the ground. Once more,
+at the Peace Conference of 546, Ts'u undoubtedly "bluffed" Tsin
+out of her rightful precedence; but, Tsin being an orthodox state,
+Confucius makes Tsin the diplomatic victor. We have already seen
+that he once deliberately broke his plighted word, meanly attacked
+the men who spared him; and, out of servility, visited a woman of
+noble rank who was "no better than she ought to have been." There
+is another little female indiscretion recorded against him. When,
+in 482, the Lu ruler's concubine, a Wu princess (imperial clan
+name), died, Confucius obsequiously went into mourning for an
+"incestuous" woman; but, seeing immediately afterwards that the
+powerful family then at the helm did not condescend to do so, he
+somewhat ignominiously took off his mourning in a hurry. All
+these, and numerous similar petty instances of timorousness, may
+appear to us at a remote distance trifling and pusillanimous, as
+do also many of the model personal characteristics and goody-goody
+private actions of the sage; but if we make due allowance for the
+difficulty of translating strange notions into a strange tongue,
+and for the natural absence of sympathy in trying to enter into
+foreign feelings, we may concede that these petty details, quite
+incidentally related, need in no way destroy the main features of
+a great picture. Few heroes look the character except in their
+native clothes and surroundings; and, as Carlyle said, a naked
+House of Lords would look much less dignified than a naked negro
+conference.
+
+As a philosopher, Confucius in his own time had scarcely the
+reputation of Tsz-ch'an of Cheng, who in many respects seems to
+have been his model and guide. Much more is said of Tsz-ch'an's
+philosophy, of his careful definition of the ritual system, of his
+legal acumen, of his paternal care for the people's welfare; but,
+like his contemporaries and friends of Ts'i, Tsin, Cheng, Sung,
+Wei; and even of Wu and Yueh; he was working for the immediate
+good of his own state in times of dire peril; whereas Confucius
+from first to last was aiming at the restoration of religion
+(i.e., of the imperial, ritualistic, feudal system); and for this
+reason it was that, after the violent unification of the empire by
+the First August Emperor in 221 B.C., followed by his fall and the
+rise of the Han dynasty in 202 B.C., this latter house finally
+decided to venerate, and all subsequent houses have continued to
+venerate, Confucius' memory; because his system was, after Lao-
+tsz's system had been given a fair trial, at last found the best
+suited for peace and permanency.
+
+Not only is Lao-tsz not mentioned in the "Springs and Autumns" of
+Confucius, as extended by his contemporary and latter commentators,
+but none other of the great writers and philosophers anterior
+to and contemporary with Confucius are spoken of except
+strictly in their capacity of administrators. Thus the Ts'i
+philosopher Kwan-tsz of the First Protector's time, 650 B.C.; the
+Ts'i philosopher Yen-tsz of Confucius' time; and the others
+mentioned in preceding chapters, notably in Chapter XV. (of whom
+each orthodox state of political importance can boast at least
+one); based their reputation on what they had achieved for the
+state rather than what they had taught in the abstract; and their
+economical and historical books, which have all come down to us in
+a more or less complete and authentic state, are valued for the
+expression they give to the definite theories by which they
+arrived at practical results, rather than for the preaching of the
+counsels of perfection, We have seen that Yen-tsz expressed rather
+a contempt for the (to him) out-of-date formalistic ideals of
+Confucius, though Confucius himself had a high opinion of Yen-tsz.
+Lao-tsz is first mentioned by the writers of the various "schools"
+brought into existence by the collapse of Tsin in 452 B.C., and
+its subdivision into three separate kingdoms, recognized as such
+by the puppet Emperor in 403 B.C. The diplomatic activity was soon
+after that quite extraordinary, and each of the seven royal courts
+became a centre of revolutionary thought; that is, every literary
+adventurer had his own views of what interpretation of ancient
+literature was best suited to the times: it was Modernism with a
+vengeance. There is ample evidence of Lao-tsz's influence upon the
+age, though Lao-tsz himself had been dead for a century or more in
+the year 403. Lao-tsz is spoken of and written about in the fourth
+century B.C. as though it were perfectly well known who he was,
+and what his sentiments were; but as, up to Confucius' time, state
+intercourse had been confined to traders, warriors, and officials
+of the princely castes; and as books had been unwieldy objects
+stored only in capitals and great centres; there is good reason to
+assume that philosophy had been taught almost entirely by word of
+mouth, and that something must have occurred shortly after his
+death to cheapen and facilitate the dissemination of literature.
+Probably this something was the gradual introduction of the
+practice of writing on silk rolls and on silk "paper," which
+practice is known to have been in vogue long before the discovery
+of rubbish paper A.D. 100. Confucius himself evidently made use of
+the old-fashioned bamboo slips, strung together by cords like a
+bundle of tickets; for we are told that he worked so hard in
+endeavouring to understand the "Changes," that he "wore out three
+sets of leather bands"; and it will be remembered from Chapter
+XXXV. how the Bamboo Books buried in 299 B.C., to be discovered
+nearly 600 years later, consisted of slips strung together in this
+way.
+
+Confucius' movements during the fourteen years of his exile are
+very clearly marked out, and there seems to be no doubt that his
+visit to the Emperor's court took place when he was a young man;
+firstly, because Lao-tsz ironically calls him a young man, and
+secondly because he went to visit Lao-tsz with the son of the
+statesman who on his death-bed foretold Confucius' future
+distinction; and there was no Lu mission to the imperial court
+after 520. In the second century B.C., not only are there a dozen
+statesmen specifically stated to have studied the works of Lao-
+tsz, but the Empress herself is said to have possessed his book;
+and a copy of it, distinctly said to be in ancient character, was
+then stored amongst other copies of the same book in the imperial
+library. The two questions which the Chinese historians and
+literary men of the fifth, fourth, third, and second centuries
+B.C. do not attempt to decide are: Why is the life of Lao-tsz not
+given to us earlier than 100 B.C.? Why is that life so scant, and
+why does the writer of it allude to "other stories" current about
+him? Why is it that the book which Lao-tsz wrote at the request of
+a friend is not alluded to by any writer previous to 100 B.C.?
+
+As not one single one of these numerous Taoists or students of
+Lao-tsz expresses the faintest doubt about Lao-tsz's existence, or
+about the genuineness of his traditional teachings, it is evident
+that the meagreness of Lao-tsz's life, as told by the historian,
+is rather a guarantee of the truth of what he says than the
+reverse, so far as he knows the truth; otherwise he would have
+certainly embellished. The essence of Lao-tsz's doctrine is its
+democracy, its defence of popular rights, its allusion to kings
+and governments as necessary evils, its disapproval of luxury and
+hoarding wealth; its enthusiasm for the simple life, for absence
+of caste, for equality of opportunity, for socialism and
+informality; all of which was, though extracted from the same
+Odes, Book, Changes, and Rites, quite contrary in principle to the
+"back to the rites" doctrine of Confucius. Therefore, there could
+be no possible inducement for Confucius, the pruning editor of the
+Odes, Book, etc., or for his admirers, to mention Lao-tsz in
+either his original work, the "Springs and Autumns," or in the
+other works (composed by his disciples) giving the original words
+and sentiments of Confucius. Besides, during the whole of Lao-
+tsz's life, the imperial court (where he served as a clerk) was
+totally ignored by all the "powers" as a political force; the only
+persons mentioned in what survives of Chou history are the
+historiographers, the wizards, the ritual _clerks,_ the ducal
+envoys, now sent by the Emperor to the vassals, now consulted by
+the vassals upon matters of etiquette. Lao-tsz, being an obscure
+clerk in an obscure appanage, and holding no political office, had
+no more title to be mentioned in history than any other servant or
+"harmless drudge." That his doctrines were well known is not
+wonderful, for Tsz-ch'an, his contemporary, and this great man's
+colleagues of the other states, also had doctrines of their own
+which were widely discussed and, as we have seen, even Tsz-ch'an
+was severely blamed for the unheard-of novelty of committing the
+laws to writing, both by Confucius of Lu and by Shuh Hiang of Tsin
+(imperial clan states). It is reasonable to suppose, therefore,
+that the traditional story is true; namely, that Lao-tsz's
+doctrines were never taught in a school at all, and that he had no
+followers or admirers except the vassal envoys who used to come on
+spiritual business to the metropolis. We have seen how these men
+used to entertain each other over their wine by quoting the Odes
+and other ancient saws; when consulting the imperial library to
+rectify their own dates, they would naturally meet the old recluse
+Lao-tsz, and hear from his own mouth what he thought of the coming
+collapse anticipated by all. He is said to have left orthodox
+China in disgust, and gone West--well, he must have passed through
+Ts'in if he went to the west. At the frontier pass (it is not
+known precisely whether on the imperial frontier or on the Ts'in
+frontier) an acquaintance or correspondent on duty there invited
+him to put his thoughts into writing, which he did. Books being
+extremely rare, copies would be slowly transmitted. This was about
+500 B.C., between which time and 200 B.C., when a copy of his book
+is first reported to be actually held in the hand by a definite
+person, the great protecting powers, and later the seven kings,
+were all engaged in a bloodthirsty warfare, which ended in the
+almost total destruction throughout the empire of the Odes, Rites,
+and the Book in 213 B.C. Remember, however, that the literary
+empire practically meant parts of the modern provinces of Ho Nan
+and Shan Tung. The "Changes" were not destroyed; and as the First
+August Emperor himself, his illegitimate father, several of his
+statesmen, and his visitors the travelling diplomats, were all
+either Taoists or imbued with Taoist doctrines (their sole policy
+being to destroy the old ritual and feudal thrones), there is
+ground to conjecture that Lao-tsz's book escaped too, and was
+deliberately suffered to escape. We know absolutely nothing of
+that; assuming the truth of the tradition that there was a book,
+we do not know what became of the first copy, nor how many copies
+were made of it during the succeeding 300 years. No attempt
+whatever has ever been made by the serious Chinese historians
+themselves to manufacture a story. It is, of course, unsatisfactory
+not to know all the exact truth; but, for the matter of that, the
+existence, identity, and authorship of Confucius' pupil and commentator
+Tso K'iu-ming, the official historian of Lu, is equally obscure; not to
+mention the history of the earliest Taoist critics who actually mention
+Lao-tsz, and quote the words of (if they do not mention) his book.
+When we read Renan's masterly examination into the origins of our
+own Gospels, and when we reflect that even the origin of Shakespeare's
+plays, and the individuality of Shakespeare's person, are open to
+everlasting discussion, we may not unreasonably leave Chinese
+critics and Chinese historians to judge of the value of their own
+national evidence, and accept in general terms what they tell us
+of fact, however imperfect it may be in detail, without adding
+hypothetical facts or raising new critical difficulties of our own.
+No such foreign criticisms are or can be worth much unless the
+original Chinese histories and the original Chinese philosophers have
+been carefully examined by the foreign critic in the original Chinese text.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+ORACLES AND OMENS
+
+Consulting the oracles seems to have been a universal practice,
+and there are numerous historical allusions, made by statesmen of
+the orthodox principalities, to supposed interpretations attached
+to this or that combination of mystic signs or diagrams from the
+"Changes," together with arguments as to their specific meaning or
+omen in given circumstances. Doubtless the Chinese of those dates,
+like our own searchers for religious "analogies" and mysteries,
+examined with perfect good faith combinations of the Diagrams
+which to us appear arrant nonsense; and there can be no doubt of
+Confucius' own individual zeal, though the fact that he thought
+fifty years' study at least would be necessary for full
+comprehension points to the tacit confession that he had totally
+failed to understand much of the mystery. The Changes are supposed
+to have been developed by the father of the Warrior King when
+(about 1160 B.C.) he was in prison under the tyrannous suspicions
+of the last Shang emperor; and we have seen that the ruler of Ts'u
+_was_ his tutor, at a time when Ts'u was not yet vassal to
+Chou. Like the Odes, Book, and Rites, the Changes were Chou
+literature, though possibly the unwritten traditions of earlier
+dynasties may have contributed to that literature; which, indeed,
+seems very likely, as Ts'u was already able to teach Chou.
+
+Another form of augury was the examination of the marks on the
+carapax of a tortoise; thus the Martial King in 146 consulted, and
+found unfavourable, such marks--this was before attacking the last
+Shang emperor; and it was only at the earnest instigation of his
+chief henchman (afterwards vassal king and founder of Ts'i) that
+he was prevailed upon to proceed. Possibly he borrowed Eastern
+ideas from this founder of Ts'i too. Later on, the Martial King's
+younger brother, the Duke of Chou, consulted the oracle along with
+the same Ts'i adviser: this was done before the three ancestral
+altars of their father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, in
+order to ascertain if the Emperor (_i.e._ the Martial King)
+would recover from a sickness. In 1109 the Martial King's son and
+successor sent one of his uncles or near relatives to examine the
+site of modern Ho-nan Fu, with a view to transferring the
+metropolis thither, and, the oracles being favourable, the Nine
+Tripods were removed to that place, and it was afterwards called
+the "Eastern Metropolis" (the original or western capital was not
+moved for over 300 years after that). It was at the same time
+foretold that there would be thirty more reigns, of 700 years in
+all: this was "Heaven's decree." On the other hand, when the Duke
+of Chou died during a tempest, the young Emperor was advised not
+to consult the oracles as to what the storm signified, because his
+uncle's virtues were so manifest that Heaven itself had, by the
+agency of a tempest, spontaneously announced the fact.
+
+Astrology was another form of soothsaying. In 780 B.C. the
+imperial astrologer (one of those two men, by the way, whom
+erroneous tradition 1000 years later confused with Lao-tsz)
+foretold the rise of Ts'i, Tsin, Ts'u, and Ts'in, upon the ruins
+of the imperial power; in 773 the same astrologer repeated the
+prophecy to the imperial prince then recently enfeoffed by his
+relative the Emperor in the state of CHÊNG. In 705 the imperial
+astrologer, when passing through the orthodox state of CH'ÊN,
+foretold from the diagrams that a scion of the CH'ÊN house would
+obtain the throne of Ts'i (which actually took place when the
+_maire du palais,_ to the horror of Confucius, assassinated
+the last legitimate duke in 481 B.C.); this particular prophecy is
+doubly interesting, because the diagrams from the Changes, thus
+cited in detail in Confucius' history, correspond exactly with the
+diagrams of the Book of Changes as we have it now, since Confucius
+manipulated it--proof that no change has taken place in this part
+of the text at least.
+
+The ruler of Ts'in in the year 762, nine years after receiving the
+western half of the Chou imperial domain, and being recognized as
+a first-class vassal, consulted the oracle as to whither he should
+move his own capital. In the year 677 the oracles once more
+decided the then reigning ruler to shift his capital to (the
+modern) Feng-siang Fu in West Shen Si; the oracles added: "And
+later you will water your steeds in the Yellow River"; which came
+to pass after the conquests and annexations of 643 B.C., as
+already related. In 374 B.C. the imperial astrologer (the second
+man whom tradition, 300 years later this time, erroneously
+confused with Lao-tsz) then on a visit to the now royal Ts'in
+court said: "After 500 years of separation Ts'in is reunited to
+our imperial house; in 77 years more a domineering monarch will
+arise." Seven years later the "raining down of metal" (probably
+some natural phenomenon not clearly understood at the time) was
+considered a good omen in connection with the new capital, now
+placed on the south bank of the River Wei. After Ts'in had
+conquered China, there are numerous other instances of oracles,
+omens, and so forth, all supposed to have had political
+significance.
+
+In 645 the ruler of the neighbouring state of Tsin consults the
+oracles in order to ascertain who will be the most suitable war
+charioteer. A few years before that the court diviner foretold the
+future success of the petty Ngwei sub-principality of Tsin, which
+in 403 B.C. actually became a separate vassal kingdom. In 575 Tsin
+dared not, at the moment, accept the battle challenge of Tsu,
+because the particular day was a dies _nefas,_ being the last
+day of the moon. Meanwhile the spies of the Ts'u army discerned
+that the Tsin leaders were consulting the oracles before the
+tablets of their ancestors in the field tent. In 535 the Ts'in
+administration consulted its own astrologer upon the point: "Will
+the state of Ch'en survive?" The answer was: "When it secures
+Ts'i, it will perish." As just explained, a scion of the Ch'en
+house did practically obtain Ts'i in 481 B.C., and the very next
+year Ch'en was annexed by Ts'u. In 510 the Tsin astrologer
+prophesied the destruction of Wu by Yiieh within forty years, and
+also the predominancy of the Lu private family so intimately
+connected with Confucius' troubles. There were not lacking
+sensible men, even in those days, who ridiculed the science of
+astrology: for instance, Shuh Hiang of Tsin--the man who so
+strongly disapproved Tsz-ch'an's written laws, and the man who
+discussed with the Ts'i envoy, the philosopher Yen-tsz, the
+worthlessness of their respective dukes--said on one occasion when
+the "course of the heavens towards north-west" was supposed to
+indicate a success for Tsin: "The course of the heavens, as that
+of our success, lies in the qualities of the prince, and not in
+the situation of the stars."
+
+Tsz-ch'an of Cheng himself pooh-poohed oracular warnings, and said
+that he preferred to do his best, and leave omens to do their
+worst. On one occasion, outside the south gate of the Cheng
+capital, two snakes (one from the city, one from outside) were
+observed fighting; the one from the inside was defeated. Sure
+enough! the exiled duke six years after that returned to his own.
+So, in the state of Lu, the children sang: "When the thrushes come
+and make their nests, the ruler will go to a place on the Tsin
+frontier; when the thrushes settle here, the duke will be abroad"--
+in allusion to the future ejecting of the reigning prince by the
+powerful family above referred to. And, again (480 B.C.), in the
+state of Sung, whose terrestrial position was supposed to be
+"invaded" by the then peculiar celestial position of the planet
+Mars: it was suggested, however, to the ruling prince that he
+might "pass on" the threatened disaster to his ministers, to his
+people, or to their harvests--a solution the duke declined to
+avail himself of. 'Yours are indeed the words of a sage,' said the
+astrologer.
+
+We now come to the semi-civilized state of Ts'u, which seems to
+have had its oracles with the best of them, at all events after
+560 B.C. At that date it was explained to the King that "the
+ancient emperors would at times consult the oracles for five years
+before deciding upon an expedition, or fixing the date of it; they
+were content to await patiently the decrees of Heaven." In 537 the
+Ts'u king, having a prince of Wu in his power, sent to ask him
+ironically if he had duly consulted the oracles. "Yes," said the
+prince, "every ruler has his tortoise, and it is easy to
+demonstrate by our oracles how injurious it will be for you if any
+harm comes to me." This presence of mind saved his life. In 528 a
+Ts'u usurper invited a man who had once assisted him to name any
+post he would like. The man chose that of diviner, which, it
+appears, was an office of the first rank. The father of this king
+had secretly arranged with a concubine, notwithstanding the Ts'u
+rule (or possibly in accordance with it) that one of the youngest
+sons should succeed, to "sacrifice from a distance to the gods in
+general, and ask of them which of five sons should sacrifice to
+the spirits of the land"; then he buried a jade symbol of rule in
+the ancestral temple, and ordered the five sons to enter after
+proper purification; the three sons who happened to touch the spot
+reigned one after the other. In 489 the King of Ts'u, then engaged
+in assisting the orthodox state of Ch'en against the attacks of
+Wu, interrogated the imperial astrologer (who must have been there
+on a visit): "What is the meaning of that halo, like a bird's
+wings, on each side of the sun?" The astrologer replied: "It
+presages calamity, but you can transfer it to your generals." The
+generals then offered to consult the gods themselves, and even to
+sacrifice their own persons if necessary; but the King declined
+(on the same ground as the Duke of Sung above mentioned) because
+"my generals are my own limbs." It was then proposed to transfer
+the calamity to the Yellow River. "No, the Yellow River has never
+played me false: ever since we received our fief, we have never at
+full moon sacrificed beyond the River Han and Yang-tsz." Confucius
+registered his approval of this answer. It will be remembered that
+just at this time Confucius was hanging about Ch'Ün and coquetting
+with Ts'u, so that possibly this approval had something to do with
+his own prospects.
+
+In recording these instances of prophecies and omens (which might
+be multiplied tenfold), it is desired to show how one main set of
+ideas pervaded the whole. We should not be too ready to ridicule
+them, or to hint at "after the event." Our own Scriptures are full
+of similar prophecies, and what is good for us is good for the
+Chinese. If the celestial movements can be foretold, why not
+corresponding terrestrial movements, each corner of the earth
+being on the meridian of something? In the infancy of science, it
+is rather a question of good faith than of truth; and even the
+truth, if we insist on expecting it, was rudely guessed at by such
+great thinkers as Tsz-ch'an and Shuh Hiang.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+
+RULERS AND PEOPLE
+
+A feature of the times was the remarkably personal character of
+the wars, and the apparent utter indifference to humble popular
+interests; _Quidquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi;_ stress
+is laid upon this point by the democratic philosopher Lao-tsz, who,
+however, in his book (be it genuine or not), is wise enough never
+to name a person or place; probably that prudence saved it from
+the flames in 213 B.C.
+
+In 684 B.C. the ruler of Ts'ai (imperial clan) treated very rudely
+his own wife's sister, married to a petty prince (imperial clan)
+close by; the sister was simply passing through as a traveller;
+the result was that this petty prince, her husband, induced Ts'u
+to make war upon Ts'ai, whose reigning prince was captured, and
+died a prisoner. In _657_ the ruler of Ts'ai had a sister
+married in Ts'i. The First Protector, offended at some act of
+playful disobedience, sent her back, but without actually
+divorcing her. Her brother was so angry that he found her another
+husband. On this Ts'i declared war, and captured the brother, who,
+however, at the intercession of the other vassal princes, was
+restored to his kingdom. In 509 and 506 B.C. Ts'ai induces Tsin to
+make war on Ts'u, and also assists Wu in her hostilities against
+Ts'u, because a Ts'u minister had detained the ruler of Ts'ai for
+refusing to part with a handsome fur coat. It is like the stealing
+of the Golden Fleece by Jason, and similar Greek squabbles. In 675
+B.C. the Emperor, for the third time, had to fly from his capital,
+the immediate cause of the trouble being an attempt on his part to
+seize a vassal's rice-field for including in his own park--a
+Chinese version of the Naboth's vineyard dispute. Nothing could
+better prove the pettiness of the ancient state-horizon; no busily
+active great power could find time for such trifles.
+
+When the Second Protector came to the throne, the orthodox states
+of Wei, Ts'ao, and Cheng (all of the imperial clan), which had
+treated him scurvily as a wanderer, had all three of them to pay
+dearly for their meanness. In 632, when the Protector had secured
+the Tsin throne, the ruler of Ts'ao was promptly captured, and
+part of his territory was given to Sung (where the wanderer had
+been well treated). The same year Tsin wished to assist Sung, and
+accordingly asked right of way through the state of Wei, which was
+curtly refused; the Tsin army therefore crossed the Yellow River
+to the south of Wei: as a punishment for this refusal, and also
+for the previous rude treatment, Wei also had to give part of her
+territory to the favoured Sung. In 630 Tsin induced Ts'in to join
+in an attack upon Cheng, the object being, of course, to revenge
+similar personal rudenesses; however, Cheng diplomacy was
+successful in inducing Ts'in to abandon Tsin in the nick of time:
+this was one of the very few cases in which Ts'in interfered, or
+was about to interfere, in "orthodox" affairs. In 592 Tsin sent a
+hunchback envoy to Ts'i; it so happened that at the same time Lu
+sent one who was lame, and Wei a third who was blind of one eye.
+The Ts'i ruler thereupon appointed an officer mutilated in some
+other way to do the duties of host to this sorry trio. The Tsin
+envoy swore: "If I do not revenge this upon Ts'i, may the God of
+the Yellow River take note of it!" Reaching his own country, he
+tried to induce the ruler to make war on Ts'i; but the prince
+said: "Your personal pique should hardly suffice for ground to
+trouble the whole country": and he refused.
+
+The principle of the divinity that doth hedge a king was early
+established, but there are certainly more numerous evidences of
+royal absolutism in Ts'u than in orthodox China, where responsibility
+of rulers before Heaven and the People (symbolical of Heaven also)
+was an accepted axiom. For instance, in 522 B.C., an officer, knowing
+that the King of Ts'u was sending for him in order to kill him, said to his
+brother: "As the king orders it, one of us two must go, but you can
+avenge me later on." When the next Ts'u king was a fugitive, and it
+was a question in a subject's mind of killing him because his father
+had taken a brother's life, it was objected: "No! if the king slays one
+of his officers, who can avenge it? His commands emanate from Heaven.
+It is unpardonable to cut off the ancestral sacrifice of a whole house
+in this way."
+
+In still more ancient times, when the last Emperor of the Shang
+dynasty was being warned of the rising popular feeling in favour
+of the rising Chou power, he remarked: "Have I not Heaven's
+mandate? What can they do to me?" When the Martial King achieved
+his conquest, he smeared the god of the soil with the sacrificial
+victims' blood, and announced the crimes of the dead tyrant to
+Heaven. In the war of 589 between Tsin and Ts'i, the ruler of
+Ts'i, who had changed places with his charioteer in order to
+escape detection, was hotly pursued; but his chariot caught in a
+tree. Seeing this, the Tsin captain prostrated himself before the
+chariot, and said: "My princely master's orders are to assist the
+states of Lu and Wei" (i.e. not to attack your person). Meanwhile
+the disguised charioteer ordered the disguised king to fetch a
+drink of water, and the king thus escaped even the humiliation of
+a favour from his generous victor. When in 548 a worthless Ts'i
+ruler was assassinated, the philosopher Yen-tsz said: "When the
+ruler dies or is exiled for the gods of the land and its harvests,
+one dies or is exiled with him; but if he dies or is exiled for
+private reasons, then only his personal friends die with him." He
+therefore contented himself with wailing, and with laying his head
+on the royal body. The same Tsin captain who was so tender to the
+Ts'i duke in 589 had an opportunity fourteen years later of taking
+prisoner the ruler of CHÊNG in battle; but he said: "Evil cometh
+to him who toucheth a crowned head! I have already committed
+sacrilege once against the ruler of Ts'i; preserve me from
+committing this crime a second time!" And he turned promptly back.
+During the same fight, the King of Ts'u's body-guard was attacked
+by the Tsin generalissimo, who, when he discerned the king in the
+centre of the guards, got out of his chariot, doffed his helmet,
+and fled in horror, "such was his respect for the person of
+royalty." It was a ritual rule in China for the distinguished men
+not to remove the official head-covering in death; for instance,
+in 481, when one of Confucius' pupils was killed in war, his last
+patriotic act was to tie his hat-strings tighter. Though rulers
+were supposed to owe duties to the gods in general, yet the power
+of the gods was limited. Thus when Tsz-ch'an of CHÊNG was sent as
+envoy to Tsin in 541, the sick Tsin ruler asked him: "How can the
+two gods who, they say, are responsible for my malady, be
+conjured?" Tsz-ch'an replied: "These particular gods cannot injure
+you; we sacrifice to them in connection with natural phenomena,
+such as drought, flood, or other disaster; just as in matters of
+snow, hail, rain, or wind we sacrifice to the gods of the sun,
+moon, planets, and constellations. Your illness is the result of
+drink, over-feeding, women, passionate anger, excessive pleasure."
+Shuh Hiang approved this common-sense view of the situation.
+
+ANCIENT CHINESE LAW
+
+APPENDIX I
+
+In the spring of the year 536 B.C., Tsz-ch'an, one of the leading
+statesmen in the Chinese Federal Union, decided to publish for
+popular information the Criminal Law which had hitherto been
+simply "declared" by the various rulers and their officers
+according to the circumstances of each case. At this time the
+different premiers and ministers used to visit each other freely,
+generally in the suite of the reigning prince who happened to be
+either receiving or paying a visit from or to some other vassal
+prince. The Emperor himself, now shorn of his power, was only
+_primus inter pares_ amongst these princes. Shuh Hiang, one
+of the ministers at the neighbouring court of Tsin, addressed the
+following remarkable letter to the colleague above mentioned who
+had introduced the legal innovation. It is published in
+_exteso_ in Confucius' own history of the times, as expanded
+by one of his pupils:--
+
+"At first I used to regard you as a guide, but now all this is at
+an end. Our monarchs in past times were wont to decide matters by
+specific ordinance, and had no prepared statutes, fearing lest the
+people should grow contentious. Yet even so it was impossible to
+suppress wrong-doing; for which reason they employed justice as a
+preventive, administration to bring things into line, external
+formality to secure respect, good faith as an abiding principle,
+and kindness in actual treatment. They appointed certain ranks and
+emoluments with a view to encouraging their officers to follow the
+course thus sketched out for them, and they fixed certain stern
+punishments and fines in order to fill these officers with a dread
+of arbitrariness, fearing that otherwise they might fail in their
+duty. Thus admonition was given with every loyalty; fear was
+inspired by personal example; instruction was conveyed as occasion
+required; employment in service was accompanied by suavity;
+contact with inferiors was marked by a respectful demeanour; the
+executive arm was firmly applied; and decisions were carried out
+with virility. Yet, with all this, it was never too easy to secure
+wise and saintly (vassal) princes, clever and discriminating
+ministers, loyal and trusty officials, or kind and affectionate
+instructors. Under these circumstances, however, it was possible
+to set the people going, and China was at least free from
+revolution and misery.
+
+"But when the people themselves become cognizant of a written law,
+they will cease to fear their superiors, and, moreover, they will
+acquire a contentious spirit. Having book to refer to, they will
+employ every device to elude the letter of the law. This will not
+do at all. It was only in times of anarchical rule that the
+founders of the Hia and Shang dynasties (2200 B.C. and 1760 B.C.)
+found it necessary to issue (to their officers) the collections of
+laws which still bear their two respective names; and it was also
+only in anarchical times (1000 B.C.) that one Emperor of our
+present dynasty found it necessary to publish (for his officers)
+the so-called Nine Laws. In other words, the advent of written law
+has on all three occasions connoted a decay in government. You,
+sir, are the chief minister of _CHÊNG_ state (part of modern
+Ho Nan); you made a few years ago some new regulations about the
+parcelling of land; next you placed the system of your taxation on
+a fresh basis; and you now proceed to embody the three special
+collections just cited in a new popular code, which you have had
+cast in metal characters. If you are doing it with a view to
+pacify the people, surely you will not find this an easy matter?
+The 'Book of Odes' says: 'King _Wên_ (the virtual founder,
+2200 B.C., of the then reigning Chou dynasty) took virtue as his
+guide, and thus gradually pacified the four quarters of the
+world.' It also says: 'The methods of King _Wu_ (son of the
+virtual founder) secured the confidence of all the other
+countries.' Where were the written laws in those times? When
+people begin to get the contentious spirit upon them, they will
+have done with the principles of propriety, and only stickle for
+the letter; they will haggle upon every tiny point accessible to
+knife's edge or awl's tip. We shall witness a flood of litigious
+accusations; bribery and corruption will be rampant. Do you think
+the state of _Cheng_ will last out your life? I have heard it
+said: 'When a country is about to collapse, there are many
+conflicting administrative changes.' Will this apply to present
+conditions?"
+
+The reply returned was:-
+
+"With regard to what my honourable friend has been pleased to say,
+I am afraid my humble capacities are not sufficiently great to
+take the interests of posterity; my action has been taken in the
+interests of the state as I find it, and as I have to govern it.
+Though, therefore, I cannot accept tour commands, I shall be
+careful not to forget your kindness in proffering advice."
+
+Though the exact words of the above-mentioned Code in Brass have
+not come down to us, they are (like the Twelve Tables of Rome,
+eighty years later in date, were in relation to Roman jurisprudence)
+the foundation of Chinese Criminal Law as it exists to-day, modified,
+of course, dynasty by dynasty. At this time Confucius was a mere
+youth; but later on, as minister of a third vassal state, that of Lu, he
+also expressed his disapproval of a written code, much though he
+respected the author, whom he knew personally. Shuh Hiang's letter
+is of interest as showing the pitch of philosophy, common-sense, and
+international courtesy to which the statesmen of China had attained
+2400 years ago.
+
+APPENDIX II
+
+In 539 B.C. the Ts'i statesman and philosopher Yen-tsz was sent on
+a mission to Tsin in order to negotiate a political marriage. At
+this period Han K'i, also called Han Süan-tsz, was the premier of
+Tsin, and he despatched the minister Shuh Hiang with a complimentary
+message to the Ts'i envoy, accepting the offer of a suitable wife. At
+this time the diplomatic relations of the Chinese states were particularly
+interesting, because, apart from the fact that intellectual premiers ruled
+all the great states, most of them were personal friends, acquaintances,
+or correspondents of Confucius, who has left on record his judgment
+upon each. After the official marriage negotiations were over, Shuh
+Hiang ordered refreshments, and he and Yen-tsz sat down to a nice
+quiet little chat by themselves.
+
+_Shuh Hiang_. How is Ts'i going on?
+
+_Yen-tsz_. These are bad times. I don't know what I can say
+about Ts'i, except that it appears to be falling into the hands of
+the CH'ÊN family. The prince neglects his people, and consequently
+they turn to the CH'ÊN family for protection. In former times Ts'i
+had three grain measures, each a four multiple of the other--etc.
+four pints, sixteen pints, sixty-four pints--and finally there was
+a large measure containing ten times the last, or 640 pints (or
+litres); but the three measures of the CH'ÊN family have each been
+raised by one unit, so that three successive fives multiplied by
+ten give 800 pints, and their plan is to make loans of grain with
+their private 8oo-pint measure, and then to take back payments in
+the prince's measure. The wood from the mountains is sold in the
+market-place as cheaply as on the mountains; fish, salt, clams,
+and cockles are sold in the market-place as cheaply as on the
+shore. On the other hand, two-thirds of the produce of the
+people's labour go to the prince, whilst only one-third remains
+for the sustenance of the producers. The prince's stores rot away,
+whilst our old men die of starvation. False feet are cheaper than
+shoes in the market-place (owing to the number of people punished
+with amputation of a foot); the people are smarting with a sense
+of wrong, and are longing for the advent (of the CH'ÊN family),
+whom they love as a parent, and towards whom they tend, just as
+water runs downhill. Under these circumstances, even if they did
+not want to gain the people over, how can they avoid it? The last
+surviving member of that branch of the CH'ÊN family who traced his
+descent to previous dynasties has still left his spirit in the
+land of Ts'i, though the representatives of the family are
+nominally subjects of Ts'i.
+
+_Shuh Hiang_. Yes. And even our ruling house of Tsin has
+fallen on degenerate times. Armies are no longer equipped, and our
+statesmen are not ready for war. There is no one to lead the
+chariots, and our battalions have no competent commanders. The
+common people are utterly exhausted, whilst the extravagance of
+the palace is unbounded. The starving folk line the roads, whilst
+money is squandered upon female favourites. The commands of the
+prince are received by the people as though they longed to escape
+the clutches of a bandit. The representatives of the eight leading
+families who have served the state so long and faithfully are
+reduced to the most insignificant offices. Government is
+administered in certain private interests, and the people have no
+one to whom to appeal. The ruler shows no sign of amendment, and
+endeavours to drown his cares in excessive indulgence. When did
+the ruling house ever before reach the low depths of to-day? The
+warning oracle inscribed on the tripod says: "However early you
+may get to zealous work, your descendants may be lazy." How much
+more, in the case of a man who will not reform, is disaster likely
+to be impending soon!
+
+_Yen-tsz_. What do you propose to do?
+
+_Shuh Hiang_. The ruling house of Tsin is about exhausted. I
+have heard it said that when a ruling house is about to fall, its
+family members drop off first, like the branches and leaves of a
+stricken tree; and the ruler himself, like the trunk, follows
+suit. Take my own stock, for instance, which formerly contained
+eleven family or clan names. The Sheepstongue (_cf_, English
+Sheepshanks) clan is my clan, and the only one now left; and I
+myself have no son fit to be my heir. The ruling house is
+arbitrary and capricious, so that, even if I am fortunate enough
+to die in my bed myself, I shall have no one to perform the
+_sacra_ for me.
+
+In 513 B.C. two generals of the Tsin state carried their arms into
+the Luh-hun reservation (in modern Ho Nan province), whither, in
+638 B.C., the Tartar tribe of that name had been brought to settle
+by agreement between the two Chinese powers whose territories
+(Ts'in and Tsin) ran with the Tartars; "and then they drew upon
+Tsin state for four cwt. of iron, in order to cast a punishment
+tripod upon which to inscribe the law-book composed by Fan Süan-
+tsz (a minister)." Confucius said:--
+
+"It looks as though Tsin were about to perish, as it has made a
+mistake in its calculations. The state of Tsin ought to govern its
+people by maintaining the ancient laws and ordinances received by
+their ancestor who was first enfeoffed there (in 1120 B.C.), when
+the officers of state would each observe the same in their degree.
+Thus the people would know how to respect their superiors, and the
+ruling classes would be in a position to maintain their
+patrimonies. The proper balance between superior classes and
+commoners is what we call 'ordinance.' The ruling prince W&n (who
+assumed the Protectorship of China in 632 B.C.) for this reason
+established an official body of dignitaries, and organized the
+annual spring revision of the laws of his ancestors as Representative
+Federal Prince. Now Tsin abandons this system, and makes a tripod,
+which tripod--will henceforth govern the people's acts. How can they
+now respect their superiors (having book to go by)? How can the
+superiors maintain their patrimonies? If superiors and commoners
+confuse degree, how can the state go on? Moreover, Süan-tsz's
+punishments date from the spring revision (of 621 B.C.), when confusion
+and change was going on in Tsin state; how can they take this as a
+fit precedent?"
+
+APPENDIX III
+
+About twenty-five centuries ago--in 546 B.C., to be precise--the
+Chinese Powers had a "Hague Conference" with a view to the
+reduction of armaments. This is how Confucius' pupil, Tso K'iu-
+ming, tells the story in the "Tso Chwan," or expanded version of
+Confucius' "Springs and Autumns" (for convenience the names of the
+ancient States are changed to those of the modern provinces
+corresponding with them):--
+
+"A statesman of Ho Nan, being on friendly terms with his
+colleagues of Shan Si and Hu P&h, conceived the idea of making a
+name for himself by proposing a cessation of armaments. He went
+first to Shan Si, and interviewed the Premier there; the Premier
+consulted his colleagues in the Shan Si ministry, and one of them
+said: 'War is ruinous to the people, and a fearful waste of
+wealth; it is the curse of the smaller Powers. Although the idea
+will come to nothing, we must consent to a conference; otherwise
+Hu P&h will consent to it first, in order to gain favour with the
+Powers, and thus we shall lose the predominant position we now
+occupy.' So Shan Si consented.
+
+"Then (the narrative continues) Hu Pêh was visited, and also
+consented. Then Shan Tung (the German sphere now). Shan Tung did
+not like the idea; but one of the Shan Tung Ministers said: 'Shan
+Si and Hu P&h have agreed, and we have no help for it. Besides,
+the world will say that there would be a cessation of armaments
+were it not for our refusal, and thus our own people will vote
+against us. What is the use of that?' So Shan Tung consented. Next
+Shen Si was notified. Shen Si also consented. Then the whole four
+great Powers notified the minor States, and a great durbar (of
+fourteen States) was held at a minor court in Ho Nan."
+
+The curious part of it all is that the representative of the
+Emperor (whose political position was not unlike that of the Popes
+in Europe since 1870) did not appear at the Conference at all,
+though all the Great Powers maintained the fiction of granting
+precedence to the Emperor and his nuncios, and even went through
+the form of accepting investiture from him and taking tribute
+presents to the Imperial Court-when it suited them.
+
+This celebrated Peace Conference closed the seventy-two years of
+almost incessant war that had been going on between Tsin and Ts'in
+(Shan Si and Shen Si), apart from the subsidiary war between Tsin
+and Ts'u (Hu Pêh).
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Absorption, Chinese
+Accadian. See Babylonian
+Adams, Will
+Address, forms of
+Advisers, Chinese
+Advisers, Tartar
+African parallels
+Agriculture
+Ainus, people
+Alexander the Great
+Alienation of fiefs
+Alliances
+Alphabets, imperfection of
+Altars
+Altars, private
+Ambassadors. See Envoys; Missions
+American parallels
+Analects of Confucius
+Ancestral feeling
+Ancestral sacrifices
+Ancestral tablets
+Ancestral temples
+Anglo-Saxon civilization
+An Hwei, province
+Annals (see History and Bamboo Books)
+Annam, King of
+Annamese race
+Appanages, ducal
+Aquarius
+Archives
+Area of Ancient China
+Army organization
+Army provision
+Army, standing
+Arrows
+Arsenals
+Assassinations of princes
+Assyria. See Babylonia
+Astrology
+Astronomy
+Atlantic
+Augury. See Oracles
+Augustus, title
+August Emperor (see First); Second); (Both); (Third)
+Authorities consulted
+Axes as emblems
+Axles
+
+Babel, Tower of
+Babylonian civilization
+"Babylonian women,"
+Baghatur, the Khan
+Bamboo Books
+Banner garrisons
+Banquets, imperial
+Barbarian influences
+Barbarian kings (see King)
+Barbarians
+Barbarians, Eastern
+Barbarous gods
+Barbarous vassals
+Barons
+Bastards
+Battles, gigantic
+Beards
+Bears' paws
+Bells as music
+"Bible" of China
+Bismarck
+Blackwater, river
+Blood-drawing
+Blood-drinking
+Blood-smearing
+Boat travelling
+Boiling alive
+Book of Chou
+Book of Hia
+"Book, The"
+Books, wooden
+Bows and arrows
+"Boxer" troubles
+Bridges
+Britain
+Bronze documents
+Bruce, Major
+Brush for writing
+Buddhism
+Buffer states
+Builders, Chinese as
+Burials. See Funerals
+Burma
+
+Cadastral surveys
+Cadiz
+Cæsar, title
+Calendars
+Cambodgia
+Camels
+Canal, Grand
+Canals, early
+Canton
+Capitals, imperial
+Capitals, vassal
+Capricorn
+Caravans
+Cardinals
+Carlyle
+Carthage. See Phoenicians
+"Cash"
+Caste, none in China
+Caste, royal
+Caste, ruling
+Castration
+Casuistry
+Cattle trade
+Cavalry
+Cave-dwellers
+Celtic migration
+Celtic races
+Centralization
+Central Kingdom
+Ceremonial. See Rites
+Cessions of imperial territory
+_Chan-Kwoh Ts'êh_
+Ch'ang, personal name
+Chang, river
+_Ch'ang-chon Fu_
+Chang I, diplomatist
+Ch'ang-sha, modern
+Ch'ang-shuh, city
+Changes, Book of
+Chao, state
+Characters. See Writing
+Chariots
+Charities
+Charlemagne
+Chavannes, Professor Edouard
+Chefoo, port
+Chêh Kiang, province
+Ch'ên Ch'ang (_tabu_ form of Ch'ên or
+T'ien H&g)
+Ch'ên family and state
+Ch'ên-chou Fu
+Chêng, imperial name
+Chêng, state
+Ch'éng-tu, city,
+Chih Li, province,
+China, ancient nucleus of,
+China, old name for, (_see_ Hia),
+China, south,
+China unified,
+Chinese advisers,
+Chinkiang, port,
+Chivalry,
+Choh Chou, locality,
+Chou, collapse of, house, See Emperor
+Chou, Duke of,
+Chou dynasty,
+Chou dynasty, end of,
+Chou principality,
+Chou, Rites of, (see Rites),
+Christianity,
+Chronology, definite,
+Ch'ung-êrh, prince,
+Ch'unghou, Manchu envoy,
+Ch'ung-k'ing, modern,
+Church, the,
+Churches, none in China,
+Chusan Island,
+Chwang, King of Ts'u,
+Chwang-tsz, philosopher,
+Cities,
+Citizenship,
+Civilian King,
+Civilization, advance of,
+Clan, or gem,
+Clan, imperial,
+Classic of poetry,
+Classic, Law,
+Classics,
+Classification of the people,
+Clay documents,
+Clerks, See Archives and Historiographers
+Clerks or precentors,
+Clients,
+Coast provinces,
+Cochin China,
+Cockfighting,
+Coffins,
+Colonization, Chinese,
+Colours,
+Comets,
+Compass, the,
+Concubines,
+Conference, See Peace
+Confucius,
+Confucius, his birthday,
+Confucius, his birthplace,
+Confucius, his family,
+Confucius, his History work,
+Confucius, his liquor,
+Confucius, his literary labours,
+Confucius, his tampering,
+Confucius, his wanderings,
+Confusion of Tongues,
+Conqueror (see Founder),
+Conquest of China, See China
+Constantinople,
+Continuity of history,
+Cooks,
+Copper,
+Corea,
+Coreans,
+Corpse mutilation,
+Cosmogony,
+Cotton,
+Couches,
+Country, definition of,
+Counts, 29 (_see_ Earls),
+Court duty,
+Courtesans,
+Courtesy titles,
+Courts, vassal,
+Creation, the,
+Critics (_see_ Historical),
+Croesus,
+Cromwell, Oliver,
+Cuba,
+Cultivators,
+Customs, foreign,
+Cycles of time,
+Cyclic dates,
+Cyrus,
+
+Dancing women,
+Danube, the,
+Dates, definite,
+Dates, Julian and Gregorian,
+Dead, the,
+Democracy of Lao-tsz,
+Descent, rules of,
+Desert,
+Destruction of literature,
+Diagrams,
+Dialects,
+_Dies nefas,_
+Diplomatic adventurers,
+Diplomatic terms,
+Disciples of Confucius, (see Tso K'iu-ming),
+Divine right,
+Diviners,  _See_ Astrology
+Documents,
+Documents in bronze,
+Documents in stone,
+Documents in wood,
+Documents on silk,
+Dogs, zog,
+Dog-flesh,
+Dog Tartars,
+Door-keepers,
+Dress,
+Drums,
+Drums, stone,
+Drunkenness,
+Duke Muh of Ts'in (_see_ Muh),
+Duke of Chou,
+Duke of Shao,
+Duke of Sung,
+Dukes,
+Dukes of Confucius, 35, 135
+Durbars,
+Dynasties, first (Hia),
+Dynasties, inter-related,
+Dynasties, second (Shang),
+Dynasties, third (Chou),
+
+Ears, amputation of,
+Ears, piercing of,
+Earls,  See Counts
+Eastern Barbarians,
+Eastern metropolis,
+Eclipses,
+Ecliptic,
+Eden, garden of,
+Education, 89,
+Egret fights,
+Egyptian civilization,
+Elephants,
+Embassies, Japanese,
+Emperor,
+Emperor Above, or God,
+Emperor and Tartar marriages,
+Emperor's appanage,
+Emperor, collapse of,
+Emperor, early burial places,
+Emperor, flights from his capital,
+Emperor killed by barbarians,
+Emperor killed by Tartars,
+Emperor, suzerain,
+Emperor, title of,
+Emperor's court,
+Emperors, dual,
+"Empire," names for,
+Empire, struggle for,
+Empresses,
+Empresses--Dowager,
+Engineering,
+England,
+Envoys,
+Equinoxes,
+Etiquette, (_see_ Rites),
+Eunuchs,
+Europe and China, ancient,
+European critics,
+Euphrates, river,
+Evidence, historical,
+Exchange currency,
+Exogamy,
+Expanded Confucian histories,
+Explorations, Early Chinese,
+Expresses,
+Exterminating punishments,
+
+Facing north, south, east, and west,
+Fah Hien, pilgrim,
+Fah, personal name,
+Fairs,
+Families, branching off of,
+Families, great,
+Fan Süan-tsz, statesman,
+Fasting,
+Father of Chinese History, (_see_ Sz-ma Ts'ien),
+Feasts,
+Federal princes,
+Fên River,
+Fêng-siang Fu,
+Feudal system,
+Feudal system, destruction of,
+Fiefs,
+Fighting State Period,
+First August Emperor,
+Fish industry,
+Five Tyrants, Dictators, or Protectors, See Protectors
+Flags, use of,
+Flooding cities,
+Foochow,
+Food,
+Foot, length of,
+Football,
+Foot-squeezing,
+Fords,
+Foreign blood in China,
+Foreign critics,
+Foreign languages,
+Foreign princes, (see Barbarian),
+Foreign states (politically),
+Forke, Professor,
+Formosa,
+Founder of Chou dynasty, See Martial King
+Four seasons,
+Fowling,
+French, the,
+Frontiers,
+Frontiers, changing,
+Fu-ch'ai, King of Wu,
+Fuh Kien, province,
+Funerals,
+_Fu-yung_ vassals,
+
+Games,
+Genesis,
+Geography, ancient,
+Germans, (_see_ Prussia),
+Germany, Emperors of,
+Ghosts, _See_ Spirits
+God, notions of,
+Gods, _See_ Spirits
+Gods of rivers,
+Gods of the harvest,
+Gods of the land,
+Gold,
+Golden Horn,
+Gordon, General,
+Gorges of Yang-tsz River,
+Gospels, the,
+Government, theory of,
+Grain trade,
+Grand Canal,
+Grants, _See_ Fiefs
+Grapes,
+Great families, _See_ Families
+Great River, (see Yang-tsz),
+Great Wall,
+Greece,
+Greek civilization,
+Guelph, the name,
+Gulf of "Pechelee,"
+Gutchen, locality,
+
+Hauge Conference,
+Hainan Island,
+Hair, dressing the,
+Hami, locality,
+Han dynasty,
+Han Emperor,
+Han K'i, statesman,
+Han, Pass of,
+Han River,
+Han, State of,
+Han Süan-tsz,
+Handicraft,
+Handmaids,
+Hangchow, modern,
+Hankow, modern,
+Harashar, locality,
+Harems, _See_ Eunuchs
+Hats, rank in,
+Hawaii,
+Head-covering,
+Heaven,
+Heaven, Son of, _See Tenshi_
+Heaven, will of,
+Hegemons, Five. See Protectors
+Hegemony, official,
+Heirs,
+Helmets,
+Hemp,
+Hereditary offices,
+Herodotus,
+"Hia," meaning "Chinese,"
+Hia dynasty,
+Hiang Süh, statesman,
+Hen city,
+_Hien_, definition of,
+Hien-fêng, Emperor,
+Hien-yang, locality,
+Hindoo trading colonies,
+Hindu Kush,
+Historical critics,
+Historical manipulations,
+Historiographers,
+History, discrepancies in,
+History, earliest dated,
+History, early Chinese,
+History, medieval Chinese,
+"History," names for,
+History, Japanese,
+History of Shuh,
+History of Sz Ch'wan,
+History of Tsin,
+History, romance of,
+Hiung-nu,
+Homage,
+Ho-nan Fu,
+Ho Nan Province,
+Hong Kong,
+"Horizontal and Perpendicular" Period,
+Horses,
+Horse-flesh,
+Hostages,
+House of Commons,
+House of Lords,
+Houses,
+Hü, state,
+Human origins,
+Human sacrifices,
+Hu Kwang, province, _See_ Hu Pêh
+Hu Nan, province,
+Hu Pfh, province, (_see_ Hu Kwang),
+Hundred Yüeh,
+Hungarian migration,
+Huns, See Hiung-nu
+Hunts,
+Hwa, city,
+Hwai-k'ing Fu,
+Hwai-nan-tsz, author,
+Hwai River,
+Hwai savages, See Eastern Barbarians
+Hwai valley,
+Hwsn, Duke of Lu,
+
+"I," the words for,
+I, River,
+Ich'ang, modern,
+I-thou Fu,
+Imagination and fact,
+Immortality defined,
+Imperial clan,
+Imperial residences,
+Imperial domain, _See_ Dukes and Emperor
+_Imperator_, the title,
+Imprecation,
+Incest,
+India,
+Indo-China,
+Infanticide,
+Ink,
+Inscriptions,
+Intercalary months,
+International Law,
+Investiture,
+Iron trade,
+Irrigation,
+Islands, South Sea,
+Italy, See Roman civilization
+Ito, Prince or Duke,
+Ivory,
+
+Jade,
+Japan,
+Japanese,
+Japanese civilization,
+Japanese history,
+Japanese language,
+Japanese types,
+Jêhol, locality,
+Jesuits,
+Jews,
+Jimmu, Mikado,
+"Joints," twenty-four, of time,
+Journey, in days,
+Judge-made law,
+_Julia, Lex_,
+Jungle (see Ts'u state),
+Jung-tsêh, city,
+Jurisprudence,
+
+K'AI, city,
+Kakhyens,
+Kan-thou Fu,
+K'ang-hi, Emperor,
+Kashgaria,
+Keugu, country, (see Wu),
+Khan, Supreme Tartar,
+Khoten,
+_Ki_ clan,
+K'i principality,
+Ki-chah, prince of Wu,
+Kia-ting Fu,
+Kiang Si, province,
+Kiang Su, province,
+Kiang-yin, locality,
+Kiao Chou,
+K'ien, River,
+_King_ (see Ts'u state),
+King, title of,
+King-thou Fu,
+King River,
+Kings, Tartar,
+Kitchen middens,
+Kou-tsien, King,
+Kruger, President,
+Kublai Khan,
+Kuché, locality,
+Ku-ch'êng, locality,
+Kumiss,
+_Kung-tsz_, or son of reigning prince,
+K'ü-pêh-yüh, Confucius' friend,
+K'üh-fu, city,
+K'üh Yüan, poet,
+Kwa Chou, locality,
+Kwan-tsz, philosopher,
+Kwan-tsz, his death,
+Kwei Chou, province,
+Kwei-têh Fu,
+Kwoh Hia, general,
+_Kwoh Yü_, history,
+
+Lai barbarians,
+Lai-chou Fu,
+Lakes of Hu Nan and Kiang Si,
+Lakes of Kiang Su,
+Lan-thou Fu,
+Land, belongs to Emperor,
+Land-owners,
+Language questions,
+Lang-ya, locality,
+Laos tribes,
+Lao-tsz, philosopher,
+Lao-tsz's book,
+Law,
+Law, natural,
+Leather chariots,
+Leather trade,
+Left and Right,
+Legal fictions,
+Legge, Dr.,
+Legists,
+_Lex Julia_,
+Li, Emperor,
+Li Hung-chang,
+Li K'wei, lawyer,
+Li Ping, engineer,
+Li Tan, See Lao-tsz
+Liang, state,
+Liao River,
+Liao Tung,
+Lieh-tsz, Taoist author,
+Lin-tsz, city,
+Literary activity,
+Literary pedants,
+Literature, destruction of,
+Literature, early,
+Liu Hia, person,
+Liu K'un-yih, viceroy,
+Livadia, Treaty of,
+Loadstone,
+Lob Nor,
+Local customs,
+_Loess_ territory,
+Loh River,
+Loh-yang (see Ho-nan Fu and Capitals),
+Lolo, tribes,
+Long Tartars,
+Loss of rule,
+Lu, extinction of,
+Lu,
+Lu stripped of territory,
+Luh-fu, personal name,
+Lunations,
+Luni-solar years,
+
+Macedon,
+_Maire du palais_,
+Males, Seven,
+Manchu dynasty,
+Manchuria,
+Manchus,
+Manes,
+Maps,
+Marco Polo,
+Markets,
+Marquesses,
+Marriages, exogamic,
+Marriages, imperial,
+Marriages, Tartar,
+Marriages, vassal,
+Marseilles,
+Martial King, the; (see Founder and Warrior),
+Mats,
+Meat eating,
+Meat, gifts of sacrificial,
+Medicine,
+Memorizing books,
+Mencius, philosopher,
+Mêng, Ford,
+Merchants, log
+Mercury,
+Meridians,
+Mesne-lords,
+Metals,
+Meteors,
+Metropolis, 279 (see Capitals),
+Miao-tsz tribes,
+Migrating birds,
+Migration,
+Mikado,  _See_ Jimmu
+Mining,
+Ministers of State,
+Missions, (see Envoys; Embassies),
+Modern ideas,
+Modernism,
+Mon, people,
+Monaco,
+Money,
+Mongolia,
+Mongols,
+Monosyllabic language,
+Months and moons,
+Moon, proclaiming the,
+Moon, sacrifice at full,
+Morals,
+Mothers, quality of, See Wives
+Mourning and War,
+Mourning customs,
+Muh (T'ien-tsz or) Emperor,
+Muh, Duke of Ts'in,
+Mulberry trees,
+_Municipia_,
+Music,
+Mustard,
+Mutilation,
+Mutilation of corpses,
+
+Names, ancient and modern place,
+Names, Chinese proper,
+Names, clan,
+Names, personal,
+Names, posthumous,
+Names, Tartar,
+"Naming" process,
+Nanking, modern,
+Nan-yang Fu,
+Napoleon,
+National colours, See Flags
+Natural law,
+Nature,
+Naval fights,
+Navigable rivers,
+Navigation by sea,
+Needles,
+Nepaul,
+Ngwei, state,
+Nien-po, locality,
+Nine Tripods,
+Ningpo, modern,
+Nomad horsemen,
+Norman feudal system,
+Nose-cutting,
+Nosu. See Lolo
+Nucleus of old China (see China),
+
+Oaths,
+Odes,
+Odes, Book of,
+Okuma, Count,
+Omens,
+Opium,
+Oppolzer's dates,
+Oracles, consulting,
+Oranges,
+Orthodox Chinese,
+Orthodox courts,
+Ouigours,
+_Oviet_, See Yüeh
+
+PA, state,
+Pagodas,
+Palaces,
+Pao-ch'êng, locality,
+Paper, invention of,
+Paranymphs,
+Pass, frontier,
+Paterfamilias,
+Patriarchal rule,
+Peace Conference,
+"Pechelee" Gulf,
+Pedantry,
+Pedigree,
+Pêh K'i, General,
+Peking, modern,
+Peking plain,
+Pelasgi,
+People, the,
+Period, Protector,
+"Perpendicular and Horizontal" Period,
+Persia,
+Persian civilization,
+Personal causes of war,
+Personal names,
+Philosophy,
+Phoenicians,
+Physicians,
+Pigs,
+"Piled Stones," locality,
+Pilgrimages,
+Pillars of Hercules,
+P'ing-yang Fu,
+Pisces,
+Pivot points, historical,
+Ploughed fields,
+Ploughman Emperor,
+Poetry, See Odes
+Poetry, classic, See Odes
+Police,
+Politeness,
+Political intrigue,
+Pope, comparison with the,
+Population,
+Population, non-Chinese,
+Posterity, importance of,
+Posthumous names,
+Posthumous titles,
+Powers, great,
+Prayer,
+Precedence,
+Premiers, _See_ Ministers
+Presage, See Astrology
+Presents from Emperor,
+Priestly caste, no,
+Princesses,
+Principalities, (see Fiefs),
+Prisons,
+Prisoners of war,
+Proclaiming the law,
+Proclaiming the moon,
+Proclamation,
+Progress in China,
+Promontory, Shan Tung,
+Prophecy, (see Astrology and Oracles),
+Propriety,
+Prostitution,
+Protector, First,
+Protector,
+Protector, Third,
+Protectors, Joint,
+Protectors of China,
+Proverbs,
+Prussia,
+P'u-chou Fu,
+P'uh, barbarians,
+Punishment,
+Punishments, barbarous,
+Purification,
+Pyrrhus,
+
+Quelpaert, Island,
+Quicksilver,
+
+Race feeling,
+Racing,
+Railway, "British,"
+Ranks of nobility,
+Ranks, official,
+Records, (see History),
+Redwater, River,
+Regency, See Duke of Chou
+Reign periods,
+Religion, none in ancient China,
+Religion of Confucius (so-called),
+Religious compromise,
+Remains, ancient,
+Rénan, Ernest,
+Residences at the metropolis,
+Revolutionary literature,
+Rice,
+Right and Left,
+Rites, See Ritual
+Rites, Book of,
+Rites of Chou,
+Ritual,
+Ritual chivalry,
+Ritual, Shinto,
+Rivers and migration,
+Rivers and navigation,
+Road, begging,
+Roads,
+Roman civilization,
+Royal caste,
+Rulers, divine right of,
+Rulers, tyranny of,
+Russia,
+
+Sacrifices,
+Sacrifices, drum,
+Sacrifices, family,
+Sacrifices, human,
+Sacrifices, spring and autumn,
+Sacrificial meat,
+_Saga_ literature,
+Sagittarius,
+Salary in grain,
+Salt flats,
+Salt trade,
+Sanctions, solemn,
+Savages, _See_ Barbarians
+Scandinavia,
+Sceptres,
+Science and religion,
+Scottish parallels,
+Scripture,
+Scythians,  See Turks and Hiung-nu
+Sea, little known,
+Seal character,
+Seals,
+Seasons,
+Semi-mythical times,
+Septimius Severus,
+Settled communities,
+Seven States,
+Sha-Shï, modern,
+Shakespeare,
+Shan-hai Kiwan,
+Shan races,
+Shan Si, province,
+Shan Tung, province,
+Shang dynasty,
+Shang, principality,
+_Shang Ti_, title,
+_Shanghai_, modern,
+Shao, Duke of (in Yen),
+Shao-hing, modern,
+Sheba, Queen of,
+_Shên-wu_, Mikado (see Jimmu),
+Shen Si, province,
+_Shï-ki_, history,
+Shintö ritual,
+Shipbuilding,
+Shipping, early,
+Shou-mêng, King of Wu,
+Shrines,
+Shuh Hiang, statesman,
+Shuh, state,
+Shun, Emperor,
+Siam,
+Siang, Emperor,
+Siang-yang city,
+Siberia,
+Sin, idea of,
+Si-ngan Fu,
+Sinim, land of,
+Si-ning, locality,
+Silk,
+Silk industry,
+Silk, writing on,
+sisters as joint wives,
+_Siwangmu_, country and ruler,
+Six Kingdoms,
+Six states (south),
+slavery,
+smearing blood,
+smearing lips with blood,
+Solstices,
+Son of Heaven,
+Songs, 154 (_see_ Odes),
+Soochow city,
+Soochow Creek,
+Soothsayers,
+Soul, the,
+Söul (Corea),
+South, facing,
+South China,
+South Sea,
+South Sea Islands,
+Southern Yüeh,
+Sovereign quality,
+Spanish parallels,
+Spinning,
+Spirits, (see Wine),
+Spirits and ghosts,
+Spiritual power,
+Sport,
+Spring and Autumn Annals,
+Spring functions,
+Standards, See Flags
+States, size of,
+Statesmen, intimacy of,
+Statistics, absence of,
+Stone documents,
+Stone drums,
+Struggle for empire,
+Succession questions,
+Sii Chou,
+Suicide,
+Sultans of Turkey,
+Sun, facing the,
+Sun, movements of,
+Sung as Protector,
+Sung, state,
+Sung's diplomatic position,
+Supernatural agencies,
+Superstition,
+Surnames,
+Surveys,
+Su Ts'in, diplomatist,
+Swords,
+Sz, the River,
+Sz Ch'wan history,
+Sz Ch'wan, province,
+Sz-ma Kwang,
+Sz-ma Ts'ien,
+
+Tablets, ancestral,
+Tablets, documentary,  See Documents
+Tabu,
+T'ai Hu, lake,
+T'ai-p'ing rebels,
+T'ai-shan, mountain,
+Ta-liang, capital,
+Tan, historiographer,
+Tan-yang, locality,
+T'ang dynasty,
+_Tao_, or the way,
+Taoists,
+Tarim valley,
+Tartar advisers,
+"Tartar," ambiguity of word,
+Tartar cart-houses,
+Tartar Emperors,
+Tartar Empire,
+Tartar-Generals,
+Tartar kings,
+Tartar pedigrees,
+Tartar treaties,
+Tartar wives,
+Tartars,
+Tartars annexed,
+Tartars kill Emperor,
+Tartars, Northern,
+Tartars, Western,
+Tartary,
+Tattooing,
+Taxation,
+Tea,
+Têh-an, locality,
+Temple of Heaven,
+Temples in China, See Ancestral
+Têng, state,
+_Tenshi_, or T'ien-tsz,
+Territorial names,
+Teutonic migrations,
+Theatricals,
+Thicket country, See _King_
+Tho, people,
+Three Miao,
+Three Tsin,
+_Ti_, the word, or Emperor,
+Tibet,
+Tibetans,
+T'ien (disguised form of Ch'en) family,
+T'ien H&g,
+Tientsin, modern,
+Tillage, (see Agriculture),
+Tin Islands,
+Titles of vassal rulers,
+Tobacco,
+Tombs,
+Tombs, ancient,
+Tombs, desecration of,
+Tombs of Emperors,
+Tones, Chinese,
+Tonic languages,
+Tonquin,
+Tonquin, early relations with,
+Tortoises,
+T'ouman, personal name,
+Tower of Babel,
+Trade,
+Traditions,
+Treaties,
+Treaties, Chinese vassal,
+Treaties, faithlessness to,
+Treaties, Tartar,
+Tribute,
+Tribute of Yii,
+Triennial homage,
+Tripods, Nine,
+Trophies, war,
+Tropics,
+Ts'ai, state,
+Tsaidam,
+Ts'ao Wên-chung, statesman,
+Ts'ao, state,
+Ts'ao-thou Fu,
+Tschepe, Father, S. J.,
+Ts'i a Tartar power,
+Ts'i and Tsin cooperation,
+Ts'i and Ts'u wars,
+Ts'i-nan Fu,
+Ts'i revolution,
+Tsi, River,
+Ts'i, state,
+Ts'i's gay capital,
+Ts'i's hegemony,
+Ts'i's hospitality,
+Ts'i's luxury,
+Tsin and Ts'i wars,
+Tsin and Ts'in wars,
+Tsin and Ts'u wars,
+Tsin, extension of,
+Tsin, half Tartar,
+T'sin, history of,
+Tsin, New,
+Tsin, Old,
+Tsin, state,
+Tsin, Three,
+Tsin's division,
+T's'in and Tsin wars,
+T's'in and Ts'u cooperation,
+T's'in empire,
+T's'in history,
+T's'in not literary,
+Ts'in Protector,
+Ts'in, state,
+Ts'in's isolation,
+Ts'in's kindness to Tsin,
+Ts'in's Tartar blood,
+Ts'ing-chou Fu,
+Ts'ing-tao, See Kiao Chou
+Tso Chwan, history,
+Tso K'iu-ming, historian,
+Ts'u a literary state,
+Ts'u and Ts'i wars,
+Ts'u and Tsin wars,
+Ts'u and Ts'in straggle for empire,
+Ts'u and Wu wars,
+Ts'u as a suzerain,
+Ts'u as Protector,
+Ts'u extinguishes Lu
+Ts'u, foreign blood
+Ts'u, progress of
+Ts'u, state (_see_ Jungle)
+Tsushima
+Tsz-ch'an
+_Tsz-chi T'ung-kien_, History
+T'ung-thou Fu
+Tung-t'ing Lake
+Tunguses
+Tun-hwang, locality
+Turfan, locality
+Turkestan
+Turkestan, Early travels to
+Turks
+Turning-points in history
+Turtles
+Twelve mansions
+Twelve Tables
+Tyrants, Five, See Protectors
+
+Ultima Thule
+Uncle, political status of
+Urumtsi, locality
+Usury
+Uviet (see Yiieh)
+
+Valuables
+Varnish for writing
+Vassal princes
+Vassals, barbarous
+Vicar of God
+Victims in sacrifice
+Victory, praying for
+Vietnam, See Yiieh
+Viscounts
+Voltaire on Chinese eclipses
+Vows, _See_ Oaths and Sanctions
+
+Wagner
+Wall, Great
+Walls of cities
+Wanderings of Second Protector
+Wang, title
+War, See Warfare
+War-chariots
+War, etiquette of
+Warfare, Chinese
+Warrior King, See Martial King
+Water-courses
+Wealth, ideas of
+Wei (Ngwei), state
+Wei Kiang (of Tsin)
+Wei, River
+Wei, state
+Wei, Valley
+Wei Yang, statesman
+Heights and Measures
+Wei-hai-wei
+Wei-hwei Fu
+W&chow
+Wên Wang
+Western filtration of ideas
+Western marches of China
+Wheelbarrows
+Widows
+William HI. of England
+Wine
+Wives, classes of
+Wizards
+_Wo_, name for Japanese
+Women, position of
+Worship or sacrifice
+Writing, ancient
+Writing brush
+Writing modified
+Writing unknown to Tartars, etc.
+Written characters
+Wu and Ts'u wars
+Wu and Ytieh wars
+Wu as Protector
+Wu extinguished
+Wu, state
+"Wu," the word
+Wu's pedigree
+Wu's progress
+Wuhu, modern
+Wu-sih, locality
+Wusung River
+Wu Wang
+
+Ya-chou Fu
+Yamagata, Prince or Duke
+_Yamêns_
+Yang Chou, province
+Yangchow
+Yang-tsz, joined to Hwai
+Yang-tsz, mouths of
+Yang-tsz, River
+Yao, Emperor
+Year, the
+Yellow River
+  as boundary
+  its early course
+  its later courses
+  its lower course
+  its northern bank Tartars
+  its northern bend
+  its southern bend
+Yen, state of
+Yen-tsz, philosopher
+Yih-ch'êng, locality
+Ying, clan-name
+Yu, Emperor
+Yii, Emperor
+Yii Chou, locality
+Yü-yüeh, See Uviet
+Yiian Shi-k'ai, Viceroy
+Yiieh, Shan Tung capital of
+Yiieh as Protector
+Yüeh destroys Wu
+Yiieh, Southern
+Yiieh, state
+Yiieh, the Hundred
+Yung-ning, locality
+Yün Nan, province
+
+Zodiac
+Zoroaster
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Ancient China Simplified, by Edward Harper Parker
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANCIENT CHINA SIMPLIFIED ***
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