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 Heng, alias CH'EN 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'EN, 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-a- 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 regime 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 qua 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 CHENG, 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 CHENG, 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 CHENG, both of the imperial family name. The state of CH'EN 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 fenetre,

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 debacle 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 Peh 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'EN 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, Peh 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 Peh 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 Yueeh 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 Fen 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 Peh), 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'EN) 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 allergnaedigst. 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 CHENG, 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'eng, all of the imperial family name, or, as we say in English, "surname," and all lying between the Hwai and the Sz systems (T'eng 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 Sue-chou (North Kiang Su) and eastward, all were "Eastern barbarians"; in fact, the city just named (mentioned by the name of Sue in 1100 B.C., and again about 950 B.C., as revolting against the Emperor) perpetuates the "Sue 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 Yue, 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 Yueeh, 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 Yue-yueeh, 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 Yueeh, or Viet, 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 Yueeh" (the Canton region) has undoubted historical connections with the Tonquin part of Annam, and several other of the subdivisions of Yiieh, corresponding to Foochow, Wenchow, 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-viet 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 Yueeh, 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'ue-peh-yueh 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 CHENG 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 CHENG 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-erh, 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-erh 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.)



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 Yueeh, 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 Kobe 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 Kobe 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 Yueeh" (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 a 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 Vendemiaire in 1793.