Francois Coppee - "Ten Tales"

Pierce Egan - "Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II."

Bernie Babcock - "The Coming of the King"

Charles Nordhoff - "The Communistic Societies of the United States"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Ancient China Simplified

E >> Edward Harper Parker >> Ancient China Simplified




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.

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