Ancient China Simplified

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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.)

[Illustration: Original inscription on the Sacrificial Tripod,
together with (1) transcription in modern Chinese character (to
the right), and (2) an account of its history (to the left). Taken
from Dr. Bushell's "Chinese Art."]

Ts'u seems to have possessed a knowledge of ancient history and of
literature at a very early date. In 597 B.C., after his victory
over Tsin, the King of Ts'u had, as previously narrated, declined
to rear a barrow over the corpses slain, and had said: "No! the
written or pictograph character for 'soldierly' is made up of two
parts, one signifying 'stop,' and the other 'weapons.'" By this he
meant to say what the great philosopher Lao-tsz, himself a Ts'u
man, over and over again inculcated; namely, that the true soldier
does not glory in war, but mournfully aims at victory with the
sole view of attaining rightful ends. Not only was this half-
barbarian king thus capable of making a pun which from the
pictograph point of view still holds good to-day, but he goes on
in the same speech to cite the "peace-loving war" of Wu Wang, or
the Martial King, founder of the Chou dynasty, and to cite several
standard odes in allusion to it.

These examples might be multiplied a hundredfold, For instance, in
the year 589 a Ts'u minister cites the Odes; in 575 a Tsin officer
quotes the Book; in 569 another makes allusion to the ancient
attempt made by the ruler of the then vassal Chou state, the
father of the imperial Chou founder, and who was at the same time
adviser at the imperial court, to reconcile the vassal princes to
the legitimate Shang dynasty Emperor (who had already imprisoned
him once out of pique at his remonstrances), before finally
deciding to dethrone him. In 546 a Sung envoy cites the Odes to
the Ts'u government, and also quotes from that section of the
"Book" called the Book of the Hia Dynasty, In connection with the
year 582 an ode is cited for the benefit of the King of Ts'u,
which is not in Confucius' collection. In 541 a Ts'u envoy, who
was being entertained in Tsin at a convivial wine party, indulges
in apt quotations from the Odes.

There does not seem to be one single instance where any one in
Ts'in either sings an ode, quotes orthodox history, or in any way
displays literary knowledge. Even the barbarian Kou-tsien, King of
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.

Thus, except in so far as Confucius may have borrowed from local
histories besides that of Lu in making up his "Springs and
Autumns," the Annals of Ts'in are the only annals of the feudal
states (except the Bamboo Books, or Annals of Tsin, dug up in A.D.
281) now left to us. That there were such annals in each state is
certain, for in 627 B.C. the "great historian" of Tsin is spoken
of; and in 607 and 510 the names of the Tsin historians are given,
in the first case apparently a Tartar. That there should be a Tsin
Tartar versed in Chinese literature is not remarkable, for it was
shown at the close of Chapter XIII. how a learned Tsin Tartar had
acted as adviser to Duke Muh of Ts'in, and had left behind him a
work in two chapters, which was still in existence in 50 B.C.
Under the year 628 B.C., one of the expanded versions of
Confucius' history explains how the anarchy which had then been
for some time prevailing in Tsin led to certain Tsin events of the
year 630 being omitted by Confucius; this is a very important
statement, for it infers that Confucius made use of the Tsin
annals. It is recorded of Confucius that when reading the _Shi-
ki_ ("Historical Annals"), he expressed very strong views when
he came to the events of 632 and 598 B.C., that is, to the place
where the "ordering up" of the Emperor by Tsin is described, and
to the noble action of the "sage" King of Ts'u; it is interesting
to know that this old name, _Shi-ki_, was chosen by the author of
the first real history of China published under that title about 90 B.C.,
and that he was not the inventor of the name, which had already for
centuries been applied in a general sense to the historical annals either
of Lu or of China generally.

In 547 B.C. it is stated that the "great historian" of Ts'i made
certain remarks: we have already seen in the present chapter how
the Ts'i wife of the Second Protector was in 640 B.C. perfectly
well acquainted with the historical and philosophical works of
Kwan-tsz, the great administrative innovator of Ts'i under the
First Protector. In the second century B.C. Kwan-tsz's work of
eighty-six chapters was placed at the head of the Taoist works (of
course before Taoism became Lao-tsz's speciality). It is
mentioned, quite casually, in the year 538, in a political
conversation which took place with the King of Ts'u, that the
First Protector of Ts'i in the year 647 B.C. had had to contend
with the serious rebellion of a subject (who is named). All
circumstances point to the truth of this isolated, but otherwise
most specific statement; yet it is not mentioned elsewhere,--
evidence, if it were wanted, that many historical works, from
which facts were borrowed as though the details were well known to
all, must have disappeared entirely.

As to Ts'u, its Annals were known by the curious name of "Stinking
Wood," by which it is supposed that the evil recorded of men upon
wooden tablets was meant. That Ts'u subsequently developed a high
literary capacity is evident, for the anniversary of the suicide
of the celebrated Ts'u poet K'ueh Yiian (envoy to Ts'i during the
fierce diplomatic intrigues of 31 B.C.) has been kept up as the
annual "dragon festival" down to our own times, in memory of his
suicide by drowning in the Tung-t'ing Lake district; and his poems
are amongst the most beautiful in the Chinese language. In 656
B.C. the dictatorial First Protector tried to play the _role_
of the wolf, with Ts'u in the character of the lamb: he said: "How
is it you have not for so many generations past sent your tribute
of sedge to the Emperor? How about the other Emperor who visited
(modern) Hankow in 1003 B.C. and was never heard of again?" The
King replied: "As to our failure to send tribute, we admit it; as
to the supposed murder of the Emperor 350 years ago, you had
better ask the people of Hankow themselves what they know of it."
(Ts'u had hardly yet permanently advanced so far east.)

In 496 B.C. it is recorded of a scholar at the Emperor's court
that, being anxious to see his own name in the "Springs and
Autumns," he suggested to the Emperor that for a long time no
complimentary mission had been sent to Lu. The result was that he
was sent himself, and is thus immortalized: it does not follow
from this that the knowledge of Confucius' coming book had
penetrated to the Chou court, because "Springs and Autumns" was
already the accepted term in Lu for "Annals," long before
Confucius adopted the already existing general name for his own
particular work. In 496 Confucius had left Lu in disgust, and had
gone to Wei--the capital of Wei was then on, or near, the then
Yellow River (now the River Wei), between the two towns marked
"Hwa" and "K'ai" on modern maps--where he collected materials for
his History; but he did not begin it until the year 481; so
probably the ambitious scholar simply hoped to appear in the
"Springs and Autumns" of Lu, as they had already been called
before Confucius borrowed the name, just as Sz-ma Ts'ien borrowed
the name _Shi-ki_.

As to Ts'in, Ts'in's own Annals tell us that "in 753 B.C.
historians were first established to keep record of events." Hence
even the Ts'in records, the sole annals preserved from the flames,
must be retrospective from that date. In any case they contain
nothing of historical importance farther back than 753 B.C.,
except the wars with Tartars; the accompanying of the Emperor Muh,
as charioteer, by a Ts'in prince on the occasion of his "going to
examine his fiefs in the west"; and the cession of the old Chou
appanage to Ts'in in 771. By their baldness, and by the baldness
of the Bamboo Books, and of Confucius' own "Springs and Autumns,"
we may fairly judge of the probable insufficiency and dryness of
the Annals of Ts'u, Ts'i, Wei, CHENG, Sung, and other states
interested in the welter of the Fighting State Period. Early
Chinese annals contain little more satisfying than the "generations of
Adam" in the fifth chapter of Genesis.

CHAPTER XXXI

ORIGIN OF THE CHINESE

Having now derived some definite notions of how the Chinese
advanced from the patriarchal to the feudal, from the submissive
and monarchical to the emulous and democratic, finally to collapse
under the overpowering grasp of a single Dictator or Despot, whose
centralized system in the main, still survives; having also seen
how the nucleus of China proper was encompassed on three sides by
Tibetans, Tartars, Tunguses, Coreans, and by various ill-defined
tribes to the south; let us see if there is any evidence whatever
to show, or even to suggest to us, whence the orthodox Chinese
originally came, and who they were.

First and foremost, it seems primarily unnecessary to suggest at
all that they came from anywhere; for, if the position be once
assumed as an axiom that all people must have immigrated from some
place to the place in which we first find them, or hear of them,
then the double question arises: "Why should the persons we find
in A., and who, we think, may have come from B., not have migrated
from A. to B. before they migrated back from B. to A.?" Or: "If
the people we find at A. must have come from B., whence did the
people at B. come, before they went to A.?" To put it in another
way: given the existence 4000 or 5000 years ago of Chinese in
China, Egyptians in Egypt, and Babylonians in Babylonia--why
should one group be assumed to be older than the other? The only
ground for suggesting that these groups had not each a separate
evolution, is the assumption that man was "created" once for all,
and created summarily; in which case it follows with mathematical
precision that the ultimate ancestry of every man living extends
back to exactly the same date. That is to say, the highest and the
lowest, the blackest and the whitest, only differ in this, that
some men began to keep records earlier than others; for the man
who keeps no records loses track of his ancestors, and that is
all. Not to mention other races, some of our own noblest English
families trace back their ancestry to a favoured or successful
person, who was of no hereditary distinction before he distinguished
himself; whilst on the other hand the tramp and the street-walker
may have as "royal" blood in their veins as any lineal princely personage.
It is records, therefore, that differentiate "civilized" from uncivilized
people, blue blood from plebeian; and as we see millions of people
living without records to-day in various parts of the world,
notwithstanding that for centuries, or even for millenniums, they
have been surrounded by or in immediate contact with neighbours
possessing records, it seems to follow that a nation's greatness may
begin at any time, independently of the blueness of its blood, the
robustness of its warriors, the beauty of its women; that is, whenever
it chooses to keep records, and thus to cultivate itself: for records are
nothing more than the means of keeping experiences in stock,
instead of having to repeat them every day; they are thus
accumulations of national wealth. It by no means follows that
because records can be traced back farther in the case of one
nation than in the case of another, that the first nation is older
than the other; for instance, although in the West our various
alphabets appear to refer themselves back to one same source, or
to a few sources which probably all hark back ultimately to one
and the same, there seems no reason to believe that the Chinese
did not independently invent, develop, and perfect their own
scheme of written records: the mere fact that we learnt how to
write is some evidence in support of the proposition that they
also, being men like ourselves, learnt how to write.

There is no documentary evidence for the barest existence of
ancient China, or of any part of it, which is not to be found in
the Chinese records, and in them alone; no nation anywhere near
China has any record or tradition of either its own or of China's
existence at a period earlier than the Chinese records indicate.
Those records do not contain the faintest allusion to Egypt,
Babylonia, India, or any other foreign country or place whatever
outside the extremely limited area of the Central Nucleus, and the
larger area occupied by the semi-Chinese colonial powers
surrounding it. Nor is there the faintest evidence that the
Biblical "land of Sinim" had any reference to China, which seems
to have been as absolutely unknown to the West previous to, say,
250 B.C., as America was unknown to Europe, or Europe to America
previous to 1400 A.D. If any ideas were derived from China by the
West, or from the West by China, the records of both China and the
West alike point, however, to one obvious connecting link, and
that is, the horse-riding nomads of the north, who are now, it is
true, in some parts a little more settled than they used to be,
and who have been tamed in various degrees by dogmatic religions
unknown to them in ancient times, but who remain in many respects
now very much what they were 3000 years ago. Of course pedlars,
hawkers, and even long-course caravans travelled, whenever the
routes were free, from place to place in ancient times as they do
now; but it is exceedingly improbable that there would be any
through-travellers from Europe to China, except one or two
occasional waifs or adventurers buffeted through by chance. If 600
years ago, Marco Polo's through-route adventures were regarded in
Europe as almost incredible, notwithstanding the then recent and
well-trodden war-path of the Mongol armies, what chances are there
of through-travel 2000 years before that? And, even if a rare case
occasionally occurred, what chances are there of any one recording
it?

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