Ancient China Simplified

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As to _tabus_, the following are curious specific instances.
King, or "Jungle," was the earliest name for Ts'u, or "Brushwood,"
the uncleared region south of the River Han, along the banks of
the Yang-tsz; and it afterwards became a powerful state. But one
of the most powerful kings of Ts'in (249-244) was called Tsz-ts'u,
or "Don Brushwood," so his successor the First August Emperor (who
was really a bastard, and not of genuine Ts'in blood at all)
_tabu'd_ the word Ts'u, and ordered historians to use the old
name King instead. In the same way the philosopher Chwang Chou, or
Chwang-tsz, was spoken of by the Han historians as Yen Chou,
because _chwang_ was an imperial personal name. Both words
mean "severe": it is as though private Romans and public scribes
had been commanded to call themselves and to write _Austerus_,
instead of _Severus_, out of respect for the Emperor Septimius
Severus. The business-like First August Emperor, himself, evidently
had no hand in the pedantic King and Ts'u _tabu_ business,
for one of his first general orders when he became Supreme Emperor
in 221 B.C., was to proclaim that "in ancient times there were no
posthumous names, and they are hereby suppressed. I am Emperor
the First. My successor will simply be Emperor the Second, and so
on for ever." There is no clear record of posthumous names and titles
anterior to the Chou dynasty; the first certain instance is the father of
the founder, whose personal name was Ch'ang, and who had been
generally known as the "Earl of the West." His son, the founder, made
him W&n Wang, or the "Civilian King," posthumously. In the same way the
Duke of Chou, a son of the Civilian King, made his brother the
founder, personally called _Fah_, Wu Wang, or the "Warrior
King." The same Duke of Chou (the first ruler of Lu, and
Confucius' model in all things) was the virtual founder of the
Chou administrative system in general, and also of the posthumous
name rules which were "intended to punish the bad and encourage
the good"; but counsellors have naturally always been very
gingerly and roundabout in wounding royal family feeling by
selecting too harsh a "punishing" name.

Not only royal and princely personages had posthumous names. In
817 and 796 B.C., each, we find a counsellor of the Emperor spoken
of both by the real and the posthumous name. In 542 B.C. a
concubine of one of the Lu rulers is spoken of by her clan-name
and her posthumous name. In 560 B.C. the dying King of Ts'u
modestly alludes to the choice of an inferior posthumous name
befitting him and his poor talents, for use at the times of
biennial sacrifice to his manes, and adds: "I am now going to take
my place _a la_ suite, in company with my ancestors in the
temple."

Persons of the same clan-name could not properly intermarry. Thus
the Emperor Muh, who is supposed to have travelled to Turkestan in
the tenth century B.C., had a mysterious _liaison_ during his
expedition with a beauteous Miss _Ki_ (_i.e._ a girl of his own
clan), who died on the way. The only way tolerant posterity can make
a shift to defend this "incest," is by supposing that in those times the
names of relatives were "arranged differently." However, the mere
fact that the funeral ceremonies were carried out with full imperial
Chou ritual, and that incest is mentioned at all, seems to militate against
the view (noticed in Chapter XIII.) that it was Duke Muh of Ts'in who
(400 years later) undertook this journey, for he did not belong to
the _Ki_ family at all. Curiously enough, it fell to the lot
of the son and successor of the Emperor Muh to have to punish and
destroy a petty vassal state whose ruler had committed the
incestuous act of marrying three sisters of his own clan-name. In
483 B.C. the ruler of Lu also committed an indiscretion by
marrying a _Ki_ girl. As her clan-name must, according to
rule, be mentioned at her burial, she was not formally buried at
all, but the whole affair was hushed up, and she was called by the
fancy name of Meng-tsz (exactly the same characters as "Mencius"),

Another instance serves to illustrate the above-mentioned imperial
journey west, and the fief questions jointly. When the Emperor Muh
went west, he was served as charioteer by one of the ancestors of
the future Ts'in principality, who for his services was enfeoffed
at Chao (north of Shan Si province). Chao was one of the three
states into which Tsin broke up in 403 B.C., and was very Tartar
in its sympathies. Thus, as both Ts'in and Chao bore the same
original clan-name of Ying, granted to the Ts'in family as
possessions of the Ts'in fief (Eastern Kan Suh province) by the
early Chou emperors in 870 B.C., Ts'in is often spoken of as
having the sub-clan-name of Chao. These facts, again, all militate
against the theory that it was Duke Muh of Ts'in who made the
voyage of discovery usually attributed to the Chou Emperor Muh;
for Duke Muh's lineal ancestor, ancestor also of the original
Ts'in Ying, himself acted as guide in Tartary to the Emperor Muh.
The First August Emperor, who was, as already stated, really a
bastard, was borne by the concubine of a Chao merchant, who made
over the concubine whilst _enceinte_ to his (the Emperor's)
father, when that father was a royal Ts'in hostage dwelling in the
state of Chao; hence the Emperor is often called Chao CHENG
(_CHENG_ being his personal name). He had thus a double claim
to the family name of Chao, first because--granting his
legitimacy--his Ts'in ancestor (also the ancestor of all the Chao
family) was, during the ninth century B.C., enfeoffed in Chao; and
secondly because, when Chao became an independent kingdom, he was,
during the third century B.C., himself born in Chao to a Chao man
of a Chao woman.

A great deal more might of course be said upon the subject of
names, and of their effect in sometimes obscuring, sometimes
elucidating, historical facts; but these few remarks will perhaps
suffice, at least, to suggest the importance of scrutinizing
closely the possible bearing of each name upon the political
events connected with it.

CHAPTER XXXIV

EUNUCHS, HUMAN SACRIFICES, FOOD

Mention has been made of eunuchs, a class which seems to have
originated with the law's severity rather than from a callous
desire of the rich to secure a craven and helpless medium and
means for pandering to and enjoying the pleasures of the harem
without fear of sexual intrigue. Criminals whose feet were cut off
were usually employed as park-keepers simply because there could
be no inclination on their part to gad about and chase the game.
Those who lost their noses were employed as isolated frontier
pickets, where no boys could jeer at them, and where they could
better survive their misfortune in quiet resignation. Those
branded in the face were made gate-keepers, so that their
livelihood was perpetually marked out for them. It is sufficiently
obvious why the castrated were specially charged with the duty of
serving females in a menial capacity. One name for eunuch is
"cleanse man," and it is explained by a very old commentator that
the duty of these functionaries was to sweep and cleanse the
court; but it is perhaps as likely that the original idea was
really "purified man," or man deprived of incentive to certain
evils. It is often said disparagingly of the Chou dynasty that
they introduced the effeminate Persian custom of keeping eunuchs;
but the Chou family, which was in full career before Zoroaster
existed, is perhaps entitled to a much greater antiquity in
civilization than Persia--Cyrus himself was a contemporary of Lao-
tsz and Confucius--and probably the castrated were only utilized
as menials because they already were eunuchs by law, and were not
made eunuchs against the spirit of natural law simply in order
that their services as menials should be conveniently rendered.

In 655 B.C. the Tsin ruler despatched a eunuch to try and
assassinate his half-brother (the future Second Protector of
China) when in Tartar exile. When the Second Protector in 636 at
last came to his rights as ruler of Tsin, the same eunuch offered
to commit an assassination in his interest; arguing, by way of
justifying his previous attempt, that a servant's duty was to
serve his _de facto_ master for the time being, and not to
question de _jure_ claims, which were a matter beyond the
competence of a menial. In 548 the ruler of Ts'i was assassinated
by a eunuch who would not even grant his master permission to
commit suicide decently in the ancestral hall; (see p. 62). A year
later, the succeeding ruler under urgent circumstances secured the
services of a eunuch as coachman. In contrast to these traitors,
in 481 a faithful eunuch tries to save the ruler of Ts'i from
assassination by one of the supplanting great families: this was
the case that so horrified Confucius that he died soon after, in
despair of ever seeing "divine right" regain the upper hand in
China. In 544 B.C. the ruler of Wei was assassinated by a eunuch
door-keeper. In 537 the King of Ts'u conceived the idea of
castrating and cutting the feet off the two Tsin envoys for use as
a palace gate-keeper and for service in his harem; but he was
prudently dissuaded by his chief counsellor from incurring the
risks consequent upon such an international outrage; (see p. 46).
Three centuries later, in the year 239, the First August Emperor's
(real) father, for his own spying purposes, got a sham eunuch
appointed to a post in the service of the ex-concubine made over,
as explained in the last chapter, to the First Emperor's father;
by the dowager-queen, as she then was, the supposed eunuch had
two sons. When subsequently this dangerous person revolted, the
First August Emperor's own real eunuchs took part in opposing his
murderous designs.--It must be mentioned that this objectionable
father of the Emperor was himself a very distinguished man
notwithstanding, and has left a valuable historical and
philosophical work of twenty-six chapters behind him, put together
under his direction by a number of clever writers. It is usually
considered a Taoist work, because it savours in parts of Lao-tsz's
doctrine; but, like the works of Hwai-nan-tsz (an imperial prince
of the Han dynasty 150 years later) it was classified in 50 B. C.
as a "miscellany."--Finally, a eunuch played an important part as
witness when the Second August Emperor was assassinated. Thus all
the states--those around the original nucleus of Old China at
least--employed eunuchs in the royal harems, even if the vassal
princes of orthodox China as a general rule did not.

It is much the same thing with another disagreeable feature in the
manners of those times--human sacrifices. Many instances have
already been given of such practices in the state of Ts'in. The
tomb of the King of Ts'u who died in 591--of that king whose death
Confucius condescended to record, decently and in ritual terms,
because of his many good qualities--which tomb appears to be still
in existence near King-chou Fu, is surrounded by ten other smaller
tombs, supposed so be those of the persons who "followed him to
the grave." At all events, when in the year 529 a later king of
Ts'u hanged himself, a faithful follower buried two of his own
daughters with the royal body. In A. D. 312 the tomb of the first
Protector, who died in 643 B.C., was opened under circumstances so
graphically described that there can scarcely be a doubt of the
substantial truth: the stench was so great that dogs had to be
sent in first to test the effects of the poisoned atmosphere; so
many bones were found lying about that there can be little doubt
many women and concubines were buried with him. It is often said
by modern writers that it was a general custom to do so all over
ancient China, and possibly the fact that in the second century
B.C. a humane Chinese emperor (of Taoist principles) ordered the
discontinuance of the practice may be thought to give colour to
this supposition. But it must be remembered that the great house
of Han had only then recently overthrown the dynasty of Ts'in, and
had incorporated nearly the whole of China as we now view it: the
Emperor would naturally therefore be referring to Ts'i, Ts'in,
Ts'u, and possibly also to Wu and Yueeh, three of which states had,
as we see, once practised this cruel custom.

Wine, or rather spirit, was known everywhere; in Confucian times
the Far West had not yet been discovered, and there were neither
grapes nor any names for grapes; no grape wine, nor any other
fruit wine. Even now, though the Peking grapes are as good as
English grapes, no one nearer than Shan Shi makes wine from them.
Spirits seem to have been served from remote times at the imperial
and princely feasts. Here, once more, as with the two vicious
practices described, the drunkards appear to be found more among
those peoples surrounding orthodox China than in the ancient
nucleus. In 694 B.C., when the ruler of Lu was on a visit to his
brother-in-law, the ruler of Ts'i, whose sister he had married,
brother and sister had incestuous intercourse; which being
detected, the ruler of Ts'i made his Lu brother-in-law drunk, and
suborned a powerful ruffian to squeeze his ribs as he was assisted
into his chariot. Thus the Duke Hwan of Lu perished. In 640 B.C.,
as we have seen, when the future Second Protector was dallying
with his Ts'i wife, it was found by his henchman necessary to make
him drunk in order to get him away. In 574 a Ts'u general was
found drunk when sent for by his king to explain a defeat by Tsin
troops. In 560 the Ts'i envoy--the philosopher Yen-tsz--was
entertained by the Ts'u court at a wine. In 531 the ruler of Ts'u
first made drunk, and then killed, one of the petty rulers of
orthodox China. In 537 it had already been explained to the King
of Ts'u that on the occasions of the triennial visits of vassals
to the Emperor (probably only theoretical visits at that date)
wine was served at long tables in full cups, but was only drunk at
the proper ritualistic moment. Two years after that the King of
Ts'u was described as being at his wine, and therefore in the
proper frame of mind to listen to representations.

In 541 the Ts'u envoy was entertained at a _punch d'honneur_
by the Tsin statesmen, one of whom seized the occasion to chant
one of the Odes warning people against drunkenness. It is well
known that Confucius enjoyed his dram; indeed, it is said of him:
"As to wine, he had no measure, but he did not fuddle himself." In
the year 506 the ruler of Ts'in is described as being a heavy
drinker. In 489 a Ts'i councillor is described as being drunk. A
few years later the ruler of Ts'i and his wife are seen drinking
together on the verandah, and some prisoners escape owing to the
gaoler having been judiciously plied with drink.

Meat seems to have been much more generally consumed in old China
(by those who could afford it) than in modern times; and, as we
might expect, among the Tartar infected people, horse-flesh in
particular. In the second century B.C. the question of eating
horse-liver is compared by a witty Emperor with the danger of
revolutionary talk. He said: "We may like it, but it is
dangerous." (Last year, when in Neu Brandenburg, I came across a
man whose brother was a horse-butcher in Pomerania, and,
remembering this imperial remark, I asked about horse-liver. The
man said he always had a feast of horse-liver when he visited his
brother, and that he much preferred it to cows' liver, or to any
other part of the horse; but, he added, "you must be careful about
eating it in summer.") In 645 Duke Muh of Ts'in was rescued from
the Tsin troops by what was described to him as a body-guard of
horse-flesh eaters. It appeared, when he sought for explanation,
that the same Ts'in ruler had, some time before, been robbed of a
horse by some "wild men," who proceeded to cut it up and eat it.
They were arrested; but the magnanimous duke said: "I am told
horse-flesh needs spirits to make it digest well," and, instead of
punishing them, he gave them a keg of liquor, adding: "no sage
would ever injure men on account of a mere beast.", He had
forgotten the circumstance, but it now transpired that these men
had, out of gratitude, since then enlisted as soldiers. This story
is the more interesting as it proves how incompletely civilized
the neighbourhood of Ts'in then was.--Bears' paws are often spoken
of as a favourite dish. In 626 the King of Ts'u, about to be
murdered by his son and successor, said: "At least, let me have a
bear's paw supper before I die." But it takes many hours to cook
this dish to a turn, and the son easily saw through the paternal
manoeuvre, pleaded only to gain time. It may be here mentioned,
too, that Ts'u made regular use of elephants in battle, which
circumstance is another piece of testimony in favour of the
Annamese connection of Ts'u. In the _Rites of Chou_, supposed
to be the work of the Duke of Chou, mention is made of ivory as
one of the products of the "Jungle province," as then called. In
modern times Annam has regularly supplied the Peking Government
with elephants, the skin of which is eaten as a tonic. After the
annihilation of Wu by Yiieh, the cunning Chinese adviser of Yiieh
decided to retire with his fortune to Ts'i, on the ground that the
"good sleuth-hound, when there is no more work for him, is apt to
find his way to the cooking-pot." Dogs (fed up for the purpose)
are still eaten in some parts of China, and (as we shall soon see)
they were eaten in ancient Yiieh.

CHAPTER XXXV

KNOWLEDGE OF THE WEST

The question of the expedition of the Emperor Muh to the West in
the year 984 B.C., or during that year and the two following, is
worthy of further consideration for many reasons; and after all
that has been said about the rise of the Chou dynasty, the decay
of the patriarchal system, the emulous ambitions of the vassals,
the destruction of the feudal Empire, and the substitution of a
centralized administration under a new dynasty of numbered August
Emperors, it will now be comparatively easier to understand.

We have seen that, if any local annals besides those of Lu have
been in part preserved, those of Ts'in at least were deliberately
intended by the First August Emperor to be wholly preserved, and
must therefore hold first rank among all the restored vassal
annals published by Sz-ma Ts'ien in or about 90 B.C.; and it must
be remembered that the original Lu annals have perished equally
with those of Ts'i, Sung, and other important states; it is only
Confucius' "Springs and Autumns,"--evidently composed from the Lu
archives,--that have survived. Well, the Ts'in Annals, as given by
Sz-ma Ts'ien, record that one of the early Ts'in ancestors "was in
favour with the Emperor Muh on account of his admirable skill in
manipulating horses" [names of four particularly fine horses
given]. The Emperor "went west to examine his fiefs"; he was so
"charmed with his experiences that he forgot the administrative
duties which should have called him back." Meanwhile, a revolt
broke out in East (uncivilized) China, and the manipulator of
horses was sent by the Emperor back to China at express speed, in
order to stave off trouble till the Emperor could get back
himself. It is also stated of him that, in spite of remonstrances,
he made extensive war upon the Tartars, and that, in consequence,
his uncivilized vassals ceased to present themselves at court. No
other mention is made of this expedition by Sz-ma Ts'ien in the
imperial annals, and, so (apart from the fictitious importance
afterwards given to the expedition, and especially by European
investigators in quite recent times), there is really no reason to
attach any more political weight to it than to the other
innumerable exploring expeditions of emperors into the almost
unknown regions surrounding the nucleus of orthodox China so often
defined in these chapters. We have already (page 184) cited the
case in which the father and predecessor of King Muh had ventured
on a tour of inspection as far as modern Hankow on the Yang-tsz
River, or, as some say, as far as some place on the River Han,
where he was murdered; in 656 the First Protector raked up this
affair against Ts'u, whose capital was very near King-thou Fu,
above Hankow. Finally, scant though Sz-ma Ts'ien's two references
to this affair may be, they at least agree with each other, i.e.
the Emperor did actually go to Tartar regions, and a revolt of
non-Chinese tribes did actually break out in the immediate sequel.

But in A.D. 281 a certain tomb at a place once belonging to Wei,
but later attached to the kingdom of Ngwei formerly part of Tsin,
was desecrated by thieves, and, amongst other books written in
ancient characters found therein (unfortunately all more or less
injured by the rummaging thieves), were two of paramount interest.
One was an account of, and was entirely devoted to, the Emperor
Muh's voyage to the West; the other was the Annals of Ngwei (i.e.
of that third part of old Tsin which in 403 B.C. was formally
recognized by the Emperor as the separate state of Ngwei),
including those of old Tsin, and also what may be termed the
general history of China, narrated incidentally. These Annals of
Tsin or Ngwei are usually styled the Bamboo Books, because they
were written in ink on bamboo tablets strung together at one end
like a fan or a narrow Venetian blind. They also speak shortly of
the Emperor Muh's expedition, and thus they also are useful for
comparing hiatuses, names, faults, and dates; both in general
history, and in the account of King Muh's expedition. Since the
discovery of these old documents (which had been buried for well-
nigh 600 years, and of which no other record whatever had been
preserved either in writing or by tradition), Chinese literary
wonder-mongers have exercised their wits upon the task of
identifying the unheard-of places mentioned; the more so in that
one place, and one king bearing the same foreign name as the
place--_Siwangmu_--was so written phonetically that it might
mean "Western-King-Mother." They endeavoured to show how this and
other places _might_ have lain in relation to the genuine
places discovered by Chinese generals after these ancient
documents were buried, seven centuries after the events recorded
therein. Then came the foreigner with his Jewish Creation,
Confusion of Tongues, Accadian and Babylonian origin of all
science, etc., etc. Of course Marco Polo's adventures at once
suggested to the European, thus biased, that 3000 years ago the
Emperor Muh _might_ have found his way to Persia, and _might_
have been this or that Babylonian, Egyptian, or Persian hero; in fact,
Professor Forke of Berlin even takes his Chinese majesty as far as Africa,
and introduces him to the Queen of Sheba (= Western-King-Mother).

The distinguished Professor Edouard Chavannes of Paris has
recently attempted to show, not only that the Emperor Muh never
got beyond the Tarim (which, indeed, is absolutely certain from
the text itself), but that it was not the Emperor Muh at all who
went, but the semi-Turkish Duke Muh of Ts'in, in the seventh
century B.C., who made the expedition.

To begin with, let us see what the expedition purports to be. In
the first place, the thieves used as torches, or otherwise
destroyed, the first few pages of the bamboo sheaf book, and we do
not know, consequently, whence the Emperor started: there is much
indirect evidence, however, to show that he started from some
place on the headwaters of the Han River, in what must then have
been his own territory (South Shen Si); especially as his three
expeditions all ended there. It is certain, however, that he had
not travelled many days on his first journey before he reached a
tribe of Tartars very frequently mentioned in all histories, and
bearing the same name as the Tartars whom Sz-ma Ts'ien says the
Emperor Muh _did_ conquer. He crossed the Yellow River on the
169th day, came to two rivers, the Redwater (222nd day), and the
Blackwater (248th day), which rivers in after ages have been
frequently mentioned in connection with Tibetan, Turkish, and
Ouigour wars, and are apparently in the Si-ning and Kan-chou Fu,
or possibly Kwa Chou regions (_cf_. p. 68); but first he passed,
after the 170th day, a place called "Piled Stones," a name which
has never been lost to history, and which corresponds to Nien-po,
between Lan-thou Fu and Si-ning, as marked on modern maps.
In other words, he went by the only high-road there was in existence,
and ever since then has continued in existence (just traversed by Bruce),
leading to the Lob Nor region; whence again he branched off,
presumably to Turfan, or to Harashar; thence to Urumtsi, and possibly
Kuche, as they are respectively now called; but on the whole it is not
likely that he got beyond Harashar and Urumtsi. Even 800 years later,
when the Chinese had thoroughly explored all the west up to the Hindu
Kush, their expeditions had all to proceed from Lob Nor to Khoten, or
from Lob Nor (or near it) _via_ Harashar and Kuche along the
Tarim Valley: it was not for long after the discovery of these routes that
the later Chinese discovered the northerly Hami route, and the possibility
of avoiding Lob Nor altogether. His charioteer is said in this
account to have been a man (named) whose name is exactly the name,
written in exactly the same way, as the name of the ancestor of
Ts'in, who, Sz-ma Ts'ien tells us, actually was the charioteer of
the Emperor when he marched forth against the Tartars, and who
hurried back to China when the revolts broke out owing to the
Emperor's absence. As the Emperor received, from various princes,
presents of wine, silk, and rice, it is almost certain that he
must have avoided bleak, out-of-the-way places, and have made for
the productive regions of Harashar, Turfan, and possibly Kuche,
any or all three of these. With a little more care and patience we
may yet succeed in identifying, and by the same names, several
more of the places mentioned by the old chronicler. In about ten
months (286 days from the first day already mentioned, and 17 days
out from "Piled Stones") he reached _Siwangmu_. This is not
at all unlikely to be Urumtsi, or a place near it, possibly Ku-
CH'ENg or Gutchen, because _Siwangmu_ (also the name of the
king of that place), gave him a feast on a certain lake, which
lake, written in exactly the same way, became the name of a quite
new district in 653 A.D., when it was abolished; and that district
was at or near Urumtsi; the presumption being that, in the seventh
century A.D., it was so named on account of old traditions, then
well known. Roughly speaking, it took the Emperor 300 days to go,
and a second 300 to get back; stoppages, feasts, functions, all
included. The total distance travelled, as specified from chief
station to chief station, is 13,300 _li_ (say 4000 miles) to
_Siwangmu_ and to the hunting grounds near but beyond it.
When 200 days out he came to the place where his feet were washed
with kumiss; this place is frequently mentioned in history; even
Confucius names it, as one of the northernmost conquests of the
Chou dynasty. The only doubt is whether it is near Lan-thou Fu in
Kan Suh province, or near the northern bend of the Yellow River.
The journey back was hurried and shorter (as we might well suppose
from Sz-ma Ts'ien's accounts above given), that is to say, only
10,000 _li_. But the total for the whole double journey of
660 days in all, including all by-trips, excursions, and hunts,
was 38,000 _li_, or about 12,000 miles--say 20 miles a day. I
have myself travelled several thousand miles in China and Tartary,
always at the maximum rate of 30 miles a day; more usually 20,
allowing for delays, bad roads, and accidents. In Dr. Legge's
translation of the "Book of Odes," p. 281, there is a song about a
great expedition against the Tartars in 827 B.C., one line of
which is precisely, as translated by Dr. Legge: "and we marched
thirty _li_ every day,"-which means only ten miles.

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