Ancient China Simplified

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Something has already been said about the rules of succession in
Ts'u and Ts'in. When the Duke of Sung just mentioned died, in 1078
B.C., he was succeeded by his younger brother because his own son
was dead; this was in accordance with the Shang dynasty's ritual
laws. Even the Warrior King himself, founder of the Chou dynasty,
was not the eldest son of his father, the (posthumously) Civilian
King; the latter had set aside the elder of the two sons; and it
will be remembered that, several generations before that, two of
the royal Chou brothers had voluntarily retired to colonize the Wu
Jungle country, in order that their younger brother, father of the
future Civilian King, might succeed to the then extremely limited
vassal state of Chou. Later on, in 729, a Duke of Sung on his
death-bed bequeathed the succession to his younger brother instead
of to his own son, on the ground that the rule is, "son to father,
younger to elder brother"--a "universal rule" approved by Mencius
in later times. The younger brother in this case thrice refused
the kingly crown, but at last accepted, and Confucius in his
history censures the act, which, it is considered, contributed to
Sung's ultimate downfall. (It must be remembered that Confucius'
ancestors were themselves of royal Sung extraction.) In 652 the
younger brother by the superior spouse wished, at his father's
death-bed, to cede his right to the succession of Sung to his
elder brother by an inferior wife; the dying father commended the
spirit, but forbade the proposed sacrifice of prior right, and the
elder therefore served the younger as counsellor. In 493 a Duke of
Sung, irritated on account of his eldest son having left the
country, nominated a younger son as successor, and after his death
his wife confirmed by decree her late husband's nomination; but
the younger brother firmly declined, on the ground that the rule
of succession was a fixed one, and that he was unworthy to perform
the sacrifices to the gods of the land and grain. It is a curious
coincidence that the question of status in wives affects the
present rulers of both China and Japan. Though the dowager was
Empress-Mother, she always ceded the pas to the senior dowager,
who had no children. And as to the Mikado's mother, who died last
October, she was, it seems, never officially considered as an
Empress.

In 817 B.C. the Emperor himself is censured by history for having,
"contrary to rule," wished to set up as ruler of Lu a second son
in preference to the elder son; he repeated the act in 796, as has
already been explained in Chapter XX., when a few other instances
were cited to illustrate the general rule in China. At this time
the waning power of the emperors still evidently flickered. In
608, through the meddlesome political interference of Ts'i, a
concubine's son succeeded to the Lu throne in preference to the
legitimate wife's son; curiously enough, the legitimate wife was a
Ts'i princess. The result of this irregularity was that the "three
powerful families" of Lu (themselves descendants of the ruling
family) grew restless, and the state began to decline. On the
death of a King of Ts'u in 516, it was proposed to put on the
throne, instead of the king's young son, the king's younger
brother by an inferior mother, on the ground that the mother of
the young son in question was the wife obtained from Ts'in by the
king for marriage to his eldest son (who had since joined the
king's enemies), which young lady the king had subsequently
decided to marry himself. Even under this irregular and
complicated family tangle, the proposed succession was disapproved
by the counsellors, on the ground that irregular successions
invariably produced trouble in the state. In the year 450 B.C. the
ruler of Ts'i insisted, against advice, on the succession of a
younger son by a favourite concubine in preference to his elder
sons by superior mothers, including the first and most dignified
spouse. But here, again, the powerful families intervened; one of
the elder sons, who had fled to Lu, was brought back secretly in a
sack; the wrongful successor was murdered, and the "powerful
family" which took the lead in state affairs soon afterwards, to
the horror of Confucius, by intrigue and by further assassination,
secured the Ts'i throne for itself. It will thus be noticed that
all the great states except Ts'in had their full share of
succession troubles.

There were several customs practised in warfare which are worthy
of short notice. In 633 B.C. a Ts'u general, in the interests of
discipline, flogged several military men, and "had the ears of
others pierced by arrows, according to military regulation." In
639 this same king had sent as a present to some princesses of
other states, who had congratulated him on his victory over Sung,
"a pile of the enemy's left ears." As the historians express their
disgust at this indelicate act, it was presumably not an orthodox
practice, at all events in this particular form. In 607 there were
captured from Sung 450 war-chariots and 250 soldiers; the latter
had their left ears cut off; in this case the victors were CHENG
troops, acting under Ts'u's orders, and it is presumed that CHENG
officers cut off the ears under Ts'u's commands. A few years later
two or three Ts'u generals were discussing what the ancients did
when they challenged for a battle; it was decided that the best
"form" was to rush up to the entrenchments, cut off an enemy's
left ear, carry him away in your chariot, and rush back to your
own camp. As there is a special Chinese character or pictograph
for "ears cut off in battle," it thus appears that to a certain
extent even the orthodox Chinese practised the "scalping" art,
which was doubtless intended to furnish easy proof of claims for
reward based upon prowess; in fact, even in modern official
Chinese, a decapitated head is called a "head-step," an expression
evidently dating from the time when a step in rank was given for
each head or group of heads taken.

Rulers, whether the Emperor or vassals, faced south in the
exercise of their sovereign powers. Thus, when the Duke of Chou,
after the death of his brother the Martial King, acted as Regent
pending the minority of the Martial King's son, his own nephew, he
faced south; but he faced north once more when he resumed his
status of subject. It has already been mentioned, in Chapter XX.,
that in 640 B.C. the state of Lu made the south gate of the Lu
capital the Law Gate, because it was by the south gates that all
rulers' commands emanated. In 546 a counsellor of Ts'u explained
to the king how, since Tsin influence had predominated in the
orthodox state of CHENG, this last had ceased to "face south
towards its former protector." Thus, though the Emperor faces
south towards the sun, and his subjects in turn face north in his
honour, those subjects face their other protector in whatever
direction he may lie, supposing the Emperor's protection to be
inadequate. It is evidently the same principle as "bowing towards
the east," and "turning towards Mecca," both of which formalities
must be modified according to place. In 315 B.C., when Yen (the
Peking plain) had become one of the six independent kingdoms, a
usurper (to whom the King of Yen had foolishly committed full
powers) "turned south" to perform acts of sovereignty in the
king's name. In 700 B.C., in the orthodox state of Wei, we hear of
"princes of the left and right," which is explained to mean "sons
of mothers whose official place is left or right of the principal
spouse." Right used to be more honourable than left in China, but
left now takes precedence of right. Thus the provinces of Shan
Tung and Shan Si are also called "Left of the Mountains" and
"Right of the Mountains," because the Emperor faces south.
Notwithstanding, the ancient phraseology sometimes survives; for
instance, "stands right of him" means "is better than he is," and
"to left him" means "to prove him wrong or worse." All _yamens_
in China face south; there are rare exceptions, usually owing to
building difficulties. Once, in the province of Kwei Chou, I was
officially invited by the mandarin to take my seat on his right instead of
on his left, because, as he explained, his _yamen_ door did not
face south, but _west_; and, he added, it was more honourable
for me, as an official guest, to sit north, facing west, than to sit
south, facing west. In Canton, the Viceroy used out of courtesy to sit
south, facing north, and make his own interpreter sit north, facing south;
the consul sat east, facing west, and the consul's interpreter sat west,
facing east. But the consul could not have presumed to occupy the
north seat thus given to an inferior on the principle of de _minimis_
non _curat lex_; nor was the Viceroy willing to assert his "command"
to a guest. In 436 the armies of Yiieh marching north through Ho Nan
called the Chinese places lying to their west the "left" towns; but that
was perhaps because Yiieh came marching from the south. In 221 B.C.,
when for the first time South China to the sea became part of the imperial
dominions, the Emperor's territory was described as extending
southward to the "north-facing houses." Hong Kong and Canton are
just on the tropical line; but the island of Hainan, and also
Tonquin, are actually in the tropics. Whether the houses there do
really face north--which I have never noticed--or whether the
expression is merely symbolical, I cannot say; but the idea is "to
the regions where, when the sun is on the tropic, you have to turn
north to see him."

A point of honour in China was not to make war on an enemy who was
in mourning, but this rule seems to have been honoured in the
breach as much as in the observance thereof. Two centuries before
the Chou dynasty came into power, an emperor of the Shang dynasty
distinguished himself by not speaking at all during the three
years he occupied the mourning hut near the grave. As we have
seen, the first rulers of Lu (as a Chou fief) modified existing
customs, and introduced the three years' mourning rule there. In
connection with a Sung funeral in 651 B.C., it is explained that
the bier lay between the two front pillars, and not, as with the
Chou dynasty, on the top of the west side steps; it will be
remembered that Sung represented the sacrifices of the extinct
Shang dynasty. That same year the future Second Protector (then a
refugee among the Tartars) declined to put in a claim to the Tsin
succession against his brothers "because he had not been in
mourning whilst a fugitive." In 642 Sung and her allies made war
on Ts'i, which was then mourning for the First Protector; by a
just Nemesis the Tartars came to the rescue and saved Ts'i. In
627, after the Second Protector's death, Ts'in declared war,
whilst Tsin was mourning, upon a petty orthodox principality
belonging to the same clan as Tsin and the Emperor, and belonging
also to the Tsin vassal system. This so enraged the new ruler of
Tsin that he dyed his white mourning clothes black, so as to
avenge the insult, and yet not to outrage the rites: moreover,
white was unlucky in warfare: victorious over Ts'in, he then
proceeded to mourn for his father, and ever after that black was
adopted, by way of memento, as the national colour of Tsin. In 626
and 622 the Emperor sent high officers to represent him at Lu
funerals, and to carry gems to place in deceased's mouth, "to show
that he (the Emperor) had not the heart to leave the deceased
unsupplied with food." In 581 the ruler of Lu, being on a visit to
Tsin, was forcibly detained by Tsin, in order to swell the
importance of a Tsin ruler's funeral. Lu (like the petty orthodox
states of Wei, Sung, CHENG, etc., further south) was nearly always
under the rival political constraint of either Ts'i, Tsin, or
Ts'u; and this factor must accordingly also be taken into account
in explaining Confucius' longing for the good old days of imperial
predominance. In 572 Tsin attacked Cheng, though of the same clan
as itself, whilst in mourning; but in 567 semi-barbarian Ts'u set
a good example to orthodox Tsin by withdrawing its troops out of
deference to a later official mourning then in force in Cheng: in
564 the King of Ts'u withdrew his armies home altogether on
account of the mourning due to his own deceased mother. In 560
barbarian Wu attacked Ts'u whilst in mourning for the above king
(the one who first conquered the Canton region for Ts'u); but,
here again, by a just Nemesis, Wu's army was cut to pieces, and
Wu's own ally, Tsin, censured her for having done such an improper
thing. In 544 the prime minister of Tsin mourned for his Ts'u co-
signatory of the celebrated Peace Conference Treaty of 546; and
this graceful act is explained to be in accordance with the rites.
In 544 Ts'u herself was in mourning, and in accordance with the
terms of the Peace Conference Treaty, under which the Tsin vassals
and the Ts'u vassals were to pay their respects to Ts'u and Tsin
respectively--Ts'in and Ts'i, as great powers, being excused, or,
rather, discreetly left alone--Ts'u put great pressure on Lu to
secure the personal presence of the Lu ruler at the Ts'u funeral.
The orthodox duke did not at all like this "truckling to a
barbarian"; but one of his counsellors suggested behaving before
the corpse as he would behave to a vassal of his own: this was
done, and the unsophisticated Ts'u was none the wiser at the time,
though, later on, the king discovered the pious fraud. In 514 B.C.
Wu wished to attack Ts'u while, mourning, and the virtuous Ki-
chah was promptly sent by Wu to sound Tsin about the _facheuse
situation._ At a Lu funeral in 509, it was explained that the
new duke could only mount the throne after the burial was over; it
was added "even the Son of Heaven's commands do not run in Lu
during this critical period; _a fortiori_ is the duke not
capable of transacting his own subjects' business." But long
before this, when the First Protector died, in 643, his body lay
for sixty-seven days in the coffin unattended, whilst his five
sons were wrangling about the succession; in fact, the worms were
observed crawling out of the coffin. These painful details have a
powerful historical interest, for when (as mentioned on p. 209)
his tomb was opened nearly 1000 years later, dogs had to be sent
in ahead to test the air, as the stench was so great. In 492 an
unpopular prince of Wei was in Tsin, which state had an interest
in placing him on the throne. There happened to be in Tsin at that
moment a scoundrel who had fled to Tsin from Lu, because he had
found Confucius too strong for him in Lu; and this man suggested
to Tsin that it would be a good plan to send seventy Wei men back
to Wei in mourning clothes and sash, so as to make the Wei people
think that the prince was dead, and thus gain an opportunity to
"run him in" by surprise, and set him up as ruler. In 489, when
the King of Ts'u died in the field of battle, his three brothers,
all of whom had declined his offer of the throne, but one of whom
had at last accepted in order to give the dying man peace, decided
to conceal the king's death from the army whilst they sent for his
son by a Yiieh mother, pleading that the king had been non
_compos mentis_ when he proposed an irregular succession, and
that the promise made to him was, therefore, of no avail. In 485
Lu and Wu joined in an attack upon Ts'i during the latter's
mourning--a particularly disgraceful political combination: no
wonder Confucius was hastily sent for from the state of CH'EN,
whither he had previously retired in disgust at the corruption of
his native land. In 481 a conspiracy which was going on in Ts'i
was delayed because one of the chief actors, being in mourning,
could not attend to public business of any kind. In 332 B.C. Ts'i
took ten towns from Yen by successfully attacking her whilst in
mourning; one of the travelling diplomats and intriguers so common
in China at that period insisted upon the towns being restored.
This was at the exact moment when the philosopher Mencius, who
seems to have also been a great political _dilettante_, was
circulating to and fro between such monarchs as the Kings of Ts'i
and Ngwei, alias _Liang_, as is fully explained in the still
extant book of Mencius.

All the above quaint instances, novel though they may be in
detail, strongly recall to us in principle our own "rules" of
international law, which are always liable to unexpected
"construction" according to the exigencies of war and the power
wielded by the "constructor." Inter _arma leges silent_. As
usual in these ritual matters, Ts'in is distinguished by total
absence of mention.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

WOMEN AND MORALS

So far as it is possible to judge from the concrete instances in
which women are mentioned, it appears that in ancient Chinese
times their confinement and seclusion was neither nominally nor
actively so strict as it has been in later days, and they seem to
have been much more companionable to men than they have been ever
since the ridiculous foot-squeezing fashion came into vogue over a
thousand years ago. When the Martial King addressed his semi-
barbarous western allies, as he prepared his march upon the last
Shang Emperor in 1122 B.C., he observed: "The ancient proverb says
the hen crows not in the morn; when she does, the house will
fall"--in allusion to the interference of the debauched Emperor's
favourite concubine in public affairs; and we have seen, under the
heading of Law in Chapter XX., how one of the imperial statutes,
proclaimed or read regularly in the vassal kingdoms, prohibited
the meddling of women in public business. But, in spite of this,
so far as promoting the succession rights and political interests
of their own children goes, wives and concubines certainly exerted
considerable influence, whether legitimate or not, in all the
states. The murder of an Emperor and flight of his successor in
771 B.C. was in its inception owing to the intrigues of women
about Court. A few years only after that event, we find the
orthodox ruler of Wei marrying a beautiful Ts'i princess (her
beauty is a matter of history, and is celebrated in the Odes,
which are themselves a popular form of history); and then, because
she had no children, further marrying a princess of Ch'en. This
princess unfortunately lost her offspring; but her sister also
enjoyed the prince's favour, and her son was, after her death,
given in adoption to the first childless Ts'i wife. This son
succeeded to the Wei throne, but was ultimately murdered by a
younger brother born of a concubine, who was next succeeded by
still another younger brother, whose queen had also been one of
his father's concubines. Thus in the most orthodox states (Wei was
of the imperial clan), the rites often seem not to have counted
for much in practice.--This book, it must here be repeated, deals
with specific recorded facts, and not with civilization as it
_ought_ to have been under the Rites of _Chou._--So, even in
comparatively modern China, 1500 years later, the third emperor of the
T'ang dynasty married his father's concubine, and she ultimately
reigned as empress in her own right, which is in itself an outrage
upon the "rites."

In 694 B.C. the ruler of Lu (also of the imperial clan) married a
Ts'i princess, who, as has been stated in Chapter XXXIV., not only
had incestuous relations with her brother of Ts'i, but led that
brother to procure the murder of her husband. In connection with
this woman's further visit to Ts'i two years later, the rule is
cited: "Women, when once married, should not recross the
frontier." The same rule is quoted in 655 when a Lu princess, who
had married a petty mesne-vassal of Lu in 670, recrossed the Lu
frontier in order to visit her son in Lu.

The Second Protector, during his wanderings, we know, married
first a Tartar wife and then a Ts'i wife, both of whom showed
disinterested affection for him, and genuine regard for his rights
to the Tsin succession, Yet the ruler of Ts'in supplied him with
five more royal girls, of whom one had already been married to the
Second Protector's predecessor and nephew, the Marquess of Tsin.
It is but fair to the memory of this uxorious Tsin ruler to say
that he only took her over under protest, and under the immediate
stress of political urgencies; he ultimately made her his
principal spouse at the expressed desire of his ally the Ts'in
ruler. He must have later married a daughter of the Emperor too,
for, after the succession of a son and grandson, another of his
sons named "Black Buttocks," being the youngest, and also "son of
a Chou mother," came to the throne. Thus in those troublous times
the honour of imperial princesses evidently did not count for very
much at the great vassal courts. The readiness of Ts'in to induce
the Tsin ruler to take over his nephew's wife (being a Ts'in
princess) accentuates the semi-Tartar civilization of Ts'in at
least, if not of Tsin too; for both Hiung-nu (200 B.C.) and Turks
(A.D. 500) had a fixed rule that a Khan successor should take over
all his predecessor's women, with the single exception of his own
natural mother. In the year 630 the King of Ts'u married or
carried off two CHENG sisters (of the imperial clan). The ruler of
CHENG had been insolent to the future Second Protector during his
wanderings in the year 637, and, in order to avoid that
Protector's vengeance, had been subsequently obliged to throw
himself under Ts'u protection. "This ignoring of the rites by the
King of Ts'u will result in his failing to secure the Protectorship," it
was said. However, these princesses, though of the imperial _Ki_
clan by marriage into it, were really daughters of a CHENG ruler by
two separate Ts'i and Ts'u wives: moreover, previous to the accession
of the Hia dynasty (in 2205 B.C.), a Chinese elective Emperor had
married the two daughters of his predecessor, whose own son was
unworthy to succeed: and, generally, apart from this precedent, the
rule against marrying two sisters, even if it existed, seems to have been
loosely applied (_cf._ Chapter XXXIII.).

In connection with the Cheng succession in 629, it is mentioned
that "the wife's sons being all dead, X, being wisest of the
secondary wives' or concubines' sons, is most eligible"
(_cf._ Chapter XXXVII.).

Great political complications arose in connection with a clever
and beautiful princess of Cheng who had had various _liaisons_
with high personages in the state of Ch'en and elsewhere; in the end
she was carried off in 589 by a treacherous Ts'u statesman to Tsin;
and indirectly this adventure led to his being charged by Tsin with a
mission to Wu; to the subsequent entry of Wu into the conclave of
federal princes; and to the ultimate sacking of the Ts'u capital by
the King of Wu in 506: it is easy to read between the lines that
the Kings of Ts'u were considered unusually arbitrary and tyrannical
rulers; over and over again we find that their most capable statesmen
took service with powers inimical to Ts'u. In 581 the ruler of Cheng,
being forcibly detained in Tsin whilst on a political visit there, was
temporarily replaced in Cheng by his elder brother, born of an
inferior wife.

A marriage between the two states of Sung and Lu having been
arranged, the imperial clan states of Lu and Wei had certain
duties to perform at the wedding, which took place in 583; and it
is recorded that the latter sent "handmaids" The explanation given
is a little involved, but it seems to throw some light on the
marriage of sisters question. It seems that the legitimate spouse
and her "left and right handmaids" were each entitled to three
"cousins or younger sisters" of the same clan-name as themselves,
"thus making a total of nine girls, the idea being to broaden the
base of succession." Not content with this, Lu sent a special
envoy to Sung the next year to "lecture" the princess. It is
explained that "women at home are under the power of their father;
married, under that of their husbands." Tsin also sent handmaids
this year. It is further explained that "handmaids are a trifling
matter, and they are only mentioned in this Lu princess case
because her marriage turned out so badly." The following year Ts'i
despatched handmaids, but, "being of a different clan-name, Ts'i
was not ritual in doing so."

The precise functions of these paranymphs, or under-studies of
wives, together with the rules governing their selection, are
doubtless clearly enough described in the Rites of _Chou_;
but we are only dealing here with concrete facts as recorded.

In 526 B.C., when Ts'in gave a princess in marriage to the Ts'u
heir, the Ts'u king decided to keep her for himself (see p. 234).
Only a few years before that, Ts'u had given a princess of her own
in marriage to the heir-apparent of one of the petty orthodox
states (imperial clan), and the reigning father had had improper
relations with her, which in the end led to his murder by his son;
thus Ts'u, however delinquent, had already been given a bad
example by the imperial clan.

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