Ancient China Simplified

E >> Edward Harper Parker >> Ancient China Simplified

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Confucius' old friend the ruler of Ts'i was still alive (he
reigned fifty-eight years, one of the longest reigns on record in
Chinese history), and he had just suffered serious humiliation at
the hands of the barbarous King of Wu, to whose heir-apparent he
had been obliged to send one of his daughters in marriage. The
Protectorate of China was going a-begging for want of a worthy
sovereign, and it looked at one time as though Confucius' stern
and efficient administration would secure the coveted prize for
Lu. The Marquess of Ts'i therefore formed a treacherous plot to
assassinate both master and man, and with this end in view sent an
envoy to propose a friendly conference. It was on this occasion
that Confucius uttered his famous saying (quoted, however, from
what "he had heard") that "they who discuss by diplomacy should
always have the support of a military backing." A couple of
generals accordingly accompanied the party to the trysting-place;
and it is presumed that the generals had a force of soldiers with
them, even though the indispensable common people be not worth
mention in Chinese history. In conformity with practice, an altar
or dai's was constructed; wine was offered, and the usual rites
were being fulfilled to the utmost, when suddenly a Ts'i officer
advanced rapidly and said: "I now propose to introduce some
foreign musicians," a band of whom at once entered the arena, with
brandished weapons, waving feathers, and noisy yells. Confucius
saw through this sinister manoeuvre at once, and, hastily mounting
the dais (except, out of respect, the last step), expostulated in
the plainest terms. The ruler of Ts'i was so ashamed of his
position that he at once sent the dancers away. But a second group
of mountebanks were promptly introduced in spite of this check.
Confucius was so angry, that he demanded their instant execution
under the law (presumably a general imperial law) "providing the
punishment of death for those who should excite animosity between
princes." Heads and legs soon covered the ground; and Confucius
played his other cards so well that he secured, in the sequel, a
formal treaty, actually surrendering to Lu certain territories
that had unlawfully been held for some years by Ts'i. On the other
hand, Lu had to promise to aid Ts'i with 22,500 men in case Ts'i
should engage in any "foreign" war--probably alluding to Wu. Two
or three years after that stirring event there was civil war in
Lu, owing to Confucius having insisted on the "barons" dismantling
their private fortresses.

At the age of fifty-six Confucius left his post as Minister of
Justice to take up that of First Counsellor: his first act was to
put to death a grandee who was sowing disorder in the state. It
was during these years of supreme administration that complete
order was restored throughout the country; thieves disappeared;
"sucking-pigs and lambs were sold for honest prices"; and there
was general content and rejoicing throughout the land. All this
made the neighbouring people of Ts'i more and more uneasy, even to
the point of fearing annexation by Lu. The wily old Marquess
therefore, again at the instigation of the man who had planned the
attempted assassination of 500 B.C., made a selection of eighty of
the most beautiful women Ts'i could produce, besides thirty four-
horsed chariots of the most magnificent description. The reigning
Marquess of Lu, as well as his "powerful family" friend against
whom Confucius had once thought of taking arms (who, indeed, acted
as intermediary) both fell into the trap: public duty and
sacrifices were neglected; and the result was that Confucius at
once threw up his offices and left the country in disgust. His
first visit was to Wei (imperial clan), the capital city of which
state then stood on the Yellow River, in the extreme north-east
part of modern Ho Nan province; and through this capital the river
then ran: the metropolis of one of the very ancient emperors
previous to the Hia dynasty had nearly 2000 years before been in
the immediate neighbourhood, as also had been the last capital of
the Shang dynasty, of which, as we have seen, Confucius was a
distant scion. After a few months' stay there, he was suspected
and calumniated; so he decided to move on, although the ruler of
Wei had generously appropriated to him a salary (in grain)
suitable to his high rank. He accordingly proceeded eastwards to a
town belonging to Sung (in the extreme south of modern Chih Li
province): here he had the misfortune to be mistaken for the
dangerous individual who had fled from Lu to Ts'i in 501, in
consequence of which he returned to stay in Wei with his friend
K'u-peh-yuh, who, as mentioned in Chapter XXVIII., had been
visited by Ki-chah of Wu in 544 B.C. Here, as a distinguished
traveller, he was asked (practically commanded) by one of the
ruler's wives to pay her a visit; and, though the reluctant visit
was paid with all propriety and reserve, the fact that this woman
was at the time suspected of having committed incest with her own
brother is considered by uncompromising native critics to leave a
slight stain on Confucius' character. Worse still, the reigning
prince took his wife out for a drive with a eunuch sitting in the
same carriage, ordering the sage to follow the party in an
inferior carriage. This was too much for Confucius, who then
resumed his original journey through Sung, from which he had
turned back, and proceeded to the small state of Ts'ao (imperial
clan; still called Ts'ao-thou, extreme south-west of modern Shan
Tung province). To-day he would have had to cross the Yellow
River, but of course none is here mentioned, as Confucius had
already left it behind at the Wei capital: in fact, he had been on
the right bank ever since he left his own country. This was 495
B.C. After a short stay in Ts'ao, the philosopher proceeded south
towards the capital of Sung (modern Kwei-teh Fu in the extreme
east of Ho Nan). For some reason the Minister of War there wished
to assassinate him--probably because the arch-intriguer whom
Confucius had driven out of Lu in 501, and who had taken refuge
first in Ts'i and then in Sung, had calumniated him there.
Confucius thereupon made his way westwards, over the various
headwaters of the River Hwai, to Cheng (imperial clan), the state
which had been for a generation so admirably administered by Tsz-
ch'an: in fact, a man outside the city gate observed "how like
Tsz-ch'an" the stranger looked. Some accounts make out that Tsz-
ch'an was then only just dead, but the better opinion is that he
had already then been dead for twenty-seven years: in any case it
is curious that Confucius, who was a very tall man, should twice
be mistaken for other persons. Thence Confucius turned back south-
east to the orthodox state of Ch'en (modern Ch'en-chou Fu in
Eastern Ho Nan). This was one of the very oldest principalities in
China, dating from even before the Hia dynasty (2205 B.C.); and
the Warrior King of Chou, after conquering the empire in 1122
B.C., had industriously sought out the most suitable lineal
descendant to take over the ancient fee of his remote ancestor,
and continue the sacrifices.

Confucius remained in Ch'en over three years, and during that time
the barbarian King of Wu annexed several neighbouring towns,
whilst Tsin and Ts'u ravaged the surrounding country in turn, in
their rival efforts to secure a predominant influence there. Here
it was, too, that a bird of prey, pierced with a strange arrow,
fell near the prince's palace: from the wood used in making the
arrow and the peculiar stone barb employed to tip it, Confucius
was able to explain that the bird must have flown from (modern)
Manchuria. (This annual flight of bustards and geese, to and from
the Steppes, may be observed any winter to-day.) He next turned
north, and arrived once more at the spot in Sung he had visited in
496: here he was arrested, but set free on his solemn promise that
he would not go to Wei, which state at the moment was considering
the advisability of attacking that very Sung town. Confucius
deliberately broke his plighted word, on the ground that "promises
extorted by violence are void, and are not recognized by the
gods." (These words, which, after all, are good English law, were
quoted by the irate Chang Chf-tung when Russia "extorted" the
Livadia Treaty from Ch'unghou.) On his arrival in Wei, he advised
his old friend, the Wei duke, to attack the Sung town he had just
left. But the duke thought it best to have the Yellow River
between himself and the rival states of Ts'u and Tsin (this
specific mention of the Yellow River as being west of a city in
long. 114o 30' E. is interesting). The latter state, Tsin, then
held most of the left bank. Confucius even thought of accepting
the invitation of a Tsin rebel to go and assist him: this was just
at the moment when the "six families" were gradually breaking up
the once powerful northern orthodox state. He also hesitated
whether he would not do better, as the prince of Wei would not
employ him, to proceed west to Tsin in order there to serve one of
the contending six families: in fact he actually got as far as the
Yellow River (another proof that it must then have run on the west
side of Wei-hwei Fu in Ho Nan); but turned back to Wei on hearing
unfavourable news from the Tsin capital (in south Shan Si). As the
Wei prince treated him somewhat cavalierly during an interview, he
decided to go back once more due south to the ancient state of
Ch'en. Here (492) he heard news of the destruction by fire of some
of the Lu ancestral temples, and of the death of the "powerful
family" minister whose disgraceful conduct with the singing girls
had led to his departure from Lu in disgust. This minister was a
sort of hereditary _maire du palais_, an arrangement which
seems to have been customary in many states, and his last words to
his son were: "When you succeed me, send for Confucius: my
administration has failed: I did wrong in dismissing him." The son
had not the courage to ask Confucius himself, but he sent instead
for one of the philosopher's disciples, and it was arranged with
Confucius' friends that this disciple on taking office should send
for Confucius himself, who really wished to be employed in Lu
again. Meanwhile Confucius decided to visit the orthodox state of
Ts'ai (imperial clan), lying to the south of Che'n: the capital of
this state had been originally a town on the upper waters of the
Hwai River, right in the heart of modern Ho Nan province; but,
under stress of the Tsin and T'su wars, it had twice moved its
chief city eastwards, and owing to a Ts'u invasion, it was now
(491) on the main Hwai River in modern An Hwei province, and was
at the moment under the political influence of Wu; it is not
clear, however, whether Confucius visited the old or the new
capital. After a year's stay here, Confucius went further
westwards to a certain Ts'u town (near Nan-yang Fu in Ho Nan),
passing, on his way, near the place in which Lao-tsz was born. He
soon returned to Ts'ai, where he stayed three years. It will be
observed that ever since 700 B.C. it had been the deliberate
policy of Ts'u to annex or overshadow as many of the orthodox
states as possible, so that Ts'u's undoubtedly high literary
output, in later years, is easily accounted for: in other words,
Ts'u's northern population was now already orthodox Chinese.
Moreover, it must not be forgotten that, even before the Chou
conquest, one of the early Ts'u rulers was an author himself, and
had been tutor to the father of the Chou founder: that means to
say Ts'u was possibly always as literary as China.

Meanwhile Ts'u and semi-barbarian Wu were contesting possession of
Ch'en, and the King of Ts'u tried to secure by presents the
services of Confucius, who had prudently transferred himself to a
safe place in the open country lying between Ch'en and Ts'ai The
ministers of these two orthodox states, fearing the results to
their own people should Confucius (as he seems in fact to have
contemplated) decide to accept the Ts'u offer, with a police force
surrounded the Confucian party; they were only able to escape from
starvation by sending word to the King, who at once sent a
detachment to free the sage. He would have conferred a fief upon
Confucius, but his ministers advised him of the danger of such a
proceeding, seeing that the Chou dynasty conquered the empire
after beginning with a petty fief, and that the great kingdom of
Ts'u itself had arrived at its present greatness after beginning
with a still smaller fief. Accordingly the sage decided to return
to Wei (489), where several of his disciples received official
posts, and where Confucius himself seems to have acted as
unofficial adviser, especially in the matter of a contested
succession. All this competition for, or at least jealousy of,
Confucius' services proves that his repute as an administrator
(not necessarily as a philosopher) was already widely spread. The
following year the King of Wu appeared before the Lu capital, and
one of Confucius' former disciples holding office there (the one
who went in advance in 492) just succeeded in moderating the
barbarians' demands, which, however, only took the comparatively
harmless "spiritual" form of orthodox sacrificial victims.

[Illustration: Map

1. The dotted line shows the present Grand Canal; the part between
the Yang-tsz and Hwai Rivers was made by the King of Wu. The part
north of the Hwai is chiefly the channel of the River Sz, flowing
from the Lu capital into the Hwai.

2. The old Hwai embouchure, running from the Lake Hung-tseh to the
sea, no longer exists; it dissipates itself in canals and salt
flats.

3. From 1852 the Yellow River has flowed north as depicted in the
other maps. For several centuries previous to 1851 it flowed as
shown by the long-link-and-dot line, and took possession of the
now extinct Hwai embouchure.

4. The crosses mark capitals. Ts'ai (two marked) and Hii (one
marked) frequently shifted capitals.]

In 484 Confucius was still in Wei, for in that year he is stated
to have declined to discuss there a question connected with making
war. In the year 484 or 483 the disciple sent by Confucius to Lu,
as stated, in 492 conducted an expedition against Ts'i: this was
the shameful period when orthodox Lu, in compulsory league with
barbarous Wu, was playing a double and treacherous game under
stress, and the question of recalling Confucius to save his native
country was on the _tapis_. Hearing of this, and despite the
heavy bribes offered him to stay by the ruler of Wei, Confucius
started with alacrity for Lu, where he arrived safely after
fourteen years of wandering. He is often stated to have visited
over forty states in all; but it must be remembered that each of
the important countries he visited had in turn a number of
satellites of its own; as, for instance, the extremely ancient
"marquess state" of Ki, or K'i, subordinate to Lu, which, though
possessing great spiritual authority, had no weight in lay policy.
An interesting point to notice is that Confucius' travels almost
exactly coincide with those of the Second Protector 150 years
earlier (see Chapter XXXIX); both of them ignored the Emperor, and
both of them visited Ts'i, Ts'ao, Sung, and Cheng on their way to
the Ts'u frontiers; but Confucius was not able to get much farther
west so as to reach the Ts'u capital; nor was he able to get to
Tsin; not to say the still more distant Ts'in. In other words, the
limited centre of orthodox China remained for many centuries the
same, and the vast regions surrounding it were still semi-
barbarian in the fifth century B.C. Now it was that Confucius,
seeing that the imperial power had diminished almost to nothing;
that the Odes and Book, the Rites, and the Music no longer
possessed their former influence; employed himself in making
systematic search for documents, in re-editing the Book (of
History), and in endeavouring to ascertain the exact ritual or
administration of the preceding dynasties. "Henceforth the Rites
could be understood and transmitted,"--from which we may assume
that, up to this time, they had been practically a monopoly of the
princely caste. He did not go further back into the mythical
period than the two emperors who preceded the Hia dynasty, nor did
he bring the Book farther down than to the time of Duke Muh of
Ts'in, which practically means the time of the first Protectors.
He really did for rites and history what he had blamed Tsz-ch'an
for doing with the law: he popularized it. He also attempted with
persistent study to master the Changes, to which incomprehensible
work he added features of his own--very little more understandable
than the original texts. As to the Odes, 3000 in number, he used
the pruning knife much more vigorously, and nine-tenths of them
were rejected as unsuitable for the purposes of good didactic
lessons or conservative precedents. If we substitute, as we are
entitled to do, the vague word "religion" for the equally vague
word "rites" (which in fact were the only ancient Chinese
religion); if we substitute the empty Christian churches of to-
day, and the too little scrupulous ambitions of rival European
Powers, for the neglected _tao_ of the Chou ideal, and for
the savage rivalry of the great Chinese vassals; we obtain an
almost precisely similar situation in modern Europe. If we can
imagine a great Pope, or a great philosopher, taking advantage of
a turn in the European conscience to bring back the simple ideals
of Christianity, we can easily imagine this European Confucius
being universally hailed in future times as the saviour of a
parlous situation; which, in Europe now, as 2000 years ago in
China, entails on the people so much misery and suffering.
Confucius was, in short, in a way, a Chinese Pius X. declaiming
against Modernism.

Confucius' only certain original work was the "Springs and
Autumns," which is practically a continuation (with the necessary
introductory years) of the ancient Book edited or, as some think,
composed by him. He brought the former, this history of his, down
from 722 to 481 B.C. and died in 479. His pupil Tso K'iu-ming,
who was official historian to the Lu court, annotated and
expounded Confucius' bald annals, bringing the narrative down from
481 to 468; and Tso's delightful work forms the chief, but by no
means the sole, basis for what we have to say in the present book
of sketches.

CHAPTER XLV

CONFUCIUS AND LAO-TSZ

Apart from the fact that reverence for rulers was the pivot of the
Chou religious system, or, what was then the same thing,
administrative system; official historiographers, who were mere
servants of the executive, had to be careful how they offended the
executive power in those capricious days; all the more had a
private author and a retired official like Confucius carefully to
mind the conventions. For instance, two historians had been put to
death by a king-maker in Ts'i for recording the murder by him of a
Ts'i reigning prince; and Ts'i was but next door to Lu. Hence we
find the leading feature of his work is that he hints rather than
criticizes, suggests rather than condemns, conceals rather than
exposes, when it is a question of class honour or divine right;
just as, with us, the Church prefers to hush up rather than to
publish any unfortunate internal episode that would redound to its
discredit. So shocked was he at the assassination of the ruler of
Ts'i by an usurping family in 481, that, even at his venerable
age, he unsuccessfully counselled instant war against Ts'i. His
motive was perhaps doubtful, for the next year we find a pupil of
his, then in office, going as a member of the mission to the same
usurper in order to try and obtain a cession of territory
improperly held. This pupil was one of the friends who assisted at
the arrangement made in Wei in 492. Confucius' failings--for after
all he was only a man, and never pretended to be a genius--in no
way affect the truth of his writings, for they were detected
almost from the very beginning, and have never been in the least
concealed. Notable instances are the mission from Lu to Ts'u in
634; Confucius conceals the fact that, not courtesy to barbarian
Ts'u, but a desire to obtain vengeance against orthodox Ts'i was
the true motive. Again, in 632, when the _faineant_ Emperor
was "sent for" by the Second Protector to preside at a durbar;
Confucius prefers to say: "His Majesty went to inspect his fiefs
north of the river," thus even avoiding so much as to name the
exact place, not to say describe the circumstances. He punishes
the Emperor for an act of impropriety in 693 by recording him as
"the King," instead of "the Heavenly King." On the other hand, in
598, even the barbarian King of Ts'u was "a sage," because, having
conquered the orthodox state of Ch'en, he magnanimously renounced
his conquest. In 529 the infamous ruler of the orthodox state of
Ts'ai is recorded as being "solemnly buried"; but the rule was
that no "solemn funeral" should be accorded to (1) barbarians, (2)
rulers who lose their crown, (3) murderers. Now, this ruler was a
murderer; but it was a barbarian state (Ts'u) that killed him,
which insult to civilization must be punished by making two blacks
one white, _i.e._ by giving the murdered murderer an orthodox
funeral. Again, in 522, a high officer was "killed by robbers"; it
is explained that there were no robbers at all, in fact, but that
the mere killing of an officer by a common person needs the
assumption of robbery. It is like the legal fiction of lunacy in
modern Chinese law to account for the heinous crime of parricide,
and thus save the city from being razed to the ground. Once more,
at the Peace Conference of 546, Ts'u undoubtedly "bluffed" Tsin
out of her rightful precedence; but, Tsin being an orthodox state,
Confucius makes Tsin the diplomatic victor. We have already seen
that he once deliberately broke his plighted word, meanly attacked
the men who spared him; and, out of servility, visited a woman of
noble rank who was "no better than she ought to have been." There
is another little female indiscretion recorded against him. When,
in 482, the Lu ruler's concubine, a Wu princess (imperial clan
name), died, Confucius obsequiously went into mourning for an
"incestuous" woman; but, seeing immediately afterwards that the
powerful family then at the helm did not condescend to do so, he
somewhat ignominiously took off his mourning in a hurry. All
these, and numerous similar petty instances of timorousness, may
appear to us at a remote distance trifling and pusillanimous, as
do also many of the model personal characteristics and goody-goody
private actions of the sage; but if we make due allowance for the
difficulty of translating strange notions into a strange tongue,
and for the natural absence of sympathy in trying to enter into
foreign feelings, we may concede that these petty details, quite
incidentally related, need in no way destroy the main features of
a great picture. Few heroes look the character except in their
native clothes and surroundings; and, as Carlyle said, a naked
House of Lords would look much less dignified than a naked negro
conference.

As a philosopher, Confucius in his own time had scarcely the
reputation of Tsz-ch'an of Cheng, who in many respects seems to
have been his model and guide. Much more is said of Tsz-ch'an's
philosophy, of his careful definition of the ritual system, of his
legal acumen, of his paternal care for the people's welfare; but,
like his contemporaries and friends of Ts'i, Tsin, Cheng, Sung,
Wei; and even of Wu and Yueh; he was working for the immediate
good of his own state in times of dire peril; whereas Confucius
from first to last was aiming at the restoration of religion
(i.e., of the imperial, ritualistic, feudal system); and for this
reason it was that, after the violent unification of the empire by
the First August Emperor in 221 B.C., followed by his fall and the
rise of the Han dynasty in 202 B.C., this latter house finally
decided to venerate, and all subsequent houses have continued to
venerate, Confucius' memory; because his system was, after Lao-
tsz's system had been given a fair trial, at last found the best
suited for peace and permanency.

Not only is Lao-tsz not mentioned in the "Springs and Autumns" of
Confucius, as extended by his contemporary and latter commentators,
but none other of the great writers and philosophers anterior
to and contemporary with Confucius are spoken of except
strictly in their capacity of administrators. Thus the Ts'i
philosopher Kwan-tsz of the First Protector's time, 650 B.C.; the
Ts'i philosopher Yen-tsz of Confucius' time; and the others
mentioned in preceding chapters, notably in Chapter XV. (of whom
each orthodox state of political importance can boast at least
one); based their reputation on what they had achieved for the
state rather than what they had taught in the abstract; and their
economical and historical books, which have all come down to us in
a more or less complete and authentic state, are valued for the
expression they give to the definite theories by which they
arrived at practical results, rather than for the preaching of the
counsels of perfection, We have seen that Yen-tsz expressed rather
a contempt for the (to him) out-of-date formalistic ideals of
Confucius, though Confucius himself had a high opinion of Yen-tsz.
Lao-tsz is first mentioned by the writers of the various "schools"
brought into existence by the collapse of Tsin in 452 B.C., and
its subdivision into three separate kingdoms, recognized as such
by the puppet Emperor in 403 B.C. The diplomatic activity was soon
after that quite extraordinary, and each of the seven royal courts
became a centre of revolutionary thought; that is, every literary
adventurer had his own views of what interpretation of ancient
literature was best suited to the times: it was Modernism with a
vengeance. There is ample evidence of Lao-tsz's influence upon the
age, though Lao-tsz himself had been dead for a century or more in
the year 403. Lao-tsz is spoken of and written about in the fourth
century B.C. as though it were perfectly well known who he was,
and what his sentiments were; but as, up to Confucius' time, state
intercourse had been confined to traders, warriors, and officials
of the princely castes; and as books had been unwieldy objects
stored only in capitals and great centres; there is good reason to
assume that philosophy had been taught almost entirely by word of
mouth, and that something must have occurred shortly after his
death to cheapen and facilitate the dissemination of literature.
Probably this something was the gradual introduction of the
practice of writing on silk rolls and on silk "paper," which
practice is known to have been in vogue long before the discovery
of rubbish paper A.D. 100. Confucius himself evidently made use of
the old-fashioned bamboo slips, strung together by cords like a
bundle of tickets; for we are told that he worked so hard in
endeavouring to understand the "Changes," that he "wore out three
sets of leather bands"; and it will be remembered from Chapter
XXXV. how the Bamboo Books buried in 299 B.C., to be discovered
nearly 600 years later, consisted of slips strung together in this
way.

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