Ancient China Simplified

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Confucius' movements during the fourteen years of his exile are
very clearly marked out, and there seems to be no doubt that his
visit to the Emperor's court took place when he was a young man;
firstly, because Lao-tsz ironically calls him a young man, and
secondly because he went to visit Lao-tsz with the son of the
statesman who on his death-bed foretold Confucius' future
distinction; and there was no Lu mission to the imperial court
after 520. In the second century B.C., not only are there a dozen
statesmen specifically stated to have studied the works of Lao-
tsz, but the Empress herself is said to have possessed his book;
and a copy of it, distinctly said to be in ancient character, was
then stored amongst other copies of the same book in the imperial
library. The two questions which the Chinese historians and
literary men of the fifth, fourth, third, and second centuries
B.C. do not attempt to decide are: Why is the life of Lao-tsz not
given to us earlier than 100 B.C.? Why is that life so scant, and
why does the writer of it allude to "other stories" current about
him? Why is it that the book which Lao-tsz wrote at the request of
a friend is not alluded to by any writer previous to 100 B.C.?

As not one single one of these numerous Taoists or students of
Lao-tsz expresses the faintest doubt about Lao-tsz's existence, or
about the genuineness of his traditional teachings, it is evident
that the meagreness of Lao-tsz's life, as told by the historian,
is rather a guarantee of the truth of what he says than the
reverse, so far as he knows the truth; otherwise he would have
certainly embellished. The essence of Lao-tsz's doctrine is its
democracy, its defence of popular rights, its allusion to kings
and governments as necessary evils, its disapproval of luxury and
hoarding wealth; its enthusiasm for the simple life, for absence
of caste, for equality of opportunity, for socialism and
informality; all of which was, though extracted from the same
Odes, Book, Changes, and Rites, quite contrary in principle to the
"back to the rites" doctrine of Confucius. Therefore, there could
be no possible inducement for Confucius, the pruning editor of the
Odes, Book, etc., or for his admirers, to mention Lao-tsz in
either his original work, the "Springs and Autumns," or in the
other works (composed by his disciples) giving the original words
and sentiments of Confucius. Besides, during the whole of Lao-
tsz's life, the imperial court (where he served as a clerk) was
totally ignored by all the "powers" as a political force; the only
persons mentioned in what survives of Chou history are the
historiographers, the wizards, the ritual _clerks,_ the ducal
envoys, now sent by the Emperor to the vassals, now consulted by
the vassals upon matters of etiquette. Lao-tsz, being an obscure
clerk in an obscure appanage, and holding no political office, had
no more title to be mentioned in history than any other servant or
"harmless drudge." That his doctrines were well known is not
wonderful, for Tsz-ch'an, his contemporary, and this great man's
colleagues of the other states, also had doctrines of their own
which were widely discussed and, as we have seen, even Tsz-ch'an
was severely blamed for the unheard-of novelty of committing the
laws to writing, both by Confucius of Lu and by Shuh Hiang of Tsin
(imperial clan states). It is reasonable to suppose, therefore,
that the traditional story is true; namely, that Lao-tsz's
doctrines were never taught in a school at all, and that he had no
followers or admirers except the vassal envoys who used to come on
spiritual business to the metropolis. We have seen how these men
used to entertain each other over their wine by quoting the Odes
and other ancient saws; when consulting the imperial library to
rectify their own dates, they would naturally meet the old recluse
Lao-tsz, and hear from his own mouth what he thought of the coming
collapse anticipated by all. He is said to have left orthodox
China in disgust, and gone West--well, he must have passed through
Ts'in if he went to the west. At the frontier pass (it is not
known precisely whether on the imperial frontier or on the Ts'in
frontier) an acquaintance or correspondent on duty there invited
him to put his thoughts into writing, which he did. Books being
extremely rare, copies would be slowly transmitted. This was about
500 B.C., between which time and 200 B.C., when a copy of his book
is first reported to be actually held in the hand by a definite
person, the great protecting powers, and later the seven kings,
were all engaged in a bloodthirsty warfare, which ended in the
almost total destruction throughout the empire of the Odes, Rites,
and the Book in 213 B.C. Remember, however, that the literary
empire practically meant parts of the modern provinces of Ho Nan
and Shan Tung. The "Changes" were not destroyed; and as the First
August Emperor himself, his illegitimate father, several of his
statesmen, and his visitors the travelling diplomats, were all
either Taoists or imbued with Taoist doctrines (their sole policy
being to destroy the old ritual and feudal thrones), there is
ground to conjecture that Lao-tsz's book escaped too, and was
deliberately suffered to escape. We know absolutely nothing of
that; assuming the truth of the tradition that there was a book,
we do not know what became of the first copy, nor how many copies
were made of it during the succeeding 300 years. No attempt
whatever has ever been made by the serious Chinese historians
themselves to manufacture a story. It is, of course, unsatisfactory
not to know all the exact truth; but, for the matter of that, the
existence, identity, and authorship of Confucius' pupil and commentator
Tso K'iu-ming, the official historian of Lu, is equally obscure; not to
mention the history of the earliest Taoist critics who actually mention
Lao-tsz, and quote the words of (if they do not mention) his book.
When we read Renan's masterly examination into the origins of our
own Gospels, and when we reflect that even the origin of Shakespeare's
plays, and the individuality of Shakespeare's person, are open to
everlasting discussion, we may not unreasonably leave Chinese
critics and Chinese historians to judge of the value of their own
national evidence, and accept in general terms what they tell us
of fact, however imperfect it may be in detail, without adding
hypothetical facts or raising new critical difficulties of our own.
No such foreign criticisms are or can be worth much unless the
original Chinese histories and the original Chinese philosophers have
been carefully examined by the foreign critic in the original Chinese text.

CHAPTER XLVI

ORACLES AND OMENS

Consulting the oracles seems to have been a universal practice,
and there are numerous historical allusions, made by statesmen of
the orthodox principalities, to supposed interpretations attached
to this or that combination of mystic signs or diagrams from the
"Changes," together with arguments as to their specific meaning or
omen in given circumstances. Doubtless the Chinese of those dates,
like our own searchers for religious "analogies" and mysteries,
examined with perfect good faith combinations of the Diagrams
which to us appear arrant nonsense; and there can be no doubt of
Confucius' own individual zeal, though the fact that he thought
fifty years' study at least would be necessary for full
comprehension points to the tacit confession that he had totally
failed to understand much of the mystery. The Changes are supposed
to have been developed by the father of the Warrior King when
(about 1160 B.C.) he was in prison under the tyrannous suspicions
of the last Shang emperor; and we have seen that the ruler of Ts'u
_was_ his tutor, at a time when Ts'u was not yet vassal to
Chou. Like the Odes, Book, and Rites, the Changes were Chou
literature, though possibly the unwritten traditions of earlier
dynasties may have contributed to that literature; which, indeed,
seems very likely, as Ts'u was already able to teach Chou.

Another form of augury was the examination of the marks on the
carapax of a tortoise; thus the Martial King in 146 consulted, and
found unfavourable, such marks--this was before attacking the last
Shang emperor; and it was only at the earnest instigation of his
chief henchman (afterwards vassal king and founder of Ts'i) that
he was prevailed upon to proceed. Possibly he borrowed Eastern
ideas from this founder of Ts'i too. Later on, the Martial King's
younger brother, the Duke of Chou, consulted the oracle along with
the same Ts'i adviser: this was done before the three ancestral
altars of their father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, in
order to ascertain if the Emperor (_i.e._ the Martial King)
would recover from a sickness. In 1109 the Martial King's son and
successor sent one of his uncles or near relatives to examine the
site of modern Ho-nan Fu, with a view to transferring the
metropolis thither, and, the oracles being favourable, the Nine
Tripods were removed to that place, and it was afterwards called
the "Eastern Metropolis" (the original or western capital was not
moved for over 300 years after that). It was at the same time
foretold that there would be thirty more reigns, of 700 years in
all: this was "Heaven's decree." On the other hand, when the Duke
of Chou died during a tempest, the young Emperor was advised not
to consult the oracles as to what the storm signified, because his
uncle's virtues were so manifest that Heaven itself had, by the
agency of a tempest, spontaneously announced the fact.

Astrology was another form of soothsaying. In 780 B.C. the
imperial astrologer (one of those two men, by the way, whom
erroneous tradition 1000 years later confused with Lao-tsz)
foretold the rise of Ts'i, Tsin, Ts'u, and Ts'in, upon the ruins
of the imperial power; in 773 the same astrologer repeated the
prophecy to the imperial prince then recently enfeoffed by his
relative the Emperor in the state of CHENG. In 705 the imperial
astrologer, when passing through the orthodox state of CH'EN,
foretold from the diagrams that a scion of the CH'EN house would
obtain the throne of Ts'i (which actually took place when the
_maire du palais,_ to the horror of Confucius, assassinated
the last legitimate duke in 481 B.C.); this particular prophecy is
doubly interesting, because the diagrams from the Changes, thus
cited in detail in Confucius' history, correspond exactly with the
diagrams of the Book of Changes as we have it now, since Confucius
manipulated it--proof that no change has taken place in this part
of the text at least.

The ruler of Ts'in in the year 762, nine years after receiving the
western half of the Chou imperial domain, and being recognized as
a first-class vassal, consulted the oracle as to whither he should
move his own capital. In the year 677 the oracles once more
decided the then reigning ruler to shift his capital to (the
modern) Feng-siang Fu in West Shen Si; the oracles added: "And
later you will water your steeds in the Yellow River"; which came
to pass after the conquests and annexations of 643 B.C., as
already related. In 374 B.C. the imperial astrologer (the second
man whom tradition, 300 years later this time, erroneously
confused with Lao-tsz) then on a visit to the now royal Ts'in
court said: "After 500 years of separation Ts'in is reunited to
our imperial house; in 77 years more a domineering monarch will
arise." Seven years later the "raining down of metal" (probably
some natural phenomenon not clearly understood at the time) was
considered a good omen in connection with the new capital, now
placed on the south bank of the River Wei. After Ts'in had
conquered China, there are numerous other instances of oracles,
omens, and so forth, all supposed to have had political
significance.

In 645 the ruler of the neighbouring state of Tsin consults the
oracles in order to ascertain who will be the most suitable war
charioteer. A few years before that the court diviner foretold the
future success of the petty Ngwei sub-principality of Tsin, which
in 403 B.C. actually became a separate vassal kingdom. In 575 Tsin
dared not, at the moment, accept the battle challenge of Tsu,
because the particular day was a dies _nefas,_ being the last
day of the moon. Meanwhile the spies of the Ts'u army discerned
that the Tsin leaders were consulting the oracles before the
tablets of their ancestors in the field tent. In 535 the Ts'in
administration consulted its own astrologer upon the point: "Will
the state of Ch'en survive?" The answer was: "When it secures
Ts'i, it will perish." As just explained, a scion of the Ch'en
house did practically obtain Ts'i in 481 B.C., and the very next
year Ch'en was annexed by Ts'u. In 510 the Tsin astrologer
prophesied the destruction of Wu by Yiieh within forty years, and
also the predominancy of the Lu private family so intimately
connected with Confucius' troubles. There were not lacking
sensible men, even in those days, who ridiculed the science of
astrology: for instance, Shuh Hiang of Tsin--the man who so
strongly disapproved Tsz-ch'an's written laws, and the man who
discussed with the Ts'i envoy, the philosopher Yen-tsz, the
worthlessness of their respective dukes--said on one occasion when
the "course of the heavens towards north-west" was supposed to
indicate a success for Tsin: "The course of the heavens, as that
of our success, lies in the qualities of the prince, and not in
the situation of the stars."

Tsz-ch'an of Cheng himself pooh-poohed oracular warnings, and said
that he preferred to do his best, and leave omens to do their
worst. On one occasion, outside the south gate of the Cheng
capital, two snakes (one from the city, one from outside) were
observed fighting; the one from the inside was defeated. Sure
enough! the exiled duke six years after that returned to his own.
So, in the state of Lu, the children sang: "When the thrushes come
and make their nests, the ruler will go to a place on the Tsin
frontier; when the thrushes settle here, the duke will be abroad"--
in allusion to the future ejecting of the reigning prince by the
powerful family above referred to. And, again (480 B.C.), in the
state of Sung, whose terrestrial position was supposed to be
"invaded" by the then peculiar celestial position of the planet
Mars: it was suggested, however, to the ruling prince that he
might "pass on" the threatened disaster to his ministers, to his
people, or to their harvests--a solution the duke declined to
avail himself of. 'Yours are indeed the words of a sage,' said the
astrologer.

We now come to the semi-civilized state of Ts'u, which seems to
have had its oracles with the best of them, at all events after
560 B.C. At that date it was explained to the King that "the
ancient emperors would at times consult the oracles for five years
before deciding upon an expedition, or fixing the date of it; they
were content to await patiently the decrees of Heaven." In 537 the
Ts'u king, having a prince of Wu in his power, sent to ask him
ironically if he had duly consulted the oracles. "Yes," said the
prince, "every ruler has his tortoise, and it is easy to
demonstrate by our oracles how injurious it will be for you if any
harm comes to me." This presence of mind saved his life. In 528 a
Ts'u usurper invited a man who had once assisted him to name any
post he would like. The man chose that of diviner, which, it
appears, was an office of the first rank. The father of this king
had secretly arranged with a concubine, notwithstanding the Ts'u
rule (or possibly in accordance with it) that one of the youngest
sons should succeed, to "sacrifice from a distance to the gods in
general, and ask of them which of five sons should sacrifice to
the spirits of the land"; then he buried a jade symbol of rule in
the ancestral temple, and ordered the five sons to enter after
proper purification; the three sons who happened to touch the spot
reigned one after the other. In 489 the King of Ts'u, then engaged
in assisting the orthodox state of Ch'en against the attacks of
Wu, interrogated the imperial astrologer (who must have been there
on a visit): "What is the meaning of that halo, like a bird's
wings, on each side of the sun?" The astrologer replied: "It
presages calamity, but you can transfer it to your generals." The
generals then offered to consult the gods themselves, and even to
sacrifice their own persons if necessary; but the King declined
(on the same ground as the Duke of Sung above mentioned) because
"my generals are my own limbs." It was then proposed to transfer
the calamity to the Yellow River. "No, the Yellow River has never
played me false: ever since we received our fief, we have never at
full moon sacrificed beyond the River Han and Yang-tsz." Confucius
registered his approval of this answer. It will be remembered that
just at this time Confucius was hanging about Ch'Uen and coquetting
with Ts'u, so that possibly this approval had something to do with
his own prospects.

In recording these instances of prophecies and omens (which might
be multiplied tenfold), it is desired to show how one main set of
ideas pervaded the whole. We should not be too ready to ridicule
them, or to hint at "after the event." Our own Scriptures are full
of similar prophecies, and what is good for us is good for the
Chinese. If the celestial movements can be foretold, why not
corresponding terrestrial movements, each corner of the earth
being on the meridian of something? In the infancy of science, it
is rather a question of good faith than of truth; and even the
truth, if we insist on expecting it, was rudely guessed at by such
great thinkers as Tsz-ch'an and Shuh Hiang.

CHAPTER XLVII

RULERS AND PEOPLE

A feature of the times was the remarkably personal character of
the wars, and the apparent utter indifference to humble popular
interests; _Quidquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi;_ stress
is laid upon this point by the democratic philosopher Lao-tsz, who,
however, in his book (be it genuine or not), is wise enough never
to name a person or place; probably that prudence saved it from
the flames in 213 B.C.

In 684 B.C. the ruler of Ts'ai (imperial clan) treated very rudely
his own wife's sister, married to a petty prince (imperial clan)
close by; the sister was simply passing through as a traveller;
the result was that this petty prince, her husband, induced Ts'u
to make war upon Ts'ai, whose reigning prince was captured, and
died a prisoner. In _657_ the ruler of Ts'ai had a sister
married in Ts'i. The First Protector, offended at some act of
playful disobedience, sent her back, but without actually
divorcing her. Her brother was so angry that he found her another
husband. On this Ts'i declared war, and captured the brother, who,
however, at the intercession of the other vassal princes, was
restored to his kingdom. In 509 and 506 B.C. Ts'ai induces Tsin to
make war on Ts'u, and also assists Wu in her hostilities against
Ts'u, because a Ts'u minister had detained the ruler of Ts'ai for
refusing to part with a handsome fur coat. It is like the stealing
of the Golden Fleece by Jason, and similar Greek squabbles. In 675
B.C. the Emperor, for the third time, had to fly from his capital,
the immediate cause of the trouble being an attempt on his part to
seize a vassal's rice-field for including in his own park--a
Chinese version of the Naboth's vineyard dispute. Nothing could
better prove the pettiness of the ancient state-horizon; no busily
active great power could find time for such trifles.

When the Second Protector came to the throne, the orthodox states
of Wei, Ts'ao, and Cheng (all of the imperial clan), which had
treated him scurvily as a wanderer, had all three of them to pay
dearly for their meanness. In 632, when the Protector had secured
the Tsin throne, the ruler of Ts'ao was promptly captured, and
part of his territory was given to Sung (where the wanderer had
been well treated). The same year Tsin wished to assist Sung, and
accordingly asked right of way through the state of Wei, which was
curtly refused; the Tsin army therefore crossed the Yellow River
to the south of Wei: as a punishment for this refusal, and also
for the previous rude treatment, Wei also had to give part of her
territory to the favoured Sung. In 630 Tsin induced Ts'in to join
in an attack upon Cheng, the object being, of course, to revenge
similar personal rudenesses; however, Cheng diplomacy was
successful in inducing Ts'in to abandon Tsin in the nick of time:
this was one of the very few cases in which Ts'in interfered, or
was about to interfere, in "orthodox" affairs. In 592 Tsin sent a
hunchback envoy to Ts'i; it so happened that at the same time Lu
sent one who was lame, and Wei a third who was blind of one eye.
The Ts'i ruler thereupon appointed an officer mutilated in some
other way to do the duties of host to this sorry trio. The Tsin
envoy swore: "If I do not revenge this upon Ts'i, may the God of
the Yellow River take note of it!" Reaching his own country, he
tried to induce the ruler to make war on Ts'i; but the prince
said: "Your personal pique should hardly suffice for ground to
trouble the whole country": and he refused.

The principle of the divinity that doth hedge a king was early
established, but there are certainly more numerous evidences of
royal absolutism in Ts'u than in orthodox China, where responsibility
of rulers before Heaven and the People (symbolical of Heaven also)
was an accepted axiom. For instance, in 522 B.C., an officer, knowing
that the King of Ts'u was sending for him in order to kill him, said to his
brother: "As the king orders it, one of us two must go, but you can
avenge me later on." When the next Ts'u king was a fugitive, and it
was a question in a subject's mind of killing him because his father
had taken a brother's life, it was objected: "No! if the king slays one
of his officers, who can avenge it? His commands emanate from Heaven.
It is unpardonable to cut off the ancestral sacrifice of a whole house
in this way."

In still more ancient times, when the last Emperor of the Shang
dynasty was being warned of the rising popular feeling in favour
of the rising Chou power, he remarked: "Have I not Heaven's
mandate? What can they do to me?" When the Martial King achieved
his conquest, he smeared the god of the soil with the sacrificial
victims' blood, and announced the crimes of the dead tyrant to
Heaven. In the war of 589 between Tsin and Ts'i, the ruler of
Ts'i, who had changed places with his charioteer in order to
escape detection, was hotly pursued; but his chariot caught in a
tree. Seeing this, the Tsin captain prostrated himself before the
chariot, and said: "My princely master's orders are to assist the
states of Lu and Wei" (i.e. not to attack your person). Meanwhile
the disguised charioteer ordered the disguised king to fetch a
drink of water, and the king thus escaped even the humiliation of
a favour from his generous victor. When in 548 a worthless Ts'i
ruler was assassinated, the philosopher Yen-tsz said: "When the
ruler dies or is exiled for the gods of the land and its harvests,
one dies or is exiled with him; but if he dies or is exiled for
private reasons, then only his personal friends die with him." He
therefore contented himself with wailing, and with laying his head
on the royal body. The same Tsin captain who was so tender to the
Ts'i duke in 589 had an opportunity fourteen years later of taking
prisoner the ruler of CHENG in battle; but he said: "Evil cometh
to him who toucheth a crowned head! I have already committed
sacrilege once against the ruler of Ts'i; preserve me from
committing this crime a second time!" And he turned promptly back.
During the same fight, the King of Ts'u's body-guard was attacked
by the Tsin generalissimo, who, when he discerned the king in the
centre of the guards, got out of his chariot, doffed his helmet,
and fled in horror, "such was his respect for the person of
royalty." It was a ritual rule in China for the distinguished men
not to remove the official head-covering in death; for instance,
in 481, when one of Confucius' pupils was killed in war, his last
patriotic act was to tie his hat-strings tighter. Though rulers
were supposed to owe duties to the gods in general, yet the power
of the gods was limited. Thus when Tsz-ch'an of CHENG was sent as
envoy to Tsin in 541, the sick Tsin ruler asked him: "How can the
two gods who, they say, are responsible for my malady, be
conjured?" Tsz-ch'an replied: "These particular gods cannot injure
you; we sacrifice to them in connection with natural phenomena,
such as drought, flood, or other disaster; just as in matters of
snow, hail, rain, or wind we sacrifice to the gods of the sun,
moon, planets, and constellations. Your illness is the result of
drink, over-feeding, women, passionate anger, excessive pleasure."
Shuh Hiang approved this common-sense view of the situation.

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