Ancient China Simplified

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The Yellow River, running from north to south, not only roughly
separated from each other these two Tartar-Chinese buffer states
in the north-west, but the same Yellow River, flowing east, and
its tributary, the River Wei, also formed a rough boundary between
the two states of Tsin and Ts'in (together) to the north, and the
innumerable petty but ancient Chinese principalities surrounding
the imperial domain to the south. These principalities or
settlements were scattered about among the head-waters of the Han
River and the Hwai River systems, and their manifest destiny, if
they needed expansion, clearly drove them further southwards,
following the courses of all these head-waters, towards the Yang-
tsz Kiang. But, more than that, the Yellow River, after thus
flowing east for several hundred miles, turned sharp north in
long. 114o E., as already explained, and thence to the north-east
formed a second rough boundary between Tsin and nearly all the
remaining orthodox Chinese states. Tsin's chief task was thus to
absorb into its administrative system all the Tartar raiders that
ventured south to the Yellow River.

But there was a third northern state engaged in the task of
keeping back the Tartar tribes, and in developing a civilization
of its own-based largely, of course, upon Chinese principles, but
modified so as to meet local exigencies. This was the state of
Ts'i, enclosed between the Yellow River to the west and the sea to
the east, but extending much farther north than the boundaries of
modern Shan Tung province, if, indeed, the embouchure of the
Yellow River, near modern Tientsin, did not form its northern
boundary; but the promontory or peninsula, as well as all the
coast, was still in the hands of "barbarian" tribes (now long
since civilized and assimilated), of which for many centuries past
no separate trace has remained. We have no means of judging now
whether these "barbarians" were uncultured, close kinsmen of the
orthodox Chinese; or remote kinsmen; or quite foreign. When the
Chou principality received an invitation by acclamation to conquer
and administer China in 1122, an obscure political worthy from
these eastern parts placed his services as adviser and organizer
at the command of the new Chou Emperor, in return for which
important help he received the fief of Ts'i. Although obscure,
this man traced his descent back to the times when (2300 B.C.) his
ancestors received fiefs from the most ancient Emperors. From that
time down to the year 1122 B.C., and onwards to the events of 771
B.C., nothing much beyond the fact of the Chou infeoffment is
recorded; but after the Emperor had been killed by the Tartar-
Tibetans, this state of Ts'i also began to grow restive; and the
seventh century before Christ opens with the significant statement
that "Ts'in, Tsin, and Ts'i, now begin to be powerful states." Of
the three, Tsin alone bore the imperial Chou clan-name of
_Ki_.

[Illustration: Map.

1. In 2200 B.C. the Yellow River was divided at the point where
our map begins, and the main waters were conducted to the River
Chang, which thus formed one river with it. But a secondary branch
was conducted eastwards to the Rivers T'ah and Tsi (now, 1908, the
Yellow River).

2. In 602 B.C. this secondary branch suddenly turned north,
followed the line of the present (1908) Grand Canal, and joined
the main branch, i.e. the River Chang.

3. The capitals of Ts'i and Lu are shown. The Yellow River divided
Tsin from Ts'i, but Tartars harried the whole dividing line.]

North of the Yellow River, where it then entered the sea near the
modern treaty-port of Tientsin, there was yet another great
vassal state, called Yen, which had been given by the founders of
the Chou dynasty to a very distinguished blood relative and
faithful supporter: this noble prince has been immortalized in
beautiful language on account of the rigid justice of his
decisions given under the shade of an apple-tree: it was the
practice in those days to render into popular song the chief
events of the times, and it is not improbable, indeed, that this
Saga literature was the only popular record of the past, until, as
already hinted, after 827 B.C., writing became simplified and thus
more diffused, instead of being confined to solemn manifestoes and
commandments cast or carved on bronze or stone.

"Oh! woodman, spare that tree,
Touch not a single bough,
His wisdom lingers now."

The words, singularly like those of our own well-known song, are
known to every Chinese school-boy, and with hundreds, even
thousands, of other similar songs, which used to be daily quoted
as precedents by the statesmen of that primitive period in their
political intercourse with each other, were later pruned,
purified, and collated by Confucius, until at last they received
classical rank in the "Book of Odes" or the "Classic of Poetry,"
containing a mere tenth part of the old "Odes" as they used to be
passed from mouth to ear.

Even less is known of the early days of Yen than is known of
Ts'in, Tsin, and Ts'i; there is not even a vague tradition to
suggest who ruled it, or what sort of a place it was, before the
Chou prince was sent there; all that is anywhere recorded is that
it was a very small, poor, and feeble region, dovetailed in
between Tsin and Ts'i, and exposed north to the harassing attacks
of savages and Coreans (_i.e._ tribes afterwards enumerated
as forming part of Corea when the name of Corea became known). The
mysterious region is only mentioned here at all on account of its
distinguished origin, in order to show that the Chinese
cultivators had from the very earliest times apparently succeeded
in keeping the bulk of the Tartars to the left bank of the Yellow
River all the way from the Desert to the sea; because later on
(350 B.C.) Yen actually did become a powerful state; and finally,
because if any very early notions concerning Corea and Japanese
islands had ever crept vaguely into China at all, it must have
been through this state of Yen, which was coterminous with Liao
Tung and Manchuria. The great point to remember is, the extensive
territory between the Great Wall and the Yellow River then lay
almost entirely beyond the pale of ancient China, and it was only
when Ts'in, Tsin, Ts'i, and Yen had to look elsewhere than to the
Emperor for protection from Tartar inroads that the centre of
political gravity was changed once and for ever from the centre of
China to the north.

We know nothing of the precise causes which conduced to unusual
Tartar activity at the dawn of Chinese true history: in the
absence of any Tartar knowledge of writing, it seems impossible
now that we ever can know it. Still less are we in a position to
speculate profitably how far the movements on the Chinese
frontier, in 800-600 B.C., may be connected with similar
restlessness on the Persian and Greek frontiers, of which, again,
we know nothing very illuminating or specific. It is certain that
the Chinese had no conception of a Tartar empire, or of a coherent
monarchy, under the vigorous dominion of a great military genius,
until at least five centuries after the Tartars, killed a Chinese
Emperor in battle as related (771 B.C.). It is even uncertain what
were the main race distinctions of the nomad aggregations, loosely
styled by us "Tartars," for the simple reason that the ambiguous
Chinese terminology does not enable us to select a more specific
word. Nevertheless, the Chinese do make certain distinctions; and,
as what remains of aboriginal populations in the north, south,
east, and west of China points strongly to the probability of
populations in the main occupying the same sites that they did
3000 years ago (unless where specific facts point to a contrary
conclusion), we may fairly assume that the distribution was then
very much as now-beginning from the east, (1) Japanese, (2)
Corean, (3) Tungusic, (4) Mongol-Turkish, (5) Turkish, (6)
Turkish-Tibetan, and Mongol-Tibetan (or Mongol-Turkoid Tibetan),
(7) Tibetan. The Chinese use four terms to express these relative
quantities, which may be called X, Y, Z, and A. The term "X," pure
and simple, never under any circumstances refers to any but
Tibetans (of whom at this time the Chinese had no recorded
knowledge whatever except by name); but "X + Y" also refers to
tribes in Tibetan regions. The term "West Y" seems to mean
Tibetan-Tartars, and the term "North Y" seems to mean Mongoloid-
Tunguses. There is a third Y term, "Dog Y," evidently meaning
Tartars of some kind, and not Tibetans of any sort. The term "Z"
never refers to Tibetans, pure or mixed, but "Y + Z" loosely
refers to Turks, Mongols, and Tunguses. The terms "Red Z", "White
Z," and "North Z" seem to indicate Turks; and what is more, these
colour distinctions--probably of clothing or head-gear-continue to
quite modern times, and always in connection with Turks or Mongol-
Turks. The fourth term "A" never occurs before the third century
before Christ, and refers to all Tartars, Coreans, etc.; but not
to Tibetans: it need not, therefore, be discussed at present. The
modern province of Sz Ch'wan was absolutely unknown even by name;
but several centuries later, as we shall shortly see, it turned
out to be a state of considerable magnitude, with quite a little
imperial history of its own: probably it was with this unknown
state that the bulk of the Tibetans tried conclusions, if they
tried them with China at all.

Be that as it may, the present wish is to make clear that at the
first great turning-point in genuine Chinese history the whole of
north and west China was in the hands of totally unknown powers,
who completely shut in the Middle Kingdom; who only manifested
themselves at all in the shape of occasional bodies of raiders;
and who, if they had any knowledge, direct or indirect, of India,
Tibet, Turkestan, Siberia, Persia, etc., kept it strictly to
themselves, and in any case were incapable of communicating it in
writing to the frontier Chinese populations of the four buffer
states above enumerated.

CHAPTER IV

THE SOUTHERN POWER

But the collapse of the imperial power in 771 B.C. led to
restlessness in the south as well as in the north, north-western,
and north-eastern regions: except for a few Chinese adventurers
and colonists, these were exclusively inhabited by nomad Tartars,
and perhaps some Tibetans, destitute of fixed residences, cities,
and towns; ignorant of cultivation, agriculture, and letters; and
roving about from pasture to pasture with their flocks and herds,
finding excitement and diversion chiefly in periodical raids upon
their more settled southern and western neighbours.

The only country south of the federated Chinese princes in Ho Nan
province (as we now call it) was the "Jungle" or "Thicket," a term
which vaguely designated the lower waters of the Han River system,
much as, with ourselves, the "Lowlands" or the "Netherlands" did,
and still does, designate the outlying marches of the English and
German communities. "Jungle" is still the elegant literary name
for Hu Peh, just as Ts'in, Tsin, and Ts'i are for Shen Si, Shan
Si, and Shan Tung. The King of the Jungle, like the Warden of the
Western Marches, traced his descent far back to the same ancient
monarchs whose blood ran also in the veins of the imperial house
of Chou; and moreover this Jungle King's ancestors had served the
founders of the Chou dynasty in 1150 B.C., whilst they were still
hesitating whether to accept the call to empire: hence in later
times (530 B.C.) the King made it a grievance that his family had
not received from the founder of the Chou dynasty presents
symbolical of equality of birth, as had the Tsin and Lu (South
Shan Tung) houses. If any tribes, south, south-east, or south-west
of this vague Jungle, whose administrative centre at first lay
within a hundred miles' radius of the modern treaty-port of
Ich'ang, were in any way known to Central China, or were affected
by orthodox Chinese civilization, it was and must have been
entirely through this kingdom of the Jungle, and in a second-hand
or indirect way. The Jungle was as much a buffer to the south as
Ts'in was to the north-west, Tsin to the north, and Ts'i to the
north-east. The bulk of the population was in one sense non-
Chinese; that is, it was probably a mixture of the many
uncivilized mountain tribes (all speaking monosyllabic and tonic
dialects like the Chinese) who still survive in every one of the
provinces south of the Yang-tsz Kiang; but the ruling caste, whose
administrative centre lay to the north of these tribes, though
affected by the grossness of their barbarous surroundings, were
manifestly more or less orthodox Chinese in origin and sympathy,
and, even at this early period (771 B.C.), possessed a considerable
culture, a knowledge of Chinese script, and a general capacity
to live a settled economical existence. As far back as 880 B.C.
the King of the Jungle is recorded to have governed or conciliated
the populations between the Han and the Yang-tsz Rivers; but,
though he arrogated to himself for a time the title of "Emperor" or
"King" in his own dominions, he confessed himself to be a barbarian,
and disclaimed any share in the honorific system of titles, living or
posthumous, having vogue in China, reserving it for his successors
to assert higher rights when they should feel strong enough. Like
an eastern Charlemagne, he divided his empire between his three
sons; and this empire, which gradually extended all along the
Yang-tsz down to its mouths, may have included in one of its
three subdivisions a part at least of the Annamese race, as will be
suggested more in detail anon.

The first really historical king, who once more arrogated the
supreme title in 704 B.C., took advantage of imperial weakness to
extend his conquests not only to the south but to the north of the
River Han, attacking petty Chinese principalities, and boldly
claiming recognition by the Emperor of equality in title. "I am a
barbarian," said he, "and I will avail myself of the dissensions
among the federal princes to inspect Chinese ways for myself." The
Emperor displayed some irritation at this claim of equal rank, but
the King retorted by referring to the services rendered by his
(the King's) ancestor, some five hundred years earlier, to the
Emperor's ancestor, virtual founder of the Chou dynasty. In 689
B.C. the next king moved his capital from its old site above the
Ich'ang gorges to the commanding central situation now known as
King-thou Fu, just above the treaty-port of Sha-shi': this place
historically continues the use of the old word Jungle (_King_),
and has been all through the present Manchu dynasty (1644-1908)
the military residence of a Tartar-General with a Banner garrison;
that is, a garrison of privileged Tartar soldiers living in cantonments,
and exempt from the ordinary laws, or, at least, the application of
them. It is only in 684 B.C. that the Jungle state is first honoured
with mention in Confucius' history: it was, indeed, impossible then
to ignore its existence, because, for the first time in the annals
of China, Chinese federal princes between the Han River and the
westernmost head-waters of the Hwai River had been deliberately
annexed by these Jungle "barbarians." History for the next 450 years
from this date consists mainly of the intricate narration how Ts'in, Tsin,
Ts'i, and the Jungle struggled, first for hegemony, and finally for the
possession of all China, The Jungle was now called Ts'u.

CHAPTER V

EVIDENCE OF ECLIPSES

Having now shown, as shortly and as intelligibly as we can, how
the germs of Chinese development were sown at the dawn of true
history, let us proceed to examine how far that history, as it has
come down to us, contains within it testimony to its own truth. We
shall revert to the description of wars and ambitions in due
course; but, as so obscure a subject as early Chinese civilization
is only palatable to most Western readers in small, varied, and
sugared doses, we shall for the moment vary the nourishment
offered, and say a few words upon eclipses.

Confucius, whose bald "Spring and Autumn" annals, as expanded by
three separate commentators (one a junior contemporary of
himself), is really the chief authority for the period 722-468
B.C., was born on the 20th day after the eclipse of the sun which
took place in the 10th month of 552 B.C., or the 27th of the 8th
moon as worked out to-day (for 1908 this means the 22nd
September). Confucius himself records thirty-seven eclipses of the
sun between 720 and 481, those of 709, 601, and 549 being total.
Of course, as Confucius primarily recorded the eclipses as seen
from his own petty vassal state of Lu in Shan Tung province (lat.
35" 40' N., long, 117" E.), any one endeavouring to identify these
eclipses, and to compare them with Julian or Gregorian dates,
must, in making the necessary calculations, bear this important
fact in mind. It so happens that nearly one-third of Confucius'
thirty-seven eclipses are recorded as having taken place between
the two total eclipses of 601 and 549. This being so, I referred
the list to an obliging officer attached to the Royal Observatory,
who has kindly furnished me with the following comparative list:-

CONFUCIUS' DATE. OPPOLZER'S JULIAN DATE.
B.C. 601, 7th moon.---600, September 20.
" 599, 4th " ---598, March 5.
" 592, 6th " ---591, April 17.
" 575, 6th " ---574, May 9.
" 574, 12th " ---573, October 22.
" 559, 2nd " ---558, January 14.
" 558, 8th " ---557, June 29.
" 553, 10th " ---552, August 31.
" 552, 9th "
" 552, 10th " ---551, August 20.
" 550, 2nd " ---549, January 5.
" 549, 7th " ---548, April 19.

It will be observed that there is no Oppolzer's date to compare
with the first of the two eclipses of 552; this is because I
omitted to notice that there had been recorded in the "Springs and
Autumns" two so close together, and therefore I did not include it
in the list sent to the Observatory; but with the exception of the
total eclipse of 601, all the other eclipses, so far as days of
the moon and month go, are as consistent with each other as are
modern Chinese dates with European (Julian) dates. As regards the
year, Oppolzer's dates are the "astronomical" dates, that is, the
astronomical year--x is the same as the year (x + 1) B.C.; or, in
other words, the year _of_ Christ's birth is, for certain
astronomical exactitude purposes, interpolated between the years 1
B.C. and A.D. 1, as we vulgarly compute them: that is to say, the
eclipses of the sun recorded 2,400 years ago by Confucius, from
notes and annals preserved in his native state's archives as far
back as 700 B.C., are found to be almost without exception fairly
correct, with a uniform "error" of about one month, despite the
fact that attempts were made by the First August Emperor to
destroy all historical literature in 213 B.C. This being so in the
matter of a dozen eclipses, there still remain two dozen for
specialists to experiment upon, not to mention comets and other
celestial phenomena. From this collateral evidence, imperfect
though it be, we are reasonably entitled to assume that the three
expanded versions of Confucius' history are trustworthy, or at the
very least written in the best of faith.

Just as our mathematicians find no difficulty either in
foretelling or retrospecting eclipses to a minute, so does the
ancient "sixty" cycle, which the Chinese have from time immemorial
used for computing or noting days and years, enable them, or for
the matter of that ourselves, to calculate back unerringly any
desired day. Thus, suppose the 1st January, 1908, is the 37th day
of the perpetual cycle of sixty days; then, if the Chinese
historians say that an eclipse took place on the first day of the
new moon, which began the 9th Chinese month of the year
corresponding in the main to our 800 B.C., and that the 1st day of
the moon was also the 37th day of the sixty-day perpetual cycle,
all we have to do is to take roughly six cycles for each year, six
thousand cycles for each thousand years, allowing at the same time
two extra cycles every third year for intercalary moons, and then
dealing with the fractions or balance of days. If our calculation
does not bring the two 37th cyclic days together accurately, we
must of course go into the question of how and when the Chinese
calendars were altered, a subject that will be treated of in a
subsequent chapter. It must be remembered that there can never be
any question of so much as a whole year being involved in the
balance of error; for, with the Chinese as with us, one year,
whenever modified, always means that space of time, however
irregularly computed at each end of it, within which two solstices
and two equinoxes have taken place, Voltaire, in the article on
"China" of his Universal Dictionary, remarks that "of 32 ancient
Chinese eclipses, 28 have been identified by Western mathematicians";
and M. Edouard Chavannes, who has given a great deal of time
and labour to working out the mysteries of the Chinese calendar,
does not hesitate to claim accuracy to the very day (29th August)
for the eclipse of the sun recorded in the Book of Odes (as re-edited
by Confucius) as having taken place on the 28th cyclic day of the
beginning of the both moon in 776 B.C. (i.e. of--775). This eclipse
is of course not recorded in the "Springs and Autumns," which
begins with the year 722 B.C.

The Chou dynasty, which came into power in 1122, for the second
time put back the year a month because the calendar was getting
confused. That is, they made what we should call January begin the
legal year instead of February; or the still more ancient March;
but some of the vassals either used computations of their own, or
kept up those handed down by the two dynasties previous to that of
Chou: hence in the Confucian histories, as expanded, there are
frequent discrepancies in consequence of events apparently copied
from the records of one vassal state having been reported to the
historian of a second vassal state without steps having been taken
to adjust the different new years.

CHAPTER VI

THE ARMY

As the struggle for pre-eminency which we are about to describe
involved bloodthirsty combats extending almost uninterruptedly
over five centuries, it may be of interest to inquire of what
consisted the paraphernalia of warfare in those days. It appears
that among the Chinese federal princes, who, as we have seen, only
occupied in the main the flat country on the right bank of the
Yellow River, war-chariots were invariably used, which is the more
remarkable in that after the Conquest in 220 B.C. of China by the
First August Emperor of Ts'in, and down to this day, war-chariots
have scarcely ever once been even named, at least as having been
marshalled in serious battle array. The Emperor alone was supposed
in true feudal times to possess a force of 10,000 chariots, and
even now a "10,000-chariot" state is the diplomatic expression
for "a great power," "a power of the first rank," or "an empire."
No vassal was entitled to more than 1000 war-chariots. In the
year 632 B.C., when Tsin inflicted a great defeat upon its chief
rival Ts'u, the former power had 700 chariots in the field. In 589
B.C. the same country, with 800 chariots included in its forces,
marched across the Yellow River and defeated the state of Ts'i,
its rival to the east. Again in 632 Tsin offered to the Emperor
100 chariots just captured from Ts'u, and in 613 sent 800 chariots
to the assistance of a dethroned Emperor. The best were made of
leather, and we may assume from this that the wooden ones found it
very difficult to get safely over rough ground, for in a
celebrated treaty of peace of 589 B.C. between the two rival
states Tsin and Ts'i, the victor, lying to the west, imposed a
condition that "your ploughed furrows shall in future run east and
west instead of north and south," meaning that "no systematic
obstacles shall in future be placed in the way of our invading
chariots."

One of the features in many of the vassal states was the growth of
great families, whose private power was very apt to constrain the
wishes of the reigning duke, count, or baron. Thus in the year
537, when the King of Ts'u was meditating a treacherous attack
upon Tsin, he was warned that "there were many magnates at the
behest of the ruler of Tsin, each of whom was equal to placing 100
war-chariots in the field." So much a matter of course was it to
use chariots in war, that in the year 572, when the rival great
powers of Ts'u and Tsin were contesting for suzerainty over one of
the purely Chinese principalities in the modern Ho Nan province,
it was considered quite a remarkable fact that this principality
in taking the side of Ts'u brought no chariots with the forces led
against Tsin. In 541 a refugee prince of Ts'u, seeking asylum in
Tsin, only brought five chariots with him, on which the ruler,
ashamed as host of such a poor display, at once assigned him
revenue sufficient for the maintenance of 100 individuals. It so
happened that at the same time there arrived in Tsin a refugee
prince from Ts'in, bringing with him 1000 carts, all heavily
laden. On another occasion the prince (not a ruler) of a
neighbouring state, on visiting the ruler of another, brings with
him as presents an eight-horsed chariot for the reigning prince, a
six-horsed conveyance for the premier, a four-horsed carriage for
a very distinguished minister in the suite, and a two-horsed cart
for a minor member of the mission.

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