Ancient China Simplified

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As soon as the second of the Protectors, the Marquess of Tsin, was
seated on his ancestral throne (637), his first act was to reduce
the tolls and make the roads safer; to facilitate trade, and to
encourage agriculture. Also to "make friends of the eleven great
families" (already mentioned twice in preceding pages), whose
development, however, in time led to the collapse of this princely
power, and to its division between three of the "great families."
A century after this, a minister of the Ts'u state praised very
highly the efficiency of the Tsin administration. "The common
people are devoted to agriculture; the merchants, artisans, and
menials are all dutiful." For the conveyance of grain between the
Ts'in and the Tsin capitals, both carts and boats were requisitioned,
from which we must assume that there were practicable roads of some
sort for two-wheeled vehicles. In the year 546, when some important
reserves were made by Tsin at the Peace Conference, an express
messenger was sent from Sung to the Ts'u capital to take the king's
pleasure: this means an overland journey from the sources of the Hwai
to the modern treaty port of Sha-shr above Hankow.

It may be added that, five centuries before Kwan-tsz existed, the
founder of the Ts'i state, as a vassal to the new Chou dynasty,
had already distinguished himself by encouraging trade,
manufactures, fisheries, and the salt production; so that Kwan-tsz
was an improver rather than an inventor.

Thus we see that, from very early times, China was by no means a
sleepy country of ignorant husbandmen, but was a place full of
multifarious activities; and that her local rulers, at least from
the time when the patriarchal power of the Emperors decayed in
771, were often men of considerable sagacity, quite alive to the
necessity of developing their resources and encouraging their
people: this helps us to understand their restlessness under the
yoke of "ritual."

CHAPTER XVII

EDUCATION AND LITERARY

There is singularly little mention of writing or education in
ancient times, and it seems likely that written records were at
first confined to castings or engravings upon metal, and carvings
upon stone. In the days when the written character was cumbrous,
there would be no great encouragement to use it for daily
household purposes. It is a striking fact, not only that writings
upon soft clay, afterwards baked, were not only non-existent in
China, but have never once been mentioned or conceived of as being
a possibility. This fact effectually disposes of the allegation
that Persian and Babylonian literary civilization made its way to
China, for it is unreasonable to suppose that an invention so well
suited to the clayey soil (of _loess_ mud with cementing properties)
in which the Chinese princes dwelt could have been ignored by them,
if ever the slightest inkling of it had been obtained.

In 770 B.C., when the Emperor, having moved his capital to the
east, ceded his ancestral lands in the west to Ts'in on condition
that Ts'in should recover them permanently from the Tartars, the
document of cession was engraved upon a metal vase. Fifteen
hundred years before this, the Nine Tripods of the founder of the
Hia dynasty, representing tributes of metal brought to the Emperor
by outlying tribes, were inscribed with records of the various
productions of China: these tripods were ever afterwards regarded
as an attribute of imperial authority; and even Ts'u, when it
began to presume upon the Chou Emperor's weakness, put in a claim
(probably based upon his ancestors' own ancient Chinese descent,
as explained in Chapter IV.) to possess them.

In distributing the fiefs amongst relatives and friends, the first
Chou emperors "composed orders" conferring rights upon their new
vassals; but it is not stated what written form these orders took.
Written prayers for the recovery of the first Emperor's health are
mentioned, but here again we are ignorant of the material on which
the prayers were written by the precentor. Four hundred years
later, in 65, when Ts'in had assisted to the throne his neighbour
the Marquess of Tsin, the latter gave a promise in writing to
Ts'in that he would cede to her all the territory lying to the
west of the Yellow River. The next ruler of Tsin, the celebrated
wanderer who afterwards became the second Protector, is distinctly
stated to have had an adviser who taught him to read; it is added
that the same marquess also consulted this adviser about a
suitable teacher for his son and heir. About the same time one of
the Marquess's friends, objecting to take office, took to flight:
his friends, as a protest, hung up "a writing" at the palace gate.
In 584 a Ts'u refugee in Tsin sends a writing to the leading
general of Ts'u, threatening to be a thorn in his side. It is
presumed that in all these cases the writing was on wood. The text
of a declaration of war against Ts'u by Ts'in in 313 B.C., at a
time when these two powers had ceased to be allies, and were
competing for empire, refers to an agreement made three centuries
earlier between the King of Ts'u and the Earl of Ts'in; this
declaration was carved upon several stone tablets; but it does not
appear upon what material the older agreement was carved. In 538,
at a durbar held by Ts'u, Hiang Suh, the learned man of Sung, who
has already been mentioned in Chapter XV. as the inventor of Peace
Conferences in 546, and as one of the Confucian group of friends,
remarked: "What I know of the diplomatic forms to be observed is
only obtained from books." A few years later, when the population
of one of the small orthodox Chinese states was moved for
political convenience by Ts'u away to another district, they were
allowed to take with them "their maps, cadastral survey, and
census records."

There is an interesting statement in the _Kwoh Yue_, an
ancillary history of these times, but touching more upon personal
matters, usually considered to have been written by the same man
that first expanded Confucius' annals, to the effect that in 489
B.C. (when Confucius was wandering about on his travels, a
disappointed and disgusted man) the King of Wu inflicted a
crushing defeat upon Ts'i at a spot not far from the Lu frontier,
and that he captured "the national books, 800 leather chariots,
and 3000 cuirasses and shields." If this translation be perfectly
accurate, it is interesting as showing that Ts'i did possess
_Kwoh-shu_, or "a State library," or archives. But unfortunately
two other histories mention the capture of a Ts'i general named Kwoh
Hia, _alias_ Kwoh Hwei-tsz, so that there seems to be a doubt
whether, in transcribing ancient texts, one character (_shu_) may
not have been substituted for the other (_hia_). Two years later
the barbarian king in question entered Lu, and made a treaty with that
state upon equal terms.

Shortly after this date, the Chinese adviser who brought about the
conquest of Wu by the equally barbarous Yiieh, had occasion to
send a "closed letter" to a man living in Ts'u. When we come to
later times, subsequent to the death of Confucius, we find written
communications more commonly spoken of. Thus, in 313, Ts'i,
enraged at the supposed faithlessness of Ts'u, "broke in two the
Ts'u tally" and attached herself to Ts'in instead. This can only
refer to a wooden "indenture" of which each party preserved a
copy, each fitting 'in, "dog's teeth like," as the Chinese still
say, closely to the other. A few years later we find letters from
Ts'i to Ts'u, holding forth the tempting project of a joint attack
upon Ts'in; and also a letter from Ts'in to Ts'u, alluding to the
escape of a hostage and the cause of a war. In the year 227, when
Ts'in was rapidly conquering the whole empire, the northernmost
state of Yen (Peking plain), dreading annexation, conceived the
plan of assassinating the King of Ts'in; and, in order to give the
assassin a plausible ground for gaining admittance to the tyrant's
presence, sent a map of Yen, so that the roads available for
troops might be explained to the ambitious conqueror, who would
fall into the trap. He barely escaped.

All these matters put together point to the clear conclusion that
such states as Ts'in, Tsin, Ts'i, Yen, and Ts'u (none of which
belonged, so far as the bulk of their population was concerned, to
the purely Chinese group concentrated in the limited area
described in the first chapter) were able to communicate by letter
freely with each other: _a fortiori_, therefore, must the
orthodox states, whose civilization they had all borrowed or
shared, have been able to communicate with them, and with each
other. Besides, there is the question of the innumerable treaties
made at the durbars, and evidently equally legible by all the
dozen or so of representatives present; and the written prayers,
already instanced, which were probably offered to the gods at most
sacrifices. A special chapter will be devoted to treaties.

In the year 523 the following passage occurs, or rather it occurs
in one of the expanded Confucian histories having retrospective
reference to matters of 523 B.C:--"It is the father's fault if, at
the binding up of the hair (eight years of age), boys do not go to
the teacher, though it may be the mother's fault if, before that
age, they do not escape the dangers of fire and water: it is their
own fault if, having gone to the teacher, they make no progress:
it is their friends' fault if they make progress but get no repute
for it: it is the executive's fault if they obtain repute but no
recommendation to office: it is the prince's fault if they are
recommended for office but not appointed." Here we have in effect
the nucleus at least of the examination system as it was until a
year or two ago, together with an inferential statement that
education was only meant for the governing classes.

It is rather remarkable that the invention of the "greater seal"
character in 827 B.C. practically coincides with the first signs
of imperial decadence; this is only another piece of evidence in
favour of the proposition that enlightenment and patriarchal rule
could not exist comfortably together. When Ts'in conquered the
whole of modern China 600 years later, unified weights and
measures, the breadth of axles, and written script, and remedied
other irregularities that had hitherto prevailed in the rival
states, it is evident that the need of a more intelligible script
was then found quite as urgent as the need of roads suitable for
all carts, and of measures by which those carts could bring
definite quantities of metal and grain tribute to the capital.
Accordingly the First August Emperor's prime minister did at once
set to work to invent the "lesser seal" character, in which (so
late as A.D. 200) the first Chinese dictionary was written; this
"lesser seal" is still fairly readable after a little practice,
but for daily use it has long been and is impracticable and
obsolete. If we reflect how difficult it is for us to decipher the
old engrossed charters and written letters of the English kings,
we may all the more easily imagine how even a slight change in the
form of "letters," or strokes, will make easy reading of Chinese
impossible. It is a mistake to suppose that the Chinese have to
"spell their way" laboriously through the written character so
familiar to them: it is just as easy to "skim over" a Chinese
newspaper in a few minutes as it is to "take in" the leading
features of the _Times_ in the same limited time; and volumes
of Chinese history or literature in general can be "gutted" quite
easily, owing to the facility with which the so-called pictographs,
once familiar, lend themselves to "skipping."

The Bamboo Books, dug up in A.D. 281, the copies of the classics
concealed in the walls of Confucius' house, the copy of Lao-tsz's
philosophical work recorded to have been in the possession of a
Chinese empress in 150 B.C.--all these were written in the
"greater seal," and the painstaking industry of Chinese
specialists was already necessary when the Christian era began, in
order to reduce the ancient characters to more modern forms. Since
then the written character has been much clarified and simplified,
and it is just as easy to express sentiments in written Chinese as
in any other language; but, of course, when totally new ideas are
introduced, totally new characters must be invented; and
inventions, both of individual characters and of expressions, are
going on now.

CHAPTER XVIII

TREATIES AND VOWS

Treaties were always very solemn functions, invariably accompanied
by the sacrifice of a victim. A part of the victim, or of its
blood, was thrown into a ditch, in order that the Spirit of the
Earth might bear witness to the deed; the rest of the blood was
rubbed upon the lips of the parties concerned, and also scattered
upon the documents, by way of imprecation; sometimes, however, the
imprecations, instead of being uttered, were specially written at
the end of the treaty. Just as we now say "the ink was scarcely
dry before, etc., etc.," the Chinese used to say "the blood of the
victim was scarcely dry on their lips, before, etc., etc." When
the barbarian King of Wu succeeded for a short period in
"durbaring" the federal Chinese princes, a dispute took place (as
narrated in Chapter XIV.) between Tsin and Wu as to who should rub
the lips with blood first--in other words, have precedence. In
the year 541 B.C., sixty years before the above event, Tsin and
Ts'u had agreed to waive the ceremony of smearing the lips with
blood, to choose a victim in common, and to lay the text of the
treaty upon the victim after a solemn reading of its contents.
This modification was evidently made in consequence of the
disagreement between Tsin and Ts'u at the Peace Conference of 546,
when a dispute had arisen (page 47), as to which should smear the
lips first. This was the occasion on which the famous Tsin
statesman, Shuh Hiang, in the face of seventeen states'
representatives, all present, had the courage to ignore Ts'u's
treachery in concealing cuirasses under the soldiers' clothes. He
said: "Tsin holds her pre-eminent position as Protector by her
innate good qualities, which will always command the adhesion of
other states; why need we care if Ts'u smears first, or if she
injures herself by being detected in treachery?" It has already
been mentioned that Confucius glosses over or falsifies both the
above cases, and gives the victory in each instance to Tsin.
Though these little historical peccadilloes on the part of the
saint _homme_ are considered even by orthodox critics to be
objectionable, it must be remembered that it was very risky work
writing history at all in those despotic times: even in
comparatively democratic days (100 B.C.), the "father of Chinese
history" was castrated for criticizing the reigning Emperor in the
course of issuing his great work; and so late as the fifth century
A.D. an almost equally great historian was put to death "with his
three generations" for composing a "true history" of the Tartars
then ruling as Emperors of North China; i.e. for disclosing their
obscure and barbarous origin, Moreover, foreigners who fix upon
these trifling specific and admitted discrepancies, in order to
discredit the general truth of all Chinese history, must remember
that the Chinese critics, from the very beginning, have always,
even when manifestly biased, been careful to expose errors; the
very discrepancies themselves, indeed, tend to prove the
substantial truth of the events recorded; and the fact that
admittedly erroneous texts still stand unaltered proves the
reverent care of the Chinese as a nation to preserve their
defective annals, with all faults, in their original condition.

At this treaty conference of 546 B.C., held at the Sung capital,
the host alone had no vote, being held superior (as host) to all;
and, further, out of respect for his independence, the treaty had
to be signed outside his gates: the existence of the Emperor was
totally ignored.

A generation before this (579) another important treaty between
the two great rivals, Tsin and Ts'u, had been signed by the high
contracting parties outside the walls of Sung. The articles
provided for community of interest in success or failure; mutual
aid in every thing, more especially in war; free use of roads so
long as relations remained peaceful; joint action in face of
menace from other powers; punishment of those neglecting to come
to court. The imprecation ran: "Of him who breaks this, let the
armies be dispersed and the kingdom be lost; moreover, let the
spirits chastise him." Although both orthodox powers professed
their anxiety to "protect" the imperial throne, yet, seeing that
the Emperor was quietly shelved in all these conventions, the
reference to "court duty" probably refers to the duty of Cheng and
the other small orthodox states to render homage to Tsin or Ts'u
(as the case might be) as settled by this and previous treaties.
In fact, at the Peace Conference of 546, it was agreed between the
two mesne lords that the vassals of Ts'u should pay their respects
to Tsin, and _vice versa_. But, during the negotiations, a
zealous Tsin representative went on to propose that the informal
allies of the chief contracting powers should also be dragged in:
"If Ts'in will pay us a visit, I will try and induce Ts'i to visit
T'su." These two powers had _ententes_, Ts'i with Tsin, and
Ts'u with Ts'in, but recognized no one's hegemony over them. It
was this surprise sprung upon the Ts'u delegates that necessitated
an express messenger to the king, as recounted at the end of
Chapter XVI. The King of Ts'u sent word: "Let Ts'in and Ts'i
alone; let the others visit our respective capitals." Accordingly
it was understood that Tsin and Ts'u should both be Protectors,
but that neither Ts'in nor Ts'i should recognize their status to
the point of subordinating themselves to the joint hegemons. This
was Ts'u's first appearance as effective hegemon, but her official
_debut_ alone did not take place till 538. Ts'i and Ts'in had
both approved, in principle, the terms of peace, but Ts'in sent no
representative, whilst Ts'i sent two. It is very remarkable that
Sz-ma Ts'ien (the great historian of 100 B.C., who was castrated)
does not mention this important meeting in his great work, either
under the heading of Ts'i, or of Tsin, or under the headings of
Sung and Ts'u. It seems, however, really to have had good effect
for several generations; but there was some thing behind it which
shows that love for humanity was not the leading motive of the
chief parties. Two years later it was that the philosophical
brother of the King of Wu went his rounds among the Chinese
princes, and it is evident that Ts'u only desired peace with North
China whilst she tackled this formidable new enemy on the coast.
Tsin, on the other hand, was in trouble with the "six great
families" (the survivors of the "eleven great families"
conciliated by the Second Protector), who were gradually
undermining the princely authority in Tsin to their own private
aggrandisement. In 572 B.C., when the legitimate ruler of Tsin,
who had been superseded by irregular successors, was fetched back
from the Emperor's court, to which he had gone for a quiet asylum,
he drew up a treaty of conditions with his own ministers, and
immolated a chicken as sanction; this idea is still occasionally
perpetuated in British courts of justice, where Chinese, probably
without knowing it, draw upon ancient history when asked by the
court how they are accustomed to sanction an oath; cocks are often
also carried about by modern Chinese boatmen for purposes of
sacrifice. In the year 504, after Wu had captured the Ts'u
capital, one of the petty orthodox Chinese states taken by Ts'u--
the first to be so taken by barbarians--in 684, but left by Ts'u
internally independent, declined to render any assistance to Wu,
unless she could prove her competence to hold permanently the Ts'u
territory thus conquered. The King of Ts'u was so grateful for
this that he drew some blood from the breast of his own half-
brother, and on the spot made a treaty with the vassal prince. It
662, even in a love vow, the ruler of Lu cut his own arm and
exchanged drops of blood with his lady-love. In 481 the people of
Wei (the small orthodox state on the middle Yellow River between
Tsin and Lu) forced one of their politicians to swear allegiance
to the desired successor under the sanction of a sacrificial pig.

The great Kwan-tsz insisted on his prince carrying out a treaty
which had been extorted in times of stress; but, as a rule, the
most opportunistic principles were laid down, even by Confucius
himself when he was placed under personal stress: "Treaties
obtained by force are of no value, as the spirits could not then
have really been present." In 589 Ts'u invaded the state of Wei,
just mentioned, and menaced the adjoining state of Lu, compelling
the execution of a treaty. Confucius, who once broke a treaty
himself, naturally retrospectively considered this ducal treaty of
no effect, and he even goes so far as to avoid mentioning in his
annals some of the important persons who were present; he
especially "burkes" two Chinese ruling princes, who were shameless
enough to ride in the same chariot with the King of Ts'u, under
whose predominancy they were, and who were therefore themselves
under a kind of stress. In 482 one of Confucius' pupils made the
following casuistical reply to the government of Wu on their
application for renewal of a treaty with her: "It is only fidelity
that gives solidity to treaties; they are determined by mutual
consent, and it is with sacrifices that they are laid before our
ancestors; the written words give expression to them, and the
spirits guarantee them. A treaty once concluded cannot be changed:
otherwise it were vain to make a new one. Remember the proverb:
"What needs warming up more may just as well be eaten cold." The
ordinary rough-and-ready form of oath or vow between individuals
was: "If I break this, may I be as this river"; or, "may the river
god be witness." There were many other similar forms, and it was
often customary to throw something valuable into the river as a
symbol.

CHAPTER XIX

CONFUCIUS AND LITERATURE

Let us return for a moment to the history of China's development.
Confucius was born in the autumn of 551, B.C., and he died in 479.
If we survey the condition of the empire during these seventy
years, we may begin to understand better the secret of his
teachings, and of his influence in later times. When he was a boy
of seven or eight years, the presence in Lu of Ki-chah, the
learned and virtuous brother of the barbarian King of Wu, must
have opened his eyes widely to the ominous rise, of a democratic
and mixed China. Lu, like Tsin, was now beginning to suffer from
the "powerful family" plague; in other words, the story of King
John and his barons was being rehearsed in China. Tsin and Ts'u
had patched up ancient enmities at the Peace Conference; Tsin
during the next twenty years administered snub after snub to the
obsequious ruler of Lu, who was always turned back at the Yellow
River whenever he started west to pay his respects. Lu, on the
other hand, declined to attend the Ts'u durbar of 538, held by
Ts'u alone only after the approval of Tsin had been obtained. In
522 the philosopher Yen-tsz, of Ts'i, accompanied his own marquess
to Lu in order to study the rites there: this fact alone proves
that Ts'i, though orthodox and advanced, had not the same lofty
spiritual status that was the pride of Lu. In 517 the Marquess of
Lu was driven from his throne, and Ts'i took the opportunity to
invade Lu under pretext of assisting him; however, the fugitive
preferred Tsin as a refuge, and for many years was quartered at a
town near the common frontier. But the powerful families (all
branches of the same family as the duke himself) proved too strong
for him; they bribed the Tsin statesmen, and the Lu ruler died in
exile in the year 510. In the year 500 Confucius became chief
counsellor to the new marquess, and by his energetic action drove
into exile in Tsin a very formidable agitator belonging to one of
the powerful family cliques. In 488 the King of Wu, after marching
on Ts'i, summoned Lu to furnish "one hundred sets of victims" as a
mark of compliancy; the king and the marquess had an interview;
the next year the king came in person, and a treaty was made with
him under the very walls of K'ueh-fu, the Lu capital (this shameful
fact is concealed by Confucius, who simply says: "Wu made war on
us"). In 486 Lu somewhat basely joined Wu in an attack upon
orthodox Ts'i. In 484-483 Confucius, who had meanwhile been
travelling abroad for some years in disgust, was urgently sent
for; four years later he died, a broken and disappointed man.

Now, it is one thing to be told in general terms that Confucius
represented conservative forces, disapproved of the quarrelsome
wars of his day, and wished in theory to restore the good old
"rules of propriety"; but quite another thing to understand in a
human, matter-of-fact sort of way what he really did in definite
sets of circumstances, and what practical objects he had in view.
The average European reader, not having specific facts and places
under his eye, can only conceive from this rough generalization,
and from the usual anecdotal tit-bits told about him, that
Confucius was an exceedingly timid, prudent, benevolent, and
obsequious old gentleman who, as indeed his rival Lao-tsz hinted
to him, was something like a superior dancing-master or court
usher, But when the disjointed apothegms of his "Analects" (put
together, not by himself, but by his disciples) are placed
alongside the real human actions baldly touched upon in his own
"Springs and Autumns," and as expanded by his three commentators,
one of them, at least, being a contemporary of his own, things
assume quite a different complexion, Moreover, this last-mentioned
or earliest in date of the expanders (see p. 91) also composed a
chatty, anecdotal, and intimately descriptive account of Lu, Ts'i,
Tsin, CHENG, Ts'u, Wu, and Yiieh (of no other states except quite
incidentally); and we have also the Bamboo Books dug up in 281
A.D., being the Annals of Tsin and a sketch of general history
down to 299 B.C. Finally, the "father of history," in about go
B.C., published, or issued ready for publication, a _resume_
of all the above (except what was in the Bamboo Books, which were
then, of course, unknown to him); so that we are able to compare
dates, errors, misprints, concealments, and so on; not to mention
the advantage of reading all that the successive generations of
commentators have had to say.

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