Ancient China Simplified Part 7

Lu, though itself a small state, had, in 697, and again in 615, quite a large number of va.s.sals of its own; several are plainly styled "subordinate countries," with viscounts and even earls to rule them. Some of these sub-va.s.sals to the feudal states seem from the first never to have had the right of direct communication with the Emperor at all; in such cases they were called fu-yung, or "adjunct-functions," like the client colonies attached to the colonial _municipia_ of the Romans. A fu-yung was only about fifteen English miles in extent (according to Mencius); and from 850 B.C. to 771 BC. even the great future state of Ts'in had only been a _fu-yung_,--it is not said to what mesne lord. Sung is distinctly stated to have had a number of these _fu-yung_.

CH'eN is also credited with suzerainty over at least two sub- va.s.sal states. In 661 Tsin annexed a number of orthodox petty states, evidently with the view of ultimately seizing that part of the Emperor's appanage which lay north of the Yellow River (west Ho Nan); it was afterwards obtained by "voluntary cession." The word "viscount," besides being applied complimentarily to barbarian "kings" when they showed themselves in China, had another special use. When an orthodox successor was in mourning, he was not ent.i.tled forthwith to use the hereditary rank allotted to his state; thus, until the funeral obsequies of their predecessors were over, the new rulers of Ch'en and Ts'ai were called "the viscount," or "son" (same word).

The Emperor used to call himself "I, the one Man," like the Spanish "Yo, el Rey." Feudal princes styled themselves to each other, or to the ministers of each other, "The Scanty Man."

Ministers, speaking (to foreign ministers or princes) of their own prince said, "The Scanty Prince"; of the prince's wife, "The Scanty Lesser Prince"; of their own ministers, "The Scanty Minister." It was polite to avoid the second person in addressing a foreign prince, who was consequently often styled "your government" by foreign envoys particularly anxious not to offend.

The diplomatic forms were all obsequiously polite; but the stock phrases, such as, "our vile village" (our country), "your condescending to instruct" (your words), "I dare not obey your commands" (we will not do what you ask), probably involved nothing more in the way of humility than the terms of our own gingerly worded diplomatic notes, each term of which may, nevertheless, offend if it be coa.r.s.ely or carelessly expressed.

In some cases a petty va.s.sal was neither a sub-kingdom nor an adjunct-function to another greater va.s.sal, but was simply a political hanger-on; like, for instance, Hawaii was to the United States, or Cuba now is; or like Monaco is to France, Nepaul to India. Thus Lu, through a.s.siduously cultivating the good graces of Ts'i, became in 591 a sort of henchman to Ts'i; and, as we have seen, at the Peace Conference of 546, the henchmen of the two rival Protectors agreed to pay "cross respects" to each other's Protector. It seems to have been the rule that the offerings of feudal states to the Emperor should be voluntary, at least in form: for instance, in the year 697, the Emperor or his agents begged a gift of chariots from Lu, and in 618 again applied for some supplies of gold; both these cases are censured by the historians as being undignified. On the other hand, the Emperor's complimentary presents to the va.s.sals were highly valued. Thus in the year 530, when Ts'u began to realize its own capacity for empire, a claim was put in for the Nine Tripods, and for a share of the same honorific gifts that were bestowed by the founders upon Ts'i, Tsin, Lu, and Wei at the beginning of the Chou dynasty.

In the year 606 Ts'u had already "inquired" at the imperial court about these same Tripods, and 300 years later (281 B.C.), when struggling with Ts'in for the mastery of China, Ts'u endeavoured to get the state of Han to support her demand for the Tripods, which eventually fell to Ts'in; it will be remembered that the Duke of Chou had taken them to the branch capital laid out by him, but which was not really occupied by the Emperor until 771 B.C.

In 632, after the great Tsin victory over Ts'u, the Emperor "accepted some Ts'u prisoners," conferred upon Tsin the Protectorate, ceded to Tsin that part of the imperial territory referred to on page 53, and presented to the Tsin ruler a chariot, a red bow with 1000 arrows, a black bow with 1000 arrows, a jar of scented wine, a jade cup with handle, and 300 "tiger" body-guards.

In 679, when Old Tsin had been amalgamated by New Tsin (both of them then tiny princ.i.p.alities), the Emperor had already accepted valuable loot from the capture of Old Tsin. In a word, the Emperor nearly always sided with the strongest, accepted _faits accomplis_, and took what he could get. This has also been China's usual policy in later times.

CHAPTER XXVI

FIGHTING STATE PERIOD

The period of political development covered by Confucius' history-- the object of which history, it must be remembered, was to read to the restless age a series of solemn warnings--was immediately succeeded by the most active and bloodthirsty period in the Chinese annals, that of the Fighting States, or the Six Countries; sometimes they (including Ts'in) were called the "Seven Males,"

i.e. the Seven Great Masculine Powers. Tsin had been already practically divided up between the three surviving great families of the original eleven in 424 B.C.; but these three families of Ngwei, Han, and Chao were not recognized by the Emperor until 403; nor did they extinguish the legitimate ruler until 376, about three years after the sacrifices of the legitimate Ts'i kings were stopped. Accordingly we hear the original name Tsin, or "the three Tsin," still used concurrently with the names Han, Ngwei, and Chao, as that of Ts'u's chief enemy in the north for some time after the division into three had taken place.

Tsin's great rival to the west, Ts'in, now found occupation in extending her territory to the south-west at the expense of Shuh, a vast dominion corresponding to the modern Sz Ch'wan, up to then almost unheard of by orthodox China, but which, it then first transpired, had had three kings and ten "emperors" of its own, nine of these latter bearing the same appellation. Even now, the rapids and gorges of the Yang-tsz River form the only great commercial avenue from China into Sz Ch'wan, and it is therefore not hard to understand how in ancient times, the tribes of "cave barbarians" (whose dwellings are still observable all over that huge province) effectively blocked traffic along such subsidiary mountain-roads as may have existed then, as they exist now, for the use of enterprising hawkers.

The Chinese historians have no statistics, indulge in fen (few?) remarks about economic or popular development, describe no popular life, and make no general reflections upon history; they confine themselves to narrating the bald and usually unconnected facts which took place on fixed dates, occasionally describing some particularly heroic or daring individual act, or even sketching the personal appearance and striking conduct of an exceptionally remarkable king, general, or other leading personality: hence there is little to guide us to an intelligent survey of causes and effects, of motives and consequences; it is only by carefully piecing together and collating a jumble of isolated events that it is possible to obtain any general coup d'oeil at all: the wood is often invisible on account of the trees.

But there can be no doubt that populations had been rapidly increasing; that improved means had been found to convey acc.u.mulated stores and equipments; that generals had learnt how to hurl bodies of troops rapidly from one point to the other; and that rulers knew the way either to interest large populations in war, or to force them to take an active part in it. The marches, durbars, and gigantic ca.n.a.l works, undertaken by the barbarous King of Wu, as described in Chapter XXI., prove this in the case of one country. Chinese states always became great in the same way: first Kwan-tsz developed, on behalf of his master the First Protector, the commerce, the army, and the agriculture of Ts'i. He was imitated at the same time by Duke Muh of Ts'in and King Chw.a.n.g of Ts'u, both of which rulers (seventh century B.C.) set to work vigorously in developing their resources. Then Tsz-ch'an raised Cheng to a great pitch of diplomatic influence, if not also of military power. His friend Shuh Hiang did the same thing for Tsin; and both of them were models for Confucius in Lu, who had, moreover, to defend his own master's interests against the policy of the philosopher Yen-tsz of Ts'i. After his first defeat by the King of Wu, the barbarian King of Yueh devoted himself for some years to the most strenuous life, with the ultimate object of ama.s.sing resources for the annihilation of Wu; the interesting steps he took to increase the population will be described at length in a later chapter. In 361, as we have explained in Chapter XXII., a scion of Wei went as adviser to Ts'in, and within a generation of his arrival the whole face of affairs was changed in that western state hitherto so isolated; the new position, from a military point of view, was almost exactly that of Prussia during the period between the tyranny of the first Napoleon, together with the humiliation experienced at his hands, and the patient gathering of force for the final explosion of 1870, involving the crushing of the second (reigning) Napoleon.

Very often the term "perpendicular and horizontal" period is applied to the fourth century B.C. That is, Ts'u's object was to weld together a chain of north and south alliances, so as to bring the power of Ts'i and Tsin to bear together with her own upon Ts'in; and Ts'in's great object was, on the other hand, to make a similar string of east and west alliances, so as to bring the same two powers to bear upon Ts'u. The object of both Ts'in and Ts'u was to dictate terms to each unit of; and ultimately to possess, the whole Empire, merely utilizing the other powers as catspaws to hook the chestnuts out of the furnace. No other state had any rival pretensions, for, by this time, Ts'in and Ts'u each really did possess one-third part of China as we now understand it, whilst the other third was divided between Ts'i and the three Tsin. In 343 B.C. the Chou Emperor declared Ts'in Protector, and from 292 to 288 B.C., Tsin and Ts'i took for a few years the ancient t.i.tle of _Ti_ or "Emperor" of the West and East respectively: in the year 240 the Chou Emperor even proceeded to Ts'in to do homage there. Tsin might have been in the running for universal empire had she held together instead of dividing herself into three. Yen was altogether too far away north,--though, curiously enough, Yen (Peking) has been the political centre of North China for 900 years past,--and Ts'i was too far away east.

Moreover, Ts'i was discredited for having cut off the sacrifices of the legitimate house. Ts'u was now master of not only her old va.s.sals, Wu and Yiieh, but also of most of the totally unknown territory down to the south sea, of which no one except the Ts'u people at that time knew so much as the bare local names; it bore the same relation to Ts'u that the Scandinavian tribes did to the Romanized Germans. Ts'in had become not only owner of Sz Ch'wan-- at first as suzerain protector, not as direct administrator--but had extended her power down to the south-west towards Yiin Nan and Tibet, and also far away to the north-west in Tartarland, but not farther than to where the Great Wall now extends. It is in the year 318 B.C. that we first hear the name Hiung-nu (ancestors of the Huns and Turks), a body of whom allied themselves in that year with the five other Chinese powers then in arms against the menacing att.i.tude of Ts'in; something remarkable must have taken place in Tartarland to account for this sudden change of name, The only remains of old federal China consisted of about ten petty states such as Sung, Lu, etc., all situated between the Rivers Sz and Hwai, and all waiting, hands folded, to be swallowed up at leisure by this or that universal conqueror.

Ts'in _s'en va t'en guerre_ seriously in the year 364, and began her slashing career by cutting off 60,000 "Tsin" heads; (the legitimate Tsin sacrifices had been cut off in 376, so this "Tsin"

must mean "Ngwei," or that part of old Tsin which was coterminous with Ts'in); in 331, in a battle with Ngwei, 80,000 more heads were taken off. 'In 318 the Hiung-nu combination just mentioned lost 82,000 heads between them; in 314 Han lost 10,000; in 312 Ts'u lost 80,000; in 307 Han lost 60,000; and in 304 Ts'u lost 80,000. In the year 293 the celebrated Ts'in general, Peh K'i, who has left behind him a reputation as one of the greatest manipulators of vast armies in Eastern history, cut off 240,000 Han heads in one single battle; in 275, 40,000 Ngwei heads; and in 264, 50,000 Han heads. "_Enfin je vais me mesurer avec ce Vilainton_" said the King of Chao, when his two western friends of Han and Ngwei had been hammered out of existence. In the year 260 the Chao forces came to terrible grief; General Peh K'i managed completely to surround their army of 400,000 men he accepted their surrender, guaranteed their safety, and then proceeded methodically to ma.s.sacre the whole of them to a man. In 257 "Tsin" (presumably Han or Ngwei) lost 6,000 killed and 20,000 drowned; in 256 Han lost 40,000 heads, and in 247 her last 30,000, whilst also in 256 Chao her last 90,000. These terrible details have been put together from the isolated statements; but there can be no mistake about them, for the historian Sz-ma Ts'ien, writing in 100 B.C., says: "The allies with territory ten times the extent of the Ts'in dominions dashed a million men against her in vain; she always had her reserves in hand ready, and from first to last a million corpses bit the dust."

No such battles as these are even hinted at in more ancient times; nor, strange to say, are the ancient chariots now mentioned any more. Ts'in had evidently been practising herself in fighting with the Turks and Tartars for some generations, and had begun to perceive what was still only half understood in China, the advantage of manoeuvring large bodies of hors.e.m.e.n; but, curiously enough, nothing is said of horses either; yet all these battles seem to have been fought on the flat lands of old federal China, suitable for either chariots or horses. The first specific mention of cavalry manoeuvres on a large scale was in the year 198 B.C.

when the new Han Emperor of China in person, with a straggling army of 320,000 men, mostly infantry, was surrounded by four bodies of hors.e.m.e.n led by the Supreme Khan, in white, grey, black, and chestnut divisions, numbering 300,000 cavalry in all: his name was Megh-dun (? the Turkish Baghatur).

Whilst all this was going on, Mencius, the Confucian philosopher, and the two celebrated diplomatists (of Taoist principles), Su Ts'in and Chang I, were flying to and fro all over orthodox China with a view of offering sage political advice; this was the time _par excellence_ when the rival Taoist and Confucian prophets were howling in the wilderness of war and greed: but Ts'in cared not much for talkers: generals did her practical business better: in 308 she began to cast covetous eyes on the Emperor's poor remaining appanage. In 301 she was called upon to quell a revolt in Shuh; then she materially reduced the pretensions of her great rival Ts'u; and finally rested a while, whilst gathering more strength for the supreme effort-the conquest of China.

CHAPTER XXVII

FOREIGN BLOOD

The history of China may be for our present purposes accordingly summed up as follows. The pure Chinese race from time immemorial had been confined to the flat lands of the Yellow River, and its one tributary on the south, the River Loh, the Tartars possessing most of the left bank from the Desert to the sea. However, from the beginning of really historical times the Chinese had been in unmistakable part-possession of the valleys of the Yellow River's two great tributaries towards the west and north, the Wei (in Shen Si) and the Fen (in Shan Si). Little, if any, Chinese colonizing was done much before the Ts'in conquests in any other parts of Tartarland; none in Sz Ch'wan that we know of; little, if any, along the coasts, except perhaps from Ts'i and Lu (in Shan Tung), both of which states seem to have always been open to the sea, though many barbarian coast tribes still required gathering into the Chinese fold. The advance of Chinese civilization had been first down the Yellow River; then down the River Han towards the Middle Yang-tsz; and lastly, down the ca.n.a.ls and the Hwai network of streams to the Shanghai coast. Old colonies of Chinese had, many centuries before the conquest of China by the Chou dynasty, evidently set out to subdue or to conciliate the southern tribes: these adventurous leaders had naturally taken Chinese ideas with them, but had usually found it easier for their _own_ safety and success to adopt barbarian customs in whole or in part. These mixed or semi-Chinese states of the navigable Yang-tsz Valley, from the Ich'ang gorges to the sea, had generally developed in isolation and obscurity, and only appeared in force as formidable compet.i.tors with orthodox Chinese when the imperial power began to collapse after 771 B.C. The isolation of half-Roman Britain for several centuries after the first Roman conquest, and the departure of the last Roman legions, may be fitly compared with the position of the half-Chinese states. Ts'u, Wu, and Yueh all had pedigrees, more or less genuine, vying in antiquity with the pedigree of the imperial Chou family; and therefore they did not see why they also should not aspire to the overlordship when it appeared to be going a-begging. Even orthodox Tsin and Ts'i in the north and north-east were in a sense colonial extensions, inasmuch as they were governed by new families appointed thereto by the Chou dynasty in 1122 B.C., in place of the old races of rulers, presumably more or less barbarian, who had previously to 1122 B.C. been va.s.sal--in name at least--to the earlier imperial Hia and Shang dynasties: but these two great states were never considered barbarian under Chou sway; and, indeed, some of the most ancient mythological Chinese emperors anterior to the Hia dynasty had their capitals in Tsin and Lu, on the River Fen and the River Sz.

It is not easy to define the exact amount of "foreignness" in Ts'u. One unmistakable non-Chinese expression is given; that is _kou-u-du_, or "suckled by a tigress." Then, again, the syllable _ngao_ occurs phonetically in many t.i.tles and in native personal names, such as _jo-ngao_, _tu-ngao_, _kia-ngao_, _mo-ngao_.

There are no Ts'u songs in the Odes as edited by Confucius, and the Ts'u music is historically spoken of as being "in the southern sound"; which may refer, it is true, to the accent, but also possibly to a strange language. The Ts'u name for "Annals," or history, was quite different from the terms used in Tsin and Lu, respectively; and the Ts'u word for a peculiar form of lameness, or locomotor ataxy, is said to differ from the expressions used in either Wei and Ts'i. So far aspossible, all Ts'u dignities were kept in the royal family, and the king's uncle was usually premier. The premier of Ts'u was called _Zing-yin,_ a term unknown to federal China; and Ts'u considered the left-hand side more honourable than the right, which at that time was not the case in China proper, though it is now. The "Borough-English" rule of succession in Ts'u was to give it to one of the younger sons; this statement is repeated in positive terms by Shuh Hiang, the luminous statesman of Tsin, and will be further ill.u.s.trated when we come to treat of that subject specially. The Lu rule was "son after father; or, if none, then younger after eldest brother; if the legitimate heir dies, then next son by the same mother; failing which, the eldest son by any mother; if equal claims, then the wisest; if equally wise, cast lots": Lu rules would probably hold good for all federal China, because the Duke of Chou, founder of Lu, was the chief moral force in the original Chou administration. In the year 587 Lu, when coquetting between Tsin and Ts'u, was at last persuaded not to abandon Tsin for Ts'u, "who is not of our family, and can never have any real affection." Once in Tsin it was asked, about a prisoner: "Who is that southernhatted fellow?" It was explained that he was a Ts'u man. They then handed him a guitar, and made him sing some "national songs." In 597 a Ts'u envoy to the Tsin military durbar said: "My prince is not formed for the fine and delicate manners of the Chinese": here is distinct evidence of social if not ethnological cleaving. The Ts'u men had beards, whilst those of Wu were not hirsute: this statement proves that the two barbarian populations differed between themselves. In 635 the King of Ts'u spoke of himself as "the unvirtuous" and the "royal old man"--designations both appropriate only to barbarians under Chinese ritual. In 880 B.C., when the imperial power was already waning, and the first really historical King of Ts'u was beginning to bring under his authority the people between the Han and the Yang-tsz, he said: "I am a barbarian savage, and do not concern myself with Chinese t.i.tles, living or posthumous." In 706, when the reigning king made his first conquest of a petty Chinese princ.i.p.ality (North Hu Peh), he said again: "I am a barbarian savage; all the va.s.sals are in rebellion and attacking each other; I want with my poor armaments to see for myself how Chou governs, and to get a higher t.i.tle." On being refused, he said: "Do you forget my ancestor's services to the father of the Chou founder?"

Later on, as has already been mentioned, he put in a claim for the Nine Tripods because of the services his ancestor, "living in rags in the Jungle, exposed to the weather," had rendered to the founder himself. In 637, when the future Second Protector and ruler of Tsin visited Ts'u as a wanderer, the King of Ts'u received him with all the hospitalities "under the Chou rites,"

which fact shows at least an effort to adopt Chinese civilization.

In 634 Lu asked Ts'u's aid against Ts'i, a proceeding condemned by the historical critics on the ground that Ts'u was a "barbarian savage" state. On the other hand, by the year 560 the dying King of Ts'u was eulogized as a man who had successfully subdued the barbarian savages. But against this, again, in 544 the ruler of Lu expressed his content at having got safely back from his visit to Ts'u, i.e. his visit to such an uncouth and distant court. Thus Ts'u's emanc.i.p.ation from "savagery" was gradual and of uncertain date. In 489 the King of Ts'u declined to sacrifice to the Yellow River, on the ground that his ancestors had never presumed to concern themselves with anything beyond the Han and Yang-tsz valleys. Even Confucius, (then on his wanderings in the petty state of CH'eN) declared his admiration at this, and said: "The King of Ts'u is a sage, and understands the Great Way (_tao_)."

On the other hand, only fifty years before this, when in 538 Ts'u, with Tsin's approval, first tried her hand at durbar work, the king was horrified to hear from a fussy chamberlain (evidently orthodox) that there were six different ways of receiving visitors according to their rank; so that Ts'u's ritual decorum could not have been of very long standing. The following year (537) a Tsin princess is given in marriage to Ts'u-- a decidedly orthodox feather in Ts'u's cap. Confucius affects a particular style in his history when he speaks of barbarians; thus an orthodox prince "beats" a barbarian, but "battles"

with an orthodox equal. However, in 525, Ts'u and Wu "battle" together, the commentator explaining that Ts'u is now "promoted" to battle rank, though the strict rule is that two barbarians, or China and one barbarian, "beat" rather than "battle." In 591 Confucius had already announced the "end" of the King of Ts'u, not as such, but as federal viscount. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances "death" would have been good enough: it is only in speaking of his own ruler's death that the honorific word "collapse" is used. All these fine distinctions, and many others like them, hold good for modern Chinese. These (apparently to us) childish gradations in mere wording run throughout Confucius' book; but we must remember that his necessarily timid object was to "talk at" the wicked, and to "hint" at retribution. Even a German recorder of events would shrink from applying the word _haben_ to the royal act of a Hottentot King, for whom _hat_ is more than good enough, without the _allergnadigst._ And we all remember Bismarck's story of the way mouth-washes and finger-bowls were treated at Frankfurt by those above and below the grade of serene highness. _Toutes les vices et toutes les moeurs sont respectables._

In 531 the barbarian King of Ts'u is honoured by being "named" for enticing and murdering a "ruler of the central kingdoms." The pedants are much exercised over this, but as the federal prince in question was a parricide, he had a _lupinum caput,_ and so even a savage could without outraging orthodox feelings wreak the law on him. On the other hand, in 526, when Ts'u enticed and killed a mere barbarian prince, the honour of "naming" was withheld. This delicate question will be further elucidated in the chapter on "Names."

It will be observed that none of the testimony brought forward here to show that Ts'u was, in some undefined way, a non-Chinese state is either clear or conclusive: its c.u.mulative effect, however, certainly leaves a very distinct impression that 'there was a profound difference of some sort both in race and in manners, though we are as yet quite unable to say whether the bulk of the Ts'u population was Annamese, Shan, or Siamese; Lolo or Nosu; Miao-tsz, Tibetan, or what. There is really no use in attempting to advance one step beyond the point to which we are carried by specific evidence, either in this or in other matters.

It has been said that no great discovery was ever made without imagination, which may be true; but evidence and imagination must be kept rigidly separate. What we may reasonably hope is that, by gradually ascertaining and sifting definite facts and data touching ancient Chinese history, we shall at least avoid coming to wrong positive conclusions, even if the right negative ones are pretty clearly indicated. It is better to leave unexplained matters in suspense than to base conclusions upon speculative substructures which will not carry the weight set upon them.

CHAPTER XXVIII

BARBARIANS

The country of Wu is in many respects even more interesting ethnologically than that of Ts'u. When, a generation or two before the then va.s.sal Chou family conquered China, two of the sons of the ruler of that va.s.sal princ.i.p.ality decided to forego their rights of succession, they settled amongst the Jungle savages, cut their hair, adopted the local raiment, and tattooed their bodies; or, rather, it is said the elder of the two covered his head and his body decently, while the younger cut his hair, went naked, and tattooed his body. The words "Jungle savages" apply to the country later called Ts'u; but as Wu, when we first hear of her, was a subordinate country belonging to Ts'u; and as in any case the word "Wu" was unknown to orthodox China, not to say to extreme western China, in 1200 B.C. when the adventurous brothers migrated; this particular point need not trouble us so much as it seems to have puzzled the Chinese critics. About 575 the first really historical King of Wu paid visits to the Emperor's court, to the court of his suzerain the King of Ts'u, and to the court of Lu: probably the Hwai system of rivers would carry him within measurable distance of all three, for the headwaters almost touch the tributaries of the Han, and the then Ts'u capital (modern King-thou Fu) was in touch with the River Han. He observed when in Lu: "We only know how to knot our hair in Wu; what could we do with such fine clothes as you wear?" It was the policy of Tsin and of the other minor federal princes to make use of Wu as a diversion against the advance of Ts'u: it is evident that by this time Ts'u had begun to count seriously as a Chinese federal state, for one of the powerful private families behind the throne and against the throne in Lu expressed horror that "southern savages (i.e. Wu) should invade China (i.e. Ts'u)," by taking from it part of modern An Hwei province: as, however, barbarian Ts'u had taken it first from orthodox China, perhaps the mesne element of Ts'u was not in the statesman's mind at all, but only the original element,--China. An important remark is made by one of the old historians to the effect that the language and manners of Wu were the same as those of Yiieh. In 483, when Wu's pretensions as Protector were at their greatest, the people of Ts'i made use of ropes eight feet long in order to bind certain Wu prisoners they had taken, "because their heads were cropped so close": this statement hardly agrees with that concerning "knotted hair," unless the _toupet_ or chignon was very short indeed. 'There are not many native Wu words quoted, beyond the bare name of the country itself, which is something like _Keu-gu,_ or _Kou-gu:_ an executioner's knife is mentioned under the foreign name _chuh-lu,_ presented to persons expected to commit suicide, after the j.a.panese _harakiri_ fashion. In 584 B.C., when the first steps were taken by orthodox China to utilize Wu politically, it was found necessary, as we have seen, to teach the Wu folk the use of war-chariots and bows and arrows: this important statement points distinctly to the previous utter isolation of Wu from the pale of Chinese civilization. In the year 502 Ts'i sent a princess as hostage to Wu, and ended by giving her in marriage to the Wu heir: (we have seen how Tsin antic.i.p.ated Ts'i by twenty-five years in conferring a similar honour upon Ts'u). A century or more later, when Mencius was advising the bellicose court of Ts'i, he alluded with indignation to this "barbarous" act. In 544 the Wu prince Ki-chah had visited Lu and other orthodox states.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map of the Hwai system and Valley

1. The two lines indicated by...............to the north are (1) the River Sz (now Grand Ca.n.a.l), from Confucius' birthplace, and (2) the River I (from modern I-shui city south of the German colony). After receiving the I, the Sz entered the Hwai as it emerged from Lake Hung-t&h; but this Hwai mouth no longer exists; the waters are dissipated in ca.n.a.ls.

The Wu fleets coasting up to the Hwai, were thus able to creep into the heart of Shan Tung province, east and west.

2. The Yang-tsz had three branches: (1) northern, much as now; (2) middle, branching at modern Wuhu, crossing the T'ai-hu Lake, and following the Soochow Creek and Wusung River past Shanghai; (3) southern, carrying part of the Tai-hu waters by a forgotten route (probably the modern Grand Ca.n.a.l), to near Hangchow.

3. The three crosses [Image: Circle with an 'X' in it] mark the capitals of Wu (respectively near Wu-sih and Soochow) and Yiieh (near Shao-hing). The modern ca.n.a.l from Hangchow to Shan Tung is clearly indicated. Orthodox China knew absolutely nothing of Cheh Kiang, Fuh Kien, or Kiang Si provinces south of lat. 300.]

In recognition of this civilized move on the part of an ancient family, Confucius in his history grants the rank of "viscount" to the King of Wu, but he does not style Ki-chah by the complimentary t.i.tle Ki _Kung-tsz_, or "Ki, the son of a reigning prince"; that is, the king's t.i.tle thus accorded retrospectively is only a "courtesy one," and does not carry with it a posthumous name, and with that name the posthumous t.i.tle of _Kung_, or "duke"'

applied to all civilized rulers. Yet it is evident that the ruling caste of Wu considered itself superior to the surrounding tribes, for in the year 493 it was remarked: "We here in Wu are entirely surrounded by savages"; and in 481 the Emperor himself sent a message through Tsin to Wu, saying: "I know that you are busy with the savages you have on hand at present." In the year 482, when the orthodox princes of Sung, Wei, and Lu were holding off from an alliance with Wu, the prince of Wei was detained by a Wu general, but escaped, and set to work to learn the language of Wu. The motive is of no importance; but the clear statement about a different language, or at least a dialect so different that it required special study, is interesting. When Ki-chah was on his travels, he explained to his friends that the law of succession is: "By the rites to the eldest, as established by our ancestors and by the customs of the country." In 502 the King of Wu was embarra.s.sed about his successor, whose character did not commend itself to him, His counsellor (a refugee from Ts'u) said: "Order in the state ceases if the succession be interrupted; by ancient law son should succeed father deceased." Thus it seems that the ancient Chou rules had been conveyed to Wu by the first colonists in 1200 B.C., and that the succession laws differed from those of Ts'u. Ki-chah's son died whilst he was on his travels, and Confucius is reported to have said: "He is a man who understands the rites; let us see what he does." Ki-chah bared his left arm and shoulder, marched thrice round the grave, and said: "Flesh and bone back to the earth, as is proper; as to the soul, let it go anywhere it chooses!" This language was approved by Confucius, who himself always declined to dogmatize on death and spirits, maintaining that men knew too little of themselves, when living, to be justified in groping for facts about the dead. At first sight it would appear strange that a barbarous country like Wu should suddenly produce a learned prince who at once captivated by his culture Yen-tsz of Ts'i, Confucius of Lu, Tsz-ch'an of Cheng, K'u-peh-yu of Wei, Shuh Hiang of Tsin, and, in short, all the distinguished statesmen of China; but if we reflect that, within half a century, the greatest naval, military, and scientific geniuses have been produced on Western lines in j.a.pan (as we shall soon see, in some way connected with Wu), at least we find good modern parallels for the phenomenon.

When Wu, after a series of b.l.o.o.d.y wars with Ts'u and Yiieh, was in 473 finally extinguished by the latter power, a portion of the King of Wu's family escaped in boats in an easterly direction. At this time not only was j.a.pan unknown to China under that name, but also quite unheard of under any name whatever. It was not until 150 years later that the powerful states of Yen and Ts'i, which, roughly speaking, divided with them the eastern part of the modern province of Chih Li, the northern part of Shan Tung, and the whole coasts of the Gulf of "Pechelee," began to talk vaguely of some mysterious and beautiful islands lying in the sea to the east.

When the First August Emperor had conquered China, he made several tours to the Shan Tung promontory, to the site of the former Yueh capital (modern Kiao Chou), to the treaty-port of Chefoo (where he left an inscription), to the Shan-hai Kwan Pa.s.s, and to the neighbourhood of Ningpo. He also had heard rumours of these mysterious islands, and he therefore sent a physician of his staff with a number of young people to make inquiry, and colonize the place if possible. They brought back absurd stories of some monstrous fish that had interfered with their landing, and they reported that these fish could only be frightened away by tattooing the body as the natives did, The people of Wu, who were great fisherfolk and mariners, were also stated to have indulged in universal tattooing because they wished to frighten dangerous fish away. The first mission from j.a.pan, then a congeries of petty states, totally unacquainted with writing or records, came to China in the first century of our era; it was not sent by the central King, but only by one of the island princes. Later emba.s.sies from and to j.a.pan disclose the fact that the j.a.panese themselves had traditions of their descent both from ancient Chinese Emperors and from the founder of Wu, i.e. from the Chou prince who went there in 1200 B.C.; of the medical mission sent by the First August Emperor; of the flight from Wu in 473 B.C. of part of the royal Wu family to j.a.pan; and of other similar matters--all apparently tending to show that the refugees from Wu really did reach j.a.pan; that a very early shipping intercourse had probably existed between j.a.pan, Ts'i, and Wu; and that, in addition to the statements made by later Chinese historians to the effect that the j.a.panese considered themselves in some way hereditarily connected with Wu, the early j.a.panese traditions and histories (genuine or concocted) themselves separately repeated the story. One of the later Chinese histories says of Wu: "Part of the king's family escaped and founded the kingdom of Wo" (the ancient name for the j.a.panese race): the temptation to connect this word with _Wu_ is obvious; but etymology will not tolerate such an identification, either from a Chinese or a j.a.panese point of view; the etymological "values" are _Ua_ and Gu respectively.

As in the case of Ts'u, there is no really trustworthy evidence to show of what race or races, and in what proportions, the bulk of the Wu population consisted; still less is there any specific evidence to show to what race the barbarian king who committed suicide in 473 belonged; or if those of his family who escaped were wholly or partly Chinese; or if any pure descent existed at all in royal circles, dating, that is to say, from the ancient colonists of the imperial Chou family in 1200 B.C.

So far as purely Chinese traditions and history go, the c.u.mulative evidence, such as it is, needs careful sifting, and is, perhaps, worth a more thorough examination; but as to the j.a.panese traditions and early "history," these, as the j.a.panese themselves admit, were only put together in written form retrospectively in the eighth century A.D., and throughout they show signs of having been deliberately concocted on the Chinese lines; that is, Chinese historical incidents and phraseology are worked into the narrative of supposed j.a.panese events, and j.a.panese emperors or empresses are (admittedly) fitted with posthumous names mostly copied from imperial Chinese posthumous names. By themselves they are almost valueless, so far as the fixing of specific dates and the identification of political events are concerned; and even when taken as ancillary to contemporary Chinese evidence, except in so far as a few Chinese misprints or errors may be more clearly indicated by comparison with them, they seem equally valueless either to confirm, to check, to modify, or to contradict the Chinese accounts, which, indeed, are absolutely the sole trustworthy written evidence either we or the j.a.panese themselves possess about the actual condition of the j.a.panese 2000 years ago.

Meanwhile, as to Wu, all we can say with certainty is, that there is a persistent rumour or tradition that some of its royal refugees (themselves of unknown race) who escaped in boats eastward, may have escaped to j.a.pan; may have succeeded in "imposing themselves" on the people, or a portion of the people (themselves a mixed race of uncertain _provenance_); and may have quietly and informally introduced Chinese words, ideas, and methods, several centuries before known and formal intercourse between j.a.pan and China took place.

CHAPTER XXIX

CURIOUS CUSTOMS