The Awakening of China Part 9

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Not till five centuries later did Buddhism enter China and complete the triad of religions--a triad strangely inharmonious; indeed one can scarcely conceive of three creeds more radically antagonistic.

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CHAPTER XVIII

THE WARRING STATES

_Five Dictators--Diplomacy and Strategy--A Brave Envoy--Heroes Reconciled--Ts'in Extinguishes the House of Chou_

In the first half of the Chou dynasty the machinery moved with such regularity that Confucius could think of no form of government more admirable, saying, "The policy of the future may be foretold for a hundred generations--it will be to follow the House of Chou."

The latter half was a period of misrule and anarchy.

Ambitions and jealousies led to petty wars. The King being too feeble to repress them, these petty wars grew into vast combinations like the leagues of modern Europe. Five of the states acquired at different times such a preponderance that their rulers are styled _Wu Pa_, the "five dictators." One of these, Duke Hwan of western Shantung, is famous for having nine times convoked the States-General. The dictator always presided at such meetings and he was recognised as the real sovereign--as were the mayors of the palace in France in the Merovingian epoch, or the shoguns in j.a.pan during the long period in which the Mikado was called the "spiritual emperor."

The legitimate sovereign still sat on his throne [Page 97]

in the central state; but he complained that his only function was to offer sacrifices. The Chinese dictatorship was not hereditary, or the world might have witnessed an exact parallel to the duplicate sovereignty in j.a.pan, where one held the power and the other retained the t.i.tle for seven hundred years.

In China the shifting of power from hand to hand made those four centuries an age of diplomacy. Whenever some great baron was suspected of aspiring to the leadership, combinations were formed to curb his ambitions; emba.s.sies sped from court to court; and armies were marshalled in the field. Envoys became noted for courage and cunning, and generals acquired fame by their skill in handling large bodies of soldiers. Diplomacy became an art, and war a science.

An international code to control the intercourse of states began to take shape; but the diplomat was not embarra.s.sed by a multiplicity of rules. In negotiations individual character counted for more than it does at the present day; nor must it be supposed that in the absence of our modern artillery there was no room for generalship.

On the contrary, as battles were not decided by the weight of metal, there was more demand for strategy.

All this was going on in Greece at this very epoch: and, as Plutarch indulges in parallels, we might point to compeers of Themistocles and Epaminondas. The cause which in the two countries led to this state of things was the existence of a family of states with a common language and similar inst.i.tutions; but in the Asiatic empire the theatre was vastly more extensive, [Page 98]

and the operations in politics and war on a grander scale.

To the honour of the Chinese it must be admitted that they showed themselves more civilised than the Greeks. The Persian invasion was provoked by the murder of amba.s.sadors by the Athenians. Of such an act there is no recorded instance among the warring states of China. It was reserved for our own day to witness in Peking that exhibition of Tartar ferocity. The following two typical incidents from the voluminous chronicles of those times may be appropriately presented here:

A BRAVE ENVOY

The Prince of Ts'in, a semi-barbarous state in the northwest, answering to Macedonia in Greece, had offered to give fifteen cities for a kohinoor, a jewel belonging to the Prince of Chao (not Chou).

Lin Sian Ju was sent to deliver the jewel and to complete the transaction. The conditions not being complied with, he boldly put the jewel into his bosom and returned to his own state. That he was allowed to do so--does it not speak as much for the morality of Ts'in as for the courage of Lin? The latter is the accepted type of a brave and faithful envoy.

HEROES RECONCILED

Jealous of his fame, Lien P'o, a general of Chao, announced that he would kill Lin at sight. The latter took pains to avoid a meeting.

Lien P'o, taxing him with cowardice, sent him a challenge, to which Lin responded, "You and I are the pillars of our [Page 99]

state. If either falls, our country is lost. This is why I have shunned an encounter." So impressed was the general with the spirit of this reply that he took a rod in his hand and presented himself at the door of his rival, not to thrash the latter, but to beg that he himself might be castigated. Forgetting their feud the two joined hands to build up their native state much as Aristides and Themistocles buried their enmity in view of the war with Persia.

As the Athenian orators thundered against Macedon so the statesmen of China formed leagues and counterplots for and against the rising power of the northwest. The type of patient, shrewd diplomacy is Su Ts'in who, at the cost of incredible hardships in journeying from court to court, succeeded in bringing six of the leading states into line to bar the southward movement of their common foe. His machinations were all in vain, however; for not only was his ultimate success thwarted by the counterplots of Chang Yee, an equally able diplomatist, but his reputation, like that of Parnell in our own times, was ruined by his own pa.s.sions. The rising power of Ts'in, like a glacier, was advancing by slow degrees to universal sway. In the next generation it absorbed all the feudal states. Chau-siang subjugated Tung-chou-Kiun, the last monarch of the Chou dynasty, and the House of Chou was exterminated by Chw.a.n.g-siang, who, however, enjoyed the supreme power for only three years (249-246 B. C).

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CHAPTER XIX

THE HOUSE OF TS'IN, 246-206 B. C.

(2 Emperors)

_Ts'in Shi-hw.a.n.g-ti, "Emperor First"--The Great Wall--The Centralised Monarchy--The t.i.tle Hw.a.n.g-ti--Origin of the name China--Burning of the Books--Expedition to j.a.pan--Revolution Places the House of Han on the Throne_

"Viewed in the light of philosophy," says Schiller, "Cain killed Abel because Abel's sheep trespa.s.sed on Cain's cornfield." From that day to this farmers and shepherds have not been able to live together in peace. A monument of that eternal conflict is the Great Wall of China. Like the Roman Wall in North Britain, to compare great things with small, its object was not to keep out the Tartars but to reenforce the vigilance of the military pickets. That end it seems to have accomplished for a long time. It was, the Chinese say, the destruction of one generation and the salvation of many.

We shall soon see how it came to be a mere geographical expression.

For our present purpose it may also be regarded as a chronological landmark, dividing ancient from mediaeval China.

With the House of Chou the old feudal divisions disappeared forever.

The whole country was brought [Page 101]

under the direct sway of one emperor who, for the first time in the history of the people, had built up a dominion worthy of that august t.i.tle. This was the achievement of Yin Cheng, the Prince of Ts'in. He thereupon a.s.sumed the new style of Hw.a.n.g-ti. Hw.a.n.gs and Tis were no novelty; but the combination made it a new coinage and justified the additional appellation of "the First," or Shi-hw.a.n.g-ti. Four imperishable monuments perpetuate his memory: the Great Wall, the centralised monarchy, the t.i.tle _Hw.a.n.g-ti_, and the name of China itself--the last derived from a princ.i.p.ality which under him expanded to embrace the empire. Where is there another conqueror in the annals of the world who has such solid claims to everlasting renown? Alexander overthrew many nations; but he set up nothing permanent. Julius Caesar inst.i.tuted the Roman Empire; but its duration was ephemeral in comparison with that of the empire founded by Shi-hw.a.n.g-ti, the builder of the Wall.

Though Shi-hw.a.n.g-ti completed it, the wall was not the work of his reign alone. Similarly the triumphs of his arms and arts were due in large measure to his predecessors, who for centuries had aspired to universal sway. Conscious of inferiority in culture, they welcomed the aid and rewarded the services of men of talent from every quarter. Some came as penniless adventurers from rival or hostile states and were raised to the highest honours.

Six great chancellors stand conspicuous as having introduced law and order into a rude society, and paved the way for final success.

Every one of these was a "foreigner." The princes whom they served [Page 102]

deserve no small praise for having the good sense to appreciate them and the courage to follow their advice. Of some of these it might be said, as Voltaire remarked of Peter the Great, "They civilised their people, but themselves were savages." The world forgets how much the great czar was indebted for education and guidance to Le Fort, a Genevese soldier of fortune. Pondering that history one is able to gauge the merits of those foreign chancellors, perhaps also to understand what foreigners have done for the rulers of China in our day.

Shi-hw.a.n.g-ti was the real founder of the Chinese Empire. He is one of the heroes of history; yet no man in the long list of dynasties is so abused and misrepresented by Chinese writers. They make him a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, a debauchee, and a fool. To this day he is the object of undying hatred to every one who can hold a pen. Why? it may be asked. Simply because he burned the books and persecuted the disciples of Confucius. Those two things, well-nigh incredible to us, are to the Chinese utterly incomprehensible.

Li-Sze, a native of Yen, was his chancellor, a genius more daring and far-sighted than any of the other five. The welding together of the feudal states into a compact unity was his darling scheme, as it was that of his master. "Never," he said, "can you be sure that those warring states will not reappear, so long as the books of Confucius are studied in the schools; for in them feudalism is consecrated as a divine inst.i.tution." "Then let them be burned,"

said the tyrant.

The adherents of the Sage were ejected from the [Page 103]

schools, and their teachings proscribed. This harsh treatment and the search for their books naturally gave rise to counterplots.

"Put them to death," said the tyrant; and they went to the block, not like Christian marytrs for religious convictions, but like the Girondists of France for political principles. Their followers offer the silly explanation that the books were destroyed that the world might never know that there had been other dynasties, and the scholars slaughtered or buried alive to prevent the reproduction of the books.

The First Hw.a.n.g-ti did not confine his ambition to China. He sent a fleet to j.a.pan; and those isles of the Orient came to view for the first time in the history of the world. The fleet carried, it is said, a crew of three thousand lads and la.s.ses. It never returned; but the traditions of j.a.pan affirm that it arrived, and the islanders ascribe their initiation into Chinese literature to their invasion by that festive company--a company not unlike that with which Bacchus was represented as making the conquest of India. Their further acquaintance with China and its sages was obtained through Korea, which was long a middle point of communication between the two countries. It was, in fact, from the Shantung promontory, near to Korea, that this flotilla of videttes was dispatched.

What was the real object of that strange expedition? Chinese authors a.s.sert that it was sent in search of the "elixir of life," but do they not distort everything in the history of the First Hw.a.n.g-ti?

The great monarch was, in fact, a devout believer in the fables of Taoism, among which were stories of the Islands of [Page 104]

the Blest, and of a fountain of immortality, such as eighteen centuries later stimulated the researches of Ponce de Leon. The study of alchemy was in full blast among the Chinese at that time. It probably sprang from Taoism; but, in my opinion, the ambitious potentate, sighing for other worlds to conquer, sent that jolly troop as the vanguard of an army.

In spite, however, of elixirs of life and fountains of youth, death put an end to his conquests when he had enjoyed the full glories of imperial power for only twelve years. His son reigned two years; and the first of the imperial dynasties came to an end--overturned by a revolution which placed the House of Han on the vacant throne.

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CHAPTER XX

THE HOUSE OF HAN, 206--B. C.--220 A. D.

(24 Emperors, 2 Usurpers)

_Liu-pang Founds Ill.u.s.trious Dynasty--Restoration of the Books--A Female Reign--The Three Religions--Revival of Letters--Sze-ma Ts'ien, the Herodotus of China--Conquests of the Hans_