The Awakening of China by W.A.P. Martin

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The martial king died young, leaving his infant heir under the
regency of his brother, the Duke of Chou. The latter, who inherited
the tastes and talents of Wen-wang, was avowedly the character which
the great Sage took for his pattern. With fidelity and ability he
completed the pacification of the state. The credit of that achievement
inured to his ward, who received the title of _Cheng-wang_,
"The Completer."

Accused of scheming to usurp the throne, the Duke resigned his
powers and withdrew from the court. The young prince, opening a
golden casket, found in it a prayer of his uncle, made and sealed
up during a serious illness of the King, imploring Heaven to accept
his life as a ransom for his royal ward. This touching proof of
devotion dispelled all doubt; and the faithful duke was recalled
to the side of the now full-grown monarch.

Even during the minority of his nephew the Duke never entered his
presence in other than full court costume. On one occasion the
youthful king, playing with a younger brother, handed him a palm
leaf saying, "This shall be your patent of nobility. I make you
duke of such and such a place." The regent remonstrated, whereupon
the King excused himself by saying, "I was only in sport." The
Duke replied, "A king has no right to indulge in such sports," and
insisted that the younger lad receive the investiture and
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emoluments. He was also, it is said, so careful of the sacred person
that he never left on it the mark of his rod. When the little king
deserved chastisement, the guardian always called up his own son,
Pechin, and thrashed him soundly. One pities the poor fellow who
was the innocent substitute more than one admires the scrupulous
and severe regent. The Chinese have a proverb which runs, "Whip
an ass and let a horse see it."

What shall be said of the successors of Cheng-wang? To account
for the meagre chronicles of previous dynasties one may invoke
the poverty of a language not yet sufficiently mature for the
requirements of history; but for the seeming insignificance of
the long line of Chous, who lived in the early bloom, if not the
rich fruitage, of the classic period, no such apology is admissible.

Some there were, doubtless, who failed to achieve distinction because
they had no foreign foe to oppose, no internal rebellion to suppress.
Others, again, were so hampered by system that they had nothing
better to do than to receive the homage of vassals. So wearied
was one among them, Mu-wang, the fifth in succession, with those
monotonous ceremonies that he betook himself to foreign travel
as a relief from ennui, or perhaps impelled by an innate love of
adventure. He delighted in horses; and, yoking eight fine steeds
to his chariot, he set off to see the world. A book full of fables
professes to record the narrative of his travels. He had, it says,
a magic whip which possessed the property of compressing the surface
of the earth into a small space. To-day Chinese envoys, with steam and
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electricity at command, are frequently heard to exclaim: "Now at
last we have got the swift steeds and the magic whip of Mu-wang."

Two other kings, Li and Yu, are pointed at with the finger of scorn
as examples of what a king ought not to be. The latter set aside
his queen and her son in favour of a concubine and her son; and
so offended was high heaven by this unkingly conduct that the sun
hid his face in a total eclipse. This happened 775 B. C.; and it
furnishes the starting-point for a reliable chronology. For her
amusement the king caused the signal-fires to be lighted. She laughed
heartily to see the great barons rush to the rescue and find it was
a false alarm; but she did not smile when, not long after this,
the capital was attacked by a real foe, the father of her injured
rival. The signal-fires were again lighted; but the barons, having
once been deceived by the cry of "Wolf," took care not to expose
themselves again to derision.

The other king has not been lifted into the fierce light that beats
upon a throne by anything so tragic as a burning palace; but his
name is coupled with that of the former as a synonym of all that
is weak and contemptible.

The story of the House of Chou is not to be disposed of in a few
paragraphs, like the accounts of the preceding dynasties, because
it was preeminently the formative period of ancient China; the age
of her greatest sages, and the birthday of poetry and philosophy.
I shall therefore devote a chapter to the sages and another to the
reign of anarchy before closing the Book of Chou.

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CHAPTER XVII

THE SAGES OF CHINA

_Confucius--Describes Himself as Editor, not Author--"Model Teacher
of All Ages"--Mencius--More Eloquent than his Great Master--Lao-tse,
the Founder of Taoism_

I shall not introduce the reader to all who justly bear the august
title of sage; for China has had more and wiser sages than any other
ancient country. Some of them may be referred to in the sequel; but
this chapter I shall devote chiefly to the two who by universal
consent have no equals in the history of the Empire--Confucius and
Mencius. These great men owe much of their fame to the learned
Jesuits who first brought them on the stage, clad in the Roman toga,
and made them citizens of the world by giving them the euphonious
names by which they are popularly known. Stripped of their disguise
they appear respectively as K'ung Fu-tse and Meng-tse. Exchanging
the _ore rotunda_ of Rome for the sibillation of China, they
never could have been naturalised as they are now.

CONFUCIUS

Born in the year 549 B. C., Confucius was contemporaneous with
Isaiah and Socrates. Of a respectable but not opulent family he
had to struggle for his
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education--a fact which in after years he was so far from concealing
that he ascribed to it much of his success in life. To one who
asked him, "How comes it that you are able to do so many things,"
he replied, "I was born poor and had to learn." His schoolmasters
are unknown; and it might be asked of him, as it was of a greater
than Confucius, "How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?"

Of his self-education, which continued through life, he gives the
following concise account: "At fifteen I entered on a life of study;
at thirty I took my stand as a scholar; at forty my opinions were
fixed; at fifty I knew how to judge and select; at sixty I never
relapsed into a known fault; at seventy I could follow my inclinations
without going wrong." Note how each stage marks an advance towards
moral excellence. Mark also that this passage gives an outline
of self-discipline. It says nothing of his books or of his work
as a statesman and a reformer.

He is said to have had, first and last, three thousand disciples.
Those longest under instruction numbered twelve. They studied, not
with lectures and textbooks, as in modern schools, but by following
his footsteps and taking the impress of his character, much as
Peter and John followed the steps and studied the life of Christ.
Some of them followed Confucius when, bent on effecting a political
as well as an ethical reform, he travelled from court to court
among the petty principalities. They have placed it on record that
once, when exposed to great peril, he comforted them by saying,
"If Heaven has made me the depositary of these teachings, what
can my enemies do against
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me?" Nobly conscious of a more than human mission, so pure were
his teachings that, though he taught morals, not religion, he might
fairly, with Socrates, be allowed to claim a sort of inspiration.

The one God, of whom he knew little, he called Heaven, and he always
spoke of Heaven with the profoundest reverence. When neglected or
misunderstood he consoled himself by saying, "Heaven knows me."
During a serious illness a disciple inquired if he should pray for
him, meaning the making of offerings at some temple. Confucius
answered, "I have long prayed," or "I have long been in the habit
of praying."

In letters he described himself as an "editor, not an author,"
meaning that he had revised the works of the ancients, but had
published nothing of his own. Out of their poetry he culled three
hundred odes and declared that "purity of thought" might be stamped on
the whole collection. Into a confused mass of traditional ceremonies
be brought something like order, making the Chinese (if a trifle too
ceremonious) the politest people on earth. Out of their myths and
chronicles he extracted a trustworthy history, and by his treatment
of vice he made princes tremble, lest their heads should be exposed
on the gibbet of history. He gave much time to editing the music
of the ancients, but his work in that line has perished. This,
however, cannot be regarded as a very great loss, in view of the rude
condition in which Chinese music is still found. However deficient
his knowledge of the art, his passion for music was extraordinary.
After hearing a fine performance "he was unable for
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three months to enjoy his food." A fifth task was the editing of
the _Yih-King_,[*] the book of divination compiled by Wen-wang.
How thoroughly he believed in it is apparent from his saying, "Should
it please Heaven to grant me five or ten years to study this book,
I would not be in danger of falling into great errors." He meant
that he would then be able to shape his conduct by the calculation
of chances.

[Footnote *: This and the preceding are the Five Classics, which,
like the five books of Moses, lie at the root of a nation's religion
and learning.]

Great as were his labours in laying the foundation of literary
culture, the impression made by his personal intercourse and by
his collected sayings has been ten-fold more influential. They form
the substance of the Four Books which, from a similar numerical
coincidence, the Chinese are fond of comparing with our Four Gospels.
Confucius certainly gives the Golden Rule as the essence of his
teaching. True, he puts it in a negative form, "Do not unto others
what you would not have them do to you"; but he also says, "My
doctrine is comprehended in two words, _chung_ and _shu_."
The former denotes fidelity; the latter signifies putting oneself
in the place of another, but it falls short of that active charity
which has changed the face of the world.

It were easy to point out Confucius' limitations and mistakes; yet
on the whole his merits were such that his people can hardly be
blamed for the exaggerated honours which they show to his memory.
They style him the "model teacher of all ages," but they do not
invoke him as a tutelary deity, nor do they represent
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him by an image. Excessively honorific, their worship of Confucius
is not idolatry.

MENCIUS

A hundred years later Mencius was born, and received his doctrine
through the grandson of the Sage. More eloquent than his great
master, more bold in rebuking the vices of princes, he was less
original. One specimen of his teaching must suffice. One of the
princes asking him, "How do you know that I have it in me to become
a good ruler?" he replied, "I am told that, seeing the extreme
terror of an ox that was being led to the altar, you released it
and commanded a sheep to be offered in its stead. The ox was before
your eyes and you pitied it; the sheep was not before your eyes
and you had no pity on it. Now with such a heart if you would only
think of your people, so as to bring them before your eyes, you
might become the best of rulers."

Mencius lost his father in his infancy, but his mother showed rare
good sense in the bringing up of her only child. Living near a
butcher, she noticed that the boy mimicked the cries of the pigs.
She then removed to the gate of a cemetery; but, noticing that the
child changed his tune and mocked the wailing of mourners, she
struck her tent and took up her abode near a high school. There
she observed with joy that he learned the manners and acquired the
tastes of a student. Perceiving, however, that he was in danger
of becoming lazy and dilatory, she cut the warp of her web and
said, "My son, this is what you are doing with the web of life."

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The tomb of each of these sages is in the keeping of one of his
descendants, who enjoys the emoluments of a hereditary noble. Mencius
himself says of the master whom he never saw, "Since men were born
on earth there has been no man like Confucius."

LAO-TSE

I cannot close this chapter without a word or two on Lao-tse, the
founder of Taoism. He bore the family name of _Li_, "plum-tree,"
either from the fact that his cottage was in a garden or possibly
because, like the Academics, he placed his school in a grove of
plum-trees. The name by which he is now known signifies "old master,"
probably because he was older than Confucius. The latter is said
to have paid him a visit to inquire about rites and ceremonies;
but Lao-tse, with his love of solitude and abstract speculation,
seems not to have exerted much influence on the mind of the rising
philosopher. In allusion to him, Confucius said, "Away from men
there is no philosophy--no _tao_."

Less honoured by the official class, Lao-tse's influence with the
masses of China has been scarcely less than that of his younger
rival. Like the other two sages he, too, has to-day a representative,
who enjoys an official status as high priest of the Taoist sect.
Chang Tien-shi dwells in a stately palace on the summit of the
Tiger and Dragon Mountain, in Kiangsi, as the head of one of the
three religions. But, alas! the sublime teachings of the founder
of Taoism have degenerated into a contemptible mixture of jugglery
and witchcraft.

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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
Japan during the long period in which the Mikado was called the
"spiritual emperor."

The legitimate sovereign still sat on his throne
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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 Japan, where one held the power and the other retained
the title 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; embassies 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 embarrassed 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 institutions; but in the Asiatic empire
the theatre was vastly more extensive,
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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 ambassadors 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
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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 passions. 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 Chwang-siang, who, however,
enjoyed the supreme power for only three years (249-246 B. C).

[Page 100]
CHAPTER XIX

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

(2 Emperors)

_Ts'in Shi-hwang-ti, "Emperor First"--The Great Wall--The Centralised
Monarchy--The title Hwang-ti--Origin of the name China--Burning
of the Books--Expedition to Japan--Revolution Places the House
of Han on the Throne_

"Viewed in the light of philosophy," says Schiller, "Cain killed
Abel because Abel's sheep trespassed 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
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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 title. This was the achievement of Yin Cheng, the Prince
of Ts'in. He thereupon assumed the new style of Hwang-ti. Hwangs
and Tis were no novelty; but the combination made it a new coinage
and justified the additional appellation of "the First," or
Shi-hwang-ti. Four imperishable monuments perpetuate his memory:
the Great Wall, the centralised monarchy, the title _Hwang-ti_,
and the name of China itself--the last derived from a principality
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 instituted the Roman
Empire; but its duration was ephemeral in comparison with that
of the empire founded by Shi-hwang-ti, the builder of the Wall.

Though Shi-hwang-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
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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-hwang-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 bastard, 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 institution." "Then let them be burned,"
said the tyrant.

The adherents of the Sage were ejected from the
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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 Hwang-ti did not confine his ambition to China. He sent
a fleet to Japan; 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 lasses. It never
returned; but the traditions of Japan 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.

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