Ancient China Simplified | Page 7

crush
Ts'in--Rival claimants for universal empire--First appearance of the
Huns or Turks-Helpless position of Old China--Bloody battles in Ts'in's
final career of conquest--A million men decapitated--Immense cavalry
fights- Ts'in's supreme effort for conquest of China.
CHAPTER XXVII
FOREIGN BLOOD Resume of Chinese historical
development--General lines of Chinese advance--Methods of Chinese
colonization--Equal pedigree claims of half-Chinese states--Tsin and
Ts'i were even more ancient than orthodox China--Degree of
foreignness in Ts'u-Ts'u native words and music--Ts'u
peculiarities-Succession laws in Ts'u and Lu compared--Further

evidence of Ts'u's foreign ways--Beards-- Titles, posthumous and
other--Ts'u admits her own savagery--Ts'u's claim to the Nine
Tripods--Ts'u and the Chou rites--Ts'u's gradual
civilization--Confucius' admiration of Ts'u--Confucius' style in
speaking of barbarians--Distinction between "beat" and "battle"--
German distinctions of rank compared with Chinese--The historical
honour of "naming"--Vagueness of testimony and the way to test
evidence.
CHAPTER XXVIII
BARBARIANS The state of Wu--First Chinese princely emigrants
adopted barbarian usages--The Jungle country and Wu--Wu's way of
doing the hair and Wu's confession of barbarism--Federal China uses
Wu against Ts'u--Wu the same language and manners as Yueh--Native
Wu words--Wu's ignorance of war--Wu's early isolation--Ts'i enters
into marriage relations with Wu--Mencius objects retrospectively-- Wu
ruling caste--The Wu language--Succession laws of Wu--A Wu prince's
views on the soul--Confucius' views on ghosts--Ki-chah's intimacy
with orthodox statesmen--Rumours of Early Japan--Japan and Wu
tattooing customs alike--Japanese traditions of a connection with
Wu--Dangers of etymological guess-work--Doubts about racial matters
in Wu--Small value of Japanese history and tradition--General
conclusions.
CHAPTER XXIX
CURIOUS CUSTOMS Small size of ancient China--Description of
ancient nucleus and surrounding barbarians--Amount of foreign
element in each vassal state--Policy of the Ts'i and Lu
administrations--The savage tribes of the eastern coasts--Persistency of
some down to 970 A.D.--Ts'in's unliterary quality--Her human
sacrifices--Her Turkish blood--Late influence of the Emperors over
Ts'in--Ts'in's gradual civilization--Ki-chah on Ts'in music--Ts'u treats
Ts'in as barbarian still in 361 B.C.--Ts'in's isolation previous to 326
B.C.--Tartar rule of succession at one time in Ts'in--Yiieh's
barbarism--Its able king--Native name--Mushroom existence as a

power--The various branches of the Yiieh race in Foochow, W&chow,
and Tonquin--Wu and Yiieh spoke the same language--Ruling caste of
Wu--Stern military discipline in Wu and Yiieh--Neither state proved to
have had human sacrifices--Crawling customs--Ancient Chinese
descent of rulers--Yiieh's later capital in the German sphere--Her power
always marine.
CHAPTER XXX
LITERARY RELATIONS Literary relations between vassal
states--Confucius set the ball of philosophy a-rolling--The fourfold
"Bible" of China--Odes were generally known by heart--Comparison
with President Kruger and his texts--Quotations from Odes and Book
enable us to fix dates--Books were heavy weights in those days--People
trusted to memory--The Rites more exclusively understood by the
ruling classes-- Comparison with Johnsonian wits--Instances cited, with
side proofs--History and Classics corroborate each other-Evidences--
Confucius' ancestor composes odes--Political song by the children of
Tsin--Another still-existing ode in reference to the Second
Protector--Ts'u's early literary knowledge--General knowledge of Odes
and History--Ignorance of Ts'in-Ts'in ancient documents the only ones
now remaining--First definite notion of abolishing the feudal
system--The pivot point 403 B.C.--Ts'in's conquests in north, south,
east, and west--The First August Emperor's travels-- Lao-tsz's Taoist
philosophy becomes fashionable--Ts'in's hatred of orthodox literature,
and of the Odes and Book in particular--The Book of Changes escapes
his hatred--Revolutionary decree of the First August Emperor-Lost
annals of all feudal states but Ts'in-- Learned Tartars of Tsin-Confucius
used Tsin annals too--Origin of the name _Shi-ki,_ or "Historical
Annals"--Further evidence of lost histories--Curious name for Ts'u
Annals--Ts'u poetry- Ts'u's knowledge of past history--The term
"Springs and Autumns"-- Baldness of early Chinese annals.
CHAPTER XXXI
ORIGIN OF THE CHINESE Whence did the Chinese come?--All men
of equal age and ancestry-- Records make civilization and

nobility--Evidences of antiquity-- China and the West totally unknown
to each other in ancient times-- Tartars the connecting link--Though
tamed by religion they are not much changed now--Traders then, as
now, but no through travellers--Chinese probably in China for myriads
of years before their records began--Tonic peculiarities of all tribes
near China except the Tartars--Chinese followed lines of least
resistance-- Tartars driven back, but difficult to absorb--So with
Coreans and Japanese-Indo-China not so favourable for Chinese
absorption-- Records decided the direction taken by culture--Southern
half- Chinese have equal claims with orthodox Chinese--Traditions of
ancient emperors in north, coast, and south parts--Suggestions as to
how the most ancient Chinese spread themselves--No hint of
immigration from anywhere--The old suggestion of immigration from
the Tarim Valley and Babylonia--Suggested compromise with Western
religious views--Creation and Nature--Compromise with the
supernatural and imaginative--Summing up.
CHAPTER XXXII
THE CALENDAR The Chinese calendar--Confucius and
eclipses--Proclaiming the new moon--Celestial observations in
different states--Chinese year is luni-Solar--Difficulty with the exact
length of a moon--Ingenious devices for bringing the solar and lunar
years, the seasons, solstices, and equinoxes into harmony with
agricultural needs--The sixty-year cycle--Various reforms of the
calendar, and various changes in the month beginning the year--Effect
of calendar changes on Confucius' birthday--All is evidence in favour
of accuracy of