Ancient China Simplified | Page 5

barbarous states--Distinction between loss and annihilation of power--Ducal rank and marquesses--Distinction between grantee sacrifices and personal sacrifices--Prayer and the ancient Emperor Shun, whose grave is in Hu Nan--Chou Emperor's sickness and brother's written prayer--Offers to sacrifice self-- Messages from the dead--Lao-tsz's book--Ts'in and conquered Tsin Sacrifices--Further instances of prayer
CHAPTER XII
ANCESTRAL WORSHIP Ancestral tablets carried in war-Shrines graduated according to rank--Description of shrines--Specific case of the King of Ts'u-- Instance of the First August Emperor much later--Temple of Heaven, Peking, and the British occupation of it--Modern Japanese instance of reporting to Heaven and ancestors--Tsin and Ts'i instances of it--Sacrificial tablets--Writing materials--Lu's special spiritual status--Desecration of tombs and flogging of corpses--Destruction of ancestral temples--Imperial presents of sacrificial meat-- Fasting and purification--Intricate mourning rules. So-65
CHAPTER XIII
ANCIENT DOCUMENTS FOUND History of Tsin and the Bamboo Annals discovered after 600 years' burial--Confirmatory of Confucius' history--Obsolete and modern script--Ancient calendars--Their evidence in rendering dates precise--The Ts'in calendar imposed on China--Rise of the Ts'in power--Position as Protector--Vast Tartar annexations by Ts'in-- Duke Muh of Ts'in and Emperor Muh of China--Posthumous names-- Discovery of ancient books--Supposed travels of Emperor Muh to Tartary--Possibility of the Duke Muh having made the journeys-- Ts'in and Tsin force Tartars to migrate--Surreptitious vassal "emperors"--Instances of Annam and Japan--Tsin against Ts'in and Ts'u after Second Protector's death--Ts'i never again Protector-- Ts'in's Chinese and Tartar advisers--Foundations for Ts'in's future empire.
CHAPTER XIV
MORE ON PROTECTORS The Five Protectors of China more exactly defined--No such period as the "Five Tyrant period" can be logically accepted as accurate-- Chinese never understand the principles of history as distinct from the detailed facts--International situation defined--Flank movements--Appearance of barbarous Wu in the Chinese arena-- Phonetic barbarian names--The State of Wei--Enlightened prince envoy to China from Wu--Wu rapidly acquires the status of Protector--Confucius tampers with history--Risky position of the King of Wu--Yüeh conquers Wu, and poses as Protector--The River Sz (Grand Canal).
CHAPTER XV
STATE INTERCOURSE Further explanations regarding the grouping of states, and the size of the smallest states--Statesmen of all orthodox states acquainted with one another--No dialect difficulties in ancient times--Records exist for everything--Absence of caste, but persistence of the hereditary idea--The great political economist Kwan-tsz--Tsz-ch'an, the prince-statesman of Cheng--Shuh Hiang, statesman of Tsin--Reference to Appendix No. r--The statesman Yen- tsz of Ts'i--Confucius' origin as a member of the royal Sung family--Confucius' wanderings not so very extensive--Confucius no mere pedant, but a statesman and a humorist--Hiang Suh of Sung, inventor of "Hague" Conferences--Ki-chah, prince-envoy of Wu--K'u- peh-yuh, an authority in Wei--Ts'in had no literary men--Lao-% of Ts'u--Reasons why Confucius does not mention him
CHAPTER XVI
LAND AND PEOPLE Ancient land and land-tax-Combination of military service with land cultivation--Studious class had to study tao (in its pre-Lao-tsz sense)--Next the trading classes--Next the cultivators-- Last the handicraftsmen--Another division of the people--Responsibility of rulers to God--Classification of rulers and ruling ranks--Eunuchs and slaves--Cadastral survey in Ts'u state--Reserves for sporting-- Cemeteries--Salt-flats Another land and military service system in Ts'u--Kwan-tsz's system in Ts'i--Poor relief--Shrewd diplomacy--His master becomes First Protector--commerce and fairs--"The people" ignored in history--Tsin reforms and administration--The "great family" nuisance--Roads, supplies, post-stages--Ts'i had developed even before Kwan-tsz--Restlessness of active minds under the yoke of ritual.
CHAPTER XVII
EDUCATION AND LITERARY Very little mention of ancient writing or education--Baked inscribed bricks unknown to the loess region--Cession of land inscribed upon metal--The Nine Tripods--Ts'u claims them-- Instances of written grants and prayers--Proof of teaching--A written public notice--Probable use of wood--Conventions upon stone--Books in sixth century B.C.--Maps, cadastre, and census records--A doubtful instance--A closed letter--Indentures--A military map--Treaties--Ancient theory of juvenile education for office--Invention of new-written script 827 B.C.--Patriarchal rule inconsistent with enlightenment--Unification of script, weights, measures, and axle-breadths by the First August Emperor Further invention of script and first dictionary--Facility of Chinese writing for reading purposes-- Chinese now in a state of flux.
CHAPTER XVIII
TREATIES AND VOWS Treaties and imprecations--Smearing with blood of victims-- Squabble re precedence in the treaty-making--Shuh Niang's philosophy--Confucius' tampering with history condoned--Care of Chinese in preserving first-hand evidence--Emperor ignored by treaty-makers--Form of a treaty, with imprecation--Mesne lords and their vassals--Negotiations and references for instructions-- Ts'u's first protectorate in 538--Ts'u's difficulty with Wu--The Six Families of Tsin--Sacrificing cocks as sanction to vows-- Drawing human blood as sanction--Pigs for the same purpose--Kwan- tsz's honourable behaviour in keeping treaty--Confucius not so honourable: instances given--Casuistry backed up by a proverb.
CHAPTER XIX
CONFUCIUS AND LITERATURE Life-time of Confucius--Secret of his influence--Visit of the Wu prince to Confucius' state--Lu's "powerful" family plague--Lu's position between Tsin and Ts'u influences--Ts'i studies the ritual in Lu: Yen-tsz goes thither--Sketch of Lu history in its connection with Confucius--What were his practical objects?-- Authorities in support of what Confucius' Annals tell us--Original conception of natural religion--Spread of the earliest patriarchal Chinese state--No other people near them possessed letters--The way in which the Chinese spread--Lines of least resistance--The spiritual emperor compared with some of the Popes--Lu's spiritual position--Confucius of Sung descent, and at first