(A)--_European Knowledge of China up to 1615._
_China as known to the Ancients._--The spacious seat of ancient
civilization which we call China has been distinguished by different
appellations, according as it was reached by the southern sea-route or
by the northern land-route traversing the longitude of Asia. In the
former aspect the name has nearly always been some form of the name
_Sin, Chin, Sinoe, China_. In the latter point of view the region in
question was known to the ancients as the land of the _Seres_, to the
middle ages as the empire of _Cathay_. The name of _Chin_ has been
supposed (doubtfully) to be derived from the dynasty of _Ts'in_, which a
little more than two centuries before the Christian era enjoyed a
vigorous existence, uniting all the Chinese provinces under its
authority, and extending its conquests far beyond those limits to the
south and the west. The mention of the _Chinas_ in ancient Sanskrit
literature, both in the laws of Manu and in the Mah[=a]bh[=a]rata, has
often been supposed to prove the application of the name long before the
predominance of the Ts'in dynasty. But the coupling of that name with
the _Daradas_, still surviving as the people of Dardistan, on the Indus,
suggests it as more probable that those _Chinas_ were a kindred race of
mountaineers, whose name as _Shinas_ in fact likewise remains applied to
a branch of the Dard races. Whether the _Sinim_ of the prophet Isaiah
should be interpreted of the Chinese is probably not susceptible of any
decision; by the context it appears certainly to indicate a people of
the extreme east or south. The name probably came to Europe through the
Arabs, who made the _China_ of the farther east into _Sin_, and perhaps
sometimes into _Thin_. Hence the _Thin_ of the author of the _Periplus
of the Erythraean Sea_, who appears to be the first extant writer to
employ the name in this form (_i.e._ assuming Max Mueller's view that he
belongs to the 1st century); hence also the _Sinae_ and _Thinae_ of
Ptolemy.
It has often indeed been denied that the Sinae of Ptolemy really
represented the Chinese. But if we compare the statement of Marcianus
of Heraclea (a mere condenser of Ptolemy), when he tells us that the
"nations of the Sinae lie at the extremity of the habitable world, and
adjoin the eastern Terra Incognita," with that of Cosmas, who says, in
speaking of _Tzinista_, a name of which no one can question the
application to China, that "beyond this there is neither habitation
nor navigation"--we cannot doubt the same region to be meant by both.
The fundamental error of Ptolemy's conception of the Indian Sea as a
closed basin rendered it _impossible_ but that he should misplace the
Chinese coast. But considering that the name of _Sin_ has come down
among the Arabs from time immemorial as applied to the Chinese,
considering that in the work of Ptolemy this name certainly
represented the farthest known East, and considering how inaccurate
are Ptolemy's configurations and longitudes much nearer home, it seems
almost as reasonable to deny the identity of his India with ours as to
deny that his Sinae were Chinese.
If we now turn to the _Seres_ we find this name mentioned by classic
authors much more frequently and at an earlier date, for the passages
of Eratosthenes (in Strabo), formerly supposed to speak of a parallel
passing through _Thinae_--[Greek: dia Thinon]--are now known to read
correctly [Greek: di'Athenon]. The name _Seres_ indeed is familiar to
the Latin poets of the Augustan age, but always in a vague way, and
usually with a general reference to Central Asia and the farther East.
We find, however, that the first endeavours to assign more accurately
the position of this people, which are those of Mela and Pliny,
gravitate distinctly towards China in its northern aspect as the true
ideal involved. Thus Mela describes the remotest east of Asia as
occupied by the three races (proceeding from south to north), Indians,
Seres and Scyths; just as in a general way we might still say that
eastern Asia is occupied by the Indies, China and Tartary.
Ptolemy first uses the names of _Sera_ and _Serice_, the former for
the chief city, the latter for the country of the Seres, and as usual
defines their position with a precision far beyond what his knowledge
justified--the necessary result of his system. Yet even his definition
of Serice is most consistent with the view that this name indicated
the Chinese empire in its northern aspect, for he carries it eastward
to the 180th degree of longitude, which is also, according to his
calculation, in a lower latitude the eastern boundary of the Sinae.
Ammianus Marcellinus devotes some paragraphs to a description of the
Seres and their country, one passage of which is startling at first
sight in its seeming allusion to the Great Wall, and in this sense it
has been rashly interpreted by Lassen and by Reinaud. But Ammianus is
merely converting Ptolemy's dry tables into fine writing, and speaks
only of an encircling rampart of mountains within which the spacious
and happy valley of the Seres lies. It is true that Ptolemy makes his
Serice extend westward to Imaus, _i.e._ to Pamir. But the Chinese
empire _did_ so extend at that epoch, and we find Lieut. John Wood in
1838 speaking of "_China_" as lying immediately beyond Pamir, just as
the Arabs of the 8th century spoke of the country beyond the Jaxartes
as "_Sin_," and as Ptolemy spoke of "_Serice_" as immediately beyond
Imaus.
If we fuse into one the ancient notices of the Seres and their
country, omitting anomalous statements and manifest fables, the result
will be somewhat as follows: "The region of the Seres is a vast and
populous country, touching on the east the ocean and the limits of the
habitable world, and extending west to Imaus and the confines of
Bactria. The people are civilized, mild, just and frugal, eschewing
collisions with their neighbours, and even shy of close intercourse,
but not averse to dispose of their own products, of which raw silk is
the staple, but which included also silk-stuffs, fine furs, and iron
of remarkable quality." That is manifestly a definition of the
Chinese.
That Greek and Roman knowledge of the true position of so remote a
nation should at best have been somewhat hazy is nothing wonderful.
And it is worthy of note that the view entertained by the ancient
Chinese of the Roman empire and its inhabitants, under the name of
_Ta-thsin_, had some striking points of analogy to those views of the
Chinese which are indicated in the classical descriptions of the
Seres. There can be no mistaking the fact that in this case also the
great object was within the horizon of vision, yet the details
ascribed to it are often far from being true characteristics, being
only the accidents of its outer borders.
_The Medieval Cathay._--"Cathay" is the name by which the Chinese empire
was known to medieval Europe, and it is in its original form (_Kitai_)
that China is still known in Russia and to most of the nations of
Central Asia. West of Russia this name has long ceased to be a
geographical expression, but it is associated with a remarkable phase in
the history of geography and commerce. The name first became known to
Europe in the 13th century, when the vast conquests of Jenghiz Khan and
his house drew a new and vivid attention to Asia. For some three
centuries previously the northern provinces of China had been detached
from indigenous rule, and subject to northern conquerors. The first of
these foreign dynasties was of a race called _Khitan_ issuing from the
basin of the Sungari river, and supposed (but doubtfully) to have been
of the blood of the modern Tunguses. The rule of this race endured for
two centuries and originated the application of the name _Khitat_ or
_Khitai_ to northern China. The dynasty itself, known in Chinese history
as _Liao_, or "Iron," disappeared from China 1123, but the name remained
attached to the territory which they had ruled.
The Khitan were displaced by the Nuechih (_Nyuche_ or _Churche_) race,
akin to the modern Manchus. These reigned, under the title of _Kin_, or
"Golden," till Jenghiz and his Mongols invaded them in turn. In 1234 the
conquest of the Kin empire was completed, and the dynasty extinguished
under Ogdai (Ogotai), the son and successor of Jenghiz Khan. Forty years
later, in the reign of Kublai, grandson and ablest successor of Jenghiz,
the Mongol rule was extended over southern China (1276), which till
then had remained under a native dynasty, the Sung, holding its royal
residence in a vast and splendid city, now known as Hang-chow, but then
as Ling-nan, or more commonly as _King-sze_, i.e. the court. The
southern empire was usually called by the conquerors _Mantzi_ (or as
some of the old travellers write, _Mangi_), a name which western
Asiatics seem to have identified with _Machin_ (from the Sanskrit
_Mahachin_), one of the names by which China was known to the traders
from Persian and Arabian ports.
The conquests of Jenghiz and his successors had spread not only over
China and the adjoining East, but westward also over all northern Asia,
Persia, Armenia, part of Asia Minor and Russia, threatening to deluge
Christendom. Though the Mongol wave retired, as it seemed almost by an
immediate act of Providence, when Europe lay at its feet, it had
levelled or covered all political barriers from the frontier of Poland
to the Yellow Sea, and when western Europe recovered from its alarm,
Asia lay open, as never before or since, to the inspection of
Christendom. Princes, envoys, priests--half-missionary,
half-envoy--visited the court of the great khan in Mongolia; and besides
these, the accidents of war, commerce or opportunity carried a variety
of persons from various classes of human life into the depths of Asia.
"'Tis worthy of the grateful remembrance of all Christian people," says
an able missionary friar of the next age (Ricold of Monte Croce), "that
just at the time when God sent forth into the Eastern parts of the world
the Tatars to slay and to be slain, He also sent into the West his
faithful and blessed servants, Dominic and Francis, to enlighten,
instruct and build up in the faith." Whatever on the whole may be
thought of the world's debt to Dominic, it is to the two mendicant
orders, but especially to the Franciscans, that we owe a vast amount of
information about medieval Asia, and, among other things, the first
mention of _Cathay_. Among the many strangers who reached Mongolia were
(1245-1247) John de Plano Carpini and (1253) William of Rubruk
(Rubruquis) in French Flanders, both Franciscan friars of high
intelligence, who happily have left behind them reports of their
observations.
Carpini, after mentioning the wars of Jenghiz against the _Kitai_,
goes on to speak of that people as follows: "Now these _Kitai_ are
heathen men, and have a written character of their own... They seem,
indeed, to be kindly and polished folks enough. They have no beard,
and in character of countenance have a considerable resemblance to the
Mongols" [are _Mongoloid_, as our ethnologists would say], "but are
not so broad in the face. They have a peculiar language. Their betters
as craftsmen in every art practised by man are not to be found in the
whole world. Their country is very rich in corn, in wine, in gold and
silver, in silk, and in every kind of produce tending to the support
of mankind." The notice of Rubruk, shrewder and more graphic, runs
thus: "Farther on is Great Cathay, which I take to be the country
which was anciently called the Land of the Seres. For the best silk
stuffs are still got from them... The sea lies between it and India.
Those Cathayans are little fellows, speaking much through the nose,
and, as is general with all those eastern people, their eyes are very
narrow. They are first-rate artists in every kind, and their
physicians have a thorough knowledge of the virtues of herbs, and an
admirable skill in diagnosis by the pulse... The common money of
Cathay consists of pieces of cotton-paper, about a palm in length and
breadth, upon which certain lines are printed, resembling the seal of
Mangu Khan. They do their writing with a pencil, such as painters
paint with, and a single character of theirs comprehends several
letters, so as to form a whole word."
Here we have not only what is probably the first European notice of
paper-money, but a _partial_ recognition of the peculiarity of Chinese
writing, and a perception that puts to shame the perverse boggling of
later critics over the identity of these Cathayans with the Seres of
classic fame.
But though these travellers saw Cathayans in the bazaars in the great
khan's camps, the first actual visitors of Cathay itself were the Polo
family, and it is to the book of Marco Polo's recollections mainly that
Cathay owed the growing familiarity of its name in Europe during the
14th and 15th centuries. It is, however, a great mistake to suppose, as
has often been assumed, that the residence of the Polos in that country
remained an isolated fact. They were but the pioneers of a very
considerable intercourse, which endured till the decay of the Mongol
dynasty in Cathay, i.e. for about half a century.
We have no evidence that either in the 13th or 14th century Cathayans,
i.e. Chinese, ever reached Europe, but it is possible that some did, at
least in the former century. For, during the campaigns of Hulagu in
Persia (1256-1265), and the reigns of his successors, Chinese engineers
were employed on the banks of the Tigris, and Chinese astrologers and
physicians could be consulted at Tabriz. Many diplomatic communications
passed between the Hulaguid Ilkhans and the princes of Christendom. The
former, as the great khan's liegemen, still received from him their
seals of state; and two of their letters which survive in the archives
of France exhibit the vermilion impressions of those seals in Chinese
characters--perhaps affording the earliest specimen of that character
which reached western Europe.
Just as the Polos were reaching their native city (1295), after an
absence of a quarter of a century, the forerunner of a new series of
travellers was entering southern China by way of the Indian seas. This
was John of Monte Corvino, another Franciscan who, already some fifty
years of age, was plunging single-handed into that great ocean of
paganism to preach the gospel according to his lights. After years of
uphill and solitary toil converts began to multiply; coadjutors joined
him. The Papal See became cognizant of the harvest that was being reaped
in the far East. It made Friar John archbishop in Cambaluc (or Peking),
with patriarchal authority, and sent him batches of suffragan bishops
and preachers of his own order. The Roman Church spread; churches and
Minorite houses were established at Cambaluc, at Zayton or Tsuan-chow in
Fu-kien, at Yang-chow and elsewhere; and the missions flourished under
the smile of the great khan, as the Jesuit missions did for a time under
the Manchu emperors three centuries and a half later. Archbishop John
was followed to the grave, about 1328, by mourning multitudes of pagans
and Christians alike. Several of the bishops and friars who served under
him have left letters or other memoranda of their experience, e.g.
Andrew, bishop of Zayton, John of Cora, afterwards archbishop of
Sultania in Persia, and Odoric of Pordenone, whose fame as a pious
traveller won from the _vox populi_ at his funeral a beatification which
the church was fain to seal. The only ecclesiastical narrative regarding
Cathay, of which we are aware, subsequent to the time of Archbishop
John, is that which has been gathered from the recollections of Giovanni
de' Marignolli, a Florentine Franciscan, who was sent by Pope Benedict
XII. with a mission to the great khan, in return for one from that
potentate which arrived at Avignon from Cathay in 1338, and who spent
four years (1342-1346) at the court of Cambaluc as legate of the Holy
See. These recollections are found dispersed incoherently over a
chronicle of Bohemia which the traveller wrote by order of the emperor
Charles IV., whose chaplain he was after his return.
But intercourse during the period in question was not confined to
ecclesiastical channels. Commerce also grew up, and flourished for a
time even along the vast line that stretches from Genoa and Florence to
the marts of Cheh-kiang and Fu-kien. The record is very fragmentary and
imperfect, but many circumstances and incidental notices show how
frequently the remote East was reached by European traders in the first
half of the 14th century--a state of things which it is very difficult
to realize when we see how all those regions, when reopened to knowledge
two centuries later, seemed to be discoveries as new as the empires
which, about the same time, Cortes and Pizarro were conquering in the
West.
This commercial intercourse probably began about 1310-1320. John of
Monte Corvino, writing in 1305, says it was twelve years since he had
heard any news from Europe; the only Western stranger who had arrived
in all that time being a certain Lombard chirurgeon (probably one of
the _Patarini_ who got hard measure at home in those days), who had
spread the most incredible blasphemies, about the Roman Curia and the
order of St Francis. Yet even on his first entrance to Cathay Friar
John had been accompanied by one Master Peter of Lucolongo, whom he
describes as a faithful Christian man and a great merchant, and who
seems to have remained many years at Peking. The letter of Andrew,
bishop of Zayton (1326), quotes the opinion of Genoese merchants at
that port regarding a question of exchanges. Odoric, who was in Cathay
about 1323-1327, refers for confirmation of the wonders which he
related of the great city of Cansay (i.e. King-sze, or Hang-chow) to
the many persons whom he had met at Venice since his return, who had
themselves been witnesses of those marvels. And Marignolli, some
twenty years later, found attached to one of the convents at Zayton,
in Fu-kien, a _fondaco_ or factory for the accommodation of the
Christian merchants.
But by far the most distinct and notable evidence of the importance
and frequency of European trade with Cathay, of which silk and silk
goods formed the staple, is to be found in the commercial hand-book
(c. 1340) of Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, a clerk and factor of the
great Florentine house of the Bardi, which was brought to the ground
about that time by its dealings with Edward III. of England. This
book, called by its author _Libro di divisamenti di Paesi_, is a sort
of trade-guide, devoting successive chapters to the various ports and
markets of his time, detailing the nature of imports and exports at
each, the duties and exactions, the local customs of business,
weights, measures and money. The first two chapters of this work
contain instructions for the merchant proceeding to Cathay; and it is
evident, from the terms used, that the road thither was not
unfrequently travelled by European merchants, from whom Pegolotti had
derived his information. The route which he describes lay by Azov,
Astrakhan, Khiva, Otrar (on the Jaxartes), Almalik (Gulja in Ili),
Kan-chow (in Kan-suh), and so to Hang-chow and Peking. Particulars are
given as to the silver ingots which formed the currency of Tatary, and
the paper-money of Cathay. That the ventures on this trade were not
insignificant is plain from the example taken by the author to
illustrate the question of expenses on the journey, which is that of a
merchant investing in goods there to the amount of some L12,000 (i.e.
in actual gold value, not as calculated by any fanciful and fallacious
equation of values).
Of the same remarkable phase of history that we are here considering
we have also a number of notices by Mahommedan writers. The
establishment of the Mongol dynasty in Persia, by which the great khan
was acknowledged as lord paramount, led (as we have already noticed in
part) to a good deal of intercourse. And some of the Persian
historians, writing at Tabriz, under the patronage of the Mongol
princes, have told us much about Cathay, especially Rashiduddin, the
great minister and historian of the dynasty (died 1318). We have also
in the book of the Moorish traveller Ibn Batuta, who visited China
about 1347-1348, very many curious and in great part true notices,
though it is not possible to give credence to the whole of this
episode in his extensive travels.
About the time of the traveller first named the throne of the
degenerate descendants of Jenghiz began to totter to its fall, and we
have no knowledge of any Frank visitor to Cathay in that age later
than Marignolli; missions and merchants alike disappear from the
field. We hear, indeed, once and again of ecclesiastics despatched
from Avignon, but they go forth into the darkness, and are heard of no
more. Islam, with all its jealousy and exclusiveness, had recovered
its grasp over Central Asia; the Nestorian Christianity which once had
prevailed so widely was vanishing, and the new rulers of China
reverted to the old national policy, and held the foreigner at arm's
length. Night descended upon the farther East, covering Cathay with
those cities of which the old travellers had told such marvels,
Cambaluc and Cansay, Zayton and Chinkalan. And when the veil rose
before the Portuguese and Spanish explorers of the 16th century, those
names are heard no more. In their stead we have China, Peking,
Hangchow, Chinchew, Canton. Not only were the old names forgotten, but
the fact that those places had ever been known before was forgotten
also. Gradually new missionaries went forth from Rome--Jesuits and
Dominicans now; new converts were made, and new vicariates
constituted; but the old Franciscan churches, and the Nestorianism
with which they had battled, had alike been swallowed up in the ocean
of pagan indifference. In time a wreck or two floated to the
surface--a MS. Latin Bible or a piece of Catholic sculpture; and when
the intelligent missionaries called Marco Polo to mind, and studied
his story, one and another became convinced that Cathay and China were
one.
But for a long time all but a sagacious few continued to regard Cathay
as a region distinct from any of the new-found Indies; whilst
map-makers, well on into the 17th century, continued to represent it
as a great country lying entirely to the north of China, and
stretching to the Arctic Sea.
It was Cathay, with its outlying island of Zipangu (Japan), that
Columbus sought to reach by sailing westward, penetrated as he was by
his intense conviction of the smallness of the earth, and of the vast
extension of Asia eastward; and to the day of his death he was full of
the imagination of the proximity of the domain of the great khan to
the islands and coasts which he had discovered. And such imaginations
are curiously embodied in some of the maps of the early 16th century,
which intermingle on the same coast-line the new discoveries from
Labrador to Brazil with the provinces and rivers of Marco Polo's
Cathay.
Cathay had been the aim of the first voyage of the Cabots in 1496, and
it continued to be the object of many adventurous voyages by English
and Hollanders to the N.W. and N.E. till far on in the 16th century.
At least one memorable land-journey also was made by Englishmen, of
which the exploration of a trade-route to Cathay was a chief
object--that in which Anthony Jenkinson and the two Johnsons reached
Bokhara by way of Russia in 1558-1559. The country of which they
collected notices at that city was still known to them only as
_Cathay_, and its great capital only as _Cambaluc_.
Cathay as a supposed separate entity may be considered to come to an
end with the journey of Benedict Goes, the lay-Jesuit. This admirable
person was, in 1603, despatched through Central Asia by his superiors
in India with the specific object of determining whether the Cathay of
old European writers and of modern Mahommedans was or was not a
distinct region from that China of which parallel marvels had now for
some time been recounted. Benedict, as one of his brethren pronounced
his epitaph, "seeking Cathay found Heaven." He died at Suchow, the
frontier city of China, but not before he had ascertained that China
and Cathay were the same. After the publication of the narrative of
his journey (in the _Expeditio Christiana apud Sinas_ of Trigault,
1615) inexcusable ignorance alone could continue to distinguish
between them, but such ignorance lingered many years longer. (H. Y.)
(B)--_Chinese Origins._
Chinese literature contains no record of any kind which might justify us
in assuming that the nucleus of the nation may have immigrated from some
other part of the world; and the several ingenious theories pointing to
Babylonia, Egypt, India, Khotan, and other seats of ancient civilization
as the starting-points of ethnical wanderings must be dismissed as
untenable. Whether the Chinese were seated in their later homes from
times immemorial, as their own historians assume, or whether they
arrived there from abroad, as some foreign scholars have pretended,
cannot be proved to the satisfaction of historical critics. Indeed,
anthropological arguments seem to contradict the idea of any connexion
with Babylonians, Egyptians, Assyrians, or Indians. The earliest
hieroglyphics of the Chinese, ascribed by them to the Shang dynasty
(second millennium B.C.), betray the Mongol character of the nation that
invented them by the decided obliquity of the human eye wherever it
appears in an ideograph. In a pair of eyes as shown in the most ancient
pictorial or sculptural representations in the west, the four corners
may be connected by a horizontal straight line; whereas lines drawn
through the eyes of one of the oldest Chinese hieroglyphics cross each
other at a sharp angle, as shown in the accompanying diagrams:--
[Illustration: Egyptian.]
[Illustration: Chinese.]
This does not seem to speak for racial consanguinity any more than the
well-known curled heads and bearded faces of Assyrian sculptures as
compared to the straight-haired and almost beardless Chinese.
Similarities in the creation of cultural elements may, it is true, be
shown to exist on either side, even at periods when mutual intercourse
was probably out of the question; but this may be due to uniformity in
the construction of the human brain, which leads man in different parts
of the world to arrive at similar ideas under similar conditions, or to
prehistoric connexions which it is as impossible for us to trace now as
is the origin of mankind itself. Our standpoint as regards the origin of
the Chinese race is, therefore, that of the agnostic. All we can do is
to reproduce the tradition as it is found in Chinese literature. This
tradition, as applying to the very earliest periods, may be nothing more
than historical superstition, yet it has its historical importance.
Supposing it were possible to prove that none of the persons mentioned
in the Bible from Adam down to the Apostles ever lived, even the most
sceptical critic would still have to admit that the history of a great
portion of the human race has been materially affected by the belief in
the examples of their alleged lives. Something similar may be said of
the alleged earliest history of the Chinese with its model emperors and
detestable tyrants, the accounts of which, whether based on reality or
not, have exercised much influence on the development of the nation.
The Chinese have developed their theories of prehistoric life.
Speculation as to the origin and gradual evolution of their civilization
has resulted in the expression of views by authors who may have
reconstructed their systems from remnants of ancestral life revealed by
excavations, or from observation of neighbouring nations living in a
state of barbarism. This may account for a good deal of the repetition
found in the Chinese mythological and legendary narratives, the personal
and chronological part of which may have been invented merely as a
framework for illustrating social and cultural progress. The scene of
action of all the prehistoric figures from P'an-ku, the first human
being, down to the beginning of real history has been laid in a part of
the world which has never been anything but Chinese territory. P'an-ku's
epoch, millions of years ago, was followed by ten distinct periods of
sovereigns, including the "Heavenly emperors," the "Terrestrial
emperors," and the "Human emperors," the _Yu-ch'au_ or "Nest-builders,"
and _Sui-joen_, the "Fire Producer," the Prometheus of the Chinese, who
borrowed fire from the stars for the benefit of man. Several of the
characteristic phases of cultural progress and social organization have
been ascribed to this mythological period. Authors of less fertile
imagination refer them to later times, when the heroes of their accounts
appear in shapes somewhat resembling human beings rather than as gods
and demigods.
The Chinese themselves look upon Fu-hi as their first historical
emperor; and they place his lifetime in the years 2852-2738 B.C. Some
accounts represent him as a supernatural being; and we see him depicted
as a human figure with a fish tail something like a mermaid. He is
credited with having established social order among his people, who,
before him, had lived like animals in the wilds. The social chaos out of
which Chinese society arose is described as being characterized by the
absence of family life; for "children knew only their mothers and not
their fathers." Fu-hi introduced matrimony; and in so doing he placed
man as the husband at the head of the family and abolished the original
matriarchate. This quite corresponds with his views on the dualism in
natural philosophy, of which he is supposed to have laid the germs by
the invention of the so-called _pa-kua_, eight symbols, each consisting
of three parallel lines, broken or continuous. The continuous lines
represented the male element in nature; the broken ones, the female. It
is characteristic that the same ruler who assigned to man his position
as the head of the family is also credited with the invention of that
natural philosophy of the "male and female principles," according to
which all good things and qualities were held to be male, while their
less sympathetic opposites were female, such as heaven and earth, sun
and moon, day and night, south and north. If these traditions really
represent the oldest prehistoric creations of the popular mind, it would
almost seem that the most ancient Chinese shared that naive sentiment
which caused our own forefathers to invent gender. The difference is
that, with us, the conception survives merely in the language, where the
article or suffixes mark gender, whereas with the Chinese, whose
language does not express gender, it survives in their system of
metaphysics. For all their attempts at fathoming the secrets of nature
are based on the idea that male or female powers are inherent in all
matter.
To the same Emperor Fu-hi are ascribed many of the elementary inventions
which raise man from the life of a brute to that of a social being. He
taught his people to hunt, to fish, and to keep flocks; he constructed
musical instruments, and replaced a kind of knot-writing previously in
use by a system of hieroglyphics. All this cannot of course be
considered as history; but it shows that the authors of later centuries
who credited Fu-hi with certain inventions were not quite illogical in
starting from the matriarchal chaos, after which he is said to have
organized society with occupations corresponding to those of a period of
hunting, fishing and herding. This period was bound to be followed by a
further step towards the final development of the nation's social
condition; and we find it quite logically succeeded by a period of
agricultural life, personified in the Emperor, Shoen-nung, supposed to
have lived in the twenty-eighth century B.C. His name may be freely
translated as "Divine Labourer"; and to him the Chinese ascribe the
invention of agricultural implements, and the discovery of the medicinal
properties of numerous plants.
The third historical emperor was Huang-ti, the "Yellow emperor,"
according to the literal translation. Ssi-ma Ts'ien, the Herodotus of
the Chinese, begins his history with him; but Fu-hi and Shoen-nung are
referred to in texts much older than this historian, though many details
relating to their alleged reigns have been added in later times.
Huang-ti extended the boundaries of the empire, described as being
originally confined to a limited territory near the banks of the Yellow
river and the present city of Si-an-fu. Here were the sites of cities
used as capitals of the empire under various names during long periods
since remote antiquity. To Huang-ti, whose reign is said to have
commenced in 2704 according to one source and in 2491 according to
another, are ascribed most of the cultural innovations which historians
were not able otherwise to locate within historical times. Under
Huang-ti we find the first mention of a nation called the Hun-yue, who
occupied the north of his empire and with whom he is represented to have
engaged in warfare. The Chinese identify this name with that of the
Hiung-nu, their old hereditary enemy and the ancestors of Attila's Huns.
Even though the details of these legendary accounts may deserve little
confidence, there must have been an old tradition that a nation called
the Hun-yue, occupying the northern confines of China, were the ancestors
of the Hiung-nu tribes, well known in historical times, a scion of whose
great khans settled in territory belonging to the king of Sogdiana
during the first century B.C., levied tribute from his neighbours, the
Alans, and with his small but warlike horde initiated that era of
migrations which led to the overrunning of Europe with Central-Asiatic
Tatars.
Fu-hi, Shoen-nung and Huang-ti represent a group of rulers comprised by
the Chinese under the name of _San-huang_, i.e. "The Three Emperors."
Although we have no reason to deny their existence, the details recorded
concerning them contain enough in the way of improbabilities to justify
us in considering them as mythical creations. The chronology, too, is
apparently quite fictitious; for the time allotted to their reigns is
much too long as a term of government for a single human life, and, on
the other hand, much too short, if we measure it by the cultural
progress said to have been brought about in it. Fu-hi's period of
hunting life must have lasted many generations before it led to the
agricultural period represented by the name Shoen-nung; and this period
in turn could not possibly have led within a little more than one
hundred years to the enormous progress ascribed to Huang-ti. Under the
latter ruler a regular board of historians is said to have been
organized with Ts'ang-kie as president, who is known also as Shi-huang,
i.e. "the Emperor of Historians," the reputed inventor of hieroglyphic
writing placed by some authors into the Fu-hi period and worshipped as
Tz'i-shoen, i.e. "God of writing," to the present day. Huang-ti is
supposed to have been the first builder of temples, houses and cities;
to have regulated the calendar, to which he added the intercalary month;
and to have devised means of traffic by cars drawn by oxen and by boats
to ply on the lakes and rivers of his empire. His wife, known as "the
lady of Si-ling," is credited with the invention of the several
manipulations in the rearing of silkworms and the manufacture of silk.
The invention of certain flutes, combined to form a kind of reed organ,
led to a deeper study of music; and in order to construct these
instruments with the necessary accuracy a system of weights and measures
had to be devised. Huang-ti's successors, Shau-hau, Chuan-hue, and
Ti-k'u, were less prominent, though each of them had their particular
merits.
_The Model Emperors._--Most of the stories regarding the "Three
Emperors" are told in comparatively late records. The _Shu-king_,
sometimes described as the "Canon of History," our oldest source of
pre-Confucian history, supposed to have been edited by Confucius
himself, knows nothing of Fu-hi, Shoen-nung and Huang-ti; but it begins
by extolling the virtues of the emperor _Yau_ and his successor
_Shun_. Yau and Shun are probably the most popular names in Chinese
history as taught in China. Whatever good qualities may be imagined of
the rulers of a great nation have been heaped upon their heads; and
the example of their lives has at all times been held up by
Confucianists as the height of perfection in a sovereign's character.
Yau, whose reign has been placed by the fictitious standard chronology
of the Chinese in the years 2357-2258, and about 200 years later by
the less extravagant "Annals of the Bamboo Books," is represented as
the patron of certain astronomers who had to watch the heavenly
bodies; and much has been written about the reputed astronomical
knowledge of the Chinese in this remote period. Names like Deguignes,
Gaubil, Biot and Schlegel are among those of the investigators. On the
other side are the sceptics, who maintain that later editors
interpolated statements which could have been made only with the
astronomical knowledge possessed by their own contemporaries.
According to an old legend, Shun banished "the four wicked ones" to
distant territories. One of these bore the name _T'au-t'ie_, i.e.
"Glutton"; called also San-miau. _T'au-t'ie_ is also the name of an
ornament, very common on the surface of the most ancient bronze
vessels, showing the distorted face of some ravenous animal. The
San-miau as a tribe are said to have been the forefathers of the
Tangutans, the Tibetans and the Miau-tz'i in the south-west of China.
This legend may be interpreted as indicating that the non-Chinese
races in the south-west have come to their present seats by migration
from Central China in remote antiquity. During Yau's reign a
catastrophe reminding one of the biblical deluge threatened the
Chinese world. The emperor held his minister of works, Kun,
responsible for this misfortune, probably an inundation of the Yellow
river such as has been witnessed by the present generation. Its
horrors are described with poetical exaggeration in the _Shu-king_.
When the efforts to stop the floods had proved futile for nine years,
Yau wished to abdicate, and he selected a virtuous young man of the
name of Shun as his successor. Among the legends told about this
second model emperor is the story that he had a board before his
palace on which every subject was permitted to note whatever faults he
had to find with his government, and that by means of a drum suspended
at his palace gate attention might be drawn to any complaint that was
to be made to him. Since Kun had not succeeded in stopping the floods,
he was dismissed and his son Yue was appointed in his stead. Probably
the waters began to subside of their own accord, but Yue has been
praised up as the national hero who, by his engineering works, saved
his people from utter destruction. His labours in this direction are
described in a special section of the Confucian account known as
_Yue-kung_, i.e. "Tribute of Yue." Yue's merit has in the sequel been
exaggerated so as to credit him with more than human powers. He is
supposed to have cut canals through the hills, in order to furnish
outlets to the floods, and to have performed feats of engineering
compared to which, according to Von Richthofen, the construction of
the St Gotthard tunnel without blasting materials would be child's
play, and all this within a few years.
_The Hia Dynasty._--As a reward for his services Yue was selected to
succeed Shun as emperor. He divided the empire into nine provinces, the
description of which in the _Yue-kung_ chapter of the "Canon of History"
bears a suspicious resemblance to later accounts. Yue's reign has been
assigned to the years 2205-2198, and the Hia Dynasty, of which he became
the head, has been made to extend to the overthrow in 1766 B.C. of Kie,
its eighteenth and last emperor, a cruel tyrant of the most vicious and
contemptible character. Among the Hia emperors we find _Chung-k'ang_
(2159-2147), whose reign has attracted the attention of European
scholars by the mention of an eclipse of the sun, which his court
astronomers had failed to predict. European astronomers and sinologues
have brought much acumen to bear on the problem involved in the
_Shu-king_ account in trying to decide which of the several eclipses
known to have occurred about that time was identical with the one
observed in China under Chung-k'ang.
_The Shang, or Yin, Dynasty._--This period, which preceded the classical
Chou dynasty, is made to extend from 1766 to 1122 B.C. We must now be
prepared to see an energetic or virtuous ruler at the head of a dynasty
and either a cruel tyrant or a contemptible weakling at the end of it.
It seems natural that this should be so; but Chinese historians, like
the writers of Roman history, have a tendency to exaggerate both good
and bad qualities. Ch'oeng-tang, its first sovereign, is represented as a
model of goodness and of humane feeling towards his subjects. Even the
animal world benefited by his kindness, inasmuch as he abolished all
useless torture in the chase. His great minister I Yin, who had greatly
assisted him in securing the throne, served two of his successors.
P'an-koeng (1401) and Wu-ting (1324) are described as good rulers among a
somewhat indifferent set of monarchs. The Shang dynasty, like the Hia,
came to an end through the reckless vice and cruelty of a tyrant
(Chou-sin with his consort Ta-ki). China had even in those days to
maintain her position as a civilized nation by keeping at bay the
barbarous nations by which she was surrounded. Chief among these were
the ancestors of the Hiung-nu tribes, or Huns, on the northern and
western boundaries. To fight them, to make pacts and compromises with
them, and to befriend them with gifts so as to keep them out of the
Imperial territories, had been the role of a palatinate on the western
frontier, the duchy of Chou, while the court of China with its vicious
emperor gave itself up to effeminate luxury. Chou-sin's evil practices
had aroused the indignation of the palatine, subsequently known as
Woen-wang, who in vain remonstrated with the emperor's criminal treatment
of his subjects. The strength and integrity of Woen-wang's character had
made him the corner-stone of that important epoch; and his name is one
of the best known both in history and in literature. The courage with
which he spoke his mind in rebuking his unworthy liege lord caused the
emperor to imprison him, his great popularity alone saving his life.
During his incarceration, extending over three years, he compiled the
_I-king_, or "Canon of Changes," supposed to be the oldest book of
Chinese literature, and certainly the one most extensively studied by
the nation. Woen-wang's son, known as Wu-wang, was destined to avenge his
father and the many victims of Chou-sin's cruelty. Under his leadership
the people rose against the emperor and, with the assistance of his
allies, "men of the west," possibly ancestors of the Huns, overthrew the
Shang dynasty after a decisive battle, whereupon Chou-sin committed
suicide by setting fire to his palace.
_Chou Dynasty._--Wu-wang, the first emperor of the new dynasty, named
after his duchy of Chou on the western frontier, was greatly assisted in
consolidating the empire by his brother, Chou-kung, i.e. "Duke of Chou."
As the loyal prime-minister of Wu-wang and his successor the duke of
Chou laid the foundation of the government institutions of the dynasty,
which became the prototype of most of the characteristic features in
Chinese public and social life down to recent times. The brothers and
adherents of the new sovereign were rewarded with fiefs which in the
sequel grew into as many states. China thus developed into a
confederation, resembling that of the German empire, inasmuch as a
number of independent states, each having its own sovereign, were united
under one liege lord, the emperor, styled "The Son of Heaven," who as
high priest of the nation reigned in the name of Heaven. The emperor
represented the nation in sacrificing and praying to God. His relations
with his vassals and government officials, and those of the heads of the
vassal states with their subjects as well as of the people among
themselves were regulated by the most rigid ceremonial. The dress to be
worn, the speeches to be made, and the postures to be assumed on all
possible occasions, whether at court or in private life, were subject to
regulations. The duke of Chou, or whoever may have been the creator of
this system, showed deep wisdom in his speculations, if he based that
immutability of government which in the sequel became a Chinese
characteristic, on the physical and moral immutability of individuals by
depriving them of all spontaneous action in public and private life.
Originally and nominally the emperor's power as the ruler over his
vassals, who again ruled in his name, was unquestionable; and the first
few generations of the dynasty saw no decline of the original strength
of central power. A certain loyalty based on the traditional ancestral
worship counteracted the desire to revolt. The rightful heir to the
throne was responsible to his ancestors as his subjects were to theirs.
"We have to do as our ancestors did," the people argued; "and since they
obeyed the ancestors of our present sovereign, we have to be loyal to
him." Interference with this time-honoured belief would have amounted to
a rupture, as it were, in the nation's religious relations, and as long
as the people looked upon the emperor as the Son of Heaven, his moral
power would outweigh strong armies sent against him in rebellion. The
time came soon enough when central power depended merely on this
spontaneous loyalty.
Not all the successors of Wu-wang profited by the lessons given them by
past history. Incapacity, excessive severity and undue weakness had
created discontent and loosened the relations between the emperor and
his vassals. Increase in the extent of the empire greatly added to this
decline of central power. For the emperor's own dominion was centrally
situated and surrounded by the several confederate states; its
geographical position prevented it from participating in the general
aggrandisement of China, and increase in territory, population and
prestige had become the privilege of boundary states. Tatar tribes in
the north and west and the aboriginal Man barbarians in the south were
forced by warfare to yield land, or enticed to exchange it for goods, or
induced to mingle with their Chinese neighbours, thus producing a mixed
population combining the superior intelligence of the Chinese race with
the energetic and warlike spirit of barbarians. These may be the main
reasons which gradually undermined the Imperial authority and brought
some of the confederate states to the front, so as to overshadow the
authority of the Son of Heaven himself, whose military and financial
resources were inferior to those of several of his vassals. A few out of
the thirty-five sovereigns of the Chou dynasty were distinguished by
extraordinary qualities. Mu-wang of the 10th century performed journeys
far beyond the western frontier of his empire, and was successful in
warfare against the Dog Barbarians, described as the ancestors of the
Hiung-nu, or Huns. The reign of Suean-wang (827-782 B.C.) was filled with
warfare against the Tangutans and the Huns, called Hien-yuen in a
contemporaneous poem of the "Book of Odes"; but the most noteworthy
reign in this century is that of the lascivious Yu-wang, the
oppressiveness of whose government had caused a bard represented in the
"Book of Odes" to complain about the emperor's evil ways. The writer of
this poem refers to certain signs showing that Heaven itself is
indignant at Yu-wang's crimes. One of these signs was an eclipse of the
sun which had recently occurred, the date and month being clearly
stated. This date corresponds exactly with August 29, 776 B.C.; and
astronomers have calculated that on that precise date an eclipse of the
sun was visible in North China. This, of course, cannot be a mere
accident; and since the date falls into the sixth year of Yu-wang's
reign, the coincidence is bound to increase our confidence in that part
of Chinese history. Our knowledge of it, however, is due to mere chance;
for the record of the eclipse would probably not have been preserved
until our days had it not been interpreted as a kind of _tekel upharsin_
owing to the peculiarity of the political situation. It does not follow,
therefore, as some foreign critics assume, that the historical period
begins as late as Yu-wang's reign. China has no architectural witnesses
to testify to her antiquity as Egypt has in her pyramids and temple
ruins; but the sacrificial bronze vessels of the Shang and Chou
dynasties, with their characteristic ornaments and hieroglyphic
inscriptions, seem to support the historical tradition inasmuch as
natural development may be traced by the analysis of their artistic and
paleographic phases. Counterfeiters, say a thousand years later, could
not have resisted the temptation to introduce patterns and hieroglyphic
shapes of later periods; and whatever bronzes have been assigned to the
Shang dynasty, i.e. some time in the second millennium B.C., exhibit the
Shang characteristics. The words occurring in their inscriptions,
carefully collected, may be shown to be confined to ideas peculiar to
primitive states of cultural life, not one of them pointing to an
invention we may suspect to be of later origin. But, apart from this, it
seems a matter of individual judgment how far back beyond that
indisputable year 776 B.C. a student will date the beginning of real
history.
In the 7th century central authority had declined to such an extent that
the emperor was merely the nominal head of the confederation, the
hegemony in the empire falling in turn to one of the five principal
states, for which reason the Chinese speak of a period of the "Five
Leaders." The state of Ts'i, corresponding to North Shan-tung, had begun
to overshadow the other states by unprecedented success in economic
enterprise, due to the prudent advice of its prime minister, the
philosopher Kuan-tzi. Other states attained leadership by success in
warfare. Among these leaders we see duke Mu of T'sin (659 B.C.), a state
on the western boundary which was so much influenced by amalgamation
with its Hunnic neighbours that the purely Chinese states regarded it as
a barbarian country. The emperor was in those days a mere shadow;
several of his vassals had grown strong enough to claim and be granted
the title "king," and they all tried to annihilate their neighbours by
ruse in diplomacy and by force of arms, without referring to their
common ruler for arbitration, as they were in duty bound. In this
_bellum omnium contra omnes_ the state of Ts'in, in spite of repeated
reverses, remained in possession of the field.
The period of this general struggle is spoken of by Chinese historians
as that of "The Contending States." Like that of the "Five Leaders" it
is full of romance; and the examples of heroism, cowardice, diplomatic
skill and philosophical equanimity which fill the pages of its history
have become the subject of elegant literature in prose and poetry. The
political development of the Chou dynasty is the exact counterpart of
that of its spiritual life as shown in the contemporaneous literature.
The orthodox conservative spirit which reflects the ethical views of
the emperor and his royal partisans is represented by the name
Confucius (551-479 B.C.). The great sage had collected old traditions
and formulated the moral principles which had been dormant in the
Chinese nation for centuries. His doctrines tended to support the
maintenance of central power; so did those of other members of his
school, especially Mencius. Filial love showed itself as obedience to
the parents in the family and as loyalty to the emperor and his
government in public life. It was the highest virtue, according to the
Confucian school. The history of the nation as taught in the
_Shu-king_ was in its early part merely an illustration of
Confucianist ideas about good and bad government. The perpetual advice
to rulers was: "Be like Yau, Shun and Yue, and you will be right."
Confucianism was dominant during the earlier centuries of the Chou
dynasty, whose lucky star began to wane when doctrines opposed to it
got the upper hand. The philosophical schools built up on the
doctrines of Lau-tzi had in the course of generations become
antagonistic, and found favour with those who did not endorse that
loyalty to the emperor demanded by Mencius; so had other thinkers,
some of whom had preached morals which were bound to break up all
social relations, like the philosopher of egotism, Yang Chu, according
to Mencius disloyalty personified and the very reverse of his ideal,
the duke of Chou. The egotism recommended by Yang Chu to the
individual had begun to be practised on a large scale by the
contending states, their governments and sovereigns, some of whom had
long discarded Confucian rites under the influence of Tatar
neighbours. It appears that the anti-Confucian spirit which paved the
way towards the final extinction of Wu-wang's dynasty received its
chief nourishment from the Tatar element in the population of the
northern and western boundary states. Among these Ts'in was the most
prominent. Having placed itself in the possession of the territories
of nearly all of the remaining states, Ts'in made war against the last
shadow emperor, Nan-wang who had attempted to form an alliance against
the powerful usurper, with the result that the western part of the
Chou dominion was lost to the aggressor.
Nan-wang died soon after (256 B.C.), and a relative whom he had
appointed regent was captured in 249 B.C., when the king of Ts'in put
an end to this last remnant of the once glorious Chou dynasty by
annexing its territory. The king had already secured the possession of
the Nine Tripods, huge bronze vases said to have been cast by the
emperor Yue as representing the nine divisions of his empire and since
preseryed in the treasuries of all the various emperors as a symbol of
Imperial power. With the loss of these tripods Nan-wang had forfeited
the right to call himself "Son of Heaven." Another prerogative was the
offering of sacrifice to Shang-ti, the Supreme Ruler, or God, with
whom only the emperor was supposed to communicate. The king of Ts'in
had performed the ceremony as early as 253 B.C. (F. H.*)
(C)--_From the Ts'in Dynasty to 1875._
Ts'in dynasty 249-210 B.C.
Shi Hwang-ti.
Shi Hwang-ti.
After the fall of the Chou dynasty a kind of interregnum followed during
which China was practically without an emperor. This was the time when
the state of Ts'in asserted itself as the leader and finally as the
master of all the contending states. Its king, Chau-siang, who died in
251 B.C., though virtually emperor, abstained from adopting the imperial
title. He was succeeded by his son, Hiao-wen Wang, who died after a
three days' reign. Chwan-siang Wang, his son and successor, was a man of
no mark. He died in 246 B.C. giving place to Shi Hwang-ti, "the first
universal emperor." This sovereign was then only thirteen, but he
speedily made his influence felt everywhere. He chose Hien-yang, the
modern Si-gan Fu, as his capital, and built there a magnificent palace,
which was the wonder and admiration of his contemporaries. He abolished
the feudal system, and divided the country into provinces over whom he
set officers directly responsible to himself. He constructed roads
through the empire, he formed canals, and erected numerous and handsome
public buildings.
Having settled the internal affairs of his kingdom, he turned his
attention to the enemies beyond his frontier. Chief among these were
the Hiung-nu Tatars, whose attacks had for years disquieted the
Chinese and neighbouring principalities. Against these foes he marched
with an army of 300,000 men, exterminating those in the neighbourhood
of China, and driving the rest into Mongolia. On his return from this
campaign he was called upon to face a formidable rebellion in Ho-nan,
which had been set on foot by the adherents of the feudal princes whom
he had dispossessed. Having crushed the rebellion, he marched
southwards and subdued the tribes on the south of the Nan-shan ranges,
i.e. the inhabitants of the modern provinces of Fu-kien, Kwang-tung
and Kwang-si. The limits of his empire were thus as nearly as possible
those of modern China proper. One monument remains to bear witness to
his energy. Finding that the northern states of Ts'in, Chao and Yen
were building lines of fortification along their northern frontier for
protection against the Hiung-nu, he conceived the idea of building one
gigantic wall, which was to stretch across the whole northern limit of
the huge empire from the sea to the farthest western corner of the
modern province of Kan-suh. This work was begun under his immediate
supervision in 214 B.C. His reforming zeal made him unpopular with the
upper classes. Schoolmen and pedants held up to the admiration of the
people the heroes of the feudal times and the advantages of the system
they administered. Seeing in this propaganda danger to the state Shi
Hwang-ti determined to break once and for all with the past. To this
end he ordered the destruction of all books having reference to the
past history of the empire, and many scholars were put to death for
failing in obedience to it. (See _infra Sec. Chinese Literature, Sec.Sec.
History._) The measure was unpopular and on his death (210 B.C.)
rebellion broke out. His son and successor Erh-shi, a weak and
debauched youth, was murdered after having offered a feeble resistance
to his enemies. His son Tsze-yung surrendered to Liu Pang, the prince
of Han, one of the two generals who were the leaders of the rebellion.
He afterwards fell into the hands of Hiang Yu, the other chieftain,
who put him and his family and associates to death. Hiang Yu aspiring
to imperial honours, war broke out between him and Liu Pang. After
five years' conflict Hiang Yu was killed in a decisive battle before
Wu-kiang. Liu Pang was then proclaimed emperor (206 B.C.) under the
title of Kao-ti, and the new line was styled the Han dynasty.
Han dynasty 206 B.C.
Kao-ti established his capital at Lo-yang in Ho-nan, and afterwards
removed it to Chang-an in Shen-si. Having founded his right to rebel on
the oppressive nature of the laws promulgated by Shi Hwang-ti, he
abolished the ordinances of Ts'in, except that referring to the
destruction of the books--for, like his great predecessor, he dreaded
the influence exercised by the _literati_--and he exchanged the worship
of the gods of the soil of Ts'in for that of those of Han, his native
state. His successor Hwei-ti (194-179 B.C.), however, gave every
encouragement to literature, and appointed a commission to restore as
far as possible the texts which had been destroyed by Shi Hwang-ti. In
this the commission was very successful. It was discovered that in many
cases the law had been evaded, while in numerous instances scholars were
found to write down from memory the text of books of which all copies
had been destroyed, though in some cases the purity of the text is
doubtful and in other cases there were undoubted forgeries. A period of
repose was now enjoyed by the empire. There was peace within its
borders, and its frontiers remained unchallenged, except by the
Hiung-nu, who suffered many severe defeats. Thwarted in their attacks on
China, these marauders attacked the kingdom of the Yueh-chi, which had
grown up in the western extremity of Kan-suh, and after much fighting
drove their victims along the T'ien-shan-nan-lu to the territory between
Turkestan and the Caspian Sea. This position of affairs suggested to the
emperor the idea of forming an offensive and defensive alliance with the
Yueh-chi against the Hiung-nu. With this object the general Chang K'ien
was sent as an ambassador to western Tatary. After having been twice
imprisoned by the Hiung-nu he returned to China. Chang K'ien had
actually reached the court of the Yueh-chi, or Indo-Scythians as they
were called owing to their having become masters of India later on, and
paid a visit to the kingdom of Bactria, recently conquered by the
Yueh-chi. His report on the several kingdoms of western Asia opened up a
new world to the Chinese, and numerous elements of culture, plants and
animals were then imported for the first time from the west into China.
While in Bactria Chan K'ien's attention was first drawn to the existence
of India, and attempts to send expeditions, though at first fruitless,
finally led to its discovery. Under Wu-ti (140-86 B.C.) the power of the
Hiung-nu was broken and eastern Turkestan changed into a Chinese colony,
through which caravans could safely pass to bring back merchandise and
art treasures from Persia and the Roman market. By the Hans the feudal
system was restored in a modified form; 103 feudal principalities were
created, but they were more or less under the jurisdiction of civil
governors appointed to administer the thirteen _chows_ (provinces) into
which the country was divided. About the beginning of the Christian era
Wang Mang rose in revolt against the infant successor of P'ing-ti (A.D.
1), and in A.D. 9 proclaimed himself emperor. He, however, only gained
the suffrages of a portion of the nation, and before long his oppressive
acts estranged his supporters. In A.D. 23 Liu Siu, one of the princes of
Han, completely defeated him. His head was cut off, and his body was
torn in pieces by his own soldiery.
Eastern Han dynasty, A.D. 23.
Liu Siu, was proclaimed emperor under the title of Kwang-wu-ti, reigned
from A.D. 58 to 76. Having fixed on Lo-yang in Ho-nan as his capital,
the line of which he was the first emperor became known as the Eastern
Han dynasty. It is also known as the Later Han dynasty. During the reign
of his successor Ming-ti, A.D. 65, Buddhism was introduced from India
into China (see ante Sec. _Religion_). About the same time the celebrated
general Pan Ch'ao was sent on an embassy to the king of Shen-shen, a
small state of Turkestan, near the modern Pidjan. Before long he added
the states of Shen-shen, Khotan, Kucha and Kashgar as apanages to the
Chinese crown, and for a considerable period the country enjoyed
prosperity. The Han dynasty (including in the term the Eastern Han
dynasty) has been considered the first national dynasty and is one of
the most famous in China; nor has any ruling family been more popular.
The Chinese, especially the northern Chinese, still call themselves "the
sons of Han." The wealth and trade as well as the culture of the country
was greatly developed, and the competitive examinations for literary
degrees instituted. The homogeneity of the nation was so firmly
established that subsequent dissensions and conquests could not alter
fundamentally the character of the nation.