The Great Wall--Its failure as a defence--Forced labour--Mode of
construction--Shih-Hwang-Ti orders all books to be burnt--Mandarins flung
into the flames--The _Shu-King_ is saved--How the sacred books came to be
written--The sedan-chair and its uses--Modern hotels at Pekin--Examination
of students for degrees--Cells in which they are confined--Kublai Khan
conquers China--Makes Pekin his capital--Introduces paper currency--The
Great Canal--Address to the three Philosophers--Marco Polo's visit to
Pekin--His description of the Emperor--Kublai Khan's wife--Foundation
of the Academy of Pekin--Hin-Heng and his acquirements--Death
of Kublai Khan--Inferiority of his successors--Shun-Ti the last
Mongol Emperor--Pekin in the time of the Mongols--When seen by Lord
Macartney--The city as it is now.
It is a relief to turn from the terrible events which have given to
Tien-tsin such a sinister notoriety to visit from it the celebrated Great
Wall of China, the western termination of which is at no great distance
from the town on the north. Begun by the Emperor Shih-Hwang-Ti, in
B.C. 214, as a protection against the invasions of the Tartars, it was
completed in the marvellously short time of five years, that energetic
monarch sparing neither expense nor trouble, and ruthlessly sacrificing
the lives of thousands of his subjects in his determination to keep out
the hated barbarians. That he was not successful, but that his rampart
in due time served his enemies better than it had done himself, is one
of those ironies of fate with which the student of history is familiar.
Tartars, Mongols, and Manchus have in their turn reigned over China from
the sacred city, within the very defences supposed to be impregnable; the
mighty wall remaining a standing proof, not of the wisdom, but of the
short-sightedness of its builder.
[Illustration: FIG. 46.--THE GREAT WALL.
(_Univers Pittoresque._)]
[Sidenote: THE GREAT WALL]
To secure a sufficient number of men to work at his wall, Shih-Hwang-Ti
issued an edict ordering every third labourer throughout the whole of the
Empire to labour at it, and the unfortunate men thus selected were forced
to work like slaves, with no wages but a scanty supply of food, their
places when they fell down dead being quickly taken by other victims.
The wall, when completed at the cost of so great an expenditure of human
life, was fifteen hundred miles long; its breadth at the bottom was
nearly twenty-five feet, and at the top fifteen feet, whilst it varied in
height from fifteen to thirty feet. The materials employed would, it is
said, be enough to build a wall six feet high and two feet thick to go
twice round the world. Six horsemen could ride abreast upon it, and it
was fortified by very strong towers, placed at regular intervals of about
one hundred yards, that is to say, within two arrow-shots of each other,
so that any one attempting to scale it would be covered from one tower
or another by the guards stationed in them. The construction of the wall
was very strong, the outside being formed of stone and brickwork, whilst
the inside was filled up with earth. The wall started from the sea-shore
at the Shan-Hai Pass, in N. Lat. 40° and E. Long. 119° 50′, and ran over
mountains, through valleys, and across rivers by means of arches, which
are still marvels of engineering skill, to the most western province of
Kan-su, where it ends at the Khiya Pass. Whilst only insignificant relics
now remain of the immense Roman walls which once intersected England and
France, this vast monument of an ambitious ruler still stands, ranking as
one of the wonders of the world, an incidental proof that at the time of
its erection, two thousand years ago, China must have already been a great
and civilized Empire. There is no doubt that Shih-Hwang-Ti did succeed in
centralizing authority, and absorbing the power of the numerous military
chiefs who before his time reigned in the various small kingdoms, making
up what is now the Celestial Empire.
[Sidenote: BURNING OF MSS.]
Unfortunately, however, the monarch aimed rather at his own aggrandizement
than at the good of his people, and his vainglorious desire to be
looked upon as the founder of the Chinese monarchy led him to issue
that celebrated edict, ordering all books and writings referring to his
predecessors to be burnt, which inflicted an incalculable loss on future
students of history. Those who endeavoured to evade this sweeping decree
were to be punished by death, and according to some accounts, hundreds of
literati were burnt on piles of the MSS. they had tried to save. In spite
of all precautions, however, some few copies of the works of Confucius and
other great writers were successfully hidden and brought out again on the
death of the tyrant.
On this interesting subject Father Gaubil, in his valuable work on Chinese
Chronology, says: "One thing is certain ... the books containing the
geographical surveys and the departmental records were not burnt ...
though the minister Lis-sse, like the Emperor himself, wished the people
to remain ignorant, and know nothing about how the country was governed by
the earlier kings, or to hear of the great and virtuous men of the past,
or of the precepts left behind by them." It was this same minister, the
Father tells us, who introduced the salutary reform of the use of one
character only throughout the Empire, whereas before his time several
different kinds of letters were employed in writing. This alphabet was
known as the _li-chu_, and is supposed to be identical with that of the
present day.
[Illustration: FIG. 47.--BURNING OF MANDARINS AND HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS, BY
ORDER OF SHIH-KWANG-TI. (_Univers Pittoresque._)]
It was indeed fortunate that so many important manuscripts were saved from
the general holocaust the sacrilegious Emperor had ordered, for had the
_Shu-King_ been destroyed, it would have been difficult to give any real
account of the China of the past. This most celebrated and authentic of
ancient books is supposed to have been begun about the year 2266 B.C., in
the reign of the great Yao, brother of that King Ti-Ko, who introduced
the polygamy still practised in China. This book, or rather collection
of books, is to the Celestials what the Bible is to the Jews, the Koran
to the Mahomedans, the Law-Book of Manu to the Hindus, and the Gospel
to Christians. It is the very fountain-head of Chinese law, and not to
be acquainted with its contents is to be unworthy of holding any place
of trust in the Empire. Its authenticity is absolutely established, for
it is well known that ever since the year 2637 B.C. there has been a
historic Tribunal in Pekin, whose members are chosen from amongst the
most distinguished literati of the whole Empire. Once appointed, these
scholars can never be removed from office, and it is their duty to
register daily everything of importance that occurs in any town, including
meteorological and other natural phenomena, as well as what may be called
purely historical events, such as the revolts, sieges, fires, and other
misfortunes to which humanity is subject.
[Sidenote: THE SHU-KING]
Father Amiot, a very cultivated and intelligent French missionary, says
on the subject of the sacred books of the _Shu-King_: "The Chinese annals
are superior to the historical documents of every other nation, because
there is less fabulous matter in them, and because they are more ancient
... and more full of information of every kind ... They are worthy of our
fullest confidence, because the epochs to which they refer are determined
by astronomical observations, and the accounts of the events of all kinds
which occur in those epochs can be mutually checked, and are found, when
compared, to prove the good faith of the writers who have transmitted them
to us."
They are indeed simply invaluable to the student, forming as they do
absolutely trustworthy guides to their researches into the early history
of China, carrying it back for long centuries, or rather sexagenaries,
for, as already remarked, the Chinese chronology reckons by sixties, not
hundreds of years. One incidental proof of their veracity is the fact that
their writers, when not fully informed, have left gaps in their narratives
instead of filling them up as so many chroniclers would have done with
imaginary matter.
They are moreover works of literature rather than mere dry historical
documents, and there is no series of books in the whole world on which so
many able men have been employed as on the sacred records of the Chinese
nation.
What tales the literati might have told in those old days of their
adventures on their way to the capital to take up their work as
chroniclers! Even when I made the journey from Tien-tsin to Pekin, before
the opening of the railway, I had variety enough, travelling now by boat,
now in a palanquin, now in a sedan-chair, and sometimes on horseback,
and things must have been far worse in those early days of the beginning
of history. One shudders to think of what our own diplomatic agents must
have gone through when, after much difficulty, they did at last obtain
the coveted honour of representing the Western powers in the chief city
of the Celestial Empire. They must have suffered horribly, the more that
their presence was thoroughly unwelcome, and it was the delight of every
petty official to throw obstacles in their way. The old literati, on the
other hand, were treated with the greatest respect, and except when they
happened to make some mistake in their astronomical calculations, when
their heads paid the forfeit, they lived in considerable luxury.
Pekin, though still not exactly the place Europeans would choose to live
in, is now comparatively civilized, and in the spacious rooms of the
European ambassadors the foreign residents dine, sup, and dance very
much as they would in the capitals of their own countries. Thanks to the
seclusion of the sedan-chairs, even ladies can go about without attracting
notice, or having to pick their way through the ill-smelling rubbish which
still encumbers the streets. No traveller in China with the slightest
self-respect goes on foot, and any foreigner who attempts walking lays
himself open to every insult. "A chair," says a writer who knows China
well, "is far more effective than a passport," and the ambassadors and
ambassadresses, the secretaries of legation, the consuls and their wives,
employ large numbers of coolies to carry them to and fro. There is
something truly wonderful in the way in which a mere handful of Europeans
live their own lives, following their own customs, in the midst of a
population of three hundred thousand Tartars, Mongols, and Manchus, not
to speak of the four hundred thousand Chinese citizens, and the hundred
thousand soldiers forming the garrison.
[Sidenote: THE PEKIN MARKETS]
Pekin now actually boasts of two bakers who make bread of fine American
flour, and are largely patronized by the foreign residents; and in the
markets, the native cooks who cater for the Embassies, find plenty of
variety for the tables of their employers at a very reasonable price,
including two kinds of pheasant, the grey and the red-legged partridge.
Wild geese and wild duck, the hare, the boar, the antelope and the roebuck
are also all plentiful, and mutton can be had as tender as that of Wales,
Normandy, or the Ardennes.
Not so very long ago, visitors to Pekin had to go to wretched inns where
they were far from welcome, or to ask hospitality from the foreign
residents, but now there are two hotels where travellers are as well
treated as in the West. One, called the Hôtel Français, is kept by a
jovial Chinaman, who was at one time cook to an English diplomatist; the
other, called the German Hotel, is managed by a burly native of Frankfort,
who reminds me of nothing so much as of a Heidelberg tun. In these two
inns the rooms are big, with wide chimneys and good windows, so that
really it is possible to be quite comfortable in them, even in winter, if
one can avoid the streets, with their deep mud or dust, as the case may be.
[Illustration: FIG. 48.--A STREET IN PEKIN.]
It is to Pekin that thousands of students who have already won the second
degree of rank, as literati, flock to compete for the distinction known
as the Tsen-Sze, which corresponds to some extent with that of a doctor
of law in England. The scholar who comes out first in the examinations is
considered for the current year the most learned man in all the eighteen
provinces of China, and is privileged to choose a post in the very highest
department of the Government.
[Sidenote: CHINESE EXAMINATIONS]
Out of the nine or ten hundred candidates who are examined by the doctors
of the Han-Lin College, three hundred are selected, and again tested in
the presence of the Emperor. Then ten of these three hundred are picked
out to compete once more for the coveted first grade, to win which is
the ambition of every literary man in China, for it is equally open to
all, though achieved by but few. The ten who are considered worthy are
subjected to a very severe final test by a jury selected by the Emperor
himself. Their replies to the examination questions are written out,
richly bound, and placed before the so-called Son of Heaven, who reads
all the manuscripts, and points out the three he considers the best.
The authors of these three are raised to first rank, and are _féted_
throughout the capital for three days, marching round it, accompanied by
processions bearing flags, beating drums, etc. Of the rest of the three
hundred, some become professors at the Han-Lin College, whilst others
receive appointments in various parts of the country.
The hall in which the examinations take place has attached to it a number
of very small cells, not more than six feet long by three wide and five
high--an incidental proof of the average stature of the Chinese--in one
of which each candidate is shut up alone, so that the judges maybe quite
sure his work is all his own. The aspirant to literary honour is even
searched to see that he has no books or papers hidden in his robes. He is
then supplied with writing materials, and his replies to the questions put
to him are not signed, so there is no fear of partiality on the part of
the judges. The only furniture of the examination cell is a plank placed
across it about fifteen inches above the ground to serve as a seat, and a
little tablet fixed to the wall to be used as a desk. There is sometimes
such a run upon the cells that a student has to wait for days before he
can secure one. Amongst the cells named after the "Red Dragon," the little
room is still shown in which the fourth Emperor of the present dynasty
worked at certain of the usual examination papers with a view to shedding
lustre on the literary life. He had the courage and perseverance to remain
shut up in complete seclusion for nine days; but he evidently found the
task he had set himself very arduous, for, since his experiment, students
have been allowed to come out of their cells every three days to breathe
the outer air and stretch their limbs.
[Illustration: FIG. 49.--NIGHT-WATCHMEN IN PEKIN.]
[Sidenote: KUBLAI KHAN]
The two most interesting facts connected with the history of Pekin are
that it is one of the most ancient cities of the world, occupying the site
of the capital of the old province of Yen, which is known to have been
in existence 1200 years before the Christian era, and that it was made
the seat of government by Kublai Khan, the first Mongol Emperor of China,
grandson of the mighty conqueror Genghis Khan. This Kublai Khan, though a
conqueror and of foreign race, so won the affections of the Chinese that
he was justly called the Father of his people, and during his reign the
country enjoyed a prosperity never since equalled. The native rulers who
had preceded the Mongols had been mere phantom sovereigns, the puppets of
their eunuchs and the women of their harems, altogether oblivious of the
great example set them by the early monarchs of China.
The warlike and highly civilized Mongols had long since conquered all
the districts north and west of the great wall of China, and for years
had cast longing eyes at the fertile regions on the other side of that
artificial barrier, and when Kublai Khan came to the throne, a mere child;
the last survivor of the Soong line was Emperor of China. In this fact the
Mongol ruler saw his opportunity, and is said to have sent the following
message to the young prince: "Your family owes its rise to the minority
of the last Emperor of the preceding dynasty, it is therefore just that
you, a child, the last remnant of the line of Soong, should give place to
another family."
Whether this Mongol expression of the time-honoured doctrine that might
makes right ever reached the ears of the infant prince or not, the
approach of the great Khan warriors so terrified the Court, that the
Emperor and the ministers took refuge with him on the vessels in the
harbour of Canton. There they were followed by the Tartar war-ships, and
the terror they inspired was such that the fugitives all flung themselves
into the sea, one of the chief grandees being the first to jump overboard
with the young Emperor in his arms. More than one hundred soldiers and
sailors are supposed to have perished on this fatal day, either from
poison, by drowning, or at the hands of the enemy.
This terrible event took place in A.D. 1280 or 1281, when Kublai Khan
became sovereign of the whole of China, and fixed his capital at what is
now Pekin, but was then called Khan-balegh, or the capital of the Khan. He
surrounded his palace with a wall six leagues in circumference, pierced by
twelve gateways; the roofs of his residence were very lofty and spacious,
richly decorated with gold and silver, and with paintings representing
birds, horses, dragons, and other quaint symbolic animals. The roof of the
palace was gilded, and six thousand warriors could take shelter in it at
one time.
Kublai Khan, who was as wise in statecraft as in battle, took care not to
interfere with the institutions of his new subjects; all the officials
who submitted to him were allowed to retain their posts, and the
Chinese themselves were exempted from military service. This of course
concentrated all the power in the hands of the Mongols, and did more than
anything else could have done to consolidate the new dynasty, though the
Celestials themselves do not seem to have realized its full significance.
The new Emperor was visited at his Court of Khan-balegh, or Cambalu, by
Marco Polo, that most venturesome traveller and astute observer, whose
account of his sojourn with the great Mongol conqueror gives so vivid a
picture of life in China in the thirteenth century. Hospitably received by
the Khan, the Venetian dwelt much in his book on the magnificence of his
court, and makes the sage and humorous remark: "Kublai, who was the first
to invent paper-money made from the inner bark of the mulberry-tree, had
discovered the true philosopher's stone, for he could create wealth at his
own desire."
[Sidenote: THE GREAT CANAL]
A far greater boon than the introduction of paper currency was the making
of the great canal, which rivals the celebrated wall in the skill of its
construction, and has been of far more lasting value to the people of
China than that monument of the energy and presumption of Shih-Hwang-Ti.
One hundred and seventy thousand men were employed in this useful
enterprise, which was not completed until after the death of its promoter.
The wonderful waterway, before it fell into disrepair, extended from the
capital to Hang-Chan in the province of Che-kiang, and was more than three
hundred miles long. Marco Polo said of it: "He (Kublai Khan) has caused
a water communication to be made in the shape of a wide and deep channel
dug between stream and stream, between lake and lake, forming as it were a
great river on which large vessels can ply."
[Illustration: FIG. 50.--A CHINESE GENERAL IN HIS WAR-CHARIOT.
(_Univers Pittoresque._)]
[Sidenote: SAYINGS OF KUBLAI KHAN]
Various sayings of the wise thinker and practical worker, at the head of
the newly conquered country, have come down to us. Amongst these may be
quoted as specially significant, the address made by the Emperor to three
great philosophers whom he had summoned to his presence to aid him in the
difficult task of government, in preventing the exodus of the inhabitants
from the towns, and the desertion of the country by the cultivators.
"You must help me," he said, "to make your fellow-countrymen listen to
reason; they look upon us now as if we were bears or tigers; they are
afraid of us when we only wish to do them good. My one desire is to make
them happy under my rule, and they will believe it if you tell them so.
You, Yao-Theu," he added, "I make general inspector of the agricultural
districts; travel about in them, and manage to get them restored to their
former owners and cultivated as before; I give you full authority to bring
this about."
"As for you, Hin-Heng and Teo-mo, I place the people under your
protection; watch over the health and tranquillity of the artisans and
workmen, so that they labour as of yore, and that they look forward to
enjoying the fruits of their industry in peace. Moreover, I give you full
powers to re-open schools wherever they used to be, or to build new ones
if you think it desirable; in a word, do all that you think will promote
the good of the public--I approve in advance of everything you may decide
on."
Long before the time of Richelieu, Kublai Khan formed an academy, to which
flocked scholars and men of letters of every nationality. From India,
from Persia, and from beyond the Oxus they came, as well as from the
different countries of Europe, attracted by the fame of the learning in
the Chinese capital. Marco Polo, who for three years was governor of one
of the southern provinces of China, became a member of this academy, and
Hin-Heng, one of the philosophers alluded to above, also belonged to it,
excelling all his _confrères_ in the variety of his acquirements. Speaking
of him. Father Amiot says: "There was no science he had not studied,
and he succeeded in them all ... he gave his attention to chronology, to
history, and to music. He was a geometrician and astronomer, and he was
one of the savants who worked at the reform of the Chinese almanac ... he
was well versed in the ancient history of his nation, he knew the laws
and customs of his native land, and explained them so clearly that Kublai
Khan entrusted to him the drawing up of the code for his dynasty. To all
this knowledge he added that of the Mongol language, in which he composed
several excellent works, not to speak of the translations he made of the
best Chinese books.... He also made commentaries on the _Shu-King_, or
sacred books."
[Illustration: FIG. 51.--PORCELAIN TOWER AT NANKING.]
Very vivid is the light thrown by these quotations on the civilization
of the capital of China under the Mongol ruler, and, thanks once more
to Marco Polo, we are able to form a very accurate idea of the personal
appearance of Kublai Khan. "The great Lord of lords," the celebrated
traveller tells us, "is of a good stature, neither little nor big, but of
medium height ... his limbs are well formed ... his face is white, with
cheeks like a rose; his nose is well shaped and prominent." The chronicler
further tells us that Kublai Khan had four wives, whom he treated exactly
alike, and that his eldest, no matter by which mother, would succeed him
when he died. According to other authorities, one wife alone enjoyed the
title of Empress, and she had three hundred female slaves to attend upon
her.
[Sidenote: A DEGENERATE EMPEROR]
The founder alike of the Mongol, or, as it is sometimes called, the Yuan
dynasty, and of Pekin, lived to the advanced age of eighty-three, and
was succeeded by his grandson Timur; but able as that prince was, he was
by no means equal to his predecessor. Later members of the Tartar race,
who occupied the Chinese throne, did not follow the example of the old
Manchu rulers, so that the wonderfully-organized government of Kublai
Khan gradually fell to pieces, and at the end of seventy-three years
yet another new dynasty supplanted that which had appeared so firmly
established. No one can wonder at this who reads the stories told of
Shun-Ti, the ninth and last Mongol sovereign, who, called to the supreme
power at the early age of thirteen, amused himself by watching the
dancing of sixteen young girls, called the sixteen spirits, and wasted
time and treasure in endeavouring to pry into the future, with the aid
of soothsayers, whilst he neglected every duty he owed to God and to his
subjects.
Marco Polo left a glowing description of the Imperial Palace at Kambala,
or Pekin, where, he tells us, "twice five miles of fertile ground, with
walls and towers, were girdled round," and as late as 1793, when Lord
Macartney visited the city, he found that it was still very much what it
had been in the thirteenth century. On the change of dynasty, after the
expulsion of Shun-Ti, the capital was transferred to Nanking, but in 1421
Pekin was restored to its old dignity, and its walls were still further
extended. In the following centuries its fortunes fluctuated greatly,
and it was not until 1860, when it was taken by the Anglo-French forces,
that it began to assume anything of its present appearance. The central
or inner city, known as the Manchu, is divided into three parts: the
Purple Forbidden Town containing the imperial residences; the Imperial or
August City, with the great temples, where the imperial family worship
their ancestors; and the general city, beyond which again is the so-called
Chinese town, consisting of a net-work of lanes and alleys, with two wide
thoroughfares intersecting each other at right angles.
[Sidenote: A REPRESENTATIVE CAPITAL]
The foreign legations are all grouped together in the south-eastern
corner of the August City, and consist of Chinese palaces transformed
into a semblance of European houses. The French Legation is the largest,
though perhaps not the most comfortable, and is situated in the centre
of a very fine park. After describing the imperial palaces, the temples
and pagodas of Pekin, and remarking on the great uniformity of their
style of architecture, a modern writer, who knows the city well, says:
"The chief ornaments of the streets are the fronts of the shops; large
panels of carved wood, sometimes gilded, frame the façades, the carvings
representing dragons, phœnixes, etc., the effect being very decorative
... on the other hand, the private houses, with their lofty walls and
numerous entrance courts, do nothing to contribute to the beauty of the
street." The modern Chinese are ardent lovers of their homes, and the
humblest artisan lives alone, with his family, in the strictest seclusion.
"There is nothing," adds this true observer, "to distinguish any one
house from another, and it is the same with the theatres and opium dens;
uniformity is the guiding principle in everything, and even the priests
of the various missions have adopted the Chinese customs and mode of
plaiting the hair." The town of Pekin is, in fact, unique in the power
it seems to have of making all who reside in it conform to one style. It
perfectly represents the country of which it is the capital, with its
intense hostility to innovation, holding itself aloof from every other
nation, ignoring the very existence of the West for more than twenty-five
centuries, and only waking up to its existence to despise it as the home
of outer barbarians. But of late years there has been change in the very
air even of Pekin; the opening of the railway from it to Tien-tsin, two
years ago, was indeed a significant sign of the times, and the next
decade will doubtless witness the breaking down of convention even in that
stronghold of conservatism, the Purple Forbidden City. Already Tartar
carts, Chinese chaises, blue and green sedan-chairs, strings of camels,
condemned prisoners wearing the fatal cangue, Buddhist priests chanting
litanies, and even eunuchs of the Emperor himself, in their black and
yellow uniforms, are jostled by riders on horseback or by carriages, but
little different from those in use in Paris and London. The West has
introduced the thin edge of the wedge of its civilization into the inner
citadel, the time-honoured watchword of "China for the Chinese" has lost
its conjuring power, and the attempt of the Empress Dowager to revive it
can but end in disaster for her and those she rules in such an arbitrary
and old-fashioned style.