With this loss of substance and exhaustion of strength, the homes of
the people will be stripped bare, and three-tenths of their incomes
will be dissipated;
The _Yü Lan_ omits 財殫. I would propose the emended reading
力屈則中, etc. In view of the fact that we have 財竭 in the two
preceding paragraphs, it seems probable that 財 is a scribe’s
mistake for 則, 殫 having been added afterwards to make sense.
中原內虛於家, literally: “Within the middle plains there is
emptiness in the homes.” For 中原 cf. _Shih Ching_ II. 3. vi. 3 and
II. 5. ii. 3. With regard to 十去其七, Tu Mu says: 家業十耗其七也,
and Wang Hsi: 民費大半矣; that is, the people are mulcted not of
3⁄10, but of 7⁄10, of their income. But this is hardly to be
extracted from our text. Ho Shih has a characteristic tag:
國以民爲本民以食爲天居人上者宜乎重惜 “The _people_ being regarded as
the essential part of the State, and _food_ as the people’s
heaven, is it not right that those in authority should value and
be careful of both?”
while Government expenses for broken chariots, worn-out horses,
breast-plates and helmets, bows and arrows, spears and shields,
protective mantlets, draught-oxen and heavy waggons, will amount to
four-tenths of its total revenue.
The _Yü Lan_ has several various readings here, the more important
of which are 疲 for the less common 罷 (read _p‘i_^2), 干 for 蔽,
and 兵牛 for 丘牛, which latter, if right, must mean “oxen from the
country districts” (cf. _supra_, § 12). For the meaning of 櫓, see
note on III, § 4. Capt. Calthrop omits to translate 丘牛大車.