THE WARRING STATES
_Five Dictators--Diplomacy and Strategy--A Brave Envoy--Heroes
Reconciled--Ts'in Extinguishes the House of Chou_
In the first half of the Chou dynasty the machinery moved with
such regularity that Confucius could think of no form of government
more admirable, saying, "The policy of the future may be foretold
for a hundred generations--it will be to follow the House of Chou."
The latter half was a period of misrule and anarchy.
Ambitions and jealousies led to petty wars. The King being too
feeble to repress them, these petty wars grew into vast combinations
like the leagues of modern Europe. Five of the states acquired at
different times such a preponderance that their rulers are styled
_Wu Pa_, the "five dictators." One of these, Duke Hwan of
western Shantung, is famous for having nine times convoked the
States-General. The dictator always presided at such meetings and
he was recognised as the real sovereign--as were the mayors of
the palace in France in the Merovingian epoch, or the shoguns in
Japan during the long period in which the Mikado was called the
"spiritual emperor."
The legitimate sovereign still sat on his throne
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in the central state; but he complained that his only function was
to offer sacrifices. The Chinese dictatorship was not hereditary,
or the world might have witnessed an exact parallel to the duplicate
sovereignty in Japan, where one held the power and the other retained
the title for seven hundred years.
In China the shifting of power from hand to hand made those four
centuries an age of diplomacy. Whenever some great baron was suspected
of aspiring to the leadership, combinations were formed to curb his
ambitions; embassies sped from court to court; and armies were
marshalled in the field. Envoys became noted for courage and cunning,
and generals acquired fame by their skill in handling large bodies
of soldiers. Diplomacy became an art, and war a science.
An international code to control the intercourse of states began to
take shape; but the diplomat was not embarrassed by a multiplicity
of rules. In negotiations individual character counted for more than
it does at the present day; nor must it be supposed that in the
absence of our modern artillery there was no room for generalship.
On the contrary, as battles were not decided by the weight of metal,
there was more demand for strategy.
All this was going on in Greece at this very epoch: and, as Plutarch
indulges in parallels, we might point to compeers of Themistocles
and Epaminondas. The cause which in the two countries led to this
state of things was the existence of a family of states with a
common language and similar institutions; but in the Asiatic empire
the theatre was vastly more extensive,
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and the operations in politics and war on a grander scale.
To the honour of the Chinese it must be admitted that they showed
themselves more civilised than the Greeks. The Persian invasion
was provoked by the murder of ambassadors by the Athenians. Of
such an act there is no recorded instance among the warring states
of China. It was reserved for our own day to witness in Peking that
exhibition of Tartar ferocity. The following two typical incidents
from the voluminous chronicles of those times may be appropriately
presented here:
A BRAVE ENVOY
The Prince of Ts'in, a semi-barbarous state in the northwest, answering
to Macedonia in Greece, had offered to give fifteen cities for
a kohinoor, a jewel belonging to the Prince of Chao (not Chou).
Lin Sian Ju was sent to deliver the jewel and to complete the
transaction. The conditions not being complied with, he boldly
put the jewel into his bosom and returned to his own state. That
he was allowed to do so--does it not speak as much for the morality
of Ts'in as for the courage of Lin? The latter is the accepted
type of a brave and faithful envoy.
HEROES RECONCILED
Jealous of his fame, Lien P'o, a general of Chao, announced that he
would kill Lin at sight. The latter took pains to avoid a meeting.
Lien P'o, taxing him with cowardice, sent him a challenge, to which
Lin responded, "You and I are the pillars of our
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state. If either falls, our country is lost. This is why I have
shunned an encounter." So impressed was the general with the spirit
of this reply that he took a rod in his hand and presented himself
at the door of his rival, not to thrash the latter, but to beg
that he himself might be castigated. Forgetting their feud the two
joined hands to build up their native state much as Aristides and
Themistocles buried their enmity in view of the war with Persia.
As the Athenian orators thundered against Macedon so the statesmen
of China formed leagues and counterplots for and against the rising
power of the northwest. The type of patient, shrewd diplomacy is Su
Ts'in who, at the cost of incredible hardships in journeying from
court to court, succeeded in bringing six of the leading states
into line to bar the southward movement of their common foe. His
machinations were all in vain, however; for not only was his ultimate
success thwarted by the counterplots of Chang Yee, an equally able
diplomatist, but his reputation, like that of Parnell in our own
times, was ruined by his own passions. The rising power of Ts'in,
like a glacier, was advancing by slow degrees to universal sway. In
the next generation it absorbed all the feudal states. Chau-siang
subjugated Tung-chou-Kiun, the last monarch of the Chou dynasty, and
the House of Chou was exterminated by Chwang-siang, who, however,
enjoyed the supreme power for only three years (249-246 B. C).
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