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Table of Contents

Origin of Chinese People—Legends—Golden Age of China—Beginnings of Authentic History—Dynasty of Chow—Cultivation of Literature and Progress—Music, Slavery, Household Habits Three Thousand Tears Ago—Confucius and his Work—First Emperor of China—Burning of Books—Han Dynasty—Famous Men of the Period—Paper Money and Printing—Invasions of Tartars and Mongols—Sung Dynasty—Literary Works—Famous Chinese Poet—Literature, Law and Medicine—Kublai Khan—Ming Dynasty—Private Library of a Chinese Emperor—Founding of the Present Dynasty—Connection Between Chinese History and the Rest of the World.

Obscurity shrouds the origin of the Chinese race. The Chinese people cannot be proved to have originally come from anywhere beyond the limits of the Chinese empire. At the remotest period to which investigations can satisfactorily go back, without quitting the domain of history for that of legend, we find them already in existence as an organized, and as a more or less civilized nation. Previous to that time, their condition had doubtless been that of nomadic tribes, but whether as immigrants or as true sons of the soil there is scarcely sufficient evidence to show. Conjecture, however, based for the most part upon coincidences of speech, writing or manners and customs, has been busy with their ultimate origin; and they have been variously identified with the Turks, with the Chaldees, with the earliest inhabitants of Ireland, and with the lost tribes of Israel.

The most satisfactory, however, of recent conclusions, based on most careful investigations are as follows: The first records we have of them represent the Chinese as a band of immigrants settling in the north-eastern provinces of the modern empire of China and fighting their way amongst the aborigines much as the Jews of old forced their way into Canaan against the various tribes which they found in possession of the land. It is probable that though they all entered China by the same route they separated into bands almost on the threshold of the empire, one body, those who have left us the records of their history in the ancient Chinese books, apparently following the course of the Yellow river, and turning southward with it from its northernmost bend, settling themselves in the fertile districts of the modern provinces of Shan-hsi and Honan. But as it is believed also that at about the same period a large settlement was made as far south as Anam of which there is no mention in the books of the northern Chinese, we must assume that another body struck directly southward through the southern provinces of China to that country.

Many writers answer the question that arises as to whence these people came, by declaring that research directly points to the land south of the Caspian sea. They find many reasons in the study of languages which furnish philological proof of this assertion. And they affirm that in all probability the outbreak in Susiana of possibly some political disturbance in about the 24th or 23rd century B.C., drove the Chinese from the land of their adoption and that they wandered eastward until they finally settled in China and the country south of it. Such an emigration is by no means unusual in Asia. We know that the Ottoman Turks originally had their home in northern Mongolia, and we have a record of the movement at the end of last century of a body of six hundred thousand Kalmucks from Russia to the confines of China. It would appear also that the Chinese came into China possessed of the resources of western Asian culture. They brought with them a knowledge of writing and astronomy as well as of the arts which primarily minister to the wants and comforts of mankind.

CHINESE IDEA OF CREATION.

According to one native authority, China, that is, the world was evolved out of chaos exactly 3,276,494 years ago. This evolution was brought about by the action of a First Cause or Force which separated into two principles, active and passive, male and female. Or as some native writers explain it, out of a great egg came a man. Out of the upper half of the egg he created the heavens and out of the lower half he created the earth. He created five elements, earth, water, fire, metal and wood. Out of the vapor from gold he created man and out of vapor from wood he created woman. Traditional pictures of this first man and first woman represent them wearing for dress, girdles of fig leaves. He created the sun to rule the day, the moon to rule the night, and the stars. Those who care to go deeper into these traditions than the limits of this work permit will find ample material for interesting research in the analogies to Christian history.

These principles, male and female, found their material embodiment in heaven and earth and became the father and mother of all things, beginning with man, who was immediately associated with them in a triumvirate of creative powers. Then ensued ten immense periods, the last of which has been made by some Chinese writers on chronology to end where every sober history of China should begin, namely, with the establishment of the Chow dynasty eleven hundred years before the birth of Christ. During this almost immeasurable lapse of time, the process of development was going on, involving such discoveries as the production of fire, the construction of houses, boats and wheeled vehicles, the cultivation of grain, and mutual communication by means of writing.

The father of Chinese history chose indeed to carry us back to the court of the Yellow Emperor, B.C. 2697, and to introduce us to his successors Yao and Shun and to the great Yu, who by his engineering skill had drained away a terrible inundation which some have sought to identify with Noah’s flood.

EMPEROR SHUN PLOWING.

This flood was in Shun’s reign. The waters we are told rose to so great a height that the people had to betake themselves to the mountains to escape death. Most of the provinces of the existing empire were inundated. The disaster arose, as many similar disasters, though of less magnitude, have since arisen, in consequence of the Yellow river bursting its bounds, and the great Yu was appointed to lead the waters back to their channel. With unremitting energy he set about his task, and in nine years succeeded in bringing the river under his control. During this period so absorbed was he in his work, that we are told he took heed neither of food nor clothing, and that thrice he passed the door of his house without once stopping to enter. At the completion of his labors he divided the empire into nine instead of twelve provinces, and tradition represents him as having engraved a record of his toils on a stone tablet on Mount Heng in the province of Hoopih. As a reward for the services he had rendered for the empire, he was invested with the principality of Hea, and after having occupied the throne conjointly with Shun for some years he succeeded that sovereign on his death in 2308 B.C.

VIEW FROM SUMMER PALACE, PEKING.

But all these things were in China’s “golden age,” the true record of which is shrouded for us in the obscurity of centuries. There were a few laws, but never any occasion to exact the penalties attached to misconduct. It was considered superfluous to close the house door at night, and no one would even pick up any lost property that lay in the high road. All was virtue, happiness and prosperity, the like of which has not since been known. The Emperor Shun was raised from the plow handle to the throne simply because of his filial piety, in recognition of which wild beasts used to come and voluntarily drag his plow for him through the furrowed fields, while birds of the air would hover round and guard his sprouting grain from the depredations of insects.

This of course is not history; and but little more can be said for the accounts given of the two dynasties which ruled China between the “golden age” and the opening reigns of the House of Chow. The historian in question had not many sources of information at command. Beside tradition, of which he largely availed himself, the chief of these was the hundred chapters that had been edited by Confucius from the historical remains of those times, now known as the “Book of History.” This contains an unquestionable foundation of facts, pointing to a comparatively advanced state of civilization, even so far back as two thousand years before our era; but the picture is dimly seen and many of its details are of little practical value. This calculation declares that with Yu began the dynasty of Hea which gave place in 1766 B.C. to the Shang dynasty. The last sovereign of the Hea line, Kieh Kwei, is said to have been a monster of iniquity and to have suffered the just punishment for his crimes at the hands of T'ang, the prince of the state of Shang, who took his throne from him. In like manner, six hundred and forty years later, Woo Wang, the prince of Chow, overthrew Chow Sin, the last of the Shang dynasty, and established himself as the chief of the sovereign state of the empire.

It is only with the dynasty of the Chows that we begin to feel ourselves on safe ground, though long before that date the Chinese were undoubtedly enjoying a far higher civilization than fell to the share of most western nations until many centuries later. The art of writing had been already fully developed, having passed, if we are to believe native researches from an original system of knotted cords, through successive stages of notches on wood and rude outlines of natural objects down to the phonetic stage in which it exists at the present day. Astronomical observations of a simple kind had been made and recorded and the year divided into months. The rite of marriage had been substituted for capture; and although cowries were still employed and remained in use until a much later date, metallic coins of various shapes and sizes began to be recognized as a more practicable medium of exchange. Music, both vocal and instrumental, was widely cultivated; and a kind of solemn posturing filled the place that has been occupied by dancing among nations farther to the west. Painting, charioteering and archery were reckoned among the fine arts; the crossbow especially being a favorite weapon either on the battle field or on the chase. The people seem to have lived upon rice and cabbage, pork and fish, much as they do now; they also drank the ardent spirit distilled from rice vulgarly known as “Samshoo” and clad themselves in silk, or their own coarse home stuffs according to the means of each. All this is previous to the dynasty of Chow with which it is now proposed to begin.

The Chows rose to power over the vices of preceding rulers, aided by the genius of a certain duke or chieftain of the Chow state, though he personally never reached the imperial throne. It was his more famous son who in B.C. 1122 routed the forces of the last tyrant of the semi-legendary period and made himself master of China. The China of those days consisted of a number of petty principalities clustering round one central state and thus constituting a federation. The central state managed the common affairs, while each one had its own local laws and administration. It was in some senses a feudal age, somewhat similar to that which prevailed in Europe for many centuries. The various dukes were regarded as vassals owing allegiance to the sovereign at the head of the imperial state, and bound to assist him with money and men in case of need. And in order to keep together this mass, constantly in danger of disintegration from strifes within, the sovereigns of the House of Chow were forever summoning these vassal dukes to the capital and making them renew, with ceremonies of sacrifice and potations of blood, their vows of loyalty and treaties of alliance. At a great feast held by Yu after his accession, there were, it is said, ten thousand princes present with their symbols of rank. But the feudal states were constantly being absorbed by one another. On the rise of the Shang dynasty there were only somewhat over three thousand, which had decreased to thirteen hundred when the sovereignty of the Chows was established.

The senior duke always occupied a position somewhat closer to the sovereign than the others. It was his special business to protect the imperial territory from invasion by any malcontent vassal; and he was often deputed to punish acts of insubordination and contumacy, relying for help on the sworn faith of all the states as a body against any individual recalcitrant. Such was the political condition of things through a long series of reigns for nearly nine centuries, the later history of this long and famous dynasty being simply the record of a struggle against the increasing power and ambitious designs of the vassal state of Ching, until at length the power of the latter not only outgrew that of the sovereign state, but successfully defied the united efforts of all the others combined together in a league. In 403 B.C. the number of states had been reduced to seven great ones, all sooner or later claiming to be “the kingdom,” and contending for the supremacy until Ching put down all the others and in 221 B.C. its king assumed the title of Hwang Ti or emperor and determined that there should be no more feudal principalities, and that as there is but one sun in the sky there should be but one ruler in the nation.

It is interesting to glance backward over these nine hundred years and gather some facts as to the China of those days. The religion of the Chinese was a modification of the older and simpler forms of nature worship practised by their ruder forefathers. The principal objects of veneration were still heaven and earth and the more prominent among the destructive and beneficient powers of nature. But a tide of personification and deification had begun to set in and to the spirits of natural objects and influences now rapidly assuming material shape had been added the spirits of departed heroes whose protection was invoked after death by those to whom it had been afforded during life.

The sovereign of the Chow dynasty worshipped in a building which they called “the hall of light,” which also served the purpose of an audience and council chamber. It was 112 feet square and surmounted by a dome; typical of heaven above and earth beneath. China has always been remarkably backward in architectural development, never having got beyond the familiar roof with its turned up corners, in which antiquaries trace a likeness to the tent of their nomad days. Hence it is that the “hall of light” of the Chows is considered by the Chinese to have been a very wonderful structure.

CHINESE TEMPLE.

Some have said that the Pentateuch was carried to China in the sixth century B.C., but no definite traces of Judaism are discoverable until several centuries later.

The Chow period was pre-eminently one of ceremonial observances pushed to an extreme limit. Even Confucius was unable to rise above the dead level of an ultra formal etiquette, which occupies in his teachings a place altogether out of proportion to any advantages likely to accrue from the most scrupulous compliance with its rules. During the early centuries of this period laws were excessively severe and punishments correspondingly barbarous; mutilation and death by burning or dissection being among the enumerated penalties. From all accounts there speedily occurred a marked degeneracy in the characters of the Chow kings. Among the most conspicuous of the early kings was Muh, who rendered himself notorious for having promulgated a penal code under which the redemption of punishments was made permissible by the payment of fines.

Notwithstanding the spirit of lawlessness that spread far and wide among the princes and nobles, creating misery and unrest throughout the country, that literary instinct which has been a marked characteristic of the Chinese throughout their long history continued as active as ever. At stated intervals officials, we are told, were sent in light carriages into all parts of the empire to collect words from the changing dialects of each district; and at the time of the royal progresses the official music masters and historiographers of each principality presented to the officials appointed for the purpose, collections of the odes and songs of each locality, in order, we are told, that the character of the rule exercised by their princes should be judged by the tone of the poetical and musical productions of their subjects. The odes and songs as found and thus collected were carefully preserved in royal archives, and it was from these materials, as is commonly believed, that Confucius compiled the celebrated “She King” or “Book of Odes.”

One hundred years before the close of the Chow dynasty, a great statesman named Wei Yang appeared in the rising state of Ch’in and brought about many valuable reformations. Among other things he introduced a system of tithings, which has endured to the present day. The unit of Chinese social life has always been the family and not the individual; and this statesman caused the family to be divided into groups of ten families to each, upon a basis of mutual protection and responsibility. The soil of China has always been guarded as the inalienable property of her imperial ruler for the time being, held in trust by him on behalf of a higher and greater power whose vice-regent he is. In the age of the Chows, land appears to have been cultivated upon a system of communal tenure, one-ninth of the total produce being devoted in all cases to the expenses of government and the maintenance of the ruling family in each state. Copper coins of a uniform shape and portable size were first cast, according to Chinese writers, about half way through the sixth century B.C. An irregular form of money, however, had been in circulation long before, one of the early vassal dukes having been advised, in order to replenish his treasury, to “break up the hills and make money out of the metal therein; to evaporate sea water and make salt. This,” added his advising minister, “will benefit the realm and with the profits you may buy up all kinds of goods cheap and store them until the market has risen; establish also three hundred depots of courtesans for the traders, who will thereby be induced to bring all kinds of merchandise to your country. This merchandise you will tax and thus have a sufficiency of funds to meet the expenses of your army.” Such were some of the principles of finance and political economy among the Chows, customs duties being apparently even at that early date a recognized part of the revenue.

The art of healing was practised among the Chinese in their prehistoric times, but the first quasi-scientific efforts of which we have any record belong to the period with which we are now dealing. The physicians of the Chow dynasty classify diseases under the four seasons of the year—headaches and neuralgic affections under spring, skin diseases of all kinds under summer, fever and agues under autumn, and bronchial and pulmonarypulmonary complaints under winter. The public at large was warned against rashly swallowing the prescriptions of any physician whose family had not been three generations in the medical profession.

When the Chows went into battle they formed a line with the bowman on the left and the spearman on the right flank. The centre was occupied by chariots, each drawn by three or four horses harnessed abreast. Swords, daggers, shields, iron headed clubs, huge iron hooks, drums, cymbals, gongs, horns, banners and streamers innumerable were also among the equipment of war. Quarter was rarely if ever given and it was customary to cut the ears from the bodies of the slain.

It was under the Chows, a thousand years before Christ, that the people of China began to possess family names. By the time of Confucius the use of surnames had become definitely established for all classes. The Chows founded a university, a shadow of which remains to the present day. They seem to have had theatrical representations of some kind, though it is difficult to say of what nature these actually were. Music must have already reached a stage of considerable development, if we are to believe Confucius himself, who has left it on record that after listening to a certain melody he was so affected as not to be able to taste meat for three months.

Slavery was at this date a regular domestic institution and was not confined as now to the purchase of women alone; and whereas in still earlier ages it had been usual to bury wooden puppets in the tombs of princes, we now read of slave boys and slave girls barbarously interred alive with the body of every ruler of a state, in order, as was believed, to wait upon the tyrant’s spirit after death. But public opinion began during the Confucian era to discountenance this savage rite, and the son of a man who left instructions that he should be buried in a large coffin between two of his concubines, ventured to disobey his father’s commands.

We know that the Chows sat on chairs while all other eastern nations were sitting on the ground, and ate their food and drank their wine from tables; that they slept on beds and rode on horseback. They measured the hours with the aid of sun dials; and the invention of the compass is attributed, though on somewhat insufficient grounds, to one of their earliest heroes. They played games of calculation of an abstruse character, and others involving dexterity. They appear to have worn shoes of leather, and stockings, and hats, and caps, in addition to robes of silk; and to have possessed such other material luxuries as fans, mirrors of metal, bath tubs, and flat irons. But it is often difficult to separate truth from falsehood in the statement of Chinese writers with regard to their history. They are fond of exaggerating the civilization of their forefathers, which, as a matter of fact, was sufficiently advanced to command admiration without the undesirable coloring of fiction they have thus been tempted to lay on.

IMAGE OF CONFUCIUS.

Of the religions of the Chinese we will speak in a succeeding chapter, but it must be said here that during the Chow dynasty was born the most famous of Chinese teachers, Confucius. He was preceded about the middle of the dynasty by Lao-tzu, the founder of an abstruse system of ethical philosophy which was destined to develop into the Taoism of to-day. Closely following, and partially a contemporary, came Confucius, “a teacher who has been equalled in his influence upon masses of the human race by Buddha alone and approached only by Mahomet and Christ.” Confucius devoted his life chiefly to the moral amelioration of his fellow men by oral teaching, but he was also an author of many works. A hundred years later came Mencius, the record of whose teachings also forms an important part of the course of study of a modern student in China. His pet theory was that the nature of man is good, and that all evil tendencies are necessarily acquired from evil communications either by heredity or association. It was during this same period that the literature of the Chinese language was founded. Of this subject, and some of the famous works, more will be said in a succeeding chapter devoted to literature and education.

In their campaign against the prevailing lawlessness and violence, neither Confucius nor Mencius was able to make any headway. Their preachings fell on deaf ears and their peaceful admonitions were passed unheeded by men who held their fiefs by the strength of their right arms, and administered the affairs of their principalities surrounded by the din of war. The feudal system and the dynasty of the Chows were tottering when Confucius died although it was more than two hundred years after when Ch’in acquired the supremacy.

MANCHURIAN MINISTERS.

The nine centuries covered by the history of the Chows were full of stirring incidents in other parts of the world. The Trojan war had just been brought to an end and Æneas had taken refuge in Italy from the sack of Troy. Early in the dynasty Zoroaster was founding in Persia the religion of the Magi, the worship of fire which survives in the Parseeism of Bombay. Saul was made king of Israel and Solomon built the temple of Jerusalem. Later on Lycurgus gave laws to the Spartans and Romulus laid the first stone of the Eternal City. Then came the Babylonic captivity, the appearance of Buddha, the conquest of Asia Minor by Cyrus, the rise of the Roman Republic, the defeats of Darius at Marathon and of Xerxes at Salamis, the Peloponnesian War, the retreat of the Ten Thousand, and Roman conquests down to the end of the first Punic war. From a literary point of view the Chow dynasty was the age of the Vedas in India; of Homer, Æschylus, Herodotus, Aristophanes, Thucydides, Aristotle and Demosthenes in Greece; and of the Jewish prophets from Samuel to Daniel; and of the Talmud as originally undertaken by the scribes subsequent to the return from the captivity in Babylon.

It has been stated that the imperial rule of the Chows over the vassal states which made up the China of those early days, was gradually undermined by the growing power and influence of one of the latter, the very name of which was transformed into a byword of reproach, so that to call a person “a man of Ch’in” was equivalent to saying in vulgar parlance, “He is no friend of mine.” The struggle between the Ch’ins and the rest of the empire may be likened to the struggle between Athens and the rest of Greece though the end in each case was not the same. The state of Ch’in vanquished its combined opponents, and finally established a dynasty, short-livedshort-lived indeed, but containing among the few rulers who sat upon the throne, only about fifty years in all, the name of one remarkable man, the first emperor of the united China.

GREAT WALL OF CHINA.

On the ruins of the old feudal system, the landmarks of which his three or four predecessors had succeeded in sweeping away, Hwang Ti laid the foundations of a coherent empire which was to date from himself as its founder. He sent an army of 300,000 men to fight against the Huns. He dispatched a fleet to search for some mysterious islands off the coast of China; and this expedition has since been connected with the colonization of Japan. He built the Great Wall which is nearly fourteen hundred miles in length, forming the most prominent artificial object on the surface of the earth. His copper coinage was so uniformly good that the cowry disappeared altogether from commerce with this reign. According to some, the modern hair pencil employed by the Chinese as a pen was invented about this time, to be used for writing on silk; while the characters themselves underwent certain modifications and orthographical improvements. The first emperor desired above all things to impart a fresh stimulus to literary effort; but he adopted singularly unfortunate means to secure this desirable end. For listening to the insidious flattery of courtiers, he determined that literature should begin anew with his reign. He therefore issued orders for the destruction of all existing books, with the exception of works treating of medicine, agriculture and divination and the annals of his own house; and he actually put to death many hundreds of the literati who refused to comply with these commands. The decree was obeyed as faithfully as was possible in case of so sweeping an ordinance and for many years a night of ignorance rested on the country. Numbers of valuable works thus perished in a general literary conflagration, popularly known as “the burning of the books;” and it is partly to accident and partly to the pious efforts of the scholars of the age, that posterity is indebted for the preservation of the most precious relics of ancient Chinese literature. The death of Hwang Ti was the signal for an outbreak among the dispossessed feudal princes, who, however, after some years of disorder, were again reduced to the rank of citizens by a successful peasant leader who adopted the title of Kaou Ti, and named his dynasty that of Han, with himself its first emperor.

From that day to this, with occasional interregnums, the empire has been ruled on the lines laid down by Hwang Ti. Dynasty has succeeded dynasty but the political tradition has remained unchanged, and though Mongols and Manchoos have at different times wrested the throne from its legitimate heirs, they have been engulfed in a homogeneous mass inhabiting the empire, and instead of impressing their seal upon the country, have become but the reflection of the vanquished. The stately House of Han ruled over China for four hundred years, approximately from 200 B.C. to 200 A.D. During the whole period the empire made vast strides towards a more settled state of prosperity and civilization, although there were constant wars with the Tartar tribes to the north and the various Turkish tribes on the west. The communications with the Huns were particularly close, and even now traces of Hunnish influence are discernible in several of the recognized surnames of the Chinese. This dynasty also witnessed the spectacle, most unusual in the east, of a woman wielding the imperial sceptre; and hers was not a reign calculated to inspire the people of China with much faith either in the virtue or the administrative ability of the sex. In Chinese history however, her place is that of the only female sovereign who ever legitimately occupied the throne.

BUDDHIST PRIEST.

It was under the Han dynasty that the religion of Buddha first became known to the Chinese people, and Taoism began to develop from quiet philosophy to foolish superstitions and practices. It was also during this period that the Jews appear to have founded a colony in Honan, but we cannot say what kind of a reception was accorded to the new faith. In the glow of early Buddhism, and in the exciting times of its subsequent persecution, it is probable that Judaism failed to attract much serious attention from the Chinese. In 1850 certain Hebrew rolls were recovered from the few remaining descendants of former Jews; but there was then no one left who could read a word of them, or who possessed any knowledge of the creed of their forefathers, beyond a few traditions of the scantiest possible kind.

But the most remarkable of all events connected with our present period, was the general revival of learning and authorship. The Confucian texts were rescued from hiding places in which they had been concealed at the risk of death; editing committees were appointed, and immense efforts made to repair the mischief sustained by literature at the hand of the first emperor. Ink and paper were invented and authorship was thus enabled to make a fresh start, the very start indeed, that the first emperor had longed to associate with his own reign, and had attempted to secure by such impracticable means. During the latter portion of the second century B. C., flourished the “Father of Chinese History.” His great work, which has been the model for all subsequent histories, is divided into one hundred and thirty books, and deals with a period extending from the reign of the Yellow emperor down to his own times. In another branch of literature, a foremost place among the lexicographers of the world may fairly be claimed for Hsu Shen, the author of a famous dictionary. Many other celebrated writers lived and prospered during the Han dynasty. One man whose name must be mentioned insured for himself, by his virtue and integrity, a more imperishable fame than any mere literary achievement could bestow. Yang Chen was indeed a scholar of no mean attainments, and away in his occidental home he was known as the “Confucius of the west.” An officer of government in a high position, with every means of obtaining wealth at his command, he lived and died in comparative poverty, his only object of ambition being the reputation of a spotless official. The Yangs of his day grumbled sorely at opportunities thus thrown away; but the Yangs of to-day glory in the fame of their great ancestor and are proud to worship in the ancestral hall to which his uprightness has bequeathed the name. For once when pressed to receive a bribe, with the additional inducement that no one would know of the transaction, he quietly replied—“How so? Heaven would know; earth would know; you would know and I should know.” And to this hour the ancestral shrine of the clan of the Yangs bears as it name “The Hall of the Four Knows.”

It was in all probability under the dynasty of the Hans that the drama first took its place among the amusements of the people.

It is unnecessary to linger over the four centuries which connect the Hans with the T'angs. There was not in them that distinctness of character or coherency of aim which leave a great impress upon the times. The three kingdoms passed rapidly away, and other small dynasties succeeded them, but their names and dates are not essential to a right comprehension of the state of China then or now. A few points may, however, be briefly mentioned before quitting this period of transition. Diplomatic relations were opened with Japan; and Christianity was introduced by the Nestorians under the title of the “luminous teaching.” Tea was not known in China before this date. It was at the close of this transitional period that we first detect traces of the art of printing, still in an embryonic state, and it seems to be quite certain that before the end of the sixth century the Chinese were in possession of a method of reproduction from wooden blocks. One of the last emperors of the period succeeded in adding largely to the empire by annexation toward the west. Embassies reached his court from various nations, including Japan and Cochin China, and helped to add to the lustre of his reign.

The three centuries A.D. 600-900, during which the T'angs sat upon the throne, form a brilliant epoch in Chinese history, and the southern people of China are still proud of the designation which has descended to them as “men of T’ang.” Emperor Hsuan Tsung fought against the prevailing extravagance in dress; founded a large dramatic college; and was an enthusiastic patron of literature. Buddhism flourished during this period in spite of edicts against it. Finally, it gained the favor of the emperors and for a time overpowered even Confucianism. It was during the reign of the second emperor of the T'angs and only six years after the Hegira that the religion of Mahomet first reached the shores of China. A maternal uncle of the prophet visited the country and obtained permission to build a mosque at Canton, portions of which may perhaps still be found in the thrice restored structure which now stands upon its site. The use of paper money was first introduced by the government toward the closing years of the dynasty; and it is near to this time that we can trace back the existence of the modern court circular and daily record of edicts, memorials, etc., commonly known as the Peking Gazette.

Another unimportant transition period, sixty years in duration, forms the connecting link between the houses of T'ang and Sung. It is known in Chinese history as the period of the five dynasties, after the five short-lived ones crowded into this space of time. It is remarkable chiefly for the more extended practice of printing from wooden blocks, the standard classical works being now for the first time printed in this way. The discreditable custom of cramping women’s feet into the so-called “golden lilies” belongs probably to this date, though referred by some to a period several hundred years later.

It has been said before that the age of the T'angs was the age of Mahomet and his new religion, the propagation of which was destined to meet in the west with a fatal check from the arms of Charles Martel at the battle of Tours. It was the age of Rome independent under her early popes; of Charlemagne as emperor of the west; of Egbert as first king of England; and of Alfred the Great.

The Sung dynasty extended from about A.D. 960 to 1280. The first portion of this dynasty may be considered as on the whole, one of the most prosperous and peaceable periods of the history of China. The nation had already in a great measure settled down to that state of material civilization and mental culture in which it may be said to have been discovered by Europeans a few centuries later. To the appliances of Chinese ordinary life it is probable that but few additions have been made even since a much earlier date. The national costume has indeed undergone subsequent variations, and at least one striking change has been introduced in later years, that is, the tail, which will be mentioned later. But the plows and hoes, the water wheels and well sweeps, the tools of artisans, mud huts, junks, carts, chairs, tables, chopsticks, etc., which we still see in China, are doubtless approximately those of more than two thousand years ago. Mencius observed that the written language was the same, and axle-trees of the same length all over the empire; and to this day an unaltering uniformity is one of the chief characteristics of the Chinese people in every department of life.

The house of Sung was not however without the usual troubles for any length of time. Periodical revolts are the special feature of Chinese history, and the Sungs were hardly exempt from them in a greater degree than other dynasties. The Tartars too, were forever encroaching upon Chinese territory and finally overran and occupied a large part of northern China. This resulted in an amicable arrangement to divide the empire, the Tartars retaining their conquests in the north. Less than a hundred years later came the invasion of the Mongols under Genghis Khan, with the long struggle which eventuated in a complete overthrow of both the Tartars and the Sungs and the final establishment of the Mongol dynasty under Kublai Khan, whose success was in a great measure due to the military capacity of his famous lieutenant Bayan. From this struggle one name in particular has survived to form a landmark of which the Chinese are justly proud. It is that of the patriot statesman Wen T'ien-hsiang, whose fidelity to the Sungs no defeats could shake, no promises undermine; and who perished miserably in the hands of the enemy rather than abjure the loyalty which had been the pride and almost the object of his existence.

Another name inseparably connected with the history of the Sungs is that of Wang An-shih who has been styled “The Innovator” from the gigantic administrative changes or innovations he labored ineffectually to introduce. The chief of these were a universal system of militia under which the whole body of citizens were liable to military drill and to be called out for service in time of need; and a system of state loans to agriculturists in order to supply capital for more extensive and more remunerative farming operations. His schemes were ultimately set aside through the opposition of a statesman whose name is connected even more closely with literature than with politics. Ssu-ma Kuang spent nineteen years of his life in the compilation of “The Mirror of History,” a history of China in two hundred and ninety-four books, from the earliest times of the Chow dynasty down to the accession of the house of Sung.

CHINESE ARCHERS.

A century later this lengthy production was recast in a greatly condensed form under the superintendence of Chu Hsi, the latter work at once taking rank as the standard history of China to that date. Chu Hsi himself played in other ways by far the most important part among all the literary giants of the Sungs. Besides holding, during a large portion of his life, high official position, with an almost unqualified success, his writings are more extensive and more varied in character than those of any other Chinese author; and the complete collection of his great philosophical works, published in 1713, fills no fewer than sixty-six books. He introduced interpretations of the Confucian classics, either wholly or partially at variance with those which had been put forth by the scholars of the Han dynasty and received as infallible ever since, thus modifying to a certain extent the prevailing standard of political and social morality. His principle was simply one of consistency. He refused to interpret certain words in a given passage in one sense and the same words occurring elsewhere in another sense. And this principle recommended itself at once to the highly logical mind of the Chinese. Chu Hsi’s commentaries were received to the exclusion of all others and still form the only authorized interpretation of the classical books, upon a knowledge of which all success at the great competitive examination for literary degrees may be said to entirely depend.

CHINESE WRITER.

It would be a lengthy task to merely enumerate the names in the great phalanx of writers who flourished under the Sungs and who formed an Augustan Age of Chinese literature. Exception must however be made in favor of Ou-Yang Hsiu, who besides being an eminent statesman, was a voluminous historian of the immediately preceding dynasties, an essayist of rare ability, and a poet; and of Su Tung-p'o whose name next to that of Chu Hsi fills the largest place in Chinese memorials of this period. A vigorous opponent of “The Innovator,” he suffered banishment for his opposition; and again, after his rival’s fall, he was similarly punished for further crossing the imperial will. His exile was shared by the beautiful and accomplished girl “Morning Clouds,” to whose inspiration we owe many of the elaborate poems and other productions in the composition of which the banished poet beguiled his time; and whose untimely death of consumption, on the banks of their favorite lake, hastened the poet’s end, which occurred shortly after his recall from banishment.

Buddhism and Taoism had by this time made advances toward tacit terms of mutual toleration. They wisely agreed to share rather than to quarrel over the carcass which lay at their feet; and from that date they have flourished together without prejudice.

The system of competitive examinations and literary degrees had been still more fully elaborated, and the famous child’s primer, the “Three Character Classic,” which is even now the first stepping stone to knowledge, had been placed in the hands of school boys. The surnames of the people were collected to the number of four hundred and thirty-eight in all; and although this was admittedly not complete, the great majority of those names which were omitted, once perhaps in common use, have altogether disappeared. It is comparatively rare nowadays to meet with a person whose family name is not to be found within the limits of this small collection. Administration of justice is said to have flourished under the incorrupt officials of this dynasty. The functions of magistrates were more fully defined; while the study of medical jurisprudence was stimulated by the publication of a volume which, although combining the maximum of superstition with the minimum of scientific research, is still the officially recognized text book on all subjects connected with murder, suicide and accidental death. Medicine and the art of healing came in for a considerable share of attention at the hands of the Sungs and many voluminous works on therapeutics have come down to us from this period. Inoculation for small-pox has been known to the Chinese at least since the early years of this dynasty if not earlier.

The irruption of the Mongols under Genghis Khan, and the comparatively short dynasty which was later on actually established under Kublai Khan, may be regarded as the period of transition from the epoch of the Sungs to the epoch of the Mings. For the first eighty years after the nominal accession of Genghis Khan the empire was more or less in a state of siege and martial law from one end to the other; and then in less than one hundred years afterwards the Mongol dynasty had passed away. The story of Ser Marco Polo and his wonderful travels, familiar to most readers, gives us a valuable insight into this period of brilliant courts, thronged marts, fine cities, and great national wealth.

At this date the literary glory of the Sungs had hardly begun to grow dim. Ma Tuan-lin carried on his voluminous work through all the troublous times, and at his death bequeathed to the world “The Antiquarian Researches,” in three hundred and forty-eight books, which have made his name famous to every student of Chinese literature. Plane and spherical trigonometry were both known to the Chinese by this time, and mathematics generally began to receive a larger share of the attention of scholars. It was also under the Mongol dynasty that the novel first made its appearance, a fact pointing to a definite social advancement, if only in the direction of luxurious reading. Among other points may be mentioned a great influx of Mohammedans, and consequent spread of their religion about this time.

The Grand Canal was completed by Kublai Khan, and thus Cambaluc, the Peking of those days, was united by inland water communication with the extreme south of China. The work seems to have been begun by the Emperor Yang Ti seven centuries previously, but the greater part of the undertaking was done in the reign of Kublai Khan. Hardly so successful was the same emperor’s huge naval expedition against Japan, which in point of number of ships and men, the insular character of the enemy’s country, the chastisement intended, and the total loss of the fleet in a storm, aided by the stubborn resistance of the Japanese themselves, suggests a very obvious comparison with the object and fate of the Spanish Armada.

The age of the Sungs carries us from a hundred years previous to the Norman Conquest down to about the death of Edward III. It was the epoch of Venetian commerce and maritime supremacy; and of the first great lights in Italian literature, Dante, Petrarch and BoccaccioBoccaccio. English, French, German and Spanish literature had yet to develop, only one or two of the earlier writers, such as Chaucer, having yet appeared on the scene.

The founder of the Ming dynasty rose from starvation and obscurity to occupy the throne of the Chinese empire. In his youth he sought refuge from the pangs of hunger in a Buddhist monastery; later on he became a soldier of fortune, and joined the ranks of the insurgents who were endeavoring to shake off the alien yoke of the Mongols. His own great abilities carried him on. He speedily obtained the leadership of a large army, with which he totally destroyed the power of the Mongols, and finally established a new Chinese dynasty over the thirteen provinces into which the empire was divided. He fixed his capitol at Nanking, where it remained until the accession of the third emperor, the conqueror of Cochin China and Tonquin, who transferred the seat of government back to Peking, the capitol of the Mongols, from which it has never since been removed.