Late Zhou Political, Legal (and Moral) History

When Jin (晉) was partitioned and the ruler of Qi (杞) was also challenged this led to the Warring States period but this was the end of an historical era that I must now examine. The Warring States period may be seen as a failure of the ideas men but many of the ideas persist into and greatly influence both the ancient China that came out of the Warring States period and modern China. The Warring States were in fact involved in a contention essentially of ideas that political contention had produced. But how?

An initial innovation occurred in Qi under the Prime Ministership of Guan Zhong (管仲) (in the mid 7^th Century BCE so well before the Spring and Autumn period began). For war purposes, PM Guan divided Qi into divisions of five households each. Serfdom was being eradicated in the name of promoting the loyalty of subjects and the later 7^th Century saw the ruler of Jin making formal grants of land. Appointment of administrators was one of the necessary corollaries of instability (a meritocratic method of appointment to a public service was first formally promoted especially by the Mohists (followers of Master Mo, a 5^th Century BCE political thinker) but it was really only natural and was actually a fait accompli by the 5^th Century).

A further innovation of the Spring and Autumn period was the idea of law in many of the realms. This effectively provided a ruler with a means of establishing authority over (generally) his realm by his provision of legal remedies in local events of conflict. One well established early example was the promulgation of laws in Zheng (鄭) in 543 BCE. Commerce and a degree of mass production in industry were also expanding with the instability in the Spring and Autumn period perhaps counter intuitively but produced by the efficiency and innovation that instability and its corollaries wrought. Much of the commerce was in implements of warfare, though.

All of the above ran rather counter to any idea of totalitarian rule as wealth and ideas tended to destabilise traditional roles and motivations. Crudely, the reasons scholars and meritocracy became so vital and pervasive were at first all of the military conquests. A king would conquer new territory and feel the need to divide his territory for administrative purposes due to the extra requirements of administration, taxation, etc. The divisions came to be called Xian (縣) and the chief administrators came to be called Shi (士) or Ru. We call the Shi (or Ru) knights in most English translations (Ru emphasises the scholarship more). The knights tended to be well-educated in order that they might do their quite sophisticated jobs well and so a scholarly tradition was born.

Each Xian had an educated Shi, then, but also many other educated men who missed out on becoming the local head Shi who were thus eager to become travelling scholars and teachers and prove their worth to the metropolitan or other rulers.

One well known example of a complex state of the 4^th Century BCE under the aegis of Zhou was the State of Qin (秦) under the Prime Ministership of Lord Shang (Shang Yang (商鞅)). It was divided into 31 Xian.

So Confucius (Master Kong) was one of many scholars with political ideas on offer (just as China was also ruled by many rulers). Basically he proposed that older brothers, parents and ancestors (and all other people, too) be accorded due respect as tradition dictated and did not exempt rulers from this requirement. So he was seen as and was a radical conservative harking back to tradition.

In Kong's era, the Zhou emperors were not powerful. Two of the five major states in the era (the ‘age of a hundred schools’ blossoming and contending) coincided roughly in their outlooks with two of the major developing human-as-political-animal schools of thought: Kong’s philosophy and Lord Shang's Legalism. The states were Song (宋), a remnant state of the earlier Shang (商) dynasty near Kong’s minor home state of Lu in the East (and a traditional state roughly compatible in outlook with Kong’s ideas) and the up-and-coming upstart Qin state in the West.

Kong’s radical modernizing opponents ideologically (the Legalists) had a less humanist view of rule that tended to appeal more to the Qin rulers (like Lord Shang). There were lively ethical debates but Shang came down definitely on the side of dividing his population into groups of five and ten, enslaving merchants and some craftsmen along with the unemployed, reputedly standardizing weights and measures and creating 31 Xian.

Shang was a 'law and order' ruler and didn't trust his people an inch, a wise move according to his Legalist brethren. Their ideas are usually represented today by the work of Han Fei Zi (韓非子). Conspicuous in Shang’s law book were the Draconian or Shari’ah-like punishments advocated that were Legalist heaven. A Confucian would have probably called such punishments unnecessary (not to mention overkill).

The book of the ideas of Han Fei Zi that survives suggests that people are quite simply motivated by only two drives: the drive for pleasure and the desire to avoid pain. Legalists viewed virtue as exceptional in humans (i.e. nowhere near the rule Confucians hoped it was). So Kong and his followers were seen by Legalists as idealists seeking vainly to promote (mainly) what they called benevolence among vile creatures that would rarely practice it voluntarily.

In an era before the idea of constitutional monarchy it made sense that weak or bad rulers needed to be governed in some way by laws and so Legalism sought that way. In anticipation of the inevitable unintelligent, unwise and even bad rulers (that would inevitably be produced eventually by any absolutist dynastic system) they wanted him (not likely her) to be guided by their laws. They still fell short of having constitutional ideas, however, and Kong’s ideas could perhaps be seen as possessing at least the inchoate constitutionalism they lacked.

Han addressed the wise ruler when he stressed the idea of clarity and certainty of law – a version certainly of the rule of law however imperfect in practice without actual constitutional limitations on actual regal power. Han abhorred discretionary power and complexity in law – it must contain simple rewards and punishments and no ifs, ands, buts or maybes – no exceptions - as dictated by the simple idea of human motivations that he asserted. The king was the machine operating authority that commanded obedience as of right in this mechanical legalist structure of the state as machine for dummies.

Besides those two ideas, Legalism and Confucianism, and besides the Qin and Song states, there were of course others. There were many other ideas men. I’ve already mentioned the Mohists who had ideas concerning a meritocratic public service system. Among the theorists were also military ideas men. One of the ideas concerned preferring the avoidance of actual battles in war with a putative enemy by means of intimidation. Master Sun talked about how to fight bloodless wars and Mo Zi argued against wars of aggression altogether. There were also three other major states.

Merit seemed self-evidently to trump family connections in this era of travelling ideas men and innovating rulers seeking their services. One Qi ruler even set up a kind of research institute for philosophers.

Manpower in both agriculture and warfare were equally highly valued and efficiencies in its application were especially sought for one reason – state security. The actual state of affairs for the subject was always uncertain, though, as long as one day one could have a benevolent Confucian ruler and the next a legalist one and this was the nature of a disunited China in the late Zhou Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods.

Confucians actually idealised this undoubted contention, however, as their humanism is inherently optimistic if not progressive. They promoted the education of rulers as well as others (especially in their own ideas) as a progressive force. One legalist Qin ruler on the other hand organised a burning of books rather than suffer books to exist that lacked the fulsome and unqualified respect due to the ruler.

The idea of war itself also developed in the late Zhou era from the chariot-bound aristocratic and gentlemanly pursuit it was in the Spring and Autumn period to the pursuit of relatively large conscript peasant infantry armies in the more scientific and relatively total and unconventional wars of the Warring States period. The individualist art of war had thus been replaced to an extent by the more conformist science of war (and individualism had become correspondingly less favoured). The commander’s job became to mesmerise his own troops into a fighting frenzy with bells and drums and simultaneously intimidate his opponent’s. Divination as a means of predicting the results of wars also ceased to be used over these periods.

Zhou Instability, the Politics of Zhou and the “Ideas Men” of Zhou

The socially sanctioned tribalism of the Shang period (and probably also the Xia period) based on tribal divisions, clan subdivisions and lineage sub subdivisions in which the Shang (and probably the Xia) emperors were the tribal heads of the strongest tribes of their eras (in which population and overcrowding were much less significant issues than they were soon to become) was replaced by a more formal (and less stable) political order in the Zhou period. The new order was probably a response to the spread in population settlement and thus the chances of conflict between powerful senior lineage chiefs of the Shang and Xia periods that may have had the strength to dominate several towns of a region each via the municipal rule of ambitious younger settler sons. According to one ancient source, at the beginning of the Xia period there were 10,000 states (probably a wild approximation) but (with the conflicts that had occurred up until Confucius’s time due to younger-son settlement projections) that had been reduced to about 100 (of which around 14 were especially powerful) by the mid Zhou period.

Kings that were formally vassals of the emperor were actually his social and to some extent also virtual political equals (certainly when compared with their relatively inferior status under later dynasties). Formally the system was a kind of feudal one with the emperor parcelling out his land in return for loyalty, military and other service and taxes and tributes but this regularly broke down in the many periods of Zhou strife especially as time went on. Instability was both external (the many barbarian encroachments and settlements) and internal (tribal conflicts) to this system and this necessarily led to an easy familiarity between the emperors and senior nobles on whom they relied. Nobles could gain power by defeating barbarians militarily. One vassal famously spat at an emperor over an argument.

The instability also produced a demand for ‘ideas men’ capable of efficient administration of the many divisions and this force for meritocracy was an impetus for serious scholarship focused on politics and the potential for legislation. “Barbarian” ideas (and their often better technology) threatening the Zhou for literally centuries (beginning in about the 9^th Century BCE) provided a serious spur in Chinese society both to internal tensions and local ideologies.

Confucius traditionally lived from 551 BCE to 479 BCE so in a period of strife and weakness in the later Zhou period (dying just a few years before the official commencement of the Warring States period) and Mencius lived in the 4^th Century BCE (so mid Warring States period) and was a follower and populariser of the teachings of Confucius but they were two of the many competing ideas men. I’ll examine the ideas and their results in overview in the context of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods in the next few posts.

Zhou Overview

I'll be looking at the Zhou period for the next several posts starting with this overview. It goes for almost a millenium (no, not the overview) so that seems only fair. It's also possibly the closest thing to a 'real' first Chinese dynasty and one that we really know much about and it's also certainly a very formative period for Chinese culture.

Within the Zhou period there are usually considered to be several important divisions. I’ve also already mentioned that the Warring States period (which I’ll discuss later) is partly contained within what is also considered to be the late Zhou period by scholars. A further division is often made into the earlier Western Zhou period (c. 1,040 BCE to 771 BCE) and the later Eastern Zhou period (c. 722 BCE to 481 BCE) so named as the capital was forced to move east (mainly in order to secure the empire against serious threats from western ‘barbarians’). In addition the Spring and Autumn Period (named for a local series of annals of the early Eastern Zhou period traditionally either written or compiled by Confucius late in the period) immediately precedes the official Warring States period and is the later of two divisions of the Eastern Zhou era.

Three things are especially noteworthy of the Zhou era (including the Warring States period) and I’ll examine them in the next post: the instability (indicated by the above divisions), the actual political and social status of the Zhou emperors resulting from it and, resulting in turn from that, the appearance of philosophers (of which Confucius was merely the most successful over time) .

Earliest Cultures and Xia and Shang Dynasties

We call the first significant known culture the Yang Shao because of Yellow River-based archaeological finds there and thereabouts. The richest Neolithic burial (perhaps of a religion-based tribal ruler) that has been discovered is at Dawenkou. The Dawenkou culture (also based around the northern Yellow River) co-existed with the Yang Shao.

The second cycle in the dynastic cycle view as I'm outlining it (and the first with an official presumed actual named dynasty) is that of the Xia which may have had a capital city at Erlitou.

With the coming of the Shang dynasty we finally begin to have more information. We have at least one burial of an apparent ruler of this dynasty at which others were apparently sacrificed in order to be buried with the presumed ruler. We also have sophisticated bronzes depicting animals that are now exotic animals to China but which then may have been native. Leaving such items as grave-goods is a presumed indicator of great status.

Some of the animals depicted may be mythical and also their depicted relation to humans may indicate the existence of shamanistic practices using animal ‘familiars’ as 'spirit guides' of some form. The Chinese word for shaman (dating at least from the Shang period) is wu (巫). The first known Chinese writing appears to be from this period. It was evidently used in divining and written on the shoulder bones of cows. From an early date, burning holes in or cracking or chiselling or making grooves in bones evidently provided answers to questions inscribed on the bones. The answers would then also be written on the bones. Each bone could contain several questions and answers. Tortoise shells and sheep shoulder bones were also used. The answers were supposed to have been dispensed by dead ancestors. Specialised diviners were apparently used.

That's about the most that can be said about this period with any degree of confidence at all but the Zhou era which is coming up is another story.

Now on to Chinese History - the Overall Scheme

So having interested myself in this blog in the Arab world, to some extent in the Middle Eastern and Islamic worlds and in the Buddhist world and their consequent worldviews, I now want to examine the Chinese and Confucian world and worldview.

So I’ll start with a historical approach so that I can get to an overview of all that.

Starting with ancient Chinese history, there is a conventional way to do this and I’ll start with that approach. This is the Dynastic Cycle view. In it the history is seen as a series of dynasties that each prosper until a particularly bad/repugnant/evil final (as it turns out) Dynast is duly replaced (generally by a popular revolt and to the great relief of most people) leading on to the succeeding dynasty. The unmodified cycle view thus tends to downplay major historical forces that always worked on China in the pre-Western-imperial historical period so I will modify it as those forces certainly existed and acted and focus on those periods when they acted.

I’ll start by delineating the periods usually noted under the cycle view. From around 5,000 BCE (Before the Common Era – equivalent to BC for many scholars of the East especially) to around 1,900 CE (equivalent to AD) there are about sixteen alleged cycles roughly as follows (I know I'm a famous 'weasel word' user):

1 Earliest Cultures (including Yang Shao) (c. 5,000 BCE to c. 3,000 BCE)

2 Xia (c. 2,070 BCE to 1,600 BCE)

3 Shang (1,600 BCE to 1,046 BCE)

4 Zhou (1,046 BCE to 256 BCE)

5 Warring States (475 BCE to 221 BCE) (note the overlap with the late Zhou period)

6 Qin (the first fully historical dynastic period) (221 BCE to only 206 BCE)

7 Han (206 BCE to 220 CE)

8 Three Kingdoms (220 CE to 280 CE) (this time note the gap before period 9)

9 Sixteen Kingdoms (304 CE to 439 CE) (there's another overlap with period 10)

10 The North/South Divide (420 CE to 589 CE)

11 Sui (581 CE to 618 CE) (another overlap (with period 10))

12 Tang (beginning of the gruelling Confucian examination system for government officials and of the flowering of classic poetry) (618 CE to 907 CE)

13 Song (more and more influenced by foreign forces as it went on) (907 CE to 1,276 CE)

14 Foreign Rule (1,276 CE to 1,368 CE)

15 Ming (1,368 CE to 1,644 CE)

16 Qing (1,644 CE to 1,911 CE - more rule considered foreign (this time Manchurian rule))

Some of the information concerning the first five cycles especially comes down to us via the extant works of the Chinese philosophers and some comes from archaeology. Despite our limitations concerning historicity here, however, we must examine the period to some extent if we hope to understand its influence upon those philosophies, which have continued to exert their own influences.

I’ll only be venturing slightly into the Common Era in examining general philosophies as all the basics of what makes the Confucian/East Asian worldview somewhat unique had occurred by where I’ll leave off. I'll be spending three weeks on this early (pre-Communist) period.

Then I’ll begin another series of posts specifically focusing on the Modern Chinese history that produced Maoism and what that development was. Two more weeks should see me up to the establishment of the People's Republic. Then I'll be doing four weeks of Mao (if I can handle it without gouging something out of somewhere - I see it as a somewhat dark period (though not unalloyedly so) and emotionally difficult to examine). Deng doesn't impress me much more but I need to give him another two weeks. Finally I have a final week in me for discussing China post-Deng and into the future.

Next post: China up to the Xia and Shang Dynasties

Finally, what do the last forty odd posts add up to?

Here's what I think the life and legacy of Siddhartha Gautama is all about (bear with me as I summarise forty odd earlier posts):

There were forms of theism in India around 500 BCE that Siddhartha had a critical dialogue with during his lifetime of around 80 years. He was a persuasive and wise fellow and his message as it was understood also resonated and was appreciated by many for political and social reasons as well as for purely religious ones (ultimately even beyond India).

The actual message was really down to: everything is suffering but at least it's not permanent so enjoy each moment without clinging to anything and appreciate your lives and develop your communal connectedness and compassion.

That was expressed as four "noble truths" and a "Buddhist path" that had both moral-teaching and self-learning elements was instituted.

After Siddhartha's death this was all finally written down in various forms and argued about at length for centuries. Buddhism (in the various forms that thus emerged) became and remains the religion of around a billion people (essentially throughout much of East and South East Asia (though no longer India) and its peoples' diasporas).

Some forms have inspired the West recently (significantly, for Western and modern (or postmodern) reasons) via people like Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama.

The problem with all of the above is that this inspiring religion for the West that began to be written about more than two millenia ago may not be what Siddhartha actually taught and this idea is brought out in a fascinating book called "Confession of a Buddhist Atheist" written by a former monk. The ex-monk (in both Tibetan and Korean Zen traditions) was born as and now goes again by the name Stephen Batchelor.

I highly recommend the book. It brings out the real story of Siddhartha based on the earliest Pali canon and reveals how this earliest extant evidence shows that he didn't actually believe in either reincarnation or gods (key beliefs of most forms of Buddhism today).

So what then does the extensive development of Buddhism discussed in my posts amount to if it is apparently so clearly contradicted by the clearest of evidence. Simply, it produced a culture valued by almost as many people today as Christianity or Islam so it deserves to be understood. I hope the earlier posts and this post give an understanding of the Buddhism we know today and also how it may develop in the future to become an even more valuable and truly atheist and scientific worldview.