by Gabriel » Mon Jan 16, 2006 7:37 pm
Yeah. Anyway, I left out 7 cause it was so long. I'll have to write as it's own. So, here you go....
7. Your Servant Sima Guang observes: - -
Heaven gave birth to the multitude of the people, but it was not in the nature of things that they could govern themselves; they were obliged to have a sovereign above them as their ruler. Any one who is able to suppress the unruly and eliminate the harmful, thus preserving the people's lives, and to reward the good and punish the wicked, thus restraining them from causing disorder, may be called a sovereign. To illustrate the point, the number of fuedal lords during the time before the Three dynasties [Xia, Yin, Zhou] was not exhausted by the "ten thousand states." All those who ruled over the people and possessed an Alter of Earth and Agriculture passed as "sovereigns." But the one who united these ten thousand states under his single rule, giving laws and issuing commands, against which on one in the empire raised his voice, was called "King". The kingly influence having declinded, the sovereigns of powerful states who were able to command the feudal lords, and who paid respect to the Son of Heaven, were "hegemons". Since ancient times, there have been instances when the empire fell into disorder and feudal lords contended against each other, so that for many generations there was no King at all.
After the Qin had burned it's books and buried alive Confusian scholars, there arose Han, whose scholars began to propound the theory of mutual engendering and mutual destruction of the Five Elements. Arguing that Qin had occupied an intercalated position between the elements of Wood [Zhou] and of Fire [Han], they considered it as the dynasty of a hegemon, and would not accredit it as that of a King. In this manner arose the theory of the orthodox and the intercalated positions in the succession of dynasties.
After the house of Han was overthrown, the Three Kingdoms (Wei, Shu, and Wu) stood like three tegs of a tripod. When the Jin lost control of the empire, the Five Barbarian Tribes overran it. From Song and [Hou-]Wei on, South and North were divided politically. Each had it's own dynastic history, in which it reviled the other- -the South calling the north "So-lu" ("slaves with hair bound") and the North calling the South "Tao-i" ("insular barbarians"). After Chu [Ch'uan-Chung] [of Hou-Liang] succeeded to the T'ang, the four quarters of the empire were rent to pieces. The Chu-Yeh clan, when they entered Pien, compared the Hou-Liang dynasty with the Ch-iung of Prince I and with the Hsin of Wang Mang. The Hou-Liang Emperor threw overboard the succession and chronology of the late dynasty. His phraseology, calculated to further his personal interests, was not one embodying enlightenment and supreme equity.
Your servant Sima Guang, being stupid, cannot claim to know anything about the orthodox and intercalated positions of the foregoing dynasties. He would presume to observe, however, that even though the name "Son of Heaven" was held by some who were unable to unify the Nine Provinces [i.e., the empire] under their sole rule, all these lacked the reality to substantiate it. There were, to be sure, occasional distinctions- -some were of Chinese stock, others from barbarian tribes; some were benevolent and others cruel, some great and others small, some powerful and others weak. But essentially they were not different from the various fuedal states of antiquity. How can we honor one of these states as being in the orthodox line, and call the others usurpers and pretenders?
If we call orthodox those dynasties which received the throne from their immediate predecessors, then questions arise. On whom did the Chen confer the throne? From whom did the T'o-Pa [i.e., the Hou-Wei of Northern Wei] receive the throne? We might then call orthodox those dynasties which had their seats of government in China proper. But the Liu, the Shih, the Mu-Jung, the Fu, the Yao, and the Ho-Lien all had within their territories the former capital of the Five Emperors and the Three Kings.
Shall we, finally, call orthodox those that were virtuous and beneficent? Even the tiniest state must have had one sovereign of good name; could there not have been, during the last days of the Three Dynasties [I.e., Xia, Shang, and Zhou] an excellent King who ruled some out-of-the-way domain?
Hence, from antiquity to the present, the theory of orthodox and intercalated position is never sufficiently convincing to compel us to adhere to it.
In the present book, Your Servant has limited himself to setting forth the rise and decline of different states, recording men's ups and downs and leaving it to the readers themselves to draw lessons as to which is good and which bad, which wise and which in error, and to draw encouragement or warning therefrom. His intention is quite unlike that of the Ch'un-ch'iu, which set up for the norm for praise and blame with the object of rectifying a disorderly age.
Your Servant does not presume to know anything about the orthodox and intercalated positions. But to judge from their actual individual accomplishments, the Zhou, Qin, Han, Jin, Sui, and T'ang each in their time unified the Nine Provinces under their rule and transmitted the throne to their posterity. Their descendants eventually grew weak and had to wander from their original seats of government; nevertheless they took up the task of their ancestors and could hope for restoration. Those in the four quarters who contended with them for power and supremacy were all their former subjects. Therefore they are here accorded the full consideration due the Son of Heaven.
As for the rest- -those more or less equal to each other in territory and virtue, hence unable to unify the others under one rule; who, having similar appellations, did not originally stand in the relationship of sovereign and subjects- -these are here given the treatment proper to feudal states. All the different parties are treated equally and fairly, as to avoid misrepresenting the facts and attain ultimate justice.
Nevertheless, we cannot do without some framework of chronology for recording the sequence of events during those times of disunion and turbulence in the empire. The Han transmitted the throne to the Wei, from whom the Jin in turn received it. The Jin transmitted it to the Song, and so down to the Chen, from whom the Sui eventually took it. The T'ang transmitted to the [Huo-]Liang, and so down to the [Huo-]Zhou, to whom the Great Song succeeded. So we have no choice but to adopt the reign-titles of Wei, Jin, Qi, Liang, Chen, Hou-Liang, Hou-T'ang, Hou-Jin, Hou-Han, and Hou-Zhou, in order to chronicle the events that took place in various states. In doing so we are not hording one and treating another with contempt, nor making the distiction of the orthodox and intecalary postions.
As for the relation between Liu Bei and the Han, it is of course asserted that he was decended from Prince Ching of Chung-shan, but they were so far apart in time that the number of generations between them could not be reckoned, let alone the names of all the intermediate progenitors. The claim is like that of the Emperor Kao-Tsu of [the Liu-] Song that he was a descendant of Prince Yuan of Qu [of the imperial Liu clan of the Han]; or like that of the Emperor Lieh-Tsu of Nan-T'ang that he was a descendant of Li K'o [of the T'ang imperial house], Prince of Wu. The truth in these matters cannot be ascertained. Therefore we dare not equate Liu Bei's case with those of the Han Emperor Guang-Wu and [Chin] Yuan-Di, and make him the rightful successor to the Han line.
Last edited by
Gabriel on Wed Jan 18, 2006 6:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
You don't need to go to church to be saved, and you don't need to go to rehab to get off drugs. You just need to make the right decisions.