CHAPTER III.
THE CHINA OF THE CH‘UN TS‘ËW PERIOD:—CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO ITS TERRITORIAL EXTENT; THE DISORDER WHICH PREVAILED; THE GROWTH AND ENCROACHMENTS OF THE LARGER STATES; AND THE BARBAROUS TRIBES WHICH SURROUNDED IT.
1. On the territorial extent of the kingdom of Chow, and the names of the feudal States composing it, during the Ch‘un Ts‘ëw period, I have nothing to add to what I have said on the same subjects for the period embraced in the Book of Poetry, on pp. 127–131 of the prolegomena to volume IV. Territorial extent and component States.A study of the large map accompanying this Chapter, in its two-fold form, with the names on the one in English and on the other in Chinese, will give the reader a more correct idea of these points than many pages of description could do. The period of the Book of Poetry overlapped that of the Ch‘un Ts‘ëw by more than a hundred years. No new State arose during the latter, though several came into greater prominence than had formerly belonged to them; and the enlargement of territory which took place arose chiefly from the greater development which the position of Tsin, Ts‘oo, and Ts‘in enabled them to give themselves.
2. It is often said that the period embraced in the Ch‘un Ts‘ëw was one of disorder,—a social and political disorganization to be compared with the physical disorder caused by the inundating waters which called forth the labours of the great Yu so many ages before.[1] Disorder of the Ch‘un Ts‘ëw period;—referred to its causes.Mencius tells us that the Classic does not contain a single instance of a righteous war, a war, according to him, being righteous only when the supreme authority had marshalled its forces to punish some disobedient vassal, whereas, during the period chronicled by Confucius, we have nothing but the strifes and collisions of the various feudal States among themselves.[2] This is not absolutely correct, but it is an approximation to the truth. The disorder of the period, however, was only the sequel of the disorder that preceded it. Not long before it commenced, king P‘ing had transferred the capital to the east in 769, in consequence of the death of his father king Yëw at the hands of some of the wild tribes of the Jung. This movement was an open acknowledgment of the weakness of the sovereign
112]
