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by the minister Lisseh, the doubt very intelligibly suggested itself to the mind of the general whence the supplies necessary for it were to come. Wang Tsien addressed himself to Hwangti on the subject, and the latter's reply is noteworthy: "Do not let that disquiet you, I have provided for everything. I promise you that provisions shall rather be wanting in my own palace than in your camp."

The general proved himself to be as skilful in leading his troops as the Emperor had shown himself in collecting them and in providing for their wants. In a great battle, which shortly ensued between the rival hosts, we are told that Wang Tsien, availing himself of a false movement made by the enemy, threw their army into confusion and drove it from the field. After this victory, the principality was subjected by Wang Tsien, who placed garrisons in the strong cities. The members of the ruling family were sent to Hienyang, where they shared the fate of many of their peers. The complete subjugation of Choo was followed by the annexation of Yen, and also of the smaller provinces of Tai and Tsi. In this latter task Wang Pen assisted his father.

These later triumphs completed the task which Hwangti I had set himself. The independent kingdoms into which the Chinese Empire had been parcelled out were destroyed, their dynasties were exterminated, and their territories became the possession of the Tsins. Over and above all, the leading idea of the unity of the Empire had been realized. It only remained for Hwangti to reap the reward of his valour, prudence, and good fortune, and by some formal act place the seal to his great achievement.

His first measure was to change his name and style from his patronymic Ching Wang to Tsin Chi Hwangti, which signifies the first sovereign Emperor of the Tsins. Not free from the personal vanity of mortals, he sought, by this highsounding title, to perpetuate the memory of his reign, which an impartial observer will always admit could afford to stand on its own merits; but the Court chroniclers of his own country were the more indignant with him because he strove thereby to put himself on a pedestal apart from, if not superior to, that occupied by the semi-mythical patriarchs

THE PALACE OF DELIGHT.

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and heroes of the first two dynasties. For this assumption of superiority, as well as for the indifference he showed to established etiquette, Hwangti incurred the hostility of the lettered classes, and his subsequent acts embittered rather than mollified their feelings. During his lifetime they could not refrain from expressing how much their sentiments were shocked by his acts, and after his death their rage was indulged uncontrolled. Nevertheless, Hwangti had accomplished his wish. He ruled a united China, and the people had peace.

Like most Chinese rulers, he patronized astronomy and revised the calendar. Undeterred by opposition, he abolished many useless ceremonies, striving to attain the practical in all things with the least possible outlay-these measures being intensely unpopular among the officials, accustomed to attend to the minutest forms, and to act on every occasion in obedience to precedent. The embellishment of his capital should not be lost sight of among his other undertakings. One of his first edicts was to the effect that, as the people had no longer any apprehension on the score of civil war— "peace under his reign being universal"—all weapons should be sent to Hienyang, where was stationed the elite of his army as well as the national arsenal. It was written, and it is not difficult to understand why such was the case, that "the skilful disarming of the provinces added daily to the wealth and prosperity of the capital." The Hall of Audience in the palace was ornamented with twelve statues, made from the spoil of his numerous campaigns, and each of these weighed twelve thousand pounds. Outside the city he constructed another palace, on a vast scale, or rather a series of palaces, with magnificent gardens attached, and this became known as the Palace of Delight. The character of the Emperor revealed itself more clearly in the fact that ten thousand men could be drawn up in order of battle in one of its courts.

Hwangti at once divided the Empire into thirty-six provinces, and, when the preliminary arrangements had been completed, he made preparations for visiting the possessions which, the first time for centuries, recognized a common

master under his sway. One of his ministers suggested that he should divide the provinces among his children and blood relations by bestowing fiefs upon them. The suggestion did not find favour in the eyes of the Emperor, and showed that the man who made it had but very faintly perceived the significance of his master's policy. Lisseh had little difficulty in exposing the evils of such a course, and in an eloquent address described the troubles the people had to endure from a divided country. The Emperor put the question in a nutshell when he said, "Good government is impossible under a multiplicity of masters." Governors and sub-governors were then appointed in each of the provinces, and the organization thus drawn up exists, with very few modifications, at the present time, a work alone sufficient to stamp Hwangti as a great ruler.

During the Emperor's journeys throughout his dominions the main features of the country and the condition of the people came under his eye. Recognizing that one of the best ways to increase the prosperity of his people was to improve the means of communication between one part of his Empire and another, the Emperor gave orders that highroads should be laid down in all directions. His attention was the more drawn to the matter because in the East it is the custom when a great man visits a district to repair all the roads in it, and Hwangti, while enjoying the benefit of this rule, knew that, outside his line of march, the roads were of a very different description from those which had been hastily prepared for his arrival. Wishing to see with his own eyes, he may even have diverged from his route for the purpose of observing the naked reality. His own words sum up the situation: "These roads have been made expressly for me, and I am indeed well satisfied. It is not just that I personally should benefit by a convenience of which my subjects have more need than I can have, and one also which I can procure for them. Therefore I decree that roads shall be made in all directions through the Empire." The autocrat's orders were carried out, and the grand roads still remain, often, indeed, in ruins, but two thousand years after his death, to testify to the splendour of his genius.

MEN OF LETTERS.

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It was at this period (B.C. 219-218) that the collision. which had been long imminent between Hwangti and the literati occurred. In those days it was customary for the kings of China to ascend lofty mountains, for the purpose of offering sacrifices on their summits; and the learned classes were not unnaturally anxious that this should be done in accordance with form. Their representation of what the early Emperors had done became tedious by repetition, and their admonitions roused the ire rather than inspired the devotion of the impatient Hwangti. These discussions he cut short by saying that, "You vaunt the simplicity of the ancients; but I act after a still simpler fashion than they did." The Chinese literati have always been noted for the obstinate courage they have shown in expressing their opinions at all hazards; but in Hwangti they encountered an opponent too powerful, and too free from prejudice and superstition, to be vanquished by the stock weapons in their armoury.

The contest had not yet reached its crisis. The resentment of the king against his enemies was slumbering, and the literati were only biding their time for a favourable opportunity to reassert the rights of which they considered they had been wrongfully deprived. The occasion offered itself five years later (B.C. 213), when Hwangti had summoned to his capital all the governors and principal officials for a General Council of the Empire. The scene, we may well imagine, was imposing. The men who had made China a single Empire by their valour and ability, assembled in the magnificent palace, erected from the spoils of kingdoms, to do honour to the Emperor who had inspired their efforts; and side by side with these representatives of practical politics a small body of theoretical observers, wedded to their own beliefs and traditions, containing all the book-learning of the country in their ranks, defiant and hostile, holding Hwangti to be a dangerous and unscrupulous innovator, and not refraining from expressing their opinion in words. It was only in consonance with human nature that the long pent-up hostility of the two classes, the practical man of affairs, and the theoretical student, who was nothing if not the devotee of antiquity, reduced to a focus within the walls of this

palace, should reveal itself in acts. Hwangti may be credited with sufficient knowledge of men to have anticipated what took place; and he shrewdly suspected that the literati would be unable to curb their feelings. His anticipations were fulfilled, and his opponents put themselves forward as the aggressors.

Hwangti called upon those present to express their candid opinion of his government, and of the new legislation which he had inaugurated. Upon this a courtier rose, and delivered a panegyric on what he had accomplished. "Truly you have surpassed the very greatest of your predecessors, even at the most remote period." This eulogium brought matters to a climax. The literati, unable to tolerate this last insult to their heroes, broke into murmurs, and one, more courageous than the rest, gave vent to his disapproval. He began by styling the former speaker "a vile flatterer, unworthy of the high position which he occupied," and, proceeding to heap praise on the earlier rulers, he concluded a speech not less remarkable for its bad taste than for its weakness in argument, by advocating the division of the Empire into principalities. Hwangti cut short the admonitions of this no doubt highly respectable individual by reminding him that that point had been already discussed and decided. But as the point was one of the first importance, he called upon Lisseh to state over again the reasons which rendered the maintenance of the unity of the Empire advisable.

Lisseh's speech is very remarkable, both as an exposition of policy and as a defence of the reasons which dictated the burning of the books. The following is the substance of this great speech :-"It must be admitted," he said, "after what we have just heard, that men of letters are, as a rule, very little acquainted with what concerns the government of a country-not that government of pure speculation, which is nothing more than a phantom, vanishing the nearer we approach to it, but the practical government which consists in keeping men within the sphere of their proper duties. With all their pretence of knowledge, they are, in this matter, only ignorant. They can tell you by heart everything which has happened in the past, back to the most remote period,

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