Fields of Blood Read online

  The Zhou king was supported by a four-tier aristocracy of “gentlemen” (junzi); Western scholars have translated their titles as “duke,” “marquis,” “earl,” and “baron.” The shi, children of younger sons and second-class wives, served as men-at-arms but also as scribes and ritual experts, forming an early “civil” wing of government. The Zhou confederacy of more than a hundred small principalities survived until 771, when their western capital was overrun by the Qong Rang barbarians. The Zhou fled to the east but never fully recovered. Yet the succeeding period witnessed not merely the decline of a dynasty but also the decay of the feudal system. The kings remained nominal rulers but were increasingly challenged by the more aggressive “gentlemen” in the principalities, who were casting aside the deference on which feudalism depended.25 The boundaries of the Chinese states were also shifting. By this time, the Chinese had absorbed several “barbarian” populations, all with very different cultural traditions that challenged the old Zhou ethos. Cities located far away from the traditional centers of Chinese civilization were becoming locally prominent, and by the end of the eighth century, when Chinese history starts to emerge from the mists of legend, they had become capitals of kingdoms: Jin in the north, Qi in the northwest, and Chu in the south. These states ruled thousands of barbarian subjects, whose grasp of Chinese custom was at best superficial. The small principalities in the center of the great plain had now become extremely vulnerable, because these peripheral states were determined to expand. During the seventh century, they broke with tradition and began to mobilize peasants as fighting foot soldiers; Jin and Chu even brought barbarians into the army, offering them land in return for military service.

  Deeply threatened by these aggressive kingdoms, some of the traditional principalities were also riven by internal conflict. With the decline of the Zhou, public order had deteriorated, and increasingly, brute force was becoming the norm. It was not uncommon for princes to kill ministers who dared to challenge their policies; ambassadors could be murdered and rulers assassinated during visits to another principality. To add to the tension, it seems that there was also an environmental crisis.26 Centuries of aggressive hunting and land clearance that destroyed animal habitats meant that huntsmen were returning empty-handed and there was far less meat at the bin banquets, so the old carefree extravagance was no longer possible. In this climate of uncertainty, people wanted clear directives, so the shi ritual experts of the principality of Lu recodified the traditional Chinese custumal law to provide guidance.27

  The Chinese had an aristocratic code, known as the li (“rituals”), that ruled the behavior of the individual but also of the state, and that functioned in a way similar to our international law. The ru (“ritualists”) now based their reform of this code on the conduct of the sage kings Yao and Shun, whom they presented as models of restraint, altruism, forbearance, and kindness.28 This new ideology was clearly critical of regimes guided by violent, arrogant, or selfish policies. Yao, it claimed, had been so “reverent, intelligent, accomplished, sincere, and mild” that the potency (de) of these qualities had radiated from him to all Chinese families and created the Great Peace.29 In an extraordinary act of self-abnegation, Yao had bequeathed the empire to the lowborn Shun, passing over his own son because he was deceitful and quarrelsome. Shun even behaved with courtesy and respect to his father, who had tried to murder him. The reformed li were designed to help the gentlemen cultivate these same qualities. A junzi’s demeanor should be “sweet and calm.”30 Instead of asserting himself aggressively, he should “yield” (rang) to others, and far from stifling him, this would perfect his humanity (ren). The reformed li were therefore expressly designed to curb belligerence and chauvinism.31 Political life should instead be dominated by restraint and yielding.32 “The li teach us that to give free rein to one’s feelings and let them follow their bent is the way of barbarians,” explained the ritualists; “the ceremonial fixes degrees and limits.”33 In the family, the eldest son should minister to his father’s every need, addressing him in a low, humble voice, never expressing anger or resentment; in return, a father must treat all his children fairly, kindly, and courteously. The system was so designed that each family member received a measure of reverence.34 We do not know exactly how all this worked out in practice; certainly many Chinese continued to strive aggressively for power, but it seems that by the end of the seventh century, a significant number of those living in the traditional principalities were beginning to value moderation and self-control and even the peripheral states of Qi, Jin, Chu, and Qin accepted these ritualized imperatives.35

  The li tried to control the violence of warfare by turning it into a courtly game.36 Killing large numbers of enemies was considered vulgar—it was the “way of barbarians.” When an officer boasted that he had slaughtered six of the enemy, his prince had gravely replied: “You will bring great dishonour on your country.”37 It was not proper to slay more than three fugitives after a battle, and a true junzi would fight with his eyes shut so that he would fail to shoot his enemy. During a battle, if the defeated driver of a war chariot paid a ransom on the spot, his opponents would always let him escape. There should be no unseemly triumphalism. A victorious prince once refused to build a monument to commemorate a victory. “I was the cause that two countries exposed the bones of their warriors to the sun! It is cruel!” he cried. “There are no guilty here, only vassals who have been faithful to the end.”38 A commander should also never take unfair advantage of the enemy’s weakness. In 638 the Duke of Song was anxiously waiting for the army of the Chu principality, which greatly outnumbered his own. When they heard that Chu troops were crossing a nearby river, his commander urged him to attack at once: “They are many: we are few: let us attack them before they get across!” The duke was horrified and refused to follow this advice. When the Chu had crossed but still not drawn up their battle lines, his commander again urged that they should attack. But again the duke demurred. Even though Song was soundly defeated in the ensuing battle, the duke was unrepentant: “A junzi worthy of the name does not seek to overcome the enemy in misfortune. He does not beat his drum before the ranks are formed.”39

  Warfare was legitimate only if it restored the Way of Heaven by repelling a barbarian invasion or quashing a revolt. This “punitive warfare” was a penal exercise to rectify behavior. A military campaign against a rebellious Chinese city was therefore a highly ritualized affair, which began and ended with sacrifices at the Earth altar. When battle commenced, each side bullied the other with acts of outrageous kindness to prove its superior nobility. Boasting loudly of their prowess, warriors threw pots of wine over the enemy’s wall. When a Chu archer used his last arrow to shoot a stag that was blocking his chariot’s path, his driver immediately presented it to the enemy team that was bearing down upon them. They at once conceded defeat, exclaiming: “Here is a worthy archer and well-spoken warrior! These are gentlemen!”40 But there were no such limitations in a campaign against barbarians, who could be pursued and slaughtered like wild animals.41 When the Marquis of Jin and his army came by chance upon the local Rong peaceably minding their own business, he ordered his troops to massacre the entire tribe.42 In a war of civilized “us” against bestial “them,” any form of treachery or deceit was permitted.43

  Despite the ritualists’ best efforts, toward the end of the seventh century violence escalated on the Chinese plain. Barbarian tribes attacked from the north, and the southern state of Chu increasingly ignored the rules of courtly warfare and posed a real threat to the principalities. The Zhou kings were too weak to provide effective leadership, so Prince Huan of Qi, by now the most powerful Chinese state, formed a league of states that bound themselves by oath not to attack each other. But this attempt would fail, because the nobles, addicted to personal prestige, still wanted to preserve their independence. After Chu destroyed the league in 597, the region became engulfed in an entirely new kind of warfare. Other large peripheral states also began to cast aside traditiona
l constraints, determined to expand and conquer more territory even if this meant the enemy’s annihilation. In 593, for example, after a prolonged siege, the people of Song were reduced to eating their children. Small principalities were drawn into the conflict against their will when their territories became battlefields of competing armies. Qi, for example, encroached so frequently on the tiny dukedom of Lu that it was forced to appeal to Chu for help. But by the end of the sixth century, Chu had been defeated and Qi had become so dominant that the Duke of Lu managed to retain a modicum of independence only with the help of the western state of Qin. There was also civil strife: Qin, Jin, and Chu were all fatally weakened by chronic infighting, and in Lu three baronial families effectively created their own substates and reduced the legitimate duke to a mere puppet.

  Archaeologists have noted a growing contempt for ritual observance at that time: people were placing profane objects in their relatives’ tombs instead of the prescribed vessels. The spirit of moderation was also in decline. Many Chinese had developed a taste for luxury that put an unbearable strain on the economy, as demand outstripped resources, and some of the lower-ranking nobility tried to ape the lifestyle of the great families. As a result many of the shi at the bottom of the aristocratic hierarchy became impoverished and were forced to leave the cities to scrape a living as teachers among the min.

  One shi, who held a minor administrative post in Lu, was horrified by the greed, pride, and ostentation of the usurping families. Kong Qiu (c. 551–479) was convinced that the li alone could curb this destructive violence. His disciples would call him Kongfuzi (“our Master Kong”), so in the West we call him Confucius. He never achieved the political career he hoped for and died believing that he was a failure, but he would define Chinese culture until the 1911 Revolution. With his little band of followers, most of them from the warrior aristocracy, Confucius traveled from one principality to another, hoping to find a ruler who would implement his ideas. In the West he is often regarded as a secular rather than a religious philosopher, but he would not have understood this distinction: in ancient China, as the philosopher Herbert Fingarette has reminded us, the secular was sacred.44

  Confucius’s teachings were anthologized long after his death, but scholars believe that the Analects, a collection of short unconnected maxims, is a reasonably reliable source.45 His ideology, which sought to revive the virtues of Yao and Shun, was deeply traditional, but his ideal of equality based on a cultivated perception of our shared humanity was a radical challenge to the systemic violence of agrarian China. Like the Buddha, Confucius redefined the concept of nobility.46 The hero of the Analects is the junzi who is no longer a warrior but a profoundly humane scholar and somewhat deficient in the martial arts. For Confucius, a junzi’s chief quality was ren, a word that he consistently refused to define because its meaning transcended any of the concepts of his day, but later Confucians would describe it as “benevolence.”47 The junzi was required to treat all others at all times with reverence and compassion, a program of action that Confucius summed up in what is called the Golden Rule: “Do not impose upon others what you yourself do not desire.”48 It was, Confucius said, the “single thread” that ran through all his teaching and should be practiced “all day and every day.”49 A true junzi had to look into his heart, discover what gave him pain, and then refuse under any circumstances to inflict that pain on anybody else.

  This was not simply a personal ethic but a political ideal. If they practiced ren, rulers would not invade another prince’s territory, because they would not like this to happen to their own. They would hate to be exploited, reviled, and reduced to poverty, so they must not oppress others. What would you make of a man who could “extend this benevolence to the common people and bring succor to the multitudes?” asked Confucius’s disciple Zigong.50 Such a man would be a sage! his master exclaimed:

  Yao and Shun would have found such a task daunting! You yourself desire rank and standing; then help others to get rank and standing. You want to turn your merits to account; then help others to turn theirs to account—in fact, the ability to take one’s feelings as a guide—that is the sort of thing that lies in the direction of ren.51

  If a prince ruled solely by force, he might control his subjects’ external behavior but not their inner disposition.52 No government, Confucius insisted, could truly succeed unless it was based on an adequate conception of what it meant to be a fulfilled human being. Confucianism was never a private pursuit for the individual; it always had a political orientation and sought nothing less than a major reformation of public life. Its goal, quite simply, was to bring peace to the world.53

  All too often the li had been used to enhance a nobleman’s prestige, as had been the case in the aggressive courtesy of ritualized warfare. But properly understood, Confucius believed, the li taught people “all day and every day” to put themselves in somebody else’s shoes and see a situation from another perspective. If such an attitude became habitual, a junzi would transcend the egotism, greed, and selfishness that were tearing China apart. How can I achieve ren? asked his beloved disciple, Yan Hui. It was quite simple, Confucius replied: “Curb your ego and surrender to the li.”54 A junzi must submit every detail of his life to the rituals of consideration and respect for others. “If for one day, you managed to restrain yourself and return to the rites,” Confucius continued, “you could lead the entire world back to ren.”55 But to achieve this, a junzi had to work on his humanity, as a sculptor crafted a rough stone to make it a ritual vessel, a bearer of holiness.56 He could thus replace the current greed, violence, and vulgarity and restore dignity and grace to human intercourse, transforming the whole of China.57 The practice of ren was difficult because it required the junzi to dethrone himself from the center of his world,58 although the ideal of ren was deeply rooted in our humanity.59

  Confucius emphasized the importance of “yielding.” Instead of asserting themselves belligerently and fighting for power, sons should yield to their fathers, warriors to their enemies, noblemen to their ruler, and rulers to their retainers. Instead of seeing family life as an impediment to enlightenment, like the renouncers of India, Confucius saw it as the school of the spiritual quest because it taught every family member to live for others.60 Later philosophers criticized Confucius for concentrating too exclusively upon the family, but Confucius saw each person as the center of a constantly growing series of concentric circles to which he or she must relate, cultivating a sympathy that went beyond the claims of family, class, state, or race.61 Each of us begins life in the family, so the family li starts our education in self-transcendence, but it does not end there. A junzi’s horizons would gradually expand. The lessons he had learned by caring for his parents, spouse, and siblings would enable him to feel empathy for more and more people: first with his immediate community, then with the state in which he lived, and finally with the entire world.

  Confucius was too much of a realist to imagine that human beings could ever abandon warfare; he deplored its waste of life and resources62 but understood that no state could survive without its armies.63 When asked to list the priorities of government, he replied: “Simply make sure there is sufficient food and sufficient armaments and make sure you have the support of the common people,” although he added that if one of these had to go, it should be weaponry.64 In the past only the Zhou king had been able to declare war, but now his vassals had usurped this royal prerogative and were fighting one another. If this continued, Confucius feared, violence would proliferate throughout society.65 “Punitive expeditions” against barbarians, invaders, and rebels were essential, because the government’s chief task was to preserve the social order.66 This, he believed, was why the structural violence of society was necessary. While Confucius always spoke of the min with genuine concern and urged rulers to appeal to their sense of self-respect instead of seeking to control them by force and fear, he knew that if they were not punished when they transgressed, civilization would collapse.67
/>   The fourth-century Confucian philosopher Mencius could also only regard the min as born to be ruled: “There are those who use their minds and there are those who use their muscle. The former rule; the latter are ruled. Those who rule are supported by those who are ruled.”68 The min could never join the ruling class because they lacked “teaching” (jaio), which in China always implied a degree of force: the pictograph jaio showed a hand wielding a rod to discipline a child.69 Warfare too was a mode of instruction, essential to civilization. “To wage a punitive war,” Mencius wrote, “is to rectify.”70 Indeed, Mencius had even convinced himself that the masses yearned for such correction and that the barbarians vied with one another to be conquered by the Chinese.71 But it was never permissible to fight equals: “A punitive expedition is waged by one in authority against his subordinates. It is not for peers to punish one another by war.”72 The current interstate warfare between rulers of equal status, therefore, was perverse, illegal, and a form of tyranny. China desperately needed wise rulers like Yao and Shun, whose moral charisma could restore the Great Peace. “The appearance of a true King has never been longer overdue than today,” wrote Mencius; “and the people have never suffered more under tyrannical government than today.” If a militarily powerful state were to govern benevolently, “the people would rejoice as if they had been released from hanging by the heels.”73