Another close and influential relative of the founder or "Warrior King" was the Duke of Shao, who was infeoffed in Yen (the Peking plain), and whose descendants, like those of the Duke of Chou, seem to have done double duty at the metropolis and in their own feudal appanage. Confucius' history scarcely records anything of an international kind about Yen, which was a petty, feeble region, dovetailed in between Tsin and Ts'i, quite isolated, and occupied in civilizing some of the various Tartar and Corean barbarians; but it must have gradually increased in wealth and resources like all the other Chinese states; for, as we have seen in the last chapter, the Earls of Yen blossomed out into Kings at the beginning of the fourth century B.C., and the philosopher Mencius, when advising the King of Ts'i, even strongly recommended him to make war on the rising Yen power. The founder of Ts'i was the chief adviser of the Chou founder, but was not of his family name; his ancestors—also the ancestors later on claimed by certain Tartar rulers of China—go back to one of the ultra-mythical Emperors of China; his descendants bore, under the Chou dynasty, the dignity of marquess, and reigned without a break until, as already related, the T'ien or Ch'en family, emanating from the orthodox state of Ch'en, usurped the throne. Ts'i was always a powerful and highly civilized state; on one occasion, in 589 B.C., as mentioned in Chapter VI., its capital was desecrated by Tsin; and on another, a century later, the overbearing King of Wu invaded the country. After the title of king was taken in 378 B.C., the court of Ts'i became quite a fashionable centre, and the gay resort of literary men, scientists, and philosophers of all kinds, Taoists included.
Tsin, like Ts'i, was of marquess rank, and though its ruling family was occasionally largely impregnated with Tartar blood by marriage, it was not much more so than the imperial family itself had sometimes been, The Chinese have never objected to Tartars quâ Tartars, except as persons who "let their hair fly," "button their coats on the wrong side," and do not practise the orthodox rites; so soon as these defects are remedied, they are eligible for citizenship on equal terms. There has never been any race question or colour question in China, perhaps because the skin is yellow in whichever direction you turn; but it is difficult to conceive of the African races being clothed with Chinese citizenship.
Wei was a small state lying between the Yellow River as it now is and the same river as it then was: it was given to a brother of the founder of the Chou dynasty, and his subjects, like those of the Sung duke, consisted largely of the remains of the Shang dynasty; from which circumstance we may conclude that the so- called "dynasties," including that of Chou, were simply different ruling clans of one and the same people, very much like the different Jewish tribes, of which the tribe of Levi was the most "spiritual": that peculiarity may account for the universal unreadiness to cut off sacrifices and destroy tombs, an outrage we only hear of between barbarians, as, for instance, when Wu sacked the capital of Ts'u. We have seen in Chapter XII. that a reigning duke even respected at least some of the sacrificial rights of a traitor subject.
The important state of CHÊNG, lying to the eastward of the imperial reserve, was only founded in the ninth century B.C. by one of the then Emperor's sons; to get across to each other, the great states north and south of the orthodox nucleus had usually to "beg road" of CHÊNG, which territory, therefore, became a favourite fighting-ground; the rulers were earls. Ts'ao (earls) and Ts'ai (marquesses) were small states to the north and south of CHÊNG, both of the imperial family name. The state of CH'ÊN was ruled by the descendants of the Emperor Shun, the monarch who preceded the Hia dynasty, and who, as stated before, is supposed to have been buried in the (modern) province of Hu Nan, south of the Yang-tsz River: they were marquesses. These three last-named states were always bones of contention between Tsin and Ts'u, on the one hand, and between Ts'i and Ts'u on the other. The remaining feudal states are scarcely worth special mention as active participators in the story of how China fought her way from feudalism to centralization; most of their rulers were viscounts or barons in status, and seem to have owed, or at least been obliged to pay, more duty to the nearest great feudatory than direct to the Emperor.
No matter what the rank of the ruler, so soon as he had been supplied with a posthumous name (expressing, in guarded style, his personal character) he was known to history as "the Duke So-and- So." Even one of the Rings of Ts'u, is courteously called "the Duke Chwang" after his death, because as a federal prince he had done honour to the courtesy title of viscount. Princes or rulers not enjoying any of the five ranks were, if orthodox sovereign princes over never so small a tract, still called posthumously, "the Duke X."
Hence Western writers, in describing Confucius' master and the rulers of other feudal states, often speak of "the Duke of Lu," or "of Tsin"; but this is only an accurate form of speech when taken subject to the above reserves.
CHAPTER XXV
VASSALS AND EMPEROR
The relations which existed between Emperor and feudal princes are best seen and understood from specific cases involving mutual relations. The Chou dynasty had about 1800 nominal vassals in all, of whom 400 were already waiting at the ford of the Yellow River for the rendezvous appointed by the conquering "Warrior King"; thus the great majority must already have existed as such before the Chou family took power; in other words, they were the vassals of the Shang dynasty, and perhaps, of the distant Hia dynasty too. The new Emperor enfeoffed fifteen "brother" states, and forty more having the same clan-name as himself: these fifty-five were presumably all new states, enjoying mesne-lord or semi-suzerain privileges over the host of insignificant principalities; and it might as well be mentioned here that this imperial clan name of Ki was that of all the ultra-ancient emperors, from 2700 B.C. down to the beginning of the Hia dynasty in 2205 B.C. Fiefs were conferred by the Chou conqueror upon all deserving ministers and advisers as well as upon kinsmen. The more distant princes they enfeoffed possessed, in addition to their distant satrapies, a village in the neighbourhood of the imperial court, where they resided, as at an hotel or town house, during court functions; more especially in the spring, when, if the world was at peace, they were supposed to pay their formal respects to the Emperor. The tribute brought by the different feudal states was, perhaps euphemistically, associated with offerings due to the gods, apparently on the same ground that the Emperor was vaguely associated with God. The Protectors, when the Emperors degenerated, made a great show always of chastising or threatening the other vassals on account of their neglect to honour the Emperor. Thus in 656 the First Protector (Ts'i) made war upon Ts'u for not sending the usual tribute of sedge to the Emperor, for use in clarifying the sacrificial wine. Previously, in 663, after assisting the state of Yen against the Tartars, Ts'i had requested Yen "to go on paying tribute, as was done during the reigns of the two first Chou Emperors, and to continue the wise government of the Duke of Shao." In 581, when Wu's pretensions were rising in a menacing degree, the King of Wu said: "The Emperor complains to me that not a single Ki (i.e. not a single closely-related state) will come to his assistance or send him tribute, and thus his Majesty has nothing to offer to the Emperor Above, or to the Ghosts and Spirits."
Land thus received in vassalage from the Emperor could not, or ought not to, be alienated without imperial sanction. Thus in 711 B.C. two states (both of the Ki surname, and thus both such as ought to have known better) effected an exchange of territory; one giving away his accommodation village, or hotel, at the capital; and the other giving in exchange a place where the Emperor used to stop on his way to Ts'i when he visited Mount T'ai-shan, then, as now, the sacred resort of pilgrims in Shan Tung. Even the Emperor could not give away a fief in joke. This, indeed, was how the second Chou Emperor conferred the (extinct or forfeited) fief of Tsin upon a relative. But just as