, and other such combinations as
and
. Confucius declared that he would like to give another fifty years to the elucidation of this puzzling text. Shao Yung, A.D. 1011-1077, sought the key in numbers: Ch‘êng I., A.D. 1033-1107, in the eternal fitness of things. “But Chu Hsi alone,” says a writer of the 17th century, “was able to pierce through the meaning and appropriate the thoughts of the inspired man who composed it.” No foreigner, however, has been able quite to understand what Chu Hsi did make of it, and several have gone so far as to set all native interpretations aside in favour of their own. Thus, the I Ching has been discovered by one to be a calendar of the lunar year; by another, to contain a system of phallic worship; and by a third, to be a vocabulary of the language of a tribe, whose very existence had to be postulated for the purpose.
Political Economy.—This department of literature has been by no means neglected by Chinese writers. So early as the 7th century B.C. we find Kuan Chung, the prime minister of the Ch‘i state, devoting his attention to economic problems, and thereby Kuan Chung. making that state the wealthiest and the strongest of all the feudal kingdoms. Beginning life as a merchant, he passed into the public service, and left behind him at death a large work, parts of which, as we now possess it, may possibly have come direct from his own hand, the remainder being written up at a later date in accordance with the principles he inculcated. His ideal State was divided into twenty-one parts, fifteen of which were allotted to officials and agriculturists, and six to manufacturers and traders. His great idea was to make his own state self-contained; and accordingly he fostered agriculture in order to be independent in time of war, and manufactures in order to increase his country’s wealth in time of peace. He held that a purely agricultural population would always remain poor; while a purely manufacturing population would risk having its supplies of raw material cut off in time of war. He warmly encouraged free imports as a means of enriching his countrymen, trusting to their ability, under these conditions, to hold their own against foreign competition. He protected capital, in the sense that he considered capitalists to be necessary for the development of commerce in time of peace, and for the protection of the state in time of war.
Mencius (see above) was in favour of heavily taxing merchants who tried to engross for the purpose of regrating, that is, to buy up wholesale for the purpose of retailing at monopoly prices; he was in fact opposed to all trusts and corners in trade. He was in favour of a tax to be imposed upon such persons as were mere consumers, living upon property which had been amassed by others and doing no work themselves. No tax, however, was to be exacted from property-owners who contributed by their personal efforts to the general welfare of the community. The object of the tax was not revenue, but the prevention of idleness with its attendant evil consequences to the state.
Wang An-shih, the Reformer, or Innovator, as he has been called, flourished A.D. 1021-1086. In 1069 he was appointed state councillor, and forthwith entered upon a series of startling reforms which have given him a unique position in the annals of Wang An-shih. China. He established a state monopoly in commerce, under which the produce of a district was to be used first for the payment of taxes, then for the direct use of the district itself, and the remainder was to be purchased by the government at a cheap rate, either to be held until there was a rise in price, or to be transported to some other district in need of it. The people were to profit by fixity of prices and escape from further taxation; and the government, by the revenue accruing in the process of administration. There was also to be a system of state advances to cultivators of land; not merely to the needy, but to all alike. The loan was to be compulsory, and interest was to be paid on it at the rate of 2% per month. The soil was to be divided into equal areas and taxed according to its fertility in each case, without reference to the number of inhabitants contained in each area. All these, and other important reforms, failed to find favour with a rigidly conservative people, and Wang An-shih lived long enough to see the whole of his policy reversed.
Military Writers.—Not much, relatively speaking, has been written by the Chinese on war in general, strategy or tactics. There is, however, one very remarkable work which has come down to us from the 6th century B.C., as to the genuineness of Sun-Tzŭ. which there now seems to be no reasonable doubt. A biographical notice of the author, Sun Wu, is given in the Shih Chi (see above), from which we learn that “he knew how to handle an army, and was finally appointed General.” His work, entitled the Art of War, is a short treatise in thirteen chapters, under the following headings: “Laying Plans,” “Waging War,” “Attack by Stratagem,” “Tactical Dispositions,” “Energy,” “Weak Points and Strong,” “Manœuvring,” “Variation of Tactics,” “The Army on the March,” “Terrain,” “The Nine Situations,” “The Attack by Fire,” and “The Use of Spies.” Although the warfare of Sun Wu’s day was the warfare of bow and arrow, of armoured chariots and push of pike, certain principles inseparably associated with successful issue will be found enunciated in his work. Professor Mackail, in his Latin Literature (p. 86), declares that Varro’s Imagines was “the first instance in history of the publication of an illustrated book.” But reference to the Art Section of the history of the Western Han dynasty, 206 B.C.-A.D. 25, will disclose the title of fifteen or sixteen illustrated books, one of which is Sun Wu’s Art of War.