China of the Chinese.

Front matter

Division T) ^ T 0 (b

Section

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Contents

CHAP. PACK

PREFACE Vii

I. ENVIRONMENTS AND CHARACTERS ... 1

Chapter I Environments And Characters

The history of nations being largely determined by the characters of the people composing them and the nature of the surroundings in which they live, it will be necessary, in order to obtain a clear idea of the Chinese t3rpe and the various phases of its social development, to glance briefly at the country of China and the physical, emotional, and intellectual traits of its inhabitants.

The portion of the earth's surface known as China now occupies an area of more than 5,000,000 square miles in the Inorganic Asia, between 20° and 50° north lati-

Environment. tude and 80° and 130° east longitude. This General includes China Proper, or the Eighteen ■ Provinces, and the outlying possessions of Manchuria, Mongolia, Hi (comprising Sungaria and Eastern Turkestan), Koko-nor, and Tibet. We shall see in the next chapter that originally the Chinese occupied but a relatively small portion of this huge area, or even of China Proper. The latter measures about 1,474 miles from north to south, and about 1,355 from east to west, is situated between 18° and 40° north latitude and 98° and 122° east longitude, and has an area of about 2,000,000 square miles, being bounded on the north by Mongolia, on the west by Tibet and Burma, on the south by Burma, Tongking, and the China Sea, and on the east by the China Sea, Pacific Ocean, and Yellow Sea. This area is almost rectangular in form and of varied elevation, sloping generally from west to east. The north presents a large plain, the west is generally mountainous, the south and east consist of level plains interspersed with hills. There are three chief ranges of mountains, the Pei Ling, Yiin Ling, and Nan Ling ; three rivers of the largest size (the Huang Ho, or Yellow River, in the north, the Yang Tzu River in the centre, and the Hsi Chiang, or West River, in the south), and about thirty of considerable importance. These, with their numerous tributaries, reach every part of the country ; there are six large, and several smaller lakes ; with many swamps and marshes.

The great plains of China are alluvial, resting upon granite, new red sandstone, or limestone. A large portion of Northern Geological China is covered by the loess formation, which Features. stretches westward from the borders of the Loess great north-eastern plain as far as Koko-nor Formation. head-waters of the Yellow River,

covering the parallelogram enclosed between longitudes 99° and 115° and latitudes 33° and 41°. This deposit, varying from 10 to 1,000 feet in depth, has been formed by accumulations of dust blown from the deserts of Central Asia and hardened into brownish or yellow earth by the rain and snow of North China. Its vertical cleavage gives rise to multitudinous clefts intersecting the surface of the ground in every direction. These vary from small shallow cracks to canons half a mile wide and hundreds of feet deep, the bottoms of which are often used as roads and the terraced sides cultivated (the loess deposit being exceedingly fertile), or excavated for habitations. The deep gullies would obviously render travel on the surface impossible or exceedingly laborious, and in any case traffic would soon wear away the loess, owing to its soft nature, the loose dust being blown away by the wind ; so the roads in these regions are often a very considerable distance below the surface of the ground. Large masses of loess are constantly falling or being washed by rain into the rivers and carried down towards the sea. In very early times what is now known as the Gulf of Pei-chih-li (Pehchi-li on English maps) extended much farther inland, covering

Environments and Characters the site of Peking and reaching probably to the foot of the Western Hills. The loess deposits, carried down by the rivers and also blown directly by the wind, are probably the chief reason why the coast -line has receded to its present position, and may eventually practically obliterate the Pei Ho and convert Tientsin into an inland place inaccessible to vessels coming from the sea, unless the river be artificially conserved.

In the south the geological succession is first granite, and then grits and slates ; these are covered by old limestones. Geological supporting another series of limestone strata. Succession Generally, in the south we find older, and in South. north newer, rocks ; and from east

to west a similar series of rocks is found, the granites being overlaid by crystalline schist, gneiss and quartzites, over which again lie carboniferous beds, with patches of oolitic rock yielding fossil fishes. In the west and south some volcanic features are perceptible. The chief minerals are coal and iron. Gold, silver, copper, lead, tin, jade, etc., are also mined. A few fossil remains have been found, but petrifactions, so far as is yet known, are rare.

In so vast a country as China, which, including its dependencies, is considerably larger than Europe and about the same size as Australia, we naturally find a Climate. great variety of climate. In the north the winter is long and rigorous, the summer hot and dry, the mean temperature being 52.3° F. and the extremes 110° above and 20° below zero F. In the south the summer is long, hot and moist, the mean temperature being 70° F. and the extremes 112° and 29° above zero. The extremes, of course, are rarely recorded. Owing to the moisture-laden atmosphere in the south, a temperature of 80° is less tolerable than one of 100° in the north. Along the coast the summer heat is tempered by refreshing monsoons. Disastrous typhoons blow periodically between July and October in the maritime region south of 32° north latitude. The teihperature of China is generally low for the latitude.

The mean rainfall in the north is 16, and in the south 70 inches, with variations in other parts.

The vegetal productions are abundant and most varied. About 7,000 species of plants are known, and more will Organic doubtless be discovered. Forests are now Environment, rare, but there is a very great diversity of Vegetal. resinous plants, flowering shrubs and evergreens. From north to south we may note a gradual progression from the temperate flora of Mongolia and Manchuria to the tropical vegetation of Indo-China. In the central districts the northern and southern species intermingle : we see the oak with the bamboo, wheat and maize with sugar, cotton, and rice. Owing to the even distribution of the rainfall there is an extremely regular succession of seasons favourable to methodical agriculture. There is a noticeable absence of meadows and pasture-lands, especially in the south, where the land is covered with paddy-fields to such an extent that roads are mostly reduced to mere bridle-paths and the sides of the hills are terraced in order to find room for more crops. Besides those mentioned, the productions comprise barley, millet, and other cereals, the bean, yam, sweet and common potatoes, tomato, egg-plant, cabbage, ginseng, indigo, cotton, hemp, silk, tea, sugar, pepper, camphor, tobacco, varnish, ground nuts, poppy, watermelon, ginger, and other medicinal plants, and dye-woods. Among fruit trees are the apple, pear, orange, lemon, grape, date, peach, plum, apricot, fig, cherry, mulberry, pumelo, persimmon, lichi, pomegranate, pineapple, chestnut, coconut, mango, banana, etc. There is in most parts excellent timber for shipbuilding and carpentry.

As we shall see in the next chapter, China was, in early times, covered with dense forests full of wild animals. Most of the former and many of the latter have Animal. disappeared, but the species of fauna are still numerous and abundantly represented. There are now no lions, but we find the tiger, panther, leopard.

Environments and Characters tiger-cat, sable, civet, tree-civet, weasel, stoat, marten, otter, lemur, ape, several varieties of monkeys, brown bear, black bear, wolf, fox, racoon, badger, 27 or more species of ruminants, and many species of rodents. The elephant, rhinoceros, and tapir are said still to exist in the forests and swamps of Yunnan. The commonest domestic animals are the horse and ox (dwarfish), ass, mule, camel (in north), water-buffalo (in south), sheep, goat, pig, cat, and dog. Fowls, ducks, and geese are very abundant. Of birds there are about 700 species, including the vulture, eagle, kite, falcon, sparrow-hawk, night-hawk, swallow, kingfisher, cuckoo, hoopoe, bee-eater, nuthatch, wren, chat, peacock, parrot, mina, woodpecker, crow, pigeon, magpie, lark, thrush, canary, nightingale, gold, silver and other pheasants, partridge, grouse, teal, quail, sand-piper, curlew, plover, crane, heron, egret, ibis. Of fish, there are more than 1,000 different kinds, the ichthyology of China being among the richest in the world. In some parts of the south it is said that one can have a different kind of fish for breakfast every day in the year, though this would include some kinds eaten by the Chinese, but not palatable to Europeans. In the seas, rivers, lakes, and marshes are found the mackerel, goby, herring, shark, ray, saw-fish, sturgeon, torpedo, cod, carp, tench, perch, pomfret, sole, mullet, shad, eel, bream, gudgeon, saurus (" silver-fish ”), gold-fish, paradise-fish, as well as lobsters, mussels, crabs, oysters, etc., etc. Turtles, tortoises, snakes, frogs, etc., abound, and alligators are found in the Yang Tzu River. Beetles and insects too numerous to mention exist everywhere. The honey-bee and silkworm are extensively reared for commercial and industrial purposes.

Having noted the inorganic and the organic conditions amid which the Chinese live, let us now glance briefly at the different Sociological peoples by whom they are surrounded or Environment with whom they come in contact. When the in the Past. Chinese first arrived in China (having come, it is supposed, from the west or north-west), they found the land inhabited by aboriginal tribes, which they gradually exterminated, absorbed, or drove to the south. Some are still to be found in Hunan, Kuangsi, Kueichou, Fukien, Chekiang, and elsewhere. They constitute an interesting ethnological problem, as yet only partly investigated. From the third century B.c. onwards, the Chinese have had to contend with hostile nomads from the north. In the second century B.c. Chinese military activity opened up the west, and there was commercial intercourse with the Hsiung Nu, Northern Corea, and the Funguses. During the first six centuries a.d., there was intercourse with Rome, Parthia, Turkey, Mesopotamia, Ceylon, India, Indo-China, and, in the seventh century, with the Arabs, with Tangut and with Southern Corea. From the tenth to the thirteenth century, the northern part of the empire was occupied by Tungusic invaders — Kitans and Nuchens, — and for 88 years in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the whole empire was under Mongol sway. Though, between the fourteenth and the seventeenth centuries, there was a certain amount of commercial and religious intercourse with neighbouring nations, and from the eighteenth century onwards embassies were received from more distant countries, the Chinese, as a rule, avoided any relations with foreigners.

At the present time, China’s neighbours on the north are the Russians in Siberia, on the west the Central Asian Modern tribes and the British in Kashmere, and Sociological on the south the British in India and the Environment. Nepalese and other independent Indian races; also the Shan tribes, the Annamese (under France), the Burmese (under Britain), the Portuguese at Macao (since 1537), and the British at Hong Kong (since 1841). On the south-east are the Japanese (in possession of Formosa since 1910), and on the east the Coreans (under the Japanese since 1910) and Japan. The Chinese are also in contact with foreigners (chiefly British, French, Russians, and Japanese), living in concessions, settlements, etc., on the coast and rivers.

Environments and Characters

The Chinese belong to the Mongolic type. The average stature is lower than that of Europeans, though much greater in the north than in the south, the men Characters being from 5ft. 2in. to 5ft. 6in. in height, and the women about 4in. less. The complexion is pale yellow, tawny, or olive, ranging from light lemon or almost white in the north to deep brownish hues in the south. The shape of the head is brachycephalic, that is, round and short, rather than long or oblong when viewed from the front ; the neck is short and thick-set ; the facial angle is prognathous, being about 76 to 68 as compared with 82 to 76 in the ideal Caucasic t5rpe ; the outline of the face is square, not oval, and the features angular and flattened, not rounded off ; the cheek-bones are high and prominent ; the forehead low, receding, and narrow. The weight of the brain is considerably below the average, the proportion of the cerebrum to the cerebellum being five to one as compared with eight -and-a-half to one in high Caucasian types. The eyes are almond-shaped, usually small, and more or less oblique upwards and outwards, with a vertical fold of skin over the inner canthus, the orbits far apart, and the iris invariably black. The ears are large and prominent. The nose is normally broad, square, and concave, but often large and straight, especially among the upper classes. The mouth is large, with thick lips. The chin is small and receding. The hands and feet are disproportionately small. The hair is black, lank, coarse, and cylindrical ; the eyebrows straight and scanty ; the beard scanty or absent, seldom appearing before the fortieth year. The expression is heavy, inanimate, and monotonously uniform.

Emotionally the Chinese are mild, frugal, sober, gregarious, industrious, of remarkable endurance, but at the same time cowardly, revengeful, very cruel, unsym- Qiaracte^s pathetic, mendacious, thievish, and libidinous. They are taciturn, but spasmodically vehement. But they are also excessively courteous and ceremonious, with a great capacity for gratitude, and a very high sense of mercantile honour.

Intellectually the Chinese are non-progressive ; though in modern times some have shown a desire for Western learning, most have always been and still are slaves Intellectual uniformity and mechanism in culture.

They are unimaginative, imitative, lacking free individuality and creative power, slow in organizing, lacking reflection and foresight, vague in expression, unable to take a comprehensive grasp of a subject ; they attach little importance to accuracy. They are also exceedingly suspicious and superstitious.

Regarding Chinese character as a whole, we find in it many traits common to races in early stages of development, such as the inferiority of size and structure, ^Character°^ larger alimentary system with smaller

nervous power ; a relative hardiness, with less acute sensations resulting from injurious actions than in the case of more highly developed types, and consequent weakness of the feelings prompting to effort and leading to improvement. With less plasticity of nature there is earlier maturity. The Chinese consciousness is relatively simple, exhibiting periodic impulsiveness, improvidence, little-developed altruistic sentiments — ^giving rise to lack of sympathy and to cruelty — and extreme conservatism. The Chinese mind is deficient in conceptions of general facts and distant results ; its ideas are rigid and concrete rather than abstract, lacking definiteness and accuracy. The absence of constructive imagination is shown by the few inventions recorded during a very long national life.

Chapter II

The origin of the Chinese people is still an unsolved problem. The theory of a Sumerian or Babylonian origin, and that which alleges the Chinese to have come from somewhere in Eastern Turkestan, seem more plausible than those which argue that the Chinese race came from the direction of Burma or originated in the country now inhabited by it. When we first hear of the Chinese they occupied but a comparatively small part of modern China, though they subsequently spread all over the vast territories until lately known as the Chinese Empire. It is not alleged by the Chinese themselves or by foreign historians that this was a re-conquest : it was an original conquest of the land from nature and from its aboriginal inhabitants. The Chinese have a tradition of a Western origin. If that should prove to be correct, we shall, no doubt, ultimately find that the Chinese originated somewhere in Mesopotamia, and not in Central Asia, because it has recently been discovered that the Khoten civilization was imported from the Punjab about the third century B.c., by which time the Chinese had been settled in China for more than two thousand years. But this provisional acceptance of the Mesopotamian origin of the Chinese will not rest on any such fallacies as the identification of the Chinese Po hsing (Cantonese Pak-sing), meaning “ the people ” (lit. “ the hundred,” i.e., aU the “ surnames ”) with the Bak Sing tribes of Babylonia, or of the mythical Chinese Emperor Huang Ti with the Babylonian King Nakhunte, as has been argued by at least one writer. The ethnological and linguistic evidence on which it is based cannot, consistently with the purpose of this summary, be set forth in detail.

Beginning of History.

Reliable Chinese history begins about the time of Yao the Great (2357 B.C.). Though Chinese historians have carried their records back for many thousand years before this date, little, if anything, can be regarded as authentic before it. In order to get a clear idea of the Chinese settlement in China, let us imagine a map of China absolutely blank, and some nomad tribes — the ancestors of the Chinese race — approaching from the west along the 40th parallel of latitude. Striking the head-waters of the Yellow River, they would follow its course, turning south at the great bend in longitude 111°, and settle in latitude 35°, where the present frontiers of Shansi, Shensi, and Honan come in contact. They may possibly have been able to cross large rivers and difficult mountain ranges, and so have followed a less circuitous route, but it is here that we find them as an organized society, possessing a considerable degree of civilization, at the dawn of their reliable history. They found the country covered with dense forests, full of wild animals and sparsely inhabited by aboriginal tribes. The former they gradually subdued ; the aborigines they either absorbed, killed or gradually expelled. Remnants of these tribes still exist in the southern and south-western provinces. The Chinese also had to contend with the horse-riding nomads who constantly invaded their settlements from the north, and we shall see that these predatory incursions of hostile northerners constituted a continual danger throughout Chinese history. The first period was one of patriarchal chieftainship ; but these rulers, and the kings who followed them during the next twenty-one centuries, did not extend their frontiers beyond the relatively small region covered by the modern province of Shansi with a small part of Eastern Shensi, the southern part of Chihli, and the strip of Shantung north-west of the Huang Ho (Yellow River). As far as the Chinese themselves were concerned, the rest of the map remained a blank for the whole

Hostile

Tribes.

of the period, that is, for about half of their entire history from the time of the Great Yao to the present date. In the second century B.C., this area was more than doubled, being extended to the Yellow Sea on the east, ^*Empire Yang Tzu River on the south, and

to the Kialing River in about longitude 106° on the west. It was not until the Han period (about 200 B.c. to A.D. 200) that the Chinese established their sovereignty over practically the whole of what is now known as China Proper.

Manchuria became a portion of the Chinese Empire by submitting to the Emperor Wu Ti in the Han period, but, after being conquered by the Mongols in the Greater China, thirteenth century, it was abandoned by them to the Chinese in 1388. In 1644, China may be said to have become a part of Manchuria, for the Manchus became its rulers, and remained so until 1912, when their dynasty gave place to a Chinese Republic.

Mongolia began to be incorporated with the Chinese Empire in 1388, when the Chinese drove the Mongols back to the Kerulun River and acquired that part of their territory lying south of the desert. The Chinese Emperor, Ch’eng Tsu, completed the subjugation of the whole country in 1410-14. After the overthrow of the Manchu power in China in 1912, Mongolia declared its independence, and the suzerainty of the Chinese sovereign in that country must at present be regarded as no more than nominal.

Chinese Turkestan (known also as Eastern Turkestan, Kashgaria, or Hsin Kiang, the New Dominion or New Territory), has been conquered and lost several times since the Christian era. It was subdued towards the end of the eighteenth century, detached for about 20 years by the revolt of Yakub Beg in 1866-7, and finally reconquered by the Chinese Viceroy, Tso Tsung T’ang, in 1877-8.

Tibet was conquered by China in a.d. 684, but threw off the yoke during the decline of the T'ang dynasty, being

Greatest

China.

however reconquered in 1698-1703. It declared its independence in 1912, and its position is at present similar to that of Mongolia.

At various times during her history China has owned territories which she now no longer possesses. From 73 to 48 B.c. all the peoples of Central Asia, from Japan to the Caspian Sea, were tributary to her. During subsequent ages Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, Bengal, Cambel, Burma, Malacca, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Cochin-China, Cambodia, Annam, Tongking, Formosa, the Loochow (Liuchiu) Islands, and Corea have owned allegiance or paid tribute. The Chinese Empire has, on the whole, decreased in size during the last few centmries, having lost one possession after another, and it seems probable that this process will go on unless China can become strong enough to resist aggression, or unless Western nations should adopt more Christian and civilized methods of dealing with weaker peoples. She is surrounded on all sides either by conquered peoples ready to declare their independence or by those whose interests impel them to acquire some of her territory ; the Manchus, Japanese and Russians in Manchuria, the Mongols and Russians in Mongolia, the British in Tibet, the French on the south, etc.

Having thus seen how the Chinese entered China, let us return to the beginning and observe more in detail the successive phases of their political history.

Feudal Period

The Great Yao, the patriarch whom we may regard as the first authentic ruler of China, emerging from the mists of mythological history, ruled from 2357 to 2255 B.c. The comparatively small extent of his territory we have already noted. The Miao tribes, probably autochthonous, were serious rivals for the throne of the young kingdom, and it was only after many years (perhaps a century and a half) of severe fighting that

Phases of Political History, the Chinese obtained a firm foothold in the land which was to be the theatre of their subsequent history. Yao’s son being considered unworthy to succeed him, the chieftainship passed to Shun (2255-2205 b.c.), an ''^and^Ytt”’ agriculturist selected for his "brilliant virtues,” and then to Yii (2205-2197 B.c.), who had been chosen by Shun as his associate and successor for his skill in draining off a great flood which threatened the destruction of the whole country. Yii founded the first Chinese dynasty. From his reign onwards, the succession became hereditary in the male line of the king’s family, and this remained the rule throughout the national history until the institution of the republican form of government in 1912. Yii wished to follow the example of Yao and Shun, and select a worthy successor not of his own family, but both officials and people insisted upon his son being king after him. It is to be noted that it was thus the people who decided upon the sovereignty’s being hereditary.

The conditions of these early colonies soon determined the form of a feudal kingdom. The ruler granted lands to his lords in return for service and aid when Feudalism. necessary. These territories, established here and there among the aborigines, formed the nuclei of provinces and states, governed on the same system as the central or " middle ” kingdom, and, because the latter was still too weak to subdue all the hostile tribes, each state had its own military constitution. This, as we shall see, eventually led to very important results.

The Hsia dynasty was brought to an end through the gross licentiousness of Chieh Kuei, the last king of the house, who wasted the public money and neglected affairs ^^^Dynasties'^”^ State in order to indulge in revolting orgies and cruelties in company with Mei Hsi, a beautiful but wicked woman presented to him as a propitiatory gift by the Lord of Shih, who thereby averted a military expedition projected against him by Chieh. The

Shang dynasty (176&-1122 B.c.) was in a similar manner brought to an end by an unscrupulous and immoral monarch named Chou Hsin, also under the influence of a cruel and vicious woman, Ta Chi. By thus setting a bad example and neglecting the affairs of State, he was regarded as having incurred the displeasure of Heaven, which justified his murder and the extermination of his clan. Under this dynasty the tribe still dwelt in the neighbourhood of the Yellow River, but was frequently obliged to migrate on account of inundations. The capital was moved several times before its final transference in 1401 B.c. (some writers say 1399 b.c.) by P’an Keng to Po, also called Yin Po, or Shan, identified with the modern Yen Shih, in the modern province of Honan. The former sites had been rendered unsafe through proximity to the Yellow River, so P’an moved from the north of that river to a more elevated site on the south.

The dynasty lasted for nearly three hundred years more, and with the overthrow of Chou Hsin the first Feudal period came to an end. The later Feudal period, which followed it, was the most important in Chinese history. It lasted for 900 years (1122 to 221 B.c.) and comprised the Chou dynasty (1122 to 255 B.c.) and part of the Ch’in dynasty (255-221 b.c.). It is divisible into three parts. The founder, Wu Wang, who had defeated Chou Hsin, rewarded the vassals Chow Dynasty, who had helped him to conquer the kingdom, by enfeoffing them of petty states in what are now the provinces of Honan, Shantung, Shansi, and Chihli, his own appanage being part of Shensi, with his capital at Hao (Ch’ang An). This feudal kingdom of Chou lasted from 1122 to 770 b.c., when the capital was moved by P’ing Wang to Lo Yang in Honan, and from this time the central authority gradually declined, while that of the feudal states increased. This period of decline and anarchy is known as the Ch’un Ch’iu Period (770-484 b.c.), because it is described in a work of that name meaning ‘‘ The Annals ” (lit. “ Spring and Autumn ”), edited by Confucius. In order to counteract the jealousies of the rival states and preserve as far as possible the waning authority of the middle kingdom, the singular device of “ presiding chiefs ” or " leading states ” was adopted, the leading state professing loyalty to the House of Chou and exercising royal functions in the guidance or direction of all the others. This resulted in the absorption of the smaller states, who under this system had to bear the double burden of contributions to the central and to the presiding state, by the larger. From 484 to 221 B.c. the period is aptly named that of the “ Warring States.” By 475 b.c. the number of states had been reduced to seven. In 314 B.c. "stetes*”^ the victory of the Duke of Ch’in over the reigning Emperor Nan Wang made it clear that the Ch’in State, the latest formed of the more important states, had sufficient resomces to make itself master of all the rest. Its chief rival was the large state of Ch’u ; but it succeeded in annexing this in 223 B.c., and, two years later, successfully defying the remaining smaller states, united the empire under one rule.

This brought the Feudal regime to a close. On its ruins, the " First Emperor,” Ch’in Shih Huang Ti, laid the foundations of the monarchical system, only abolished H^n^archy 2,133 years later. In order to strengthen his position and more effectually prevent the revival of feudalism, Ch’in Shih Huang (as he is usually called ordered all records of the past to be destroyed except those relating to agriculture, medicine, astrology, of^he Books"” divination ; and 460 scholars who disobeyed his commands were buried alive.

To define the northern and north-western frontiers of his

* The name Huang Ti, "Emperor," was made up from San Huang, the Three Primordial Sovereigns, and Wu Ti, the Five Emperors of legendary antiquity.

kingdom and to check the constant incursions of the Tartar tribes, he united severed pre-existing walls into one Great Wall, 1,145 miles in length, extending from Biding of the seashore at Shan Hai Kuan in longitude 119°.44' to Chia Yii Kuan in 98M4' east. Seeing the danger caused by the states having each its own mihtary system, Ch’in, who had his capital at Hsien Yang in Central Shensi, disarmed the provinces in order further to centralize his imperial power and strengthen his position. But his ambition to found a dynasty which should continue for ever was not destined to be realized. His line came to an end with the treacherous murder, in 206 b.c., of his son, who was only the “ second emperor,” after a reign of but three years’ duration. The empire, however, had been increased by the addition of parts of modern Shantung, Kiangsu, Anhui, Honan, Hupei, and Shensi.

But, though the Ch’in dynasty was thus quickly overthrown, the principle estabhshed was maintained, and for 427 years under the Han emperors (first The Hans. the Former or Western Han, 206 B.c. to A.D. 25, and then, though in less degree, under the Later or Eastern Han, a.d. 25 to 221), the nation prospered, the period being one of the most illustrious in Chinese history. There was great literary, artistic, commercial, and military activity. The Chinese are still proud to refer to themselves as “ Sons of Han.” During this time Chinese influence penetrated southward. Under the Emperor Wen (179-156 B.c.) the Prince of Canton recognized the imperial sway. But the Hun tribes made frequent incursions, and the political history of the next 250 years is largely concerned with wars carried on against these northern invaders, who were frequently successful, though some of them were won over to the Chinese side. Yet in spite of these and other disturbing elements, such as the wars with the Turkish tribes on the west, the empire made much progress towards tranquillity and prosperity. The