Early Chinese history. Are the Chinese classics forged?

Front matter

ARE THE CHINESE CLASSICS FORGED?

BY

H. J. ALLEN

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Records of the Three Sovereigns ... 14

II. Historical Records: The Five Emperors ... 22

Introduction

THE study of Chinese history and literature, although a fascinating one, is beset with difficulties, as we have no monumental stelae or tombs, to which when unearthed we can appeal, as in Egypt, to prove the antiquity of the Chinese race. There is no contemporary history of other nations, moreover, which might have helped our investigations, for, as Mr. Parker says, no one else but the Chinese themselves records anything about them. The Rev. C. J. Ball certainly published in the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archceology, 1891, a list of several ideograms common to Akkadian and Chinese, which may be thought to prove that both nations came from the same stock, but that stock might have originated in Central America. M. Terrien de Lacouperie accumulated a mass of so-called evidence to prove that the names of the old Chinese emperors were identical with those of the Babylonian m)^hical kings, but it will not bear careful investigation. For instance, he identified Kudur Nakhunta, the king of Susa, who in B.C. 2295 conquered Babylonia, with Huang-ti (literally Yellow Emperor), whose personal appellation was Yu-hsiung-shih, erroneously written in Mayers' 'Chinese Reader's Manual' Yu-nai-s^ih, and whose date is given as B.C. 2698 to 2599. This particular point was commented on by Dr. Legge in his paper on Chinese Chronology, finally revised in 1892, and read before the Victoria Institute. There is, indeed, nothing to show how the Chinese people came to inhabit China, and although many sinologists assert that they came from the north-west along the valley of the Yellow river, there are good reasons for supposing that they came from the south-west of China proper. Their ancient classics, which are all we have to work upon, are unfortunately not trustworthy. The 'Books of History' and 'Poetry' are supposed to be their most ancient literature, and here we are confronted with the statement that all the classical works were burnt by order of the emperor in the year B.C. 213, with the exception of those treating of agriculture, medicine, divination, and the records of the Ch'in dynasty. So rigorous was the decree that even those who dared to speak about the classics of History and Poetry were to be put to death. This decree was revoked by the second emperor of the Han dynasty in the year B.C. 191, and from that time we are led to believe that every effort was made to bring the ancient books to light. In the 'History of the Anterior Han,' completed about A.D. 100, we read that " King Hsien of Hochien offered rewards of money and silk for well-written copies of ancient works, and among those secured by him were the ' Book of Rites,' ' Mencius,' Mao's edition of the 'Book of Poetry,' and the 'Spring and Autumn Annals.' "

Our principal, and indeed oldest trustworthy authority for the account of the manner in which the ' Book of History ' and the other classics were recovered, is the ' Historical Records ' (Shih-chi) written by Ssuma Ch'ien about B.C. 90 from materials collected by his father. The account (chap, cxxi.) is as follows : " One Pushing (whose name means Hidden Birth), a native of Chinan, was at first a scholar of erudition under the Ch'in dynasty. In the reign of

INTRODUCTION the Emperor Hsiao-w^n (B.C. 179-157) it was desired that search should be made for any one who could reconstruct the Shangshu ('Book of History '), as the empire did not possess (a copy). It was then reported that Pushing was a person able to reconstruct it. The emperor wished that he should be summoned (to Court) ; but at this time Pushing was over ninety years of age and too old to travel, so instructions were given to the director of sacrifices, and Chao-ts'o went to fetch (the book). The emperor was memorialized to the effect that at the time of the burning of the books, Fusheng hid some books in a wall, after which time the great war began, and he wandered away. When the Han dynasty established itself, Pushing looked for his books, but several tens of chapters were lost, and he only recovered twenty-nine chapters." Weihuang of the first century A.D., says, " Fusheng, being old, could not speak correctly, and his language not being understood, his daughter was required to interpret for him to Chao-ts'o ; but the Ch'i dialect was so different from that of An'hui, that Chao-ts'o lost two or three words out of every ten which she uttered. Getting the general gist, however, he worked up the meaning as best he could." The last account, as being the most marvellous, is the one most generally accepted by Chinese scholars, as Dr. Legge says. These twenty-nine — or, rather, thirty-four chapters, counting the subdivisions — constitute what is known as the modern text of the 'Book of History'; and the remaining twenty-four chapters, or the ancient text, were apparently recovered in quite as wonderful a way.

Ssiima observes, "The K'ung family possessed the ancient text of the Shangshu. K'ung An-kuo deciphered it by means of the modern text, and in this way brought to light the lost books of his house. He recovered more than ten chapters; and so the Shangshu was augmented."

lo EARLY CHINESE HISTORY

In the ' Book of the Anterior Han ' (chap, xxx.) we read, " The ancient text of the Shangshu was brought from the wall of Confucius' house. At the end of the reign of the Emperor Wu, king Kung of Lu state pulled down the wall of Confucius' house with the intention of enlarging his own palace, and found therein the ancient text of the Shangshu, the ' Book of Rites,' the ' Discourses,' and the ' Filial Piety ' classic —several tens of chapters — all written in the ancient text. When king Kung entered the house he heard the music of drums, lutes, harps, bells, and musical stones ; so, being frightened, he stopped the work of destruction. K'ung An-kuo, who was a descendant of Confucius, secured all these chapters of the Shuking, and used them for his examination of the (other) twenty-nine chapters ; he also found sixteen more chapters. K'ung Ankuo presented them to the emperor, but as the sorcery affair occurred at that time (B.C. 91), they were not included in the Imperial Library catalogue."

In the fifty-third chapter of the same work, however, we read that "Kung was appointed king of the Lu state in the third year of the reign of the emperor Hsiao-king (B.C. 154), and died twenty-eight years afterwards (B.C. 127). This was only the fourteenth year of the emperor Wu, who reigned from B.C. 140 to 87, and consequently the statement that he pulled down the house at the end of Wu's reign must be erroneous — indeed, Wang Chung (a.D. 19-90), in his critical disquisitions, says that Confucius' house was not pulled down in his reign at all, but in that of his predecessor (B.C. 156-141).

However complete the destruction of ancient books was, and from the difficulty of procuring a copy of the ' Book of History ' we are led to suppose it must have been, it is passing strange that the Board of Erudite Scholars, was not applied to, for in the memorial of Li-ssii urging that the books should

INTRODUCTION be burnt, we are expressly told that " the official histories, except the Ch'in records, should be all burnt, excepting those under the superintendence of the Board of Erudite Scholars, and those throughout the empire who dared to conceal the classics of 'Poetry ' and 'History' or the 'Sayings of the Hundred Schools,' must be all brought before the various local civil and military authorities, in order that they (the books) may be burnt." The aforesaid Board should, therefore, have had no difficulty in supplying copies df ancient books without the expedient of finding them immured in^walls. From the foregoing facts, then, it is not ufinatural to suppose that the cupidity of the Chinese people led them to forge old works, and pretend that they had been discovered after several years' concealment, in order to secure the offered rewards. Ssiima Ch'ien and K'ung An-kuo seem to have been the arch-culprits in this respect, and no doubt to pose as the descendant of the great sage was a sufficient inducement for the latter's action. With regard to Confucius himself, we must note that it is not until the year A.D. i, that special honours were conferred on him ; and although he is credited with having edited the classics, it is not until 388 years after the recorded date of his death that we are informed of this fact. In a pamphlet entitled " Is Confucius a Myth.'" read before the China branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, in 1886, I pointed out that much of the biography of the sage, given us by Ssiima Ch'ien, has been taken from the ' Discourses,' which. Dr. Legge informed us, could not have been written by the disciples of the sage, but may have been compiled by the disciples of those disciples. In Rev. Ernst Faber's criticism of my pamphlet referred to above, it is stated that besides the ' Historical Records,' there are older authorities extant, such as ' Tso-Chuan,' ' Mencius,' etc. It will be necessary, then, for me to take the several Chinese classical works, and show that they were one and all forged during the Han dynasty. Instead, however, of commencing with the 'Book of History,' I propose to give a translation of the earlier chapters of the ' Historical Records ' of Ssiima Ch'ien, which cover a period when the different classics are supposed to have been first published. It will be seen that ten of the fifty-eight chapters of the ' Book of History ' are quoted by Ssiima in extenso, while some forty others are referred to more or less fully. He does not profess to be quoting from another work, and passages are sometimes rendered in simpler language although the meaning is identical. He quotes, too, from the preface to the 'Book of History,' the 'Discourses,' 'Mencius,' and 'Tso's Narrative.'

Sinologists are by no means agreed as to whether the personages mentioned in the classics are real or not, or when veritable history may be said to begin, and mythical legends end. Dr. Edkins believed in the existence of the semi-bestial Fu-hsi (B.C. 3000), the earliest worthy referred to in the classics. Dr. Legge said that he could as soon doubt the existence of Abraham and the other Hebrew patriarchs in our sacred scriptures as that of Yao, Shun, and Yii ; and in this view the late Sir Thomas Wade concurred. In the prolegomena to the classics, however. Dr. Legge believed that 'the earliest date which can be determined with certainty is that of an eclipse of the sun, B.C. 775.' The rise of the Hsia dynasty (B.C. 2200), that of the Shangs (B.C. 1766), and that of the Chous (B.C. 1122) have all been referred to as the dawn of Chinese history by different authorities. Mr. Parker (' China, Past and Present,' pp. 6, 7) says that ' there are fairly trustworthy accounts or traditidns that about B.C. 977 a Chinese emperor made a great military tour over Mongolia,' although he thinks that we do not arrive at the portals of ' true history until B.C. 827,' i.e. prior to the alleged date of most

INT ROD UCTION 1 3

of the persons named in the 'Books of History' and ' Poetry.'

Father Premare, who had access to the imperial libraries, thought that the ' certain period ' is posterior to B.C. 425.

Although I have referred to the " burning of the books," said to have taken place in B.C. 213, I am by no means sure that the reign of the Emperor Shihhuang (B.C. 250-209), or even that of the first emperor of the Han dynasty, is altogether to be considered ' true history.'

The double inverted commas, which seem to occur at odd intervals, serve to mark quotations from the ' Book of History,' or other Chinese classics.

Chapter I

P'AO-HSI (Great Brilliant),^ of the clan-name Wind, replacing Sui-jen (the man who procured fire by friction), continued Heaven's line and became king. His mother, named Hua-hsii, trod in the footprint of a giant ^ near Thunder lake, and gave birth to P'ao-hsi at Ch'^ng-chi. He had the body of a serpent,® the head of a man, and possessed the virtue of a holy one. " Looking up, he regarded the signs in the sky, and looking down, he regarded the forms on the earth ; about him he regarded the marks on birds and beasts, as well as what was suitable to the soil. With respect to what was near, he took into consideration the different parts of his body, and as to what was afar off, all the beings. He was the first to delineate the eight trigrams,* whereby he fully understood the attributes of the divine intelligences, and whereby he classified the nature of all 4hings." ^ He invented " written characters and contracts, to supersede (the institution of) knotted cords." ^ He then first regulated marriage rites, arranging that a paifr of hides should be given as wedding presents. " He wove nets and snares to teach men how to hunt and fish," ^ and was therefore called Fu-hsi (hidden victims). He kept sacrificial beasts for the kitchen, and so was called P'ao-hsi (kitchen victims). He had an auspicious dragon omen, and enrolled his officials under the names of dragons, and they were styled dragon officers ^ He made the thirty-five stringed lute. Being king by virtue of the tree (or wood), he fixed his thoughts on the rules of spring, so the 'Book of Changes' says, "The god came forth from the sign Ch6n" {i.e. the East), and the ' Book of Monthly Rules,' ' in the chapter styled ' Budding Spring,' says, " The god in question is Great Brilliant," and this is correct. His capital was at Ch'6n. In the East he raised a feng^ altar on Mount T'ai, and having reigned eleven years, died. His posterity, according to the ' Spring and Autumn ' classic period (B.C. 721-480), were (lords of) " J6n, Hsu, Hsu-chu, and Chuan-yii, all offshoots of the ' Wind ' clan."

Nii-kua, who was also of the ' Wind ' clan, had the body of a serpent, the head of a man, and the virtue of a divine and holy being. He reigned in the room of Fu-hsi, under the title of Nii-hsi. He did not change or invent anything, and only made the pipes of the reed-organ, so the ' Book of Changes ' does not mention him, and he is not included in the quinary cycle. One authority says that Nii-kua was also king by virtue of the tree, and actually a descendant of Fu-hsi, that several generations having elapsed, metal and wood had followed in due rotation, and that the cycle being completed, a new one had begun. Special distinction is accorded to Nii-kua on account of his great merits : he is placed among the three sovereigns, and so there is an additional king of the tree. In his latter years a prince Kung-kung (public works), relying on his cleverness and his punishments, with violence played the tyrant, and though he did not become king, yet by water he surmounted the tree.^ He fought with Chu-yung^" (director of fire), but was not successful. " He was angry, and with his head butted against mountain ' Incomplete,' which fell, so the pillar of heaven ^^ was broken and a corner of the earth chipped off. Nii-kua then fused stones of five colours to repair the heavens, cut off the feet of a tortoise to support the four corners of the earth," collected the ashes of reeds to stop the overflowing waters, and rescue the province of Chi. The earth was then at rest, the heavens made whole, and the old system of things was unaltered.

After the death of Nii-kua, Sh^n-nung (Divine Labourer) reigned. The Blazing god, Divine Labourer, was of the Chiang clan, and his mother, named Niiteng, was Yu-Kua's daughter. When Shao-tien's^^ concubine, she was influenced by a divine dragon, and gave birth to the Blazing god. He had the body of a man and the head of an ox, and grew up on the banks of the Chiang river, whence he derived his clan name. As he was king by virtue of fire, he was called Blazing god, and named his officers after fire. " He cut down trees to make ploughshares, and bent wood into the form of ploughs. The use of ploughs and spades was taught by him to myriads." ^^ As he was the first to teach husbandry, he was called Divine Labourer. He then offered the sacrifice at the close of the year, and with red whips lashed the plants and trees. He was the first to taste different plants, and the first to obtain curative drugs. He also made the five-stringed lute. " He taught men to hold mid-day markets, and, after bartering their goods, to retire, each obtaining what he required." ^^ He afterwards multiplied the eight trigrams, so as to form sixty-four hexagrams. He first had his capital at Ch'en, and then dwelt at Ch'ii-fou. After reigning a hundred and twenty years, he died, and was buried at Ch'angsha. Sh6n-nung came originally from burning mountain, so Tso (Ch'iu-ming) says, " The son of burning mountain was called Pillar;" he was also called " Whetstone Mount," so the ' B<4ok of Rites ' " says, " He of the Whetstone Mount possessed the empire," and this is correct. Sh6n-nung took the daughter of 'Rushing Water,' by name T'ing-pa, and made her his wife. He had a son, emperor Grief; Grief had a son, the emperor Capable ; Capable had a son, emperor Elm-net There were altogether eight generations and five hundred and thirty years, and then Hsien-yiian ^^ arose. Among his posterity were Chou, Fu, Kan, Hsu, Hsi, Lu, Ch'i, Chi, I, Hsiang, Sh^n, and Lii, who were all descendants of the Chiang clan ; they were also princes, and some of them were made presidents of the four mountains. In the Chou dynasty the marquis of Great and the earl of T were wise ministers of the king ; Ch'i and Hsii were chieftains and leaders of the princes in the Middle Kingdom. Now the virtues of the holy man, being abundant, extensive, and great, his dignities and his progeny were numerous, glorious, and long-lived.

One author explains that the three sovereigns were the sovereign of heaven, the sovereign of earth, and the sovereign of man. This was at the beginning of creation, when prince and subject existed foi* the first time. What is stated in the ' appendix to the Plan ' cannot be entirely rejected, and I have therefore mentioned it in due order. When heaven and earth were first established there were twelve ^^ sovereigns of heaven. Calm and unruffled, they lived in a state of inaction, and as to their manners they reformed themselves. They were kings by virtue of the tree, the years being calculated by the aid of the constellation Shet'i ; they were twelve brothers, each of whom reigned eighteen thousand years. The sovereigns of earth were eleven in number, and kings by virtue of fire ; they were eleven persons of one family, who flourished at the Bear's-ear and Dragon's-gate mountains. They also reigned each eighteen thousand years. The sovereigns of man were nine in number, who, riding in cloud chariots, drawn by six winged creatures, came from Valley-mouth. They were nine brothers, who divided the rule of the nine provinces. They each built walled towns, and lived altogether for one hundred and fifty generations, that is for forty-five

B thousand six hundred years. After the sovereigns of man there were the Five dragons, Sui-jen, Ta-ting, Po-huang, Chung-yang, Chuan-hsu, Li-lu, Li-lien, He-hsii, Ts'un-lu, Hun-tun,^' Hao-ying, Yu-ch'ao," Chu-hsiang, K'o-t'ien, Yin-k'ang, and Wu-huai. These are the names of those who, after the three sovereigns, possessed the empire, but as they are not recorded in the chronological lists, we do not know the length of their reigns, nor their genealogies, nor where their capitals were. The poems of Han, however, assert that from ancient times those who performed the /^«g- ceremony on mount T'ai, and the Shan ceremony on mount Liang-fu, were over ten thousand in number. Confucius observed this, but he could not know them all ; and Kuantzu says, " Formerly there were seventy-two persons who performed the feng ceremony on mount T'ai, but only twelve whom I, I-wu, knew." At the head of these he places Wu-huai, but before Wu-huai and after the sovereigns of heaven the chronology is profoundly abstruse. How did the sovereigns and kings ascend the throne, and how were they proclaimed .' The old books are lost, and so we cannot fully discuss the point ; yet should we say that there were no emperors or kings .? Now an appendix to the ' Spring and Autumn annals ' says, " From the creation to the capture of the Lin^^ (B.C. 481) there have elapsed three million two hundred and seventy-six thousand years, divided into ten epochs, and comprising in all seventy thousand six hundred generations. The first epoch was called that of the nine heads ; the second, the ' Five dragons ; ' the third, Sh^-t'i ; the fourth, Ho-lo ; the fifth, Lien-t'ung ; the sixth, Hsuming ; the seventh, Hsiu-fei ; the eighth, Hui-t'i ; the ninth, Shan-t'ung ; and the tenth epoch is called Liu-chi. Now the Liu-chi epoch corresponds to the era of the Yellow Emperor,!^ and having determined the period of time comprised in the nine/oregoing epochs, I have recorded it in this supplementary history.

Notes to Chapter I

^ It is probable that Ssuma Cheng, who wrote this supplementary chapter to the ' Historical Records,' circa a.d 720 is thinking of the planet Jupiter when he writes about the first of his three sovereigns, for wood, spring, and the east are all mentioned m connection with him, and the said element, season and point of the compass usually correspond, according to Chinese ideas, to this particular planet. Great Brilliant's reign of eleven years refers also, no doubt, to the time in round numbers that Jupiter takes in revolving round the sun.

2 -witii tijg 'footprint of a giant' we must compare the honour paid to the sacred S'ripada, or footprint of Buddha, in India, Burmah, and Siam, and the legend is probably derived from Buddhist teachings. Similar miraculous conceptions are constantly found in the classics of China.

^ Buddhism was grafted on the worship of Nagas, who were in India a class of demons with human faces and serpent-like extremities. Again, the first of the seven constellations of the eastern quadrant, named the Horn (a and f of Virgo), on the head of the azure dragon, is said to be the " chief of the productive energies of spring." Azure is the colour corresponding to Jupiter. Another Chinese author says " the horn constellation is the head of the azure dragon." The dragon was said to bury itself in the mud, and to awake in spring ; thus it became the symbol of the productive force of moisture, when by means of genial rains all nature renewed itself (vide Schlegel, ' Uran. Chin.,' p. 53).

■* The eight trigrams are combinations of triple lines alternately whole or broken, which are reducible to the four symbols, which consist in but two lines each, and these, again, to their two primary forms, which represent the first division or development of the male and female principles from unity, or the ultimate principle (' Mayers' Manual,' p. 333. See also ' Appendix iii. to Book of Changes.'

* These quotations are from ' Confucius' Commentary to the Book of Changes,' Part. II. Chap. 2.

^ We have in the Tso-chuan, under the seventeenth year of Duke Ch'ao, a long paragraph about how officers were named by these ancient sovereigns, as follows : " In autumn viscount T'an came to court and as the duke was feasting him Ch'aotzu asked why Shao-hao gave his officers the names of birds. Viscount T'an replied, ' I know, for he was my ancestor. Formerly Huang-ti ruled by the help of clouds, and therefore he had cloud-officers with the names of clouds. Blazing god ruled by the aid of fire, and therefore he had fire-officers with fire names. Kung-Kung ruled by the aid of water, and therefore he had water-officers with water names. Great Brilliant ruled by the aid of dragons, and therefore he had dragon-officers with dragon names. When my first ancestor Shao-hao (Lesser Brilliant) came to the throne a phoenix appeared, therefore he ruled with birds, making bird-officers with bird names. The Phoenix was director of the calendar, the Swallow master of the equinoxes,' " etc. This may refer to the tribal use of the totems of birds and animals.

' The ' Book of Monthly Rules' is the fourth chapter of the ' Book of Rites.'

^ There seems to have been a good deal of mystery about the performance of the feng ceremonial, which perhaps was connected with sun-worship. In chapter xxviii. of the ' Historical Records' there is an account of it under the date B.C. no, which is called the first year of the original feng ceremony.

° The ancient Maya nation of Central America called their country the land of the tree ; the peninsula of Yucatan, with volcanoes at its base, being represented in their maps as a thorny tree with a branch to the east. They had a tradition that the sea, which they called Canah, had at a remote period rushed in, and, submerging the greater part of their empire, formed the gulf of Mexico, and that on this occasion many of their people had taken to their boats, and crossed the Pacific ocean. One theory is that they were the ancestors of the Chaldeans, Indians, Egyptians, and other nations {vide Plongeon's 'Queen Moo'). In that case some of them may have populated China, and Fu-hsi, coming from the East, be merely an echo of this tradition.

^^ In the ' Book of Rites ' Chu-yung is stated to have presided over the summer. The quotation, which follows, is from Lietzii.

^^ The pillar of heaven was the name of a mountain in Kueichow province. The Mayas imagined that the vault of heaven was supported on four pillars, one at each of its four corners, and the Hindoos say that the earth is supported on the back of an elephant, which stands oh the back of a tortoise. The molten stones of five colours might refer to a traditionary volcanic eruption.

'^ The Annamite annals show that one of their earliest kings. Hung, divided his kingdom of Ven-lang into fifteen provinces, one of which was called Chail-dign (now known as Sontay), and it is probable that this suggested the name Shaotien. We shall see that many names of people in this history are taken from those of districts and places as Hua-hsii, Niikua, etc. Yukua or Yu-wa was the name of a lake west of Anhsi, in Kansu province, and in the History of the Han dynasty it is related that in B.C. 113 "a horse came from the Yukua water, and the poem of the celestial horse was composed." The horse was presented to the emperor, who thought there was something supernatural about it.

1^ The two quotations are from the ' Book of Changes,' Appendix III., sect. 2.

'* The reference is to chapter xx. of the ' Book of Rites.'

^ Hsien-yiian, the prename of the Yellow Emperor (' Historical Records,' chap, ii.) was the name of a constellation supposed to represent a Chinese chain-pump (Schegel, ' Uran. Chin.,' p. 452).

1"' ' The General Mirror of History ' gives thirteen sovereigns of heaven, and in that case the number of years they reigned, or 13 X 18,000 = 234,000, and when the reigns of the sovereigns of earth, or 11 x 18,000 = 198,000 years, are added, we have a grand total of 432,000 years, equal to the ten Babylonian antediluvian epochs of Berosus, as well as to the Indian Kaliyuga. In the Hindoo calendar the cycle of five years mentioned by the name of Yuga is stated to be the basis of calculation for the larger cycles (Fergusson, " Chinese Chronology," p. 139).

" Hun-tun, which means literally chaos, was the astronomical term for the year B.C. 93, while Yu-ch'ao (nest possessor) was the astronomical term for the year B.C. loi.

" The fabulous creature called the Lin is stated to have been captured two years before the death of Confucms, and to have presaged that event.

1^ The word Ti will be rendered in future emperor when applied to the reigning sovereign, although the Five Ti generally refer to the Five Major planets. I have referred to the Buddhist signification of the names of the epochs in an article m the China Review, vol. xiv. p. 21.

Chapter II

" T TUANGTI (Yellow Emperor) was the son of l~\ Shaotien." His surname was Kung-sun (Duke's Grandson) and his personal name was " Hsien-yuan. From his birth he had divine power ; as a babe he could speak ; as a boy he was always quick ; as a youth he was generous and alert ; and as a man thoroughly intelligent." ^ In the time of Hsien-yiian the descendants of Shen-nung became corrupt. The princes made raids on each other, fought and harassed the people, and Shfinnung could not control them. Hsien-yiian therefore practised himself in the use of shield and spear so as to subdue those who would not pay homage. The princes all came, submitted and were obedient, except Ch'ih-yu ^ (Stupid Criminal), who was the fiercest and most unconquerable. Blazing god wished to encroach on the privileges of the princes, so they all put them- 'selves under the protection of Hsien-yiian. The latter then cultivated virtue, raised troops, " ruled the five elements, sowed the five kinds of grain, subjugated the myriad nations, and regulated the four quarters of the globe. He trained bears, leopards, panthers, lynxes, and tigers, and fought with their aid against Blazing god in the plain of Pan-ch'uan, and after three battles he gained the victory." Stupid Criminal rebelled, and would not obey the emperor's commands. Yellow Emperor then levied an army of the princes, fought against Stupid Criminal in the plain of Stricken-Deer, and finally captured and slew him. The princes thereupon exalted Hsien-yiian, and made him Son of Heaven in place of Shen-nung.