The Human Journey, Volumes 1 - 2

by Kevin Reilly

  He who fears death either fears the loss of sensation or a different kind of sensation. But if you lose sensation, you feel no pain; and if you feel a different sensation, at least you are alive.

  The Third Century . The end of the Roman peace and the increased incidence of war in the third century led to the militarization of Roman society. Describing the third century, a modern historian writes, “There came a time when scribes were soldiers, bishops were soldiers, local governors were soldiers, the Emperor was a soldier. At that point the end of the ancient world was in sight.”14

  China

  Similarities and Differences . At first glance, classical China was very much like classical Rome: same time period, roughly the same size and population, and both based on agriculture and run by large noble families and a monarch. Both used large armies of horsemen and commoners to create empires over subject populations. Both developed Iron Age book-based cultures that shaped common identity and provided a sense of cultural superiority over nomadic “barbarians.”

  China had certain natural advantages. The light soil called loess15 that clung to the hillsides of the Yellow River valley was unusually rich in nutrients. Chinese farmers could grow millet, an ideal cereal grain for dry climates, without fertilizers (normally animal manure in India, Greece, and Rome), and they could plant continually without having to leave the land fallow half the time. In addition, compared to wheat, the chief Roman grain, millet, yielded twice as many grains at each planting. Consequently, Chinese millet agriculture on loess soil was four times as productive as Roman wheat. The state of Qin (pronounced “chin”), which conquered other states and gave its name and direction to the first unified China, was raised on loess-grown millet. As China expanded south of the Yangtze River, it added rice-producing areas that vastly increased agricultural productivity. In addition, the Chinese state grew expert at various forms of water management, introducing irrigation in the north and “wet rice” paddy agriculture in the south. Both of these multiplied yields.

  The Chinese Empire encompassed more desert and low-rainfall areas than the Roman Empire. However, the productivity of Chinese agriculture compensated for this with a vastly greater population density in prime growing areas. One consequence was that Chinese agriculture precluded mixed farming and herding. While China had all the animals that Romans raised—and any Chinese farm of substance found room for pigs and ducks—the Chinese devoted much less land than Rome to raising animals, especially cattle. Animal manure was not necessary for raising crops, and cattle were expensive since they consumed 90 percent of the grain that would otherwise be available to humans. One consequence was that the Chinese diet, compared to the Roman diet, was lower in meat, especially beef, and virtually devoid of milk and cheese. The high-vegetarian, low animal-fat diet still distinguishes Chinese from most European cuisines today.

  China had one considerable physical disadvantage compared to Rome: it was much more of a continental empire. This had enormous implications for transportation and communications within the Chinese Empire. One historian evokes the Roman fixation on gladiatorial games to suggest that the entire Roman Empire took the shape of an amphitheater bank of seats around the Mediterranean Sea. He adds,

  Like the [Persian] Achaemenid Empire, Han China was a road state on a plateau, and this in itself ensured inferiority in spatial integration to a Mediterranean empire, since in pre-modern conditions land transport was twenty to forty times more expensive than water transport.16

  Of course, China had rivers, running mainly west to east, and eventually the Grand Canal to connect them, but compared to an empire surrounding a sea, the point still stands. Rome also developed the advantage of road networks to move troops and transport goods. Rome had 27 miles of road per 1,000 square miles, almost double China’s 14. On the other side of the ledger, paved roads were necessary only for wheeled transport since paving kept roads from turning into ruts in rain. Horses and camels were far cheaper and more efficient than wheeled carts. On balance, however, the physical integration of the Chinese Empire was not as great as that of the Roman Empire.

  Lineages, Cities, and States . The creation of the Chinese state—by unifying various warring states and kingdoms into a single China—was the work of the Qin which, like Rome, gave its name to the new empire it governed. Unlike Rome, however, Qin was not the name of a city but the name of a lineage or family. This is an important difference between the Roman and Chinese paths to state formation and empire. All states, traced back far enough, descend from tribal chiefdoms or societies made up of extended families called lineages. In the section on Greece, we followed Aristotle’s description of the reforms of Cleisthenes around 500 BCE, and we suggested that this might stand as a model for the general transformation from family-based societies to public soci-eties—cities and states. The difference between Greece and China, however, is that the Greeks created city-based states, city-states, before larger states or empires, and the Chinese created a state directly, without the intermediate step of cities or city-states. Greek and Roman state formation was in the tradition of the Middle East and Mediterranean, where cities were important power centers since the urban revolution. Chinese state building was more like that of ancient Egypt, where cities mattered less than royal dynastic families. We might consider the Indian route a third variant. There, lineages remained important as cities were created, but cities did not create states. Indian cities housed many independent cells but were themselves governed, often loosely, by monarchs. A city-state is a much easier thing to create than a lineage state. The smaller scale of a city ensures some degree of familiarity and participation by the residents. Even an empire builder of a territory that includes many city-states can take advantage, as the Romans did, of their existing institutions. By contrast, the creation of a state over other lineages and vast territories requires the pacification or replacement of other lineage heads and often involves the deployment of large (and expensive) occupation armies. On the other hand, once firmly established, a lineage state might have fewer pockets of political or cultural resistance to a uniform, centralized administration. Concentrated power at the top might endure longer, and if the reins fall out of the hands of one, they might easily be picked up by another.

  The earliest Chinese state, the Xia (22001800 BCE), centered on the lower Yellow River, may have established a signature Chinese political system in which a centralized benevolent kingship ruled the state through law and harsh punishment, but most local decisions were made by clans and families. Such a system was evident in the Shang dynasty state (1766-1122 BCE), which circled the territory of the Xia, doubling its size and extending to the coast across the northern Chinese Yellow River but not as far as the Yangtze River in the south. The Zhou (pronounced “joe”) dynasty (1045-256 BCE) circled the Shang, doubling the size again. In later centuries of the Zhou dynasty, called the Warring States period (403-221 BCE), the state was vastly reduced and seriously challenged. Across China, powerful lineages and warrior armies replaced organized state structures. Feudal lords, lineage powers, personal relationships, and family ties were the only political reality. In this period, many Chinese thinkers looked back to the early Zhou centuries as a golden age of political stability and sought lessons for the re-creation of a Chinese state. Out of many competing schools of thought, two became particularly influential in this period, one associated with Confucius and the other with a group of thinkers called “legalists.”

  Confucius . Kong Fuzi (551-479 BCE), “Master Kong” to his followers and “Confucius” in the Latinized version, was a teacher and philosopher who sought employment as a public official. Like his Greek contemporaries, Socrates and Plato, Confucius was too independent a thinker (though he insisted he was not), maybe even a bit too cantankerous, to gain the approval of those in power. In any case, he did not rise beyond the level of a minor official in his native state of Lu in northern China. In search of a ruler who would give him broader authority, he roamed the feudal states of northern C
hina but without success. Eventually, he returned home and devoted his life to teaching others.

  Like many founders of classical traditions—Socrates, the Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad—Confucius was a talker rather than a writer and left no writings in his own hand. According to tradition, he did gather classical Zhou texts that he used in his teaching, but the closest thing we have to his own words are the “sayings” known as the Lun Yu, or Analects, which were collected by generations of students. If these sayings are more reliable than most modern classroom notes, they show a moral philosophers interested in proper behavior and good government. In this respect, he is more like the Greeks than religious leaders. In fact, Confucius professed little interest in spiritual matters. When asked how to serve ghosts and spirits, he is reported to have replied that it was difficult enough to understand the living. But where the Greeks sought abstract truths like “the meaning of justice,” the Analects taught practical lessons, such as the proper observance of tradition.

  Learning, decorum, and propriety were the conservative values of Confucius. He favored those who showed respect for tradition, ritual, and order. He believed that people were basically good but that humanity consisted of natural inferiors and superiors and that society functioned best when people accepted their place. In these respects, Confucius would have received nodding agreement from Socrates and Plato. Confucius, however, would not have agreed with the Greek and Roman idea of politics as a separate realm of activity or thought. For Confucius, the model for a successful state was the family. A good ruler is like a good father. He sets an example that his dependents will seek to emulate. “The relation between superiors and inferiors is like that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend when the wind blows across it.”

  The wind does not trample the grass, however. The most important possession of a good ruler is the trust of the people, more important than arms, even more important than food. The ruler should be a gentleman; his guiding principles should be benevolence and humanity. In return, the people will be like good children. The linchpin of the Chinese state was filial piety—the respect, even devotion, that a son owes his father. Filial piety was a prototype for all proper relationships: wife to husband, sister to brother, younger to older, servant to master, and commoner to king.

  The idea that the state was only a larger family was an idea that made sense to many in the late Zhou period. That analogy and the belief that moral example could bind a society like honey might explain some of Confucius’s following. But there were other voices in the age of the Warring States, some of which argued the exact opposite: that to be successful, the state had to eradicate the influence of lineage and family, not celebrate it.

  Legalism and the Unification of China . Confucianism eventually became a guiding orthodoxy in China, but it was, ironically, an anti-Confucian philosophy that established the single Chinese state. That philosophy was called “legalism.” As the name implies, the legalists called for the rule of law, but they meant something very different from their contemporary Greeks and Romans. Legalist philosophers like Shang Yang (who became a powerful minister of the state of Qin in 359 BCE) and Han Fei (280-233 BCE) believed that people were not good enough to be swayed by moral example or controlled by rituals. Rather, human nature was such that only laws would keep people in line. Legalism in China was a strategy for organizing society, not a philosophy of human equality. Legalists believed that the laws should be applied equally to all subjects, but no one imagined that the king would be bound by human law.

  More important, laws would undercut the authority of lineage chiefs and family elders, making it possible for the king to rule people directly. In its attempt to reorganize society in new units, legalist state creation was similar to that of ancient Athens around 500 BCE. Just as Cleisthenese created 10 artificial “tribes” out of four old clan networks, Shang Yang “commanded that the people be divided into tens and fives,” the historian Sima Qian wrote. These new units of society, 5 to 10 households each, were smaller than the powerful extended families or lineages. When a family had two adult sons, it was to break apart into separate households. Each member of the new group was responsible for the actions of the others. In this way, neither clan leaders nor fathers stood between the state and its subjects.

  Shang Yang used the new organization to increase the size and effectiveness of the Qin army in its conflict with the other “warring states.” The state kept lists of each of the groups and tied farming to military service. All men were expected to serve in the army once they were 16 or 17 and reached the height of five feet. On completion of military service, they were assured farms and were expected to pay taxes. To further minimize lineage ties, all of Qin society was organized into 20 ranks based on their productivity, military effectiveness, or general utility to the state. All hereditary titles were replaced by these ranks, which also determined the amount of land and housing available as well as the clothing one could wear.

  Like the contemporary Greek state of Sparta, the Qin state was organized as a fighting machine. After 316 BCE, it began to conquer the other states, some of which were attempting similar reforms a little too slowly and too late. In 237 BCE, the 22-year-old King Zheng (259-210 BCE) initiated a series of wars that lasted 15 years but ended in 221 BCE with the unification of China and his assumption of a new title, Shi Huangdi (“First August Emperor”).

  Qin Creates China . Shi Huangdi immediately set about creating a China on the model of the Qin state. First, he required all the kings and nobility of the defeated states (some 120,000 people) to take up residence under his watchful eye at the Qin capital, Xianyang. Then he reorganized all of China into 36 “commanderies” and appointed three commanders of each to direct military, tax-collecting, and administrative duties. Each commandery was divided into counties where the three functions were duplicated on a local level. In keeping with legalist thought, the new emperor attempted to choose political officials by merit and ensure their compliance with the law. Candidates were tested in examinations, and attempts were made to avoid conflicts of interest, such as having a senior official govern in his own locality.

  In creating a uniform empire, the emperor also sought to eliminate regional variations. He standardized weights and measures and introduced a system of coinage—strings of copper coins with square holes—that lasted until modern times. He also required that all parts of the empire use the same writing system—newly unified to make communication easier. In addition, Shi Huangdi is credited with massive public works projects, including the construction of 4,000 miles of roads, numerous irrigation canals, and the beginnings of a system of imperial defensive walls that came to be known, after 1.000 years of further building, as the Great Wall of China.

  Like an Egyptian pharaoh, Shi Huangdi made his own tomb one of his crowning achievements. The historian Sima Qian wrote that 700.000 people were employed in the construction of the tomb, deep below sealed-off rivers. If the historian exaggerated, the recent discovery of the tomb overpowered archaeologists—not by the bronze arrows triggered to kill intruders but by its sheer scale and the image of the thousands of lifelike clay soldiers guarding the still enclosed vault that contained the emperor’s last remains.

  Such massive mobilization of human labor must have taken its toll. Sima Qian said that all who worked on the tomb were buried alive in order to conceal its location—a story we hear often of history’s megalomaniacs. Opposition fed on itself. In 213 BCE, a group of scholars were assembled to offer advice to the emperor. One scholar called for a return to feudalism and Confucian values. Enraged, the emperor ordered the burning of all feudal books (which were written on silk and bamboo since paper had not yet been invented). A few years later, he had hundreds of scholars executed or exiled. For whatever reasons, the Qin emperor proved better at constructing lasting tombs than creating a lasting dynasty. Within three years of the first emperor’s death, a series of revolts brought to power a commoner whose success on an exam had given him a minor
office but whose speeches against Qin practices had gained a wide following.

  The Solution of Han . The common birth of Liu Bang (r. 206-195 BCE) might make him seem an unlikely founder of a dynasty, especially one as storied as the Han (although, in fact, the great Ming dynasty was founded by a poor and even lower commoner). Maybe it was his face. One of the stories told by Sima Qian, the grand historian of the Han and earlier dynasties, is that when Liu Bang met his future wife, the future empress Lu, he was so poor that he could not hope to persuade her father to let them marry. Lu’s fortunefather, however, was a fortune-teller who read faces, and Liu Bang’s face was so unusual that Lu’s father immediately consented to accept the young man as his son-in-law. A voice and a mind no doubt helped too. Liu Bang won followers by his vigorous denunciations of Qin brutality. As his forces took the Qin capital, Liu Bang promised three things: murderers would be executed, thieves would be punished, and all other Qin laws would be abolished.

  In victory Liu Bang faced many of the same problems as had Shi Huangdi. The kings and nobles who had been uprooted by the Qin looked to regain their old estates, privileges, and powers. Liu Bang did not bother to install his feudal opponents in his new capital at Chang’an. (His armies had burned down the old Qin capital.) Instead, he created his own regional rulers and noble families from his own family and supporters. Nine brothers and sons became kings, 150 important followers received the titles and lands of nobility, and Liu Bang kept only the western third of the empire, centered at his capital. But the emperor wanted to retain the centralized administration of the Qin. He continued the Qin administrative structure with its commanderies (now numbering 100) and counties (numbering 1,500) and its threefold division of military, taxing, and administrative departments. While some of these positions were given to former Qin families who supported him, Liu Bang also looked for sons of new families and newly schooled advisers. His relationship with scholars was ambiguous, at one time urinating in a scholar’s hat to show his disdain and later in life seeking to recruit them.