Fields of Blood (17 page)

Despite the ritualists’ best efforts, toward the end of the seventh century violence escalated on the Chinese plain. Barbarian tribes attacked from the north, and the southern state of Chu increasingly ignored the rules of courtly warfare and posed a real threat to the principalities. The Zhou kings were too weak to provide effective leadership, so Prince Huan of Qi, by now the most powerful Chinese state, formed a league of states that bound themselves by oath not to attack each other. But this attempt would fail, because the nobles, addicted to personal prestige, still wanted to preserve their independence. After Chu destroyed the league in 597, the region became engulfed in an entirely new kind of warfare. Other large peripheral states also began to cast aside traditional constraints, determined to expand and conquer more territory even if this meant the enemy’s annihilation. In 593, for example, after a prolonged siege, the people of
Song were reduced to eating their children. Small principalities were drawn into the conflict against their will when their territories became battlefields of competing armies. Qi, for example, encroached so frequently on the tiny
dukedom of Lu that it was forced to appeal to Chu for help. But by the end of the sixth century, Chu had been defeated and
Qi had become so dominant that the Duke of Lu managed to retain a modicum of independence only with the help of the western state of
Qin. There was also civil strife: Qin, Jin, and Chu were all fatally weakened by chronic infighting, and in Lu three baronial families effectively created their own substates and reduced the legitimate duke to a mere puppet.

Archaeologists have noted a growing contempt for ritual observance at that time: people were placing profane objects in their relatives’ tombs instead of the prescribed vessels. The spirit of moderation was also in decline. Many Chinese had developed a taste for luxury that put an unbearable strain on the economy, as demand outstripped resources, and
some of the lower-ranking nobility tried to ape the lifestyle of the great families. As a result many of the
shi
at the bottom of the aristocratic hierarchy became impoverished and were forced to leave the cities to scrape a living as teachers among the min.

One
shi,
who held a minor administrative post in Lu, was horrified by the greed, pride, and ostentation of the usurping families. Kong Qiu (c. 551–479) was convinced that the li alone could curb this destructive violence. His disciples would call him Kongfuzi (“our Master Kong”), so in the West we call him
Confucius. He never achieved the political career he hoped for and died believing that he was a failure, but he would define Chinese culture until the 1911 Revolution. With his little band of followers, most of them from the warrior
aristocracy, Confucius traveled from one principality to another, hoping to find a ruler who would implement his ideas. In the West he is often regarded as a secular rather than a religious philosopher, but he would not have understood this distinction: in ancient
China, as the philosopher
Herbert Fingarette has reminded us, the secular
was
sacred.
⁴⁴

Confucius’s teachings were anthologized long after his death, but scholars believe that the
Analects,
a collection of short unconnected maxims, is a reasonably reliable source.
⁴⁵
His ideology, which sought to revive the virtues of
Yao and
Shun, was deeply traditional, but his ideal of equality based on a cultivated perception of our shared humanity was a radical challenge to the systemic violence of agrarian China. Like the
Buddha, Confucius redefined the concept of nobility.
⁴⁶
The hero of the
Analects
is the junzi who is no longer a warrior but a profoundly humane scholar and somewhat deficient in the martial arts. For Confucius, a junzi’s chief quality was
ren,
a word that he consistently refused to define because its meaning transcended any of the concepts of his day, but later Confucians would describe it as “benevolence.”
⁴⁷
The junzi was required to treat all others at all times with reverence and compassion, a program of action that Confucius summed up in what is called the
Golden Rule: “Do not impose upon others what you yourself do not desire.”
⁴⁸
It was, Confucius said, the “single thread” that ran through all his teaching and should be practiced “all day and every day.”
⁴⁹
A true junzi had to look into his heart, discover what gave him pain, and then refuse under any circumstances to inflict that pain on anybody else.

This was not simply a personal ethic but a political ideal. If they practiced ren, rulers would not invade another prince’s territory, because they would not like this to happen to their own. They would hate to be exploited, reviled, and reduced to poverty, so they must not oppress others. What would you make of a man who could “extend this benevolence to the common people and bring succor to the multitudes?” asked Confucius’s disciple
Zigong.
⁵⁰
Such a man would be a sage! his master exclaimed:

If a prince ruled solely by force, he might control his subjects’ external behavior but not their inner disposition.
⁵²
No government, Confucius insisted, could truly succeed unless it was based on an adequate conception of what it meant to be a fulfilled human being.
Confucianism was never a private pursuit for the individual; it always had a political orientation and sought nothing less than a major reformation of public life. Its goal, quite simply, was to bring peace to the world.
⁵³

All too often the li had been used to enhance a nobleman’s prestige, as had been the case in the aggressive courtesy of ritualized warfare. But properly understood, Confucius believed, the li taught people “all day and every day” to put themselves in somebody else’s shoes and see a situation from another perspective. If such an attitude became habitual, a junzi would transcend the egotism, greed, and selfishness that were tearing China apart. How can I achieve ren? asked his beloved disciple,
Yan Hui. It was quite simple, Confucius replied: “Curb your ego and surrender to the li.”
⁵⁴
A junzi must submit every detail of his life to the rituals of consideration and respect for others. “If for one day, you managed to restrain yourself and return to the rites,” Confucius continued, “you could lead the entire world back to ren.”
⁵⁵
But to achieve this, a junzi had to work on his humanity, as a sculptor crafted a rough stone to make it a ritual vessel, a bearer of holiness.
⁵⁶
He could thus replace the current greed, violence, and vulgarity and restore dignity and grace to human intercourse, transforming the whole of China.
⁵⁷
The practice of ren was difficult because
it required the junzi to dethrone himself from the center of his world,
⁵⁸
although the ideal of ren was deeply rooted in our humanity.
⁵⁹

Confucius emphasized the importance of “yielding.” Instead of asserting themselves belligerently and fighting for power, sons should yield to their fathers, warriors to their enemies, noblemen to their ruler, and rulers to their retainers. Instead of seeing family life as an impediment to enlightenment, like the
renouncers of India, Confucius saw it as the school of the spiritual quest because it taught every family member to live for others.
⁶⁰
Later philosophers criticized Confucius for concentrating too exclusively upon the family, but Confucius saw each person as the center of a constantly growing series of concentric circles to which he or she must relate, cultivating a sympathy that went beyond the claims of family, class, state, or race.
⁶¹
Each of us begins life in the family, so the family li starts our education in self-transcendence, but it does not end there. A junzi’s horizons would gradually expand. The lessons he had learned by caring for his parents, spouse, and siblings would enable him to feel
empathy for more and more people: first with his immediate community, then with the state in which he lived, and finally with the entire world.

Confucius was too much of a realist to imagine that human beings could ever abandon warfare; he deplored its waste of life and resources
⁶²
but understood that no state could survive without its armies.
⁶³
When asked to list the priorities of government, he replied: “Simply make sure there is sufficient food and sufficient armaments and make sure you have the support of the common people,” although he added that if one of these had to go, it should be weaponry.
⁶⁴
In the past only the
Zhou king had been able to declare war, but now his vassals had usurped this royal prerogative and were fighting one another. If this continued, Confucius feared, violence would proliferate throughout society.
⁶⁵
“Punitive expeditions” against
barbarians, invaders, and rebels were essential, because the government’s chief task was to preserve the social order.
⁶⁶
This, he believed, was why the
structural violence of society was necessary. While Confucius always spoke of the min with genuine concern and urged rulers to appeal to their sense of self-respect instead of seeking to control them by force and fear, he knew that if they were not punished when they transgressed, civilization would collapse.
⁶⁷

The fourth-century Confucian philosopher
Mencius could also only
regard the min as born to be ruled: “There are those who use their minds and there are those who use their muscle. The former rule; the latter are ruled. Those who rule are supported by those who are ruled.”
⁶⁸
The min could never join the ruling class because they lacked “teaching” (
jaio
), which in China always implied a degree of force: the pictograph jaio showed a hand wielding a rod to discipline a child.
⁶⁹
Warfare too was a mode of instruction, essential to civilization. “To wage a punitive war,” Mencius wrote, “is to rectify.”
⁷⁰
Indeed, Mencius had even convinced himself that the masses yearned for such correction and that the barbarians vied with one another to be conquered by the
Chinese.
⁷¹
But it was never permissible to fight equals: “A punitive expedition is waged by one in authority against his subordinates. It is not for peers to punish one another by war.”
⁷²
The current interstate warfare between rulers of equal status, therefore, was perverse, illegal, and a form of tyranny. China desperately needed wise rulers like
Yao and
Shun, whose moral charisma could restore the Great Peace. “The appearance of a true King has never been longer overdue than today,” wrote Mencius; “and the people have never suffered more under tyrannical government than today.” If a militarily powerful state were to govern benevolently, “the people would rejoice as if they had been released from hanging by the heels.”
⁷³