Whether the people of this district were or were not called the Barbarians of the Hill Regions at the dawn of Chinese history, or whether in their territory there was or was not a place called the Vale of Sunlight, does not affect the undoubted truth of the statement that the Shantung peninsula was up to historic times inhabited by a race, or the remnants of a race, that was not Chinese. We may be sure, from what we know of the boundaries and inter-relations of the various Chinese states in the Confucian epoch (that is, the sixth century B.C.), that if Confucius himself had travelled from his native state of Lu through that of Ch'i and so on in a north-easterly direction until he reached the sea, he would have been obliged to engage an interpreter to enable him to communicate with the inhabitants of the district we now know as Weihaiwei.
We may presume without rashness that as time went on these Eastern barbarians gradually assimilated themselves with, or were assimilated by, their civilised Chinese neighbours. The process was probably a long one, for we do not hear of the establishment of ordinary Chinese civil government until the epoch of the Han dynasty, about 200 B.C. Perhaps the legendary journeys of Ch'in Shih Huang-ti, the "First Emperor," which, as we have seen, are supposed to have taken place a few years earlier, really represent some great military achievement whereby the far-eastern barbarians were for the first time brought under the Chinese yoke. The local annals mention the fact that during the Chou dynasty, which preceded that of Ch'in Shih Huang-ti and held the throne of China from 1122 B.C. to 255 B.C., the present district of Wên-têng (including Weihaiwei) formed part of the Mou-tzŭ country; but it must have been an independent or semi-independent state, for no Chinese administrators are mentioned. Later on there was an hereditary marquisate of Mou-p'ing, which extended over much of the country we are considering.
The dynasty founded by the "First Emperor" divided the whole Empire as it then was into thirty-six chün or provinces, and Wên-têng formed part of the Ch'i province. At last, in the sixth year of Kao Tsu of the Han dynasty (201 B.C.), a Chinese magisterial district was founded in the eastern peninsula for the first time, though the city chosen as the centre of government was not Wên-têng but a place called Pu-yeh-ch'êng, and the hsien or magisterial district was accordingly known as Pu-yeh-Hsien. This city, which is said[28] to have been founded by one Lai-tzŭ in the "Spring and Autumn" period twenty-five centuries ago, is now a small village in the modern Jung-ch'êng district, a short distance from the British frontier on the Chinese side, and whatever glory it may once have possessed has totally departed. The origin of the name, which means "Nightless," is unknown, though naturally one would like to connect it in some way with the Sunlit Vale of the astronomer Ho. The new hsien city was assigned to the prefecture of Tung-lai, then the most easterly prefecture in the province.
From this time onward all the north-eastern part of Shantung, including the districts with which we are specially concerned, remained under the civil administration of China. From time to time various changes were made in the seat of district-government and in the boundaries of the prefectures, but these it would be superfluous to follow in detail. In the fourth year of T'ien T'ung (568 of our era), Wên-têng city became the magistrate's headquarters, and the district was placed in the Ch'ang-kuang prefecture under the name of Wên-têng-shan Hsien. Early in the period K'ai Huang (581–600), the abolished Ch'ang-kuang prefecture gave place to Mou Chou, and Wên-têng was placed in the Tung-lai prefecture, to which Pu-yeh had formerly been assigned. Passing over many similar administrative changes of no special significance we come to the Ming dynasty, which began to reign in 1368. In the ninth year of Hung Wu (1376) the present prefecture of Têng-chou was created. Both Wên-têng and Ning-hai districts were assigned to the new prefecture and have remained under its jurisdiction ever since.
Before Jung-ch'êng (in the neighbourhood of the Shantung Promontory) was made a separate magistracy, which was not till 1735, the position of Wên-têng was most responsible and often perilous, for it faced the sea on three sides—north, east, and south. The chronic danger that menaced these shores came from the restless Japanese. From the time of the Northern Wei dynasty (401 of our era) onwards, the Chinese Government found it necessary to take special measures for the protection of the Shantung coasts from Japanese pirates. Elaborate military precautions, say the records, were taken in 742, during the epoch of the mighty T'ang dynasty, and again in 1040 (Sung dynasty) and in 1341 (Yüan dynasty). The failure of the warlike Mongols (who founded the last-named dynasty) when they took to over-sea expeditions, is no less remarkable than their wonderful successes on land. The armadas despatched in 1274 and in 1281 by the great Kublai Khan for the purpose of reducing to obedience the refractory Japanese has been spoken of as an unwarranted attack on the liberty of a free and gallant people, which met with well-deserved failure; but when we know how the pirates of Japan had repeatedly harassed the coasts of China and, more particularly, had made innumerable murderous attacks on the helpless farmers and fishermen of the eastern coasts of Shantung, an entirely new light is thrown upon Kublai's Japanese policy.
The whole history of Asia and of the world might have been changed (perhaps for the worse, but not necessarily so) if the mighty Mongol fleet that set sail for Japan in 1281 had not been scattered by hostile winds and waves and defeated by its brave human adversaries. This was the only serious attempt ever made by China to conquer Japan, and though the Chinese dynasty of that day had carried its victorious arms through a great part of the Euro-Asiatic continent it utterly failed in its efforts to reduce to vassalage the island Empire of the East. Yet it was not always Japan that represented enlightenment and civilisation: it was not always China that stood for stagnation and barbarism. When Kublai sent envoys to Japan in 1275 and in 1279 they were not treated with the courtesy that the world has in more recent years learned to expect from the natives of Japan: they were simply deprived of their heads.
The disasters to their fleets appear to have discouraged the Chinese from again trying their fortunes on the ocean; while the Japanese, always intrepid sailors and fighters, re-entered with zest into the profitable occupation of raiding the coasts of China and robbing her of her sea-borne merchandise. "The spacious days of great Elizabeth," made glorious for England by knightly freebooters and gentleman pirates, were to some extent anticipated in the north-western Pacific during the twelfth and succeeding centuries of our era. Japan took more than ample revenge for the insult offered her by the great Kublai. The whole coast-line of China lay open to her attacks and she utilised the situation to the utmost, but it was north-eastern Shantung that suffered most of all. For a long time the people of Wên-têng and neighbouring districts, who were only poor fisher-folk and farmers, sparse in numbers, vainly implored the Government to save them from their miseries and protect them from the sea-rovers. The measures hitherto fitfully employed to safeguard the coast had been repeatedly shown to be inadequate. Soon after the commencement of the Ming period (1368) the Imperial Government at last began to make a serious effort to keep inviolate the shores of the Empire and to succour the people who "had in the past suffered grievous hurt," so runs a Chinese account of the matter, "from the pestilent outrages committed by the rascally Dwarfs."
PART OF WEIHAIWEI CITY WALL (see p. 47).
Photo by Fleet Surgeon C. M. Beadnell, R.N. THE AUTHOR AND TOMMIE ON THE QUORK'S PEAK (see p. 397). (Summit of Mount Macdonald.)
It may be mentioned that in the Chronicles of Wên-têng and Weihaiwei the Japanese are never referred to except as Wo or Wo-jên, which literally means Dwarfs. This term was not current only among the unlettered classes: it was regularly employed in official documents and memorials intended for the inspection of the Shantung Provincial Government.[29] A great Chinese geographical work published in the tenth
