and proper administrative regulations were essential in controlling the aristocracy as well as the bureaucracy that the ruler recruited to govern the state. The ruler had to be all-powerful yet he ought to refrain from day-to-day decision making, turning that responsibility over to his administrators. Han Fei Zi had an extremely harsh view of human motivations, advising the ruler to be wary of his closest associates. The ruler also ought not to show much compassion because mercy would undermine state stability. Only by severe laws would the ruler manage to dominate the five vermin – the scholars who question the laws, the speechmakers who champion deceitful policies, the wealthy who seek to evade military service, the soldiers who transgress upon the laws, and the merchants and craftsmen who produce wasteful, luxury goods. Han Fei Zi argued that the ruler should encourage agriculture, develop a powerful military, and enforce harsh laws. Only then would China achieve stability and order.
Legalism thus offered a severe though initially effective philosophy. The emphasis on harsh punishments, centralized government, promotion of agriculture, growth of the military, and authoritarianism and curbs on the aristocracy enabled Qin to expand its power and to enlarge the territory under its control. Initially situated in the Wei river valley in the modern province of Shaanxi, Qin had a splendid base from which to annex neighboring lands. The “feudal” states on the eastern coast of China were hemmed in whereas Qin was not surrounded. It faced no states to the west since non-Chinese nomadic peoples roamed the region. Encounters with these foreigners exposed the Qin to cavalry warfare and refined their military skills. The Qin thus had definite advantages when it began to move eastward, seeking to centralize and unify China.
Although this golden age of Chinese philosophy played a vital role in the definition of Chinese civilization, social changes (including the eventual centralization of the country and the rise of the shi, or merit-based class) and also military and technological developments (such as the use of cavalry, more sophisticated irrigation works, and bronze and jade ornaments, weapons, and coinage) were also significant in the rise of a great empire.
BOOK OF ODES AND BOOK OF DOCUMENTS
The Chinese literary tradition, especially poetry, also developed during the Zhou. The Chinese have traditionally excelled in the writing of poetry, yet very few pre-Han dynasty works are extant. Many more poems were written, but most have not survived. The most renowned early anthology of poetry was the Book of Odes (Shijing), which consists of about three hundred poems. The poems were designed to be sung and were edited to incorporate rhymes within a specific dialect. Over the centuries, Chinese commentators interpreted these poems to fit the specific social and political values their society wished to inculcate. The poems assumed a didactic and moralistic tone. In the commentators’ hands, love poems were transformed into paeans advocating filial piety and proper performance of rituals. Similarly, songs lamenting the absence of a loved one became critiques of student truants. Such far-fetched and moralistic interpretations persisted for a long time. Because the Book of Odes was accepted as one of the Five Confucian Classics, these interpretations, even if outlandish, need to be considered because of their pervasive influence.
The poems derive from diverse origins. The largest number, the so-called “airs” section, is composed of folk songs that were probably revised and refined at court. These short poems yield insights into the daily lives, aspirations, and activities of ordinary people. They deal with love and marriage, festivals, work, and rituals. The songs give voice to soldiers lamenting separation from their loved ones and to wives or husbands betrayed or ignored by their spouses. Some clearly express discontent with the inequities in Chinese society. They criticize oppressive officials, avaricious kings, and constant turbulence and warfare. Commentators naturally read political judgments and criticism into other seemingly bland poems. They did so often by reinterpreting the nature symbolism found in the songs. Because the contemporary meaning of various animals, birds, and natural phenomena was unknown, later commentators could assert that they represented criticisms of political and social conditions of the time. Despite the numerous over-interpretations, however, this section of the Odes reveals the common people’s dissatisfactions with the chaos, misrule, and exploitation that enveloped them.
Other sections in the Book of Odes have distinctly different themes, reflecting, in particular, the interests and activities of the nobility. The xiaoya and daya (“lesser odes” and “greater odes”) describe festivals, hunts, music and dancing, and sacrifices and provide details about clothing, meals, and transport. Surprisingly, a few poems offer social critiques, consisting of denunciations of officials who do not perform their assigned tasks, of oppressive governments, and of scandalously opulent lifestyles for some in the nobility in the face of poverty and starvation for many commoners.
These complaints attest to the unsettled times and to exploitation and misgovernment. The hymns (song), the final section of the Odes, differ from the rest because they do not include a litany of complaints, laments, and accusations. Instead they offer praise for the kings’ military victories and proper performance of rituals and for the dynasty’s accomplishments. They glow with optimism about the deeds of the nobility, and few rumblings of discontent emerge.
Although some of the poems offer trenchant or, on occasion, covert critiques of Zhou society, many appear to be straightforward evocations of hopes, wishes, and reality. Some are exactly what they purport to be, with no symbolic or hidden messages. They include courtship poems, songs of lovesick or neglected young men or women, and verses reflecting the woes of disillusioned and abused wives. These poems are direct and unencumbered with larger political or social meanings.
However, because the compilation of the Book of Odes was often attributed to Confucius, individual poems have been accorded a moral or didactic interpretation. One traditional view was that Confucius selected the three hundred poems from a larger anthology while another was that he simply gave his imprimatur to an existing collection. Whatever the true origin of the poems, Confucius emphasized their significance in the education of a gentleman. According to the Analects, he urged his disciples to study the Odes in order to broaden their sensibilities, refine their language, and enlarge their knowledge of nature. He insisted that officials needed to be conversant with the Odes because others made repeated references to them when discussing and negotiating state affairs. Because many officials had memorized the poems, could allude to them, and accepted the rather labored and exaggerated interpretations of individual songs, Confucius advised his disciples to ponder and seek to understand the Odes for the very practical reason of fulfilling their public roles and responsibilities. Additional evidence that Confucius played a role in the compilation or editing of the work is the large number of hymns deriving from the state of Lu, his native land.
Confucius is also credited with amassing the various passages that constituted another of the Five Classics, the Book of Documents (Shujing). However, some sections of the work date from after Confucius’s death. A text written in archaic language, the Book of Documents consists of legendary, semihistorical, and historical passages with no underlying unity or at least little effort to produce a coherent narrative. Much of the text is composed of speeches. Since the writers or historians could not have been present during most of these discourses, the speeches cannot be considered authentic, although they may, on occasion, convey the general sense of what transpired. The parts of the work that deal with the Zhou dynasty are more reliable than descriptions of much earlier, semilegendary figures. Although many of the speeches and incidents cannot be attested, they nonetheless reveal the general themes and values that the compiler(s) wished to inculcate.
The most important of these themes was the Mandate of Heaven theory, which, according to the Documents, the early Zhou rulers expounded to Shang citizens whom they had just conquered. In seeking to justify the overthrow of the Shang kings, the Zhou leaders, in particular the Duke of Zhou, explained that Heaven, an amorphous force that controlled the Earth, bestowed a specific leader or group with a mandate to rule. As long as these designated rulers and their descendants continued to govern virtuously, they would retain Heaven’s support.
