Page:Ch'un Ts'ew Pt I.pdf/136

Rh of a leading State, that there was no help to come from it to the House of Chow, and no permanent alleviation of the evils under which the nation was suffering.

4. At the close of the Ch‘un Ts‘ëw period the kingdom was in a worse and more hopeless condition than at its commencement; and it seems strange to us that it did not enter into the mind of Confucius to forecast that the feudal system which had so long prevailed in China was ‘waxen old and ready to vanish away.’ But what State was to come out victorious from its conflicts with all the others, and take the lead in settling a new order of things? Only the event could reveal this, but it could be known that the struggle for supremacy would lie between two or three powers; and the study of their growth supplies one of the most important lessons which the Work of the sage and the Commentary of Tso are calculated to teach us.

A glance at the map shows us that the China proper of Chow was conﬁned at first within narrow limits. Even at the beginning of the Ch‘un Ts‘ëw period it consisted of merely a few States of no great size, lying on either side of the Yellow River, from the point where its channel makes a sudden bend to the east onwards to its mouth.

North of the Royal Domain was Tsin, but, though a fief dating from the commencement of the kingdom, its growth had been so slow, that it is not till the second year of duke He, B.C.657, that it appears in Confucius’ text, on the eve of its subjugation of the small States of Yu and Kwoh. This was the first step which Tsin took in the career of enlargement by which it ere long attained to so great a size.

South of the Domain was Ts‘oo; and, though it had been founded in the time of king Ch‘ing, it does not appear in the text of our Classic till the tenth year of duke Chwang, B.C.683. It is then called King, and we do not meet with it under the name of Ts‘oo till the first year of duke He, B.C.658.

West from the Domain was Ts‘in, the first lord of which was given a local habitation and name only in B.C.908; and it did not become an independent fief of the kingdom till the year 769. Its first appearance in our text is in the fifteenth year of duke He, B.C.644.

A long way east from Ts‘oo, and bordering on the sea, was the State of Woo, which, though claiming an earlier origin than the kingdom of Chow itself, is not mentioned in the classic till the seventh year of duke Ch‘ing, B.C.583.

117]