Древний Китай. Том 3: Период Чжаньго (V—III вв. до н.э.)

The sudden death of the tyrant provoked a wave of insurrections. Neither the weak successor nor the top officials of the empire (Li Ssu and the eunuch Chao Kao) were able to control the situation that grew more and more complicated. They all shortly perished. In 207 B.C., the empire collapsed. Leaders of various military units started a civil war, which was finally won by a peasant leader called Liu Pang who became the founder of the new Han dynasty (202 B.C. — 220 A.D.). Liu Pang had the intelligence to realize that Order without Harmony degenerated into extreme and arbitrary rule and was doomed. Therefore he pursued a different policy. All severe practices of the former empire, especially punishments, were abolished. A general amnesty was granted in China. Each peasant who managed to survive the protracted blood bath was given a plot of land. Taxes became moderate once again and corvee became less exacting. For all that, Liu Pang preserved the basis of the Ch'in administrative apparatus, especially on lower and medium levels, while restricting its functions. His successors, notably Wen-ti (179–157 B.C.) and Wu-ti (140-87 B.C.), took further steps toward Confucianism and the much sought-after Harmony.

The Confucians, who at long last came to power, produced a favorable impression. They judiciously accepted those necessary methods of government which had been introduced by the Legists and which justified themselves. To these, they added everything that the Master once taught. This resulted in changes in "the rulers-the ruled" relationship. The process of a fruitful synthesis of Confucianism and Legism found its reflection in the official imperial Confucianism, which was introduced by Tung Chung-shu, the forth great Confucian of Chinese antiquity. That was an eclectic synthesis that absorbed everything valuable and beneficial to the land and the people from the legacy of the Chou sages. This variety of Confucianism exists in an almost unchanged form for more than two thousand years; and it is largely to it that the modern Chinese-Confucian world owes its achievements. At the turn of our era, the most exhaustive compendium of Confucianism — the systematized treatise Lichi— was created. Everything that Confucius taught, everything that constitutes the essence of the doctrine was collected and thoroughly described in it. By this time, Confucianism started performing the function of the dominant religion in a country that previously had no developed religious system.

Speaking of the foundations of the Chinese civilization, which were laid down in antiquity and continued to determine the norms of behavior of Chinese society and state to this day, one must pay attention to Chinese mentality and worldview. In other words, we mean the way the Chinese look upon certain things and the difference between their outlook and that of other peoples, primarily Europeans (or, more broadly, Westerners). Without going into detail, we offer here the main points:

First, what leaps to the eye immediately is the practical nature of thought resulting from many centuries of earthly orientation of the Chinese world outlook. Originally, the Chinese were not familiar with religion in any developed form, but they always revered Social Order and highly esteemed Harmony that was associated with it. Accordingly, they saw the ultimate goal of human existence in providing the well-being of ordinary people (which was the raison d'etre of the state), not in the extinguishing of nirvana or in the retreat of paradise. This is the welfare of the living and, naturally, of the deceased.

Second, they revered the authority of the sages of antiquity, who laid down the principles of Social Order and Universal Harmony. They also highly regarded those intelligent and capable, who are able to maintain that order and are therefore worthy to be promoted to the elite (subsequently, a system of competitive exams became the main tool for such promotion).

Third, this is the idea of natural equality of men. Widely accepted since Confucius' time, it became one of his greatest contributions. Chinese hierarchy is a function of that equality. One's worth on the whole corresponds to one's abilities; the more capable is man, the more fully he must exercise his abilities. This idea originates from the notion of Mandate of Heaven (t'ien-ming), from the practice of promoting the intelligent and the capable, though it was Confucius who applied this idea to all people.

Fourth, this is the cult of conservative stability and the readiness, for its sake, to reinterpret the past in accordance with the needs of today. Norm, ritual, ceremonies and seeing the past the way it is supposed to have been safeguard stability. Hence numerous texts full of interpolations and, sometimes, transparent falsifications.