Pathway to Japanese Literature

Introduction

Just as each individual possessed their own personality when observed closely, so too did nations and ethnic groups each maintain their own unique temperaments and dispositions.
We referred to this as national character or ethnic character.
Within a single nation or ethnic group, there existed quite diverse individuals who appeared to have no unifying element; yet when compared with other nations or ethnic groups, each naturally maintained its own distinctive characteristics.

Undoubtedly, the Chinese people also possessed this national character.
The most prominent aspects of the Chinese national character were cultural weakness and conservatism.
The fact that the Chinese people were generally culturally weak and conservative was widely recognized in society and remained hardly novel.
However, when examined in light of historical facts, these characteristics of the Chinese nation became even clearer.
Therefore, in this paper, we intended to prove the cultural weakness and conservatism of the Chinese nation based primarily on historical facts.

I. The Cultural Weakness of the Chinese People (Part I)

The causes behind the Chinese people being peaceful and culturally weak may be manifold, but if we were to enumerate the principal ones, I believe they would be as follows.

(1) The innate nature of the Chinese people is rather culturally weak.

(2) The ancient doctrines practiced among the Chinese people had generally advocated pacifist ideologies.
First, when examining Confucianism, its founding master Confucius presented three principles when his disciple Zigong inquired about essential requirements for governing a state: sufficient food, sufficient armaments, and the people's trust.
That is to say, he answered that a state required sufficient finances, sufficient military preparedness, and trust between rulers and subjects.
When Zigong further asked which of the three should be prioritized for removal if compelled by unavoidable circumstances, Confucius replied that military preparedness should be discarded first.
When Zigong finally questioned what should be done if forced to remove one of the remaining two—finances or trust—Confucius answered that finances should be discarded.
In essence, according to Confucius's philosophy, the foundational element for establishing a nation lay in trust.
A country where rulers and people did not trust each other was a ruined nation.
Therefore, trust came first, followed by finances, with military preparedness ranking even lower in priority.
This view of Confucius constituted an eternal truth spanning all ages and by no means disregarded military preparedness.
Confucius himself had explicitly stated that "those engaged in cultural affairs must have military preparedness," proving he was no mere advocate of unilateral pacifism.
However, Mencius and others—in their excessive promotion of the "benevolent ruler has no enemies" doctrine—spoke as though military preparedness would become negligible if only benevolence and righteousness were practiced, even asserting opinions approaching weaponry's obsolescence such as "One could make them fashion staves to strike down Qin and Chu's armored forces and sharp blades."
In any case, it remained an undeniable fact that later Confucians largely maintained a tendency to neglect military preparedness.

However, Confucianism was rather less harmful in this regard.
Thinkers such as Laozi and Mozi, who emerged around the same time as Confucius, all advocated extreme forms of pacifism.
Laozi, who championed non-contention, and Mozi, who preached universal love (brotherly affection), naturally dismissed military preparedness as unnecessary and rejected warfare outright.
There can be no doubt that under such doctrinal influences, an ingrained aversion to warfare increasingly permeated Chinese society.

(3) The Chinese people—innately predisposed to calculating profit and loss—had long recognized that both minor skirmishes and full-scale wars entailed risks disproportionate to any gains, thereby cultivating customs to avoid armed conflict whenever possible.
In reality, even if one defeated the Northern Barbarians beyond China’s frontiers, the losses would outweigh any benefits; there remained regret that such achievements scarcely justified their costs.
It proved more advantageous to offer modest annual tributes and avoid confronting them militarily from the outset.
Successive Chinese dynasties thus strived to appease these northern tribes with material incentives and prevent incursions into border regions.
[The Chinese people of antiquity were not necessarily as timid as later generations.
Thus during the Han era, it was even claimed that five Hu soldiers equaled one Han soldier in combat.
Indeed, examining *Records of the Grand Historian*, *Book of Han*, and *Book of the Later Han* reveals numerous heroic figures—Jing Ke who attempted regicide, Nie Zheng the assassin, Fu Jiezi who beheaded a Loulan king, Duan Huizong who pacified tribes through sheer presence, Chen Tang who crushed barbarian forces with minimal troops, and Ban Chao who secured Central Asia through daring campaigns.
Yet we maintain that generations of misguided pragmatism and compromise gradually eroded this martial spirit across dynasties, ultimately forging the profoundly timid Chinese people seen today.]

The fundamental cause of the Chinese people's cultural weakness lay in this: as individuals, they rarely resorted to physical force, and as groups, they disliked warfare.
The so-called fights among the Chinese people were verbal disputes.
If quarrels in this sense were considered, then the Chinese people might have ranked among the world's most quarrel-loving.
In places such as schools and government offices in China where people gathered, signs prohibiting quarrels were invariably posted.
In reality, the Chinese people were quarrelsome in speech but never resorted to physical violence.
During our stay in China for study, particularly in Northern China, we almost never witnessed Chinese people engaging in physical scuffles.
Even when engaged in intense quarrels, they did not resort to physical violence.
Even on the rare occasions when they did begin to grapple with each other, from our Japanese perspective, it appeared extremely leisurely—so much so that watching from the sidelines became unbearably frustrating.

It was only natural that Chinese people, who did not even engage in physical scuffles, would dislike shedding blood in warfare. The Chinese character for "wu" (martial) was an ideogrammic compound formed by combining the characters for "stop" (止) and "halberd" (戈). Thus, "wu" did not mean using weapons (ge), but rather meant not using them. The true meaning of martial virtue lay in suppressing violent individuals wielding deadly weapons. The Zuo Zhuan explains the meaning of wu as "prohibiting violence and ceasing arms"—this precisely captured its essence. The Book of Changes states, "Divine martial virtue does not kill." The core principle of martial virtue resided in non-killing. Those who indiscriminately slaughtered others could not be said to possess martial virtue.

In China, institutions known as Martial Temples emerged from the Tang era onward.
This institution, established in contrast to Confucius's Civil Temple, revered Jiang Ziya—a military strategist of the Zhou dynasty—as its principal deity of warfare, with famous generals of successive dynasties also enshrined there.
However, Emperor Taizu of the Northern Song once visited the Martial Temple and, pointing to Bai Qi of Qin who had been enshrined there, declared, "This man massacred hundreds of thousands of surrendered soldiers."
Deeming those who were utterly lacking in martial virtue unworthy to be enshrined in the Martial Temple, he excluded them.
When contrasted with the earlier phrase "Divine martial virtue does not kill," I believe the true meaning of martial virtue should become clearly apparent.

Duke Xiang of Song, counted among the Spring and Autumn Five Hegemons, once engaged in battle with Chu by the Hong River. When the Song army attempted to attack the enemy forces in the midst of crossing the river, Duke Xiang would not permit it, declaring that a nobleman does not take advantage of another’s distress. When the enemy army had finished crossing and before they had deployed their formation, as the Song forces prepared to strike, he again forbade the assault as a violation of propriety. He waited until the enemy had fully arrayed their defenses before commencing battle in proper form, but this resulted in the Song army’s crushing defeat. Duke Xiang himself sustained mortal wounds and ultimately perished from them. While later generations mocked this as “Song Xiang’s Benevolence,” the *Gongyang Zhuan* reveals that contemporary evaluations praised him highly, asserting that even in defeat, his adherence to ritual propriety exemplified noble conduct. It states: “Not even King Wen’s battles surpassed this.”

Surveying Chinese literature, martial-themed works were exceedingly rare; on the contrary, those that lamented the detestable nature of military service and the hardships of campaigns were quite numerous.
Even in the Book of Songs, this regret existed, but when it came to later poetry and prose, this tendency became even more noticeable.
In Chen Lin of the Eastern Han’s *Ballad of Drinking Horses at the Great Wall Cave*:

"If you bear a son, take care not to raise him; if you bear a daughter, feed her with dried meat.
Have you not seen beneath the Great Wall?
The bones of the dead prop each other up."

As seen in Du Fu of the Tang’s “Ballad of the War Chariots”:

Now we truly know: To bear a son brings misfortune.
To bear a daughter brings fortune.
To bear a daughter still allows her to marry a neighbor.
To bear a son is to be buried and lost among countless grasses.

Similarly, since men had to enlist in military service, it was considered better not to be born or, if born, not to be raised. This explicitly articulated the belief that since girls did not face such hardships, bearing daughters rather than sons was more advantageous. In that *Ballad of the War Chariots*, Du Fu depicted the scene where families of conscripted soldiers lamented their farewells:

"Parents, wives, and children ran to see them off.
Dust clouds blotted out Xianyang Bridge.
Clutching at clothes, stamping feet, blocking the road and weeping.
Wails pierced straight through to the heavens."

Yet clutching at clothes and sleeves while weeping—wasn't this rather effeminate? In Wang Han of the Tang's *Liangzhou Lyrics*,

Do not laugh at us lying drunk on the battlefield.
Since ancient times, how many have returned from battle?

There were these lines:
While they might appear nonchalant in style, as a code of conduct for soldiers going to war, we must declare them utterly inappropriate.
Li Bai of Tang's *Battle South of the City* and Li Hua of Tang's *Lament for the Ancient Battlefield* both condemned warfare.

The most extreme example was the new yuefu titled *Xinfeng Zhebì Wēng* (The Old Man with the Broken Arm from Xinfeng) by Bai Juyi (Bai Letian) of Tang.
This yuefu chronicled the life of an old man with a broken right arm residing near Chang'an in Xinfeng who, at twenty-four years of age, had been conscripted for the Yunnan campaign. Desperate to avoid deployment, he smashed his own right arm with his bare hands at midnight, rendering himself permanently disabled. Exempted from military service through this self-mutilation, he returned to his hometown where he lived until eighty-eight years old.
Though his broken arm still flared with pain so severe it kept him awake through many nights, none of those conscripted over sixty years earlier for that Yunnan campaign had returned to tread their homeland's soil—all had become ghosts in foreign lands.
By comparison, the poem declared this old man's life far more fortunate.

This broken arm has endured sixty years.
To this day, on windy, rainy, dark, and cold nights,
The pain persists until dawn arrives, denying sleep.
The pain denies sleep.
He never regrets it.
And yet, this old body alone remains.
Otherwise, at that time by the Lu River’s head,
His body would perish, his soul wander alone, his bones left unburied.
He would have become a homesick ghost in Yunnan.

Though composed to warn against frontier military exploits, does this yuefu not strike one as unduly severe?
[However, Bai Juyi’s account here constitutes no mere flight of fancy but an unvarnished truth.
From the late Sui through Tang periods, historical records of unimpeachable credibility explicitly document how youths of that age deliberately maimed their own hands or legs—dubbing them “auspicious hands” and “auspicious legs”—to evade conscription.]

Given such a national character, in China since antiquity, becoming a soldier had been considered dishonorable, and military service was deeply detested. To provide an example: during the Tang era, while there were many candidates for the civil service examination for bureaucrats known as jinshi, there were scarcely any candidates for the military examination called wuju for soldiers. At that time, the social standing of soldiers was extremely low. If there was a member of a family who became a soldier, the fathers and elder brothers would treat them as outcasts. The military system of the Tang Dynasty was similar to that of our country, where soldiers from the provinces took turns guarding the capital; these were referred to as Wei Shi or Shi Guan. At that time, when people quarreled with each other, they would call one another “Shi Guan.” In Japan, this would correspond to what were called outcasts or undertakers. The low status of soldiers must be said to have been almost beyond imagination.

The low status of soldiers was by no means limited to the Tang era but rather a phenomenon seen throughout all Chinese dynasties. In China, there exists a proverb: "Good iron isn't made into nails; good men do not become soldiers." This means that only those with no other prospects in life should enlist in military service, while contented individuals should never join the army. There is also another saying: "Iron winds up as nails; men wind up as soldiers." It signifies sinking to the lowest stratum of human society. In China, common soldiers and beggars were regarded as nearly equivalent. When contrasted with our nation's adage—where the flower is the cherry tree and the man is the warrior—I believe one can naturally discern the differences in national character that exist between them.

Among the Chinese people, where military service was held in such low esteem, it stood to reason that truly valiant commanders would seldom emerge.
When surveying Chinese history, military figures may appear replete with heroes and exceptional men—but what was their actual substance?
Measured against the standards of Japanese warriors, one must apply considerable reduction in their estimation.
As one such illustration, we shall here compare Li Ji of Tang and our own Gamō Ujisato.

In the 19th year of the Zhenguan era (645 CE), Emperor Taizong of Tang launched a campaign against Goguryeo, attacking through both land and naval routes.
The commander-in-chief at that time was the renowned Li Ji, with Emperor Taizong himself proceeding to Liaodong to oversee military operations—a truly grand-scale expedition they executed.
The Tang army soon captured various cities in Liaodong and pressed steadily toward Pyongyang, Goguryeo's capital.
Yet along their path lay Anshi City.
This fortress stood northeast of present-day Gaiping County in Fengtian Province, formidably constructed as a strategic stronghold.
Emperor Taizong then addressed Li Ji, noting that Anshi City occupied treacherous terrain with formidable defenders, and its commander was reputed to possess exceptional strategic acumen.
This very fortress exemplified what Sun Tzu's Art of War describes as "those fortified cities one should not attack."
The emperor proposed leaving a garrison force before advancing directly to strike at Pyongyang's heartland, but Li Ji objected, arguing that bypassing Anshi City would gravely undermine military prestige.
Li Ji insisted that capturing this critical stronghold would cause other cities to surrender without resistance. Though apprehensive, Emperor Taizong yielded to preserve his commander-in-chief's authority,

"I appoint you as Commander-in-Chief," he declared. "How could I not employ your strategy? Do not fail my enterprise."

Without further dispute, Emperor Taizong acquiesced to Li Ji's counsel. Thus the full responsibility for besieging Anshi City fell upon Li Ji's shoulders. Though Li Ji marshaled all his soldiers to storm the fortress, three months passed without breaching its walls. Snow began to fall amidst their efforts while provisions dwindled. Ultimately, the Tang army retreated to their homeland in disarray.

Emperor Taizong of Tang was a wise ruler after the Three Dynasties.
The failure at Anshi City was what stained his brilliant military achievements.
The responsibility for this failure had to be attributed to Li Ji, who earlier opposed Emperor Taizong and insisted on attacking Anshi City.
Had Li Ji understood what it meant to bear responsibility for his words and duties, he should certainly have captured Anshi City.
If he ultimately could not capture it, he should have resolved to take responsibility upon himself and face execution.
Yet that Li Ji persisted in disavowing all responsibility and lived out a long life is something we find deeply unadmirable for a man hailed as China's foremost general.

When our Toyotomi Hideyoshi launched the Kyushu Campaign in Tenshō 15 (1587 CE), a nearly identical incident occurred.
The troops of Akizuki Tanemoto of Buzen, with support from Shimazu, entrenched themselves in Ganroku Castle.
Ganroku Castle was renowned as a strategic stronghold.
Since castle commander Kumagai Etchū was also a distinguished general, Hideyoshi planned to position Gamō Ujisato as rear guard at Ganroku Castle while advancing the main army.
Ujisato found this deeply frustrating and repeatedly petitioned to attack Ganroku Castle directly, but Hideyoshi refused consent.
After persistent entreaties spanning multiple appeals, Hideyoshi finally approved Ujisato’s request.
Thereupon Ujisato resolved to capture this fortress or commit seppuku—launching a desperate assault that breached even Ganroku Castle’s defenses within a single day.
Through this overwhelming display of martial prowess, they swiftly accomplished the pacification of Kyushu.

Anshi City and Ganroku Castle may not necessarily have proceeded in the same manner.
However, had Li Ji shared Ujisato’s resolve, he would undoubtedly have achieved somewhat better results.
While Ujisato’s renown as a general may have paled far beneath Li Ji’s, in valuing his own responsibilities he vastly surpassed Li Ji.

The awareness of responsibility and resolve toward that awareness—these constitute the essence of our Bushido. Chinese military personnel have a defect here. Liang Qichao of China once wrote in his *Yinbing shi wenji* that the Japanese people possess a Japanese spirit. That is Bushido. Yet among the Chinese people, no Chinese spirit can be found. The cause of the divergence in strength between Japan and China lies here. He therefore argued that China's most urgent task today resides in forging a Chinese spirit not inferior to the Japanese people's Japanese spirit. Could a Chinese spirit be so easily forged? Among Westerners, many believe that if China had figures like Meckel in Japan or Goltz in Turkey, a powerful military could be organized. Even Meckel and Goltz would find it no easy task to instill a Chinese spirit in the Chinese people. The success or failure of Liang Qichao's so-called Chinese spirit would determine where China's future destiny diverges.

II. The Cultural Weakness of the Chinese People (Part 2)

The Chinese people, who found military service burdensome and detested warfare, generally did not engage in aggression against foreign countries.
Though since ancient times the Chinese people had proudly styled themselves Hua-Xia while dismissing the surrounding alien tribes as Eastern Yi, Western Rong, Southern Man, and Northern Di, except under special circumstances they never applied military force against them.
The Chinese people's general policy toward barbarians consisted of maxims like "Display virtue rather than military power" and "If distant peoples remain unsubmissive, cultivate civil virtue to draw them near."
Of course, this policy remained an ideal whose practical effectiveness when implemented proved highly questionable.

The barbarian tribes dwelling beyond China’s northern frontier regarded slaughter as their cultivation and plunder as their primary occupation.
No matter how much the Chinese people clung to peace, those tribes mercilessly invaded.
These included the Xunyu of the Yin Dynasty, the Xianyun of Zhou, the Xiongnu of Qin-Han, the Tujue and Huihe of Sui-Tang, and the Qidan, Nüzhen, and Mongols of Song—all exemplifying this nature.
However, the Chinese people never confronted these Northern Barbarians with military force.
While at times adopting the strategy of using barbarians to control barbarians, successive dynasties most commonly followed the long-standing policy of presenting gold and silk to win favor and mitigate invasions and plundering.
In autumn of Meiji 44 (1911), when Chinese people (Han Chinese) initiated revolution and declared independence from Manchus (Qing dynasty), their manifesto proclaimed:

The Han people till the soil.
The Manchu slaves eat it.
The Han people weave the cloth.
The Manchus wear it.

The manifesto strings together expressions of outrage, but this reality was by no means limited to the Qing dynasty era.
China had been destined since ancient times to serve as a treasure trove for the Northern Barbarians.
Tughruq Qaghan of the Tujue, who emerged at the end of the Northern and Southern Dynasties,

"So long as my two sons in the south remain ever filial,
Why should I worry about poverty?"

he declared.
The rulers of the Northern Barbarians invariably adopted Tughruq Qaghan's mindset, threatening China while indulging in splendor.
Though China occasionally produced heroic rulers like Qin Shi Huang and Emperor Wu of Han who campaigned against the Northern Barbarians, their reputation among the Chinese populace remained unfavorable as squanderers of military resources and profaners of martial virtue.
Even soldiers who achieved glory in foreign lands received little welcome in their homeland.

During the Western Han Dynasty, there was a heroic figure named Chen Tang who served as Deputy Colonel Protector of the Western Regions. He attacked and killed Zhizhi Chanyu of the Xiongnu—who had become a major burden to Han—thereby accomplishing a rare and extraordinary military feat.
Yet Chancellor Kuang Heng—a Confucian scholar—invoked regulations to suppress this achievement: arguing that if rewards were granted to those who mobilized troops without authorization (for Chen Tang, stationed far in the Western Regions, could not await the Son of Heaven’s permission given the urgency), others would inevitably follow this precedent and provoke further incidents beyond the frontier.
Though the heroic Chen Tang had other complicating factors, despite achieving such great merits, his later years fell into truly pitiable circumstances.

During the Xuanzong era of Tang, there was a military officer named Hao Lingsuan in the Da Wu Army who captured the head of Mochuo Khagan of the Turkic people—a leader who had been rampaging across the northern frontier and repeatedly invading Tang—and presented it to the imperial court. At this time as well, Chancellor Song Jing suppressed Hao Lingsuan’s merit, arguing that granting him lavish rewards would encourage the young and spirited emperor to promote frontier military achievements. As a result, it is said that Hao Lingsuan—out of resentment and despair—ultimately died wailing and vomiting blood.

The fact that the Chinese people were culturally weak and cowardly had been widely known among foreigners from ancient times.
Marco Polo of Italy, who lived in China for more than a dozen years during the Yuan dynasty,

"If the Manzi [Southern Chinese] were an aggressive race," he wrote, "their vast numbers would enable them to conquer the entire world."
Yet readers need harbor no such groundless fears.
"Each of these Manzi is fit only to be an impeccable merchant or clever artisan—they completely lack the qualifications required of soldiers."

[Marco Polo] stated [this], and Navarrete of Spain—who had proselytized in China during the early Qing dynasty—remarked: "The Chinese people may be suited to pursuing scholarship, engaging in commerce, and creating works of art and antiquities, but they are not fit for waging war." Considering this perspective, the so-called Yellow Peril Theory—the argument that the yellow race would eventually overwhelm the white race—which emerged around the time of the Sino-Japanese War, gained momentum through the Russo-Japanese War, and remains a major global concern even today, loses its foundation entirely. Of course, the Yellow Peril Theory is rather complex; however, if we limit its scope strictly to military affairs and consider only the Chinese people as its principal agents, we may indeed declare it an utterly groundless notion. It remains true that over the past fifteen hundred years, Asians have invaded Europe and significantly oppressed white peoples—the Xiongnu invasion in the fifth century AD, the Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century, and Turkish incursions beginning in the fifteenth century. Yet to equate these warlike barbarian tribes from beyond the frontier with the culturally weak Chinese people would surely be an error.

Looking over the history of the past century, China engaged in considerable warfare with various foreign countries.
If we include the North China Incident related to the Boxer Rebellion, China was at war with nearly all of the world’s great powers.
However, these wars were, in many cases, unintended by China.
From the perspective of the Chinese people, these wars were thrust upon them by foreign countries.
At the Second International Peace Conference held in the Netherlands in Meiji 40 (1907), when the timing of commencing hostilities became an issue—with some arguing that prior notice was required and others that it was not—the attending Chinese delegate raised this question during heated debates: “It is well to issue a notice before initiating combat, but what should be done if the opposing side does not respond to that notice?”
A country like ours—China—despite having no intention to engage in combat, was repeatedly forced into battle by foreign nations.
They proposed that since our country did not intend to readily respond even if we received declarations of combat initiation from foreign nations hereafter, regulations for such cases would be necessary—but this proposal was laughed to scorn by the entire assembly.
Even if met with derision, what the Chinese delegate said was first and foremost factual.
Even when waging numerous wars, the Chinese people are by no means warlike; nor can it be denied that they remain culturally weak.

The cultural weakness of the Chinese people should not be lightly dismissed.
Cultural Weakness is preferable to reckless militarism for the sake of world peace.

However, now is an era of ethnic competition.
It is an age of armament.
In this era—and having become sacrifices of this era—if they, the Chinese people who are most acutely suffering under the oppression of the great powers, still do not reform their Cultural Weakness ethos, it would be unbearable to witness what heartache it would bring to their future.
[Especially when their Cultural Weakness does not stem from lofty ideals but rather conceals present cowardice—such Cultural Weakness will become a great source of calamity for China’s future.]

III. The Conservatism of the Chinese People (Part 1)

The Chinese people are culturally weak while also being conservative.
There are various reasons why the Chinese people are conservative in this manner, we believe.

(1) The innate nature of the Chinese people is conservative.

(2) Since ancient times, Chinese civilization has stood superior among its neighboring barbarian tribes.
Therefore, since ancient times, the Chinese people have taken pride in their own civilization, blindly believing it to be the one and absolute [standard], and exerted efforts to maintain and preserve it.
This custom became second nature.

(3) Confucianism itself, which long held great influence among the Chinese people, is conservative and antiquity-revering.
Confucius declared, "I transmit rather than create; I believe in and love antiquity."
He was ultimately a transmitter of the ancient kings' teachings and a eulogist of antiquity.
To be sure, Confucius stated, "By reviewing the old, one learns the new; this makes one a teacher," showing he was not purely conservative since he valued antiquity without neglecting present preparedness. However, it remains an undeniable fact that many later scholars became mired in conservative thought.
As for someone like Mencius:

"Those who followed the laws of the ancient kings and yet surpassed them have never existed."
[Omitted portion] "Therefore it is said: To build high, one must rely on hills and mounds."
"To build low, one must rely on rivers and marshes."
"To govern without following the Way of the ancient kings—"
"Can this be considered wise?"

Mencius declared.
In any case, the Seven Books of Mencius were thoroughly permeated by a conservative and antiquity-revering ethos.

Not only Confucianism but all schools of thought that emerged in China generally inclined toward conservatism.
Given that Zhuangzi had assessed the scholars of his time as "those who revere antiquity and belittle the present—such is the way of scholars," it was not that Confucians alone deserved censure for conservatism. However, considering how Confucianism had wielded supreme influence—particularly after the Han dynasty when it attained a position tantamount to a state religion—the immense impact it exerted upon the Chinese people cannot be denied.

However, it was not our purpose here to investigate those causes.
Our principal aim was to expound upon the fact of Chinese conservatism and its consequences.

During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Western Jin dynasty—approximately sixteen centuries ago—there existed a renowned figure named Du Yu.
The capital at that time was Luoyang, situated near the Yellow River.
To journey between Hebei and Luoyang, travelers necessarily had to cross the Yellow River at Mengjin Ford.
Yet the river's torrential currents frequently capsized ferries, plunging the populace into distress.
Thereupon Du Yu submitted a proposal to construct a pontoon bridge across the Yellow River and eliminate this peril.
Emperor Wu consulted his ministers regarding Du Yu's petition, but they all shielded themselves behind the fact that even the ancient sages had never built a pontoon bridge over the Yellow River,

These were the capitals of Yin and Zhou.
Having passed through sages and worthies, [it] was never built.
It is absolutely impossible to establish [it] for this reason.

and so they opposed it.
However, despite ministerial opposition, Du Yu splendidly succeeded in constructing a Yellow River pontoon bridge that even the sages and worthies of Yin and Zhou had never attempted, thereby gaining imperial admiration.

Approximately four hundred years prior to this, during the reign of Emperor Xiaowu of the Western Han Dynasty, there had been struggles in campaigns against the Xiongnu. At that time, a man from Qi named Yan Nian submitted a memorial proposing that if the course of the Yellow River were diverted northward to flow along the border between the Xiongnu and China before emptying into the Eastern Sea, it would both prevent flood disasters in China and hinder invasions by the Xiongnu—who were unskilled in naval warfare—thus achieving two advantages with one action. However, even this heroic Emperor Xiaowu was ultimately Chinese.

"The Yellow River is the course that Yu the Great established,"
"Sages establish undertakings that achieve merits for ten thousand generations, attained through divine understanding."
"It would likely be difficult to alter."

They stated that altering the watercourse of the Yellow River established by Yu the Great was something we could not possibly accomplish, and thus its adoption was ultimately shelved.
Whether rejecting the proposal was right or wrong remains debatable, but isn't the very reason for rejecting it utterly absurd?

About a century after Emperor Xiaowu, during the reign of Emperor Xiaocheng, when a proposal was raised to repair the embankments to prevent flooding of the Yellow River,

the ministers argued:
"According to the principles of the Classics,
in flood control there are methods of cutting open rivers and deepening channels,
but no writings exist about embankments and obstructions."

This argument prevailed, and the embankment repairs were postponed.
I believe this classical principle refers to the passage in the 'Tribute of Yu' chapter of the Book of Documents that states: 'cutting open the nine rivers to reach the seas, and dredging the fields and drains [澮] to reach the rivers.'
While cutting open river mouths and dredging riverbeds are essential flood control principles—nothing particularly strange about them—the fact that they sought their rationale in classical texts recording events from over two thousand years prior: isn't that characteristically Chinese and rather amusing?
Similar examples abound throughout Chinese history, too numerous to list individually.

Fundamentally, the Chinese people are called emulators of antiquity and do not trust anything unless it was done by ancient sages and worthies.
When they initiate new undertakings not performed by the sages and worthies, they reject them as unorthodox acts of failing to model antiquity.
The reason reforms by Qin Shi Huang and Wang Anshi of Song are met with disapproval certainly has other causes, but it is primarily because they do not align with this conservative ideology of the Chinese people.
Therefore, among the Chinese people, precedent holds far greater influence than one might anticipate.

[There is an interesting fact regarding this.] During the reign of Emperor Wu of Liang, when attempting to reorganize provinces within their territory, they found that while central government registers indicated there should be 107 provinces, an actual survey revealed only 82. The whereabouts of the remaining twenty-odd provinces could not be determined. However, because these were recorded in old ledgers, they preserved all 107 provinces without deleting those whose locations remained unknown. That administrative regions within their own territory went unaccounted for is quintessentially Chinese—but isn't it even more remarkable that they maintained these phantom provinces exactly as registered? This exemplifies Chinese national character.]

In December of the 26th year of Kuang-hsü [Guangxu] (January 1901), Empress Dowager Cixi issued an edict on reform and self-strengthening from her temporary court in Xi’an Prefecture, Shaanxi, which stated: “The ruin of the realm lies in the character for ‘precedent.’” As this indicates, bound and constrained by precedent, one can scarcely fathom how much the Chinese people hindered national progress.
The Chinese people refer to devising a new framework beyond the ancients—that is, creating precedents themselves—as “self-initiated antiquity” or “self-created precedent,” yet even within these phrases “initiated antiquity” and “created precedent,” their reverence for antiquity is plainly evident.

If one invokes the ancients or precedents, the Chinese people are easily persuaded; thus, there are many in China who exploit this weakness to accomplish evil deeds.
Wang Mang, the great villain who emerged at the end of the Western Han Dynasty, imitated every word and deed of the ancient sage known as the Duke of Zhou in order to usurp the Han Empire.
Since it was said that the Duke of Zhou would spit out his food three times during a single meal and three times interrupt his bathing to grasp his hair while awaiting scholars of the realm, Wang Mang likewise humbled himself before the scholars with reverence.
The people of that time all believed Wang Mang to be the reincarnation of the Duke of Zhou, and a great multitude of 487,572 individuals submitted petitions requesting that special honors and treatment be bestowed upon Wang Mang.
Thus waiting until the popular support of the realm had gathered to himself, Wang Mang poisoned Emperor Ping, the Son of Heaven.
When King Wu fell ill in antiquity, an account recorded in the *Book of Documents* tells how the Duke of Zhou prayed to heaven to prolong his life. Wang Mang promptly imitated this act by performing the farce of praying to substitute himself for Emperor Ping—the very ruler he had poisoned.
Since *Spring and Autumn Annals* concluded in the fourteenth year of Duke Ai of Lu, he proclaimed that Han too should end in the fourteenth year after Emperor Ai's accession, thereby finally usurping Han's empire with ease and ascending to the position of Son of Heaven.
Through what was called "citing classics to cloak villainy," Wang Mang entrusted every word and deed to canonical texts and sages, thereby accomplishing great evils.
Though Wang Mang came to be reviled as a traitorous arch-villain only after his death, during his lifetime—when citing classics to mask his villainy—he had been worshipped as a sage and virtuous man.
The Tang poet Bai Juyi's:

"On the day Duke of Zhou feared slanderous rumors,
In the time when Wang Mang humbly deferred to scholars.
Had they died in those days,
To this day, who could discern the true from the false?"

This poem depicts the aforementioned facts.]

Cao Pi (Emperor Wen of Wei during the Three Kingdoms period and son of Cao Cao) also borrowed the precedent of Yao and Shun’s abdication by virtue and successfully usurped the Eastern Han dynasty’s realm.
In China, since ancient times there have been two forms of revolution.
The first is called abdication by virtue, where one seeks a virtuous individual and abdicates the realm to them, as seen in Yao to Shun and Shun to Yu.
The second is called righteous overthrow, where one resorts to military force to contend for supremacy, and the victor seizes the realm.
This refers to Tang of Yin exiling Jie of Xia and Wu of Zhou attacking Zhou of Yin.
Of the two, righteous overthrow has the worse reputation.
From the Warring States period through the Han dynasties, scholars often suppressed righteous overthrow while promoting abdication by virtue.
Thereupon, Cao Pi coerced Emperor Xian—the last ruler of the Eastern Han—into abdicating the realm to himself, yet outwardly he repeatedly declined it.
When Yao abdicated the realm to Shun, he also married his two daughters, Ehuang and Nüying, to Shun; thus Cao Pi imitated even these formalities, such as taking Emperor Xian’s two daughters into his harem.
Even today, near Xuzhou in Henan Province there exists a Stele of Abdication that records the abdication by virtue of that time,

Examining Tang and abdicating to Yu,
Inheriting Heaven’s illustrious mandate,
Enfeoffing two consorts,
Reverently bestowing the celestial throne—

...and so on are inscribed, but we must say it was utterly absurd.

However, since this method proved unexpectedly well-received, subsequent Chinese revolutions largely adopted this specious form of abdication by virtue.
Peering behind this facade—where some lamented, “May I never again be born into a heavenly king’s household in future lifetimes” (Emperor Shun of Liu Song), while others pleaded, “From now on, may I never again be born into an imperial family” (Emperor Gong of Sui)—even if the plight of these monarchs sacrificed in sham abdications was truly pitiable, so long as the formalities strictly followed the precedents of Yao and Shun, the Chinese people would accept it.

The Chinese people, in all their endeavors, invariably invoke the ancients.
Emperor Wu of Western Jin, concerned that his crown prince Hui Di (Sima Zhong) was dim-witted and poorly regarded, decided to test the extent of his abilities by specially presenting him with a certain problem in a sealed document and having the prince submit his answer.
Depending on the outcome of this answer, [Emperor Wu] was determined to carry out either the deposition or retention of the Crown Prince.
However, the Crown Prince’s consort Jia Shi was no ordinary figure; having discerned Emperor Wu’s true intentions and deeming this a grave crisis, she ordered a secretary named Zhang Hong to draft the answer’s manuscript on behalf of the Crown Prince.
Zhang Hong carelessly drafted the answer by mechanically citing phrases like "The *Book of Songs* says," "The *Book of Documents* says," "Confucius says," and "Mencius says," as was his usual practice.
When Jia Shi saw this draft, she reasoned that since the Crown Prince was dim-witted and ought not to know the *Book of Songs* or *Book of Documents*, directly quoting these classics and sages would immediately expose the ghostwriting. She therefore excised all "The *Book of Songs* says" and "The *Book of Documents* says" phrases, revising it into a simplistic answer—its argumentation circuitous yet reaching a technically correct conclusion—thereby successfully deceiving Emperor Wu and fully securing the Crown Prince's position.
While being dim-witted posed a problem, the custom that even an ordinary person must invariably cite classics and ancients in their essays is evident from this incident.

[Emperor Yang of Sui once launched a campaign against Goguryeo.
At that time, he divided his million-strong army into left and right forces, each comprising twelve units totaling twenty-four divisions.
Yet when specifying destinations for these units, the supervisory headquarters employed place names from the Han Dynasty that had been obsolete for six to seven hundred years.
They deployed designations like Xuāntú (commandery), Lelang (commandery), Gàimǎ (county), Niánchán (county), Wòjǔ (ethnic group), and Sùshèn (ethnic group)—even resorting to archaic personal names like Tàdùn.
The precise geographical coordinates of these locations must have been largely obscure during the Sui period.
At minimum, the Sui supervisory headquarters could not have possessed accurate knowledge of their positions.

Particularly absurd was the case of Tadun.
Tadun was the name of a chieftain of the Wuhuan tribe who had exerted influence in the Liaodong region during the late Eastern Han Dynasty.
The ignorant supervisory headquarters had apparently mistaken a personal name for a place name.
The supervisory headquarters that unperturbedly issued such orders, and the units that unquestioningly accepted them—were they not both utterly astonishing?
Now then, what actions did the various military units of the time take upon receiving orders to dispatch to regions that were unclear or lands that did not exist?
In society, it was said that the Chinese people were practical.
That might hold half a truth, but at the same time, on the other half, they could be surprisingly impractical.
Even in major events of life and death such as warfare, they nonchalantly used ancient place names.
Even if uncertain or unclear, the ancient was deemed preferable—a facet of the Chinese character, no doubt.]

If one invoked ancients and precedents, the Chinese people would both comprehend and trust; hence China naturally abounded with forged texts entrusted to ancient names.
Forged texts bearing the names of ancients—such as *The Divine Farmer’s Materia Medica*, *The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon*, *Zixia’s Commentary on the Yi Jing*, *Zigong’s Commentary on the Book of Songs*, *Guan Yinzi*, or *Yu Zi*—were too numerous to list individually.
In the world, we think there was no country with as many forged texts as China.
Among China’s great scholars, not a few had been suspected of being forgers.
Liu Xin of Han, Wang Su of Wei, and Liu Xuan of Sui—all fell into this category.
There were various motives for forging ancient texts, but ultimately we think it was inextricably related to the Chinese people’s reverence for ancient texts.

IV. The Conservatism of the Chinese People (Part 2)

The Chinese people were generally skilled at imitation but inept at application.
This was of course partly due to their innate disposition, but we believe an acquired cause—namely, placing importance solely on the models of the ancients through what was called "copying the gourd by tracing the pattern"—also contributed significantly.
This too stemmed from possessing a disposition that, much like their emphasis on precedent, was prone to being bound by form.

An American missionary named Smith, who had resided in China for over thirty years, once remarked that Chinese teachers were uncrowned emperors.
In China, every single action of teachers serves as a model for students.
Chinese students uncritically accept everything their teachers teach.
They painstakingly imitate even their teachers' gestures and habitual mannerisms.

Whether in greetings or writings, or in all other matters, the Chinese people were largely bound by convention, sometimes giving rise to a sense of absurdity. During the reign of Emperor Renzong of the Northern Song Dynasty, there was a year when a flood occurred, and the emperor dispatched envoys to inspect the actual site. There is an amusing anecdote where these envoys, in their report to the throne, directly quoted phrases from the *Book of Documents* describing the flood during Yao’s era—stating "the waters surged mightily, encircling mountains and submerging hills"—and received a severe reprimand for this. There is also an anecdote from the late Ming Dynasty when a Ming provincial governor surrendered to Qing troops: this governor bared his upper body and led a sheep in imitation of every ritual gesture and speech formula exactly as recorded in the *Zuo Zhuan*, causing even the formidable Qing forces to burst into laughter.

Over sixty or seventy years ago, there was a French missionary named Yuke who lived in Southern China.
For a certain errand, he arranged to dispatch a courier to Beijing.
At that time, the Chinese teacher at the school Yuke operated was from Beijing, and his elderly mother was living alone in Beijing.
Taking advantage of this fortunate opportunity, Yuke advised the Chinese teacher to send a letter to his mother.
While deeply grateful for Yuke’s kindness, the teacher immediately turned to a student studying in the adjacent room,

“I intend to send a letter to my mother, so you ghostwrite it for me. Since the courier is about to depart soon, write it urgently now.”

he commanded.

Yuke, who had been listening nearby, said to the teacher,

“Is his student also your relative? Or does his student have any acquaintance with your mother?” he asked.

“No, he has never met her. Of course, he couldn’t possibly know my mother’s age or address,” replied the teacher.

When Yuke asked how a student who had never met her could possibly ghostwrite for him, the Chinese teacher assumed an expression of utter bewilderment: “I had taught his student the method of composing documents for over a year. By now, he should be quite familiar with formats and set phrases. Ghostwriting a letter from a child to their mother is an easy matter.”

he replied.
While this was going on, the student wrote the letter as instructed, sealed it, and brought it over.
The teacher handed it to the courier without even reviewing its contents, simply writing the address on the envelope.
This fact serves as evidence that Chinese filial piety is profoundly formalistic while also demonstrating their letters' formulaic nature.

The Chinese people generally prioritize form over spirit.
This too can be explained through their conservative disposition.
As noted earlier, they tenaciously cling to precedent.
Over time—even when circumstances caused precedents' original spirit to vanish swiftly—they meticulously preserved only their outer form.
Among Chinese customs exist many instances where name and reality diverge strikingly when observed by foreigners.

The Chinese people regarded filial piety as the foundation of all virtues and recognized it as the greatest good deed.
Even among the joint praise of loyalty and filial piety, in China, filial piety formed the foundation of both the nation and society.
Governments of successive dynasties all encouraged filial piety.
The reverence for filial piety was undoubtedly one of the Chinese people's virtues. However, being those who consistently prioritized form over substance in all matters, when it came to practicing filial devotion, there were not few among them who directly imitated extreme models from antiquity—such as lying naked on ice to pray to deities for a parent's recovery, following the exact examples of the Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars of old.
Of course, motives of fame and profit were also added to this, but they nonetheless performed extreme imitations.
While the government encouraged filial piety, it nevertheless occasionally prohibited extreme formalistic acts of filial devotion.

[China was foremost in matters of propriety.
Among all forms of etiquette, funeral rites had been regarded as supremely significant since antiquity.
Yet in later eras, China's funeral rites preserved only their form while losing all spiritual substance.
During the Five Barbarians period when funeral rites were conducted for the empress of Later Yan's Emperor Zhaowen, hundreds of officials gathered at court to display mourning.
They all performed loud ceremonial wailing, yet not one among them shed genuine tears.
Emperor Zhaowen, detesting their hollow performance, commanded his overseers to identify and punish those lacking tears.
The officials—startled by this unexpected censure—from the next ritual day onward each kept a packet of chili peppers in their sleeves; when required to wail, they would place chili in their mouths to forcibly induce tears and thereby escape punishment.]

There was no country as particular about funeral rites as China, and no country where funeral rites were accompanied by less genuine grief than China. Even today, Chinese funerals maintained grandiose external formalities yet lacked genuine sorrow toward the deceased. Though professional mourners reportedly joined funeral processions, scenes where the chief mourner himself smoked and chatted merrily often struck us Japanese as profoundly irritating. This emptiness extended beyond funeral rites alone—all of China’s ancient ritual teachings now preserved nothing but hollow forms while shedding their spiritual essence, a circumstance most lamentable.

No matter how conservative the Chinese people may be, over long periods there have not been few instances where they implemented considerable institutional reforms out of various necessities. Even in such cases, the Chinese people never abandoned their existing institutions. They preserved the old systems exactly as they were and superimposed new systems upon them. What Chinese reforms essentially meant was increasing new elements rather than abolishing old ones or even improving them. While scholars like Ouyang Xiu effusively praised the Tang bureaucratic system as being "precise and meticulous" or "simple and easy to implement," in reality the Tang system was merely an amalgamation of Zhou, Qin-Han, and post-Three Kingdoms administrative models with little selective refinement. Consequently, this bureaucracy lacked any coherent principles or spirit, resulting in a profusion of redundant offices. Compared to this, I believe our Taibō administrative system was far simpler yet more essential, fully deserving the praise of having surpassed its predecessors.

The same holds true when observing the changes in the Qing dynasty's military system.
The Qing dynasty initially used Green Standard Army troops to defend local regions, while the Eight Banner troops were responsible for guarding the Imperial City on one hand and overseeing the local Green Standard Army on the other.
With these Green Standard Army and Banner troops, they suppressed the realm, but as time passed, both the Banner troops and Green Standard Army decayed, becoming unfit for actual combat.
When the Long-haired Rebels arose, volunteer soldiers were organized in various regions, and they accomplished greater military feats than the Banner troops and Green Standard Army.
Therefore, even after the rebellion, they preserved those volunteer soldiers (Yongbing) as they were, and a regular army was established.
However, since they did not touch the former Banner troops and Green Standard Army, they ended up having to maintain a dual military system.
Even after the First Sino-Japanese War, as Western-style new armies gradually came to be organized in China, they still did not disband the previous troops at all.

This was true of all Chinese approaches.
Therefore, reforms in the strict sense were exceedingly rare in China, and consequently, there was no progress in China.
When Liang Qichao of China once met with our Ambassador Yano (Fumio) in Beijing and asked various questions about Japan based on Huang Zunxian’s *Treatise on Japan* published in the fourteenth year of Meiji, Ambassador Yano—

“The *Treatise on Japan* is a work from approximately twenty years ago.”
“Japan’s ten years of progress equals over a century of China’s.”
“Attempting to assess contemporary Japan through the *Treatise on Japan* would be as divorced from reality as analyzing China’s present condition using the *History of Ming*.”

He replied.

Afterward, when Liang Qichao came to Japan, he reportedly discovered that Ambassador Yano’s words were not deceptive.

China had come into contact with Western civilization early on, but its inherent conservatism and self-respect hindered it from readily adopting the new civilization.
However, through the First Sino-Japanese War and Russo-Japanese War, even China—remarkably—awoke from its four-thousand-year-long slumber and came to advocate reform and self-strengthening. This was truly extraordinary; as the Chinese people themselves admitted, it constituted an unprecedented phenomenon since China’s founding.
Among conservative Chinese people, there remained considerable doubt as to how long this spirit of reform would continue.
Even were it to continue, the Chinese people, unlike Japan, had historically preserved almost solely their own civilization, and thus possessed little experience in assimilating foreign civilizations to enhance national fortune.
Even if they imported Western civilization, how would they harmonize it with their own old civilization?

The harmonization of Eastern and Western civilizations was undoubtedly a critical issue for Japan as well. However, our nation had not lacked experience in assimilating foreign civilizations—whether from the Three Han or Sui and Tang dynasties—and harmonizing them with our own since antiquity.
China, lacking such experience, would require even greater effort for this problem.

(May 1916 [Taishō 5], published in 『支那研究』 [China Studies])