Week 3 - the King of Han and the Arteries of the Earth

 

H I 38m The Governor of Pei, later the King of Han, seems a virtuous foil to Xiang Yu’s irascible and violent temperament. Any suggestions of moral failing, such as his “[greed] for possessions” and “[delight] in beautiful girls,” are merely reports from the mouths of his enemies (28m). Xiang Yu, on the other hand, murders many out of anger and is so fearsome that his roaring scares away his opponents before he even engages them in combat (42t, 46m). This behavior is like that of a predatory animal, such as a tiger. This neat comparison, however, is agitated when the King attempts the utmost of inhumane behavior during his flight from Pengcheng: he tries to push his own children out of the carriage, presumably to make it lighter and faster (38m). Most animals are highly protective of their offspring, which makes the King, who was willing to expose his children to death, worse than animalistic, and certainly, less humane. If Jia Yi’s assessment that rule by humanity and righteousness preserves the state is correct, Xiang Yu’s ability to conquer but failure to retain is consistent (13m). Yet, despite the moment in the carriage which reveals only to the reader his questionable inner character, the King of Han succeeds in retaining what he incrementally gains. His generals Ji Xin and Zhou Ke give their lives for him, which illustrates their faith in his rule (40t). Perhaps the tension can be resolved by considering that the moments in which the King fails to act with humanity are either not seen or have the appearance of virtue. An example of the latter is when the King bestows fiefdoms on two generals not because they served well, but because he needs to cajole them into participating in another military action (44m). In other words, as long as the external appearance of humane and righteous rule is preserved, the ruler’s true inner cultivation of these virtues becomes less relevant. This arrangement is not as ideal as an external order which flows from the internal, virtuous ordering of the ruler, but it seems to be the best compromise of Jia Yi’s thesis for this volatile time of great political expediency. This portrayal may be illustrative of Sima Qian’s honesty in crafting his history (i.e., he does not force an a priori evaluative principle).

Q 213m* Curiously, Sima Qian asks what constitutes Meng Tian’s “crime of cutting through the arteries of the earth” after having already proffered an answer to the question. His answer identifies two faults relative to this image. First, the arteries are likened to the mountains and valleys which Meng Tian “cut through” while constructing the wall. Second, he failed to at least try to “bring about the well-being of the mass of people,” instead following orders which Meng, at the end of his life, recognized as unrighteous. To investigate this metaphor further, it is necessary to consider that arteries carry blood from the heart to the tissues, which confers strength upon them and allows them to carry out their functions. The tenor of the metaphor that corresponds to “arteries” is the natural features through which Meng cut, and the “tissues” are the common people whose strength waned in response. Understanding the metaphor in this way presents an interesting image: the whole body of a state is composed of the union between its people and its natural features. The body is a harmonious synthesis of the two. The construction of a wall implies a dissatisfaction with the land’s natural boundaries, which within the metaphor implies a dissatisfaction with the body. It could also imply an attempt to impose a political order unnatural to the terrain in that it seeks to sever connection between peoples which would naturally come into contact (an idea further supported by the notion of cutting the arteries, since arteries connect two parts of the same body). Based on his final words, it is difficult to know precisely what Meng considered his crime to be, since no detail is given as to whether the construction of the wall was a necessary amputation of the “body” of Qin. Sima Qian suggests, though, that at the least his crime consisted in his cooperation with the First Emperor’s attempt to strengthen the body against external threats, when Meng saw that what was truly needful was an internal strengthening – a healing of the people whose hearts were “not yet at rest” and who were “not yet healed.” In other words, he failed to impress upon the emperor that it was a time for the political body’s internal cultivation, not a time for external action.

*All citations in this piece refer to the last two paragraphs on pg. 213.

-Lauren Delucchi