The World of Confucian Chivalry

The world of Confucian Chivalry was created a triumvirate writers composed of Louis Cha (Jing Yong), Gu Long and Liang Yusheng. The three magnates formed the framework and contributed the main contents of this tremendous Oriental magic land which is beyond the understanding and grasp of English-only readers. Taken for instance, one of the title translations, The Book and the Sword, translated by a western scholar and published by Oxford University Press, is nonetheless a toning-down and simplification of the original Chinese title.

It’s really hard for the western readers to get a hand on the so-called Chinese WuXia genre, or let me use an analogy, the genre of Oriental Chivalry or Confucian Chivalry. It’s a contemporary Chinese literature genre which enamored almost the whole Chinese community, domestic and worldwide. Basically, the fictions of Confucian Chivalry tell the story of the so-called Chinese knights and the oriental chivalry associated with them.

The Chinese knights lived in the Chinese dynastic eras and needed not to be conferred by the royal house. No patent was needed to create a Chinese knight. The knighthood was in the heart of those destined. Also, they were born of Confucian spirits and were meant for some great journeys which always would produce empathy among the readers who are also deep-rooted in the Confucian heritage.

Most of all, the heroes depicted by the writers were often of humble births and worked all their way up the social ladder by series of lucky encounters. Much like a modern computer game, the good fortune is always the mechanism for the upbringing of an apprentice. The apprentice would manage to build the strongest mental and physical power, and excel the rest. The Chosen One, just as Harry Porter, figuratively speaking.

The Gongfu movie which later swung and changed the Hongkong film industry as well as the major Chinese movie genre ever landed in Hollywood, was spawned by the fictions of the WuXia genre. As portrayed by the Gongfu movies, the heroes always could perform stunts beyond the capacity of a normal man. Such as flying above the roofs, controlling stuff through the manipulation of field conjured by mental power, and even the magic touch of a finger could destroy a subject. However, more astounding stunts described in the books are off the limits to the modern cinematography.

Meditation is one of the main methods of training a Confucian knight. The mental power is far stronger than the physical strength that could be acquired through earthly exercise. The mental power is infinite and beyond imagination. Actually, no one can achieve the ultimate level, or the ultimate level is beyond any secular experience that has ever happened. It’s like a pilgrimage to the holy temple, and only to find an unfathomable, extraterrestrial being. It’s called GOD in the western hemisphere and known as DAO in oriental world.

The guidance is the teachings of Confucius. By following Confucius’ practices, an apprentice could pursue the right road leading to the holy place. However, the achievements of a Confucian knight apprentice would not be only judged by the power he accumulated but also by the merits he culminated. A chivalrous heart could always achieve higher level of Gongfu and put his strengths to the use of the poor and oppressed.

The final judge of a Confucian knight is the transcendence of the smallness of oneself and the reaching of the highest level of humanity. That’s also the purpose of Confucian. Ultimate sacrifice would always be the final call to the culmination of a Confucian knight. For nation, for family and for friendship, a broad spectrum of love is always the theme. And for most of the time, the hero is the center of a great tragedy, personal sacrifice leading to the prevalence of collective purpose. However, most of the finales would always provide a satisfactory ending and revealing the eagerness of the writers to please their readers. That’s another reason for the popularity of this kind of fictions. Always the feelings of the readers are assuaged and pacified by a happy ending no matter how the rescue had gone off human logic. And maybe that’s one of the reasons this genre is less recognized by the scholar world.

The financial situations are seldom mentioned in these fictions. It looks like the heroes were born into good financial status. Or a growing social standing was the byproduct of the development of a Confucian knight. Sometimes, the protagonist was granted property and wealth by the then royal house, or local magistrate. Sometimes, the protagonist developed connection with nobles, and therefore gained fortune through trading services. Or, sometimes, the protagonist was in the hands of kindhearted local landowners and marriage was always the solution. Anyway, most of the protagonists could make use of their talents in exchange for personal wealth. Or they could choose to stay poor which is one of the teachings by Confucius.

Well, at the last, let’s touch upon the three giants in the realm of Confucius Chivalry. Liang Yusheng could be the most traditional writer of the three. Even he wrote the chapter titles of his fictions in the form of traditional Chinese poems. Most of his works took the style of traditional Chinese literature and fabricated with significant amount of Chinese traditional poems and conversation style. Also Chinese history lays the foundation of his works. He altogether accomplished a total of 33 fictions.

Jing Yong is a contemporary of Liang Yusheng. And the two worked in suit with each other to kick off the Wu Xia fiction age. Although Jing Yong finished only 14 fictions altogether, but his achievement transcended Liang’s in a great leap. Jing Yong perhaps is the most influential contemporary Chinese writer and all his works have been adapted to movies or TV sitcoms. Jing Yong is a household name among Chinese community and even the characters of his books have entered the daily language vocabulary.

Gu Long is the youngest of the three and writes in the most modern style. He tends to write little of the scene of a fight which is the climax of a Wu Xia fiction but dedicate most of the volume to the development of the plot which carries only one topic, LOVE. He is the most radical of the three and rid of the vestige of traditional Chinese literature. He broke off with the old legacy and leaned more towards English classics such as Ernest Hemingway.

Christendom vs. Confucian Empire

The history of Christendom is in fundamental difference to that of Confucian Empire. Though many have tried to put the two great philosophy systems in juxtaposition, actually it’s hard to do so. The Words of God and the Words of Confucius are two sets of collections bearing essentially distinctions. One is from someone spiritual while the other is from someone totally secular. One is to decree the human beings the laws of the almighty one. One is to teach ordinary people the rules of life in order to breed the spirit of gentlemanship. However, when one tried to look retrospectively, the unification of a uniform and prevailing philosophy is the basis of a stable and prosperous society, while the breakdown produces exactly the opposite outcome.

The history of Christendom is full of bloody massacres and wars. Dark Age is a piece of long-term misery in the history of Europe. The split of West Rome Catholic Church and the setup of East Constantinople Orthodox Church swept the whole continent of Europe while the stabilizing of both gave certain period of tranquility to the people as the subjects of both. Then you can see the invasions of Crusaders for hundreds of years. Also the split of England from the Rome Church and established the Kings of England as the heads of English Church brought another war fire into the field of Europe. The conflicts between different sects of Christian would drag the Kings and Kingdoms into endless dark times. The idea of prevalence and dominance always obsessed the heads of Church and then implicated the Kings of States to follow.

The history of Confucian is a different story. First of all, Confucius himself is a humble man who sought the hands of royal family for support. Unlike the God who is an omnipotent mystical character possessing supernatural powers above the understanding of human beings, Confucius is just one of the people and his teaching is all about life and the training of a gentleman. Though some of Confucius words touched the topic of a supernatural power that dominates the fate of earthling, he never put an idol in place. He didn’t create some figure for people to worship. He mainly tried to set up a model of perfect gentleman that is in the reach of everyone’s endeavor. He said, “I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge; I am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it there.”

Second, it’s until the Han Dynasty, which is several hundred years after the death of Confucius, that the teaching of Confucian begun to step into the political stage of China history. When Confucius preached his thinking during the ZhanGuo period which is sometime before the formation of Qing Dynasty, the first empire to unify the territory of China, Confucius was facing competitions from other intellectuals of his time. Several doctrines championed by other intellectuals gained supports from different heads of states. Though Confucius himself never picked up big favor during his life, his students did follow up his teaching and manage to penetrate to the Emperor’s side during Han Dynasty. It’s until the Emperor of Wu that the influence of Confucian prevailed. Four emperors of Han Dynasty died, and Emperor of Wu decided to adopt the Confucian as the instrument to manage his empire. And ever since then the dominance of Confucian in Chinese culture had been established. So, Confucian is under the Emperor, not vice versa, on the contrary to the relation between Church and State.

Third, the two trains of teaching bear fundamentally different basis. The Bible, the Words of God, starts off from the beginning chapter to assert that man is born with sin. The original sin is the main pillar of Bible. When Adam ate the fruit from the tree of wisdom, he brought his fellows the original sin and from then the mankind has to bear the mark of sin. In believing so, there is a book of law in the Bible that dedicates to explain the laws given by God and for the government of mankind for their sins. However, Confucius thought differently. Another book written by one of Confucian scholar in Song Dynasty, San Zi Jing, which is the collection of a children’s song preaching the Confucian, taught from the beginning paragraph that man is born with innocence. So there is no original sin in the Confucian, then there is no law book in the teaching of Confucius.

God teaches people to pray to God during time of suffering; while Confucius teaches people to stand up and fight for oneself during such a bad time. God teaches people there is only one teacher, who is God himself; while Confucius teaches that among the companion of three there must be one qualified to be a teacher. God performs magical stunts to demonstrate His superiority; while Confucius instills every bit of his thought into the hearts of his followers and waits for the natural growth out of the seed.

One thing can be certain, that both philosophies have been used to govern and manipulate the subjects of the kings or emperors. However, Confucian provides the infrastructure and pull of unification under one great empire while Christian produces more conflicts and smaller-sized separate kingdoms. An interesting finding would be that none of the great empires once appeared on the lands of Europe survived to today.

Given more study to Christendom and Confucian Empire would yield more interesting and inspiring discoveries.

Cromwell versus Shangyang

The idea to put Thomas Cromwell and Shangyang in juxtaposition is inspired by their paths of life. Thomas Cromwell, the Chief Minister under King Henry VIII of English, lived from 1485-1540 AD; Shangyang, one of the Chief Ministers under Emperor Xiao of China Qin Dynasty, lived from 390-338 BC. The two tried to enforce reformation which would change the landscape of European history and ancient China history. Both had origins of plebian. Both with the full support of kings uprooted the then existing societal system. With the upheavals in minds, both were executed later by king for their reformation interfered and vitiated the powers and benefits of imperialists and nobilities.

Thomas Cromwell, an English statesman also the son of a clothworker/smith/house keeper(different accounts), rose to power for offering advocacy to King Henry VIII’s religious reformation which broke English from the control of Rome Papacy. Though King Henry VIII’s purpose was to denounce the marriage to Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn, the mother of famous Elizabeth I. King Henry VIII was a devoted Catholic to the Pope of Rome. But under the old Rome Catholic church system, the Pope of Rome would deny Henry VIII’s request of the announcement of a null marriage to Queen Catherine of Aragon.

Catherine of Aragon was also the aunt of the then King of Spain, Emperor Charles V, who put the then Pope of Rome in prison. After King Henry VIII was bewitched by Anne Boleyn, whose action was under the maneuver of her father, Sir Thomas Boleyn. Being an ambitious statesman, Thomas Boleyn first sent his elder daughter, Mary Boleyn, to be the mistress of King Henry VIII. After Mary lost Henry VIII’s favor, Anne Boleyn was arranged to flirt with Henry VIII. And the king fell into the trap. Under Anne’s insistence, Henry VIII resolved to divorce Queen Catherine and establish Anne as the Queen of England. That’s where Cromwell seized the opportunity to rise to power.

Cromwell first served under the Cardinal Wolsey who tried to mediate between the King Henry VIII and Pope of Rome to achieve the goal of divorce but failed. And Cromwell rode the waves and became the strongest advocate of His Majesty. In order to break away from Rome Church, Cromwell pushed the religious reformation, which made the King Henry VIII the head of England Church. Also, Cromwell put force a radical eradication of Catholic churches and their influences in England. A great societal upheaval was detonated, and not only some court members and royal family members were dissatisfied with the reformation, even a plebian rebellion was sparked which for once frightened His Majesty, King Henry VIII. However, the breakaway gave England the opportunity to enjoy autonomy and later developed different social and law system which, under the Elizabeth I, created the era of Great Britain Empire.

Yang, also a son of plebian, was raised to learn the law and jurisdiction system. By then, the ancient China Kingdom was broke into numerous small states, and the power of the ancient East Zhou Empire was eclipsing. Those ambitious Dukes were actively recruiting intellectuals and smart statesman to beef up their own strength. Before Yang, there were a few jurisprudents such as Wu Qi began to spread the importance of law and its supremacy. One background tip, during the Zhou Dynasty, the very beginning of China civilization, law and jurisprudence was under their very earliest age of development.

Enamored by the theories advocated by legists, Yang spent great amount of time studying law books and their applications. Yang was noticed by the chancellor of Duke of Wei. He was recommended to the Duke of Wei upon the chancellor’s death. The chancellor said to the Duke to use Yang as the future chief minister, or deprive his right of life in case of no interest. The chancellor warned the loss of Yang to other states would be a disaster to Wei. However, after the passing away of the chancellor, Wei ignored either his recommendation or the warning. Yang left State of Wei and went to State of Qin. The duke of Qin, Xiao, was experiencing great military failure and invested heavily to recruit the most talented person nationwide.

Yang managed to talk to Xiao, Duke of Qin, and had the duke prevailed. Eager and thirsty for new policy to strengthen his power, Xiao gave Yang the full power and support. Named one of his chief ministers, the only one non-royal family member of the four chief ministers, Yang was granted the full control of the reformation. And he began to press his way. By then, royal family members were above laws, and in order to demonstrate the supremacy of laws, Yang even punished the tutors of princes and received the oppressed acquiescence from royal family members and nobilities. Also, in order to enrich the Qin state treasury, Yang enforced laws to confiscate the lands once owned by nobilities. The nobilities championed the old instituted political system of Empire Xia, Shang, and Zhou, whereas Yang debated the once successful political system couldn’t adapt to new situations. Not to mention, the reformation pushed by Yang striped the inherited benefits away from nobilities.

Under Yang’s reformation, Qin sailed into prosperity and finally was able to defeat all the states and unite the whole nation. Empire Qin was born with the blessing of Yang’s reformation. Yang once was awarded with the state of Shang, and he was later remembered as Shangyang. However, the next Emperor was so dissatisfied with Yang, bearing in mind whose tutor was punished by Yang, also with the encouragements of those nobilities who hated Yang so much, that the Emperor sealed Yang’s miserable ending. Shangyang was executed alive by four chariots, which torn his body apart. And Yang’s family was destroyed entirely.

Cromwell suffered the same fate. His head was cut off and boiled and spiked on a rod for public display. That’s the fate of reformers, doomed from the beginning. People would wonder if there is any way for a successful reformer to maintain a blessed ending. However, no mater whatever the personal consequences, Cromwell and Yang were able to change the land of Europe and the land of China forever.