The China of Confucius Series - Part 4The great state of Ch'i bordered Lu on the northeast and was its principal cross. War with Ch'i was frequent. Ch'i constantly nibbled away pieces of territory from Lu's boundary, and Lu was constantly trying, sometimes with success, to get them back. Lu could resist Ch'i only by calling another powerful state to its aid. As early as 634 Lu asked and received aid against Ch'i from the southern barbarian state of Ch'u. In 609 Ch'i supported a minister of Lu who murdered two rightful heirs to the throne and set up the son of a secondary wife as duke of Lu. As long as this duke lived Ch'i dominated the government of Lu, and Lu finally had to ask aid of Chin to regain its independence. Thus it went, with Lu as the pawn of whatever state was powerful at the moment. Yet it is not to be supposed that Lu was a poor suffering innocent. Trembling before the great states, Lu lorded it over smaller ones, invading, looting, extinguishing, and annexing them whenever it was able to do so.
The internal politics of Lu presented an aspect that was common to other states as well. In China as a whole, the various feudal states had grown in power at the expense of the king until he was reduced to a puppet. Now, within the feudal states, there was a tendency for the clans of the principal ministers to usurp power at the expense of the ruler of the state.
Any reader of the Confucian Analects has encountered the term "the three families." These three clans were descended from three of the sons of Duke Huan of Lu, who reigned from 711 to 697. The families were named Meng, Shu, and Chi, literally Eldest, Third, and Youngest, after the three brothers. Just as in a European fairy tale, it was the youngest son who proved the most successful. This son, the founder of the Chi family, opposed the schemes of his murderous brother, founder of the
Eldest family, who sought the throne for himself. Chi Yu saved the life of the rightful heir to the throne of Lu; as his reward he became prime minister and had great power in Lu. From this time through that of Confucius the position of prime minister of Lu seems to have been held successively by the heads of the Chi family, with only slight intermission when one of the other families became more powerful.
For the century and a half before the birth of Confucius, the power of the dukes of Lu was largely in the hands of these three families, which gradually tightened their grip. The heads of two of the families took part in the murder of two ducal heirs, in 609, to set a more acceptable one on the throne. In 562 they divided the state, its army, and most of its revenues between themselves, leaving the Duke of Lu little but his ceremonial prerogatives. In 537, when Confucius was fifteen, the Chi family took over half of the state, leaving a fourth each to the Meng and Shu families; the Duke was then dependent for revenues on such contributions as the families were pleased to give him.
It is not to be supposed that the dukes made no effort to free themselves of this domination. When Confucius was thirty-four, Duke Chao led a group that attempted to kill the head of the Chi family, who had a narrow escape. But the Shu family rescued him, and Duke Chao was compelled to flee to Ch'i, where he lived in exile. The Chi family regularly sent horses, clothing, and shoes for the Duke and his followers but would not allow him to return to Lu, and he died abroad after seven years. This was the most spectacular of numerous attempts by the dukes to assert their independence.
Quite naturally noble families other than the powerful three were jealous of them. Quarrels developed over such matters as illicit intrigues with women and in one case even over a cockfight in which one of the parties equipped his cock with metal spurs. These quarrels commonly led to violence, frequently under the guise of an attempt to regain for the duke his usurped prerogatives. But the three families stayed in power. Sometimes they quarreled among themselves, but they were usually wise enough to realize that they must cooperate, however unwillingly, or face destruction.
The process by which the power of the emperor was usurped by the rulers of the states, and their power was usurped by their chief ministers, did not stop there. The officers of the ministers also encroached on the power of their superiors as much as they were able. When these officers were put in charge of towns, as governors, they sometimes closed the city gates and renounced their allegiance, holding their cities in a state of insurrection. Towns and districts on the border sometimes transferred their allegiance from one state to another in this way.
State of Chi'i - Confucius and the Chinese Way - HG Creel
