THE SHE KING; OR, THE BOOK OF ANCIENT POETRY

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44 THE CHINA OF THE BOOK OF POETEf. THE CHINA OF THE BOOK OF POETET. 45
its boundaries to the south far beyond those of any
former period.
2. In the prolegomena to the Shoo I have mentioned
the extravagant statements of Chinese writers, that at
a great durhar held by Yu the feudal princes amounted
to 10,000 ; that, when the Shang dynasty superseded the
house of Yu, the princes were reduced to about 3000;
and that, when Shang was superseded in its turn by
'Chow, they were only 1773. The absurdity of the
lowest of these numbers cannot be exposed better than
by the fact that the districts into which the empire of
the present day, in all its eighteen provinces, is divided
are not quite 1300. But in the Book of Poetry, as has
been pointed out already, we have odes of only about a
dozen States; and all the States or territorial divisions,
mentioned in the Ch'un Ts'ew and Tso-chnen, including
the outlying regions of Ts'oo, Woo, and Yueh, with
appanages in the royal domain, attached territories in
the larger States, and the barbarous tribes on the east,
west, north, and south, are only 198. In the " Anna-
listic Tables of the successive dynasties," published in
1803, the occurrences in the kingdom of Chow, from its
commencement in B.C. 1121 clown to 403, are arranged
under thirteen States, and from 402 down to its extinc
tion in B.C. 225, under seven States.
The principal States which come before us in the She
states mention- are Ts'in, lying west from the royal domain,
ed in the she. & considerable part of which was granted to
it in B.C. 759 ; Tsin, having the Ho on the west, and
lying to the north of the royal domain ; then to the east,
Wei, on the north of the Ho, and Ch'ing on the south
of it, with Heu and Ch'in extending south from Ch'ing.
East from Ch'ing, and south of the Ho, was Sung, a
dukedom held by descendants of the royal family of the
Shang dynasty. North from Sung was the marquisate
of Ts'aou; and north from it again was Loo, held by
the descendants of Tan, the famous duke of Chow, to
whose political wisdom, as much as to the warlike enter
prise of his brother king Woo, was due the establishment
of the dynasty. Conterminous with the northern border
of Loo, and extending to the waters of what is now
called the gulf of Pih-chih-le, was the powerful State of
Tsre. Yen, mentioned in III. iii. VII. 6, lay north and
east from Ts'e. The subject of that ode is a marquis of
Han, who appears to have played a more noticeable part
in the time of king Seuen, than any of his family who
went before or came after him did. His principality was
on the west of the Ho, covering the present department
of T'ung-chow, Shen-se, and perhaps some adjacent
territory. The ode commences with a reference to the
labours of Yu which made the country capable of cultiva
tion, but much of it must still have been marsh and
forest in the time of king Seuen, for mention is made of
its large streams and meres, and of the multitudes of its
deer, wild-cats, bears, and tigers.
The princes of these States, distinguished among them
selves by the titles of Kung, How, Pih, Tsze, and Nan,
which may most conveniently be expressed by duke,
marquis, earl, count or viscount, and baron, were mostly
Kes, offshoots from the royal stem of Chow. So it was
with those of Loo, Ts'aou, Wei, Ch'ing, Tsiu, Yen, and
Han. Sung, it has been stated, was held by descendants
of the kings of Shang, who were therefore Tszes. The
first marquis of Ts'e, was Shaug-foo, a chief counsellor
and military leader under kings Wan and Woo. He
was a Keang, and would trace his liueage up to the chief
minister of Yaou, as did also the barons of Heu. The
marquises of Ch'in were Kweis, claiming to be descended
from the ancient Shun. The earls of Ts'in were Yings,
and boasted for their ancestor LJih-yih, who appears in
the Shoo, II. i. 22, as forester to Shun. The sacrifices
to Yu, and his descendants, the sovereigns of the He'a
dynasty, were maintained by the lords of Ke, who were
consequently Szes, but that State is not mentioned in the
She.
All these princes held their lands by royal grant at the
commencement of the dynasty, or subsequently. I have
touched slightly on the duties which they owed to the
king of Chow as their suzerain in the prolegomena to
the Shoo, and I do not enter further on them here. A
more appropriate place for exhibiting them, and the re
lations which the States maintained with one another,
will be in the prolegomena to the Chun Ts'ew and the
-Iso-chuen.