Issue 49 - Tse Qigong Centre

The Warring States period was a time of great turmoil, rivalry, alliances and brokenalliances, beginning almost 500 years before the birth of Christ. Out of this maelstrom of conflictrose a dominant, warlike people ruled by a ruthless man who through force of personality andarms created the first empire from the states he defeated. He was Qin Shi Huangdi, first emperorof the Qin dynasty, which gave us the name of his country - China. Too hard for the people heruled and too enthusiastic for grand projects, he had the Terracotta Warriors built to guard histomb, rebellion broke out when he died, his short-lived dynasty crumbling into the history books.China has a satisfyingly neat cyclical history, unity fallinginto disunity, then a dominant state rising once again.From the chaos following the disintegration of the Qinrose the glorious Han to rule the country for fourhundred years before, in turn, falling in strife. The nexttruly dominant force was the resolute but short-lived Sui which,like the Qin, was too tough for its own good and gave way tothe cultural flowering of the Tang. So the history continues,endlessly turning, cyclical.Let us leap over ancient history. The Middle Kingdomhas new rulers, the Manchus of the Qing Dynasty, and theyare threatened by fresh enemies, ruthless in the best traditionsof players on the Chinese stage, but their motives are different.Oddly they have not come to conquer and rule, as the Manchusthemselves had done, but to trade, and if they find a countryunwilling to trade, they are quite prepared to force it. We arenearing the start of the twentieth century, and there is anunseemly scramble by technologically and militarily advancedRoughPeasantspowers, to grab influence in a world rapidly running out ofplaces not already seized for strategic or economic reasons.From Russia to Britain, from America to Japan, everyone wantssome of the action and China, for all its size, sophisticatedbureaucracy and wealth of culture, is in no position to argue.China is ruled by the remarkable, and inevitably ruthless,Empress Dowager Cixi who was born in 1835, grasped powerin her youth and did not let go until her death in 1908. Shebecame a concubine to the emperor, bearing him his only sonand, when the son became the new emperor at the age offive, she contrived to become co – regent. After the death ofthis boy emperor, she maintained her influence through herinfant nephew who she manipulated to be the next emperor.She was the original power behind the throne, issuinginstructions to the child whilst concealed by a curtain.Qi Magazine 14