A Thousand Pieces of Gold: A Memoir of China’s Past Through its Proverbs

The Queen Mother was at first banished into exile. Later, King Zheng brought her back to Xianyang on the advice of his ministers, who recommended that he should keep up the appearance of being a filial son. He built his mother a palace but placed her under house arrest until her death seventeen years later.

As for Merchant Lü, King Zheng never forgave him for his part in the plot against the throne. Although there was no evidence that the ex-merchant was directly involved in the rebellion, his power was such that he must have had some knowledge that he never shared with the King.

Shiji says, ‘The King wished to kill the Prime Minister, but because he had done much for the preceding ruler, and because his retainers and scholarly supporters were numerous, the King did not allow the law to be applied.’

Merchant Lü was relieved of his office and ordered to retire to his fief in Luoyang (Henan province). In no time at all, emissaries and ministers from the other six states were beating a path to Lü’s door. So many came that their carriages were never out of each other’s sight on the road to Luoyang. They asked Lü for advice, pumped him for information, inundated him with offers of high office and tempted him with fresh opportunities. King Zheng was not pleased when he heard this, but found himself in a dilemma. He distrusted Lü and could never use him again but feared that the ex-Prime Minister knew too much that might prove useful to someone else.

After due deliberation, the King penned Merchant Lü a personal letter in 235 BC. The tone of his letter was accusatory and cold: ‘What have you contributed to Qin lately? Yet you have retained your noble title and continue to receive the revenue from one hundred thousand households in the province of Henan. I order you and your family to move to Shu [presently Sichuan province but at that time a remote, farming area] immediately.’

On reading this, Lü knew that King Zheng would never forgive him. Fearful of involving the other members of his family (who would also be punished if he were given the death penalty to the third degree), but unable to reveal that he was the young King’s true father, the merchant took the only path that remained. One chilly autumn morning, he drank a cup of poisoned wine and committed suicide.

Sima Qian frequently wrote a commentary at the end of his biographical sketches. In the case of Merchant Lü, he wrote, ‘Confucius said, “Famous men often give the appearance of virtue but act very differently in practice.” This comment can be aptly applied to the life of Merchant Lü, can it not?’

Isn’t it fascinating, in the year AD 2002 to be reading the remarks of a historian living so many years earlier, making comments on the writing of Confucius who lived four hundred years before him? Besides putting things in perspective, it brings home the concept that writing is immortal.

Among ancient tombs discovered in Shuihudi, Hubei province, in AD 1975, was one coffin from the third century BC that differed from the rest. Besides the usual assortment of precious objects such as bronzes, gold, jade, silks, lacquered vessels and pottery, this tomb also contained a number of bamboo ‘books’ next to the skeleton. Over the centuries, the silk threads binding the books together had rotted away and the deceased was found covered by a tangle of over one thousand narrow bamboo slips. The writing on them was still clearly legible and these books ranged from legal texts to historical writings.

I find it very poignant that even during the Warring States period, there was already someone who refused to be parted from his beloved books, even by death. What was this man’s motivation? Rolled up like a pillow under his head was a separate bundle of bamboo slips that contained brief biographical notices of a man named Xi, probably the deceased. These notices were interspersed with a chronological table of yearly events in the state of Qin between 306–217 BC. Xi was born in 262 BC, worked as a bureaucrat in the Qin government, and died in 217 BC. At his death, Xi chose to make sense of his own life by recording his personal milestones in the context of Qin’s history. Apparently, history was his anchor as well as giving his life its meaning.

Approximately one hundred years after Xi, the Grand Historian Sima Qian, author of Shiji, also chose to safeguard his book by burying it in the ‘famous mountain archives’. Shiji was Sima’s attempt to bring order out of chaos to ‘all under Heaven’ by means of history.

(#ulink_c0d825bb-a923-5d57-803d-40e9e9f4afa1) It became the most influential and widely read history book in China and continues to exert a profound impact on the cultural consciousness of the Chinese, having maintained its eminence for over 2000 years.

Since ancient times, it has been a Chinese tradition to revere zi (the written word). Erudition is still considered to be the epitome of virtue in China. As noted above, some ancient scholars refused to be parted from their books even at death, considering them to be their most precious possessions. Xi was not alone in choosing to be buried with his books. Well-known classics such as The Art of War, Book of Tao and The Analects of Confucius have been found in tombs dating from the Han dynasty onwards, written on silk or bamboo slips.

My grandfather told me that when he was a boy growing up in Shanghai, he saw many large red boxes placed at major street corners. Each had four gilded characters written on its surface: jing xi zi zhi (respect and cherish written words). Workmen with bamboo poles patrolled the streets picking up any stray pieces of paper that had been written upon and painstakingly placed them in the red container. The contents of these boxes were burnt at regular intervals at a special shrine in the Temple of Confucius. These paper-burning ceremonies were solemn occasions resembling High Mass in a Catholic cathedral, with music and incense. Candidates who had successfully passed the Imperial Examination were the only ones allowed to participate. They would prostrate themselves in worship and pray to Heaven until all the paper had been reduced to ashes. On their way out, they would further show their respect by placing a donation into a separate red box labelled yi zi qian jing (one written word is worth a thousand pieces of gold).

(#ulink_03771cbf-6965-55b6-9a74-62cea879c648) After castration, eunuchs would lose their source of testosterone and typically became beardless.

(#ulink_8ffaec31-943f-5f1e-82e4-b8a9d8e1a7a5) To the people of the seven states, China was viewed as ‘the world’ or ‘all under Heaven’.

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Binding your Feet to Prevent your own Progress (#ulink_8620d3cb-714b-5b2b-aab4-206a6d591181)

GUO ZU BU QIAN

IN 1949, MANY SHANGHAI ENTREPRENEURS fled south to Hong Kong to escape the Communists. Like the scholar Li Si years earlier, my father also left his home and travelled to a distant place in search of better opportunities and a fresh start. My siblings and I did not realise it then, but my father’s move destined us to become part of the 55 million Chinese living and working outside of China.

At the age of fourteen, I won an international writing competition, which convinced my father to send me from Hong Kong to London for higher education. Three years later, while waiting for medical school to commence, I applied for a summer accounting job advertised in the evening newspaper. Over the phone, the manager sounded eager to hire me. He gave me directions to his firm, and asked if I was ready to start work that day. As soon as he saw my Chinese face, however, his attitude changed. Avoiding my eyes, he told me that the position had just been filled. He was a nice man because I could hear the embarrassment in his voice as he repeated the lie. One part of him knew that I would be a good worker and was reluctant to let me go. Nevertheless, he sent me away.

Throughout the long period of my training at medical school in London, I knew in my heart that if I were to remain in England after graduation, I would never be given the same opportunities as my British classmates. In order to secure a decent career, I realised I would have to go elsewhere. Because of my dismal childhood, the feeling of being discriminated against was only too familiar. I had decided long ago that life was unfair and that each person needs to find her own way of overcoming adversity. Besides, the bias I was encountering in Britain was far less than the blatant prejudice I had endured for so many years in my own home.

After graduating from medical school, I went back to Hong Kong. To my shock and dismay, I came across more prejudice. My colleagues resented me because I was not Cantonese and was a graduate of an English, rather than Hong Kong, medical school. The fact that we were all Chinese simply meant that they could be more open in their intolerance. They nicknamed me ‘imported goods’ and told me to my face that I was a ‘foreigner’. No matter how hard I tried to please, I remained an outsider.

My last refuge was America. Even before I set foot on American soil, I was already being helped by a total stranger. The medical secretary of the Philadelphia hospital where I had applied for a job turned out to be kinder to me than my own parents. As soon as I wrote to her, she advanced me the airfare from Hong Kong to New York against my future earnings, whereas my millionaire father and stepmother simply turned down my request for a loan. In America, I found that my gender and ethnic origin were still a hindrance, but the country was large and the people were generous. However, despite these favourable considerations, I did come across one particularly ugly instance of discrimination.

In the 1970s, there were few board-qualified and fully trained physicians specialising in anaesthesia. As such, my services were in demand. A Catholic order that owned a large and prestigious private hospital in Los Angeles encouraged me to apply for a position in obstetric anaesthesia. In due course, I was interviewed. As soon as I sat down in front of the white, male and arrogant head of department, that familiar childhood feeling of ‘being picked on’ came flooding back.

‘Despite what you have been told by the nuns who own this hospital,’ he began, ‘our medical group is not looking for more anaesthesiologists.’

Taken aback, I said somewhat lamely, trying to please the godlike figure in front of me, ‘I thought I might be given a chance to do locums and fill-ins during sick leaves and vacations.’

‘Look!’ he replied icily. ‘No one in our group ever gets sick or takes a vacation. Do you understand?’

I stared back at him in silence and he added, ‘Have I made myself perfectly clear?’

I nodded and prepared to leave. In those days anaesthesia jobs were plentiful. His rejection did not devastate me because I knew that I would be able to find a position elsewhere. As I bade him goodbye, however, I was seized by a sudden impulse. With my hand on the doorknob, I turned to him and asked, ‘Have you ever heard of the Chinese proverb “binding your feet to prevent your own progress”?’

That proverb guo zu bu qian was a phrase first used by the King of Qin’s minister, Li Si, in the third century BC. Like the brain drain into the United States today, a similar flow of talent was happening 2200 years ago. Qin was the richest state of that era and talented scholars from all the other states flocked there to seek employment. Their success caused such resentment among Qin’s native population that they eventually persuaded the King to expel all non-Qin scholar-officials. Reluctant to relinquish his post, Li Si wrote a letter to the King of Qin protesting against his deportation. He complained that Qin’s new exclusionary policy was akin to ‘binding your feet to prevent your own progress’.

Li Si was a commoner from a humble family from southern Chu (present-day south-eastern Henan province). During that time of constant warfare, talented young men would seek out famous writers and philosophers to be their teachers. After a period of study, the young scholars would travel from state to state and attempt to attach themselves as advisers to the rulers. These scholar-bureaucrats were called shih. Their function was comparable to the tasks performed by political aides and ministers today.

As a teenager, Li Si worked as a petty district clerk for a few years. He wanted to save up enough money to study under Xunzi, an outstanding Confucian scholar who lived about 600 li (200 miles) away — at that time considered a great distance. Even at that early stage of his life, Li Si already had the foresight to conclude that man’s fate depends very much on where he chooses to live.

After completing his studies, Li Si did not wish to go back to his native state of Chu. Recognising that Qin was becoming increasingly powerful, Li Si decided that he would travel there to seek employment. On leaving, he said to his teacher Xunzi: ‘I have heard that one should not hesitate when the right moment dawns. Now is the time … The King of Qin wishes to devour the other states and rule them. This is the opportunity for the common man to rise. It is the golden period of the wandering scholar. One who does not move and decides to remain passive at this juncture is like a bird or deer that will merely look at a tempting morsel of meat but not touch it. There is no greater ignominy than lowness of position, nor deeper pain than penury … Therefore, I shall go west to give advice to the King of Qin.’

Knowing himself to be a Confucian moralist whereas his pupil was a realist, Xunzi replied: ‘You and I think at cross-purposes. What you consider an “advantage” is a disadvantageous advantage. The true advantage is what I call “benevolence” and “righteousness”. These are the two essential qualities with which to conduct a government. Under such a government, the people have affection for their ruler. They celebrate their prince and are willing to die for him. Therefore it has been said: “Of governing matters, generals and commanders should come last.” Although the state of Qin has been triumphant for four generations, it has lived in constant terror that the other states will unite and destroy it some day. Now you are seeking not for what should come at the beginning (that is, benevolence and righteousness), but what should come at the end (that is, generals and commanders). My conclusion is that your generation is confused.’

In 247 BC, Li Si travelled from his village home to Xianyang. He sought out the Prime Minister, Lü Buwei, and became one of Lü’s 3000 house guests. Impressed with his literary talent, Lü Buwei took Li Si under his wing and introduced him to thirteen-year-old King Zheng, who had just ascended the throne following the death of his father. According to Shiji, this was Li Si’s advice to the boy King:

‘The little man is one who discards his opportunities, but great feats are achieved only by giants who can profit from the mistakes of others, and single-mindedly complete their mission …

‘Many feudal lords of the other six states are already paying allegiance to Your Majesty, as if they were your prefectures. With the might of Qin and Your Majesty’s great ability, conquering the other states would be as easy as wiping dust from the surface of a kitchen stove. Qin possesses sufficient power at present to annihilate the other rulers, found a single empire and rule the world. This is the chance of ten thousand generations. If you should let go of this opportunity, the various nobles might form a great alliance against you from north to south and rediscover their power. Against that union you will never prevail, even if you were the Yellow Emperor himself.’

Lü Buwei and the boy King were both impressed by Li Si’s presentation, so much so that they conferred upon him the office of senior scribe.

Shiji tells us that ‘the King listened carefully to Li Si’s plans and secretly recruited agents, provisioned them with gold and precious jewels, and commissioned them to go from state to state lobbying the feudal lords and ministers of note. They were instructed to reward those whose submission could be bought with gold. As for those who would not acquiesce, they were to be killed with sharp swords.’

Li’s advice closely echoed King Zheng’s own inclinations. From then on, the young King made every effort to weaken and sever the various alliances between the different states using bribery, threats, espionage and negotiation. Meanwhile, the other states were already enmeshed in a tangle of intrigue directed against each other as well as against Qin. Shiji records one such incident:

The King of Haan came up with the idea of preoccupying the state of Qin with massive construction projects so as to slow down its military expansion. He therefore dispatched the water engineer Zheng Guo to see King Zheng of Qin. Engineer Zheng successfully persuaded the King into building a canal between the Jing river and the Lo river for irrigation purposes.

The terrain between the two rivers was hilly and uneven. The canal was 300 li [90 miles] long and required the construction of a tunnel beneath the hills. The massive project involved years of hard labour and hundreds of thousands of workers. It was only partially completed when the King discovered that Engineer Zheng Guo was a spy working for the state of Haan. The King was about to execute the engineer when the latter said, ‘It is true that this scheme was meant to harm you. However, if you should allow the canal to be constructed, it will be of tremendous benefit to your state in the future. By this scheme, I have extended the life of the state of Haan for only a few years; but my project will benefit the state of Qin for ten thousand generations.’

The King changed his mind and allowed the work to continue. When completed, the canal irrigated over 500,000 acres of previously arid land with water full of rich sediment. The interior of Qin became fertile and productive. Qin grew rich and powerful and was able to conquer all the other states. The canal was named ‘Zheng Guo Canal’ after the engineer who built it.

The plot of the Zheng Guo Canal was uncovered at about the same time as the rebellion instigated against the King by Lao Ai. Members of the royal family and other Qin nobles had long been resentful of the high offices held by foreign officials, so now they pointed out to the King that all the ringleaders in the recent conspiracies were not natives of Qin. They warned the King that the non-Qin scholar-officials who came ostensibly to serve Qin were mostly spies working on behalf of their own sovereigns. Their true purpose was to cause chaos within Qin. The nobles convinced the King to sign an order expelling all visiting scholars from Qin.

On finding his name on the list of those to be banished, Li Si wrote a powerful memorial to the throne pleading against the ordinance. He began by pointing out that several ancient kings had profited greatly from the use of foreign scholars. According to Shiji, Li’s letter continued:

At present, Your Majesty collects jade from the Kunlun mountains, enjoys the treasures of Shui and Ho, dangles pearls bright as the moon, and wears a Tai-oh sword on his belt. He rides horses from Xianli and waves banners decorated with green phoenixes. He plays on drums made by stretching the skin of crocodiles. Of all these treasures, not one was produced by Qin. Yet Your Majesty delights in them. May I ask why?

If only products from Qin were allowed in Qin, then these luminous jades that brighten the night would not decorate your court, and art objects made from rhinoceros horns or elephants’ tusks would no longer be available. Beautiful girls from Zheng and Wei would not fill your inner palaces, and the fastest-running horses would be absent from your stables.

The music of Qin used to consist of the beating of earthenware pitchers, pounding on jars, plucking of the strings of the zheng,

(#ulink_3110f4ed-f442-50de-87b5-b84309c51c59) and thumping on bones while crying ‘Wu! Wu!’ Such was Qin’s method of pleasing the ear and the eye.