With Them Passed Away The Practice Of Letting The Most Capable And
Experienced Minister Rule The State.
Such an impartial and reasonable mode
of selecting the head of a community can never be perpetuated.
The rulers
themselves may see its advantages and may endeavor as honestly as these
three Chinese princes to carry out the arrangement, but the day must come
when the family of the able ruler will assert its rights to the
succession, and take advantage of its opportunities from its close
connection with the government to carry out its ends. The Emperor Yu, true
to the practice of his predecessors, nominated the president of the
council as his successor, but his son Tiki seized the throne, and became
the founder of the first Chinese dynasty, which was called the Hia, from
the name of the province first ruled by his father. This event is supposed
to have taken place in the year 2197 B.C., and the Hia dynasty, of which
there were seventeen emperors, ruled down to the year 1776 B.C. These Hia
princes present no features of interest, and the last of them, named Kia,
was deposed by one of his principal nobles, Ching Tang, Prince of Chang.
This prince was the founder of the second dynasty, known as Chang, which
held possession of the throne for 654 years, or down to 1122 B.C. With the
exception of the founder, who seems to have been an able man, this dynasty
of twenty-eight emperors did nothing very noteworthy. The public morality
deteriorated very much under this family, and it is said that when one of
the emperors wanted an honest man as minister he could only find one in
the person of a common laborer. At last, in the twelfth century before our
era, the enormities of the Chang rulers reached a climax in the person of
Chousin, who was deposed by a popular rising headed by Wou Wang, Prince of
Chow.
This successful soldier, whose name signifies the Warrior King, founded
the third Chinese dynasty of Chow, which governed the empire for the long
space of 867 years down to 266 B.C. During that protracted period there
were necessarily good and bad emperors, and the Chow dynasty was rendered
specially illustrious by the appearance of the great social and religious
reformers, Laoutse, Confucius and Mencius, during the existence of its
power. The founder of the dynasty instituted the necessary reforms to
prove that he was a national benefactor, and one of his successors, known
as the Magnificent King, extended the authority of his family over some of
the States of Turkestan. But, on the whole, the rulers of the Chow dynasty
were not particularly distinguished, and one of them in the eighth century
B.C. was weak enough to resign a portion of his sovereign rights to a
powerful vassal, Siangkong, the Prince of Tsin, in consideration of his
undertaking the defense of the frontier against the Tartars. At this
period the authority of the central government passed under a cloud.
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