by An Liu
18.26
When the sage undertakes an affair, he does not pay extra attention to it. He investigates its basis; that is all. If ten thousand people were to tune a bell, they could not get it near the [proper] pitch. If you find someone who really understands [music], one person will suffice. The arguments of persuaders are also like this. If they truly achieve their aim, there is no need for more. The essence of what makes a cart able to travel one thousand miles is in three inches of axle. If you exhort people and cannot move them, if you warn people and cannot halt them, it is because the basis [of your words] is not reasonable.
In the olden days, the lord of Wey paid court to Wu and the king of Wu161 imprisoned him, intending to cast him out to the sea. The persuaders and officials opposed [the king] yet could not stop him. When the lord of Lu heard of this, he unhooked his bells and drums and attended court in white [mourning] clothes. When Confucius saw him, he said, “Why do you look distressed?” The lord of Lu said, “The Lords of the Land have no kin; only [the other] Lords of the Land are our kin. The nobles have no companions; only [other] nobles are their companions. Now the lord of Wey has paid court to Wu, and the king of Wu has imprisoned him and wants to cast him out to sea. Who would think that someone as Humane and Righteous as the lord of Wey would encounter this difficulty! I would like to save him but am unable. What can I do about it?” Confucius said, “If you would like to save him, then please [let] Zigong go.” The lord of Lu summoned Zigong and granted him a general’s seal. Zigong declined it, saying, “Rank is of no aid in resolving calamity; it resides in the Way that one takes as one’s basis.” Traveling incognito, he arrived in Wu and saw Great Steward Pi.162 Great Steward Pi was very pleased with him and wanted to recommend him to the king. Zigong said, “You are not able to make a persuasion for the king; why don’t I [make one] for you?” Great Steward Pi said, “How do you know that I am not able?”
Zigong said, “When the lord of Wey came, half of Wey said that it would be better to pay court to Jin; the other half said that it would be better to pay court to Wu. However, the lord of Wey felt that he could consign his flesh and bones to Wu, so he bound himself [by oath] and awaited orders. Now you receive the lord of Wey and imprison him and also want to cast him out to sea. This is rewarding those who spoke for paying court to Jin and punishing those who spoke for paying court to Wu. Moreover, the Lords of the Land all consider the arrival of the lord of Wey as an augury. If now he pays court to Wu and does not benefit, they all will shift their hearts to Jin. If you hope to complete the work of becoming hegemon, will it not be difficult?” Great Steward Pi went in [to court] and repeated this to the king. The king responded by issuing orders to the hundred officials that said, “For the next ten days, anyone who does not treat the lord of Wey with perfect propriety will die!” Zigong may be said to have understood how to persuade.163 [18/200/12–27]
Duke Ai of Lu was building living quarters, and they were [very] large. Gongxuanzi164 admonished him, saying, “If rooms are big,
when one occupies them with a great many people, they are cacophonous;
when one occupies them with few people, they are gloomy.
I would urge you to amend them.” The duke said, “I hear and obey.” [Yet] the building of the living quarters continued uninterrupted. Gongxuanzi had an audience again and said,
“When the state is small and the living quarters are large;
when the common people hear of it, they will certainly resent my ruler.
When the Lords of the Land hear of it, they will certainly scorn my state.”
The lord of Lu said, “[I] hear and obey.” [Yet] the building of the living quarters continued uninterrupted. Gongxuanzi had an audience again and said, “To the left is [the ancestral temple of Duke] Zhao, and to the right [is the ancestral temple of Duke] Mu. To build such grand rooms next to the temples of the two former lords, can it not be harmful to the son?”165 The duke thereupon ordered that work be stopped and that the frame be disassembled and discarded.
The lord of Lu was determined in his desire to build the living quarters; Gongxuanzi was persistent in curbing him. Yet of three persuasions, only one was listened to; the other two were not [the duke’s] Way. If you cast a hook at the riverside, and after it has been in all day, you are unable to catch a single white fish, it is not that the river fish do not eat, it is that what you are using as bait is not what they desire. When a skilled hand grasps the pole, casts [the hook,] and pierces biting lips, he is able to do so because he has lured [the fish] with what they desire. There is no thing about which nothing can be done, [only] people who have nothing they can do. Lead and cinnabar are of different categories and have separate colors. Yet if one can use [both of] them to produce scarlet, it is because one has grasped the technique. Thus intricate formulas and elegant phrases are of no aid to persuasion. Investigate what they take as the basis; that is all. [18/201/1–9]
18.27
The juxtapositions of the categories of things so that they are close [to one another] but of a different family are numerous and difficult to recognize. Thus
some are placed in categories to which they do not belong;
some are excluded from categories to which they do belong.
Some seem so and are not;
some are not and seem so.
A proverb says, “When a hawk dropped a rotten mouse, the Yu clan was lost.” What does this mean? It is said that the Yu clan were tycoons of Liang. Their household was replete with riches; they had limitless gold and coins, immeasurable wealth and goods. They raised a lofty tower on the edge of the highway on which they staged musical [performances], served wine, and played games of chess.166 As some wandering swordsmen passed under the tower together, one of the chess players above167 moved against his friend’s position and laughed as he turned over two pieces.168 [Just at that moment] a flying hawk dropped a rotten mouse as it passed and hit the wandering swordsmen.
The wandering swordsmen said to one another, “The Yu clan’s days of wealth and happiness have been long, and they often are scornful of other people’s will. We did not dare to disturb them, yet they insult us with a dead mouse. If this is not avenged, we will not be able to stand and proclaim ourselves to the world. Let us unite our strength to a single purpose, lead all our followers, and resolve to exterminate their house.” That night they attacked the Yu clan and exterminated the house. This is what is called “placing it in a category in which it does not belong.” [18/201/11–18]
What is called “excluding [it] from a category to which [it] does [belong]”? Qu Jian169 told Shi Qi, “Duke Sheng of Bo170 is about to rebel.” Shi Qi said, “Not so. Duke Sheng of Bo humbles his person and exalts knights; he would not dare treat the worthy arrogantly. His house lacks the safeguards of keys and locks or the security of crossbars and bolts. He uses oversized dou and hu [measures] in distributing [grain] and undersized jin and liang [weights] when collecting [it]. Your assessment of him is inaccurate.” Qu Jian replied, “These [conditions] are precisely why he will rebel.” After three years, Duke Sheng of Bo indeed did rebel,171 killing Prime Minister Zijiao172 and Minister of War Ziqi.173 This is what is called “being excluded from a category yet belonging to it.” [18/201/20–23]
What is called “seeming so and yet not”? Zifa was the magistrate of Shangcai.174 A common person committed a crime and faced punishment. The case was disputed and the arguments made. When it was decided before the magistrate, Zifa sighed with a pitiful heart. When the criminal had been punished, he did not forget Zifa’s kindness. After this, Zifa committed a crime against King Wei175 and fled. The man who had been punished thus disguised the one who had been kind to him, and the man who had been kind fled with him to a hut below the city walls. When pursuers arrived, [the man] stamped his foot and said angrily, “Zifa oversaw and decided my crime and had me punished; my hatred for him makes my bones and marrow ache. If I could get his flesh and eat it, I could never have enough!” The pursuers all felt he was tr
uthful and did not search the interior, so Zifa survived. This is what is called “seeming so and yet not.”176 [18/201/25–29]
What is called “not yet seeming so”? In antiquity, King Goujian of Yue humbled himself to King Fuchai of Wu.177 He asked to serve [Fuchai] personally as his minister and to give [Fuchai] his wife as concubine. He supplied the four seasonal sacrifices and remanded tribute every spring and autumn. He took down the altars of the soil and grain, exerted his energies [like a] commoner, lived in seclusion, and fought in the front ranks. He was extremely humble in all courtesies and extremely submissive in all speech. He distanced himself far from the mind of a rebel, yet with three thousand men he captured Fuchai at Guxu.178
One cannot fail to examine these four cases. What makes it difficult to understand affairs is that [people] hide their origins and conceal their tracks; they establish the selfish in the place of the impartial; they incline toward the deviant over the correct and confuse other people’s minds with victory. If one could make what people harbor internally tally perfectly with what they express externally, then the world would have no lost states or broken households. When the fox catches the pheasant, it must first prostrate its body and lower its ears179 and wait for [the pheasant] to come. The pheasant sees this and believes it, thus it can be enticed and captured. If the fox were to widen its eyes and stare directly [at the pheasant], manifesting its lethal inclination, the pheasant would know to be alarmed and fly far off, thus escaping [the fox’s] wrath.
The mutual deception of human artifice
is not merely the cunning of birds and beasts.
The resemblances between things and categories that cannot be externally assessed are numerous and difficult to recognize. For this reason, they cannot but be investigated. [18/202/1–8]
Translated by Andrew Meyer
1. Accepting the alternative Daozang reading of for . See Lau, HNZ, 185n.4.
2. Reading as a mistake for . See Lau, HNZ, 186n.1.
3. The Admonitions of Yao seems to be a lost text; it is not mentioned in any of the early histories or bibliographical treatises. HFZ 46/138/27 quotes the second sentence of this passage, citing it as “a saying of a former sage.”
4. Bian Que was a famous physician who lived in the fifth century B.C.E. See Shiji 105:2785–94.
5. According to Xu Shen, Yu Fu was a physician at the time of the Yellow Emperor. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1835n.12.
6. Yang Shuda asserts that this line is a superfluous interpolation, as the context would seem to suggest. See Lau, HNZ, 186n.7.
7. This battle took place in 597 B.C.E. See Zuozhuan, Xuan 12. Yong was a town in present-day Shaanxi Province.
8. Qin was a frontier region of Chu located in present-day Anhui Province.
9. Accepting Yu Dacheng’s proposed emendation. See Lau, HNZ, 186n.8.
10. Reading as the character qi (second tone; on top, on the bottom). See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1841n.8.
11. This anecdote also appears in LSCQ 10.4/50/24–28 and HFZ 21/42/21–23.
12. The gathering took place in 574 B.C.E. The Zuozhuan gives the name of the meeting site as Keling (Cheng 17; Yang 895).
13. Zuozhuan, Cheng 17. The Jiangli clan, Luan Shu , and Zhonghang Yan all were vassals of Jin.
14. This anecdote occurs in LSCQ 20.7/136/7–11.
15. The two anecdotes alluded to here, concerning Zhang Wu and Shenshu Shi, form the body of 18.13. Because their summary mention at this point is rather odd and breaks the flow of the envoy, these lines may be an interpolated note from a later commentator. For the provenance and background of these stories, see 18.13 and its attendant notes.
16. Changes, hexagrams 41, Sun, and 42, Yi, respectively.
17. This incident occurred in 502 B.C.E. See Shiji 14:667. Yang Hu was a knight of Lu who was briefly able to consolidate control over the ducal court.
18. This battle took place in 575 B.C.E. See Zuozhuan, Cheng 16. Yanling is in present-day Henan Province. King Gong reigned from 590 to 575 B.C.E.
19. Zifan was an aristocrat of the Chu royal clan. According to the Zuozhuan, he committed suicide after the battle.
20. This anecdote occurs in LSCQ 15.2/81/13–21 and HFZ 10/14/1–7.
21. This occurred in 400 B.C.E. See Shiji 44:1840. Yue Yang was a general of Wei. Zhongshan was a state established by the White Di people in present-day Hebei Province.
22. This anecdote appears in HFZ 22/49/7–9.
23. Meng Sun was a grandee of Lu during the Spring and Autumn period.
24. This anecdote appears in HFZ 22/49/11–14.
25. Gongsun Yang (also known as Lord Shang [ca. 390–338 B.C.E.]) was the prime minister of Qin. After falling out of favor in Qin, he fled to Wei but was refused refuge because of an old injury he had done to a Wei prince. See Shiji 68:2236–37.
26. This appears to allude to Gongsun Yang’s ultimate fate of being torn apart by chariots.
27. Accepting Yu Dacheng’s emendation. See Lau, HNZ, 188n.7.
28. The Zhanguoce gives this figure’s name as Ren Zhang .
29. Deleting the characters yixin , as recommended by Yang Shuda. See Lau, HNZ, 188n.10.
30. Viscount Huan of Wei (d. 446 B.C.E.), Viscount Kang of Hann , and Viscount Xiang of Zhao (d. 425 B.C.E.) were the leaders of great ministerial lineages of Jin. Each lineage ultimately founded an independent kingdom.
31. That is, Hann, Wei, and Zhao.
32. This anecdote appears in ZGC 264A/140/7–12 and HFZ 22/47/1–7.
33. This occurred in 658 B.C.E. See Zuozhuan, Xi 2; and Yang Bojun , Chunqiu Zuozhuan zhu (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1990), 281–83. Duke Xian ruled Jin from 676 to 651 B.C.E. Yu and Guo were small states in what is present-day Shaanxi Province. See also 7.16, 10.47, 11.7, 17.57, and 20.21.
34. Reading the original instead of Lau’s proposed emendation of (side rail).
35. Xun Xi , a grandee of Jin, was commander of the assault against Guo.
36. This anecdote occurs in LSCQ 15.2/81/23–82/6 and HFZ 10/14/10–19.
37. Four sacrifices are listed: jiao, wang, di, and chang (). According to Xu Shen, the first is to Heaven; the second is to the spirits of the sun, moon, stars, planets, mountains, and rivers; and the third and fourth are ancestral sacrifices. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1856n.2.
38. This presumably refers to the so-called five cardinal relationships of ruler to minister, father to son, husband to wife, older to younger brother, and friend to friend. Only four of these are subsequently mentioned, however. See Lau, HNZ, 189n.2.
39. Zhao Zheng — that is, Qin Shihuangdi.
40. Li Si (d. 208 B.C.E.) was the prime minister of Qin during the unification of the empire.
41. The symmetrical structure here is less clear than in other sections but nonetheless accords with the chapter as a whole. The example of Yu, Qi, and Lord Millet of high antiquity, whose activism produced meritorious results, is contrasted with that of Confucius, whose quietism during a later era of “yin Potency” was the correct path to a “resplendent name.”
42. That is, grandfather, father, son.
43. Literally, “the first born,” xian sheng —that is, the oldest of the “three generations.”
44. This line seems displaced from the beginning of the section, as it introduces the topic of both linked anecdotes.
45. Mounted nomads of the northern steppes.
46. This anecdote appears in LSCQ 25.2/161/22–26 and HFZ 32/83/7–9. According to Xu Shen, Gaoyang Tui was a grandee of Song. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1863n.3.
47. Lord Jingguo (also known as Tian Ying ) was a scion of the Tian clan who became prime minister of Qi in 311 B.C.E. His son attained fame as Lord Mengchang. His fief of Xue is located in present-day Shandong Province.
48. This anecdote also appears in HFZ 23/55/4–9 and ZGC 99/49/10–15.
49. It is unclear to which historical event the text is alluding, if any. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1865n.1.
50. According to Xu Shen, Niuzi , Kuozi , a
nd Wuhaizi all were ministers of Qi.
51. This battle took place in 632 B.C.E. See Zuozhuan, Xi 28. Jiu Fan (d. 622 B.C.E.) was a minister and Yong Ji was a ducal scion of Jin, respectively. Chengpu was a city located in present-day Shandong Province.
52. This passage seems to be out of place, as the preamble to this section seems to begin in the following line. These lines should be at the conclusion of the section. See Zhang Shuangdi 1997, 2:1867–68n.9.
53. This anecdote appears in LSCQ 14.4/73/26–14.4/74/2 and HFZ 36/113/9–16.
54. Zhang Mengtan was a vassal of Viscount Xiang of Zhao.
55. This anecdote appears, in a much extended version, in HFZ 10/15/10–10/17/2 and ZGC 203/103/24–203/105/6.
56. Gao He was another vassal of Viscount Xiang of Zhao.
57. This anecdote appears in HFZ 36/115/9–12 and LSCQ 14.4/74/9–13. It also occurs in 13.18. The Hanfeizi 36 version is translated in the introduction to chap. 19.
58. Laozi 62. The transmitted text of the Laozi and the two versions discovered at Mawangdui all are missing the second mei (beautiful).
59. Ximen Bao was a knight in the service of Marquis Wen of Wei. Ye is in present-day Hebei Province.
60. Di Huang was one of Marquis Wen of Wei’s court ministers.
61. Following Lau, HNZ, 192n.4.
62. Xie Bian was a magistrate of Wei.
63. Earl Mu of Zhonghang led the forces of Jin against Gu in 527 B.C.E. See Zuozhuan, Zhao 15. Gu was a small state in present-day Hebei Province.
64. Kui Wenlun was a grandee of Jin.
65. Meng Meng , a grandee of Qin, according to Xu Shen, was the son of the prime minister Baili Xi.
66. This attack occurred in 627 B.C.E. See Zuozhuan, Xi 33.
67. Xian Gao and Jian Tuo were merchants of Zheng.