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which he explains better than Kang-shing. | thus:一過勇則不免于濫殺

Wang Suh read, which is susceptible of 惟當于凶殘者取之抗

being taken either for 禦

or

·迓The

mean

者誅之

以役西十,the transla- 勿迎而擊

ing is substantially the same, whether we adopt

迓 or T
or禦
tion of this is after K'ang-shing. Ma Yung and

Wang Suh took the clause as 'do your best
to serve our western land.' Gan-kwǒ under-

stood it differently :-It is thus you will make

them submissively acknowledge the righteousness of our western land'

之若有奔走來
以勞

土之人,勉哉爾將

殺降是

爾將土若 若于我之

10. 爾所所不勉或輕進或貪

不勗-s勗哉夫子 has been re- 無勇而殺降,是違

peated at the close of the several instructions 失紀律也則有常

or admonitions, we must suppose that the warn- 戮及爾身罔有攸矣

ing here belongs to each of them. The 'Daily

Explanation’paraphrases the 9th and 10th parr.不戒哉。

而必可

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BOOK III. THE SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION OF THE WAR.

商于步己翼死壬 HE

征自王日魄辰

厥伐周朝癸越旁月

̇飾

武成

1 I. In the first month, the day jin-shin immediately followed the

end of the moon's waning. The next day was kweike, when the

king in the morning marched from Chow to attack and punish Shang.

The Name of the Book.-, “The ★ || (p. 6), he states how he had inherited

Successful Completion of the War.' The phrase
-t, meaning, literally, military affairs
completed,' occurs in the 3d paragraph, and has
thence been taken to denominate the Book. It
is not objectionable as a designation; though it
by no means covers the contents, they all grow
up around the accomplishment of Woo's enter-
prise. The Book is found only in the old Text.

the possessions and the duties of king Wăn, and how he declared to the spirits the crimes of

Show; from

Ì (p. 6) to !! 1

(p. 8), he repeats his prayer to the spirits. From to the end, the historian again resumes his narrative, aud tells of the attack on Show, of his death, of Woo's entrance into the capital of Yin, and of his governmental

measures.

The prayer, however, which concludes with

1 is incomplete. According to the analogy of other prayers, recorded in the

DIFFICULTIES IN THE ARRANGEMENT AND INTERPRETATION. These will fully appear in the course of the exposition; it may be sufficient here to describe them generally, and for that purpose I will use in the first place the words of Ying-tă. He says:This Book consists mainly of narrative; the portion composed of the king's words is small. The language of the, there ought to be, after those words, several parts is without the beginning and the end properly marked, and its composition altogether is different from that of the other Books.

From 惟一月(p. 1) down to受命于

some protestation by Woo of his own intentions. And when all the princes and officers were receiving their investitures and commands from the new emperor of the House of Chow, we cannot suppose that he did not address them, in a manner similar to T'ang, in his Announcement.' With so many speeches to them before the conflict, we cannot believe that he simply related to them after its close his prayer to the spirits. On these two grounds I must conclude that a portion of the Book, immediately follow

(p. 4), the historian relates the march to the attack of Yin, and the return from the enterprise, with the assembling of the princes: -as introductory to the words of the king. From 王若日to大統未集(both in p. 5), Woo narrates the rise of their House ing these words-, has been of Chow; from (p. 5) to lost.

'Perhaps it was wanting when the tablets were hidden away in the wall; perhaps it was among the confused and broken fragments which Gan-kwo says there were in addition to the 58 Books which he recovered. As he found in the tablets of this Book a beginning of it and an end, he did not say anything of the intermediate portion being deficient.'

Woo and Show, going on to subsequent events, and important governmental measures of the new dynasty.

Ch. I. Pp. 1-4. THE MARCH TO THE ATTACK, AND CONQUEST, OF SHANG. THE RETURN, AND MEASURES ON THE CONCLUSION OF THE WAR.

1. 惟一月壬辰旁死魄

, the first month'; but whether we are to understand the first month of the Hea year, the first month of spring; or the first month of the Chow year,-the second month Ts'ae endeavours here to reinforce his view that of winter, cannot yet be determined. the month is the first of the Hea year, by

calling attention to the language, A. and not E; but this circumstance is of little weight. 壬辰 is the calendaric

Ying-tă was thus of opinion that the Book was deficient; but it does not appear that he had any doubts as to the relative order in which the several portions stand. He thought some tablets were lost; but did not suppose that any of those preserved had been displaced. In the Sung dynasty, however, the critics assumed not only that there were portions missing, but that the remaining tablets were all disordered and confused. Ch'ing E-ch'uen), Lew Gan-she(), and others, had their several ways of arranging them so as to produce a consistent narrative; and Ts'ae Ch'in, profiting by the determinations of his master Choo He, produced an edition of the Book, which has superseded the old one in the copies of the Shoo which are now taught in schools. It will be found, with a translation, in an appendix. Scholars of the present dynasty for the most part acquiesce in his views, when they do not discard the old text altogether. There are some, however, who think they can improve, the beginning of the birth of light,' on him, and Wang Loo-chae has given a disposition of the paragraphs somewhat different in his edition of Doubts about the Shoo.'

Maou Ke-ling will not admit either of disorder or defect in the Book. He has certainly proved by references to the and the , that the prayer of Woo to the spirits was a part of his specch or announcement to

on

name of the day, and it was

(read p'ang,

3d tone,=, 'near to' close by")

E

next to the day of the dead disk.' This expression is generally understood to be descriptive of the first day of the new moon. In p. 4 we find the phrase, denoting the 15th day or full moon. In p. 2, again, we have

as denoting the third day, when the moon first becomes visible. It is clear therefore that the term

魄 was applied to the disk of the moon

from the the time it began to wane until the new moon reappeared. How it came to be so used, I do not perceive. The has instead of, but pronounced in the same way; and in the dict. we find the definition quoted,

the princes ;一see the 尙書廣聽錄 the武成. So far it is established that the 一月體黑者謂之霸(the body

disorder in the parts which the Sung critics complained of and tried to remedy,-if indeed we should call it disorder,-existed even during the Chow dynasty. Maou says, 'If the text be not good, we have only to be content with it as it is. In this he is right. The ingenuity of the critics has not been of service either to history

or the classic.

CONTENTS. Those are summarily and correctly stated in the prefatory Notice. King Woo smote Yin; and the narrative of his proceeding to the attack, and of his return and

sending his animals back to their pastures, with his governmental measures, form 'The Completion of the War. The whole is divided in Yungching's Shoo into 9 parr., which I have rearranged in 10, including them also in three chapters. The first chapter, containing 4 parr., consists of brief historical notes of the com

mencement and close of Woo's expedition.

The second also contains 4 parr., and gives the

of the moon when dark is called.'

[Fan Sze-lin (潘士) observes that after the 1st day of the moon, the light went on to grow, and the darkness of her disk (Á) to disappear; that if the previous month was 'great' (consisted, that is, of 30 days), then on the second day of the month, the 'light' began. He concludes that this was the case here, and that the day denoted by H

was not

the second but the first day of the month. The editors of Yung-ching's Shoo are inclined to agree with him, saying it is more natural and in rule to find a specification of the first day

of the month than of the second. This view does not seem unlikely.]

越翼日癸已越及;翼日

address (or a part of it) delivered by Woo to, the morrow' follows 癸已 壬

his nobles and officers on occasion, we may

suppose, of their solemn recognition of him as in the calendar. 王朝步自周

emperor, and of his confirming some of them

in their old investitures or appointments, and, to travel,' 'to march;'

giving new ones to others. The third, in the

two concluding parr., is again historical, and is, literally, 'the king paced it.' 周 is

relates several incidents of the battle between understood to stand here for Woo's capital,

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In the fourth month, at the first appearance of the moon-the king came from Shang to Fung, when he hushed all the movements of war, and attended to the cultivations of peace. He sent back his horses to the south of mount Hwa, and let loose his oxen in the open country of T'aou-lin, showing the empire that he would not use them again.

and cut the head off with his 'yellow' battleaxe, and made it be suspended from the staff of a large white flag. Much in the same way he dealt with the bodies of two of Show's concubines who had killed themselves; and then returned to his army. These accounts are taken from the Historical Records,' and are put down by subsequent writers as lying legends, inconsistent with Woo's character.

called Haou (), which was 30 le south of the pres. dis. city of Ch'ang-gan, dep. of Segan, Shen-se. In the next par. it is stated that he returned to Fung, which had been the capital of his father Wan, in the pres. dis. of Hoo (), of the same dep. The two places were only about 8 miles apart; Haou on the east of the river Fung, and Fung on the west of it. The site of Haou was converted into a lake (great state, attended by his brothers and the

明池) 帝

Next day he entered the capital of Shang in

chiefs of his host, and solemnly accepted the

by the emp. Woo (charge of the empire. It was said to him, on

B.C. 139-87) of the Han dyn. 于征
-F-1, 'to go,' 'to proceed.'

[We saw, in the Great Speech,' Pt. ii., p. 1, that on the day mow-woo, the 28th day of the 1st month, king Woo halted on the northern bank of the Ho. On that same day he had

behalf of all the nobles, "The last descendant

of the House of Yin having destroyed and disowned the bright virtue of his forefathers, having insolently discontinued the sacrifices to the spirits, and having blindly tyrannized over the people of Shang, the report of his deeds ascended to the great God in heaven'

crossed the river;--see the 9th par. below. The H F F C †

distance from Haou to Măng-tsin is said by Ying-tă to be 1,000 le, and I have seen another estimate of it at 900 le. Taking the larger number, we have 25 days' marches, of 40 le each, or about 14 miles per day, which could be accomplished without difficulty. Five days after (the day, Woo drew up his army in the borders of Shang, and waited for the dawn of the next morning, the 4th day of the 2d month, to decide the contest between himself and Show.

After the battle, Show fled to the 'Stag tower,' and burned himself to death. In the mean time, Woo, having received the congratulations of the princes on his victory, pressed on after the tyrant. On arriving at the capital, the people were waiting outside the walls in anxious expectation, which the king relieved by sending his officers among them with the words, Supreme Heaven is sending down

blessing (上天降休). The multitudes

reverently saluted the king, who bowed to them in return, and hurried on to the place where the dead body of Show was. Having discharged three arrows at it from his chariot, he

On this,

Woo bowed twice, with his head to the ground, and said, It is right that I should change the great charge; that I should put away the House of Yin, and receive myself the great appointment of Heaven' He then again bowed twice, with his head to the ground, and went

out.

In this way king Woo took on himself the One of his first sovereignty of the empire. steps was to appoint Show's son, Luh-foo

), prince over the domain of Yin; and he appears to have remained in the capital of Shang between two and three months, employed in the measures described in the last two parr. of this Book, and in others requisite to the establishment of the dynasty of his House.]

Pp. 2, 3. Measures in the 4th month showingthat the war was over.

2. 旣四月

哉(一)生明this was the gd day

of the month ;-see on the last par, But there

had been an intercalary month between This is proved in the following manner.-The day

descended, struck the body with a light sword, of par 3 evidently belonged to the 4th.

2

成大戌三豆奔侯廟

O

◎告柴日簒走衞邦于丁

旣武望庚越執駿甸周未

3 On the day ting-we he sacrificed in the ancestral temple of Chow, when the chiefs of the imperial domain and of the teen, how, and wei domains all hurried about, carrying the dishes. Three days after, he presented a burnt-offering to Heaven, and worshipped towards the mountains and rivers, solemnly announcing the successful completion of the war.

month. 甲子,the day of the battle of 'number; see Ke-ling's 古文尙書寃 Bk. IV., on the point.

Muh, was the 4th of the 2d month, which we

may suppose had 29 days. This brings us to

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for the first day of the next month, the 18th of which was a Tday; but it could

not be that of the text. We have to count 60 days before we come to the next day,

which would consequently be in the 5th month,

unless there was an intercalary month between

[In the Le Ke, the Bk. 1, pp. 29-22, there is an expansion of the text, celebrating

King Woo. It may be that the author had before him some copy of the 武成

current in the Han dynasty, fuller than that which we now have. In p. 19, it is said

the 1st and the 4th,The chronologers are all華山之陽而弗復乘牛

agreed in supposing that there was a second

month intercalary this year; and consequently

the ting-we day of the text would be the 18th

or 19th of the fourth mouth.

林之野而弗復服

藏之府庫而弗

至于用倒載干戈包之以虎皮

-Fung was the capital of Wan and here was

the ancestral temple of the princes of Chow.

That was the reason, as we gather from the

next par., why Woo went in the first place to

Fung and not to Haou. 偃武修文

然後天下知武王之不

3. Various sacrifices, and solemn announcement

-in the rest of the par. we have two instances of the completion of the War. TF

of the 'hushing of military measures,' (is-the fourth month would commence

defined by, 'to sleep,' 'to send to sleep);'

what the cultivations of peace' were, we are

not told.

onor, according as the pre

華山之陽=華山之 vious one had 29 or 30 days, and 丁未

, 'the south of mount Hwa.' For mount Hwa, see on 'The Tribute of Yu,' Pt. i., p. 62. The wild of Taou-lin' (Peach forest) is referred to the country about the hill of Muh

new

(4), called also the hill of K'wa-foo

(), in the south-east of the pres. dep. of Tung-chow (». An objection has

been taken to the credibility of the account here

on the ground that the horses and oxen belong ed to the people,—were only contributed by them for the expedition; and that to appropriate them to himself in this way, instead of return. ing them to their owners, was an act befitting Show, and not at all to be expected from king Woo. But we may be sure these were Woo's own horses and oxen. If it be granted that the people did supply a portion of the animals used in war, the sovereign himself furnished a larger

have been the 18th or 19th day. Before setting out on his enterprise, Woo had sacrificed to his father, to God and the earth (The Great speech,' Pt. i., p. 10); here at its close he sacrifices, and, we may suppose, gives thanks at the same

altars. 邦甸侯衛-see the account

and figure on pp. 148, 149, of the divisions of the empire under the Chow dynasty. By the 邦

we must understand, I think, the central

division, the imperial domain () and

we have three of the divisions

which lay beyond it,--a part for the whole of the

dom.' We cannot account for the irregularity
five domains which constituted the 'middle king-
of the order in which they are given. After
we must understand equivalent to ‘the
chiefs,' which I have supplied in the translation.

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