tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37483648271764534862024-03-14T03:30:40.966-07:00Magister LudiJoseph Knechthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946837067475720887noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748364827176453486.post-5421452488353600212019-02-02T12:32:00.000-08:002019-02-02T12:52:23.792-08:00Even the Flowers Shed Tears: A Selection of China's Campaigns, 1947-2018<i>Note: This was originally written as an academic research paper. I'm copying the full text onto this blog for posterity's sake, given the relative obscurity this topic enjoys in the West. I wrote this in the hopes that some of my fellow westerners might see the Chinese Communist Party for what it is, rather than what they portray abroad.</i><br />
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<i>The title of this essay is taken from a beautiful poem titled "Spring View" </i>(<span style="background-color: white;">春望)</span><i> written by the inestimable poet Du Fu, who lived and wrote during the Tang Dynasty. <a href="http://www.chinese-poems.com/d15.html" target="_blank">The poem can be seen in its translated form here</a>.</i><br />
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<div align="center" class="MsoTitleCxSpFirst" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 40.0pt;">Even the Flowers Shed Tears<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoTitleCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 24.0pt;">A Selection of China’s Campaigns, 1947-2018<br clear="all" style="mso-special-character: line-break; page-break-before: always;" />
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoTitleCxSpLast">
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<h1 style="line-height: 200%;">
Introduction<o:p></o:p></h1>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Over
the course of its relatively short history, the Communist Party of China has
inflicted suffering on its own people the likes of which the Meiji Restoration’s
Imperial Japan could have never managed. During the Second Sino-Japanese War,
an estimated 17,000,000 to 22,000,000 Chinese civilians were killed<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>,
along with 3,800,000 to 10,600,000 military deaths<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>.
These numbers, while staggering, are eclipsed by a single event after the
successful ascension of Mao Zedong to power as the Communist Party of China
took control of the Middle Kingdom. Speaking with middle aged Chinese parents
today, one can get the sense that they realize things were once bad for their
nation; one also gets the sense that, whether through willing disbelief or true
ignorance of fact, they do not know what their own government has done to them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In a
broad sense, I wish this paper to be an exploration of the pain suffered by
those who have lived under the thumb of the Communist Party of China. For many,
they can never speak out regarding the horrors they suffered. For those who
have died due to the direct action or inept mishandling of the Communist Party
of China, it is imperative that historians, social scientists, politicians and
all others capable of speaking out not let the Party sweep its crimes under the
rug of history.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In a
more focused sense, I will be examining a few major events that have occurred
during the infancy of the People’s Republic of China. This examination will
follow a similar pattern for each event: I will identify the major actors that
are involved in the perpetration of the event, the dates during which the event
occurred, the main victims of the event, any statistics available regarding the
event, and a brief summary of how the event itself was handled both before and
after.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The
paper will be broken into two sections, with an introductory overview of the
events to be examined. As time has gone on with the party, the prevalence of
mass killing has faded, while more subtle methods have been introduced to
control the people of China. Beginning with Mao Zedong, we will see the
ham-fisted management of one of history’s greatest human rights violators,
murderers, and despots. This section will comprise the bulk of the paper and
will look at a selection of events that occurred under Mao. Examinations of the
systemic efforts to hide the atrocities committed by their predecessors will be
looked at in the second section. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In
terms of data for the paper, I will be attempting to compile both high and low
estimates into one database for the various events I will address. In addition
to that, I will compile a selection of government messaging and propaganda
regarding the events – though not an exhaustive one, as this is not feasible
given the length and breadth that some of the campaigns encompassed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Before
beginning in earnest, it is necessary to adopt a simple definition of what type
of event I will be studying. I will be looking at four different campaigns
taken under Mao’s tenure. I have chosen these four due to their relative
importance in the scheme of Mao’s leadership, though that should not suggest
the others do not matter or there are not many of them. This, along with
lowering the total number of events to be examined, will stop the narrative
from grinding to a halt over the countless executions of supposed criminals,
many of them political dissidents, that have occurred in a trickle or stream
over the years. In this paper, I wish to look at the torrential downpours of
destruction only. This relies on my supposition that, beyond the explicit
murder of young men and women vying for democracy during the June Fourth
Incident, the Party has learned after Mao that acts of mass murder were less
than palatable and left a mess that required great effort to cover up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I
should quickly note that in defining the totals killed, I have taken R.J.
Rummel’s democide as a jumping-off point. Rummel defines democide as the
intentional killing of unarmed or disarmed peoples by government agents acting
in their official capacity pursuing either a government policy or command. This
definition, which is much broader than many definitions of genocide, allows for
intentional acts that lead to unexpected outcomes – for example, mass famines –
to be included in any calculations of death totals. There is academic criticism
of this method, but I would argue that this is one of the best possible
definitions to encapsulate the staggering number of dead that the Party has
stacked up. In fact, this definition is used by Rummel in his work <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">China’s Bloody Century<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">[3]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></i>
to derive figures from historical accounts in a much more holistic way than
others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .25in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">In
advance, I ask the reader’s forgiveness if the work seems to have been too
light in some areas or too heavy in others – as with any attempt to weave a
narrative over a historical timeframe, these things rely on the writer’s skill
or lack thereof. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h1 style="line-height: 200%;">
Overview of Data<o:p></o:p></h1>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In this
first section I will give an overview of the major events which will be
considered in this paper. The following is a timeline that shows the major events
that I will be describing, along with data on the total number killed during
the events. As I said previously, these figures are estimates and thus will be
presented with both a low and high end. Sources for all the figures are
described in the paper. As mentioned before, I have not included every single
event in my work, as this is simply impossible given the vast number of
state-sanctioned killings and imprisonments that have occurred and are
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; mso-border-insideh: .5pt solid windowtext; mso-border-insidev: .5pt solid windowtext; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184; width: 625px;">
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<tr style="height: 15.0pt; mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;">
<td nowrap="" style="background: #F2F2F2; border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-background-themecolor: background1; mso-background-themeshade: 242; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 224.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="299"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Event Name<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td nowrap="" style="background: #F2F2F2; border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-background-themecolor: background1; mso-background-themeshade: 242; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 66.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="88"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Low Estimate<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td nowrap="" style="background: #F2F2F2; border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-background-themecolor: background1; mso-background-themeshade: 242; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 75.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="100"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">High Estimate<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<td nowrap="" style="background: #F2F2F2; border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-background-themecolor: background1; mso-background-themeshade: 242; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 56.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="75"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Begin Date<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<td nowrap="" style="background: #F2F2F2; border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-background-themecolor: background1; mso-background-themeshade: 242; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="64"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">End Date<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</tr>
<tr style="height: 15.0pt; mso-yfti-irow: 1;">
<td nowrap="" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 224.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="299"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Land Reform<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td nowrap="" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 66.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="88"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>700,000 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td nowrap="" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 75.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="100"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>4,500,000 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td nowrap="" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 56.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="75"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1947<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td nowrap="" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="64"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1952<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 15.0pt; mso-yfti-irow: 2;">
<td nowrap="" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 224.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="299"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Suppress
Counterrevolutionaries<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td nowrap="" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 66.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="88"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>712,000 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td nowrap="" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 75.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="100"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2,000,000 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td nowrap="" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 56.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="75"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1950<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td nowrap="" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="64"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1953<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 15.0pt; mso-yfti-irow: 3;">
<td nowrap="" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 224.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="299"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Great Leap Forward<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td nowrap="" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 66.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="88"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>23,000,000 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td nowrap="" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 75.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="100"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>53,330,000 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td nowrap="" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 56.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="75"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1958<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td nowrap="" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="64"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1962<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 15.0pt; mso-yfti-irow: 4;">
<td nowrap="" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 224.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="299"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Great Proletarian
Cultural Revolution<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td nowrap="" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 66.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="88"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>750,000 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td nowrap="" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 75.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="100"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>3,000,000 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td nowrap="" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 56.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="75"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1966<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td nowrap="" style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="64"><div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">1976<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 15.0pt; mso-yfti-irow: 5; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">
<td nowrap="" style="background: #E7E6E6; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-background-themecolor: background2; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 224.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="299"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Total<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td nowrap="" style="background: #E7E6E6; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-background-themecolor: background2; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 66.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="88"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>25,162,000 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td nowrap="" style="background: #E7E6E6; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-background-themecolor: background2; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 75.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="100"><div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>62,830,000 <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</td>
<td nowrap="" style="border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 56.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="75"></td>
<td nowrap="" style="border: none; height: 15.0pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 48.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="64"></td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoCaption">
<i>Figure <!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-no-proof:
yes'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span><span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'> </span>SEQ Figure \* ARABIC <span style='mso-element:
field-separator'></span></span><![endif]--><span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">1</span><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-no-proof:yes'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]-->:
Sources for estimated deaths is provided in the following pages. While larger
or smaller figures can be found, I selected the most credible low and high
estimates rather than simply the largest and smallest available.</i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<h1 style="line-height: 200%;">
Mao Zedong’s Campaigns<o:p></o:p></h1>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcPeDG7kyHYBceKNUMGr7ZZY1quay7Swdifbvl4eJFrJpCflNhxL8RVjylkzR4I0CVNBlY_h2RxJ_gz9iKDSM_ZsJf_gfqCQn3UFXJuaNo7SoewmgTBff97LoWo7auS7sX0H5pWWr5a8Iy/s1600/fig2.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="417" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcPeDG7kyHYBceKNUMGr7ZZY1quay7Swdifbvl4eJFrJpCflNhxL8RVjylkzR4I0CVNBlY_h2RxJ_gz9iKDSM_ZsJf_gfqCQn3UFXJuaNo7SoewmgTBff97LoWo7auS7sX0H5pWWr5a8Iy/s1600/fig2.jpg" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; page-break-after: avoid; text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><v:shape alt="Land reform in the whole nation is already basically accomplished -- the great achievements of three years People's Republic of China, 1952" id="Picture_x0020_3" o:spid="_x0000_i1029" style="height: 435pt; mso-wrap-style: square; visibility: visible; width: 312.75pt;" type="#_x0000_t75">
<v:imagedata o:title="Land reform in the whole nation is already basically accomplished -- the great achievements of three years People's Republic of China, 1952" src="file:///C:/Users/baxte/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image003.jpg">
</v:imagedata></v:shape></span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoCaption">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Figure <!--[if supportFields]><span style='mso-no-proof:
yes'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span><span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'> </span>SEQ Figure \* ARABIC <span style='mso-element:
field-separator'></span></span><![endif]--><span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">2</span><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-no-proof:yes'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]-->:
"Land Reform in the whole nation is already basically accomplished - the
great achievements of three years People's Republic of China"</i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Mao oversaw China’s most violent and
devastating campaigns. This paper will briefly explore a few, though there is
simply not enough space to explore each at the level it deserves. To keep
things simple, I will give an overview of each of the named campaigns along
with figures that could be found regarding the number of dead or imprisoned,
along with sourcing for each.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzkK84xfUAGs3iyRUV1Ob_qc2CKJnECDhATv0CTeas3Q-Ke0NZW3Lk7ifvO3PLofllQQKa1xe_QW_QUzhMfII7spxY0VCDgN8U3z0ywyZq4ekRdIjmyBRpObmFJ7avYdHK-EWVGo82YVYP/s1600/fig3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="341" data-original-width="479" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzkK84xfUAGs3iyRUV1Ob_qc2CKJnECDhATv0CTeas3Q-Ke0NZW3Lk7ifvO3PLofllQQKa1xe_QW_QUzhMfII7spxY0VCDgN8U3z0ywyZq4ekRdIjmyBRpObmFJ7avYdHK-EWVGo82YVYP/s1600/fig3.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; page-break-after: avoid; text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><v:shape alt="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BbA3ZY8uLsM/UuvvRTCNWGI/AAAAAAAAYuk/qp92_-vzfGk/s1600/denounce2.jpg" id="Picture_x0020_1" o:spid="_x0000_i1028" style="height: 255.75pt; mso-wrap-style: square; visibility: visible; width: 359.25pt;" type="#_x0000_t75">
<v:imagedata o:title="denounce2" src="file:///C:/Users/baxte/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image004.jpg">
</v:imagedata></v:shape></span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoCaption" style="text-align: center;">
<i>Figure <!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-no-proof:yes'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span><span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'> </span>SEQ Figure \* ARABIC <span style='mso-element:
field-separator'></span></span><![endif]--><span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">3</span><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-no-proof:yes'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]-->:
Peasant Denunciation of Landlord, Date Unknown<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Mao Zedong himself, when looking back
on the initial Land Reform Campaign which lasted from 1947 through 1952 with a
legal start date of June 30, 1950, remarked that 700,000 counterrevolutionaries
and class enemies had been executed during the simultaneous Land Reform
Campaign and Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries. These numbers are
questionable at best, though the high estimates are even more so. Fung Hoichiu,
who was the Secretary General of Hong Kong/Kowloon Trades Union Council, stated
that his sources estimated the death total at around 20,000,000 total.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>
Rummel puts the figures at closer to between 3,000,000 and 4,500,000 total dead
once all is said and done during the first Land Reform Campaign. When looking
at the totality of Mao’s campaign against landlords beginning in 1947 until
Mao’s grip on power ended with his death in 1976, between 13,500,000 and
14,250,000 total deaths related to class-based persecution occurred according
to Harry Wu<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The land reform campaign was incited
as part of a move towards collectivization. Those who owned land were to be
painted as evil and worthy of death, and Land Reform Squads were created to
root out and exterminate all landlords throughout China. Kang Sheng, a pivotal
part of Mao’s rise to power and the architect of the Land Reform Campaign,
utilized the lessons he had learned in Moscow while much of the rest of the
party was suffering the Long March in order to orchestrate what would be one of
the deadliest campaigns under Mao’s tenure. According to John Byron and Robert
Pack in their work <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Claws of the
Dragon: Kang Sheng – The Evil Genius Behind Mao – And His Legacy of Terror in
People’s China</i>, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
… agrarian reform cut
a bloody swath through much of rural China. Squads of Communist enforcers were
sent to the most remote villages to organize the local petty thieves and
bandits into so-called land reform teams, which inflamed the poor peasants and
hired laborers against the rich. When resentment reached fever pitch, peasants
at staged "grievance meetings" were encouraged to relate the
injustices and insults they had suffered, both real and imagined, at the hands
of "the landlord bullies." Often these meetings would end with the
masses, led by the land reform teams, shouting "Shoot him! Shoot
him!" or "Kill! Kill! Kill!" The cadre in charge of proceedings
would rule that the landlords had committed serious crimes, sentence them to
death, and order that they be taken away and eliminated immediately.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Roving bands of peasants, or dispossessed youth killing those
they deem to be anti-Party or anti-people, is a common theme in the Party’s
bloody early history. Harry Wu, in his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Classicide
in Communist China</i>, notes that by 1976 up to 90% of all landlords had been
executed, effectively destroying an entire class within the nation. By the
official end of Land Reform – when it was declared successful in 1953 – around
forty percent of the land had been forcibly stolen from the gentry class<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The next
campaign under Mao that will be examined is the Campaign to Suppress
Counterrevolutionaries, which extended from 1950 till 1953. Created under the
auspices of Liu Shaoqi, ostensibly to stop the banditry and resistance by
remnants of the Kuomintang, the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries
overlapped in part with the Land Reform. The campaign occurred at the same time
as the Korean War; Liu Shaoqi himself notes the importance of the Korean War
for both the Land Reform and Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries in
this way:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
Once the gongs and drums of resisting
the United States and assisting Korea begin to make a deafening sound, the
gongs and drums of the land reform and suppression of counter-revolutionaries
become barely audible, and the latter becomes much easier to implement. Without
the loud gongs and drums of resisting the United States and assisting Korea,
those of the land reform and zhenfan would make unbearable noise. Here a
landlord is killed and there another is beaten; there would be fuss everywhere.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.0pt;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The brutality and violence of the Land Reform was matched by
that of the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries. The Kuomintang and the
supposed bandits were used as a scapegoat to suppress dissidents of any kind. Again
to Rummel, whose excellent sourcing has been a boon for this paper, for a
description of how the trials and executions occurred for those accused of
being counterrevolutionaries:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
At such meetings, the
“criminals”—alleged “counterrevolutionaries”—might be penned up at the center
of the field, near a rostrum. After an announcement that the meeting was now
open, one of the accused “counterrevolutionaries” might then be hauled onto a
rostrum by soldiers and forced to kneel before the crowd. A public official,
possibly the mayor, might then recite the “counterrevolutionary” activities of
the “criminal” or a complainant would make his case against the accused, after
which the crowd would be encouraged to roar, curse and shout things like “Kill
him,” “Shoot the beast.” Then the verdict of death would be announced. Hearing
this, the crowd might then roar “Long Live the CCP!”; “Long Live the Victory of
the Revolution!” Each of the “counterrevolutionaries” would be similarly tried
and condemned.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
Afterwards, perhaps that evening or the
next day, the executions would be announced by loudspeaker, and households and
organizations would be ordered to send representatives to the execution
grounds. Past clapping crowds shouting “Shoot the Counterrevolutionaries!” the
victims might be trucked to a field packed with chatting and laughing
spectators. After each “counterrevolutionary” was shot, the crowd then might be
directed to applaud.16 After the above meeting held in Shen-yang, over 400
“counterrevolutionaries” were shot.17 Said Chow Ching-wen, a high communist
official at this time, “The masses had no quarrel with those who were executed,
yet they shouted and applauded the Government-sponsored massacre. I think in
their hearts they must have been frightened.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjymHh9-Rw7Mdv3JChzO5OxW3BoZj6Zch2HuRNOVt1ef28HWQtocqYz_WUPNwK0YEKQONNAOqSyZ-_h2DOYincO8T-C9DJnSzhCXbwdL7LAWql9hi0eB2F67S3zBNLuc-0WFs8JqxWDM-Ku/s1600/fig4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjymHh9-Rw7Mdv3JChzO5OxW3BoZj6Zch2HuRNOVt1ef28HWQtocqYz_WUPNwK0YEKQONNAOqSyZ-_h2DOYincO8T-C9DJnSzhCXbwdL7LAWql9hi0eB2F67S3zBNLuc-0WFs8JqxWDM-Ku/s1600/fig4.jpg" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: .5in; page-break-after: avoid; text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><v:shape alt="Image result for campaign to suppress counterrevolutionaries" id="Picture_x0020_4" o:spid="_x0000_i1027" style="height: 294.75pt; mso-wrap-style: square; visibility: visible; width: 203.25pt;" type="#_x0000_t75">
<v:imagedata o:title="Image result for campaign to suppress counterrevolutionaries" src="file:///C:/Users/baxte/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image005.jpg">
</v:imagedata></v:shape></span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoCaption" style="text-align: center;">
<i>Figure <!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-no-proof:yes'><span style='mso-element:field-begin'></span><span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'> </span>SEQ Figure \* ARABIC <span style='mso-element:
field-separator'></span></span><![endif]--><span style="mso-no-proof: yes;">4</span><!--[if supportFields]><span
style='mso-no-proof:yes'><span style='mso-element:field-end'></span></span><![endif]-->:
“He who harms the people will not easily escape justice!”<o:p></o:p></i><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Total estimates range from the official figure of 712,000
executions to 2,000,000<a href="file:///C:/Users/baxte/Google%20Drive/Georgia%20Tech/Fall%202018/Chinese%20Politics/Research%20Paper/Even%20The%20Flowers%20Shed%20Tears.docx#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>.
These numbers are again staggering, as is the lack of knowledge in the West of
their very existence. This was just the first of the political purges
undertaken by Party officials, and not even the last to be performed by Mao and
his direct subordinates. A similar purge, the Sufan movement, was aimed at
those inside the party and may have claimed another 700,000 lives<a href="file:///C:/Users/baxte/Google%20Drive/Georgia%20Tech/Fall%202018/Chinese%20Politics/Research%20Paper/Even%20The%20Flowers%20Shed%20Tears.docx#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Between the
Land Reform and the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries, a lowest
possible estimate of those killed is fielded by a team of scholars working on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Black Book of Communism<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">[10]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></i>
– at the very least, 1,000,000 people were killed given the necessity of at
least one enemy per village, while the highest estimate they suggest for the
period from 1947 to 1953 is around 15,000,000. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
deadliest event in modern Chinese history was the Great Leap Forward. Estimates
are almost impossible to make of the exact total given the overwhelming effort
by government officials to cover up the catastrophic results that happened as a
result of Mao’s failed attempts at collectivization and industrialization.
Today in China, students are taught not about the Great Famine, but instead
about the Three Years of Natural Disaster. The name alone gives enough
explanation as to what they intend, shirking the responsibility of those in
charge – Mao foremost among them – for failing in such a monstrous way. While
it is true that several factors conspired to bring about this event, the
crucial piece was indeed the leadership’s decision to pursue a type of
collectivization that ruined the economic productive capabilities of a nation
for many years, leaving those most vulnerable members of society exposed and
even more destitute than they had been originally. Stories of cannibalism,
infanticide, and extreme physical and mental duress abound during the Great
Leap Forward.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib0TX89VDUm6Re9XHfIyiaLAzptdJ0aoUZPLPP12-0xGT_8rxOacYcVW8pdRChw74KcN3mWAWXyqeUui68gJcZGmqKinhYfCW-5xRV9e3Ppbdd73rrh6H8Ehet3G1oydWr6FJpwa8XZV5X/s1600/fig5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="396" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib0TX89VDUm6Re9XHfIyiaLAzptdJ0aoUZPLPP12-0xGT_8rxOacYcVW8pdRChw74KcN3mWAWXyqeUui68gJcZGmqKinhYfCW-5xRV9e3Ppbdd73rrh6H8Ehet3G1oydWr6FJpwa8XZV5X/s1600/fig5.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><i>Figure 5: "</i></span><i>Long live the General Line! Long live the Great Leap Forward! Long live the People's Communes!"</i></div>
</div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><v:shape alt="Long live the General Line! Long live the Great Leap Forward! Long live the People's Communes!, 1964" id="Picture_x0020_5" o:spid="_x0000_i1026" style="height: 284.25pt; mso-wrap-style: square; visibility: visible; width: 194.25pt;" type="#_x0000_t75">
<v:imagedata o:title="Long live the General Line! Long live the Great Leap Forward! Long live the People's Communes!, 1964" src="file:///C:/Users/baxte/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image006.jpg">
</v:imagedata></v:shape></span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The lowest
figures, in terms of total deaths and population loss, come to 23,000,000<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">[11]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>.
The highest estimates put the total famine deaths at 53,330,000<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">[12]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>.
The massive variance can be attributed to a few things: first, the officials
who oversaw the villages, towns, cities and provinces were under great pressure
to show that Mao’s Great Leap Forward was a success. Second, people would often
underreport the number of dead in an attempt to continue collecting social
security for the deceased<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">[13]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>.
It is not possible for me to properly encapsulate the amount of suffering
experienced by those who went through this time of mass collectivization, nor
do I want to tarnish the seriousness of the topic by doing so in an academic
essay. Suffice it to say that this famine was the single deadliest man-made
disaster in all of history. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The last of
the events that will be examined during Mao’s tenure is that of the Cultural
Revolution, or more officially titled the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution. This event lasted far longer than the others, spanning from 1966
until 1976. Given the scope and detail that one could give to this time period
alone, it is impossible for me to properly encapsulate the spirit and actions
that took place during this ten-year period. To suggest that it began from
Mao’s fear that he was losing power would be an oversimplification; to delve
too deeply into the supposed roots given by official accounts would be to give
too much credence to any Party narrative. Even determinations of the total
dead, while usually difficult given the active attempts to cover up failures by
Party officials and inconsistent record keeping from villages, towns and
cities, are more confused here than anywhere else. In the decades after the
Cultural Revolution, much effort would be spent in hiding the truth of what
happened. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The total
dead from the Cultural Revolution is far below that of the Great Leap Forward,
although the damage to Chinese history and culture is incalculably higher. While
on the low end some estimates suggest that only 750,000 people were killed<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">[14]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>,
higher estimates go as far as to suggest 3,000,000 were killed during the
cultural revolution<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">[15]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">[16]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>.
The authors of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mao’s Last Revolution </i>suggest
that 36,000,000 people were persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUuiQ7mLE-I3OevzDzldvfyDNx9Ub6MJwQnnNllEzPEa-16YSpuud-aHmELgeWfIfQ2VCDljCB4RabomnBEobgODRYz5B19t8z2Mj2PYD4QLtHnQdehdp7Yd_Nl7pbK6LYiuhw92xx_Qte/s1600/fig52.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="412" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUuiQ7mLE-I3OevzDzldvfyDNx9Ub6MJwQnnNllEzPEa-16YSpuud-aHmELgeWfIfQ2VCDljCB4RabomnBEobgODRYz5B19t8z2Mj2PYD4QLtHnQdehdp7Yd_Nl7pbK6LYiuhw92xx_Qte/s1600/fig52.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; page-break-after: avoid; text-align: center;">
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><v:shape alt="Criticize the old world and build a new world with Mao Zedong Thought as a weapon" id="Picture_x0020_6" o:spid="_x0000_i1025" style="height: 311.25pt; mso-wrap-style: square; visibility: visible; width: 221.25pt;" type="#_x0000_t75">
<v:imagedata o:title="Criticize the old world and build a new world with Mao Zedong Thought as a weapon" src="file:///C:/Users/baxte/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image007.jpg">
</v:imagedata></v:shape></span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoCaption" style="text-align: center;">
<i>Figure 6: "Criticize the old world and build a new world with Mao Zedong thought as a
weapon"</i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In total, a
bare minimum can be established from the figures I have cobbled together – in
these four events alone, Mao directed policies that would lead to the deaths of
between 25,162,000 people at the low end and 72,580,000 at the high end. This
can by no means be taken as definitive, as the prospect of properly calculating
the total number of deaths in the face of a systemic effort to hide such
figures is nearly impossible. Add to that the lackluster – and sometimes
completely nonexistent – systems of bookkeeping in rural areas of China, and
the true extent of Mao’s devastation on the Chinese people will likely never be
known. As Yang Jisheng found while reporting on the effects of the Great Leap
Forward, there still exists a large effort even in the lower reaches of the
Chinese political world to obfuscate the damage caused by Mao and his failed
policies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Another
impossibility is determining how much of this should be attributed to malice,
incompetence, or bad luck. While the Chinese government itself will claim that
the Great Famine was greatly driven by drought and natural disaster, outside
observers are quick to point out the massive economic and social disruption
brought about by the movement of huge numbers of people, both in terms of
physical location and change in profession forced upon them by collectivization.
Again, any attempts to split the natural from the manmade here are doomed for
failure given the Party’s inimical footing towards those looking to investigate
their past actions. In the face of such an adversary and so many dead and
persecuted, one can only hope that history does not repeat itself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h1 style="line-height: 200%;">
Systemic Erasure<o:p></o:p></h1>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Immediately following the death of
Mao, efforts to hide his true face from the Chinese people began. In 1981, the
Party published the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Resolution on CPC
History<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">[17]</span></span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></i>.
In it, they play a trick of intellectual sophistry by dividing Mao in half. Mao
Zedong Thought, an “intellectual” theory so deeply enshrined in the party as to
be inseparable without the death of the Party itself, is cut away from Mao
Zedong the man. The Party claims, in no uncertain terms, that the actions taken
by Mao from 1966 to 1976 show a failure by Mao Zedong to live up to Mao Zedong
Thought. Further, they blame the worst excesses of the Cultural Revolution on
Lin Biao and Jiang Qiang, two disgraced former high-ranking officials. This
obviates the fact that the Cultural Revolution was dreamed up by an aging Mao
afraid that his power was going to be removed by the very Party he had helped
to solidify. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>While
discussing the Great Leap Forward, the Party carefully describes how in the
aftermath of the worst famine in history the Party took time to self-criticize
and examine the good and the bad that came from the deadliest event in Chinese
history. To suggest that there is both good and bad to be found in the Great
Leap Forward is, without a doubt, a level of cold revisionism that would warm
the hearts of the most fervent holocaust deniers today. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Discussing
the Anti-Rightist campaigns, the party first praises the steps taken to root
out the bourgeoisie infiltrators, while only noting that “the scope of this
struggle was made far too broad and a number of intellectuals, patriotic people
and Party cadres were unjustifiably labelled “Rightists", with unfortunate
consequences.” Unfortunate consequences, in this case, amounted to between
712,000 and 2,000,000 deaths.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In reference
to both the Land Reform and Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries that
killed between 1,400,000 and 6,500,000 people, the Party remarked that they
“successfully transformed the educational, scientific, and cultural
institutions of old China.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In passing,
I will note an unassuming sentence from Yang Jisheng’s Tombstone. While
collecting provincial-level data on the number of dead from the Great Leap
Forward, he suggested that his “inquiries uncovered
cases of provincial leaders from the famine years continuing the interfere with
mortality figures in the 1980s.”<span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk532156900;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">[18]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Hlk532156900;"> </span>The efforts to hide the various
failures of the Party began immediately and continue to this day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Resolution on CPC History</i> was authored
while Deng Xiaoping was leading the Party and nation. While many consider him a
great liberalizer of markets and politics in general, it must be remembered the
role he played in both the censorship of Chinese history and his own direct
role in the Tiananmen Square Massacre, known in China as the June Fourth
Incident. A group of mostly college students, rallying in the fashion of their
parents and grandparents for social change, were gunned down by military and
police forces. Deng Xiaoping directly ordered these actions to be taken against
the students. While the official accounting of the event states that around 1,000
civilians were killed, a secret British cable that was recently reported on
suggests that number may be closer to 10,000<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">[19]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">Horrifying details are revealed in
the British cables, including the descriptions of female student protestors
being bayoneted as they begged for their lives, pieces of the dead being hosed
into the drains in the aftermath, and mothers being shot to death as they
attempted to help their injured children. After the first wave of killing,
government officials told around 1,000 protestors that they could leave the
scene. A hidden machine gun encampment mowed them all down in a preplanned
secondary massacre. This event, taking place more than a decade after the
events of the Cultural Revolution, were shocking and horrifying to all those
who witnessed them. The horror of the situation extended to those in charge,
with General Xu Qinxian being forced to resign after refusing Deng Xiaoping’s
order to use force on unarmed civilian protestors. According to the above
British cables, twenty-seven army officers were shot by their own soldiers for
refusing to kill the civilians, with the soldiers explaining that they
themselves would have been killed if they had not killed their insubordinate
officers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">I bring this up to make clear that
nothing has fundamentally changed about the Party’s willingness to use
violence. What has changed is their skill at hiding their past and present
crimes. The protestors in Tiananmen Square truly believed that their
government, which had previously made mistakes, had their best interests at
heart<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">[20]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>.
Regardless of what had happened in the past, official communications by the
Party suggested that any prior failures were due not to malice, but
incompetence. Protestors believed that they could achieve their goals by using
their voices; they learned, in the most terrible way, that this would not be
accepted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">June Fourth Incident is a banned topic
online, in books, and in classrooms. Tiananmen Square Protests is a banned
term. Both 63+1 and 65-1 are banned terms, as each equal 64<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">[21]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>.
Any discussion of or gathering regarding the massacre is banned<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt;">[22]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>.
In fact, one will find that much regarding the dark past of China is banned
within China. As I mentioned in the beginning of this essay, children are still
taught the twisted Party historical account; instead of massive failure on the
party of the Party and Mao, young students learn of the Three Years of Great
Famine, where nature conspired to ruin the glorious path of Mao’s
collectivization and industrialization towards Communism. Instead of a
desperate attempt to retain power in the face of his old age and likely failing
health that lead to mass death and persecution and the destruction of Chinese
culture, the Cultural Revolution is painted as a misguided effort by a wartime
Chinese leader working during a time of peace.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">I will not attempt to fully explain
the level of effort expended by the Party to cover up and change history.
Suffice it to say that an endless sum is spent on the task along with the
intellectual work of countless people. Hopefully, I have succeeded at giving a
small glimpse into this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h1 style="line-height: 200%;">
Conclusion<o:p></o:p></h1>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">This brief examination that looks at
bits and pieces of China’s history has been deeply affecting. On a human level,
it is impossible to conceive the number killed in the Party’s short history.
The ripples of those deaths – friends, family, and the society as a whole –
still run through China today. All the time and effort spent by the Party to
hide their blatant and excessive abuses on their citizens cannot hide these things
completely, even with the unchecked power of the most powerful single-party
state on earth. They may have successfully hidden exact numbers, but the sheer
volume of silenced voices is too loud to be kept quiet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">My only hope for the people of China,
who have suffered more than any will ever fully know, is that they can one day
find a government that works for rather than against them. For now, their
government actively suppresses their thoughts, their history, their culture,
and their dead. I will not pretend that I am an unbiased observer of the
situation. It is impossible to be an unbiased observer when facing a monstrous
leviathan that has chewed up tens of millions of its own people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">As I suggested in the introduction,
this essay was neither comprehensive nor capable of getting every detail correct.
On the first point, I have neither the time nor expertise to craft a
comprehensive accounting of the various campaigns carried out by the Party. On
the second, the Party’s work obfuscating the numbers makes any accounting of
the dead or persecuted an exercise in estimates. As above, I can only hope that
my effort sheds some light for those who do not know the Party. With China
solidly set as a major power in the world, it is more important now than ever before
that the world knows who they are and what they have done. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<h1>
Bibliography<o:p></o:p><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-color-alt: windowtext; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><w:sdtpr></w:sdtpr></span></h1>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<w:sdt bibliography="t" id="111145805">
</w:sdt><br />
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Clodfelter, Michael. "Warfare and Armed
Conflicts: A Statistical Reference", Vol. 2, pp. 956.<o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><w:sdtpr></w:sdtpr></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">R. J. Rummel. “China's Bloody Century”. Transaction,
1991.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Rousset, David. “White Book on Forced Labour and
Concentration Camps in the People’s Republic of China I: The Hearings”.
International Commission Against Concentrationist Regimes, 1956.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Wu, Harry. “Classicide in Communist China.”
Comparative Civilizations Review, 2012.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span class="class100"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Guillermaz, Jacques. “</span></span><span class="class99"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The Chinese
Communist Party in Power 1949–1976”.</span></span><span class="class100"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> Translated by Anne Destenay.
Westview Press, 1976.</span></span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Kuisong, Yang. “Reconsidering the Campaign to
Suppress Counterrevolutionaries”. The China Quarterly, 2008.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Changyu, Li. “Mao’s ‘Killing Quotas’”. Advancing
Social Justice, 2005.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Werth et. al. “The Black Book of Communism”. Harvard
University Press, 1997.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Xizhe, Peng. “Demographic Consequences of the Great
Leap Forward in China's Provinces”. Population and Development Review Volume
13 Number 4, 1987<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Jisheng, Yang. “Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine
1958-1962”. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">MacFarquhar and Schoenals. “Mao’s Last Revolution”.
Harvard University Press, 2008.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Chang et. al. “Mao: The Unknown Story”. Jonathan
Cape, 2005. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The Communist Party of China. “Resolution on CPC
History”. 1981.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Lusher, Adam. “At least 10,000 people died in
Tiananmen Square Massacre, secret British cable from the time alleged”. The
Independent, 2017.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Gordon, Richard and Hinton, Carma. “The Gate of
Heavenly Peace”. Documentary Film, 1995.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Engel, Pamela. “94 search terms that China bans
because of Tiananmen Square”. Business Insider, 2014.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Ser, Kuang. “How China has censored words relating
to the Tiananmen Square anniversary”. PRI, 2016.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<!--[endif]-->
<br />
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span> Clodfelter,
Michael. "Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Reference", Vol.
2, pp. 956.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span> R.
J. Rummel. “China's Bloody Century”. Transaction, 1991.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">[3]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span> R.
J. Rummel. “China's Bloody Century”. Transaction, 1991.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">[4]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>
Rousset, David. “White Book on Forced Labour and Concentration Camps in the
People’s Republic of China I: The Hearings”. International Commission Against
Concentrationist Regimes, 1956.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn5" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">[5]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>
Wu, Harry. “Classicide in Communist China.” Comparative Civilizations Review,
2012.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn6" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">[6]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span> <span class="class100">Guillermaz, Jacques. “</span><span class="class99">The Chinese
Communist Party in Power 1949–1976”.</span><span class="class100"> Translated by
Anne Destenay. Westview Press, 1976.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn7" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">[7]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>
Kuisong, Yang. “Reconsidering the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries”.
The China Quarterly, 2008.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn8" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">[8]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>
Changyu, Li. “Mao’s ‘Killing Quotas’”. Advancing Social Justice, 2005.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn9" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">[9]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>
Werth et. al. “The Black Book of Communism”. Harvard University Press, 1997.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn10" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">[10]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span> Ibid.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn11" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">[11]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Xizhe, Peng. “Demographic Consequences of the
Great Leap Forward in China's Provinces”. Population and Development Review
Volume 13 Number 4, 1987<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn12" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">[12]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>
Jisheng, Yang. “Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine 1958-1962”. Farrar, Straus
and Giroux, 2012.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn13" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">[13]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>
Ibid.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn14" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">[14]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>MacFarquhar
and Schoenals. “Mao’s Last Revolution”. Harvard University Press, 2008.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn15" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">[15]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>
Other sources claim higher numbers, but do not provide any sourcing whatsoever
for their claims. See, for example, <span class="MsoHyperlink"><a href="https://www.ushmm.org/confront-genocide/speakers-and-events/all-speakers-and-events/genocide-and-mass-murder-in-the-twentieth-century-a-historical-perspective/the-chinese-case-was-it-genocide-or-poor-policy">this
interview with Merrill Goldman at the Holocaust Museum</a></span>. <o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn16" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">[16]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>Chang
et. al. “Mao: The Unknown Story”. Jonathan Cape, 2005. <o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn17" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">[17]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>
The Communist Party of China. “Resolution on CPC History”. 1981.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn18" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">[18]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>
Jisheng, Yang. “Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine 1958-1962”. Farrar, Straus
and Giroux, 2012.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn19" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">[19]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>
Lusher, Adam. “At least 10,000 people died in Tiananmen Square Massacre, secret
British cable from the time alleged”. The Independent, 2017.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn20" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">[20]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>
Gordon, Richard and Hinton, Carma. “The Gate of Heavenly Peace”. Documentary
Film, 1995.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn21" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">[21]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>
Engel, Pamela. “94 search terms that China bans because of Tiananmen Square”.
Business Insider, 2014.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn22" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; font-size: 10.0pt;">[22]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span>
Ser, Kuang. “How China has censored words relating to the Tiananmen Square
anniversary”. PRI, 2016.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
<i></i>Joseph Knechthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946837067475720887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748364827176453486.post-88953278043875099062019-01-29T16:33:00.003-08:002019-01-29T16:46:07.120-08:00Neural Networks and Shakespeare<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<img alt="Image result for shakespeare" class="irc_mi" src="https://www.bl.uk/britishlibrary/~/media/bl/global/dl%20shakespeare/authors/shakespeare-people-page.jpg?crop=1&cropX=16&cropY=12&cropW=1619&cropH=910&w=608&h=342&dispW=608&dispH=342" style="margin-top: 122px;" /></div>
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This post is going to be a strange one. There are a few things that feed into the following information, all of which seem disparate but, hopefully, will come together to make some sort of sense.<br />
<br />
As a disclaimer, I will state openly that I am new to the use of neural networks in general. On the other hand, I have nearly a decade's worth of intimate connection to Shakespeare. With all that in mind, I want to show you what I've made. Let's begin by examining one of my favorite sonnets:<br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Sonnet LXXIII</blockquote>
<blockquote>
That time of year thou mayst in me behold<br />
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang<br />
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,<br />
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.<br />
In me thou seest the twilight of such day<br />
As after sunset fadeth in the west,<br />
Which by and by black night doth take away,<br />
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.<br />
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire<br />
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,<br />
As the death-bed whereon it must expire<br />
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.<br />
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,<br />
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.</blockquote>
<br />
It's beautiful. There's no question about that. I'm not here to analyze the poetry itself, though that would be fun and might be done in future posts. No - the mission today is to try and make a computer generate things that might, plausibly, be Shakespearean.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Collecting and Cleaning the Data</h2>
Data collection is important for any project. Thankfully, Shakespeare has been dead for a long time and his lawyers let his copyright lapse some time ago. The Gutenberg Project has a full collection of his sonnets available in text format, which is what I'll be using to train my neural network. It'll also be used for the Markov text generation, which is a separate but interesting project alongside the neural network. The Markov text generation topic will be covered later.<br />
<br />
If you'd like a copy of the cleaned text file that I created (this basically just means removing the Sonnet headings), feel free to <a href="https://github.com/MagisterKnecht/PoemGeneration" target="_blank">check out this link to my github project</a>.<br />
<br />
Going forward, I'll try and be as transparent as possible about where I collected my data from. As this was a fairly simple project, this section is pretty light.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Neural Networks and Learning</h2>
Neural Networks are weird. I've watched a few dozen hours of videos on how, exactly, neural networks work. They're fascinating and alien in nature. It's a way for people, using algorithms, to train a computer to recognize something or process data without being given really specific instructions. The "training" is based on scoring the network using training data, so that each time it makes a guess it is told whether it was right or how badly it was wrong. To steal a graphic from Wikipedia for demonstration purposes:<br />
<br />
<br />
<img alt="" class="mw-mmv-final-image svg mw-mmv-dialog-is-open" crossorigin="anonymous" height="400" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/46/Colored_neural_network.svg/800px-Colored_neural_network.svg.png" width="331" /><br />
The astute observer will see that a large section of this photo says "hidden". This does not mean that neural networks are magic, merely that the layers in between are not visible as the network learns.<br />
<br />
All of this sounds neat, though it's both unlikely to be 100% accurate and also nowhere near comprehensive on the subject. As I said, I'm not an expert and likely wont be for some time (if ever). The reason I started this project was to learn about neural networks and machine learning more generally, and this is merely the first step in a long process towards doing that.<br />
<br />
<h2>
What I Did</h2>
I'm using Python (as I always do) alongside some specific packages or tutorials that I found pretty easy to get used to as a beginner. The specific process for getting everything together and running was as follows:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Install Ubuntu on my personal laptop.</li>
<li>Install Anaconda on the laptop.</li>
<li>Install TensorFlow GPU to a conda environment. </li>
<li>Find tutorials on Neural Network text generation through training.</li>
</ol>
All of this was well beyond my paygrade at the beginning of the process (and now), having been exclusively a data analyst to begin with. That said, it's been fun. I'll walk through each briefly.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Installing Ubuntu</h3>
This was easy. All you have to do is load Ubuntu onto a thumb drive and install from the boot menu. I used Rufus. I chose Ubuntu because I've used it before, though I was told that ArchLinux is actually better suited to easily install TensorFlow GPU.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Installing Anaconda</h3>
This was much harder for me to do on Linux than it was on Windows. For one, I'm not super familiar with Linux environments, so the installation process of anything is more convoluted merely from a lack of familiarity. Once I became more familiar with installing/uninstalling programs and python packages, I've actually found it to be as easy if not easier as on Windows.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Install TensorFlow GPU in a Conda Environment</h3>
Pretty easy to do, given the right instructions. Testing whether it's running properly is as easy as typing "nvidia smi" into the terminal window once you're running a training model and seeing whether your GPU usage has gone up.<br />
<br />
<h4>
Find tutorials on Neural Network Text Generation</h4>
This was marginally more difficult. I perused the net for a while before settling on a tutorial I liked, though it ended up producing results I was unhappy with. Eventually, I switched packages to something simpler that worked about the same.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Results</h2>
Here's where the fun comes in. Let's see what some of the resulting stuff looked like. I'll comment on the process as we go and try to give some insight into what is happening. We'll first look at my initial pass on Neural Network text generation and see the results from that.<br />
<br />
<h3>
First Pass using Online Tutorial</h3>
The results from this were less than stellar for a few reasons which I'll get into. If you'd like to see "my code" (which is just the code from the tutorial), check out the "training.ipynb" file on the above linked GitHub repo.<br />
<br />
Before we start, I should explain a core concept in neural networks: Epochs. An epoch is one complete pass of a dataset against the algorithm that needs to be trained. In general, a tiny number of epochs (for example, one or two) will not be enough to train a neural network to perform how you'd like it to. You'd think that a huge number of epochs would train the model to be amazing at doing the thing you want, but this is not necessarily the case. When generating my model, I found that the loss function began increasing after a certain point in time if I ran it for enough epochs.<br />
<br />
A loss function is, in essence, how close your neural network performs on a given epoch versus the expected answer. It's important to know that a neural network requires training data, so it's essentially already given a good batch of test information to run against and see how many it gets right - this is the loss function. It's a positive number, and the closer it is to zero the "better" the neural network is performing.<br />
<br />
When I first ran the training model, I was pretty disappointed. I gave the model three training epochs to begin with - as per the tutorial - and got very bad results. Here's a few examples, which I've actually rerun just for this post to explain.<br />
<br />
<pre>God tinde
of wu feld merend his dy iwhyich tove,
Ther welze af ogerume sferak
CU thove pan,
Bert therI th stp thvengnond,
Wos challf aly iw than hed mey than be shre, phathe fry sadd,
Nite mowjer solsyo nw par s thy IlrI woy te thais ing no ererere mee horis poraneg, by halg or mseens
I dessco ghaten! pare;
WThr erisud thinind wopelir bpilh susry ard mond
Tlow hiis ho chongerbe,
Toj pilly
A the ou to byy vis ind ow tocm ka thaigr file,
Theg, fone,
And wfist lene wian thos buee,
fous mantof thes the malat,
AngAn
s in shor sy witu sive moif told oude thensrenang?
CRtor asiesmr whapurer high than?
X
X)FAn fyo slels thy int ofarn see, maperee
H rowk sure, fif thauth dheurt;
Set con bt my thind be whow wyor forpanded the allen e, sigl's bu: s alisneung yavif whand of in mo staty inowas trals thtind paclllft asthein mare.
SaAnd mime fine co rsanthes silt mece hoy ;o f,
F zo bebe, ghou imy peat ind swrang for feand fouf beres sidw,
Shin in coud I
Whuld at be</pre>
<pre> </pre>
As you can see, my neural network was close to Shakespeare already. More seriously, my first attempted "solution" was to increase the number of epochs that my model ran through. At this point, the loss function was sitting at around 2.3, which is bad for this sort of thing in my experience. Here's an example of the model generating text with ten epochs.<br />
<br />
<pre>God?
Tikeds ip cwats uppalftuct the stiy thy say keec
My be is hew, of nights that neied by me farm it rid dith my arontores, dear mait,
And batt; sond shaver rinds bept ot'ar'd stownich priend;
Indefrawith pliesuscige bay tot thy lesss and,
For that preaugy bations gostion, that your frows will with wight.
I vosting, and gater sill cansed wor ast songte
Co live so sham well,
For the cond tither to jeight,
But fir tham thou wepth tur you what thy abmexp
hanst is then mortaich courls tight thow the onrers's farme's rens,
Whou aim blong shile,
Then bestyoun beauty on messight, and miching eyest,
And sall lenome, thene ming, reauts of thoug truppine:
Be;
And thy heart weal acain you destrecs,
Bus braws not sum ree
Of horsh abine eut stail hilds askion I pair,
Leste to see wetise love, ard dis colls,
Thing, awing fall wieth dishads will faserest,
Prenadien'd that all the solf, atifse inore.
XXXIII
Ag that de sunds one wist till dingrerl'?
Sall thil our farus f</pre>
<pre> </pre>
Ignoring the fact that this looks like complete gibberish when you read it, you can see that it's changed two very important things: first, the sentence length is marginally more coherent, which means it has slightly more a sense of what it's meant to be doing. Second, it included a Sonnet Number, which I found funny. I decided to leave the sonnet numbers in at this point just for the laughs. If anything, it probably hurts my model, but I like to imagine that it's reading off it's best attempt at a thirty-third sonnet.<br />
<br />
The loss function at this point was closer to 1.7, which is an improvement over the prior model which only had three epochs. Now lets go ahead and cook with gas - I'm going to show the output at thirty epochs.<br />
<br />
<div class="output_subarea output_text output_stream output_stdout">
<pre>Godd make you were by.
Life were not so mine own husbandry?
Should may I despeceive thy cruel hand deface,
In sometime lofty towers I see:
Sance me divinedet infatted,
Which lays it hath the time and to this,
As unone doth pottering days:
When that I have sworn thee fair, and you would despise,
When in eternal looks tre said to chase,
Or at your life on thy hand:
But not He so, now to decay,
O'lXXV
O! how when not did I not well-toofemble defent,
Yourself forgoenceivion it larges place,
For their image in soolly touch me,
LoXVII
Thy heart that fear inst the time,
My beauty's sequent and inly pride.
O! calage noRet retthy umour,
Though in my all-the beauty thou art as travel's sink,
Hath putther'd.
Thee off two loves hant of glody,
Which barren quill do slave, that I an all awards;
Love's being mad, to make of many not appequity:
But if they sleep a see ninger his gurds and pent:
Sa, what merit in thy and chief do themselves fare;
But now comme thoughts as </pre>
<pre> </pre>
Hey, that doesn't look so bad! The problem now is that it's plagiarizing. Bits and pieces become obviously parts from the sonnets, ripped completely from the text. This becomes even more obvious if you increase the epochs further - say, to 60. Here's some of the text generated at that point:<br />
<br />
<div class="output_subarea output_text output_stream output_stdout">
<pre>Death to me subscribes,
Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rime,
Whilst I, whom fortune wild with all hearts,
Which I by lacking have supposed dead.
CVII
Yet which alters when it alteration find
Than this give life that himade from thee:
The bloody spur cannot provoke him on,
That sometimes of place,
Beauty no vend of praise away,
dear friend, and I assure ye,
Even that thou not farther than my thoughts canst to score,
The dost sweet in some in their rooter thanough not so bright
As those gold candles fix'd in heaven's ase,
If thou shy self this book, this lest in love call;
All mine was thine, before thou hadst this more.
Then, if for my love, though mounted on the wind,
In wing world beisaye me gof love strange;
They are but dressings of a former child!
O! </pre>
<pre> </pre>
Okay, this is pretty interesting, but the lines are straight ripped from the text and then reassembled. Why is that? Well, I think it has to do with how long my "chunks" are - that is to say, what it considers a learn-able piece. My model isn't word-based, it's character based. To fix this, I'll need to tinker with the character length to avoid plagiarism. That said, by this point we have a loss function of .15, which gives us something that is genuinely readable for the vast majority of the generated text.<br />
<br />
I stepped down the "sequence length", and the results were as follows. For this test, I ran the same 60 epochs, the "sequence length" (or characters-into-chunks) were the only changed variable.<br />
<br />
<div class="output_subarea output_text output_stream output_stdout">
<pre>Then, let your self in your decay
With means more blessed than my the sun,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordar not beauty's name;
But now converted at first-
Where I may not him grace the day?
Whence hast thou this becoming of things in in that bosom sits
That on himself so clear,
Yet then him with it thee again.
He lends thee virtue, and he st love,
Thou canst not to give away.
LXXIV
Why is my verse stanst even by the self-same sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at pleasure be it ill or thy Muse,
And therefore are featts on them fir stol'n thy hair;
The region cloud hath mask'd his beauty should look so.
XCII
But wherefore do not you a might.
XXVIII
O thou, my lovely kning,
Or ssain what ston'd born of love?
Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,
Les men' </pre>
<pre> </pre>
Yeah, okay - that's not great, but it's plagiarizing slightly less. At this point, I'm about ready to give up on neural network text generation for a bit, given that I feel I've hit a roadblock on what it can and cannot do.<br />
<br />
<h2>
Conclusions</h2>
This is a really interesting project for me to work on. Even with my very basic understanding of neural networks, I am enrapt by the idea of building a thing that can spit out new poetry, prose, or limerick. It'll take more time for me to fully engage with this medium, but I've enjoyed it thus far.<br />
<br />
In reality, I wanted to put out a new blog post. I put this together over an afternoon, and might come back in the near future to update it or simply create a follow up post showing where I've gone with this. At this time, my project has morphed into using Markov chains for text generation. It's both easier (on my computer) and more sensible for text generation.<br />
<br />
I'll be making a few more blog posts in the coming weeks/months, and each of them will have a corresponding github link for those who want to see how I do what I do. Thanks for reading!</div>
</div>
</div>
Joseph Knechthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946837067475720887noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748364827176453486.post-59305281983891790742018-07-10T10:45:00.001-07:002018-07-10T10:51:54.340-07:00Chinese Dynasties and Data: Part III, the Early Shang<h2>
The Two Chronologies</h2>
<div>
We'll be using both the traditional chronology and newer chronologies proposed by use of both the oracle bones and the Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project. I'll provide the data side-by-side below and discuss the rulers themselves at some length. Let's begin with some preliminary comparison of the separate dating systems used to arrive at a regnal timeline. I'm going to use the XSZCP's terminology to break the Shang into two periods: the Early Shang and the Late Shang. I'll discuss the split point later on.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In this post, we'll focus on the Early Shang - defined here and elsewhere as all leaders before Pán Gēng. Here's a raw comparison of the traditional chronology versus the XSZCP:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_57rtazuyiLoedTPcUXMi0CJVO3D6f88FCbX_6Kf4L17cxsjXJz2GYfl9zUgLksxH-4my_3ifQbfWzFura75rDDBnS1xLvBpyNnEHni5to_cjMkWlmqcakm8xE2tcDYo3L6tfPf69ywQa/s1600/ShangTCvsXSZCP.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="753" data-original-width="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_57rtazuyiLoedTPcUXMi0CJVO3D6f88FCbX_6Kf4L17cxsjXJz2GYfl9zUgLksxH-4my_3ifQbfWzFura75rDDBnS1xLvBpyNnEHni5to_cjMkWlmqcakm8xE2tcDYo3L6tfPf69ywQa/s1600/ShangTCvsXSZCP.png" /></a></div>
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Sorry for any readability issues - I'm learning how to make pretty looking graphics as I do this - but this should give a general sense for the discrepancy between the two dating systems. You'll notice that the XSZCP doesn't include different rulers, whereas the TC does. This comes down, largely, to the fact that it was impossible for them to find specific evidence of rulers before a certain point during their work. That being said, here's a breakdown of that Early Shang period as per the traditional chronology, complete with the names of the rulers beside their reigns. After that, we'll go through each one in some detail to give you some additional flavor.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaUX518m_DPEmb_Yqn0F0_9m2l06BYGMM7rHeWpHQHUWQ2-K-r5cdtBBhDRr3VKzISccJKorKi2rsMkDcHlj35qKUwACG7jBOz5B1pqUyAZQXWmEal_bOmhlfol6AyLPY12nSCSFToxeBm/s1600/EarlyShangTC.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="955" data-original-width="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaUX518m_DPEmb_Yqn0F0_9m2l06BYGMM7rHeWpHQHUWQ2-K-r5cdtBBhDRr3VKzISccJKorKi2rsMkDcHlj35qKUwACG7jBOz5B1pqUyAZQXWmEal_bOmhlfol6AyLPY12nSCSFToxeBm/s1600/EarlyShangTC.png" /></a></div>
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The Shang Dynasty itself lasted for quite a long while. With a total length of around six centuries and, depending on your source, over thirty rulers, the Shang remained in power well over a century longer than the Xia. Let's check out a timeline including every single ruler (the names have been stripped for readability):</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzV9dU_ExEuHWpAzWfXS3KiX3ijM4VAUdMs-zZdcimTdohqRrFrxy6tDtcQeuBKFbyzx69K3vz6werPgMfmzz0p9rs_pLuUXeTNaYPwMWcWT6yKyd9tzf_GdmdlQmaCQz8aQULcYggYZ7n/s1600/ShangDynastyFullSideways.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="100" data-original-width="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzV9dU_ExEuHWpAzWfXS3KiX3ijM4VAUdMs-zZdcimTdohqRrFrxy6tDtcQeuBKFbyzx69K3vz6werPgMfmzz0p9rs_pLuUXeTNaYPwMWcWT6yKyd9tzf_GdmdlQmaCQz8aQULcYggYZ7n/s1600/ShangDynastyFullSideways.png" /></a></div>
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It looks so pretty! It's also pretty difficult to see where some of the rulers end and others begin, while others are clearly delineated. This is merely a result of some rulers having ruled for a long time while others didn't rule very long at all.</div>
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I'm going to say that's enough random graphics prior to our actual discussion on the Shang, so let's go ahead and dive in. </div>
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<h2 style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The Shāng Rulers</h2>
<div>
We'll dive right into our discussion. The Shang are the second of three ruling states of the Three Dynasties period, which should not be confused with the much later Three Kingdoms period. So, just to give a sense of what's going on in the world at the beginning of the Shang, we'll turn to the records of the Grand Historian once again:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Jie of Xia did not strive after virtue, and the wars injured the people. Unable to endure their wrongs they summoned Tang to their aid, but he was imprisoned in the tower of Xia; being afterwards released. Tang cultivated virtue, and the princes all went over to him, so Tang led an army to attack Jie of Xia. Jie fled to Mingtiao, and was eventually driven out and slain. Jie observed to someone, 'I regret that I did not take the opportunity of killing Tang in the tower of Xia, and then I should not have been brought to such a pass.' Tang, being seated on the Imperial throne, superseded Xia, and gave audience to the people. Tang enfeoffed the descendants of the Xias. Until the time of the Zhou dynasty they held the principality of Qi.</blockquote>
Jie was the last ruler of the Xia. Here he is depicted in a relief from a family shrine in Jiaxiang, Shandong:<br />
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Xiajie.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="589" data-original-width="405" height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Xiajie.png" width="220" /></a></div>
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It's a little hard to see what's going on in this, but I'll give you the explanation you can find on Wikipedia - he's carrying a halberd, a symbol of oppression, and he's sitting on two women, which shows that he abused his power. The fact that he was such a bad king that he's memorialized as unbelievably awful in stone carvings is wonderful. Let's talk about that man, Tang, who is mentioned in the above text.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
Chéng Tāng</h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaJBBnkAFnUwKom5mh8us1WBTO6y-AjVerFgiZZf0ZzmY3VV-nDocCIEQNxHIHj7CRcBAmSSZ8x4-_w_FVkzJLsgmkgWrOh2DN2xWwTKMjIn1dnMAFqp_X10mPH7VTuVLhJtf8Xt5lEf_8/s1600/ChengTang.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="338" data-original-width="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaJBBnkAFnUwKom5mh8us1WBTO6y-AjVerFgiZZf0ZzmY3VV-nDocCIEQNxHIHj7CRcBAmSSZ8x4-_w_FVkzJLsgmkgWrOh2DN2xWwTKMjIn1dnMAFqp_X10mPH7VTuVLhJtf8Xt5lEf_8/s1600/ChengTang.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
As the Records of the Grand Historian relates, Jie was apparently disliked by the people so much that they asked a nearby lord to come and take care of the problem. It should be noted that the Xia were what is called a suzerainty - basically, a ruling state allows its vassal states to exist semi-autonomously within the bounds of the larger empire. Chéng Tāng was the ruler of one of these semi-autonomous states. He overthrew Jie and turned the remaining Xia into a vassal state of his empire. In so doing, he became the first ruler of the new Shang Dynasty. His rule is remembered as being a pretty good one.<br />
<br />
As part of the ongoing data collection I'm doing for this series, I'm going to start recording where the capital was during the reign of the different rulers - this will, hopefully, translate to some pretty cool maps down the line. I will attempt to add boundaries for the dynasty when appropriate as well. In that spirit, here's where that capital supposedly was:<br />
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/ChinaHenanShangqiu.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="469" data-original-width="491" height="305" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/ChinaHenanShangqiu.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The capital itself was called Bo. It's where the modern day city Shangqiu is within the eastern Henan province. Fun fact: Bo was actually the capital before, as three legendary emperors (Shennong, Zhanxu and Ku) lived there according to the mythologies of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. Emperor Ku's son Qi, who helped Yu the great with the flooding problems, was given control of this area and it was named Shang. Qi is the primal ancestor of the legendary Shang people.<br />
<br />
Thats enough about him. Let's go on to the next ruler.<br />
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
Wai Bing</h3>
<div>
<div>
Wai Bing, also known by his posthumous name Bu Bing, was not a long-lived ruler. In fact, he only ruled for two years before dying. I don't know very much about him because he apparently wasn't all that important. The only noteworthy historical fact about this ruler is that if the oracle bones are to be taken seriously, he was not the second ruler, instead the fourth. I wish there was more information for me to give you all on this guy, but there simply isn't. </div>
</div>
<div>
<br />
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
Zhong Ren</h3>
</div>
<div>
<div>
Zhong Ren was the third ruler of the Shang as per Sima Qian. The oracle bones do not list him as a ruler in any fashion. Regardless, he ruled for four years before dying. He, again, was not particularly influential or important. He was the son of Chéng Tāng and the younger brother of Wài Bǐng.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
Tai Jia</h3>
<div>
Tai Jia was the next ruler in line. He was the nephew of Wài Bing and the grandson of Chéng Tāng. His rule was at first marked by being especially terrible - so much so that his advisor, Yi Yin, kicked him out. Depending on the account you trust (either Sima Qian or the Bamboo Annals) he was either welcomed back by Yi Yin or overthrew him years after Yi Yin's initial coup. Either way, he was gone from the capital for some time and eventually made his way back. After his adventures outside of the capital, he was a much better ruler. There is evidence that suggests he was still revered by the Shang people hundreds of years after his death, so it seems he didn't end up that badly.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
Wo Ding</h3>
<div>
Wo Dīng is another ruler we know very little about - he either ruled twenty-nine or nineteen years depending on your source. Apologies on the lack of information for many of these guys - we'll get into some meatier stuff as time progresses.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
Tài Gēng</h3>
</div>
<div>
<div>
Tài Gēng ruled for twenty-five years according to Sima Qian, and only five years according to the Bamboo Annals.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
Xiǎo Jia</h3>
</div>
<div>
<div>
Xiǎo Jia ruled for seventeen years according to Sima Qian.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
Yōng Ji</h3>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
Yōng Ji ruled for twelve years according to Sima Qian.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
Tài Wù</h3>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
Tài Wù ruled for seventy-five years according to Sima Qian. In the seventh year of his reign, a mulberry tree and millet bush were found growing together in his palace. He had some interesting dalliances with the queen of West Rong, where they both sent ambassadors to one another. I'm not sure why this particular fact is included by Sima Qian, but it was. Given that he reigned for seventy-five years and a great crop was apparently had during the forty-sixth year of his reign, it couldn't have been too bad.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
Zhòng Dīng</h3>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div>
Zhòng Dīng was the next ruler, and he was the son of Tài Wù. He ruled for thirteen years. He attacked the Blue Barbarians (蓝夷) in the sixth year of his reign. The capital was moved to Ao, which is so close to modern-day Zhengzhou that excavation efforts have been impeded by modern buildings. Here's that location:</div>
<div>
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/ChinaHenanZhengzhou.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="520" data-original-width="520" height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/ChinaHenanZhengzhou.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<h3 style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Wài Rén</h3>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Wài Rén, brother of Zhòng Dīng, was the next ruler. He ruled for fifteen years. He had to deal with some rebellions within their vassal states - namely, the Pei and Xian peoples. The Bamboo Annals claim that his rule was only ten years, but why would we trust them?</div>
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<br /></div>
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Hé Dan Jia</h3>
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Hé Dan Jia was the next ruler in line, son of Wài Rén. He ruled for nine years. In the first rule of his reign, he moved the capital to Xiang, an ancient city close to modern day Anyang. Here's a map to give you some sense of where that is:</div>
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/ChinaHenanAnyang.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="471" data-original-width="491" height="306" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/ChinaHenanAnyang.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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If it isn't clear by now, they're doing a lot of moving around. That map isn't an exact location, as I've not got the particular coordinates nor do I have the time/skill to become a mapper right now, but I'll get to that when I can. Consider this a placeholder. There will likely be an entire post devoted to mapping the movements of the capital over time.</div>
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In the third year of his reign, he defeated the Pei people who had rebelled against his father. Your father is definitely smiling upon you, Hé Dan Jia. </div>
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Zu Yi</h3>
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Zu Yi, son of Hé Dan Jia, ruled for nineteen years. During this time, he changed the capital twice and wrote a book. The first change of capital moved us to Geng, and the second moved us to Bi. Here's where they were, generally speaking:</div>
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Location_of_Xingtai_Prefecture_within_Hebei_(China).png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="620" data-original-width="800" height="496" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Location_of_Xingtai_Prefecture_within_Hebei_(China).png" width="640" /></a></div>
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Zu Xīn</h3>
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Zu Xīn, son of Zu Yi, ruled for sixteen years. His capital was also in Bi, so he didn't move it like the last few have decided to do. I guess the charm wore off. Don't worry, it'll be moved a lot more in the future. He was totally unremarkable, other than being the ruler of the most powerful dynasty at the time.</div>
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Wo Jia</h3>
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<span style="text-align: center;">Wo Jia, brother of </span>Zu Xīn, ruled for twenty-five years. Somehow, in all that time, he did nothing important enough to be noted by the Grand Historian. I'm sure I'm missing some awesome story here, and I'd love to have my readers fill in the blanks for me. He kept the capital in Bi.</div>
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Zu Dīng</h3>
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Zu Dīng, nephew of <span style="text-align: center;">Wo Jia, ruled for thirty-two years and was extremely boring. This is so disappointing. If you think you're disappointed reading a veritable catalog of ships, think how bad it is for me to research it and find that someone who ruled for thirty-two years did so little that only their name, birthplace, and reign length was recorded. Ah, well. He stayed in Bi.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">Nán Gēng</span></h3>
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<span style="text-align: center;">Nán Gēng, cousin of Zu Dīng, was a totally unremarkable and milquetoast ruler that ruled for twenty-five years. He did one noteworthy thing: he moved the capital. Specifically, he moved the capital from Bi to Yan. Here's Yan:</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlpjFDp0PJaeq24UMhw6FgraHd4hfvd9hN8M6jAk782zZdpI-03enIAIrKAWSdO_5CpFcqzX2_tgW2VzAmOni0VZSNBYP41m5rhtwx5fbijdK4TKCO4WTy7g_PKNFzACMybCDzFbg7o29r/s1600/yan.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="633" data-original-width="795" height="508" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlpjFDp0PJaeq24UMhw6FgraHd4hfvd9hN8M6jAk782zZdpI-03enIAIrKAWSdO_5CpFcqzX2_tgW2VzAmOni0VZSNBYP41m5rhtwx5fbijdK4TKCO4WTy7g_PKNFzACMybCDzFbg7o29r/s640/yan.png" width="640" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;">Yan is basically modern day Qufu, which is in Shandong province. </span></div>
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Yáng Jia</span></h3>
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<span style="text-align: center;">Yáng Jia also was boring, didn't move his capital, or really do anything of note. That being said, he succeeded his cousin Nán Gēng and ruled for seven years. </span></div>
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Concluding Remarks</span></h2>
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<span style="text-align: center;">This post was long in coming and still needs some polish, and I apologize for that upfront. That being said, if I hadn't gotten it out now I wouldn't have gotten it out for at least another month as I am about to go on vacation to China for the first time in my life. I'm extremely excited and hope to find some good material to write about while I'm there. </span></div>
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<span style="text-align: center;">After a few intermediate posts, I'll come back to this series with the Late Shang (the historically verifiable post) and we will continue forward in time. All the best to anyone reading this, and thank you for supporting my work.</span></div>
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Joseph Knechthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946837067475720887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748364827176453486.post-51652779109886589652018-06-21T13:04:00.002-07:002018-06-21T17:06:09.721-07:00Does One Drop of Water Moisten the Field? Exploring Instructive Mythology<h2>
The Instructive Hero</h2>
I can't say anything with complete certainty, but many, if not all, great nations and societies have some form of instructive hero to teach their children basic moral and political lessons. For the Roman Empire, there was Aeneas; for the modern religious west, there is Jesus Christ; for modern China, there is Léi Fēng. The first two are likely familiar to anyone who was born in the west and has received formal classical education, while the latter is almost certainly unfamiliar. Before I explain who Léi Fēng is, I want to discuss the importance of instructive heroes for societies generally. This wont be a full philosophical treatise on the necessity of moral and political education for a healthy society, and the topic itself will be revisited time and again over the course of my writing.<br />
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In the most general terms, a society is only as strong as its body politic. When considering the health of a society, one of the key indicators of societal sickness is political disengagement by the citizens. I use citizens here to refer specifically to that class of people within a society that have the ability to determine the outcome of events on a local or national level - so for the Romans, this would have originally only encompassed the elite aristocratic caste and eventually included the plebeians, while for America it originally only encompassed white property and horse owning people and has come to encompass all people who are over the age of eighteen and fit the current requirements for citizenship. In a society like modern China, the group of people that actually have a say in the national or local governance is substantially smaller, as a percentage of total population, than either of these two societies once they loosened their citizenship requirements. I will go ahead and respond to any complaints about historicity when describing the foundational myths of America and the Roman Empire by asking you to bear with me - what I miss in historical substance I will try to make up for with moral and political teaching.</div>
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Pietas</h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc9w2BIlzn16cLSouMRcv0JOyTkofA2GKigv5NAMqm-iJZMU1NNOAI-R3BmYjvVCxMM92ky8NU1xspyzJXpvezpJT2zH7JEqozXuXENRdD-E9L6kZcc478oQ9ZI36TCcaErLHQnYomH5Tp/s1600/aeneas-fleeing-with-his-father-charles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="728" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc9w2BIlzn16cLSouMRcv0JOyTkofA2GKigv5NAMqm-iJZMU1NNOAI-R3BmYjvVCxMM92ky8NU1xspyzJXpvezpJT2zH7JEqozXuXENRdD-E9L6kZcc478oQ9ZI36TCcaErLHQnYomH5Tp/s400/aeneas-fleeing-with-his-father-charles.jpg" width="322" /></a></div>
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The picture above would stir the heart of any good Roman citizen. Pictured is Aeneas, fleeing the forsaken city of Troy after the Danaan forces had overrun the interior thanks to the cunning of Odysseus. On his back he carries his father and the household god, and he holds the hand of his young son. Aeneas, through many trials and tribulations, would go on to settle the land that would eventually come to be known as Rome, having been established by Aeneas' descendant Romulus. Aeneas typified the perfect proto-Roman: he was concerned with the well-being of his family, his state, and his gods. </div>
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There is a Roman concept that encompasses this mentality -<i> pietas</i>. This word is badly translated into English in almost all of its forms, but can be understood when seeing a few of the possibilities together: filial piety, duty, religiosity, devotion. Aeneas so fully encompassed these virtues that he is very frequently referred to as Pius Aeneas. This is not an accident, as the book where Aeneas is described (aptly named the Aeneid) was written far after the events described would have taken place by a man named Virgil. Virgil was hired by Emperor Augustus to write the work, both in order to establish the legitimacy of his family as rulers and to mythologize the essential Roman virtues in a foundational character. When children were too young to understand why they ought to be good rather than bad in their daily life, they were already hearing the stories of Aeneas saving his family and household gods from the destruction of Troy. </div>
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Good Romans were expected to conduct themselves according to pietas, and the story of Aeneas only served to further this behavior. Three spheres of Roman life are encapsulated in this one word: the family, the state, and the gods. For those uninitiated in the mystical history of Rome, this is a good way to begin understanding them from a moral standpoint. Familial piety was prized highly, as was the duty one has to the state, both in terms of civilian respect for governance and military service. </div>
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Xiào</h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAc8nadzOzu1npKZ63Vru3o9A5yKKSNBbNwQw5FfYldzT8wLzj8CIXYAULM_qO4qdX2KrnM_mEGDIojVK5pK08LrpbJxr0lu4B9lVX83j_hgy-l7NA7spX2CuHq7v0Af7cVMiT4zpo2RhD/s1600/luji.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAc8nadzOzu1npKZ63Vru3o9A5yKKSNBbNwQw5FfYldzT8wLzj8CIXYAULM_qO4qdX2KrnM_mEGDIojVK5pK08LrpbJxr0lu4B9lVX83j_hgy-l7NA7spX2CuHq7v0Af7cVMiT4zpo2RhD/s320/luji.jpg" width="233" /></a></div>
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Pietas can be connected to the Confucian virtue xiào (孝). Xiào, in essence, can be understood as the Confucian virtue of filial piety. For a better understanding of this particular virtue, I'll quote a bit from an English translation of a famous, old Confucian text called Èrshísì Xiào (literally, twenty-four filial piety, but translated more poetically as the Twenty-four Exemplars of Filial Piety). In the text, twenty-four short stories are given to establish the conduct expected of a child with regards to their parents. I've selected one in particular - a story about a boy stealing oranges - for good reason: it highlights some cultural differences between Chinese and Western (Christian) understandings of morality pretty well. The following is a translation of the text cribbed from <a href="http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~asia/24ParagonsFilialPiety.html" target="_blank">this link</a>.</div>
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<u><i>Stealing Oranges To Take Home For His Mother: Lu Ji</i></u></div>
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<i>In the Later Han Period, a young boy of only six years old showed a deep filial regard for his mother. He traveled with his father to visit the Chief Minister of Nan Yang, named Yuan Shu. Elder Yuan Shu saw how precocious the young boy was, and ordered his butler to bring a dish of oranges to offer to young Lu Ji. The boy saw the delicious, large fruit, and immediately ate two . He waited until nobody was looking, and secreted three oranges away in the sleeve of his robe. When it was time to say good-bye, along with his father, little Lu Ji raised his hands up in salute. Unexpectedly, the three oranges came rolling out, and fell to the floor in front of Lu Ji.</i></div>
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<i>Yuan Shu saw the oranges and laughed: "Little Brother, you're my guest today. How come you stole your host's oranges?" The little boy replied, "Pardon me, my mother likes oranges best of all. Because we don't have any money, it's hard to provide oranges for her. Today I enjoyed two of these ripe, sweet, oranges, and I could not resist taking a few of them back for Mother. She likes them so much."</i></div>
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<i>Minister Yuan Shu was impressed by the six-year-old's concern for his mother's happiness. He told his staff to give the entire plate of fruit to Lu Ji for his family.</i></div>
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<i>A verse in his honor says:</i></div>
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<i>Filial love and brotherhood made nature "Heaven-True",</i></div>
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<i>Most rare in a boy just six years old.</i></div>
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<i>He hid three oranges in his sleeve, as a gift for his Mom,</i></div>
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<i>Just a token to repay her kindness without end.</i></div>
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If you grew up in the west and lived with the unavoidable influence of Christian moral teaching (it's still there in predominately atheist societies, whether you believe it or not) then this story might be striking in its seeming non-judgement on the act of thievery. While it was noted and joked about by the minister, once he learned that the young boy meant to bring the oranges to his mother all was forgiven - in fact, he was rewarded for this act. If you're interested in understanding filial piety, the Èrshísì Xiào is a great place to start. </div>
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The focus on xiào here was twofold: I enjoy highlighting the similarities and the differences between cultures, and I think xiào does a fairly good job at this for westerners. The further connection between pietas and xiào can be had in the extension of the familial piety (which is, as stated, the generally accepted English translation of xiào) to the state. In the Xiaojing, or the Classic of Filial Piety, of Confucius, the connection between filial piety and piety to the ruler is made explicitly clear. </div>
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<i>"As they serve their fathers, so they serve their mothers, and they love them equally. As they serve their fathers, so they serve their rulers, and they reverence them equally. Hence love is what is chiefly rendered to the mother, and reverence is what is chiefly rendered to the ruler, while both of these things are given to the father. Therefore when they serve their ruler with filial piety, they are loyal; when they serve their superiors with reverence, they are obedient. Not failing in this loyalty and obedience in serving those above them, they are then able to preserve their emoluments and positions, and to maintain their sacrifices. This is the filial piety of inferior officers.</i></div>
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<i>It is said in the Book of Poetry: Rising early and going to sleep late, Do not disgrace those who gave you birth."</i></div>
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<a href="http://chinesenotes.com/xiaojing/xiaojing001.html" target="_blank">Here's a link</a> to a translation of that text that can be accessed alongside the traditional Chinese. As one can see, there's a definite through-line between these two separate old-world concepts of pietas and xiào.<br />
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Stories as Morality for Children</h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPDvl_OzlPWYIgH-Ryz4axu_8k3SXGQu1R66hULXXKahlaH6Gvg7z2oUBj2e0rR_KBqTgq3MYZHSqdI3bp2YAJDFEd3NK87U7z4c-2yaST0NsNcAvhUXGUVOg5ooguK9XVAKduV-pdwaiv/s1600/Bloch-SermonOnTheMount.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1545" data-original-width="1377" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPDvl_OzlPWYIgH-Ryz4axu_8k3SXGQu1R66hULXXKahlaH6Gvg7z2oUBj2e0rR_KBqTgq3MYZHSqdI3bp2YAJDFEd3NK87U7z4c-2yaST0NsNcAvhUXGUVOg5ooguK9XVAKduV-pdwaiv/s320/Bloch-SermonOnTheMount.jpg" width="285" /></a></div>
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Throughout all of history and in all places, children have been raised to act properly through stories. In ancient and modern China, stories describing xiào are still known widely among the general population. In America, where a majority of the population identifies as Christian, the parables of Christ are taught and known widely among virtually everyone. The degree to which the stories are studied in a scholarly setting is an interesting datapoint to consider, but the fact of the diffusion of such stories among the population is undeniable.<br />
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Children have historically been believed to be incapable of moral judgement or reason more generally. Aristotle goes so far as to frequently name the two populations most incapable of moral judgement or action as children and brutes. This idea, popular in many cultures throughout the world, might be totally wrong (<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022096509001507" target="_blank">see this 2009 study</a> on how children appear to consider intention when judging the morality of actions), influences the way that people have raised their children throughout all of recorded history. Often, believing children incapable of understanding "simple" concepts such as right and wrong, stories are told to ingrain the moral lessons a society believes necessary for their continued success. This, when implemented across a population, gives a shared understanding of morality that allows a shared understanding of how to exist within the world. In turn, this shared understanding of how to exist in the world promotes unity and stability among the people of a given place, region, or country. If all children of a place are taught the same virtues - be it pietas, xiào, or Christian goodness - you will ensure that an entire generation looks at the world through a similar lens.<br />
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Léi Fēng</h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8cX0zp97BZyZs76pFW-PYOpMeFKRae-AnpYm8P5WkTIskUQvrvH4zZlq2oBH9DBKYT5SAhyphenhyphenFfigEeEdD5obWDW1v5gEPXprQSFLhujRgniOKiOFgHgjro44odCsQMCSxf2YFnRyM2Epxo/s1600/leifeng1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="397" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8cX0zp97BZyZs76pFW-PYOpMeFKRae-AnpYm8P5WkTIskUQvrvH4zZlq2oBH9DBKYT5SAhyphenhyphenFfigEeEdD5obWDW1v5gEPXprQSFLhujRgniOKiOFgHgjro44odCsQMCSxf2YFnRyM2Epxo/s400/leifeng1.jpg" width="273" /></a></div>
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The above poster can be translated like this (thanks, partner): "Learn from Léi Fēng, the good role model - study hard the Marx-Leninism and Mao Thought." Now, we will talk about who Léi Fēng was and why he's both cool to know about and can be used as a lens to understand a particular period of Chinese thinking. We will first talk about what place he has in modern China from the perspective of a child living in the People's Republic of China.</div>
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If you're a young person in China, you learn about Léi Fēng in Chinese class. He is always referred to as a real, historical figure. Born on December 18, 1940 in Wangcheng (the old capital of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty), Léi Fēng had one of the worst early childhoods imaginable. According to a documentary put together for the state-owned and state-run China Network Television, Léi Fēng lost all of his family in ways that set him up to be the perfect Communist Party of China posterboy. His father, was killed by invading Japanese when Léi Fēng was only five, his older brother died because of child labor exploitation, and his mother committed suicide after being dishonored by a landlord.</div>
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Léi Fēng, perhaps spurred forward by the wrongs committed to his family by landlords, corrupt business owners, and the Japanese, joined up with a communist youth corps at a very young age. He would later join the People's Liberation Army at twenty, and only two years later he would die in an unfortunate accident where he was crushed by a pole.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidVyFWI8NhW_Chf2KW5I6kahCfVX7Gc1teqRMR2AgRGmANldJ652crNazM0234sYCxzBMan3Da-EGYZWrKkHMeiNibZqg2flDZdhZIRvE3QG3XBOwf20VMIkzvoqPjNuJvUcwMuP09bgoE/s1600/leifeng2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidVyFWI8NhW_Chf2KW5I6kahCfVX7Gc1teqRMR2AgRGmANldJ652crNazM0234sYCxzBMan3Da-EGYZWrKkHMeiNibZqg2flDZdhZIRvE3QG3XBOwf20VMIkzvoqPjNuJvUcwMuP09bgoE/s1600/leifeng2.jpg" /></a></div>
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All told, Léi Fēng didn't live very long or, until after his death, have any fame to speak of. The account of his life that is given to us comes directly from the Communist Party of China, then under the august eye of Mao Zedong, and most of what we know of his personal thoughts were transmitted to us by Lin Biao, a man pivotal to the PRC's victory over the previous government of China. Lin Biao began what can be reasonably thought of as a propaganda campaign a year after the supposed death of Léi Fēng, where excerpts of Léi Fēng's diary were presented to the people in leaflets, posters, and official radio broadcasts. I'll provide some examples directly from the Communist Party of China to give you a sense of the lessons to be learned from Léi Fēng's service:</div>
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People who are too arrogant are ignorant. He doesn't know his real capabilities. He doesn't realize he is only one drop in the ocean.</blockquote>
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If you only have the people and not yourself in your heart, you will achieve honor and prestige.</blockquote>
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I feel that a revolutionary should put the revolution's interest first. Contribute his all for the party's enterprise. It is the happiest thing.</blockquote>
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If you were one drop of water, do you moisten the field? If you were a ray of sunshine, do you brighten the darkness...</blockquote>
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Plainly, this orphaned child turned revolutionary was, along with being a devoted believer in Mao Thought and the mission of the party, quite the poetical soul. One might rightly suspect that the historicity of Léi Fēng is doubted by many - but it is worth noting that officially, Léi Fēng is recognized as a historical figure by the Communist Party of China and is taught as such to children in schools. In fact, the importance of Léi Fēng is further enshrined by the national holiday Xué Léi Fēng Rì (Learn From Léi Fēng Day), where schools and groups across China take part in community service in the style that the folk hero was supposed to have done. It should be noted that recently, interest in Léi Fēng has diminished and skepticism about him has grown, though mostly in the chorus of those already critical of the Communist Party of China.</div>
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Concluding Remarks</h3>
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Léi Fēng is a tool to instruct the populace how to behave rightly, as Aeneas was for the Roman Empire. Not unlike Aeneas, the person of Léi Fēng is debatable, and the figures have both been propagated by a ruling class looking to instill virtues favorable to themselves and the smooth running of society under their control. The lessons of Léi Fēng are a sort of extreme filial piety, taken not as merely for the parents themselves but to the entire society as one. The individual is not to be counted above the collective, and the good citizen in China is to be almost stripped of identity sans party.</div>
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I wanted to write this partly to introduce the west to Léi Fēng as a folk hero of modern China, and partly to wonder out loud whether the west finds itself lacking the same sort of cultural touchstone in modernity. Who do we learn about in primary education - barring Christ for Christians - that instills a sense of moral uprightness or correct political behavior? I don't want it to appear that I am suggesting we need to begin religious education in schools - in fact, I think that would be damaging at this time - but rather to suggest a need for western society to examine its education of children. We largely lack instructive heroes in modernity, which many may find to be a good thing. </div>
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I can imagine people scoffing at this article, existing in their post-modern and post-structuralist academic worlds, and stating that we need no heroes. Instead, they might suggest, we should examine the evil and wrong that our societies in the west have committed, and teach our children never to commit the same atrocities again. They might say further that western society is not worth saving, and that any attempts to solidify or unify a western world is anathema to post-modern good and evil (good being the other, evil being us). To them I say only this: while the west actively and happily pulls itself limb from limb like some leviathan turned mad, the illiberal world is unifying itself in opposition to us. Before you blindly accept that the illiberal world is consummately better for merely being other, examine their societies. Examine what they value - for example, the ablation of the individual and the creation of the hive-mind - and weigh it against the taught virtues of western society. Look at the intention and the actions taken by the west, not merely the acts deemed (or actually) horrible. For some, this is an impossible calculus, and those people are likely destined to intellectual destruction regardless of anything they might read.</div>
Joseph Knechthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946837067475720887noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748364827176453486.post-38725004744426790222018-06-18T19:46:00.000-07:002018-06-19T13:19:13.405-07:00Chinese Dynasties and Data: Part II, the Xia<h2>
Short Discussion of Methodology</h2>
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This is the second part of the series I've begun recently on Chinese history. In this post we'll cover the basics about the Xia.<br />
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The first thing one needs to know about the Xia is their historicity, or rather their possible lack thereof. While multiple texts including the Records of the Grand Historian and the Bamboo Annals discuss the Xia in detail, there is no definitive archaeological evidence to support the specific existence of a the Xia Dynasty. As will be a common theme in this blog overall, I'm going to weave the ancient and the modern - not to mention blending many different academic and artistic disciplines - in order to paint a full picture of what I wish to discuss at the time.<br />
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Here I want to introduce you all to a project initiated by the People's Republic of China. In 1996, a team of researchers were tasked with determining the location and dates of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties. The head of the project, Li Xueqin, is considered a titan in the field of ancient Chinese history and archaeology. Li Xueqin, born in 1933, has experienced China through massive social change. He sits as the Director of the Institute of Sinology at Tsinghua University in Beijing.<br />
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Having been tasked with discovering the locations and dates for the three earliest Chinese dynasties, he assembled a team of over two hundred multidisciplinary scholars to accomplish the task. The project released preliminary results in 2000. I will present the findings - both dates and locations - below for the non-academic public to enjoy, and will include the traditional chronology as well for comparison. I'll look at the Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project in depth in another post.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitUADiBf1qPhM7aUsrOJK2De4ihK82nkqu1TPEiN-C7Yx9PYKhYHI6FJLA5gUtJZStjVG9xqNM8HONXBarntNQ2qWJNI8xuSUY7ez-IO738gDhExLUdKt5r5KxgNBdKCFdr6t01KYDQjSh/s1600/XiaTCvsXSZCP.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="495" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitUADiBf1qPhM7aUsrOJK2De4ihK82nkqu1TPEiN-C7Yx9PYKhYHI6FJLA5gUtJZStjVG9xqNM8HONXBarntNQ2qWJNI8xuSUY7ez-IO738gDhExLUdKt5r5KxgNBdKCFdr6t01KYDQjSh/s1600/XiaTCvsXSZCP.png" /></a></div>
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I've put this together as best I can to show the differences between the two different dating methodologies. I'll go into depth on <i>why</i> they're so vastly different in an upcoming post on the Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project, and dating methodology in general.<br />
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So, there are a few obvious things that jump out from the comparison between the two systems: first of all, only one includes the named rulers for the dynasty. The traditional chronology is based on books like the Records of the Grand Historian and the Bamboo Annals, both of which go into some depth on the individual rulers of the dynasty and, thus, make for good reading. Interestingly enough, the dynasty receives a different time period based on which of those two books you use, with the Bamboo Annals suggesting an even later start and end date for the Xia. We're showing the date derived from the mystical numerologists exploring the Records of the Grand Historian in the traditional chronology timeline on the left. For transparency's sake, and in lieu of the upcoming post on the dating methods used for the earliest dynasties, it should be noted that the dating for the traditional chronology is not written within these original texts, but calculated later based on small tidbits of information within the stories. the Xia–Shang–Zhou Chronology Project, on the other hand, makes a point of not including any rulers that cannot be verified through archaeological records or something equally convincing to the modern man.</div>
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The second obvious difference is in time. The traditional chronology suggests that the Xia existed from 2207 BC to 1766 BC, while the XSZCP suggests the Xia lasted from 2070 BC to 1600 BC. The total year counts are listed in the figure, and its clear that while there is some difference in total length it is not in any real sense substantial. There are some interesting questions one might ask about whether historians and archaeologists should reasonably expect for a timeline to match up that closely in both length and period, but we'll discuss that in the upcoming post.</div>
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For our second bit of data I'll include the suggested region of where the Xia dynasty might actually have been. Here's a short quote from the Records of the Grand Historian describing the last of the Five Emperors, Emperor Shun, having to deal with some minor flooding:</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica"; font-size: 13.3333px;">After Yao's death, the Emperor Shun asked the presidents of the four mountains, 'is there was any one who can perfect and develop Yao's undertakings, and can be employed in an official capacity?' They all said, 'There is lord Yu, the Minister of Works; he might perfect and develop Yao's labours.' Shun said, 'Ah yes! you, Yu, have regulated the water and the land, but in this office you must exert yourself.' Yu did obeisance with his head to the ground, and would have declined in favour of Xie, Prince Millet, or Gaoyao, but Shun said 'Go and attend to your duties.'</span></blockquote>
Yu will become important very quickly in our story. The astute reader of visual aids will see that the first emperor of the Xia is named Dà Yǔ.<br />
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Not to get caught in the weeds, I'll actually show the data on where the mythical Xia were supposed to have lived:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjd9oP39v9MpVzgfwyW95N9fbzO5ntD4MB7JaCMxzE-D7vbld4IMNiml8MVlM94LCnTW0Mp4begQK0b3WF7pZIm9Oqsq6MSf9oyH4jwE7nfn7WtWVyOMh3_Y6HL2cD7b5nFlm0fzLzSaZ2/s1600/557px-Xia_dynasty.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="557" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjd9oP39v9MpVzgfwyW95N9fbzO5ntD4MB7JaCMxzE-D7vbld4IMNiml8MVlM94LCnTW0Mp4begQK0b3WF7pZIm9Oqsq6MSf9oyH4jwE7nfn7WtWVyOMh3_Y6HL2cD7b5nFlm0fzLzSaZ2/s1600/557px-Xia_dynasty.svg.png" /></a></div>
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That gives you a sense of where they were in China, which is nice to have. The capital (and general region/size of dynasties) will change hands many times over the course of this series. I'll start including cool geographic data in future posts, as it will be fun to visualize the change over time that China has experienced in what it considered to be the homeland.</div>
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Now we can move on to the fun part, which is discussing the rulers in some detail. We'll go chronologically using the traditional chronology as our guide, and we'll discuss some fun facts for each ruler as we go along. This will also give a nice overview of what was happening in the Middle Kingdom, and what the people cared about. Without further ado, let's jump into it with Yu the Great.</div>
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The Xià Rulers</h2>
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Before we begin, here's another neat visualization of the length of rule for each separate ruler of the Xia - these are broken down into years with the total length of the dynasty, as per the traditional chronology, printed below the dynasty title.</div>
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We've got a list of eighteen separate people to discuss this time, and not all of them were, apparently, very important. We'll start out with the head honcho, the creator of the Xia, the water-controller - Yu the Great.</div>
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Dà Yǔ (Yu the Great)</h3>
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/%E5%A4%A7%E7%A6%B9%E6%B2%BB%E6%B0%B4%E5%9C%96.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="560" height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/%E5%A4%A7%E7%A6%B9%E6%B2%BB%E6%B0%B4%E5%9C%96.png" width="224" /></a></div>
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Dà Yǔ was the first ruler of the Xia. He was minding his own business being the Minister of Works when Emperor Shun called upon him to help solve a problem for the people of Xià: namely, the massive amounts of flooding that were killing off crops and drowning folks. As a fun aside, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/08/04/legends-say-china-began-in-a-great-flood-scientists-just-found-evidence-that-the-flood-was-real/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5183d4a6a61c" target="_blank">scientists discovered evidence</a> of massive flooding happening around the time of the legendary Xià dynasty. The evidence, found by a geologist named Wu Qinglong from Nanjing Normal University, was dated to around 1900 BC, which lands towards the last quarter of the traditional chronology or the middle of the XSZCP. This only shows that a big flood did, in fact, occur, but it's always nice when old stories seem to ring true.</div>
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Yu the Great, who at the time hadn't yet earned his honorific, set about doing the task admirably. He left his house for thirteen years while working to fix the flooding, and achieved the task by bringing along a massive workforce and achieving one of the earliest country-wide infrastructure projects. He widened channels and built dams where appropriate, and ultimately was able to control the flooding. The story of this chapter of his life is known as Dà Yǔ Zhì Shuǐ, approximately meaning Yu the Great Controls the Waters. If you ask a random person who grew up in China and learned even a little about Chinese history, they'll probably know about this story. To give you a taste of the sort of praise Yu gets, here's a little snippet about how virtuous and hard working he was during this time from the Records of the Grand Historian:</div>
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<table border="0" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif, times, "Heiti TC", PMingLiU, PMingLiu-ExtB, SimSun, SimSun-ExtB, HanaMinA, HanaMinB; font-size: 18.6667px;"><tbody>
<tr id="n287482"><td class="etext" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 10pt;">Yu was quick, earnest, and diligent, not deviating from virtue, kind, and lovable; his word could be depended on, his voice was musical, and his body, like a balance properly adjusted, moved unweariedly and solemnly in accordance with certain fixed rules.</td></tr>
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That could, viewed from a certain perspective, be describing a kindhearted robot. After he controlled the flooding and allowed things to get back to normal, he came back home. Relating back to something I referred to briefly above, Yu had actually passed his house three times during his infrastructural machinations. Each time, his family begged him to come in and stay with him, but Yu, being virtuous in a distinctly ancient way, refused to see his family until the rest of the country was spared from the floods. Also, if you trust the Bamboo Annals (and who does, honestly), Yu killed a ruler in the north named Fangfeng at the request of Emperor Shun around this time.<br />
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One last story prior to Yu receiving his honorific is worth mentioning. Yu convinced Gaoyao, the Minister of Laws for Emperor Shun, to prefer admonishment to punishment. In essence, he convinced the minister to tell people not to do the bad thing again at least once before cutting off a body part or seizing titles from the offender. Here it is related again in the Records of the Grand Historian:<br />
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<tr id="n287502"><td class="etext" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica; font-size: 10pt;">Gaoyao therefore, respecting Yu's virtues, bade the people carry out as a rule his plan of preferring admonition, but also made use of punishments. Shun's virtues were very clear.<br />
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What a cool guy. Emperor Shun decided, after all the cool things that Yu had done, that he should be the heir to the throne of Xia. Yu accepted the position, and remembering how level-headed Gaoyao had been in his prior dealings, recommended he be promoted to Minister of Affairs. Gaoyao accepted graciously and then promptly died.<br />
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From this point on, Yu apparently did very little of note. To be fair, he didn't really need to do much after stopping biblical-level flooding and reforming the penal code for an entire nation, but I am surprised that every single achievement made by Yu was prior to his ascension to the throne. Yu is said to have reigned for ten more years before dying during a routine inspection of the east. Now for the purposes of having a full and fun to use dataset, I'll note that the historical text Yue Jue Shu suggests he died from an illness of some sort. This seems perfectly believable, as Yu spent much of his life bandying about in the muck and water, likely without proper protection from bacterial infection. All told, Yu the Great was a great ruler.<br />
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Oh, one last thing: Yu created the nine tripod cauldrons, which were very large, from a bunch of metal he was gifted by a loyal subject. These nine tripods were used in ceremonies for a long, long time and are still thought of as culturally important details to Chinese history.<br />
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Qǐ</h3>
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/%E5%A4%8F%E7%8E%8B%E5%90%AF.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="570" data-original-width="363" height="320" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/%E5%A4%8F%E7%8E%8B%E5%90%AF.png" width="203" /></a></div>
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The next emperor is Qǐ. His history in the Records of the Grand Historian is far smaller than his father Yu's, but he did kill a guy. I'll let the only story about him in the aforementioned book speak for itself:</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica"; font-size: 13.3333px;">As the lord of Hu would not submit, Qi attacked him, and there was a great battle at Han. Just before the engagement the speech at Gan was delivered to the six generals, who were summoned together; Qi said, "Ah! ye who are engaged in my six armies, I have a solemn announcement to make to you. The chief of Hu violently sets at naught the five human relations, and idly casts aside the three obligations of duty. Heaven will on this account oppose him and cut off the span of his life, and I am now but reverently executing the punishment appointed by Heaven. If you on the left do not do your work on the left, and you on the right do not do your work on the right, it will be a disregard of my orders. If you, charioteers, do not observe the rules for the management of your horses, it will be a disregard of my orders. You who obey my orders shall be rewarded in the ancestral temple, but you who disobey my orders shall be slain before the altar of the spirits of the land, and I will destroy both you and your children." He thereupon destroyed the chief of Hu, and the whole nation went to the court of the Prince of Xia.</span></blockquote>
Nice job, Qǐ. He dies, and his son Tài kāng takes over.<br />
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The Rest of Them</h3>
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From here on out the story goes very quickly for the remaining rulers, at least within the pages of the Records of the Grand Historian. Things got pretty bad, and people became unhappy with the rulers. Here's the entirety of the remaining text (don't worry, it's not long):</div>
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Taikang died, and his brother Zhongkang the second came to the throne. In the time of the Emperor Zhongkang, Xi and He, indulging in wine and dissipation, neglected the seasons, and let the calendar get into confusion (No rice this year). Yin went to punish them, and the 'punitive expedition of Yin' was composed.*</blockquote>
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Zhongkang died, and his son Emperor Xiang came to the throne. Emperor Xiang died, and his Son Shaokang came to the throne. Emperor Shaokang died, and his son Emperor Chu came to the throne. Emperor Chu died, and his son Emperor Huai came the throne. Emperor Huai died, and his Son Emperor Mang came to the throne. Emperor Mang died, and his Son Emperor Xie came to the throne. Emperor Xie died, and his son Emperor Bujiang came to the throne. Emperor Bujiang died, and his brother Emperor Jiong came to the throne. Emperor Jiong died, and his Son Emperor Jin came to the throne. Emperor Jin died, and Emperor Bujiang's son Kongjia, that is Emperor Kongjia, came to the throne. Emperor Kongjia was fond of enquiring into spiritual matters, and indulged in dissipation, and the virtue of the princes of Xia having degenerated, the chiefs rebelled. Heaven sent down two dragons, a male and a female. Kongjia could not feed them, and could not obtain a dragon-keeper. After the decline of Taotang (Yao) one of his descendants, Liu Lei, learnt to train dragons, and he was chosen out of the dragon-keepers to wait on Kongjia, who gave him the title of dragon-tamer, which was inherited by the descendants of the Shiwei. The female dragon died, and he served it up as a meal for the Prince of Xia, but the latter having sent some one to look for it, he became frightened and ran away.</blockquote>
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Kongjia died, and his son Emperor Gao came to the throne. Emperor Gao died, and his son Emperor Fa came to the throne. Emperor Fa died, and his son Emperor Lu Gui, that is Jie, came to the throne. Regarding the reign of the Emperor Jie, ever since the time of Kongjia the barons had frequently rebelled. Jie of Xia did not strive after virtue, and the wars injured the people. Unable to endure their wrongs they summoned Tang to their aid, but he was imprisoned in the tower of Xia; being afterwards released. Tang cultivated virtue, and the princes all went over to him, so Tang led an army to attack Jie of Xia. Jie fled to Mingtiao, and was eventually driven out and slain. Jie observed to someone, 'I regret that I did not take the opportunity of killing Tang in the tower of Xia, and then I should not have been brought to such a pass.' Tang, being seated on the Imperial throne, superseded Xia, and gave audience to the people. Tang enfeoffed the descendants of the Xias. Until the time of the Zhou dynasty they held the principality of Qi.</blockquote>
That's about all there is to say regarding the Xia. Most of their legacy stems from the glory of their first ruler, Yu the Great. After his son had a rather successful though arguably terrifying military career, things went downhill fast.<br />
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As we move into the next post, where I discuss the methodology of the different dating systems in depth, I'll be providing more data and visualizations for your entertainment. For now, that will do for our quick historical account of the Xia.<br />
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* <i>Note from the Significant Other: It was pointed out to me that this may not make sense to westerners. The Chinese use the lunar calendar, and one of the rather interesting requirements of this system of dates is that each year, a team of specialists must recalculate the times when seeds are to be scattered, harvested, etc. Here is a quote from her to elucidate the import and quality of the lunar calendar:</i><br />
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<i>"There is a day called the descent of the frost - Shuāngjiàng... and after that day, bok choy..." She pauses for dramatic effect - "... is no longer tasty."</i></blockquote>
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Joseph Knechthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946837067475720887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748364827176453486.post-62331703023342104222018-06-10T14:45:00.000-07:002018-06-18T19:49:10.423-07:00Chinese Dynasties and Data: Part I, The Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors<h2>
A Brief Introduction</h2>
The Middle Kingdom was always hard to pin down. Just for fun, I've done some basic analysis on the lifespan of the rulers of China. For the sake of readability, I'll provide a few different, fun visualizations along with some color commentary to keep you engaged. We'll work through the various dynasties first, and afterwards we'll discuss the totality of what was found. At the end of the post, I'll include an upload of the actual data I used. The majority of my data came from a wonderful set of web pages put together by Dr. David K. Jordan, professor emeritus of Anthropology over at UCSD. Thanks, doc. <a href="http://pages.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/chin/chinahistory/dyn11-u.html" target="_blank">Here's a link to that.</a> This will likely be the first in a long series of posts examining the dynasties of China from this dataset I've put together, and the dataset itself will be refined as time goes on and I get more information from various sources.<br />
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Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors</h2>
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Looking at the oldest recorded history (which definitely did not occur in any real way), we get some folks who lived an absurdly long time. The first period of China's history is known as Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors (三皇五帝) and deserves its own post at some point in the future. Complaints about its inclusion in this dataset would be fair, so they will be left out of further analysis once we've gotten through the dynasties.<br />
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The first thing you'll notice is that for a period known as Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, there are more than eight total people/beings. This is a not uncommon feature of ancient Chinese history, and one that delights me to encounter.<br />
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Depending on which data source you consider for this period of Chinese ancient history, you'll get a different number of god kings. Sometimes they're called August Ones, sometimes they're called Emperors, and sometimes they're called Sovereigns. One feature that many of them share is that they ruled for a comically long period of time.<br />
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We're going to be using the Records of the Grand Historian, or 史記, in our discussion/analysis here. So, to start with, I'll give you a nifty visualization of the Three Sovereigns first, and next we'll look at the Five Emperors.<br />
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Three Sovereigns, or Three August Ones</h3>
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What group of three rulers you end up with depends on your source. As I said, I'm using Records of the Grand Historian. The Three Sovereigns, as listed there, were The Heavenly Sovereign (Fuxi), The Earthly Sovereign (Nüwa), and the Human Sovereign (Shennong). Here's a handy dandy graphic to show you just how long their respected reigns lasted as per our source material:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgs8w60z3SZ_OtE1iKlFRG-O4KA8Q21NMuDTkUel9toZVxIJl156CSzKQ8ruXtzfw32CUQyZe5PtbuHvQOsdb4tjkJJjzrVuFLPgn1dNaQ6qCUZbrspXYbyOg4p3B-yx0_BKkvpKMYQTh4/s1600/ThreeSovereignsLength.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="517" data-original-width="435" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgs8w60z3SZ_OtE1iKlFRG-O4KA8Q21NMuDTkUel9toZVxIJl156CSzKQ8ruXtzfw32CUQyZe5PtbuHvQOsdb4tjkJJjzrVuFLPgn1dNaQ6qCUZbrspXYbyOg4p3B-yx0_BKkvpKMYQTh4/s1600/ThreeSovereignsLength.png" /></a></div>
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Here's another cool graphic to help you visualize their rule:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq6EUHg5THb3bhBR3TRzgkiDkpnHlrX8nauBW8cidCNeCUmgPg7lpU0O0xr2fbN8RZWnm_m8VgF5VM5JmbJhaQNB5aHoru0e2K9x9fKgGKOW2iV7v0Voqba_hCFAAZDP48502JeItosmta/s1600/ThreeSovereignsTimeline.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="163" data-original-width="445" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq6EUHg5THb3bhBR3TRzgkiDkpnHlrX8nauBW8cidCNeCUmgPg7lpU0O0xr2fbN8RZWnm_m8VgF5VM5JmbJhaQNB5aHoru0e2K9x9fKgGKOW2iV7v0Voqba_hCFAAZDP48502JeItosmta/s1600/ThreeSovereignsTimeline.png" /></a></div>
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As you can see, they all ruled for a long, long time. Some basic backstory on these three: Fuxi, along with his sister and/or wife Nuwa, are credited with the creation of the human race. They're gods. Depending on the mythological text you're checking out, they're either human-like or half serpent/dragon. Fuxi is credited with the creation of Chinese writing, fishing, hunting, cooking and sometimes animal husbandry. Nuwa fixed the Pillar of Heaven (it was broken beforehand). Also, it may have been the case that there were tons of God-tier humans before a giant flood that only Fuxi and Nuwa survived.</div>
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Shennong was, arguably, cooler. He not only introduced the Chinese - and, by extension, all of humanity - to farming, he also taught everyone to take drugs. He was the first herbalist. As one can see, he lived for a very long time. He spent a lot of that time going around eating different random plants and fungi, and his superpower was that he almost always didn't die from eating random things he found in trees or on the ground. Sadly, he ate one too many bad things and ended up dying as a result. Thanks for the drugs and medicine, Shennong. </div>
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Next, let's check out the Five Emperors. Here's another handy-dandy graphic to help us get a sense of how long they reigned over the various and sundry territories of the Middle Kingdom:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF0kL_S6ZgZDYfULvhTvqMs4LaYcovwTxcvg6PrgYBjgHTh3xptxHsnmU9Pq2lnlrJjmKp8XXc_jaAZv7jYUJFI264YN53V0NyuuLMarFJQJIDSVn4pZSeIh6OxuoV1ygFDCQiPb0r91Jq/s1600/FiveEmperorsLength.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="621" data-original-width="529" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF0kL_S6ZgZDYfULvhTvqMs4LaYcovwTxcvg6PrgYBjgHTh3xptxHsnmU9Pq2lnlrJjmKp8XXc_jaAZv7jYUJFI264YN53V0NyuuLMarFJQJIDSVn4pZSeIh6OxuoV1ygFDCQiPb0r91Jq/s1600/FiveEmperorsLength.png" /></a></div>
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Again, here's another cool graphic to help visualize their rule:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-_ozg4uszudYeAa7TXTOu8SYgbuhapz_UfDQO7KyQaBbFZpJcm1VaJ3kJTNCd1JVa2X6nRKWREgmmZtUz0j0-9hPOszqQCGYYC4sWIYK01sDRE_8Zjzc1muKzTFcHzSBq9MOxrd-rsASJ/s1600/FiveEmperorsTimeline.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="163" data-original-width="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-_ozg4uszudYeAa7TXTOu8SYgbuhapz_UfDQO7KyQaBbFZpJcm1VaJ3kJTNCd1JVa2X6nRKWREgmmZtUz0j0-9hPOszqQCGYYC4sWIYK01sDRE_8Zjzc1muKzTFcHzSBq9MOxrd-rsASJ/s1600/FiveEmperorsTimeline.png" /></a></div>
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We're getting closer to reasonable rule lengths, I'd say. To be fair, I don't actually have a sense of how long an ancient ruler should usually rule for it to be believable - this is partially why I'm undertaking this absurd project in the first place. That being said, it's highly suspect that someone would rule a country for almost a century, but we are in the period of Chinese mythology here. Now for a little background on the Five Emperors.</div>
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The Yellow Emperor, also known as the Yellow God or by his pinyin Huangdi, was not a human per se. He's famous for many things, but two of his accomplishments stand out above the rest in terms of Chinese history: he created China and he's the ancestor of every single Chinese person as per the surrounding lore. He also invented a lot of things, many of which were largely useful to people living in the Yellow River Valley. Three cheers for the progenitor of the Chinese! Fun fact: the Yellow Emperor died after meeting with a Phoenix and a Qilin. There are very culturally important reasons why these two things showed up when it was time for the Yellow Emperor to cast off the mortal coil, but that's too much for here.</div>
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Zhuanxu was the grandson of the Yellow Emperor. He took his people and moved them to Shandong, and he might have killed an ancestor of one of his Grandpa's biggest rivals. Some sources say that he didn't actually ever become an emperor, but those sources are probably written by the other ancestors of the Yellow Emperor's rivals. As the ancient phrase goes, "they hate us 'cause they ain't us."</div>
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Emperor Ku was also related to the Yellow Emperor, which I won't mention from here on out as it would be in front of almost every single person we discussed going forward. He had a good number of wives and ruled for a while. Some people ascribe magical god powers to him, too. There's debate as to whether he existed at all, as is the case with pretty much all of the Emperors we've talked about.</div>
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Next in the order is Emperor Yao. He apparently lived for close to 120 years, and was known for being a very cool guy. He's considered a sage by many early Chinese writers. Most importantly, he invented Weiqi, known in the west as Go. If you think that Chess is a difficult game, try playing Go on a 19x19 board. </div>
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Last up in the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors Saga is Emperor Shun. Among many accomplishments, he was likely the first creator of what might be recognizable as an orchestra today. He really loved music and travelling, but due to being an emperor his travel was largely limited due to the constraints of ruling. He gave up power to Yu of Xià when he was old, deciding it was finally time to do all the travelling he'd been thinking about. As soon as he started his travels, he fell ill and<br />
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died. His wives carried him over to the banks of the Xiang river and cried over his body so much that they turned the waters red, which explains where all that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotted_bamboo">spotted bamboo</a> came from. They then killed themselves in the river. <br />
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More visualizations will be forthcoming. The next dynasty we will be examining is the Xià (夏).<br />
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More Data</h3>
As promised, here's the <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11Fdg_OywL05MYHwoCEcytEuw9i5Lba9gYsvBEFLO4l8/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">dataset</a>. Please feel free to leave any comments or questions you have here. I'm going to be discussing cause of death where I can, which will become more believable as time goes on. In the dataset I'll be writing down the cause of death as well as their estimated age at death (which will also, by nature of the data we have, give us age of ascension). This will all be coming in future posts. Hope you've enjoyed this so far!</div>
Joseph Knechthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946837067475720887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3748364827176453486.post-75261499947218546732018-06-09T16:42:00.002-07:002018-07-10T15:55:04.118-07:00Stick to the Middle<br />
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<i>Pyrrhus of Epirus</i></div>
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What's in a name?</h2>
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Michel de Montaigne begins his essay Of Cannibals with a discussion of King Pyrrhus and his recollection of encounters with the Romans.<br />
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“Je ne sçay, dit-il, quels barbares sont ceux-ci (car les Grecs appelloyent ainsi toutes les nations estrangieres), mais la disposition de cette armée que je voy, n'est aucunement barbare.”<br />
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Roughly translated, that sentence comes out to this: <br />
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"I don't know, he says, what kind of barbarians these are (for so the Greeks called all the foreign nations), but in the disposition of their armies that I see, there is no barbarity whatsoever."<br />
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To boil down the essence of the French essayist into a few words only is a difficult task, but Pyrrhus demonstrates the meat of Of Cannibals thousands of years prior to its original penning by an old french man. There’s a danger in ascribing barbarism or simplicity to a people that are not much known or known poorly within your group. Pyrrhus went on to be absolutely demolished in the course of his victories against the Romans, so much so that his name is associated with a type of victory that every military general has avoided ever since.<br />
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The Chinese have a history of mischaracterization outside of China. Take the word China itself as an instructive example, which is murky in its origins. Many westerners use the term sino or sin- in its root form to refer to things that are Chinese or related to China. The earliest use of this particular term is in an ancient Greek periplus showing all the hot trading spots for the adventurous sea or land trader. Essentially all of what is now called China was given the title θίν, or Thin, as if that was a real country and not something totally made up. We've also got the still popular word Sino, which traces its roots to both Latin and Ancient Greek, with a little Sanskrit or Arabic to spice things up. All of these different possible roots are interesting as a side note, but if you look them up in any respectable dictionary you'll get something along these lines:<br />
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<i>THINAE (Thinai, or Sinai, Ptol. 7.3.6, 8.27.12), or THINA (Thina, Arrian, Per. M. Erythr. p. 36), a capital city of the Sinae, who carried on here a large commerce in silk and woollen stuffs. It appears to have been an ancient tradition that the city was surrounded with brazen walls; but Ptolemy remarks that these did not exist there, nor anything else worthy of remark. The ancient writers differ very considerably as to its situation. According to the most probable accounts it was either Nankin, or rather perhaps Thsin, Tin, or Tein, in the province Schensi, where, according to the accounts of the Chinese themselves, the first kingdom of Sin, or China, was founded. (Cf. Ritter, Erdkunde, ii. p. 199.)</i><br />
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Cool. So Ptolemy introduced the western world to the Chinese and, in effect, set us up to describe things as Sino this or Sino that. At this point, an astute reader will ask the most important question: who gives a hoot about why the Chinese are called Chinese? The reason I chose to describe the first encounter between the Romans and Pyrrhus is an instructive one: the barbarians had their own name.<br />
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China, for westerners, has often existed as little more than a novelty. When the Romans and Greeks were trading for silk from the far east, it was comically difficult to get an answer as to where the silk actually came from. The people buying silk that had originated from China often knew that it was from far away, but having traded hands many times before getting to the merchant they had only the most general sense of where it came from and who those original creators of the wonderful substance were. The ambiguity found in the etymological roots of the word China are not an accident, but rather the result of genuine confusion about where and what these people were.<br />
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Stubbornness prevails, however, and after centuries of repetition the name China stuck in the mind of westerners. Maybe, it is posited, the original westerner or middle easterner who met a Chinese trader or delegate met someone who pointed at himself and said Qin, referring to the dynasty he lived under. That, however, is not the same as saying what your country is called. To understand the comical level of misunderstanding that may have happened, it would be the equivalent of the Chinese referring to the Romans exclusively as the Julius people.<br />
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Still, though, the question can be posed: who cares what they're called? We all know what we mean when we say Chinese. First, I doubt that many people do understand, and second, it's generally considered nice to call someone by their actual name rather than something you misheard them say one time. To go on calling them that thing you heard them say one time for over two thousand years is, to say the least, rude.<br />
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Stuck in the Middle with You</h2>
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What, then, do the Chinese like to call themselves? The answer is complicated, largely because China is both very large and has existed in some form or another for quite a while. Let us consider a few of the different names the people of China have gone by in the past, and ultimately come to what they call themselves now.</div>
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You've probably heard of the most common title for China: the Middle Kingdom. This is an important word for a few reasons, but first we will check out how it looks:</div>
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<img alt="Culture Trivia Question: The Chinese refer to their own country as "Zhongguo". What does Zhongguo literally mean?" src="https://cdn.quizzclub.com/questions/2016-03/the-chinese-refer-to-their-own-country-as-zhongguo-what-does-zhongguo-literally-mean.jpg" /></div>
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Neat. The pinyin for that is <i>Zhōngguó</i>.<span style="color: #878787; font-family: inherit; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span>It's made up of two characters, as the discerning individual might have guessed. The first means central and the second means state. This can be (and normally is) translated as middle kingdom. Don't get ahead of yourself here, though, because there's a bit more backstory on what that means and when its been used. The short story is this: that particular term has been used for a long time, but often the ruling state (there were multiple, sometimes many, states at any given time) would just tell everyone to call the country they were in the name of the dynasty. This leads to things like the Qin, Tang, Xia, and more dynasties being talked about. I don't want to get into the nitty gritty too much on the entire history of the Middle Kingdom or the infinitude of names it has had, but suffice to say there were many over the last few thousand years. </div>
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The CPC, known in the west as the CCP, named the country <i>Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó</i>. The new guys, in an effort to distance themselves from the old guys (who also were bad and, according to Mao Thought, dumb), made it clear that the Middle Kingdom was now the Middle Kingdom People's Republic. The west, refusing to call the Middle Kingdom the Middle Kingdom, changed that to the People's Republic of China. In all honesty, it is baffling to me that we're all still collectively referring to China as China, seeing as <i>Zhōngguó </i>really isn't that hard to pronounce - and, if we're collectively unwilling to pronounce hard and different languages, I'm all for moving towards calling them the Middle Kingdom. The Middle Kingdom really just sounds a lot better, and it's also literally what they call themselves. </div>
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Who Cares?</h2>
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If you genuinely don't care at this point, I've failed in what I thought to be a fairly simple mission. With all the hubbub surrounding the rise of China, it seems that we still don't take the Middle Kingdom seriously. If the west is unwilling to know - or incapable of knowing - the most basic facts about what is shaping up to be the most important nation of the century, we're probably fucked. If the west is unable to understand the name of a place, how can it hope to understand the actions of that place?</div>
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This is just the first of what will likely be quite a few short posts on the Middle Kingdom. Hope you liked it. </div>
Joseph Knechthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05946837067475720887noreply@blogger.com1