Wei was a small state lying between the Yellow River as it now is
and the same river as it then was: it was given to a brother of
the founder of the Chou dynasty, and his subjects, like those of
the Sung duke, consisted largely of the remains of the Shang
dynasty; from which circumstance we may conclude that the so-
called "dynasties," including that of Chou, were simply different
ruling clans of one and the same people, very much like the
different Jewish tribes, of which the tribe of Levi was the most
"spiritual": that peculiarity may account for the universal
unreadiness to cut off sacrifices and destroy tombs, an outrage we
only hear of between barbarians, as, for instance, when Wu sacked
the capital of Ts'u. We have seen in Chapter XII. that a reigning
duke even respected at least some of the sacrificial rights of a
traitor subject.
The important state of CHENG, lying to the eastward of the
imperial reserve, was only founded in the ninth century B.C. by
one of the then Emperor's sons; to get across to each other, the
great states north and south of the orthodox nucleus had usually
to "beg road" of CHENG, which territory, therefore, became a
favourite fighting-ground; the rulers were earls.
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