F ou-h i— first Emperor—estimated at. ................................................ B Q
Several of Ms descendants are named, ■with traditionary discoveries in arts
affixed to each personage.
Fou-hi, however, is a collective name under which the Chinese figure many centuries of
national existence coupled with progressive developments in civilization, marked by consecutive
artistic inventions: just as the Hebrews ascribe all legislation to their noun of
multitude, Moses. This, traditionary and semi-mythical first Emperor stands parallel with
the Egyptian IYth dynasty, during the thirty-fifth century b. o. The latter is positively
historical: -to reject the former, on the imaginary ground of recent mundane antiquity is
rendered futile by existing pyramids at Memphis. Fou-hi, Menes, and Abraham, to’us
appear equally historical, as human individuals who once lived; although of none of the
three are contemporaneous monuments, carved by their respective people, now extant.
H isto r ica l P e r io d .
Chronological Table. — We condense into dynasties that chronology of all the Sovereigns
who have reigned in China, (from. b . c. 2637 down to a . d . 1821), which Father Amiot transmitted
from Fe-kin to Paris in 1769; and which is printed “ in extenso ” at the end of
Pauthier’s Chine, after collation with the learned Jesuit’s manuscript notes, and with parts
of the 100 volumes of the Chines«? chronographic work Li-tai-ki-sse.
The. 61st year of the Chinese emperor Hoang-ti, corresponding to our b . c . 2637, falls
according to Lepsius’s computation, within Egypt’s “ Old Empire,” and between theYIIth
and Xth dynasties of Manetho, in any case during the pyramidal period.
2205
2155
, 1134 «
, 255 «
, 202 «
265 A.D
420 “
479 «
502 «
557 «
581 I
618 «
907 g
923 “
936 “
947 «
951 “
960 I
1123 «
1260 “
1295 «
1368 “
1616 I
1821 «
-1st Dynasty ■— 1st King, Hoang-ti, “ Yellow Kmperor,” 61st year...... ........
Five successors down to Yao, B..o. 2337.
6th « Yao, 81st year.............................................................. f | | .............
Hd
HEd
u
tt
8th “ Chun, ..............9th of his synthronism..........................................
[Monuments commence — “ Inscription of YU,” b-. o. 2278.]
“Hia,” — 1st King, Yu, 10th year of. his synthronism............
“ 4th “ Tchoung-kang 5 th year of his reign, eclipse of the Sun,
b. c.2155 (521)..........................h......
[Contemporary vases exist, dating from b. o. 1766.] '
m b « V th « “ Thsin” [whence the name of “ China”]..........*..... .......................
v r th “ “ Han” ,..!.....''.,.'.’..,'...... .................................... 1......................
King Youan-ti, of the “ Wei;”-A.D. 292.
TO th tt
“ Tgin” ..................... ...........................................
v m t h tt “ Northern Spnng” ...............................................
IXth tt “ Tsi” ........
Xth et “ Liang ” .....l..\..t.................. ............................
X lth « “ Tchin” .:...... .................... | ......... ......... ..i ......
X llth et “ Son!”................................................... .....................
x m t h et “ Thang” ....,................
The Five Little Dynasties. ■
XIYth tt
1st, “ Posterior Liang”.................... ......................... .
XVth ■tt 2d, “ Posterior Thang”..................... ..................................
XYIth i 3d, “ Posterior Tsin ” ........................................
XVIIth . “ 4th, “ Posterior Man” ......................................... .......
xvnith et 5th, “ Posterior Tcheou”.......... ................................ ........
XlXth tt ‘•‘Soung” .......................................................
XXth tt “Kin, Simultaneously with Sotmg”...........................
XXIst tt Commencement of “ Youan,” Mongols.............................
xxnd “ Mongols.......... ........ .....................................
xxind et “ Ming” ......................................., .....................................*.....
XXIV th “ “ Tai-thsing,” MantchourT&rt&vB........................................
Now reigling—and down to.................... ...........................
24 Dynasties, whose consecutive rule covers years 4458.
(521) Chine, p. 58; and ChourMng, p. 47 : — but, compare Biot, Syzigies, 1848, for astronomical doubts.
Egyptian priests had told Herodotus, (622) that lengthened experience and observation
of their own history enabled fliem to predicate the future through the cyclic recurrence of
the past. In no chronicles do similar causes oftener reproduce similar events, through
perpetual cycles, than the reader of Pauthier will recognize among the Chinese. No
political acumen is required by historians to foretell the inevitable downfall of the present
alien Mantchou-T&rt^r dynasty. Its doom is sealed; its knell is ringing. One fact will
illustrate its Tartarian despotism, and explain the repugnance to prolongation of its hateful
rule nurtured in the bosom of every true Chinaman; precisely paralleled by Arab hatred
to the cognate Tartar-Turks.
In the same manner that the radical poverty of the Ottoman speech compels the Turk to
draw all his polite terms from the Persian,, his scientific from the Arabic, so, in China, the
uncouth and slender vocabulary of the J/awicAow-Tartars became enriched, after their
conquest, with Chinese words of civilization. This gave offence to the Tartar emperor,
Kien-loung; who, anxious to preserve the Mantchou idiom in its natural if barbaric
“ purity,” appointed an Imperial Commission, to compose, from Mantchou radicals, 6000
new words, to stand in place of those which his courtiers had borrowed from the Chinese
tongue. This new nomenclature, printed and proclaimed, was imposed upon all high
government functionaries; who had thus to learn 6000 unknown words by heart, under
severe penalties! Truly, as Champollion-Figeac remarks— “ H n’y a qu’un Tartare régnant
sur des Chinois qui soit asséz puissant pour introduire d’emblée et par ordonnance cinq
mille mots dans une langue! ” (623)
CHRONOLOGY — A S SY R IA N .
“ The spider weaves his web in the palace of Caesar;
The owl stands sentinel upon the watch-tower of Afrasiab!”
(P trdoosee— Shah Nameh)
The eighteenth century, fecund precursor of those conquests in historical science that
have immortalized the nineteenth, passed away, without permitting its contemporaries to
illumine the gloom which, since the decline of the Alexandria School at the Christian era,
for 2000 years had enveloped with equal obscurity the pyramids and temples of the Nile,
the lightning-fused towers and crumbling brick mounds on the Euphrates and Tigris, or the
. rock-hewn sepulchres and thousand-pillared fanes of “ lorn Fersepolis.”
In the year 1800, absolutely nothing was known about these huge colossi of the past
beyond the fact of, their existence 1
A wondrous change has been wrought, by half a century of research, in historical
knowledge: almost inconceivable when we reflect that, upon the Assyrian theme before us,
modern science knew nothing in 1843 — only ten years ago. “ Palpitants d’actualités,”
Lamartine would say, are these glorious discoveries — still damp from the press are the
volumes that unfold them.
Antithesis serves to place past ignorance and present information in the strongest light.
Fersepolis and her arrow-headed inscriptions suffice by way of illustration.
The German Witte ascribed these ruins, not to human agency, but to an “ eruption of
the earth.” De Roesch deemed them the work of an antediluvian Lantech, “ whose exploits
are exhibited in these sculptures.” . Discarding Homer’s Iliad in the sense vulgarly understood
of its glowing heroics, De Rcesch believes Persia to be figured by Troy, Media by
Europe, and Assyria by Asia. According to this lOgopoeist, or compiler of invented 'facts,
the Grecian siege of Ilium was but a war between Medes and Persians: and the cuneatic
etters of Persepolis “ record a series of kings from Cain to Lamech.”
Chardin, in 1673, pronounced these remains to be about “ 400Ó years old;” a limit too
restricted for the astronomer Bailly: who attributes the foundation of Persepolis to the
(522) Aptly cited by H e n r y , LÉgypte Pharaonique, ii. pp. 27, 28.
(523) Paléographie Universelle; 1841; Introduction, p. 48.