. The awakening of China . r way. Shun, the secondsovereign of whose reign there is record (2200 b. c),is said to have waged war with San Miao, three tribesof miaotze or aborigines, a term still applied to theindependent tribes of the southwest. Beaten in thefield, or at least suffering a temporary check, he betookhimself to the rites of religion, making offerings andpraying to Shang-ti, the supreme ruler. After fortydays, it is stated, the natives submitted. In the absence of any explanation it may beconcluded that during the suspension of hostilitiesnegotiations were proceeding which resulte
. The awakening of China . r way. Shun, the secondsovereign of whose reign there is record (2200 b. c),is said to have waged war with San Miao, three tribesof miaotze or aborigines, a term still applied to theindependent tribes of the southwest. Beaten in thefield, or at least suffering a temporary check, he betookhimself to the rites of religion, making offerings andpraying to Shang-ti, the supreme ruler. After fortydays, it is stated, the natives submitted. In the absence of any explanation it may beconcluded that during the suspension of hostilitiesnegotiations were proceeding which resulted not inthe destruction of the natives, but in their incorpora-tion with their more civilised neighbours. This firstrecorded amalgamation of the kind was doubtless aninstance of a process of growth that continued formany centuries, resulting in the absorption of all thenative tribes on the north of the Yang-tse and of mostof those on the south. The expanding state was event-ually composed of a vast body of natives who sub-. PEKIXO: SACRED TABLET, TEMPLE OF COM UCIU3 ORIGIN OF THE CHINESE 69 mitted to their civilised conquerors, much as thepeople of Mexico and Peru consented to be ruled bya handful of Spaniards.* As late as the Christian era any authentic accountof permanent conquests in China to the south of theGreat River is still wanting, though warlike ex-peditions in that direction were not infrequent. Thepeople of the northern provinces called themselvesHan-jin, men of Han or sons of Han, whilethose of the south styled themselves rang-jw, menof Tang. Does not this indicate that, while the for-mer were moulded into imity by the great djniastywhich took its name from the river Han (206 b. c),the latter did not become Chinese until the brilliantiperiod of the Tangs, nearly a thousand years later?Further confirmation need not be adduced to showthat the empire of the Far East contemporary with,and superior in civilisation to, ancient Rome, embracedless than the eighteen provinc
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