Huang-Lao, Not Confucianism, is the Mainstay of Chinese Culture

EDITOR’S NOTE: Confucianism, that treated other schools of thought as heresies, cannot represent Chinese culture; only the Huang-Lao thought system, that has assimilated thoughts from the many different schools, constitutes the mainstay of Chinese culture. As a comprehensive integration of all major pre-Qin academic thoughts and a continuation of Western Zhou court-sponsored academic learning, the Huang-Lao system of thought brought the Chinese civilization to a new height of development.

When speaking about Chinese culture, modern scholars mostly take Confucianism as its typical embodiment, so that Confucius has almost become the symbol for Chinese culture. For example, the present-day Chinese language schools outside of China sponsored by the Chinese government are uniformly called “Confucius Institute”.

This was actually only a willful reading of history by later scholars. We can see from The Book of Han • Treatise on Literature (《汉书·艺文志》) that Confucianism was only one of the many schools of thought in the eyes of Han-dynasty Chinese. To maintain the unity of the country, Emperor Wu began to subdue the opinions of mutually contesting schools, including Confucians. One important measure to curb the influence of Confucianists was to eliminate the positions of court academicians specializing in teaching Confucian classics such as Analects, Classic of Filial Piety, and Mencius, while setting up positions for teaching the Five Classics representing Western Zhou court-sponsored learning. (See Zao Qi, c.108 - 201, Eastern Han classics commentator, Mencius: A contextual reading • Introduction, 《孟子章句·题辞》; Qian Da-xin, 1728 – 1804, The Collected Works of Qianyantang • Questions and Answers, 《潜研堂文集•答问》).

Book of Han • Annals of Emperor Wu (《汉书·武帝本纪》) records that Emperor Wu “officially rejected all schools of thought and commended the Six Classics”, i.e., Book of Changes (《易经》), Book of History (《尚书》), Book of Poetry (《诗经》), Book of Rites (《礼记》), Book of Music (《乐记》), and Spring and Autumn Annals (《春秋》) – this only shows that the emperor gave prominence to Western Zhou court-sponsored learning. The emperor did give courteous reception to the Confucian scholars who “cruised around in the six classics” but seldom placed them in important positions. On what ground can it be said that Emperor Wu singled out Confucianism as the official ideology? Some scholar holds that it was because Confucian scholars were good at riding on the coattails, so to speak, of those classics (浙江师范大学钭东星: 《所谓“汉武独尊儒术罢黜百家”辨》，visited on May 1, 2010).

As a matter of fact, there was no institutional foundation for Confucianism to be singled out as the official ideology. At that time, officials were mostly selected through a social merit system, and the whole society was oriented towards meritorious performance, which was slighted by Confucianists. During a court policy debate in 81 b.c., those Confucian scholars selected as “the able and virtuous” (贤良) fiercely denounced the civil servant selection system of the time, saying that it was so chaotic that the rich could buy official positions, the brave trade their lives for scholarly honor or official rank, and acrobats serve as officials and even as ministers after years of meritorious service (Yan Tie Lun, Chap. 32,《盐铁论·除狭第三十二》).

So, from Han through Tang dynasty, the prevailing thought system in China was not Confucianism, but Daoism (Wentong Meng, An Exploration into the Fountainhead of Chinese Philosophical Ideas • Introduction to the Study of Classics • Schools of Thought, Ancient Books Press, Taiwan, 1997, P. 41).

The Five Dynasties before that was a period of storm and stress, during which military strongmen were contending for supremacy. Therefore, Northern Song rulers were well aware of the dangers of local military separatist regimes. Their decisive strategy for dealing with this problem, besides temporary measures like trading the generals’ military power with rewards of honor and wealth (“杯酒释兵权”), is to “develop civil education and reduce military function”. By “civil” was meant what was advocated by Confucianists. For instance, Emperor Taizu, founder of Song dynasty, once said that, even if Confucianist scholars in governing positions were all corrupt, they were still less than ten percent as harmful as military governors. (Song Dynasty Chronicles, Vol. II, 《宋史纪事本末》卷二.)

The mechanism for Northern Song government to install Confucian scholars in official positions was the imperial examination system. By the time the fourth Song emperor succeeded to the throne, this system had already prevailed. (The History of Song Dynasty, Vol. 155, Chap. 1, Election; 《宋史·卷一五五·选举一》) During the 166 years of reign by the first eight Northern Song emperors, 69 such examinations were held, recruiting altogether 34,163 scholars of all degrees, an average of 495 each time or about 205 each year, 2-3 times as many as during Tang dynasty. (Zhongli He, “Why Northern Song Expanded Imperial Examination Enrolment and its Relation with Government Overstaffing”, in Song History Studies, Vol. 1, Zhejiang Ancient Books Press, 1986; 何忠礼：《北宋扩大科举取士的原因及与冗官冗吏的关系》，收入《宋史研究集刊》第1辑，浙江古籍出版社，1986年。)

With a mutually reinforcing, or positive regeneration, mechanism taking shape between the imperial examination system and the shifting of emphasis from military to civil service relying on Confucian scholars during Northern Song dynasty, Confucianist ideology gradually and finally ascended to a dominating position in China. (Haitao Jia, A Study of Confucianist Statecraft in Northern Song Dynasty, Qi-Lu Press, 2006, PP. 10-11; 贾海涛：《北宋“儒术治国”政治研究》，齐鲁书社，2006年6月，第10-11页。)

The first problem with Confucianist statecraft is its effectiveness. This was a problem that had worried Confucian scholars ever since before Qin dynasty and developed into disastrous situations for China since Song Dynasty -- the decline of social organizing capacity due to Confucianist state policies had made the inland areas more vulnerable to ravages by tribal hordes from the northern borders. In the 5000 years of Chinese history, it was not until Song dynasty that this kind of situation became a constant state (with the only exception of Yuan dynasty, which relied on the Huis, instead of Confucian scholars, for state administration).

In the book cited above, Dr. Jia raises doubts about the governing abilities of Northern Song Confucian scholar-officials, repeating in modern language the historically recurring arguments that Confucian scholars are incompetent in state administration: “Northern Song scholar-officials were but bookworms who lacked insight into social reality, inflexible and lagging behind the time in thinking, inattentive to practical issues, only good at quoting and copying from ancients, and at empty talk but not tackling real problems. In a word, they were no experts in running state affairs. Even if some of them were noble-minded, aspiring to take all-under-heaven as their own responsibility, they failed to know how to fulfill it and were failed by their lack of ability. There were too many of them in both Song dynasties…”(p. 108.)

Prof. Yuhai Han has presented an even more profound understanding of Confucianist statecraft in terms of its politico-economic implications by pointing out the essential nature and consequences of Confucianist liberal economic thought and policies typical of small peasant mentality, though he does not touch the specific economic views of Confucianists. In his best-selling book entitled Who Made the Recent 500 Years of History?, he traces the key factor for the wax and wane of China in those 500 years back to Song dynasty, saying that the key “lay in the discrepancy between the growth of economy and the downturn of the state’s organizing capability”. “The fact that the economically developed Song could not beat the Liao, Jin and Western Xia regimes organized along military lines shows that the real issue was not economy but social organizing capacity,” he continued. “Since Song dynasty, the state policy was to have merchants and local tyrants do the organizing work while the state withdrew totally from commercial activities, transportation and even military supply services… ” (Jiuzhou Press, 2009, P. 2; 韩毓海：《五百年来谁著史》，九州出版社，2009年12月，第2页。)

When we study the history of China and look objectively at the role played by Confucianism as the dominating ideology, no one with some moral sense will not feel deeply agonized to see the tragic fate of this vicissitudinous nation. Why, then, are most of 21st century Chinese intellectuals still paying such homage to Confucianism? Among other causes, the most important one is the ignorance of modern Chinese intelligentsia about the mainstay of Chinese culture – the Huang-Lao thought system.

Looked at in macro perspectives, Chinese learning has experienced four big changes in history: first, from court-sponsored official learning to various private schools of thought; second, with political unification under Qin and Han, various schools of learning integrated into one Huang-Lao system; third, the domination of Confucianism after Han dynasty attained through assimilating from Western Zhou court learning and rejecting other contemporary schools of thought; fourth, since late Qing, following aggression from Western powers, Confucianism replaced by Western learning as the dominating ideology and all Chinese learning sank into oblivion. Today, the revival of Chinese culture should mean that of Huang-Lao thought system as the most comprehensive integration of all major classical schools and the worthy representative of the new apex of Chinese learning after that of Western Zhou.

Before the silk manuscripts of Huang-Lao classics were excavated from Han tombs at Mawangdui, Changsha, Hunan province, China in 1970s, Chinese scholars had been wooly-minded about what Huang-Lao school of learning was. Some of them even mistake “Huang” as some other persons than “Yellow Emperor”. A major cause for this confusion was because much of Huang-Lao literature had been lost. We were even unaware that the “Daoist school” mentioned in the Book of Han (《汉书》) and Record of the Grand Historian (《史记》) was not the same as the so-called “Lao-Zhuang thought”, which focused on personal cultivation aiming at mental tranquility and inner perfection only, but was actually none other than the Huang-Lao school, which took Daoism as its underlying philosophy (for inner cultivation) and Legalism as its guiding principle for statecraft (as outer application) while synthesizing all other schools of thought. It is worth a special note here that the “outer essays” and ”miscellaneous essays” of Zhuangzi (《庄子》外、杂篇) reveal obvious indications of the author’s inclination toward Huang-Lao thought and, so, that we should not identify the purport of Zhuangzi with that of “Lao-Zhuang thought” prevalent during Wei and Jin dynasties and pit it against Huang-Lao thought.

As a matter of fact, The Book of Han • Treatise on Literature (《汉书·艺文志》) makes a clear distinction between Huang-Lao Daoists and “Lao-Zhuang” followers by criticizing the latter as seeking personal mental peace only (“独任清虚”) and pointing out that the former, following the tradition of ancient official historians, recorded the vicissitudes of history to show the right statecraft a ruler should adopt (“君人南面之术”).

How, then, did Huang-Lao scholars choose from classics of Yin-Yang, Confucian, Mohist, Logician, Legalist, Daoist schools? What Western Han Grand Historian Sima Tan (司马谈) says in his On the Six Major Schools of thought (《论六家要旨》) matches the content of the above list and is very important to the understanding of how Huang-Lao learning has synthesized the ideas of various schools and made Chinese academic thought into a comprehensively integrated whole:

“I have made a private study of the Yin-Yang school and found it focuses on prediction of blessings and disasters and prescribes so many taboos that people feel too much restrained and scared; but its elaboration on the implications of the cycle of the four seasons should not be lost.

“Confucian thinking rambles widely but seldom hits the point and yields little result in spite of much effort, and, so, it makes no sense to follow it in every way; but the status distinctions it advocates between the sovereign and the subject, the father and the son, the husband and the wife, and the elder and the younger should not be changed.

“And Daoist learning leads people to single-mindedness and compliance to the invisible (Dao) in behavior, thus ensuring an abundance of all things; as a practical art, this school follows the course of Yin and Yang, assimilates what is good from Confucianism and Mohism, absorbs what is essential in the Logicians’ and Legalist thoughts; it adapts itself to the changes of time and cultivates conventions suitably applicable to practical affairs, giving directions that are concise and easy to follow, incurring little futile work but producing rich results.”

As an official historian for Emperor Wu of Han, Sima Tan was inevitably influenced by the “mutual disparagement between Confucianists and Daoists” with the former on the rise. That was why he criticized Confucianist ideas on state management. He might not have expected that Confucianism would replace Huang-Lao learning as the mainstream of Chinese thought.

Sima Tan’s criticism carries much weight. He points out the danger of Confucianist rule of virtue by saying: Confucianists “require the sovereign to be the good example for all people under heaven. When he advocates something, his ministers and subjects will respond positively; when he takes the first step, they will all follow. As a result, the sovereign is overworked while his ministers are idle. The main idea of the Supreme Way is to give up assertiveness and greediness and get rid of cleverness and artfulness. To forget this and govern with craftiness would result in mental and physical overstrain and, hence, exhaustion. It is never heard that, when body and soul are in disarray and unease, one could survive as long as heaven and earth.”

From late Han through Tang dynasty, Lao-Zhuang thought, the Daoist religion and Buddhism became popular, among which Lao-Zhuang occupied a specially important place. Towards the end of Han, scholarly thought began to turn away from the practical issue of state management to the more personal and spiritual side of Daoist philosophy. Thus, the term ‘Huang-Lao” gradually yielded its popularity in public discourse to the term “Lao-Zhuang”.

Thus, Huang-Lao as mainstream Chinese thought metamorphosed into Lao-Zhuang, which later was replaced by Confucianism, which, finally, was overwhelmed by Western learning. While Chinese thought tradition has undergone dynamic changes, the Huang-Lao system of thought represented a height never surpassed ever since, with its re-integration of all schools of thought since the dissolution of Western Zhou official learning.

In a word, Confucianism is not entitled to represent Chinese culture. It is the Huang-Lao school of learning that has been the mainstay of Chinese civilization. Without this understanding, any view of Chinese culture will miss its grandeur and subtlety just like looking at flowers in a fog.

Compared with its negative impact on China’s political and economic life, the destruction brought about by Confucianism to Chinese culture is a much more ghastly sight. While Huang-Lao scholars tried to integrate all different schools of learning, later Confucianists demonized all unorthodox schools of thought. The result was that large volumes of classical literature from those schools were left in oblivion for long historical periods of time or even lost, irretrievably lost, while Confucianism often limited itself to contextual studies of classics and history writings, studies having no bearing on practical issues. In a sense, the damage done by Confucianism to Chinese culture was much more severe than the First Emperor of Qin’s burning of private collections of books for the purpose of maintaining national unification.

Confucianism had a tradition of intolerance towards other schools of thought. Most Confucianists censured them as heresies. Mencius branded Yangzi and Mozi as “beasts”. Zhuxi, a Southern Song Neo-Confucianist, also rejected Yangzi and Mozi as heresies. When Buddhism was introduced from India to China, Confucian scholars attacked it as heterodoxy. For instance, the Chen brothers of Northern Song, also Neo-Confucianists, alleged Buddhism to be even more dangerous than Yangzi and Mozi. Hence, Song Confucians launched a massive attack on Buddhism.

Actually, Buddhism could have complemented Confucianism with what the latter was weak in, i.e., the former’s rich experiences in personal inner cultivation. But the suppression by orthodoxy Confucianists was a major cause, among others, for the failure of Buddhism in getting completely assimilated into the Chinese society so far. Buddhism has been the best developed philosophy of life based on personal practice, as is different of Western-style philosophy based on speculation, and should have become part of people’s daily exercise in self-cultivation.

Why, then, are so many scholars today still stubbornly upholding Confucianism, in spite of its severe negative effect on Chinese civilization, as representing Chinese culture, or as Chinese culture itself? Besides their unfamiliarity with the Huang-Lao school, as mentioned above, the author finds two more causes:

One is the inertia of history. The almost totally Westernized Chinese mind of the 20^th century grew out of the ruins, so to speak, of Qing culture and could not but retain some influence from it. Not only did Kang Youwei the reformist pose himself as a successor to the study of Confucian classics in Han scripts (今文经学), but most of early inaugurators of the New Culture Movement had also been educated in the traditional way. In their perspective, it is only natural to view Confucianism as embodies the principles of sages and constitutes the identity of Chinese learning.

In spite of the fact that Confucian scholars of Qing dynasty, by their studies of classics of various schools, provided a much broadened view of Chinese learning for people of today, they still ended in identifying Han scripts of Confucian classics as representing Chinese culture, failing to bring about a fundamental change in this general view. Such is the inertia of history!

The second cause is the influence of Western learning. Twentieth-century Chinese scholars have made little original contributions to theory but copied from Western thought. They used to make far-fetched comparisons between Western and Chinese concepts, seldom failing to refer to the former as the source of authority. The earliest time when Western missionaries made close contacts with China was in Ming dynasty, a time when Confucianism was propagating itself on a full scale. Therefore, they understandably tended to identify Chinese culture with Confucianism and regard Confucius as its representative personage. This mistaken view largely influenced Western studies of Chinese culture and, through recent Western impact on China, came back to shape the mind of contemporary Chinese scholars. Hence the transmission of such falsehood from generation to generation with no prospect of a return to truth so far.

The revival of traditional Chinese culture lies in such an arduous task of re-discovering the forgotten wisdom of ancient sages. Not only do we need to clarify the thousands of years of confusion as a result of the domination of Confucianism and restore Huang-Lao system of thought in its original status as the mainstay of Chinese culture, we should also, with Huang-Lao learning as the foundation, assimilate from the huge accumulation of Western knowledge – this is an historical mission the 21^st-century Chinese scholars cannot stay away from.