CHINA. 



225 



The Third Imperial Dynasty. 

 TCHEOO. 



Before Christ. 



Third dy. IVoo-vang 1122 



mut T- Tching-vang .... 1115 



Kang-vang 10S>8 



Tchao-vang 1052 



,o vang 1001 



Kong-vang 916 



.Y.vang 934 



Hiao-vang 909 



Y.vang 894 



Lee-vang 878 



Siuen-vang 827 



Veoo-vaog 781 



Ping-vang 770 



Huon-vang 719 



Tchoang-vang . . . 696 



lice vang 681 



Hiey-vang 676 



Before Christ. 



Siang-vang 651 



King-vang 618 



Kuang-vang 612 



Ting vang 606 



Kien-vang 58.5 



Ling- vang 571 



King-vang 5!4 



King-vang 519 



Yuen-vang 475 



Tchuig-ting-vang . . 468 



Kao-vang 440 



G;>ey-!ie-vang .... 425 



Ngan vang 401 



Lie vang 375 



Hien-vang 368 



Tchin tsin-vang .... 320 

 Nan-vang 314 



The history and chronology of this dynasty are not 

 Jess involved in uncertainty, than those of the two prece- 

 ding. The Shoo-king affords no data for fixing the pe- 

 riod of its commencement ; and even the historian Se- 

 raa-tsien does not venture to assign any dates, till the 

 year 811 before Christ. The whole account of the ex- 

 pedition of Voo-vang, according to the Shoo-king, ex- 

 elusive of his harangues to his followers, is comprised in 

 this, that as soon as he had begun the attack upon the 

 army of Sin, the royal forces fled in such terror that they 

 destroyed one another ; that he restored the empire of 

 Chang to its former state, set at liberty those whom the 

 rmperor had imprisoned, distributed among the people 

 the wealth which the tyrant had amassed in his tower of 

 J-.oo.tay, returned to his own court at Fong in Shansee, 

 and disbanded the whole of his army. Other historians 

 have added, or rather invented, the following particulars: 

 That the army of Sin consisted of 700,000 men, who 

 dispersed upon the first appearance of Voo-vang ; that 

 .Sin then shut himself up in his tower of Loo-tay, to 

 which he set fire, and perished in the midst of his trea- 

 sures ; that Voo-vang put to death the cruel queen Tan- 

 kee, and entered the imperial residence, at the head of 

 his generals, amidst the acclamations of the people whom 

 lie had delivered. Voo-vang restored the kingdom of 

 Shang to Voo-keng ; but, according to others, he be- 

 etowed it upon his own brother Kang-sho, to whom he 

 addressd a long discourse on morals and government, 

 which is recorded at length in the Shoo-king. He di 

 vided his dominions into numerous principalities, which 

 lie conferred upon the most distinguished chiefs, who 

 are all made out to have been the descendants of Hoang- 

 tee, of Yao, of Shun, of Yu, of the races of Hia and 

 Shang. Having offered sacrifices to his ancestors, and 

 appointed various political regulations, he gave his at- 

 u nti.jn entirely to the study of philosophy, and placed 

 himself under the tuition of Kee-tse, elder brtitiier of 

 the late Emperor Sin, with whose instructions, entitled, 

 'The Sublime Rule," a whole chapter of the Shoo, 

 king is filled. As a reward for his services, this philoso- 

 received the kingdom of Corea, which he is said to 

 have brought from the rudest barbarism into a state of 

 the highect civilization, though the fame people are de- 

 Kribed, ages afterwards, as still in a savage condition. 



VOL. VI. PART I. 



As Tching-vang, the son of Voo-vang, was only History, 

 thirteen years of age at the death of his father, his uncle ^^T V ^ 

 Tcheoo-kong took charge of the government of the ^ 



empire, and the education of the young prince. The 

 .worthy regent, however, having been charged by hi 

 enemies with entertaining designs against the life of the 

 young king, thought it prudent to withdraw from court; 

 End, by the machinations of the same persons, who were 

 also uncles of the prince, Voo-keng, son of Sin, who 

 had been allowed by Voo-vang to rule over the country 

 of Yn, was excited to take advantage of the youth of 

 Tching-vang, and to raise the standard of rebellion. 

 The innocence of Tcheoo-keng, however, having been 

 -miraculously proved, he resumed his functions, and, to- 

 gether with Tching-vang, subdued Voo-keng, and va- 

 rious neighbouring tribes. The history of the first 

 eleven years of this reign, abounds in political measure* 

 and geographical descriptions, which are utterly irrecon- 

 cileable and unintelligible. The young prince is repre- 

 sented, at one time, as addressing sage discourses to hit 

 assembled grandees ; and, at another, as receiving instruc- 

 tions from his guardian Tcheoo-kong. The Kia, the 

 Shang, or the Yn, are repeatedly spoken of, not as the 

 descendants of the dethroned dynasties, but as distinct 

 nations, occasionally rebelling, not against the reigning 

 family, as might be supposed from the history, but 

 against the nation of the Tcheoo. Tching-vang is re- 

 lated to have found it necessary, for the peace of his do- 

 minions, to remove his imperial residence to a new city, 

 which he built on the banks of the river Lo in five days ; 

 and immediately to have left this new habitation under 

 the government of Tcheoo-knng, and returned to hi 

 former abode at Fong in Shen-see. From the eleventh 

 to the thirty-seventh year of the reign of Tching-vang, 

 nothing is recorded concerning him, except that, feeling 

 his end approaching, he called for water to wash his face 

 and hands, put ou his royal vestments, assembled his 

 nobles, and recommended to them his son Tchao-kong 

 as his successor ; of whose coronation a long and minute 

 description is given by the Chinese annalists. This 

 prince is known in history by the name of Kang-vang, 

 f. e. " peaceful prince ;" but nothing is recorded con- 

 cerning him till the 1 2th year of his reign, when he is 

 described as recommending the country of Lo to the 

 care of his prime minister, while he should be absent at 

 Fong. In the course of this address, he speaks of the 

 small number of his people the Tcheoo; and of the care, 

 which was necensary to preserve their authority over the 

 people of Yn, who, of consequence, could not be much 

 more numerous ; and who, when both united under one 

 chief, could not form that vast and powerful empire 

 which China is represented and supposed to have been 

 during ages. Prior to this date, nothing more is said of 

 Kang-vang, but that he honoured the godi, and preser- 

 ved peace in his dominions ; that the prisons were empty, 

 and that for forty years no punishments had been inflict- 

 ed ; that, in a word, the times of Yao and Shun were re- 

 stored during his reign. Of the two succeeding empe- 

 rors, Tchao-vang and Moo-vang, nothing is recorded in 

 the Shoo-king, except a discourse by the latter address- 

 ed to one of his viceroys, and an official sketch of the 

 criminal code of the empire. But other historians re- 

 late of Moo-vang, that, in the 17th year of his reign, 

 he made war upon the barbarous people named Jong, 

 and afterwards went to visit a princess, called " the L '|,; ncse 

 Mother of the King of the West." On the western magician^ 

 frontiers, also, of his empire lived a very extraordinary 

 man, who powessed the secret of transforming himielf 



2F 



