CHINESE CHRONOLOGY. 61 
monious Co-operation.” The designation has reference to 
the fact that when king Li fled, or was driven, from the 
capital in the previous year, the Government was carried 
on by the dukes of Shao and Chau, who acted together as 
Regents for 14 years, till the king’s death in B.C. 829, when 
they placed his son, whom we call king Hsiian, a very 
different man, upon the throne. We may say, therefore, that 
B.c. 842 is the first era of Chinese chronology about the 
correctness of which there can hardly be any difference of 
opinion. From that time downwards, on to the present day, 
Chinese historical writers are agreed as to the rise of the 
different dynasties that have ruled the nation, the names of 
their several sovereigns, and the length of their reigns. 
Substantiation of the Eva B.c. 842. 
6. Before we try to grope our way to Hwang Ti from the 
Kung-Ho period, it will be well to point. out some considera- 
tions by which that date and others subsequent to it are 
substantiated. King Li was succeeded, we have seen, by 
his son, king Usiian, in 827. He was succeeded in his turn, 
after a long reign of 46 years, by Ais son, king Y4, in 781; 
and in the Shih Ching, or ‘“ Book of Ancient Poetry,” mention 
is made of an eclipse of the sun, which took place in Yii’s 
6th year. It is said:— 
“ The sun and moon met in the upper sphere, 
The day hsin-m4o, the tenth month of the year ; 
The moon was new, as she should reappear ; 
And then the sun, eclipsed, showed evils near ; 
The moon eclipsed before, and now the sun ! 
Alas ! we men below shall be undone.”* 
It is found by calculation that this eclipse did take place 
on that hsin-mdo day, corresponding to the 29th of August, 
new style, in B.c. 776; the first year, it may be remarked in 
passing, of the Olympiad of Corcebus, a principal epoch in 
Grecian history. The accession of king Yd, it is thus 
determined, took place in B.c. 781; that of his father king 
Hsiian in 827; and the fifteen years of his father king 
Li’s dethronement bring us to 842, the era of Kung-ho. 
King Ya was succeeded by king P’ing, and towards the end 
of his reign, in B.C. 722, there begins the chronicle of the 
History of La, the native state of Confucius, compiled by 
him, and extending over 242 years, down to B.c. 481, two 
* See the Book of Ancient Poetry in English verse, p. 229 (Triibner 
& Co., 1876). 
