Breaking the Vessel (1)—China's Lesson Book

Welcome to chapter one of The Emperor's Teacher. The format on these pages is a little bit different from that found on my Round and Square blog, where each of the sections (about 1,000-2,000 words each, or three to five typed pages) were posted in "serial" fashion, not unlike the way nineteenth century novels were published...but with a little less suspense between sections.

The text has changed slightly from the original posts. I would say that it is about 95% the same, but that these pages read a little bit more like a book (this is the ultimate goal of the project, of course) than a blog. There are fewer illustrations, and several paragraphs have been rewritten for enhanced clarity. If you are reading these pages, in short, you are reading The Emperor's Teacher in much the same form as I hope to see it between two paperback covers before too long. Welcome—歡迎.

I

China's Lesson Book

Almost thirty years ago, as a junior history major preparing for a seminar course on Chinese historiography, I began to read a passage from a book with a title that can be translated as the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Ruling. I had already been assured by my professor and the authors of several articles that it was an exceptional text compiled in the eleventh century by a Confucian polymath with a "double surname"—two characters for the last name (司馬) and one for the first (光)—and that it was one of the world's first works of serious, even "scientific," history.

I learned that many scholars felt that the text was a masterwork of historical research, and that it had been praised by readers from the time of its first presentation in 1085 until the twentieth century as one of the most significant works of history ever written. This was not anything like the usual kind of thing people said about old books, which tended to be closer to "it has its uses" than "this is a masterwork." I was excited to pick up the big two volumes of translations. These tomes only covered about three percent of the Comprehensive Mirror's contents, as I would later learn, but they still made up more than a thousand pages to carry across campus, as I carefully kept my eyes on the sidewalk and avoided the still-melting southern Minnesota snow menacing each of my steps.

Back in my room, I carefully opened the volumes. They were translated by an eminent sinologist with a perfect "Round and Square/East Meets West" name. Achilles Fang had not only translated the Chinese characters for each passage in that segment of the Comprehensive Mirror, but had traced each passage to its earliest historiographical roots...and translated that, too. I was in awe, and could not help but feel that Homer had been transported to early China as (heel protected) Achilles Fang masterfully retraced the course of Chinese history. The work was so involved, so painstaking, that the 1,300 pages of the translation and background only covered the years CE 220-265. Let us not be mistaken, though. They were formative years—a "heroic period" in Chinese history that is often said to lead students to score highest on these matters in their history exams.

I was enthralled by the events recounted, which are among the most famous in all of Chinese history. There was a subtlety to the explanations, and even historical figures of somewhat ill-repute (such as Cao Cao, a powerful general who is commonly cast as an evil usurper in plays and fiction) was treated with such consummate subtlety that I felt I was reading about a real human being— complete with strengths and weaknesses—rather than a "good v.s. evil" caricature. I was amazed at the evident mastery of material that an author in the eleventh century had when dealing with matters eight hundred years before that. If this was "scientific" history, I was impressed.

I opened the first volume about a third of the way in. To this day, I believe that my whole career was set to this moment. Three more pages, and I might have come across a seemingly “objective” entry (“so-and-so invaded such-and-such in a certain year”). It didn’t work out that way, though, and that might be why (like the result of a butterfly flapping its wings over Singapore) I study things such as “do-overs” and “historical contingencies” today, rather than the facts of the past.

As chance would have it, the first passage that caught my eye that March evening described the sighting of a dragon hidden in a well. Dragons—in Chinese, “twisting, turning water creatures.”  In the Comprehensive Mirror, initial disagreement over the dragon's "meaning" gave way to the emperor’s opinion that it was a sign being revealed to him for a reason. The constricted dragons, lodged in stone wells, pointed to this emperor’s inability to act forcefully and without interference from the meddling of others. It was a time of discord, and the emperor felt himself to be at the mercy of others.

Spring, first month.

Two yellow dragons appeared in a well in Ningling. Prior to this, dragons frequently appeared in wells in other locations. The officials considered them to be auspicious signs. The emperor disagreed, saying, “Dragons represent the ruler’s virtue, yet those that have been seen are not found in heaven above; when discovered on the earth, they are not even found in fields or clearings, but are frequently dug into wells—these are not auspicious omens.”  He composed a Hidden Dragon poem, which his rivals regarded with displeasure.

I was intrigued, and wondered to myself what are dragons, of all things, doing on the pages of one of the world’s great works of history?  And it is not only once, and not only dragons. The pages of the Comprehensive Mirror—still, nine-hundred years after it was written, the richest single source available for many periods of Chinese history—are filled with omens such as eclipses, floods, drought, and infestations; hail as large as hens’ eggs and leaping white fish. It was a world of wonder side-by-side with a careful and reliable narrative of the events of Chinese history. I had never seen anything like it, and I wanted to know more. How was it possible that a great historian even thought to include a quotation about “imaginary” creatures?  What could be sophisticated or scientific about that?  I had much to learn.

Another question followed right on the heels of the first, and it was of a far more practical nature. “Why would an emperor identify with dragons hidden in a well?  How could an emperor feel boxed-in?”  I was young enough then to think that leaders—presidents and CEOs, perhaps, but emperors certainly—were, by the very power of their positions, able to exert their wills on their subordinates. They were in charge, weren’t they? They were head honchos, chiefs, master chefs, head coaches, and every other possible hierarchical tip-top-type I could imagine.

They weren't just kings, either...they were emperors. All I could think of was Napoleon after he "crowned" himself and before that little detour into Russia. But this text, with its strange array of portents, facts, and mystique, pointed to management challenges that I had barely begun to understand. I would soon learn more about the inability of leaders to lead (I had only to watch the news in the 1980s and pay attention to various administrators in college and graduate school), and I became even more interested in the lessons that I could learn from a Chinese historical text written long ago. A dragon in a well? Where was the “science?” An emperor boxed in? Where were “roles” and “hierarchy?”  I had much to learn.

Breaking the Vessel (2)—Through the Comprehensive Mirror Glass

II

Through the Comprehensive Mirror Glass

After graduating from college (and having written a senior thesis on the Comprehensive Mirror), I lived and traveled for two years in China and Taiwan. The book seemed to follow me, but that doesn’t mean that my Chinese friends were eager to talk about it. Almost everyone spoke with admiration of a different historian named Sima (Qian) who lived a thousand years before my author and wrote a lucid and memorable history that is still revered today. Most people just shuddered when I mentioned the Comprehensive Mirror. I came to learn that it was a text that Chinese readers considered both significant and forbidding. Many had been required to read portions of it in high school or college, and most people remembered the experience with at least small doses of scholastic agony. It was not until much later that I met anyone who had read the text cover-to-cover. This seemed improbable to me, and I continued to search for answers (bringing back secondary school nightmares to a cross-section of southern China in the process). I eventually came to the conclusion that it is the least-read monumental book in Chinese history. Before you jump to conclusions, though, consider the audience for whom Sima Guang compiled the text—emperors and their highest ministers of government. No wonder it strikes high school students as a tough read.

At the same time that I was learning more about the Comprehensive Mirror in its Asian settings, I became a student of business practices during a fascinating time of change. The mid- to late-1980s were vibrant years for Chinese entrepreneurs. Small businesses sought to expand in China, and firms in Taiwan began to look aggressively toward import markets after decades of focusing on exports. Even though my relevant training was in Chinese language, history, and culture, I served for a year as the advertising director of Taiwan’s (then) largest computer company, and saw some of the effects (both successful and unsuccessful) of derivative thinking in budgets, growth, and technological change. I wondered at my company’s CEO, who saw most professional advertising as a waste of money and instead enlisted me to serve as the model in distinctly un-glossy (yet somehow Panglossian) brochures. These were aimed at Latin American and European audiences, and promised that their lives and work would be transformed by fifteen pounds of industrial plastic and processors.

[a] Mirrored RL

 I worked by day editing computer manuals and posing for pictures. By night, I studied the Comprehensive Mirror and other historical and philosophical texts. One of the first passages that struck me with its distinctly “old-school” take on hierarchy showed the adept and perspicacious chief minister Zhuge Liang (CE 181-234) taking on just a few too many “roles” to be an effective manager.

Premier Zhuge Liang was once personally reviewing account ledgers when his assistant, Yang Yong, entered directly and rebuked him, saying: “In governing there is a structure; superior and inferior do not encroach upon one another.”  He continued, “I would like to use the example of household affairs to clarify this. Now, imagine that there is a person who has his servant till the fields, his maidservant prepare food, his rooster announce the dawn, his dog bark away thieves, his ox bear heavy loads, and his horse travel long distances. Each works diligently. Whatever is asked is accomplished. With a serene expression, the master sleeps, drinks, eats, studies, and reflects—nothing more.

“Suddenly, one day he changes course and desires to attend personally to their labors and not delegate responsibilities to subordinates. Exhausting his strength doing petty tasks—his body fatigued, his spirit sapped—in the end he accomplishes nothing. How could it be a matter of his wisdom not matching that of his servant, his maidservant, his rooster, or his dog?  Rather, he lost sight of the method required of a household’s master…Now, in matters of governance that are far more weighty, your Excellency personally reviews account ledgers, sweating all day long. Is this not excessive toil?”

Liang thanked him. When Yang Yong died, Zhuge Liang wept for three days.

I was stunned. I had always admired the “hands-on” managers who weren’t afraid to get a little grease on the ol’ cufflinks and would have a beer with the workers after punching the time clock. This looked different and confusing (and disturbingly aristocratic), but I had found a new lens through which to view the business world. This had several benefits in my work life. I began to understand my boss better, and—in a surprising turn of events—he began to understand me, as well (my Mandarin was slowly getting better, but I still credit the Comprehensive Mirror for the largest changes). I continued my attachment to the idea of knowing a business from the mail room to the board room, but I began to attune myself to the nuances of hierarchy.

When I had been living in Taiwan for well over a year, I had decisions to make. I flirted with an opportunity to work in the growing import market in Taiwan by using my Chinese, French, and English language skills to import wines from Bordeaux and the Napa Valley. Travel, management, foreign languages, and wine—it looked appealing. After a great deal of thought, I decided that I would take some of those same skills to academia. In turn, I would devote much of my subsequent historical study to questions of management, for I was coming to learn that managerial thinking lay at the very heart of China’s great historical writings, and that almost all of my academic peers had failed to see it.

Breaking the Vessel (3)

III

Reading Like a Ruler

As I began my graduate studies, I distinctly remember the first time I encountered the great twentieth-century Chinese scholar Liang Qichao’s (1873-1929) writings on the Comprehensive Mirror. He referred to it as an “imperial textbook,” with the work’s primary readers being the emperor and his closest ministers. It seemed to me that Liang was describing the work as a case study manual for those who would run the empire. I could not help but think of law schools and business administration programs, where studying cases forms an educational foundation. I also grasped a subtext of Liang’s message—understanding the Comprehensive Mirror would require time, patience, and a great deal of literary sleuthing. It would not be easy. It was organized so differently from other works of history that just making sense of its twisting narrative threads was a challenge of its own. Most of all, I began to sense a conflict between the reputation of the author and his book. Liang Qichao and his younger contemporary, Hu Shi (1891-1962), admired Sima Guang for what they saw as his “rationality,” even as they reviled his positions on the political matters of his time.  Great historian; reactionary politician—this is a theme that has followed Sima Guang and the Comprehensive Mirror since the eleventh century. It is still strong today.

Liang Qichao

Hu Shi

In those first few months of graduate study, I also came across a story about Mao Zedong (1893-1976) on the Chinese Communist Party’s 8,000-mile Long March, sitting on a donkey and studying the lessons of the Comprehensive Mirror.  I had to pause and consider this image—slowly fleeing the enemy on donkey and reading a text nine centuries old. Patton didn’t do that.  I was intrigued by the image of Mao, the peasant intellectual turned rebel leader, studying one of the most complex books ever written in China. He was equally vociferous in his condemnation of Sima’s politics in the eleventh century, yet he studied Sima’s history at his four-legged, moving, writing table with ears. Is there a contradiction here? I don’t think so. It is not difficult to come up with examples of writers whose elegant texts clash with political or social positions they took beyond their libraries. T.S. Eliot and Martin Heidegger spring immediately to mind. It is hard to ignore their works, despite the fact that we might find the authors lacking in certain respects. As for Sima’s Comprehensive Mirror, Mao deeply admired the book; less so the man.

A model of Mao's childhood classroom in Shaoshan.
The characters read (r-l) 忠 "loyalty" and 孝 "filial piety."

He probed the text. Indeed, on my office shelves I now have a four-volume set of the Comprehensive Mirror that includes all of Mao’s annotations over the years, complete with illustrations of the Chairman pondering a dog-eared edition by lamplight. The peerless leader fancied himself an intellectual, and—bridging two distinctive eras—he wielded a pretty fair literary brush and pen.  His engagement with the Comprehensive Mirror goes even beyond “book smarts,” though.  Think about it.  Writers are often told to “read like a writer”—to mine essays, poems, and novels, asking themselves exactly what the author was doing (“why does it say that right here?), even as they think about precisely how they might write a particular scene of their own. 

Zhang Zhupo (1670-1698) describes this kind of reading  in the context of complicated 100-chapter novels—a method for “reading like a writer” that would keep ignorance (and deception) at bay.

You must read [the narrative] as though it were your own work in order not to be deceived by it, [and it is] even better to read it as a work that is still in the early planning stages.  Only if you start out with the assumption that you will have to work out every detail for yourself in order to avoid being deceived will you avoid being deceived.[i]  

In short, if you just read like everybody else, you will be deceived. No, if you want to do it right, you need to work out all of the details for yourself. That is reading like a writer. Well, Mao was reading like a ruler, mining a lasting book for ruling techniques from the past. He studied the Comprehensive Mirror for snippets, clues, and details (“why did that general retreat just then?), even as he asked himself how he himself might deal with similar situations. He worked out the details for himself. 

This is a kind of historical reading that is lauded more than it is practiced, and which requires a great deal more skill than a hackneyed goal of “learning history so as not to repeat it” (one of the weakest statements ever made). It requires a special skill that combines reading, thought, action, and reassessment. If practiced rigorously, it is one of the highest skills of statecraft, and not just any “casebook” will do. Mao demanded a work that would sustain methodical use—a work that would stand up to real managerial understanding.

Mao's childhood home in Shaoshan

 I was powerfully struck that Liang and Hu, two progressive scholars from a vibrant era of change during the fall of imperial China, as well as the leader, the “great helmsman,” who founded the People’s Republic of China, all found in the Comprehensive Mirror inspiration for managing very modern problems in China’s tumultuous twentieth century. In different circumstances, all three of these figures might have managed China, in one way or another. Even in times of strife, they all studied a book that was written nine centuries before their time.  What was going on here?  How can we make sense of that much intellectual firepower centering on a book that was almost a millennium old?

And who was this Sima Guang, whose history they admired and politics they loathed?

NEXT
Breaking the Vessel

We will look at little Sima Guang (1019-1086), a budding historian even at the age of seven, who was able to move “from text to action." In a famous episode (one immortalized in the Beijing elementary schools’ first year curriculum), the little boy saved his drowning friend, even as his more athletic peers stumbled and floundered. His actions show a path toward historical and managerial understanding, as you will see. It will be worth the wait, and enjoy the "short entries" that are joining the blog in the meantime.

Breaking the Vessel (4)

IV

Breaking the Vessel

In the early spring of 1026, a precocious seven-year old named Sima Guang sat reading classical historical documents in his father’s well-appointed study.  Surrounded by walls of woodblock texts and elegant scrolls, he studied both the details and the “big picture” of China’s past, and admired the literary style, organization, and lessons of the great histories.  He was the very picture of the diligent young scholar in a culture that admired lifelong learners. His was a study pattern of reading and memorization, and even at the age of seven Sima could recite a wide array of classical poems, as well as snatches of classical literature that took other children many more years to master. Even before the age of ten sui (children were considered to be “one” at birth), Sima Guang had surpassed his older siblings in all academic respects, and was on-pace to be one of the youngest scholar-officials in recent memory. For two generations, the Song dynasty had known the kind of stability that allowed a young man to concentrate on his studies without worry of his family’s world coming unhinged—a surprisingly real concern for young scholars fifty years before his time and fifty years after. In historical retrospect, Sima Guang grew up in one of the few calm bubbles of security that China would see in four hundred years.

[b] Head fastened to beam

[a] Reading by light of fireflies

Easy though it would have been to shirk his academic responsibilities—or at least to proceed at a more methodical pace—his family’s affluence did not deter him from his purpose. And so it was that he spent a sunny, mild spring day inside, reading and reciting. Little Sima surely had been told the famous stories of hardworking children—much less wealthy than he—who used ingenuity and perseverance to attain knowledge. These stories have been recounted in China every generation for many centuries, and would eventually be compiled in several written versions, including in a children's primer called the Three Character Classic. First there is the sleepy young man who was so devoted to his studies, even after toiling all day in farm labor, that he continually pricked his thigh with an awl in order to stay awake and focus on his reading. Another tells of a poor farm child who practiced writing Chinese characters with a stick in the dirt, even as he worked the fields for his struggling family.  Still another fastened his head to a low-hanging beam so as not to nod off from the fatigue of working by day and studying by night. And everyone had heard the tale of the lads who were not content to stop reading after sunset. One child captured fireflies in a bag so he could shine their collective light on his text, while the other used the sun’s fading reflection off the fallen snow to study, even in dim twilight. Young Sima Guang was hardly alone in being a studious child.

One child opened rushes and plaited them together

Another scraped tablets of bamboo

These children had no books

But they knew how to make an effort

One tied his head to the beam above him

Another pricked his thigh with an awl

They had no teachers

But toiled diligently on their own

Then we have boy who put fireflies in a bag

And another who used the white glare from snow

Although their families were poor

These individuals studied unceasingly[1]

[c] Chinese-style garden

Little Sima had more in common with legendary young scholars than he did with his peers.  On that spring afternoon, Sima Guang read his texts in the study, even as shouts and cries of children at play came from the large courtyard surrounding the family compound. Imagine the sprawling household of a wealthy extended family in China’s eleventh-century Song dynasty, with gardens, ponds, contoured hillsides, and elaborately manicured trees, as well as the children of multiple brothers, their wives, and even the employees who kept the complex operation running.  Blended with the natural beauty were works of art and architecture—both large and small buildings spread out around the grounds and large decorative vessels painted with elaborate designs of auspicious symbols from Chinese civilization.  While Little Sima Guang read from his texts in the quiet of the family library, the children played a game much like “hide and seek” on the rolling terrain of the family’s grounds. 

Suddenly, cries of confusion came from the courtyard.  Sima Guang looked up, and his biography in the Song Dynasty History tells what happened next.

A group of children was playing in the courtyard when one child climbed onto a large, decorative urn.  His feet slipped and he fell into deep rainwater in the vessel.  The other children fled in fear and confusion, but Sima Guang grasped a stone and broke the vessel, saving the child’s life.[2]

[d] Medium-sized decorative vessel (author's photo)

The passage shows that it was precisely the little reader—the gifted student of the classical histories—who was able to move directly from learning to living, from clear knowledge of his books to conduct in the world that had human value.  Western readers often do not see the connection readily. So ingrained are stereotypes of the sheltered scholar lacking social skills (and even compassion) that they often assume that anyone but a bookworm could help in such a situation. How could someone with almost no “real world” experience have any idea what to do outdoors amidst little veterans of hill and dale, garden and grove, patios and patois? The children who eschewed books in the late afternoon would know the territory from many weeks of serious play, and would act like the territorial overlords who dominated Chinese society until their grandparents were born. I can almost hear the thoughts of Western (and Chinese) skeptics—“go back to your books, junior, and let the little professionals handle it; you don’t have a clue.”

[e] Breaking the vessel

The admittedly fanciful passage in Sima’s biography strikes a very different tone. Far from presenting an image of a young scholar retiring from the world to study, it shows that only little Sima was able to take action and save the life of the drowning child.  The other, presumably less serious, children were unable to cope with the enormity of the problem and fled, even though they certainly had far more experience in the world (and with playing “hide and seek” in courtyard vessels filled with rainwater) than their seven-year old friend with a knack for expounding upon dusty classical texts.  But in this account, only little Sima was able to bridge the fundamental gap between learning about the world and living in it.

It is instructive to read this little tale much as we might a compelling myth that anthropologists find to make more sense than truth—in short, little stories that may only resemble a kind of truth while still saying much more about a society’s priorities and the juxtaposition of its values. In little Sima’s “myth,” learning leads to excellent decision-making in times of crisis, and the more time spent reading the better (“experiential learning,” as we call it today, is overrated). Fanciful though we might find bits of Sima’s childhood tale, it is historically accurate to say that Sima Guang believed this to be true (the best decisions emerge from study) to the end of his life. The theme of moving from books to conduct—text to action, to use the apt phrase of a prominent philosopher[3]—would become a powerful theme in Sima’s historical writing and managerial thought. They would, in time, form the core of the Comprehensive Mirror.

And so, at a tender age, the little boy passed the first of many tests, and this one was etched in (hurled) stone.

NEXT
Up the Down Staircase

Life is complicated, and it doesn’t take watching the Cohen brothers’ True Grit to understand that there rarely are “direct trajectories” in life. Sima’s life had great successes and occasional detours, one of which led to the completion of the Comprehensive Mirror.

Breaking the Vessel (5)

V

Up the Down Staircase

[a] Examination tumult

Time flew by swiftly, as Chinese literary (para)phrasing has it—like a piebald colt galloping in a flash while glimpsed through a crack in the fence. Sima Guang had easily soared over the increasingly challenging hurdles of local, provincial, and national examinations, culminating with his success in the palace examination, the top of the scholarly mountain that many people worked toward all their lives. This gave him a secure position in Song dynasty administration from the age of twenty onward. The speed with which Sima achieved the very highest of degrees—the jinshi, or “presented scholar”—speaks to both his native ability and the focus he brought to his studies during his entire life. Still, the forces of bureaucracy were strong, even in the eleventh century, and Sima inevitably “advanced” from the highest honors in education one day to the middle ranks of the imperial bureaucracy on the next. From Yale Law Review to junior associate (you get the idea).

[b] "Cheating Shirt"

[c] Nineteenth-century examination cells

No matter how talented, a scholar-official would begin his career by managing middle-level matters—with options ranging from being “in charge” of small localities far from the capital to serving as a lower level functionary in bureaus close to the center of power. The former had the advantage of putting the young official “in charge,” with the concomitant disadvantage of being in the boondocks, where he often could not even understand the local dialect. The latter put him within earshot of power discussions, yet he was so low in the capital hierarchy that his physical proximity was wasted. Inside, but out; outside, but in—either way, even the young superstars (for that is how the jinshi were regarded) had to start over. It is a little like the NFL draft that way. 

For even the most talented scholars of their generation, a complex twenty-year process would begin to unfold from the moment they passed the palace examination. If things went well, they would have a chance for real influence in their mid-forties. And they had to be careful—their families were counting on them, and opportunities to move up the ladder of influence were regularly marred by factors they could never anticipate, such as being demoted because of an alliance with the “wrong” faction or annoying a superior. It happened to just about everyone at some point during the long climb.

[d] Song Imperial Garden

In the calm and refined waters of early Song dynasty government, these setbacks were usually relatively minor (it would not always be so, especially in the centuries to follow, when political misjudgments could mean death—sometimes for whole clans). In the more refined eleventh century, a misstep or two was often expected, and talented young officials would take two or three steps forward for every small step backward. Still, great influence at the court was beyond the reach of almost all officials, no matter how formidable their backgrounds.  Talent, an excellent record of service over several decades, and a smattering of well-timed good fortune was required. And there was still one more intangible that affected every career in one way or another—the requirement that every son, and hence every government official—retire from service to observe the “three years mourning” when his parents died. 

Throughout Chinese history, stories abound of officials on the very cusp of power, only to leave for their childhood homes to wear coarse cloth and mourn a parent, even as their rivals moved in swiftly to replace them. A few historical accounts note that it was unusual but not unheard of for an official to try to hold onto the influence he had leveraged over many years, and to skirt the requirements of the mourning period. This kind of unfilial conduct usually backfired, hurting a career  even more—not the least by labeling one a crass and disrespectful opportunist—than leaving office and starting back up the ladder in three years (several rungs down, but having maintained the respect of those who might be inclined toward rapid promotion).

[e] Northern Song China (960-1127)

A few very fortunate scholars in Chinese history had parents who, after relatively long and productive lives, passed on at times that were not especially burdensome for their sons'

careers. Sima Guang was one of them. Crass though it may sound (and no proper scholar would ever admit to thinking along these lines, even though the historical sources are filled with allusions to this very matter), Sima benefited from almost perfect timing throughout his official career. By achieving “presented scholar” status before the age of twenty, he was already at least a decade ahead of most of his peers. 

He negotiated the byzantine pathways of state service with a deft touch, only being lightly scarred by a profound factional battle in 1043-1044, when he was still only beginning to find his stride in the bureaucracy. Even the requirement that he spend the better part of five different years (the requirement was actually twenty-seven months for each parent) in respectful sabbatical generally worked to his advantage. While it removed him from office, it gave him an opportunity (despite the mournful circumstances) to recharge himself intellectually, spending months reading, writing, and thinking that otherwise would have been devoted to the requirements of governmental management. I would go so far as to say that these self-imposed periods of relaxation from duty made it possible for the adult Sima to contemplate compiling a historical work that no one in a thousand years had been able to produce.

[f] Scholarship and Panopticon

Sima had traveled up and down the stairways of hierarchy and bureaucracy, and it was that experience every bit as much as the occasional “forced leisure” in his career that created the possibility of writing a truly great work of history…and management. He understood the work of government in ways that few historians ever have; all he lacked was time. Were he an accomplished scholar who never passed the highest examinations, it is possible that he could have devoted his life to historical study. Over the centuries, several fine thinkers from wealthy families did just that, and Sima was nothing if not talented and wealthy. The burdens and the opportunities presented by an official career were always at odds—those like Sima had the scholastic ability and drive to achieve great interpretive heights, yet there was almost no time to devote to monumental tasks that would take many years to complete. 

Instead, they worked for an hour here and an afternoon there. They had servants who would save their brief written reflections for them, tossing them into bags so that they could be compiled in "collected writings" when the scholars died. Short and to the literary point—essays, poems, paintings, and elegant “jottings” were the creative output of the best scholar-officials in imperial China. Magisterial histories covering almost 1,500 years, mining over three hundred original sources, and totaling many thousands of pages—less so. Imagine being bureau chief, senior vice-president, or academic dean. Now imagine spending at least a decade in continuous scholarly work. Nope. Nada. Ain’t gonna happen. This is one of the many reasons why before the Song dynasaty there were no historical works in China that linked dynasty after dynasty in a continuous chronological narrative. Not even committees succeeded.

[g] Song (Dynasty)

The chance opportunities of enforced “free time” were one reason that Sima Guang, in his mid-forties, was able to compile several brief historical works that gave a sense of his ambitions. In 1064, the Liniantu (Chronological Chart of Historical Years) gave an outline of the broad sweep of Chinese history, while two years later the Tongzhi (Comprehensive Records) stunned court readers by showing how deep and compelling a narrative Sima Guang was capable of accomplishing. It was a thorough account of an early period of Chinese history (403-207 BCE) in eight chapters. It was what sophisticated readers had been waiting for—for centuries. How would it ever be possible for one of the most successful and busy politicians in the empire to find the time to finish it? Eight chapters showed the depth and beauty of Sima’s skills (let us not forget that these same lines would be admired nine hundred years later by readers such as Liang Qichao and Mao Zedong). Eight chapters were also a very small drop in an immense bucket of Chinese history. Sima had been able to work on them in bits and pieces for well over a decade, including during his time in mourning, when he had no official responsibilities at all. He had written eight; how would it be possible for him to finish almost three hundred chapters while serving at the center of imperial power? He was forty-seven years old and nearing the height of power. How would he ever find the time?

NEXT
 Outside Looking In (and Back)

Sima Guang had shown that he could write the great work that had eluded everyone else…in all of Chinese history. He was approaching the age of fifty, and had completed about one-thirtieth of what would be required to finish his history. Do the math, and examine the eleventh century actuarial charts. Consider the further news that he was almost surely going to be appointed the next chief minister (the highest civilian office in the empire). Something was going to have to change (for better or worse), or he would never finish the book. Something.

Breaking the Vessel (7)

VII

Exile and Response 

[c] Song Shenzong (r. 1068-1085)

Sima Guang had lost. He had argued that government should be limited, and should focus on protecting the economic welfare of the people. His rival Wang Anshi sought to transform the political landscape with a series of innovations called the New Laws, which included loans to farmers and a fundamental rethinking of everything from taxation to border policy. I hesitate to ask whether or not this sounds familiar. If it does, keep your interpretive focus; let's just let the historical issues unfold around us. It would be a very serious mistake to “identify” with either camp. It was 900 years ago, and events today (in both China and the rest of the world) are profoundly different. Don’t assume that Sima (or Wang) was “right.” We should know by now that the study of history is rarely that straightforward. Life is complicated…and history more so. What we gain in perspective “after the fact,” we lose in precise knowledge of just about every detail that would have mattered at the time. Sima and Wang are historical actors, not heroes. Deal with it.

[d] Wang Anshi (1021-1085)

So, he lost. By 1070, Sima Guang realized that the new emperor, wasn’t listening, and that he must cede control of state politics to his rival.  As the balmy early autumn weather in Kaifeng began to turn colder, Sima Guang—at fifty years of age, one of the most talented scholars and government officials of his generation—packed his bags (with the help of able servants) and moved to a self-imposed exile in the ancient capital of Luoyang, about two hundred kilometers from the current center of power.  Sima Guang had lost a pivotal political battle, but he was determined to show that his approach was correct. Indeed, he felt it to the very core of his being. He was beginning a period of exile, and he was planning a response. There is both a particular historical matter and a broader theoretical issue here. Check the link.

[e] Luoyang (Henan Province)

Sima Guang was not going into hiding. He hardly eschewed politics, and he did not shy away from pointing out what he regarded as the failed policies of his rival (he was meticulously careful never to criticize the emperor, though, and that strategy served him well).  Although he stayed in-tune with the politics of his day, by far the greatest part of Sima’s time in exile was spent in reflection. He and his fellow conservatives enjoyed their intellectual freedom, on the one hand, while bemoaning their loss of influence, on the other. They drank wine, wrote poetry, and engaged in a highly refined form of what students often call "partying." Luoyang was a happening place in the 1070s—at least if you were out of power and fabulously wealthy.   

[f] The gift that keeps on giving

Sima Guang took things a step further though. Feeling deeply the loss of his position and voice of influence, he sought to show, in a clear—even permanent—fashion, just how right he was, and how wrong were his critics.  He settled down in Luoyang and began work on what would become one of the greatest historical and managerial works China would ever encounter—the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Ruling. You see, the Comprehensive Mirror is a product of resentment and brooding. Don't go rushing to the Cambridge History of China to check on this; you won't find it. It is my point—and that is why you are reading here. Most books about Chinese historical writing stress Sima's wide vision, talent, and research skill. I do not deny any of those. My point is that several dozen scholars in Chinese history before his time had that going for them. Nothing truly monumental ever got written since the second century of the Common Era. No, Sima was ticked (other word choices are possible), and he channeled his energy toward the Comprehensive Mirror. 

The greatest management work of all time is the product of profound resentment. That's my story.

[g] Literati leisure

The time had come for Sima Guang to channel all of his ambition and talent into more than a decade of hard work and...drinking and painting (we'll discuss that later). The creation of the sublime text that Mao would admire took place in political exile and amidst material abundance. He was wise not to criticize the emperor. Shenzong (following his father's lead) gave him thousands of historical materials from the imperial collection, and the resources (not unlike a very sizable research grant) to hire five talented assistants over the course of many years. His "failure" was political, not intellectual or social.

[h] "Chapter" fifty of the Comprehensive Mirror

Sima's work on the Comprehensive Mirror in the 1070s was the logical continuation of a life of learning and action that began in his father’s study, with a book in his hands that—one fateful afternoon—he exchanged for a rock.  Writing his great history would take him seventeen years, with the help of five talented assistants.  He worked to create a definitive text that made clear, to his mind, that his was the correct perspective, and that those who failed to heed the lessons of history would always be doomed to failure.  It was beautifully researched, and the examples pointed toward the lessons of ruling the complex enterprise that was the Chinese state. As we have seen, even those who loathed Sima's politics admired his historiography. If you have read a little history written by partisans, you will understand that such an outcome is difficult to achieve. That it has lasted for almost a millennium is nothing short of stunning. For many of us, Sima got it all wrong politically...and much right historically. What that might mean for management thought is something we will pursue on these pages in the coming weeks.

[i] Roadmap of revenge

Indeed, Sima himself saw his time in exile as a chance to build for the future.  After his resignation from court, Sima Guang was in no way willing to concede that his place in the great issues of the day was lost.  In the poems and essays that he wrote in Luoyang, there is a distinct self-consciousness of his place in a long tradition of Chinese officials who had been temporarily forced from office, only to gather themselves to return triumphantly—with rightness on their sides—to the political stage.  

Several admiring sources speak of Sima Guang’s devotion to a life of study in preparation for this task and, indeed, he supplemented his work on the Comprehensive Mirror with research on diverse classics, from the earliest writings of Chinese divination to the “Divided Schools” of thought that dominated early Chinese history.  In a poem from his exile in the 1070s, Sima writes of gardens, of classics, and of careful study in preparation for later service.  He was determined that his view would prevail.

I emulate the classical scholar Dong Zhongshu

While mastering the classics he maintained deep seclusion.

Although his house had a vast garden

He did not look out on it for three years.

Evil conversation far from his hearing

He was full of sagely thoughts.

When his completed work was carried to the audience hall,

The divided schools of thought began to melt away.

He was determined to live his period in exile and write an influential book that would vindicate him.  Vindication, he was convinced, would come with time.


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Luoyang Longing

Talented, middle-aged, wealthy...and nowhere to go. We'll explore Sima Guang's life and longings in Luoyang. Over the course of fifteen years, he painted, wrote, held parties, hiked the trails outside of the city and explored the famous grottoes. Imagine a fifteen year sabbatical (nicely funded) leading up to just one more year of service. He didn't know how the future would play out, of course, but we'll follow him around his city of exile as the Comprehensive Mirror grows and grows (grew and grew).
See you tomorrow.

Breaking the Vessel (8)

VIII

Luoyang Longing

[c] Capital, many times

Sima Guang’s strategy “worked,” but it required enormous patience and was filled with uncertainty. You see, only historians “know the future” of their subjects, and to be human is to have little idea how things will work out. Sima was a historian, of course, but he didn't know what his own future would hold. He left the capital at the age of fifty, not knowing if he would ever return. As Wang Anshi and Emperor Shenzong instituted their ambitious reform program, Sima returned to a life of reading, writing, and reflecting. He had a book to write. His afternoons in the 1070s and 1080s were not very different from those he spent in the 1020s and 1030s—with a book in his hands that (I sometimes think) he was ready to exchange at any moment for the rock that would destroy the reform program of his rival. From the perspective of Sima and his admirers, the “saving” that would take place was not that different from the one achieved at home as a young child. This time, as his poem hints, he would save the state.

[d] Broken dreams

For now, he would bide his time. In any case, he had work to do. Indeed, Sima Guang’s self-imposed exile in Luoyang over a fifteen-year period enabled him to remain clear of the most intense infighting of his day, and to complete the Comprehensive Mirror. He studied hundreds of historical works written many centuries before his time, and was even said to have invented a peculiar kind of log-pillow that ensured he would not get too much rest before returning to his task. This should not surprise anyone. It should already be apparent that Sima was anything if not driven.

[e] Storied capital

Still, he also was hardly alone in this storied city on the river. Many of the great intellectual and political figures of the day chose to seek refuge in the same area, and the city quickly became a thriving center for reactionary (I use the word in its precise sense) political and social life. It was a place of shelter, respite, and startling intellectual production. This is not the picture of a lone genius, reading in the quiet of his study while people of lesser abilities played all about him. No, Sima was surrounded by genius in Luoyang—a city that lacked nothing in comparison to, say, eighteenth century Edinburgh...or even Paris. Sima could easily have given Diderot a run for his money. Let us call it the Luoyang Enlightenment (and this playful title of mine has layers of nuance that we have not even begun to approach…yet).

[f] Ouyang Xiu, 1007-1072

That decade and a half in the 1070s and 1080s was a time of creation for some of the very best essays, poetry, treatises, and historical writing in all of Chinese history—rivaled by only a few comparable periods in a 3,000-year tradition of writing and scholarship. Among dozens of formidable scholars were the venerable essayist and historian Ouyang Xiu, the cosmologist Shao Yong, the natural philosopher Shen Kuo, and a formidable pair of…pairs of fraternal kin—the Cheng brothers (Hao and Yi) and the Su brothers (Che and Shi—the later already becoming known then as one of China’s greatest poets). 

For a comparison, cross time and space and think of the present. It was as though a large cross-section of great American minds (all agreeing on politics, more or less, and forming a kind of “think tank”) came together in Philadelphia (the ancient capital) for more than a decade of writing, repartee, painting, eating dainties, and drinking (in no particular order). Except that Luoyang was more beautiful.

[g] A fanciful Bo Juyi (772-846)

Luoyang was a city of endless gardens and flowers, a place with a rich veneer of shared memory—with echoes of the Duke of Zhou two millennia earlier and of the poet Bo Juyi’s “semi-retirement” amidst political controversy in the waning years of the Tang dynasty (618-906).  The varied historical sources for the late-eleventh century reveal a consciousness on the part of writers that they were composing in the literary shadow of the past. Even now, many centuries later, the documents give off a palpable self-consciousness. We sense that they knew they were forming another formidable layer of tradition on a place and time that would be remembered throughout history. And they were right. This kind of gathering of ideas only comes along two, three times in a millennium. They sensed this blossoming, and grabbed its fecund opportunities.

[h] Taking the Luoyang view of history

We know a great deal about these matters today because the scholars left thousands of writings, from “random jottings” and essays to some of the finest poetry of the age—a peculiar kind of rhyming narrative that mixed song and verse in sometimes startling ways. These lyrics rarely celebrated Luoyang’s temples, gardens, and grottoes as mere places. They were, rather, invoked as places filled with associations with those who had written about them many centuries earlier. It wasn’t just that a poet might admire a particular vista and set it to words in his own verse. Instead, he wrote of admiring the same scene that was admired by generations of famous writers and travelers. Luoyang was like that. Even today, cab drivers will acknowledge Ouyang and the Su brothers, Sima and the Cheng brothers as another of the many layers of hometown heroes. They will also tell you that Luoyang was the capital of twelve different dynasties (although this figure is somewhat challenged in terms of scale). No dynasty was housed in Luoyang in the eleventh century but, to this day, the Northern Song “anti-capital” has figured prominently in Chinese history.

[i] Luoyang Lushness

These same, rich source collections also speak of the pleasure of strolls through the city, finding out-of-the-way temples, or contemplating magnificent gardens. The “elder statesman” Fu Bi’s garden was a marvel among them, and this prompted one writer to note that “the man who had ordered the affairs of the empire now controlled even more absolutely the plan of his garden."[1]  Continuing with the varied temples, caves, and carvings, one could go on almost endlessly about the fascination Luoyang, and a life of relative leisure, held for its “exiled” inhabitants after 1070. 

Luoyang indeed represented for many officials a freedom from the burdens of office, and even from the constraints of a somewhat stern literati tradition.  The city’s Buddhist temples were prominent features, and many wrote of them—as well as the monasteries, intricate caves, and surrounding central “sacred” mountain—in what could be called a literature of enthrallment regarding their environment.  Many scholars, too, pursued studies of Daoist and other works that, several decades earlier, would have been regarded as unscholarly, at best, and heterodox, worst.

[j] Sima's sabbatical

But the city—and time spent drinking, painting, and conversing among friends—represented a problem for many exiles. As much as it was an opportunity for freedom from official life, it also blocked them from the positions to which they had spent their entire careers aspiring.  For older officials such as Fu Bi (he of advanced years and the capacious garden), Luoyang represented a somewhat bittersweet retirement after a lifetime of government service. For many younger officials, though, its beauty masked the painful reality of political ambitions extinguished in mid-career. This was Sima Guang’s situation, and no amount of log-sleeping and text editing could change the longing he felt for the rush of deadlines, budgets, flow-charts, and management with consequences. Sima channeled that frustration, and the Comprehensive Mirror would lay the foundation for those who—reading it in the future (perhaps on the back of a donkey)—would prepare to rule.

Sima wanted to advise the ruler, but instead, of necessity, he wrote. To use a Daoist phrase more current at the time in Luoyang than the strict, Confucian setting of the capital in Kaifeng, he became “one with the history.” A poem by Su Shi—composed just after he and others of the Luoyang group had returned to the capital in the mid-1080s—might as well have summed up the focus of those “on leave” for fifteen years—they became their work.

[k] Su Shi, "enjoying the moment"

When Yu Ke painted bamboo

He only perceived bamboo—never people

Do I mean he saw no people?

So enthralled that he forgot even himself

He became the bamboo

Perpetually growing new fibers

The great and playful thinker Zhuangzi is no more

Who, then, can begin to grasp his uncanny ability?

[1] Michael Freeman, "Lo-yang and the Opposition to Wang An-shih: The Rise of Confucian Conservatism" (Ph.D. Dissertation, Yale University, 1973), 38.


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Being the Text; Crafting a History
Sima Guang had work to do, and an agenda to keep. Luoyang was beautiful (as we have seen), but he didn't create almost three hundred chapters (and thousands of pages) by painting peonies and drinking plum wine. Don't forget the log pillow...or his lingering resentment. Tomorrow, we'll take a closer look at just what went into creating the greatest management book of all time—one that every student should read in every business school in the world. Sima wouldn't have had it any other way, and Mao probably wouldn't, either.