ancient history we may enter more deeply in another chapter, but
for the present we simply take China as it was when definite
chronology begins.

The third of the great dynasties which had ruled over this limited
China had, in 842 B.C., already been on the imperial throne for
practically three hundred years, and, following the custom of its
predecessors, it had parcelled out all the land under its sway to
vassal princes who were, subject to the general imperial law and
custom, or ritual, together with the homage and tribute duty
prescribed thereunder, all practically absolute in their own
domains. Roughly speaking, those smaller fiefs may be said to have
corresponded in size with the walled-city and surrounding district
of our own times, so well known under the name of _hien_.
About a dozen of the larger fiefs had been originally granted to
the blood relations of the dynastic founder in or after 1122 B.C.;
but not exclusively so, for it seems to have been a point of
honour, or of religious scruple, not to "cut off the sacrifices"
from ruined or disgraced reigning families, unless the attendant
circumstances were very gross; and so it came to pass that
successive dynasties would strain a point in order to keep up the
spiritual memory of decayed or rival houses.

Thus, at the time of which we speak (842 B.C.), about ten of the
dozen or so of larger vassal princes were either of the same clan
as the Emperor himself, or were descended from remoter branches of
that clan before it secured the imperial throne; or, again, were
descended from ministers and statesmen who had assisted the
founder to obtain empire; whilst the two or three remaining great
vassals were lineal representatives of previous dynasties, or of