Gongsun Qiao (traditional Chinese: 公孫僑; simplified Chinese: 公孙侨;[1] died 522 BC), better known by his courtesy name Zichan (traditional Chinese: 子產; simplified Chinese: 子产) (WG: Tzu Ch'an).[2] was a statesman of ancient China. From 544 BC until his death, he served as the chief minister of the State of Zheng.
As the chief politician of a small but well-regarded state in central China during the Spring and Autumn period (Chunqiu), he faced not only aggressive larger states, but also the general confusion caused by a governing tradition in crisis. Under him the Zheng state managed to grow and prosper. Zichan was responsible for many of its strengthening reforms and his statecraft was widely viewed with respect; his reputation was later commented on by both Confucius and Mencius.
Zhou dynasty. By its military defeat in 771, historians divide the Zhou (c.1045-221) into a Westen and an Easterm period, as it was compelled to move its capital east. The dynasty not only never recovered, it steadily lost its strength during the Chun Qui (770-481). The initial system of Zhou government was the fengjian. Although somewhat similar to the feudal, the fengjian has kinship as the primary bond between the royal dynast and local 'vassal'.[3][4]
State of Zheng. The founder of Zheng was Duke Huan (r.806-771), a brother of King Xuan of Zhou (r.825-782). The Zheng state in 771 moved east adjacent to the Eastern Zhou. Strategically located, Zheng prospered through trade. Duke Zhuang of Zheng (r.743-701), a strong ruler, defeated the Zhou king. He is linked with the Five Hegemons. During the Zhan Guo, in Zheng "the centre of the political stage was occupied by the competition between clans". In the fierce and continuous rivalry between states Zheng met its demise in 375.[5][6]
Family of Zichan. Zichan was closely related to the rulers of the Zheng state, as a grandson of Duke Mu (r. 627-606), and a nephew of Duke Cheng (r. 584-571). Hence, he is also called "Ducal Grandson" Gongsun Qiao. He was a member of the clan of Guo, one of the Seven Houses of Zheng (the clans often contested for power). His ancestral surname was Ji, his personal name was Ji Qiao.[7]
In 565 Zichan's father, Prince Fa (Gongzi Fa), led a victorious campaign against the neighboring State of Cai. His military success, however, risked provoking a hostile response from stronger states nearby: Chu to the south and Jin to the north. Yet the Zheng leadership all were pleased. Except Zichan, who said a small state like Zheng should excel in civic virtue, not martial achievement, else it will have no peace. Prince Fa (Ziguo) then harshly rebuked his son Zichan.[8] Shortly after the invasion of Cai, Fa was assassinated by rival nobles of Zheng. Violent struggles over state power were episodic in Zheng. Duke Jian of Zheng {r. 566-530) had just begun his rule.[9][10]
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A grandson of Duke Mu of Zheng, Zichan served as prime minister of Zheng from 544 BC until his death. Under Zichan, the Zheng state managed to grow and prosper. It expanded its territory. This was a difficult task for a small state surrounded by several large states, accomplished toward the end of the Spring and Autumn period.
Zichan was responsible for many reforms that strengthened the state of Zheng. Directly involved in all aspects of the state, Zichan reformulated agricultural and commercial policies, reset the borders, centralized the state, ensured the hiring of capable ministers, and managed the evolution of social norms. He prohibited the public posting of writings and later also the deliver of pamphlets.[11] Yet also Zichan prevented another minister from executing a man for criticising the government, arguing that it was better for the state to listen to opinions from the common people.[12]
From writings of the subsequent Han dynasty historian Sima Qian, his Shiji:
Tzu-ch'an[13] was one of the high ministers of the state of Cheng. ... [T]he state [had been] in confusion, superiors and inferiors were at odds with each other, and fathers and sons quarreled. ... [Then] Tzu-ch'an [was] appointed prime minister. After... one year, the children in the state had ceased their naughty behavior, grey-haired elders were no longer seen carrying heavy burdens... . After two years, no one overcharged in the markets. After three years, people stopped locking their gates at night... . After four years, people did not bother to take home their farm tools when the day's work was finished, and after five years, no more conscription orders were sent out to the knights. ... Tzu-ch'an ruled for twenty-six years, and when he died the young men wept and the old men cried... .[14][15]
The Zuo Zhuan gives us a similar but different version of the public's appraisal of Zichan. After one year the workers complained about new taxes on their clothes and new levy requirements on the lands. Yet after three years the workers praised Zichan: for instructing their children, and for increasing the yield of their fields.[16]
The Zuo Zhuan records that he drafted penal laws to protect private property. He also enacted harsh punishments for criminals. Because of his focus on laws, historians often classify him as a Legalist.
In Zichan's reform of government one major focus concerned the law. Before Zichan, in each state the powerful hereditary clans, descendants of the Zhou lineage, had generally enforced their own closely held laws and regulations. The legal knowledge might be known only to a "limited number of dignitaries who were concerned with their execution and enforcement." Laws "were not made known to the public."[17] "When the people were kept from knowing the law, the ruling class could manipulate it as it saw fit."[18] Yet the traditional governance among the city-states was then faltering and dissolving in continually changing conditions. In many regimes the ministers, by maneuver or ursupation, were replacing Zhou-lineage clan rulers in whose name they had acted. The ministers began to assume direct state rule of the population.[19] In 536 BC, Zichan had the legal statutes of his Zheng state inscribed on a bronze caldron or ding, and so made public, a first among the Eastern Zhou states.[20][21]
Au contraire, a modern view questions this notion that no state had published its laws before the late Chun chiu period. Creel raises doubts that laws were kept secret. He refers to the existence of earlier laws mentioned in ancient writings.[22][23] Creel mounts a direct challenge to several widely-quoted passages from the Zuo Zhuang that narrate: 1) how Zichan inscribed the Zheng laws on the bronze tripod ding in 536; and, 2) how Confucius criticized the similar publication of laws by a neighboring state in 513.[24]
Yet the story of Zichan being first to publish remains the modern consensus.[25][26][27][28][29][30] Zhao comments how the adverse political situation of Zheng "produced the legendary figure of Zichan, arguably the most influential reformer of his age. [Zichan's] most remarkable act was placing a caldron inscribed with Zheng's legal codes in a public place in 536". Judging by the fierce reaction generated, his action must have been considered "sensational at the time".[31] A law whose text was available to those subject to it, would work to foster their awareness of proper civic conduct. Published laws served the state, 1) as a way of guiding the people, and also 2) as a more effective tool of control, because it warns as well as punishes violators. Zichan "had the complete support of the people of Cheng [Zheng], he enjoyed a position of full authority there throughout his life."[32][33][34][35]
For publishing the laws of Zheng, Zichan was criticized by some of his key contemporaries. It undermined the nobility, undercut their governing authority and their judicial role. Before, in making their legal judgments, the elite officials had applied to the facts their own confidential interpretation of what they viewed as the inherited social traditions. The end result of this shrouded procedure would be very difficult to challenge.[36] By articulating and making public the legal statutes the people were better empowered to advance an opposing view of state law. Up until then ruling circles thought publishing the law would be detrimental, would open the door to public argument, bickering, and shameless maneuvering to avoid social tradition, its time-tested moral force.[37][38] The situation was multi-sided, aa political roles were changing and the social tradition itself was in flux. Opening up laws to be viewied by the common people would eventually become a trend in ancient Chinese statecraft.[39]
Deng Xi of Zheng (545-501), for good or ill, acquired a reputation for provoking social conflict and civic instability. A child when Zichan published the laws, Deng Xi was a controversial official of Zheng with Mingjia philosophical views.[40] Despite the probable corrosive activities of the Mingjia, Zichan in 536 had an historic bronze ding cast inscribed with Zheng laws, probably penal laws. As Deng Xi came of age, he challenged the state and its ministers, including Zichan.[41][42][43][44] Some thought he studied trickery.[45] The state of Zheng in 501 put him to death. Ancient documents are divided as to who ordered his execution. Most probably it was not Zichan.[46][47][48]
A long 'letter' faulting Zichan for making the law public, was written by Shuxiang a minister of Jin and personal friend of Zichan. It marshaled strong traditional arguments against his publishing the penal laws of Zheng. Harshly accusing Zichan of grave error, it predicted future calamity. Both the letter to Zichan and his reply are in the Zuo Zhuang. In response Zichan claims he's "untalented" thus unable to properly manage the laws with a view toward the future generations. To benefit people alive today was his aim.[49][50][51][52][53] Issues at stake here were long debated, e.g., by philosophers of the Zhan guo era that followed.[54][55]
Zichan acted like a highly skilled realist in state-to-state politics. When the State of Jin tried to interfere in Zheng's internal affairs after the death of a Zheng minister, Zichan was aware of the danger. He argued that if Zheng allowed Jin to determine the minister's successor, Zheng lose its sovereignty. He eventually convinced Jin not to interfere in Zheng affairs.[56]
The Zuozhuan also mentions a summer meeting in 517 shortly after Zochan died. The Jin minister asked about ceremony and li (ritual propriety) of an official of Zheng, who then recounts a speech by "our former high officer" Zichan. The Zuozhuan quotes it at length. It is the book's "grandest exposition of ritual and its role in ordering human life in accordance with cosmic principles", according to the modern translators.[57][58][59] Feng comments on Zichan: "The idea expressed here... is that the practical value of ceremonials and music, punishments and penalties, lies in preventing the people from falling into disorder, and that these have originated from man's capacity for imitating Heaven and Earth."[60]
Zichan's political thinking is known from his words and actions as a minister of state. The kernels of his thought are thus found in the historical record, often in accounts of his exemplary conduct. His near contemporary Confucius mentioned him. In the next few centuries following his death, several Zhan guo philosophers wrote of him, on occasion creating suggestive contexts for his points of view. Zichan's public life earned him renown in his lifetime and a lasting reputation in ancient Chinese political thought.[61][62][63]
Zichan lived in the Chunqiu when "the old order broke down". The people "were bewildered by the lack of standards for settling disputes and maintaining harmonious relationships." The old hereditary houses lost cultural leadership, but the new regimes were fragmented, in constant conflict, and lacked the ready acceptance of customary authority. The era's instability led to an increasingly militant search for new social structures.[64][65]
Zichan is "depicted in the Tso-chuan as one of the wisest men of his time, [in his position] as leading statesman in Cheng". Zheng state was under almost constant existential threat from its rival city-states. In his person evidently Zichan practiced the traditional li ceremonies and elite virtues of the fading Zhou dynasty. In his politics, however, Han-era historians could see him as able to anticipate later Zhan guo-era legalist philosophy, i.e., using newly articulated and promulgated standards to enforce state-wide obedience and so to better control events.[66]
The Zuo Zhuan quotes at length from the words spoken by Zichan. His thoughts tended to separate the distant domains of Heaven and the near domain of the human world. He argued against superstition and acted to curb the authority of the Master of Divination. He counseled the people to follow their reason and experience. Heaven's way is distant and difficult to grasp; while the human way is near at hand.[67][68][69]
Confucius was almost 30 when Zichan died. Only in the generation after Zuchan did Confucius, an unsuccessful office seeker, establish the literate tradition of an independent, private teacher in China.[70]
As a near contemporary, like Zichan Confucius was "born in [this] period of great political and social change", a centuries-long revolutionary "upheaval caused by forces beyond his control and already under way." Prof. Creel notes scholarly speculation about the original sources Confucius used in his teaching; he comments that the Zou Zhuan quotes at length "several statesmen who, living shortly before Confucius... expressed ideas remarkably like his." They were "advanced in their thinking".[71]
The Han historian Sima Qian lists Zichan as one of the six teachers of Confucius.[72][73]
There were, of course, issues on which Zichan and Confucius did not agree. Confucius did not comment when Zichan caused the laws of Zheng to be published in 536.[74][75] Yet when later in 513 the neighboring city-state of Jin published its laws, Confucius clearly made known his strong opposition. Such actions undercut the traditional authority of the Zhou-dynasty kings and the city-state nobles who ruled in their name, which scheme of governance Confucius consistently idealized.[76][77]
Another area of disagreement touched on the human capacity to draw insights from observing society. Confucius taught about an ability to discern, from today's repetition of civic events, the distant future. By careful observation, change in the customary rites of a dynasty can indicate the course of its social history many generations hence.[78][79][80][81] Zichan, however, at a decisive moment of political conflict, was known to confess thet he was not talented enough to make such future predictions. So he tailored his decision only for the people of Zheng then living.[82]
According to the Lunyu, Confucius nonetheless spoke well of Zichan. In his personal conduct and attitudes, Zichan seemed to represent the traditional virtues Confucius advocated.
The Master said of Tsze-ch'an that he had four of the characteristics of a superior man: in his conduct of himself, he was humble; in serving his superiors, he was respectful; in nourishing the people, he was kind; in ordering the people, he was just."[83][84]
The Lüshi paired Confucius and Zichan (who in this translation is called 'Prince Chan'). Both are praised as talented state ministers who led their countries to significant achievements. Both became widely regarded as successful governors who directed others to accomplish the tasks of administration.[85]
The Mengzi of Mencius[86] refers to Zichan. A perplexed disciple questions Mencius about the conduct of Shun, one of the legendary sage kings. Shun's hostile parents and family lied to him. Shun mistakenly believed them, but he did not reveal a corrupt nature thereby. Shun believed their lies because of his regard for his parents. A life of virtue is then discussed.
Mencius compared sage king Shun here to an episode about Zichan, when he had believed a dishonest servant. Zichan had given his groundskeeper a live fish to keep in a pond; instead he cooked and ate it. He later told Zichan the fish was alive and swimming in the pond. Zichan was happy that the fish "found his place". Hearing this from Zichan, the servant mocked his reputation for wisdom. But not Mencius, who concluded: "Thus a noble man may be taken in by what is right, but he cannot be misled by what is country to the way".[87][88][89]
Yet Menzi in another episode disapproved of Zichan's 'small kindness'.[90]