The Memories Of The Spring And Autumn Period Of The Warring States

The Thinkers of the Warring States Period showed much interest and strong attention on the history of the Spring and Autumn Period.The characters and stories of the Spring and Autumn Period often appeared in the books of those Thinkers,as their discussion objects and argument basis.The historical literatures and folk hearsay related to the history of the Spring and Autumn Period were very popular in the society of the Warring States Period,which made it possible for the Thinkers of the Warring States Period to recall the history of the Spring and Autumn Period.However,their memories on the Spring and Autumn Period were not balanced.The scholars from different schools had different attention scope and objects on the history of the Spring and Autumn Period because of their different academic ideas.However,as those Thinkers were in the same social environment,they had the same focus on the history of the Spring and Autumn Period in general.The memories on the Spring and Autumn Period of those Thinkers and those of Tso chuan were complementary with each other while they had different purport and interest at the same time.This dissertation has made a statistic study on the characters of the Spring and Autumn Period in the reprentative works of different schools of the Warring States Period as well as a specific study on the memory selection of the Spring and Autumn Period by the Thinkers of the Warring States Period;it determines the hotspots of the memory of those Thinkers on the Spring and Autumn Period and makes a detailed analysis on their memroy hotspots of the Spring and Autumn Period.This dissertation has borrowed relevant research results of memory theories to explain the selectivity and the reconstruction expressed by the memories of the Spring and Autumn Period of the Thinkers in the Warring States Period,probed into the correlation among their memories of the Spring and Autumn Period,their academic ideas and the social environment of the Warring States Period.This dissertation has seven chapters besides the introduction and the conclusion.Chaptaer ? is a summary on the historical record of the Spring and Autumn Period,emphasizing some issues related to The Spring and Autumn Annals.The historical materials,whether they are official historical record or folk hearsay,provided a basis for the recall of the history of the Spring and Autumn Period by Thinkers of the Warring States Period;without the historical records of the Spring and Autumn Period,the Thinkers of the Warring States Period couldn't recall the history of the Spring and Autumn Period at all.The memories of the Spring and Autumn Period were mainly kept in the literatures of that period.The book which had the most influence on the Thinkers of the Warring States Period was the historical records like The Spring and Autumn Annals and among such books only The Spring and Autumn Annals still exists today.However,"The Spring and Autumn Annals" referred to by the Thinkers of the Warring States Period is more like Tso chuan of today.The Spring and Autumn Annals of today was the old history of the Lu State.Confucius and Confucians had played an important role in the diffusion of "The Spring and Autumn Annals".When we talk about the relation between Confucius and "The Spring and Autumn Annals",it is necessary to restore how "The Spring and Autumn Annals"really is,and we can't judge whether Confucius had edited or written The Spring and Autumn Annals according to the uncomplete book of today.Chapter ? is aiming at the reconstruction of the memories of the Spring and Autumn Period by Tso chuan,and focuses on the historical retrospection on the legality of the governance of the new aristocracy and the remodeling of Qi HuanGong image.Tso chuan was written in the early-middle stage of the Warring States Period and its main body might be formed at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period.We can't know the original appearance of Tso chuan,and it was quite probably "The Spring and Autumn Annals" often mentioned by the Thinkers of the Warring States Period.The wide spreading of Tso chuan in the society of the Warring States Period had facilitated those Thinkers to understand the history of the Spring and Autumn Period.Tso chuan linked a large amount of fragmented memories of the Spring and Autumn Period into an ordered time and logic series generally in an annalistic style.The author of Tso chuan,standing in the position of emerging nobles,narrated the history of the Spring and Autumn Period as a declining history of the royal Zhou family and its dukes and the development history of the emerging nobles.And it proved the legality and reasonability of the replacement of the old aristocarcy by the emerging nobles through a large amount of "legal proofs".Under the influence of the traumatic memory,the author of Tso Chuan specially extruded the merits of Guan Zhong and Qi HuanGong,and molded them as the positive image of the defender of the Huaxia culture.Chapter ? aims at explaining the memory selection on the Spring and Autumn Period by the Thinkers of the Warring States Period,and shows the difference in scope and objects of the selection of the Spring and Autumn Period memories by different schools through statistic tables.During the Warring States Period,many philosophies were emmerging and formed different schools.The scholars from different schools had very different selection of the memories of the Spring and Autum Period because of their different academic ideas.The Confucians adavocated"Benevolence","Righteousness" and "Propriety",so Mencius and Xuncius,the representative characters of the Confucian had a special memory on the words and deeds of the virtuous court officials of the Spring and Autumn Period,Confucius and his disciples.The Mohist school advocated "No offensive wars" and "Ghosts existing",so Mo-tse,the founder of Mohist school paid more attention to the contending for the hegemony between Wu state and Yue state at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period as well as the stories of ghosts and gods.The Taoist school cherished "Naturalness" and "Nonaction",so Chuang-tzu,a representative book of Taoist school kept a lot of memories of hermits in the Spring and Autumn Period.Han Feizi,the representative character of legalist school,advocated the technique of governing the court officials by the king,so he paid a special attention to the tactics stories during the Spring and Autumn Period.The political strategists advocated the wars through vertical and horizontal alliance of states,so they paid more attention to the wars contending for the hegemony during the Spring and Autumn Period.Chapter ? summerizes and analyses the hotspots of the Spring and Autumn Period memories of the Thinkers of the Warring States Period.The thoughts and ideas of those Thinkers were different,but they had some common focus on the history of the Spring and Autumn Period.According to statistics,Confucius and his main disciples,the powerful chief of the kings of the Spring and Autumn Period and their officials,the virtuous court officials of the Spring and Autumn Period were all the hotspot characters of the Spring and Autumn Period memories of the Thinkers during the Warring States Period.Confucius and his main disciples attracted a wide attention of the Thinkers of the Warring States Period because the Confucian school founded by him had a large influence on the society of the Warring States Period.The annexation territory war which became more and more violent in the Warring States Period could easily remind the Thinkers during the Warring States Period of the memories on the contending for hegemony of the states in the Spring and Autumn Period,and the powerful chief kings and their officials thus became the objects of their wide discussion.Most of the Thinkers of the Warring States Period advocated politics of virtuous officials,and those virtuous officials in the Spring and Autumn Period could be an example for the politicians of the Warring States Period,therefore the virtuous officials in the Spring and Autumn Period attracted wide attention of the Thinkers of the Warring States Period.Scholars from different schools were influenced by their personal experience,status or academic ideas,so they had different memory hotspots on the Spring and Autumn Period history.In the book of "Mencius",he mentioned Qi JingGong more often than in other books because Mencius had travelled to the State of Qi.In Han Feizi,he mentioned Tian Chengzi and Qi JianGong much more often than in other books,because Han Feizi advocated the king should govern his officials.In Lv Shi Chun Qiu,the author mentioned Qin MuGong obviously more often than in other books,because of the status and background of the main editor Lv Buwei.Chapiter ? discusses the significance of memories on Confucius and different memories of different schools on Confucius.Confucius was a character of the Spring and Autumn Period who was mentioned the most frequently in the books of the Thinkers of the Warring States Period.Those Thinkers showed a strong memory interest on the words and deeds of Confucius.Confucius inherited the ancient study,advocated the rites of Zhou,systemized and studied the ancient classics in a blundering environment of social reform to save the cultural tradition of Huaxia people.The Confucian founded by him was carried forward by his disciples and the disciples of his disciples and became the most celebrated and influential shool in the Warring States Period.After his death,the Confucian became divided,but did not fall apart,which can be attributed to the memory of Confucius.The memory of Confucius could not only enhance the cohesion of Confucian school in the Warring States Period,but also enhance the sense of identity of the school.And Confucius also became the focus of other schools.Hohist was discontented with the ideas and practices of Confucian school in the Warring States Period and criticized it a lot.Confucius,as the founder of Confucian school,was also blamed by Mohist.Not only Mohist derogated Confucius,but also there were many rumors on Confucius which had been corrected by Mencius and Xuncius.The Taoist paid an attention no less than the Confucian to Confucius.In Chuang-tzu,the character mentioned the most frequently was Confucius.In the early stage,there might be an inheritance relation between Confucian and Taoist and the memories of Confucius had an equal importance in Taoist school.At least Confucius could be an important reference to the Taoist,and maybe it was the reason why Confucius appeared frequently in Chuang-tzu as "He".Chapter ? discusses the memory of the Thinkers of the Warring States Period about the powerful chief of the kings of the Spring and Autumn Period and different attitudes of different schools to those kings.Qi HuanGong is a character of the Spring and Autumn Period who had been mentioned the second most frequently.Other chief kings such as King Jinwengong,King Chuzhuangwang and King Helv of Wu State and King Goujian of Yue State were also frequently mentioned by the Thinkers of the Warring States Period.The above chief kings were regared by the Thinkers of the Warring States Period as the Five Chief Kings of the Spring and Autumn Period.The history of contending for hegemony in the Spring and Autumn Period,the reality of the annexation territory war of the Warring States Period and the social dream of the Thinkers of the Warring States Period had urged those Thinkers to make a wide discussion on the way of "king" and the way of "hegemony".The Confucian had a clear distinguish between the king and the hegemony,while the Legalists paid attention to the king as much as to the hegemony.Mencius and Xuncius advocated the way of "King" and were against the way of "hegemony" and they had an inhibited attitude to the memories of the powerful chief kings of the Spring and Autumn Period.All the same,as people could get abundant experience and lessons from the powerful chief kings of the Spring and Autumn Period,all the schools,including the Confucian,cound't avoid discussing them.From this point we can say that the Thinkers of the Warring States Period had been publicizing the memories on the powerful chief kings of the Spring and Autumn Period.Qi HuanGong,as the No.1 of the powerful chief kings of the Spring and Autumn Period,attracted the most attention of the Thinkers and the memories of Qi HuanGong by the Taoist and Legalists were most special.In Chuang-tzu,Qi HuanGong often appeared as a support and was often related to the story of enlightment.Han Feizi not only saw the excellent quality of Qi HuanGong,but also saw his failure lessons in his governance of the State and explained many times his tragic death.Chapiter ? makes a comparative analysis between the memories on the Spring and Autumn Period of the Thinkers of the Warring States and those of Tso chuan.The materials in Tso chuan were more from the offical annals and they were correlated with each other,interacted as both cause and effet,with a time and logic order,while the materials on the memories of the Spring and Autumn Period in the books of the Thinkers of the Warring States were more from folk hearsay and in a scattered state and they were original memento.The mateirals on the memories of the Spring and Autumn Period in Tso chuan were far more than those in the books of the Thinkers,while the latter could sometimes make up for the defficiency of Tso chuan and could also serve as its footnote.There was a difference between the memories of the Thinkers and those of Tso chuan and there was an obvious difference between the memories of those Thinkers and Tso chuan on historical facts and character images.