9
belief. Thus, human conduct was again measured against custom (li) and law (fa) was once more
restricted to the penal code. This synthesis of Legalist institutions and Confucian ethics—for
which Chinese historians have coined the phrase “outside Confucian, inside Legalist”
9
— gave
the Chinese an large, unified state of unsurpassed longevity and cultural continuity, lasting until
1911 A.D.
10
How does Machiavelli’s context compare to Shang's? Both texts originate in periods of
political instability, usurpation of power, state-building, and war, which reflected the
fragmentation of encompassing, relatively homogeneous, and tradition-bound societies with
personalistic organizations of authority—the Chou civilization of China and medieval
Christendom—into competitive systems of centralizing, territorial, and warlike states ruled by
ruthlessly ambitious princes—the Warring States period in China and Renaissance Europe.
In particular, the lineage-based, land-granting order of the Chou bears a strong resemblance
to the feudal system of Europe, where political authority was parceled out among noble fief-
holders who enjoyed their hereditary privileges by the grace of their lord, in a hierarchy that
terminated nominally in the emperor. Comparable to the Mandate of Heaven of the Chou, the
Holy Roman Emperor, and after him the kings, claimed to have been appointed by God, which
was duly ritualized in the crowning of the emperor by the pope and the unction of kings by the
bishops. And while the Chinese rulers were supposed to took their ethical bearing from the
natural order of Heaven, which allowed wars only as punishment of those who rebelled against
the Son of Heaven, Europeans held to natural and divine law, finding their justification for war in
the punishment of aggression.
9
Fu, China’s Legalists, p. 8
10
There were eight further dynasties: the Northern Wei (386-535), Sui (589-618), Tang (618-907), Northern Song
(960-1125), Southern Song (1127-1279), Mongols (1279-1368), Ming (1368-1644), and Manchu (1644-1912).
Convention