China’s antiquity, vast population and warlikeness have been brought in question by some writers. That she had a vast population as far back as the third century before the Christian era is proved by the army records. The Ts’in clan, operating under their celebrated General Peh Ki, slew and beheaded in 293 B. C. 240,000 Hans; in 275 B. C. 40,000 Ngwheis; in 264 B. C. 50,000 Hans; in 260 B. C. 400,000 Chows, and in 256 B. C. 90,000 more Chows, thus exterminating the imperial ancestral clan which instituted the sacrifices and held the sacred tripods. Szma Tsien, the historian, writing at 100 B. C., says the allies lost a million men in fighting this Ts’in clan. After the Christian era the Chinese took fewer plural wives and fought fewer wars. Twenty years ago, an emperor who raised the despised military class to the equal of scholars, farmers and merchants, would have been decapitated. Compare one of the military edicts of the regent, Prince Chun, dated Peking, April, 1911: “We are of the opinion that militarism is the first thing necessary to the upbuilding and preservation of a nation.” Some of the military proverbs of the old Chinese are: “The best general thinks of wise strategy before blind courage.” “A mob does not make a regiment, for a trained man is as effective as a score untrained, and much easier to save in a retreat.” “A good general can’t blame defeat on bad soldiers, for a good general has no poor regiments.” “The pike only grabs the duck’s lame leg that can’t kick.” “The battle may not be for a cycle of years, but the soldier must awake for it every day.” “A dog that bites the hardest shows his teeth the least.” “A whisper can bring on a war.” “Keep your good cannon masked, and your bad guns on brave parade.” “If the enemy doesn’t know your weakness, you are not weak.” “It’s the man behind the gun more than the gun, and the man inside the fort more than the wall.” Chinese literature is not without its stirring war songs, which breathe not only the pathos of the suffering of those at home, but the sacrificing patriotism of the ranks. The following is quoted from Confucius’ Odes, B. C. 551: THE SOLDIER I climbed the barren mountain, And my gaze swept far and wide For the red-lit eaves of my father’s home, And I fancied that he sighed. I climbed the grass-clad mountain, And my gaze swept far and wide For the rosy light of a little room, Where I thought my mother sighed. I climbed the topmost summit, And my gaze swept far and wide For the garden roof where my brother stood, And I fancied that he sighed. My brother serves as a soldier With his comrades night and day, But my brother is filial and may return, Though the dead lie far away. The following far older poem was written in 800 B. C. by Li Hua to commemorate a battle between the ancient Chinese tribe of Wei and the Northern Mongols: THE BATTLEFIELD