Death of Agricultural Civilization and the Regeneration of Projection Civilization

Zhu Dake＊

Chinese agricultural civilization has perished. What exists now in China is a projection of western civilization, also known as the projection civilization. The early Chinese agricultural civilization was controlled by the West Axis, while the late one was controlled by the East Axis in the coastal areas. But fettered by the continental doctrine and Confucianism, the East Axis failed to promote the transformation of agricultural civilization. Thus, it irreversibly declined and perished at the end of the 19th century.

prototype civilization; projection civilization; West Axis; East Axis

1. Varieties of World Civilizations

1.1 Primary, secondary and regenerated civilizations

According to Arnold Joseph Toynbee, the ancient prototype civilizations fall into the following categories, namely Mesopotamian civilization, Aegean civilization (Mycenaean / Cretan civilization), Jewish / Syrian civilization, Greek/ Roman civilization, Indian and Iranian civilization, East Asian civilization (Chinese/ Japanese civilization), Byzantine civilization, Islamic civilization, Central American civilization (Aztec and Mayans civilization) and Andeans civilization (Incan civilization) and others.[1]

Figure 1 Classification of Ancient Prototype Civilizations

This rough classification has a defect, which is the construction in a two dimensional space without differentiation in level between civilizations. In a more powerful classification, prototype civilizations are divided into three categories, primary, secondary and regenerated. Mesopotamian civilization and Egyptian civilization are primary, Aegean/Greek civilization, Syrian civilization (Jewish civilization), Persian civilization, Indian and Chinese civilization are secondary, while Byzan tine civilization, Islamic civilization, Central American civilization and Andeans civilization are regenerated. This classification not only sets up the spatial dimension (synchronic character) but also provides a clear clue in terms of time and spread (chronological character).

1.2 The basic elements of prototype civilizations

There are five elements in the construction of prototype civilizations, which are prototype city, character, religion/myth, crop and cultivation and processing technology, artifacts and manufacturing technology. They are crucial measures of scale for the judgment of the prototype attributes of civilizations and the degree of these attributes. Prototype markets and organization are two important measures as well.

Prototype invention is the source and core of all civilizations. Sumerian civilization is recognized as a prototype civilization as it completely measures up to the above standards. It has 12 cities of its own like Al Ubaid, Eridu, Ur, and Uruk; it has its own cuneiform characters. It has god system with Enlil as the main one. It has an agricultural cultivation and irrigation system with wheat as the core, as well as donkey carts, bronze wares, rubber, wheels, saws, leather, weapons, hammers, saddles, shovels, forks, nails, kettles, bags, boots, rings, slippers, brewing technologies, the twelve-month calendar method, fourarithmetic operations, and the decimal system.[2]Just like a magician’s bag, many novelties can be taken out of it continually, leaving people of other areas staring open-mouthed. In the uninformed Makondo area, described by Marquez in One Hundred Years of Solitude, a magnet, telescope, magnifier, or even an ordinary ice cube can be a demagogic treasure.

Figure 1 The main features of the ancient prototype civilizations

The degree of world prototype civilizations gradually declines after the Mesopotamian civilization to the East and the West and is half way to downfall in the East Asia. There is a regional diminishing effect. East Asia is a certain vital sedimentary place instead of the end of the spread of civilization. In fact, America is the end. American civilization and East Asian civilization have certain similarities. The former introduces the temple pyramid structure of West Asia and accepts partial original details of East Asia (the Shang Dynasty) like worship of jade, Sun-god (Shaohao) and Winged Dragon (Feathered Serpent). Mayan civilization reaches an unprecedented high in the contribution to astronomy. This complicated and sophisticated knowledge originates from Mayas or an unknown secret (a god or a lost civilization). In any case, it is a fully hybrid civilization.[3]

1.3 Hybrid features of Chinese civilization

Chinese civilization is regarded as secondary as it rose later than West Asian civilization and more importantly it has less originality than Sumerian civilization and partially learns from the results of the Mesopotamia area, for example, bronze, as the significant symbol of the beginning of Chinese civilization, has its casting process philosophy from Sumer. Most of the military weapons used in the Shang Dynasty derive from Sumer like axe, spear, knife, sword and armor, except the original ones like dagger and broadsword. By contrast, the device type for sacrifice/table ware originated from local pottery (such as jar, earthen pot, kettle, tripod, drinking vessel, and wine vessel).[4]Such foreign prototype plus local creative process stands for a weakening signal for prototype and the vital beginning of secondary creation. The early stage of Chinese civilization was full of double factors of input and self-generation. In this sense, Chinese civilization can be regarded as a hybrid, however, after the Han Dynasty its originality got increasingly strong and reached the peak in the dynasties of Song and Ming and became the model of the highest quality for agricultural civilization.

The dynasties of the Eastern Zhou and Qin, in the axial age, were open to many foreign elements. The Qin Empire, mistakenly believed to be of strong originality by Chinese historians, is a setter of Persian civilization. Ying Zheng, the first Emperor of the Qin Dynasty, completely copied the system of the Achaemenid Dynasty through the Persian Zoroastrian immigrants residing in Gansu and Shaanxi provinces. The system included standardization of character, measurement, size of wheel, establishment of a national province(prefecture and county) system, building of national expressway (ancient drive way) and postal-station system, construction of super royal tombs and artificial canal irrigation systems, setting up of twelve gods worship (twelve bronze statues were cast according to the images of Persians).[5]Due to the original spirit of the Persian Empire 300 years ago, the physically weak dictators in East Asia were nourished, emitting a fake glory as great founders.

Songjiang cotton played an important role in the global trade of the 19th century (it was called“Nanjing cloth” by the westerners as it took Nanjing as the distribution center). It can be traced back to Huang Daopo, the goddess of China’s textile industry. She returned to her hometown Songjiang Prefecture of Shanghai from Hainan Island in the early Yuan Dynasty and imparted textile technology in the south area by the Yangtze River, and promoted the “cotton revolution” in late Chinese civilization.[6]Her cotton weaving technology was rooted from Hainan Island where she lived for a long time. The cotton fabric “Li brocade” woven by the Li ethnic minority is related to Malay residents of Indonesia and is an integral part of the South Island cultural circle. But if we continue tracking we will find that the Indian Subcontinent is the only root of the textile technology of the Malays, which is the only source of Asian cotton and its textile technology.[7]

Both “Li brocade” and “Songjiang cotton” are alternative products of the “Maritime Silk Road”and do not conform to the single output official narrative paradigm. But many independently invented original technologies were provided by Chinese civilization. In addition to the claimed“Four great inventions” by Dr. Joseph Needham, silk, chinaware, tea, raw lacquer, stirrup, bank note, binary system (described in the Book of Changes), alchemy, and others should be included in the original pedigree of Chinese civilization. Stirrup is the best-known invention by the Annales School for its extraordinary significance. Without stirrups, the Mongolian riders would not be able to modify the historic appearance of the whole Eurasian Continent.[8]Besides, China’s alchemy is rejected to be included in the list of “Chinese inventions” since it is regarded as “superstitious”, but it had a profound impact in Europe. It not only advanced the chemical and pharmaceutical experiments in the modern times, but also triggered the growth of occultism and psychoanalysis in Europe.[9]By the way, the idea of alchemy also contributed to the development of brewing technology, tea making, culinary art, traditional Chinese medicine and porcelain fusion. These five cultural styles can be included in the category of alchemy discourse. Their preparation processes are completely consistent with the basic syntax of alchemy.

The output times of silk, the most talked about invention of the Chinese people, should be far earlier than the officially recognized Western Han Dynasty (Historical Records). A piece of colorful silk fragment was discovered on a mummy which dated to about 3,000 years ago in Thebes of Egypt by three archaeologists of the University of Vienna, Austria. It belongs to the 21stdynasty while China is the only source. This discovery has completely rewritten the timeline of world trade.[10]Perhaps as early as the Shang Dynasty, namely 3,600 to 3,000 years ago, the Silk Road was created. The silk fragment that appeared in Egypt is just a tiny echo. The source of the production and marketing of silk is in the Chengdu Plain instead of Chang’an city, namely the well-known ancient Shu Kingdom. The Emperor was named after “Can Cong”, namely“piles of silkworms”. This trade route runs through Yunnan and Guizhou to the south and enters Burma, Thailand and India, transfers in Persia, and finally arrives in Europe and North Africa. It is probably the most ancient Silk Road in history. Some money cowries were unearthed along this route, which arealso called natural tiger cowrie from the tropical sea areas of the Indian Ocean and the West Pacific Ocean. Ancient India is one of the areas with the earliest use of money cowries, while this money cowrie chain ends at the Sanxingdui Ruins Site in Guanghan of Sichuan Province (1,200BC～1,000 BC). There are thousands of pieces of small gifts from India in the bronze cowrie storage tank, which silently depict the trade feelers of the civilization.[11]

1.4 The development from prototype civilization to projection civilization

In contrast to original civilizations, there are projection civilizations, reflection civilizations, mirror civilizations, and edge civilizations. They are the projected shadows of prototype civilizations and are wound by strong features like rent, attachment, reproduction and learning. Civilizations can be divided into neighboring projection civilization and remote projection civilization in terms of the geographical location of projection. The neighboring countries of China, like North Korea, Japan, Vietnam and Thailand, are geographically connected with mainstream civilization and have become typical marginal civilizations. In other words, they belong to the radiation area of Chinese civilization, and can be regarded as “the skirts of civilization.” The remote projection civilization is not geographically adjacent to mainstream civilization, but it can get access to its artifacts and technologies via leapfrog communication. Today most of the civilizations worldwide are of this type.

The projection civilizations can be further divided into high-end reproduction types (also known as “corrected civilization”) and low-end reproduction types. The Japanese and Korean civilizations completed imitation of European and American civilizations/systems earlier and gradually developed a strong “correction function”. They are classified as high-end reproduction since they can deepen, refine, optimize and upgrade part of the prototype products. Japan’s outstanding contribution to the industries of automobiles, household appliances, cameras, electronic products and agricultural technology is the best example. Japanese civilization transformed the structure of the core civilization and improved the elasticity of the latter marginally and made it more colorful.

Entirely different from the “single globalization” like bronze, silk and iron civilizations, the globalization since the 20th century is the most thorough one in human history. Instead of the spread and reproduction of single artifacts (like painted pottery, bronze and dark iron), it is the overall projection of civilizations. The crazy reproduction across the globe has narrowed the civilization difference between the developed countries and the developing countries. The image of each country strongly resembles each other in the world. The whole world is replicating the architectural model of Manhattan. The swelling tide of skyscraper competition spreads in Shanghai, Chengdu, Changsha, Taipei, Kuala Lumper, Dubai and Mecca. The skyscrapers that tower into the clouds become the major visual schema to seize the discourse right of modern civilization. When tourists ascend to the top floor of the Empire State Building and overlook the land, they will repeat the sentence of Napoleon in their hearts: I saw, I conquered. It means that the will to power of an individual is aroused by the height. But at the bottom of the building without any height advantage, pedestrians are forced to accept a hint of self-trivialization, where the darkest card of civilization is turned over.

On the wide ruins of Chinese agricultural civilization, there arose a huge remote projection civilization, whose rise was later than other countries in East Asia but took off in the 1980s. It is a unique development pattern with the three missing factors in the West, a population of 1.4 billion,group worship and passion for material wealth, and manufacturing with low cost and low technology. They are the Three Chariots of Chinese style, waken by Deng Xiaoping, running about wildly on the East Asian land around the millennium and creating aggressive economic miracles. But this is precisely a serious obstacle to the upgrade of civilization. The simple utilitarian thinking removes the power for technology innovation and brand building. Thus, it is difficult for this civilization to fully leap forward to the original stage. It could not be reversed because China would not be able to break the shackles of low-end economic mode. This is a crisis for survival of China’s manufacturing and even the “involution”mark of low-end reproduction civilization.

1.5 Ancient civilization and modern civilization

Historians have tried to describe the declination of three civilizations, namely the agricultural civilization of the East, the nomadic civilization of Arab, and the classical civilization of Europe (Greece/Rome).[12]The ancient civilization system played a crucial role, but it has fallen separately and split differently and become some material or nonmaterial pieces. It stations in the modern world in the name of “l(fā)egacy” and has become the decorative symbol of regionalization of new civilization.

Correspondingly, another fact is that the new emerging prototype civilization has risen. Through British Steam Revolution, French Artifact Revolution, American Electrical Revolution and Information Revolution, it has completed selftransformation from industrial civilization to postindustrial civilization, from artifact capitalism to information capitalism, from entity capitalism to symbolic capitalism, and from unit capitalism to compound capitalism. In the 21st century, the U.S. will lead the world to achieve three goals namely life, energy and digital revolutions. From my point of view, a more accurate title for “western civilization”is “American civilization”.

There is no doubt that different from the multiple forms of civilizations in the axial period, there is only one modern civilization namely western civilization. On the solid foundation of modern prototype inventions, in this civilization lamp, printer, telephone, car, camera, film, television, aircraft, nuclear power, computer and the Internet are included. If this pedigree is further expanded, there should be steam engine, railway and train, expressway, semiconductor, recorder, washing machine, X-ray, antibiotics, plastic, credit card, supermarket, mobile phone, and others. All the countries worldwide are replicating this civilization and seeking to get similar with or completely match it. This convergence of western civilization is the socalled “process of modernization”.

1.6 Space civilization and time civilization

The Jewish nation is the only time civilization across the globe. Tillich pointed out that the God commanded Abraham to leave his homeland and his father’s home, indicating that he was required to leave the land namely the space God.[13]The Jewish people are all over the globe, but they do not have their motherland for a long time. The small Israeli land acquired in 1948 is not strong enough to change the time attribute of the Jewish nation. Fortunately, it is under the shelter of the historical God-time God, which is a rare welfare. Based on prophet, prophecy, and the embrace of the time God, the Jewish nation has conquered the difficulties and stood on the time peak.

The U.S., a representative of the highest achievement of modern industry, is a typical space civilization. It not only has the vast territory of the Indians, but also controls all the human space through political, military and currency power, even becomes the master of outer space. But it does notown time as it almost has no memory. Its time is suppressed and looted by the space. Its character is to defend the vast space and daily life provable by the experience with short-term memory at present. The Americans have developed a kind of science fiction thinking of the hacker empire, to seek a breakthrough in time. It is expected to obtain the starting point and direction of time growth in the imaginary space in the future.

As the traditional agricultural civilization, China is a typical time-space mixed nation. It has a vast territory, but it loses the elasticity of space expansion (in most of the cases, its space was forced to expand by the northern nomadic people. With long history and time length, it experienced two times’ “Indianization” in the pre-Qin Dynasty and Wei-Jin period.[14]China was dragged by Veda/ Buddhist philosophy of India into the time cycle and the infinite loop ring. In such ouroboric structure, the eternity and the world center ideal are solidified. With a future dimension, the circle cycle only has one exit towards the elapsed time, with which complicated spatial memory is formed. The Chinese history is a kind of space overlapped on time and is keen on describing the achievements of the empire in territory management. But this huge memory is highly vulnerable and can be tampered, scribbled and forgotten by memory administrator.

Figure 2 Precipitation line of China

2. The temporal and spatial division of Chinese civilization

2.1 Division line: The space division of Chinese civilization

There are two vital cutting lines on Chinese native land. One is a 400mm precipitation line, starting from the Greater Higgnan Mountains and reaching the eastern Himalayas through Zhangjiakou, Lanzhou and Lhasa. It is a climate boundary between China’s semi-humid and semiarid areas, roughly of inflow and outflow areas, monsoon and non-monsoon areas, temperate grassland and temperate deciduous forest, forest vegetation and grassland vegetation, cultivation area and cattle-producing area, and agricultural economy and pastoral economy. Another the 45-degree diagonal Hu Huanyong Line proposed by the geographer Hu Huanyong in 1935. It is a population density contrast line stretching from Heihe City of Heilongjiang Province to Tengchong City of Yunnan Province. Most of the two lines coincided with each other and there is only directional differentiation in the southwest region. They can be simply called“precipitation/population divider lines”. They describe the two-element splitting model of Chinese civilization from the perspective of climatology and population geography.[15]

Figure 3 Hu Huanyong Line

Figure 2 and Figure 3 are the precipitation line of China and the Hu Huanyong line respectively and there is a close correspondence between the two lines.

Out of the instinct for survival, the nomadic or semi nomadic ethnic groups living west of the boundary line necessarily made efforts to march to the east and rebuild their own “hunting ground”,“pasture” and “farm” on the more fertile and moist areas. Therefore, they had persistent conflicts, conquest and finally integrated with the original Dong Yi ethnic group living east of the boundary line. This is exactly the basic mode of the growth of Chinese civilization.[16]Started at the eastern end of the Hexi Corridor in Gansu Province, with “the great war between the Yan Emperor and the Yellow Emperor” as the symbol, it took about 6,000–8,000 years and temporarily came to an end when the Qing Dynasty was overthrown. It not only brought mass death and destruction but also the exchange, confluence and growth power of civilization.

Two-sided conflict and integration models are the best schema for the explanation of the origin of Chinese civilization. The western immigrants (“Xirong Nationality”) provided wheat,[17]cattle and sheep, domestic horses (war chariot), painted pottery (Dadiwan Culture) and grass linen and hemp, while native original inhabitants provided maize, rice, pigs and dogs, black pottery, and silk. In terms of crops, local residents are further divided into two branches namely millet ethnic groups (Yangshao culture, and Xinglongwa culture, and others) in semiarid regions and rice ethnic groups (Hemudu culture) in humid regions (southeast trade winds). These different ethnic groups integrated in the conflicts and formed the basic pattern of Chinese civilization.

“Legends of the Emperor Yan” symbolizes the rice ethnic group in trade winds and stems from the Austronesians who earlier entered East Asia. There are seemingly no dissenting voices about this. But what does “Legends of the Yellow Emperor”represent? Is it the rice ethnic group or the wheat ethnic group? Or is it the symbol confluence of these two forces? This is still a mystery to be cracked. The existing archaeological discoveries do not give a direct answer to this question. Another speculation for the “Great War between the Yan Emperor and the Yellow Emperor” is that the “Western Rong” armies with wheat seeds advanced eastward and forced the millet ethnic group residents in the semi-arid region to move further east, which resulted in a serious conflict between the millet ethnic group and the rice ethnic group. Once the speculation is established, the hard two-sided conflict will be refined and it will lead to a more diverse and complex conflict formation.

From the perspective of geographical anthropology, the basic appearance of two-sided conflict of Chinese civilization is decided by the following four fundamental rules.

First, the worship of the sun all over the world in the ancient times formed a strong force for the eastward migration of residents in West Asia. As one of the best global refuge for living beings, the Far East has excellent species living environment. In the event of wars and disasters, the West Asian residents migrated towards the east and settled in East Asia due to block of the Pacific Ocean. Thus, there constantly formed new accumulation layers of immigrants, so that the Chinese nation became a typical hybrid nation.

Second, due to interglacial effect on Siberia, when it was extremely cold in the high latitude regions, the northern nomadic people would go southward for survival (“Brave the journey to northeast” of the Shandong residents is a rareexception) and occupy the land of agricultural nation in the south. There is a close relationship between Genghis Khan’s leading the soldiers to the south and climate change.[18]This migration from north to south exacerbated the hybrid features of Chinese civilization.

Third, in the process of migration of people, species, artifacts, technologies and myths migrated simultaneously as well. It inevitably led to the mass implantation of civilization and culture elements. An isolated and closed “East” did not exist at all. Chinese civilization was built in joint efforts by the original people and immigrants, instead of the result of “born and brought up on the native land” in an isolated island. The rise and growth of civilization is inconceivable without this cross regional communication and exchange.

Fourth, the development process of Chinese agricultural civilization can be divided into six stages namely fertile period (New Stone Age), birth period (various Chinese kingdoms, the Shang Dynasty, and the Western Zhou Dynasty), development period (the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, the Qin Dynasty and the Han Dynasty), high-tide period (the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty), recession period (the Yuan Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty and the early Qing Dynasty) and death period (the late Qing Dynasty). The Western conquerors played a leading role in the fertile and birth periods of Chinese civilization. In the other periods, the farming residents in the East played an increasingly important role while the invaders of the West (North) played a negative role and ultimately, they completely ruined the civilization.

2.2 The life and death of the west axis and the east axis

The direct result of two-sided conflict/integration is a gradually formed west axis of Chinese civilization, which is a northwest-southeast 45-degree diagonal, vertical to the northeastsouthwest 45 degree diagonal “precipitation/ population boundary line.” Starting from the integration point at the south of the Qinling Mountains it moves southeast along the Hanjiang River and forms the flourishing civilization points in Henan province and Hubei province. The Hanjiang River runs through southern Shaanxi, northwestern Hubei, and finally feeds the Yangtze River, which is more than 1,500 kilometers long. It connects the two main river systems of the Yellow River and the Yangtze River and forms the “Central Plains Core”. This diagonal is just the basic route from the point of integration (Qinling Mountains) to the point of prosperity (Henan). Before the Southern Song dynasties, the capital cities of China were located here and the major events of political, cultural significance took place around that axis.

The construction of canal stems from the nature of irrigation agriculture, and the convergence of the Yellow River and the Yangtze River forms a civilization community with the life bond of water systems. Rivers are always the spirits of crops, irrigation systems and freight transport, while the fertile soil of alluvial plains are also the great foundation of crop growth. In addition, the Han River is the important shipping channel running through the Yellow River and the Yangtze River in the water and land transport relay and feeds the Central Plains Core with nutrients for its development and growth.

Interestingly, in the dynasties of Sui and Tang, a 1,700 kilometers canal from Luoyang to Hangzhou was excavated, where ships could travel. It is the geological strategy for the empire’s attempt to encroach on large scale the resources of the south of the Yangtze River. This is a major precursor for the shift from the West Axis to the East Axis. The pattern of prosperity of the south of the Yangtze River was formed, while the Emperor or the Empire as well as his official group confirmed this pleasing fact.

But with the invasion of the Jin people and defeat of the Song army, the Song Dynasty moved its capital to Jiankang Prefecture (Nanjing, 1129 AD) and moved again to Lin’an Prefecture two years later (Hangzhou, 1131 AD). Due to this act, the West Axis was forced to move to the west bank of the Pacific Ocean and an East Axis was formed from the north to the south through the eastern part of China. The eastward movement of the Axis did not only lie in the threat towards China that caused the shift from the northwest to the north and the northeast, but also in the fact that the south of the Yangtze River’s position as the new core of agricultural civilization and the Far East route of maritime trade had been opened by the Arabs and the Jews. After the South Song Dynasty, the northern part of the East Axis became prosperous. The Beijing–Hangzhou Grand Canal constructed in the Sui Dynasty was the main body, forming the waterway artery from Beijing to Hangzhou. After that, the East Axis continued to extend southward and connected Fuzhou, Xiamen (Quanzhou) and Guangzhou via sea route and ran through the Yellow River, the Huaihe River, the Yangtze River, the Minjiang River and the Zhujiang River. The East Axis was parallel to the coastline of the Pacific Ocean. As north and south vertical, it ran through the eastern part and became the solid support for maritime trade. The capitals of the past dynasties (Li’an of the Southern Song Dynasty, the Great Capital of the Yuan Dynasty, the Yingtian Prefecture of the Ming Dynasty and Beijing City, Beijing City of the Qing Dynasty, Nanjing City of the Republic of China) were located and most of the major events took place close to this Axis. A gathering center of politics, farming, textile, artifacts, trade, literature, and talents was formed in the delta of the Yangtze River with the Taihu Lake as the core, and with Hangzhou, Suzhou, Wuxi, Nanjing, Zhenjiang, and Yangzhou as the nodes, which remains unchanged today.[19]

Taking the diagonal of the West Axis and the vertical line of the East Axis as the longitudes and the Yellow River and the Yangtze River as the latitudes, the structure of the Chinese character “well”is formed. This structure is the utmost confidentiality of Chinese civilization. The central part of this character is the narrative center of the civilization, which is of significance in the description of the core of the generation of the civilization. More importantly, it is a strong gravitational field for narration and leads narrator’s speech to the so-called “central area” and is closely tied up with the area, with the edge and its extended area neglected. The concentrating effect of this narration has attracted many researchers about Chinese history. Like moths, they gather on the surface of this character and burst into a prolonged praise.

The essential difference between the East and the West Axis lies in the irrelevance of the canal’s function with irrigation but the only function as transportation of materials and goods. The former one is the major symbol of the declination of Chinese agricultural civilization and the budding of commercial civilization. It is also the crucial opportunity to transform into ocean civilization. Given the very powerful Continental doctrine and Confucianism, the construction of the East Axis did not promote the self-transformation of agricultural civilization but committed suicide via a ban on maritime trade, and finally declined irreversibly. Zheng he led the Ming naval expeditions seven times totally, which advanced the tribute trade of the Emperor Zhu Di, while private trade was strictly forbidden. The large scale banning maritime trade policy in the dynasties of Ming and Qing as well as the devastating massacre of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in the Taihu Lake, the delta of the Yangtze River are disintegration of the value of the East Axis to the largest extent. They were weaving the broken dream of the old empire with their ears and eyes blocked.

2.3 Time division of the two axes

We have seen thoroughly that the axes are certain major time nodes instead of merely spatial concepts. They describe three basic stages of Chinese civilization. The period before the formation of the West Axis namely the Zhou Dynasty is called “front stage” (5,000 BC – the mid-11thCentury BC) by me. It is the development period of Chinese civilization with painted pottery, silk and bronze as the prelude, bond and climax respectively. A clear outline of early farming civilization is formed. The Shang people were a typical nomadic nation and they gave up hunting instead of eating meat,[20]and gave up nomadic grazing instead of nomadic residence.[21]The capital had been relocated as many as 13 times in such a short period of 600 years, 50 years per relocation on average. This is inertia of nomadic/ hunting nation. Moreover, this nomadic mode is a close echo to the nomadic cultivation. Nomadic cultivation is either leaving land uncultivated or random cultivation. Farms must relocate from time to time with the cultivated land. At the very beginning it was a remote distance and leap-frog style dynamic relocation and later developed into a static random cultivation between location A and location B. The rhythmical swing in space is the basic characteristic of early farming civilization.

The era under the control of the West Axis (from the mid-tenth century BC to 1127 AD) , is also known as the “West Axis Period.” It is the heyday of Chinese civilization up to more than 2,100 years. It takes the Western Zhou Dynasty as the real starting point of settled farming mode. The “Nine Squares System” was formally established and farmers were bundled to their own land. An agricultural management system of stricter fixed farmers, settlement and sedentary cultivation was established, based on which Chinese agricultural cultivation became mature. Through incubation by the Western Zhou Dynasty, the West Axis period became so fascinating with the pre-Qin times as cultural explosion, the Han Dynasty as national consciousness, the Tang Dynasty as new empire look, the Song Dynasty as peak of original inventions and simple aesthetics. The Song Dynasty has been the most favored time by the intellectuals since the pre-Qin times. Zhao’s family should have painted a perfect curve for agricultural civilization without the southward invasion of the northern nomadic groups. But it quickly declined due to the invasion of the Jin people and ceded the crown of laurel of “golden age”to the Tang Dynasty ruled by the Li family.

The age ruled by the East Axis (1129–1840) is called the “East Axis Period” and is the declination period of Chinese civilization. In 1231, the Catholic Pope Gregory IX inspired to establish inquisition for investigation, judgment and execution of deviationists. Europe was shrouded in endless darkness. On the contrary, the Chinese Empire continued to indulge in the self-brewed sweet wine. The population of Lin’an City was as many as 1.5 to 5 million and one of the largest cities worldwide. Other cities like Suzhou, Nanjing and Yangzhou thriving and prosperous with large population. With the agricultural technological inventions of the Song Dynasty, the trade market and great navigation technology of the Yuan Dynasty and the artifacts manufacturing capability of the Ming Dynasty, the Empire should have realized its ambition to become an immortal brewer of the new civilization.

The Arabia, Persian and Jewish sailors entered the Chinese ports with 5P star cluster myth. The 5P star cluster is an important star for direction identification and navigation for the sailors, and the brightest seven stars were called the “Seven Pleiades Sisters” describing the most charming fragment of the Greek myth. The seventh fairy Merope (called Merope in Chinese) was the weakest one and married the well-known ill-fated King Sisif. This myth interblended with the mythof the Cowherd and the Weaving Maid. Sisif’s pushing uphill and invalid work was replaced quietly by the hard-working and kind Cowherd Dong Yong.[22]This European myth related to navigation and global trade was ultimately rewritten into a narrative sample of the East Asian farmer.

This is an example of counteracting between agricultural civilization and commercial civilization. The formation of new markets and international trade systems seriously deviated from the belief of Confucian physiocratism. The developed large city indicated the multiple expansions of market and trade, desire for materials. The citizen spirit started to replace the farmer spirit and it shamelessly extolled the queer love between the White Snake and Xu Xian. This unrest was seen through by the sage Zhu Xi. The idealist Confucianism destroyed “human desire” by the “heavenly principle” in time.[23]Fa Hai is the symbol of a firm desire destroyer. He is a hypocritical Confucian scholar rather than a monk at the Jinshan Temple. He struggled to walk at the boundary of the desire ocean and gave a fatal blow to the snake, the representative of lust.

The biggest enemies of Chinese civilization are the Confucian scholars strictly observing the agricultural morality instead of the northern nomadic ethnic group or the decrepit and muddleheaded emperors. They insisted on their hostility towards desire with deep hatred and resentment. The Yangming Hsin Hsueh of the Ming Dynasty could not change this outmoded promoted pattern. There is no doubt that it was in the East Axis period that a civilization mutiny was prevented successfully by the Confucian culture.

2.4 The “Anti-history narration” of the Manchu Empire

In the late agricultural empire, there was another dramatic incident namely the invasion of the nomadic Jurchen nation. It resulted in agricultural civilization’s loss in the last self-renewal opportunity. As the conqueror of nomadic groups, the Tartar people were shocked by the “advanced”civilization and culture of the agricultural empire and started to study hard after their occupation of the Central Plains. In the Manchu court, Han scholars were appointed to educate the princes. This seriously declined civilization was mistakenly regarded as the highest civilization, and the Manchu dynasty had been indulged in the great illusion of world center. The Emperors Kangxi and Qianlong were so addicted to copying Han culture that they were proficient in the political strategy of the Han people and had a good master over lyre playing, chess, calligraphy and painting as well. They even attempted to become the mentors of the Han people in culture/aesthetics. They were so proud of such new identity that they failed to perceive the rise of a completely new industrial civilization. The Han Confucian intellectuals joined in cherishing of outmoded with the emperors and kept warm with each other. Even in the most critical moment, they would never abandon their illusion about the central empire and agricultural morality until the Opium War of 1840. This is an ironic historic incident. The agricultural civilization of thousands of years of history was ruined by an increasingly corrupt nomadic nation.

An Italian Jesuit Mathew Ricci presented four pre-industrial civilization gifts to the Emperor Wanli, namely the Bible, a mechanical clock (indicating global time–Greenwich Time), twelve world maps of different versions (for deconstruction of China’s“central” location on the globe, and the most famous one is the Great Universal Geographic Map) and a Harpsichord (for perfect twelve temperament system).[24]These gifts are double symbol of new civilization of rationalism and divine revelation.[25]Both of Johann Adam Schall von Bell and Ferdinand Verbiest repaired chime clocks for the EmperorsShunzhi and Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty, expecting their existence to lighten the scientific rationality of the Emperors. But the Manchu Emperors did not realize the great significance of these “diabolic tricks and wicked craft” and gave up the ambition to reconstruct space-time together with the Europeans, leaving those objects ridiculous furnishings in the palace. Up to now, they are still quietly located in the palace of the Forbidden City with thick historical dust. These palace toys declared the coming of a new Space-time God.

Hundreds of years later, customs buildings were constructed successively as well as huge clocks in the colonies like Shanghai, Nanjing, Hankou, Guangzhou, Fuzhou and Xiamen by the British. They were in the concessions, facing the old cities. Overlooking the ground below, they rang loudly per Greenwich Standard Time, declaring the governance of modern civilization over Chinese time and striking the deafening death knell of the old empire as well.[26]It is thought–provoking that in a century the music for the clock at Shanghai Customs has always been shifted between Westminster March and Red in the East.[27]This is the pendulum effect. It firmly took over the clock, a symbol of “Western Civilization”, while the words in the clock’s expression swing around hither and thither. We have been informed that such a swing will last for a long time and predict a cultural future of schizophrenia.

(English editor: Yan Yuting)

This paper has been translated and reprinted with the permission of Tongji University Journal Social Science Section, No.1, Vol.27, 2016.

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[6] Tao Zongyi. Farming in Nancun Village[M]. Beijing: Zhong Hua Book Company, 2004.

[7] The Li Brocade is woven by two kinds of materials Levant cotton and kapok, so it is also known as “Ceiba”. Ceiba is a word in Malaysian with original meaning of kapok and is the transfer in pronunciation of Sanskrit “Karpassa”. This linguistic clue is another major proof of the correlation of Li Brocade with India.

[8] Du Junli. The Details of History[M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Joint Publishing Company, 2013.

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[12][US] William Macnei. The Rise of the West–A History of the Human Community (Vol. A)[M]. translated by Sun Yue, Chen Zhijian et, al. Beijing: China CITIC Press, 2015.

[13][US] PaulTillichi. Theology of Culture[M]. translated by Chen Xinquan and Wang Ping. Beijing: Workers Press, 1988, page36-49.

[14]“Indianization” is a term of Hu Shi, used to describe the introduction of Buddhism in the Wei and Jin dynasties. In the pre Qin period, there was a violent process of indianization. Indian myths, Vedic philosophy and the Salmonella Movement have great infuence on the generation of Chinese thinkers in the pre Qin period. Zhu Dake. Chinese Ancient Gods[M]. Beijing: Oriental Press, 2014.

[15]Hu Huanyong. Distribution, Regionalization and Prospect of China’s Population[J]. Journal of Geography, 1990(2); Hu Huanyong. The Distribution of the Population in China with Statistics and Density Map[J]. Journal of Geography, 1935(2).

[16]Yi Hua. Theories on the Order of Yi Civilization and Xia Civilization[M]. Beijing: National Publishing House, 2012.

[17]It is proved by agricultural archaeological studies that China is the center of variability, diversity and secondary origin instead of the initial domestication center of common wheat. Jin Guiyun. Archaeological Discovery and Research of Early Chinese Wheat[J]. Agricultural Archaeology, 2007(4), page 11-20.

[18][US] Di John. The Impact of Climate on Human Histories[M]. translated by Wang Xiaoran. Beijing: Gold Wall Press, 2014.

[19]Chen Qiaoyi. History of the Development of China’s Canals[M]. Beijing: Zhong Hua Book Company, 2008.

[20]The bronze thick and tall food vessels used by the Yin People are apparently good for high temperature cooking. It mainly functions for meat cooking instead of milo and vegetables and fruit.

[21]Guo Jingyun. The Dynasties of Xia, Shang and Zhou–from Myth to Reality[M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Classics Publishing House, 2013, page 200-202.

[22]The Pleiades Myth spread widely in Asian trade including Japan and Korea as well as China, while it was adapted into different versions. The Seven Star Goddess Temple was built in Fujian and Sichuan at the shrine of seven Goddesses. There are such temples today in Taiwan. Please refer to Zhu Dake: The New Injustice as well as Old of Cowherd and Weaving Maiden. Zhu Dake. Myth[M]. Beijing: Oriental Press, 2012.

[23]Li Deqing. Zhu zi’s Language Category [M]. Beijing: Zhong Hua Book Company, 1986, vol. 4 and 13.

[24]The missionary Pantoja was asked to teach four eunuchs to play this instrument, however, they hardly played a piece of music after one-month learning. MathewRicci wrote Playing Methods of Ancient Piano composed of eight pieces of music for harpsichord. Except the lyrics of Catholic morality, other parts are missing. Refer to [France] Francois Picard. A General Situation of Exchanges of Music Cultures between China and the West in the Dynasties of Ming and Qing[J]. translated by Jia Shubing, Journal of the Central Conservatory of Music, 2007(2).

[25][US] Shi Jingqian. Mathew Ricci and His Visit to Beijing[M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Far East Publishers, 2005, page 36-52.

[26][France] AlanPeyreftte. The Stagnant Empire–the Impact of the Two World[M]. translated by Wang Guoqing and Mao Fengzhi, Beijing: Life Reading New Knowledge Bookstore, 2007.

[27]The clock has told the time in the British royal music Westminster March since 1928. It changed to Red in the East in May 1966. The Queen Elisabeth II of the U.K. visited Shanghai in 1986 and the music was changed into Westminster March again. A patriot wrote a complaint letter in 1997 and it stopped playing. It resumed playing Red in the East in 2003.

*Zhu Dake, professor, Research Center of Cultural Criticism, Tongji University．