Israelite Migration to China/Han Dynasty

Borderland Administration

(This is an account of the migration and sinocization of the tribes in the Western Region including the Israelite community from Ferghana (Afghanistan today) to China in the Han Dynasty (206 BCE- 220 CE). I translated this section from the book:  Ma Dazheng, Chief Editor: A History of China Administration Of Borderland from the series of  A Complete History of China Borders. China 2000).

Translated from Chinese by Tiberiu Weisz

How and why did the Israelites move to China? First they lived in Ferghana peacefully for several generations, and they had little incentives to move. Only when the conditions in Central Asia became more difficult and China offered protection to the settlers, including the Israelites, that were unprecedented in history, they had good incentives to move.  China encouraged the various tribes to move closer to the Chinese borders to serve as a buffer zone between China and the barbarians. What was unprecedented was that the Chinese welcomed these settlers and offered them equal status to a Chinese. But before they could enjoy that status, there was a process of sinociztion that took place in the borderland areas.

Borderland administration of the Western Regions was a major accomplishment of successive Chinese emperors.  The Western Region as the Chinese called it, stretched from the Eastern edge of the Taklimakan Desert (Dunhuang today) to Fergana (Afghanistan today) an area roughly 800 miles long.  This region was famous for the Silk Route that connected the Roman Empire with China, where trade flowed from the earliest times until the decline of the land trade route in the second century CE.

The Chinese came in contact with the tribes in this region first because of military skirmishes. During the early Qin (280-221 BCE) and Han Dynasties (206BCE- 220 CE), the nomadic tribes descended upon the Chinese settlers and challenged the empire. To the Chinese all non- Chinese nomads were “barbarians” and the Chinese could hardly distinguish one barbarian from another. Occasionally, the Chinese mentioned differences in their physical appearances, customs and in rare cases differences in dialects.  But overall, the Chinese were most familiars with tribes that settled along the Silk Road that ended at Dunhuang or as the Chinese called if Yumen- Jade gate.  China rarely ventured beyond Dunhuang, except on punitive campaigns. One of those campaigns was set in motion in 104 BCE when a relatively minor Chinese Deputy Commander Li Guangli reached the outskirts of Ferghana.

Li Guangli established the local government of the Han Dynasty at Wulei, not far from Kucha (the Biblical Kueh/Kve in I Kings 10:28) [1] (Northern Afghanistan today) to `protect' the states in this area, which numbered about 50 at the time. At about the same period the city of Gaochang was built in the Turfan basin. This developed into the centre of the Huihe kingdom; these peoples later became the Uygur minority who now make up a large proportion of the local population. Many settlements were set up along the way, mostly in the oasis areas, and profited from the passing trade. They also absorbed a lot of the local customs, and adopted cultures from travelers that passed along the route.

Very few merchants traveled the full length of the [Silk] Road; most of them simply covered part of the journey, selling their wares not far from their homes, and then returned with the proceeds. Goods therefore tended to move slowly across Asia, changing hands many times. Local people no doubt acted as guides for the caravans over the most dangerous sections of the journey.

After the Western Han Dynasty, successive dynasties brought more states under Chinese control. Settlements came and went, as they changed hands or lost importance due to a change in the [trade] routes. The Chinese garrison town of Loulan, for example, on the edge of the Lop Nor Lake, was important in the third century A.D., but was abandoned when the Chinese lost control of the route. Many settlements were buried in the sands of the Taklimakan Desert; they were abandoned and could not be repopulated.

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[1] For a connection between Kucha and the Biblical Kue/Kve, see my article:  Biblical Influence in Chinese Literature, Asian Jewish Life # 11 (2012)

Legalism in China

In ancient China, the legalists were pragmatic people for whom the rule of law was above everything else. They were called  “men of method” (fangshu zhishi) and they made the laws that subjected individual rights to the needs of the country. The ruler, namely the emperor made the laws, therefore the needs of the country were in essence the needs of the ruler. Practically what was good for the ruler was good for the country but what was good for the country was not necessarily good for the rulers. Therefore the laws were fixed and ordinary people were not permitted to question or even interpret the rules. To facilitate the spread of the laws, they were written in simple terms that everyone could understand.  No need for further explanation. It followed that the legalists were against reading any outside literature. Books like the Liji (equal to the Bible) were burned, public debates forbidden, and questioning the laws were severely punishable. The rules were so strict that they often bordered on the absurd.

“A man in the state of Zheng wanted to buy a pair of shoes. He carefully measured his foot with a ruler then placed the ruler on the chair. Next day he went to the market, and picked up a pair of shoes. Suddenly he remembered that he forgot to bring the ruler. He hurriedly returned home, got the ruler, and returned to the market. But by the time he got back, the market was closed. He did not get the shoes. Afterwards when people asked him “why did you not try the shoes on your feet?” he replied ‘I rather trust the ruler than my feet.’”  (Han Feizi)

While it is true that the legalist school of thought unified the country politically, economically and culturally, yet socially they alienated the people.  Politically they introduced the way of governing, headed by a strong ruler with unlimited and often unchecked powers. Economically, they standardized the units of measurements; introduced market oriented enterprises and demanded that each person should work for a living. That was a novel idea for the times. A farmer was a farmer, an artisan an artisan and a merchant a merchant, a scholar a scholar… Only people with education worked with their mind, others with their labor. Culturally, the writing system was standardized while artifacts and books were outlawed. Books of Confucius and the classic Liji were burned. Only books of “law” were allowed. Freedom of speech and expression, learning and freethinking were severely curtailed.

Socially, the legalist enforced a strict division of labor for those who worked with their mind ruled and those who labored. Each knew their places in society. Each followed an unwritten code of conduct. Even the emperor was advised to follow the legalist path. “A wise king never changes the law for his relatives, old acquaintances or the nobles.” Rulers, gentlemen and officials followed the li, or prescribed ceremonies, while the commoners followed the xing, the avocation of their title (like, farmer, artisan, merchant). The uneducated class was there to serve those who followed the li. “The li does not go down to the common people and the xing common people do not go up the social ladder. “

Only once in her long history, China practiced a government based on this strict legal philosophy. Between 280- 221 BCE the legalist ruled China, they united the country with the edge of the sword, but they lost the support of the people. That loss was permanent. Ever since 221 BCE China had rejected the legalism rule never to reinstitute a legal code that superseded the local customs. People found the laws so repulsive and regressive that they were turned off by legalism. Western style laws with loopholes and interpretations did not get a foothold in China. Even in modern times under the Chinese Communist regime, the fundamental of the Chinese constitution is deeply rooted in the legalist philosophy of Lord Shang Yang (d. 338 BE) and Hanfeizi (d.233 BCE) such as curtailing individual freedom of speech and expression, restricted social mobility and rejecting anything that would seem to threaten the ruling class.

The Chinese legalists used rewards and punishment to control the people and instill fear into transgressors.  They were not interested in the finer points of the law. Their goal was that every person should understand that good deeds were rewarded while bad deeds were punished. Rewards and punishment were the cornerstone to the Chinese legal philosophy and nowadays the basis of modern legal procedures. The legalists claimed that for centuries the Confucians taught that the golden age of man lied in the past. The present and future in China were always measured against past occurrences. But today circumstances were different, time had changed and so must the methods of the ruler, otherwise he would be like the farmer waiting for another hare at the stump in the middle of the field:  

“There was once a man in the state of Song who tilled his field. In the midst of the field there was a tree stump.  One day while plowing the field a hare run straight into the tree stump, broke his neck, and died. From that day on, the farmer quit tilling his field, and instead he sat by the tree stump in the hope that he would catch more hares.  But no hares came and the farmer became the laughing stock of the people of Song.“  (Han Feizi)
These ancient Chinese legalist concepts constitute the framework for the modern Chinese constitution and legal proceedings. 

Tiberiu Weisz