ItgoeswithoutsayingthatConfucianismhasgreatinfluenceuponeveryaspectofChina.doc

It goes without saying that Confucianism has great influence upon every aspect of China. Actually it has penetrated into the depth of the Chinese culture. You will realize that the Chinese history is mainly a history of Confucianism, if you open any of the books on Chinese history. Recently, some alleged elite of China claimed that we needed to restore Confucianism if we wanted to build our country into a superpower. President Jiang even asserted that the communist party of China had to run the country with morality, which was a classical slogan of Confucianism. It seemed to some people that to run the country by law was quite inadequate. What kind of influence on earth has Confucianism exerted upon the history of China? While some people are very proud of the Confucian culture, others hold a critical attitude towards it. But up till now, no one has given us an explicit answer. In my opinion, China will run into trouble if we do not figure out the answer to this question clearly.
Confucianism is actually a religion. But many people doubt about that. In their mind, Confucianism is only a school of thought because it is not similar to any of the “real” religions at all, such as Buddhism and Daoism. However, the answer is definitely “Yes,” because it possesses all the characteristics a religion must have---idols, temples, religious textbooks and frenetic believers. Its idols are Confucius and Mencius. Only a century ago, there were temples of Confucius and Mencius in every town and city of China, and all of the Chinese scholars were its firm believers, let alone the ordinary Chinese people. The Confucian classics were read by all the Chinese scholars and industrious students,and few people dared challenge its doctrines. As a matter of fact, since the Song Dynasty, Chinese scholars have affirmed that Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism are the three major religions that make the core of Chinese culture.
It is believed that there have existed three major religions in the history of human civilization ---Christianity, Islam and Buddhism. But I want to say that there have been four major religions in the world and that the fourth one is Confucianism, because Confucianism has had tremendous influence on not only Chinese culture but Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese cultures. Confucius was worshiped just like a god in the three countries.The population of these countries accounts for about one fourth of the world's total. How can we deny the fact that it is a great religion?
But what “merits” have these religions brought to the human civilization? We'll be clear about that by studying the histories of different nationalities.
At first, let's see the influence of Christianity on Europeans. After it was established as the national religion of every European country, the whole Europe started to fall into the historical period of the Middle Ages, which lasted for about one thousand years. This period was also called the Dark Ages in history, because the European civilization became stagnant and superstition rampant. People's imagination was severely suppressed as if they had lived in the darkness. Only after the renaissance did the Christian dogmas begin to be seriously questioned, and people's mind was set free. European countries ushered into a brand-new epoch of rapid development.
Secondly, let's take a look at the influence of Islam on Arabs and other mid-Asian nations. Up till now, these peoples are still pious Islamic believers. As we know, their backwardness is completely out of question. When Mohammed established the religion, the Islamic teachings did inspire the Arabs to achieve victories in expanding their territory. However, with Islam permeating every corner of their life, they began to lose their imagination and follow various rigid Islamic rules obediently. Their culture hereafter lost vigor and vitality. As for other mid-Asian races, they had been barbarous nomadic people and great warriors before they became moslems. They had been invincible cavalries and often brought horrors to settled people. But religious belief made them lose their original warrior spirit and became superstitious. They were no longer a threat to other peoples, thus deciding their susequent fate---waiting to be bullied by other barbarous people. In fact, the unreligious Mongols soon let them taste the greatest horror the human history had ever accounted by killing off much of the Muslim population brutally. It is said that the human society is just like a jungle, in which only the fittest survives. If you do not bully others, others will bully you. It seems to be an eternal truth.
Then, how about the influence of Buddhism? Though it originated from India, it has produced huge influence upon other Asian nations such as Tibetans, Mongols, Chinese, Koreans, Japanese and a lot of south-eastern Asian nations. We will realize how big its influence on these peoples was in the case of Mongols. At the age of Genghis Khan, Mongols didn't believe in any formal religions. They only worshipped Changshengtian---the ever-living heaven. In the mind of settled people, these nomads were uncivilized savages. They drove their herds and flocks here and there on the enormous northern Asian prairie all the year round. But all of them were born warriors. Through their everyday hunting activities, they learned extraordinary military tactics. Under the leadership of Genghis Khan, the Mongols conquered nearly half the world and set up the biggest empire the world had ever known. We have to admit that they were excellent jungle survivors. However, Buddhism began to spread into Mongolia in the thirteenth century. During the Qing Dynasty, it reached its pinnacle. All of Mongols became its pious believers. In fact, it was mostly the consequence of a strategy adopted by the intelligent emperors of the Qing Dynasty in order to weaken the man-eating nomads. As a result, most of the male Mongols became lamas living in lamaseries---a kind of Buddhist temples. As lamas couldn't marry, the population of Mongols dropped quickly. It was said that there were twelve million Mongols at the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, but its population was reduced to only a little more than five hundred thousand when the dynasty declined. As for other Mongols, they also spent much of their time worshipping Buddha every day. They had lost the warrior spirit their ancestors once had and became foolish religion-believers, thus posing no threat to the rule of Manchurian aristocrats. The Mongolian prosperity has no longer existed ever since.
According to what we have discussed above, we can see clearly that religious belief is very harmful to the human welfare and social development. As a religion, Confucianism is no exception.
For anyone who has a little knowledge about Chinese history, it is obvious that the ancient Chinese history from the establishment of the Qin Dynasty till the end of the Qing Dynasty can be divided into two big periods. The beginning of the Song Dynasty drew the historical demarcation line clearly.
The Confucian doctrine didn't succeed in dominating people's mind completely until the Song Dynasty, though it was established as the only legal national learning in the Han Dynasty. In the Han Dynasty, it was the Daoist doctrines rather than the Confucian ones that prevailed among the nobles and scholars. During the next hundreds of years of warring period between southern and northern China, the influence of Confucianism was still very weak as people had to focus most of their energy on more practical matters due to the chaotic situation. In the Tang Dynasty, Chinese enjoyed an enlightened social life because of the mixture of different races and their customs. Confucianism didn't have as strong influence on people's mind in the Tang Dynasty as it would do a few hundred years later.
It is noticeable that the Chinese people founded two powerful empires---the Han and the Tang during the first period. Both of the two dynasties conquered a lot of countries and considerably expanded the territory of China. As a result, we possessed a larger living space. The emperors of the Han Dynasty successfully defeated the Huns living on the north and the Yue nations living in the areas south of Yangtze River, taking all their lands into China. They also conquered the area now known as Xingjiang Autonomous Region for the first time. Equally, the Tang Dynasty developed into a superpower by conquest, which had a vast territory and a lot of dependencies.
However, Confucianism started to become kind of a national religion since the Song Dynasty. Zhu Xi, an outstanding Confucian scholar further developed the Confucian doctrines by advocating the suppression of human desires. A person without any sensual desires became the role model admired by the Chinese people. He argued that all levels of officials should be loyal to their monarch unconditionally; chilren should be obedient to their parents and wives to their husbands. Women became the biggest victims as they were not permitted to remarry even their husbands were dead. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Confucian classics and the books written by Zhu Xi even became the only textbooks for the imperial examination, which was almost the only way of national talent selection. All the scholars and Confucian students were asked to follow the instructions rigidly. They therefore lost the right to creative thinking. Chinese people's imagination was thereafter effectively curbed. The quality of aggressiveness once firmly cherished by their forefathers was rejected because it didn't fit the doctrines of Confucianism. The Chinese people became meek imperial subjects and cult of idols, because they were no longer confident in themselves and began to enshrine saints.
Naturally, serious consequences followed immediately. China was completely conquered by foreign invasions twice. Firstly, the Song Dynasty was conquered first by Nuzhen and then by Mongols who thereafter ruled China for one hundred years. Then, the Ming Dynasty lost the country to Manchuria. The Manchurian emperors and nobilities began to rule China during the next three hundred years. Oh. How sad the Chinese people of that time should feel! What was more unbearable, the traditional Chinese national costumes and hair style were forced to be abandoned after the Qing Dynasty was founded. A pigtail emerged at the back of men's bare head. This ugly image became the symbol of backward Chinese.
Faced with the fierce invasions of Nuzhen and Mongols, the monarchs and nobilities of the Song Dynasty retreated timidly step by step. They were willing to take all the humiliations rendered by the invaders in order to live a peaceful life. As for the Ming Dynasty, it never completely crushed the Mongols even during its most powerful period. The places that used to be Chinese territories such as Xinjiang, Tibet, Mongolia and Vietnam were all independent of the Chinese sovereignty.
In addition, Confucianism exerted very bad influence on the military systems of the two dynasties. The officials selected from knowledgeable scholars took the commandership of imperial armies in both dynasties, as the monarchs not only disdained but also distrusted professional army officers. Here arose the disastrous problem. These bookish officials usually had neither the expertise of commanding an army nor any military experiences. What's worse, they often didn't have enough courage to face tough enemies. How could they defeat those fierce and cunning generals of nomadic tribes who had spent all their life in fighting and hunting!
In the Qing Dynasty, the people of the Han ethnic group just played the role of docile slaves and servants while the Manchurian and Mongolian aristocrats dominated everything. The smart Manchurian emperors managed to make the Han-Chinese to vow allegiance to them by allowing the Han people to take imperial examinations, which used the Confucian classics and the books written by Zhu Xi as the textbooks. The lamentable Chinese scholars hailed cheerfully and worked as slaves of the Manchurian monarchs. They had forgotten that their masters were actually foreigners and they were the descendants of the founders of great empires---the Han Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty.
To sum up, it was Confucianism that caused the decay of the vitality of Chinese society. Religions to their believers are just like drugs to drug addicts. Confucianism just played such a role in the history of China. Do you still consider Confucianism as the valuable legacy of our ancestors? Wake up! My compatriots.