Juan Morillo’s Reviews > The Story of China: The Epic History of a World Power from the Middle Kingdom to Mao and the China Dream > Status Update

“…If you love the people, their hearts become compliant. And if you are impartially devoted to the common good, their hearts become people become willing to serve. Compliance, and willingness to serve are what makes good government.”

Xu Zheng said, “In the past and present, the models and regulations upon which the state was established have varied from dynasty to dynasty. But the most important thing was always to win the hearts of All Under Heaven. And to win the hearts of All Under Heaven is nothing other than to show love and an impartial devotion to the common good…” (continue in the next)

“In no Chinese epoch of imperial times, therefore, are there historians like Herodotus or Thucydides, who were writing for themselves. In China, history was written to endorse the assumption of the Mandate of Heaven.”

“It has been said that no book, not even the Bible, has influenced so many people for so long as his Analects, his ‘Sayings’, which have shaped the intelectual and cultural life of the whole of East Asia, Japan and Korea.”

- Talking about Confucius

Super cool story of the rise of the Zhou against the Shang:

Thought: There is a five “unblinking” planet conjunction which happens every 516 years. This planet conjunction foretold the rise of the first state the Xia in 1953 BCE. Then, 500 years later it gave rise to the Shang, in December 1576 BCE. The third one, dating to 1059 BCE gave the sign to the Zhou that they should be next. (Continue in notes)

“Ritual killing of human beings is part of the human story, and the priest and the executioner have gone hand in hand for much of history, indeed long after the formal end of human sacrifice as such.”

- On human sacrifice remains found in a Shang dynasty dig in Henan Province, China

“Ritual killing of human beings is part of the human story, and the priest and the executioner have gone hand in hand for much of history, indeed long after the formal end of human sacrifice as such.”

- On human sacrifice remains found in a Shang dynasty dig in Henan Province, China