Read The Middle Kingdom for Free Online

things.
    These Hung Moo
had no sense of place. No sense of li. Of propriety.
    The problem was
one of race. Of culture. Though more than a century had passed since
the foundation of Chung Kuo and the triumph of Han culture, for those
of European stock—the Hung Mao, or "redheads"
as they were commonly known—the ways of the Han were still
unnatural; weye at best surface refinements grafted onto a cruder and
less stable temperament. Three thousand years of unbroken
civilization—that was the heritage of the Han. Against that
these large-nosed foreigners could claim what? Six centuries of chaos
and ill-discipline. Wars and further wars and, ultimately, collapse.
Collapse on a scale that made their previous wars seem like oases of
calm. No, they might seem like Han—might dress and talk and act
like Han—but beneath it all they remained barbarians. The New
Confucianism was rooted only shallowly in the infertile soil of their
natures. .At core they were still the same selfish, materialistic,
individualistic species they had ever been; motivated more by greed
than duty.
    Was it so
surprising, then, that men like Lehmann and Berdichev failed to
understand the necessity of the Edict?
    Change, they
wanted. Change, at any cost. And because the Edict of Technological
Control was the Seven's chief means of preventing the cancer of
change, it was the Edict they tried to undermine at every turn.
    Lwo Kang leaned
back, staring up at the roof of the dome high overhead. The two great
arches of the solarium met in a huge circular tablet, halved by a
snakelike S into black and white. Yin and yang, he thought.
Balance. These Westerners have never understood it; not properly—not
in their bones. It still seems some kind of esoteric game to them,
not life itself, as it is to us. Change—the empty-headed
pursuit of the new—that was the real enemy of civilization.
    He sighed, then
leaned to his right, listening, becoming at once the focus of their
talk.
    They are good
men, he thought, looking along the line of faces. Han, every one of
them. Men I could trust my life with.
    Servants passed
among them, mutes who carried trays of ch'a and sweetmeats.
GenSyn eunuchs, half-men in more senses than one. Yet even they were
preferable to the likes of Lehmann and Berdichev.
    Yang Lai was
talking now, the tenor of his words strangely reflective of Lwo
Kang's thoughts.
    "It's a
disease that's rife among the whole of this new generation. Things
have changed, I tell you. They are not like their fathers, solid and
dependable. No, they're ill-mannered brutes, every last one of them.
And they think they can buy change."
    Lwo Kang
stretched his bull neck and nodded. "They lack respect," he
said.
    There was a
murmur of agreement. Yang Lai bowed, then answered him. "That's
true, my lord. But then, they are not Han. They could never be c/i'un tzu. They have no values. And look at the way they dress!"
    Lwo Kang smiled,
sitting back again. Though only in his late thirties he was already
slightly balding. He had inherited his father's looks—a
thickset body already going to fat at waist and upper chest—and,
like his father, he had never found the time for exercise. He smiled,
knowing how he looked to them. I am not a vain man, he thought; and
in truth I'd be a liar to myself if I were. Yet I have their respect.
    No, it was not
by outward show that a man was to be judged, but by his innermost
qualities; qualities that lay behind his every action.
    His father, Lwo
Chun-Yi, had been born a commoner; even so, he had proved himself
worthy and had been appointed minister to Li Shai Tung in the first
years of his reign. Because of that, Lwo Kang had been educated to
the highest level and had learned the rudiments of service in his
earliest years. Now he in his turn was the T'ang's minister. He
looked about him again, satisfied. No, there was not one here who did
not know him for their master.
    "What these
Hung Mao need is a lesson," he said, leaning forward to
take a