which this investigation is limited fails. My opinion is that the evidence does not permit us to identify the eclipse.
No early authority states what the result of the prince of Yin's expedition against the astronomers was. The compilers of the Shû King were interested only in the sound moral sentiments expressed in his harangue to his troops, principles whose validity did not depend on the success or failure of his arms. Chû Hsî, who wrote the standard history of China, dated 1172 A.D., asserts that the astronomers surrendered and were executed,[1] and our western scholars have generally assumed that this view is correct. I venture to suggest a different restoration of the events. Before the accession of the emperor Chung K'ang the whole power was in the hands of Prince Î of Ch'iung.[2] Chung K'ang was probably, as Chû Hsî holds, intended by Î to be a mere puppet. There have been such emperors in China in our own day. We may further follow Chû Hsî in holding that the punishment of the astronomers was only a secondary motive with Chung K'ang when he gave a military command to the prince of Yin. His main object doubtless was to provide himself with an army that should be independent of Î. A glance at the dry chronology of the Bamboo Annals will suggest the course of the war. In Chung K'ang's fifth year, as we have seen, he appointed the prince of Yin to his command and sent him to punish Hsî and Ho. In his sixth year he appointed the prince of Kiun-wu to be
- ↑ Histoire de la Chine, translated by De Mailla, i (1777), 133.
- ↑ So the restored text of the Shû King, supported by a reference in Tso (Legge, Chinese Classics, v. ii. 424), and by the Annals of the Bamboo Books. The preface to the Shû King mentions the usurpation, but does not name the usurper.
This is sufficient evidence that small solar eclipses were observed and recorded in China in the earliest age in which it is possible to identify them.
