Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from August, 2012

The Birth of Confucius

Confucius' father Shü-leang Heih was a soldier of great prowess and daring bravery. In the year B.C. 562, when serving at the siege of a place called Peih-yang, a party of the assailants made their way in at a gate which had purposely been left open, and no sooner were they inside than the portcullis was dropped. Heih was just entering, and catching the massive structure with both his hands, he gradually by dint of main strength raised it and held it up, till his friends had made their escape. Shuh-leang Heih had married in early life, but his wife brought him only daughters, to the number of nine, and no son. By a concubine he had a son, named Mang-p'e, and also Pih-ne, who proved a cripple, so that, when he was over seventy years, Heih sought a second wife in the Yen family, from which came subsequently Yen Hwuy, the favourite disciple of his Confucius. There were three daughters in the family, the youngest being named Ching-tsae. Their father said to them, “Here is the com