Chinese Æsop:

Chau Kwang-yin --The Founder of the Sung Dynasty The Birth of the Founder of the Sung Dynasty The historian tells us that the birth of the founder of the Sung dynasty was marked by very unusual natural phenomena. Immediately after he was born the sky was filled with reddish clouds that overhung the house where the child was, and for three days the dwelling was pervaded by a most fragrant odour. People at the time remarked to each other that all this portended a great future for the boy, and his mother believed that he would one day occupy a distinguished position amongst his fellow-men. Willing to Die For Their Emperor In the year of A. D. 954, the founder of "After Chou" dynasty, Kwo-wei, died and and was succeeded by his son. No sooner had the news gone abroad that Kwo-wei was dead than Liu-tsung, the Prince of the Northern Han, moved forward his own army of thirty thousand men, and a considerable force of Khitans as allies with him, and began the siege of the im...

Long ago, Emperor Yâo had two beautiful daughters, called Ê Hwang and Nü Ying. After the emperor had been on the throne seventy years, he abdicted the throne to Emperor Shun, and gave his two daughters in marriage to Shun. Emperor Shun died on a tour of inspection to the south, and buried in the plain of Ts'ang-wû. When Ê Hwang and Nü Ying heard the news of Shun's death,  they stood on the shores of the Hsiao-hsiang, to the south of Lake Tung-t'ing. Their sorrow was deep as the waters of the Lake that go straight down a thousand miles. Dark clouds blackened the sun. The demon-monkey howled in the mist and ghosts whistled in the rain. The queens said, " Though we speak of it we cannot mend it. High Heaven is secretly afraid to shine on our loyalty. But the thunder crashes and bellows its anger, that while Yao and Shun are here they should also be crowning Yü. When a prince loses his servants, the dragon turns into a minnow. When power goes to slaves, mice change ...

Kublai Khan You must know that there was a King and Sovereign lord of the great territory of Manzi who was styled FACFUR, so great and puissant a prince, that for vastness of wealth and number of subjects and extent of dominion, there was hardly a greater in all the earth except the Great Khan himself. But the people of his land were anything rather than warriors; all their delight was in women, and naught but women; and so it was above all with the King himself, for he took thought of nothing else but women, unless it were of charity to the poor. In all his dominion there were no horses; nor were the people ever inured to battle or arms, or military service of any kind. Yet the province of Manzi is very strong by nature, and all the cities are encompassed by sheets of water of great depth, and more than an arblast-shot in width; so that the country never would have been lost, had the people but been soldiers. But that is just what they were not; so lost it was. Now it came to...

In the twenty-fourth Year of the Cycle (627 A.D.), Tai Tsong began his Reign ; he was esteemed as one of the greatest Emperors China ever had , Chinese praise him above all for his Wisdom, and the easy Access to his Person, which he allowed, to all who were capable of giving him discreet Counsels, or had Courage enough to advertise him of his Faults : So great was his Temperance and Frugality, that he suffered no more than eight Dishes of Meat to be served up to his Table, and drove almost all the Concubines out of the Palace : He caused the best Books to be brought from all Parts, and became, in some respects, the Restorer of the Sciences, by the Care he took to reinstate in his Palace an Academy for Literature, wherein were reckoned 8000 Scholars, and amongst them many sons of foreign Princes : He provided them with able Masters, and of these he appointed eighteen of the most Ingenious to overlook their Studies ; He sounded also a Military Academy, where Archery was taught, and he...

A bored shepherd boy  entertained himself by tricking nearby villagers into thinking a wolf is attacking his flock of sheep. When they came to his rescue, they found that the alarms were false and that they had wasted their time. When the boy was actually confronted by a wolf, the villagers did not believe his cries for help and the wolf ate the flock, and in some versions the boy. ( The Chinese Equivalent for "Never Cry Wolf" ) Similarly, in Ancient China, a king tried to entertain his melancholy queen by lighting  beacon fire to trick his soldiers. Below is another version of this story by Du Halde: This prince [Yeou vang] had none of the good qualities which were admired in his father, but had very great faults, which made him contemptible to his people. He was desperately in love with a concubine called pao ssee, for whose sake he put away the empress and her son, who was the lawful heir to the crown, in order to put in his place the son which he had by his co...

Li vang, the Tenth Emperor, reigned 51 Years. This tyrant king of Zhou was proud, self conceited, prodigal and cruel ; the wealth of his subjects, which he drew from them through exaction, could scarcely satisfy his passion for riches, which he spent lavishly and without judgment : The misery of his subjects was extreme, and nothing was heard but complaints and murmurs. These clamours and repinings of an oppressed People only increased his fury, and he punished, with the utmost severity, those whom he suspected to be at the head of the malecontents. As he was conscious how odious he had made himself to his subjects, he suspected that all their discourse was on his ill conduct, and therefore he forbid them, on pain of death to converse together, or even whisper to one another, so that you might see all the inhabitants walking the streets with eyes cast down, in mournful silence, and shunning each other. Tchao kong, one of his most faithful ministers, frequently advised him to ...

There was once a woman who never smiled. Her name was Bao Si and she was a concubine to King You of the Western Zhou dynasty, which flourished in China after 1000 BCE. The King neglected the affairs of government for the sake of the company of this beautiful but melancholy  concubine. He wanted so much to see her smile that he scoured the kingdom for entertainers and performing animals; not a flicker of amusement crossed her face. One day, Bao Si was watching her maids doing needle-works, one of the maids accidentally torn apart a piece of silk, King You noticed a twitch of her lips and a flicker of smile on her face, and asked if she like the sound of tearing silks. Bao Si said she loved the sound of rent silk. Then the King immediately ordered that many thousands of fine pieces of silk were torn to shreds to gratify her whim. But this couldn't make laugh either. The king offered a thousand ounces of gold to any one who would make her laugh; whereupon his ch...