Survival Arts

Quote of the Day (courtesy Bill Hartwell)

When the Governor-General requested that the Miao be prevented from having weapons, and that Chinese merchants be forbidden to trade with them in such items as lead, saltpeter, and sulfur, I did not grant his request. It was not only that the Miao depend for their livelihood on the game they could kill by hunting with crossbow and fouling piece -- it was also that effective control of them had to depend on the sensitivity of the local officials. Besides which, of course, there was the question of how you can get the common people to hand over their weapons to the government officials at all -- as I pointed out to the Board of Works vice-president Muhelun when he presented his crazy scheme of disarming the people of Shantung province.

K'ang-hsi, Emperor of China from 1661 to 1722, quoted from page 35 of
"Emperor of China: Self-portrait of K'ang-hsi", compiled by Johnathan D. Spence, 1974