ABSTRACT
In 1973 visitors to the Royal Academy in London were able to contemplate a stiff, sinister shroud fashioned from 2,160 tiles of jade which had been threaded with gold wire into a gleaming carapace of silicate to encase a princess who had died two millennia before. The lady's husband had been unearthed in China, similarly packaged, but this elaborate and futile attempt to fight decay was to be among the last extravagances the family could afford. North Ching was easy to defend, South Ching was being opened up, the resources of the region were inexhaustible, and it was the key to the great granary of Shu to the west. In Chinese eyes, Liu Pei was an uncle of the Han emperor now languishing in the unscrupulous hands of Ts'ao Ts'ao. A disarming "liberality in great measure," therefore, is the best defensive weapon of the ruler who must play for time, say the Chinese.
