Mozi (Mo Di)

Across the Warring States, the flames of conquest devoured one kingdom after another. In Qufu, Mozi gathered hundreds of disciples into a fraternal order led by a 'Grand Master'. Clad in coarse hemp and straw sandals, they gloried in hardship and discipline. Mozi proclaimed: 'Regard another's country as one's own; regard another's family as one's own; regard another's person as one's own.' If all men did so, lords would wage no war and the world would know no plunder. Mohism spread like wildfire, rivaling Confucianism as one of the two supreme 'Prominent Schools' of the age.

Yet even as Mohism flourished, war did not cease. When word came that master craftsman Lu Ban had built siege ladders for the King of Chu and the state of Song stood in peril, Mozi set down his scrolls and set out barefoot on a thousand-li journey—to prove that Non-Aggression was no mere empty word.

Tearing his robes to bind his feet, Mozi walked barefoot for ten days and ten nights until he reached Ying, capital of Chu. In the great hall he untied his belt to trace city walls and used wood splinters as weapons. Nine times Lu Ban devised assaults; nine times Mozi repelled them. When Gongshu's engines were spent, Mozi's defenses remained abundant. As Lu Ban muttered murderous intent, Mozi smiled calmly: 'My three hundred disciples already stand on Song's walls, armed—killing me gains you nothing!' The King of Chu, awed, called off the invasion. A catastrophe dissolved upon a tabletop.

The feat of halting Chu's invasion made Mozi's name ring across the world. Yet the barefoot master did not rest. In his later years he turned from the battlefield to the dark chamber and the stars, probing the mysteries of light, force, and geometry in the Mohist Canon—ushering in the dawn of Eastern science.

In a dark chamber on the plains of Qi and Lu, a beam of light passed through a pinhole and cast an inverted image upon the wall. Gazing at the marvel, Mozi recorded the world's earliest camera-obscura experiment. With startling precision he defined the world: 'Force is that by which a body springs into motion'; 'A circle has equal lengths from one single center.' This thinker of universal love was also a rigorous scientist. Joseph Needham hailed Mohist optics and logic as the crown jewel of classical science. Two millennia later, China's first quantum satellite 'Micius' was launched into the stars bearing his name.

The scientific light of the Mohist Canon illuminated the rational sky of China. After ninety-two years of wind and rain, this master who never once tasted wealth still held 'benefit all under Heaven' as his lifelong creed. As the shadow of death drew near, his disciples would embody, with their very lives, what faith and universal love truly meant.

In his final years Mozi traveled through Wei and Luyang, preaching without pause. When the lord of Yangcheng was condemned and executed, the Mohist Grand Master Meng Sheng and one hundred eighty disciples, bound by their promise to defend the city, chose collective martyrdom rather than break faith—a deed that shook the ages. Mencius marveled: 'Mozi practiced Universal Love; if wearing himself away from crown to heel would benefit the world, he would do it.' Throughout his life Mozi never enjoyed a single day of wealth, yet he engraved the words 'benefit all under Heaven' into the very spine of the Chinese nation. His spirit became the wellspring of Chinese chivalry—fearless unto fire and water, unto death, eternal.