中文翻譯本身就不是太好,又隻看一段(後麵還有很多很多.)就很容易被誤導. 這裏是英文版的有關部分.

China is this wondrously unique empire that astonished Europeans, and has 
continued to do so, ever since it became known . Self-contained, it reached this 
level of culture quite apart from foreign ties; its ties with other peoples are 
only recent, and they are of no significance for this empire. It is the only 
empire in the world that has lasted from the most ancient times up to today. We 
have already remarked upon its truly vast expanse. Today the population of the 
Chinese empire as such is according to the average estimate, some 2002 million 
souls; the lowest estimate is 150 million, the highest 300 million . Every few 
years there is a census based on very precise tax rolls. So the data are correct. 
The Tatars of China are excluded from these counts, as are the many surrounding 
princes ruling their own lands under China's direct control. This enormous 
population of China proper stands under a government that is well-regulated to 
the highest degree, that is most just, most benevolent, most wise. Laws 
elaborated, and agriculture, commerce, industry and sciences are flourish. There 
are cities with more than a million inhabitants. What is even more astonishing is 
that this people has a continuous, well-ordered, and quite well-attested history 
from its earliest times onward , covering a i least 5,000 years with the greatest 
exactitude and certainty; it is not like Greek and Roman history but instead is 
more fully attested. No other land in the world has such a continuous, 
authenticated ancient history. This empire ever remained autonomous, ever 
remained what it was. At times it was conquered - in the thirteenth century by 
Genghis Khan, and later, after the time of the Thirty Years War, by the Manchu- 
Tatars - but it was not changed by these conquests. In all these circumstances it 
always retained its character, for it remained wholly an autonomous empire. And 
so it is an empire untouched by history (ungescbicbtlicb), for internally it 
developed undisturbed; it was not destroyed from without. No alien principle came 
to displace the ancient one. To that extent it has no history. So, in speaking 
about the most ancient history of this empire, we are not speaking of something 
past but instead of the shape that it has today.
(The same is the case in 
India.). The principle of this empire, which has not departed from its concept, 
was set forth in universal terms; the amazing thing is that this principle is 
simply the natural concept of a state, the elaboration of which has not altered 
this first, immature principle. And yet we find here culture at its height.

So we cannot speak here of a proper history as such. We intend to consider briefly 
not only the res gestae [deeds] but also the narratto return gestarum [narrative of the deeds].

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