Ancient Chinese Warfare (28 page)

An inquiry early the following year after Hsi’s subjugation indicates the king had been assessing the prospects for attacking P’ei and Chi-fang. He contemplated exercising command in both attacks, and a sequence of prognostications suggests that an unusually intense and prolonged clash with Fou unfolded early on at a place called Shu (or perhaps Hsün) under the king’s direction.
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However, he subsequently deputed responsibility for the Chi-fang to two well-known military figures, Ch’üeh and Prince Shang, who apparently mounted successive assaults against Fou in the second and third months.
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Particularly interesting is an inscription from the fourth month that clearly shows Wu Ting perceived a significant threat in the Chi-fang having begun work on external fortifications. (The query states: “We ought not [to allow] Chi-fang Fou to erect a wall. Prince Shang should destroy it.”)
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The immediate result was an aggressive, essentially peremptory strike, perhaps the first known historical example of defensive augmentation having prompted aggressive military action. Some ten days later, in the fifth month, the prince apparently succeeded in damaging
the wall, and there are indications that Fou was captured and sacrificed to the ancestors, concluding a campaign that stretched over six months and entailed multiple objectives under the direction of several commanders, including Ch’üeh, Lin, Tien, and Prince Shang.
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Whatever forces were employed, it probably typifies the sort of ongoing effort intermittently but persistently mounted against resilient enemies located in more distant quarters during Wu Ting’s middle period.

The Ch’iang, also known as the Hsi (West) Ch’iang or sometimes even the Hsi Jung, were a strong, energetic people who supposedly numbered among those who had originally acknowledged King T’ang’s authority immediately after he conquered the Hsia.
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Encompassing several large clans or tribes, the Ch’iang were dispersed throughout an extensive arc of territory west and northwest of the Shang, ranging from the eastern part of Qinghai through Gansu, Ningxia, southern Inner Mongolia, northern Shaanxi, and eastern and northern Shanxi.
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Although southern Gansu was agriculturally productive,
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the semiarid conditions prevailing in many northwestern locations compelled them to intermix pastoral, hunting, and agricultural practices, the more distant generally being more nomadic. However, this integration no doubt contributed to their resiliency and adaptability over the centuries.

If, as traditionally claimed, their ancestors included Yü the Great and elements of the Hsia populace that had been compelled to disperse onto comparatively inhospitable terrain after being defeated by the Shang centuries earlier, the Ch’iang would have certainly been predisposed to view the Shang with enmity.
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Archaeological finds and inscriptional records show that, unlike the vanquished from almost all other groups, Ch’iang prisoners were enslaved or sacrificed as obliviously as cattle and pigs, in large numbers ranging from one through several tens to even three or four hundred.
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Moreover, in addition to being the most frequently named group in the oracular inscriptions, the Ch’iang were the most often sacrificed, giving the appearance of a virtual genocidal campaign, particularly as members of the Shang ruling clan and various officials deputed on military campaigns were specifically tasked with
capturing Ch’iang prisoners.
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Those not eventually slaughtered in sacrificial rites were employed in farming, as household servants, and perhaps even in military posts, since one commander apparently came from the Ch’iang, though it is not known whether he had voluntarily emigrated to the Shang or was a slave or former prisoner.
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Prompted by Shang ferocity and perhaps inherent ethnic animosity, the Ch’iang (and particularly the Chiang clan with whom the Chou royal family frequently intermarried) eventually furnished important allies for the Chou, then similarly ensconced in the west.
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Later traditions further assert that the Chou were anciently related to the Hsia and had deliberately imitated Hsia administrative and agricultural practices, possibly another factor contributing to their mutual affiliation.
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Fiercely independent even as prisoners,
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like most steppe peoples they tended to be quiescent when the Shang was strong but readily exploited weakness and martial preoccupation to mount incursions that targeted both the core enclave and subordinated Shang peoples. Thus, the incipient dynamics of the steppe/sedentary or, as subsequently labeled by central government authorities, “civilized”/“barbarian” conflict that would plague Imperial China were already present in the Shang, the relationship between the two parties at any moment being defined by their relative imbalance of power. (Steppe aggressiveness thus becomes synonymous with imperial weakness rather than simply being a blind manifestation of inherent, anticivilized tendencies.)

Highly resourceful and tenacious, the Ch’iang proved troublesome throughout King Wu Ting’s era and continued to be aggressive throughout the Shang, being identified under the last rulers as one of the
ssu pang
or “four allied states.” Because of their remoteness, only minor clashes seem to have arisen during Wu Ting’s initial period, when the king was just beginning to reassert Shang authority. However, they apparently mounted noticeable raids, as they were frequently the subject of inquiry, and generals such as Ch’üeh and Chiang, who were dispatched both individually and jointly to quell them, took some captives.
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In contrast, Wu Ting’s middle period must have witnessed violent, extensive incursions, as the king mobilized the most massive response of his reign to quash them. For example, in one sequence Chih Kuo commanded the initial response in the tenth month; a second force under
Shih Pan, dispatched in the twelfth month, undertook a pursuit that may have resulted in a significant victory; and yet a third effort under another commander captured prisoners in the first month of the following year.
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Nevertheless, perhaps because they were more dispersed than most of the Shang’s other enemies, subduing the Ch’iang seems to have been an almost insurmountable task that intermittently required maj or campaigns throughout Wu Ting’s era.
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Troops were conscripted in quantities of 3,000, and the largest aggregate force recorded in the oracle bones, some 3,000 troops under Fu Hao together with the royal army, which just this once numbered 10,000 (and presumably went forth under the king’s personal command), for a total of 13,000 men, was dispatched.
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Thus, it is hardly surprising that some thirty generals, nearly all those known to have been active in this period, would eventually participate in campaigns against the Ch’iang, including Fu Hao, Chiang, Kuang, Lung, Wu, Yüeh, Chih Kuo, Ch’üeh, Ko, T’u, Wang Ch’eng, Shih Pan, and a number of officials, though generally not the king himself.
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As indicated by frequent queries about generals such as Yüeh seizing prisoners, these concentrated efforts apparently deterred the Ch’iang from making incursions and may have compelled them to temporarily withdraw further into the steppe to avoid decisive engagements. Nevertheless, neither increased force levels nor significant victories barred them from launching further attacks in Wu Ting’s final period, particularly when the king was engaged in battling the Kung.
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However, these later incursions seem to have been mounted on a reduced scale, and key commanders such as Ch’in readily achieved local victories in which numerous Ch’iang prisoners were seized.
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The struggle with the Wei or Hsia-wei located in the southeast required a major effort during King Wu Ting’s middle period,
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just when the Shang was preoccupied with multiple challenges from the Meng, Ch’ing, Lung, Pa, Yi, and T’u-fang.
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Wu Ting initiated countermeasures in the second month when he divined about ordering the Chief of Prefects to lead an attack against them in association with the well-known
commander Wang Ch’eng.
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Whether this campaign materialized or not, the king levied 3,000 men shortly thereafter
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and then personally directed a field effort roughly a month later in which he was accompanied by Wang Ch’eng,
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who seems to have become somewhat of a specialist in Hsia-wei warfare.
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After unknown events over the intervening eight months, which included requisitioning support from the allied state of Hsing,
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Wu Ting ended the Hsia-wei threat in the eleventh month when, accompanied by Wang Ch’eng, he launched an expeditionary assault.
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Thereafter the king is noted as hunting in their lands
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and inquiring about their welfare.
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Apart from an incident in Ping Hsin’s reign, they seem to have remained quiescent, and Emperor Yi encamped there en route to attacking the Jen-fang. Nevertheless, a major effort had been required, whose importance is shown by the large number of pigs sacrificed for its success.
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Immediately after the Hsia-wei campaigns, one group of the Yi located in the west (as distinguished from the well-known eastern groups) was also targeted for punitive efforts under Fu Hao and other prominent commanders.
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Apparently they were quickly defeated or chose to acknowledge Shang suzerainty, because they are subsequently noted as participating in the coalition actions against the Pa-fang, described below.
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Located between the Shang and the Ch’iang but probably considerably closer to the latter,
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the Lung or Lung-fang could not avoid becoming entangled in complex relationships with both powers. At times they were so subservient to the Shang that they undertook or participated in joint military actions against the Ch’iang, but at others they asserted their independence and mounted troublesome border incursions either by themselves or in alliance with the Ch’iang.
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In order to confront and defeat the Ch’iang, Wu Ting deemed it necessary to first subjugate the Lung, thereby securing the nearby perimeter and neutralizing a potentially lethal enemy before venturing past them on a distant campaign.

The king personally directed attacks that apparently deterred them somewhat in the early period.
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However, they retained the potential to
be troublesome and continued to plague the Shang whenever Wu Ting became preoccupied with other peoples and areas, particularly late in the second period when the king’s attention was diverted to the Ch’iang, Yi, Pa, and others. Several inscriptions show that the Shang would have to mobilize its best commanders, including Shih Pan,
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Chih Kuo,
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Fu Ching,
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and others,
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and dispatch them in multiple campaigns that targeted the Lung alone and in conjoined assaults on the Ch’iang
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until they were defeated and apparently acknowledged Shang authority.
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Thereafter, Wu Ting ordered them to conduct a hunt
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and inquired about their well-being during a Shang campaign against the Ma-fang,
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presumably because they were furnishing troops or had previously participated in actions against the Ch’iang.
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Nevertheless, they apparently mounted at least minimal incursions late in Wu Ting’s reign while the king was embroiled in the lengthy campaign against the Kung-fang, requiring the dispatch of suppressive forces.
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Clashes with the T’u-fang, which probably commenced early in Wu Ting’s reign, continued sporadically until being resolved toward the end of the middle period.
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More than a hundred inscriptions record numerous levies and the deputation of several commanders to quell their opposition, attesting to the ferocity and swirling nature of their conflict.
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Believed to have been centered in the north, especially northern Shanxi and Hebei or about two weeks’ march from Anyang, the T’u-fang were predisposed to raid the northern and western parts of the Shang despite the immense defensive power concentrated nearby.
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No doubt the ready seizure of material goods and captives made plundering appealing, but an additional motivational factor may again have been the heritage of animosity engendered when their ancestors, the Hsia, were forced out into the semiarid steppe after being vanquished by the Shang.
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At least some of their incursions seem to have been mounted by surprisingly small forces, yet they proved to be extremely troublesome,
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compelling Wu Ting to mount a strong response.
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Apart from the king himself, who seems to have frequently exercised overall coalition command,
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Fu Hao,
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Yüeh,
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Wang Ch’eng,
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and especially Chih Kuo,
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leading between 3,000 and 5,000 troops each,
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were dispatched to attack T’u-fang forces over roughly a year and a half. Eventually the T’u-fang were defeated, their leaders slain, and numerous soldiers taken prisoner, prompting the remnants to either submit or move away to avoid decimation.
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Their lands were then integrated into the Shang domain and opened for farming or maintained as hunting areas, resulting in a significant northern expansion.

Which inscriptions are deemed relevant and how they are arrayed can result in significant variations in the probable chronology of the T’u-fang campaign.
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However, a likely sequence that easily encompasses the many Shang efforts mounted to combat them finds the first significant measures being initiated just when the Hsia-wei and Kung-fang were also proving troublesome and the king levied troops in the eleventh month for a punitive campaign against the T’u-fang.
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In the twelfth month the king even deputed Chih Kuo in command of the
San-tsu
(three royal clan troops) to attack them,
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and the next month, the first of the new year, the noted commander Yüeh apparently managed to take some captives, a likely indication of having achieved a limited battlefield victory.
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