Ancient Chinese Warfare (32 page)

Comparatively fewer inscriptions have been recovered for the dynasty’s remaining century and a half, but they are sufficient to discern a general contraction of Shang power and a shift in military focus eastward. After Wu Ting’s vibrant era, nine kings reigned from Anyang, including
the much-demonized Emperor Hsin, many of whom received the epithet of “martial,” indicative of ongoing military activity. Based on the PRC chronology project, they have been assigned the following dates:

Under their aegis the Shang has traditionally but simplistically and incorrectly been depicted as descending into inebriation and irreversible weakness before finally collapsing.
¹
Without doubt Shang authority receded in the north, northwest, west, and south, any strongpoints that had been established in the initial period of fluorescence at Cheng-chou or by campaign forces during Wu Ting’s resurgence generally being abandoned. Formidable Shang towns like Chin-hsi and minority cultural enclaves such as Hsia-chia-tien (which derived its bronze and stamped earth techniques from the Shang) enjoyed newfound independence and a period of indigenous cultural resurgence. Despite military outposts and strong bastions that anchored what might be viewed as fingers of power, Shang awesomeness diminished somewhat even in the northeast, and the territory in which the king could freely hunt visibly contracted.

However, contrary to impressions of weakness and ineptitude, the Shang not only remained militarily active in the east and southeast, where the states and peoples would never be more than nominally submissive, but also increased their efforts out of various motives, including a quest for natural resources such as salt.
²
Their continued ability to undertake sustained expeditions eastward and down into the Huai River area suggests that any failure to maintain their earlier dominance over the realm stemmed from factors other than incompetence, corruption, or formidable external challenges.

Although the Shang probably originated in eastern China, and numerous artifacts and practices that show significant interaction and cultural intermixing indicate that the Yi were close, predynastic allies of
the Shang, both Shandong and southeast China became zones of contention during the dynastic era.
³
Relations with groups in these areas varied from voluntary submission through indifference and outright rebellion. The submissive continued to accept Shang values, customs, and aspects of material culture and were accordingly rewarded with nominal participation in the Shang hierarchy. However, depending upon such strategic factors as location, mineral resources, and degree of threat posed, Shang clan forces were apparently deputed to establish control over more hostile regions by exploiting the enticements of material culture, awesome displays of power, or brutal force. The presence of these Shang military colonies is well attested by ritual items, particularly cauldrons marked with clan names such as Chü otherwise unknown from oracular inscriptions, and disproportionate numbers of bronze weapons, including oversized axes of authority and other dramatic symbols of power.
⁴

Shang expansion into the east and southeast occurred in two waves, the first while ensconced in Yen-shih and Cheng-chou and the second during the Anyang phase, when aggressive actions and the development of dozens of sites accompanied retrenchment.
⁵
Oracular inscriptions inquiring whether certain commanders (including Fu Hao) should be dispatched against the Yi or whether the king himself should assume command show the first campaigns were initiated in Wu Ting’s era.
⁶
According to traditional records, during Wu Yi’s reign the Tung Yi moved back into the Huai and Hsi, areas previously dominated by the Shang, and began to prove generally troublesome.
⁷
Some inscriptional and archaeological evidence indicates that in addition to two well-known expeditions that were undertaken late in the era, campaigns were mounted against the Yi in all the other reigns.
⁸

Late Shang relations with the Yi who inhabited the upper Huai were equally characterized by friction and turbulence. Shang determination to control the area is attested by the shift of the Ch’ang clan, a prominent martial family, to the Lu-yi district of Henan sometime during the last few reigns at Yin-hsü.
⁹
(Evidence for the family’s military importance is visible in a munificent Anyang tomb dating to late in Wu Ting’s reign that ranks second only to Fu Hao’s in the number of ritual bronzes, weapons, and jades recovered. Among the more than 310 bronze objects,
including square cauldrons emblematic of power, are seven axes, three large knives, seventy-one dagger-axes, and seventy-six spearheads, many of which are discussed below. Seven jade
chi
, two jade axes, and seven jade dagger-axes were also found.) Sacrifices were also being made to a commander Ch’ang immediately following Wu Ting’s reign, and the clan may have been related to the king.

The discovery of a Lu-yi tomb containing numerous Shang ritual bronzes quite similar to those recovered at Anyang is interpreted as evidence that the clan controlled the minor state of Ch’ang located in this region. Although archaeologists have avoided speculation, it seems likely that the clan had been dispatched to a problematic area for security purposes rather than having originated there and early on provided the screening actions for which they were subsequently honored. Somewhat surprisingly, a number of early Chou dynasty bronzes were also discovered in the tomb and certain Chou burial characteristics noted, suggesting that the clan managed to remain powerful after the Chou conquest by acknowledging Chou authority.

Late Shang artifacts have similarly been recovered in Shandong at Chi-ning, Ho-che, Lin-hsi, and other locations in a pattern of diminishing eastward prevalence. The highest density has been found around two slightly separated Shandong locations, T’eng-hsien Ch’ien-chang-ta, which may have been the location of the former Shang capital of Yen or Pi and where the Shih clan seems to have exercised administrative and military control, and T’eng-chou Ching-hsiang, where a royal clan member, possibly even one of Wu Ting’s brothers or sons, was ensconced.
¹⁰
Whether the indigenous peoples were nominally submissive or actively repressed remains unclear. However, wherever found, Shang culture primarily affected the upper classes, particularly those controlling the Yi clan states.
¹¹

In the Hai-tai region the struggle for dominance between the late Shang and the Yi in their incarnations as the Jen-fang, Yü-fang, Huai Yi, and various minor states such as Ku, Feng, Hsü, Ts’ai, and Yen saw conquest and varying degrees of displacement and amalgamation.
¹²
Extensive Shang artifacts have been found in the Chiao-tung peninsula, in the eastern Chiao-lai plains area (extending to Lin-tzu), in Anhui and northern Jiangsu down as far as the Yellow Sea coast, and even around the
Huai River. They are especially prominent in the area of Lu and around Chi-nan City, as well as Su-fu-t’un.
¹³
Whether Su-fu-t’un was a satellite state with foreign kingship or a purely Shang military site remains unknown, but the governing clan clearly must have been entrusted with military responsibilities because great symbolic axes (
yüeh
inscribed with “commander Ch’ou,” a name that also appears in the oracular inscriptions) have been recovered.

Inscriptions attributed to this era convey the general impression that the level of military activity, though intermittently intense, was only a fraction of that during Wu Ting’s reign. Although this may be because insufficient numbers have been recovered to accurately characterize martial developments, it more likely stems from warfare (understood as an ongoing effort to defend the integrity of the borders and keep contiguous peoples reasonably submissive) having become more routine and thus normally assigned to standing units rather than undertaken on an extemporaneous basis. Even though the Shang had the power to undertake extensive campaigns, few appear to have been mounted, with those discussed below being exceptional. Furthermore, Shang kingship did not consist of static governance exercised from a single imperial site as in later history, but was highly peripatetic, essentially a form of “rulership in movement” intended to display royal power and facilitate, if not ensure, personal participation in local issues.

Even though comparatively fewer inscriptions can be attributed to the post-Wu Ting era and difficulties remain in assigning them to arbitrarily schematized reigns, Anyang military activity tends to be understood in terms of five distinct periods, the first devoted to Wu Ting, the remainder encompassing four pairs of rulers each. These late monarchs varied in their aggressiveness, some of them being particularly noted for provoking enmity among otherwise quiescent peripheral peoples. However, analyzing Shang actions purely in terms of these segmented reign periods obscures the essential continuity of regional dynamics and implies a causative relationship where none may have existed. Steppe/sedentary interactions over the centuries would always
be highly complex, never a simple reflection of Imperial Chinese actions.
¹⁴
Sudden changes in peripheral aggressiveness may have resulted simply from internal issues (such as leadership clashes) or from external factors totally irrelevant to Shang attitude and policies, especially ongoing weather changes that may have caused food shortages, compelling predatory actions.
¹⁵

Given the decline in temperature and moisture that resulted in some drying out and harsher conditions in the semiarid regions following Wu Ting’s reign, it is hardly surprising that old enemies such as the Ch’iang and Yi were active following his demise. Others reappeared after apparently having been vanquished, and several new names emerged to command Shang attention, some briefly, a few across the era. Of particular interest is the apparently coordinated action undertaken by three or four states in temporary alliance, leading to them being termed the
san pang
and
ssu pang
, the “three allies” and “four allies.”

Little is known about the relatively brief second period that basically refers to Tsu Keng and Tsu Chia. Although several clashes with the Kung-fang seem to have arisen, the major nemesis continued to be the Ch’iang, who mounted numerous minor incursions. Thereafter, despite indications that Tsu Keng and Tsu Chia had hunted in Hsia-wei territory, the Hsia-wei apparently rebelled and had to be suppressed during the third period identified with Ping Hsin and K’ang Ting. The king and the Hsiao-ch’en Ch’iang led a coalition campaign that captured weapons, chariots, and four of their leaders, who were subsequently sacrificed to the ancestors.
¹⁶
Cowed by their defeat, they apparently remained submissive right through the Chou conquest, because the last two Shang emperors again conducted hunts in their territory.

Infantry campaigns were mounted against the Hsiu-fang and the Hsiang-fang, both of whom would later reappear as members of the
ssu pang
. Hsiu-fang prisoners were captured,
¹⁷
and warriors seized from the Hsiang-fang were sacrificed by the Shang.
¹⁸
However, K’ang Ting apparently directed the era’s major efforts toward the various Ch’iang,
¹⁹
who must have again become powerful as well as aggressive because repeated inquiries show considerable concern about the fate of expeditions mounted against them.
²⁰
Multiple queries on the same plastron suggest the king carefully pondered what units to employ, which commander
to appoint, what the response might be, and whether to further augment his field forces.
²¹

Rather than ordering Shang allies forth as in Wu Ting’s era, various clan forces, including the five clans, were deputed in response.
²²
In addition, the
shu
(border specialists) were dispatched, indicative of a long-term defensive commitment over and above any effort to extirpate the enemy as well as further evidence of an ongoing shift from extemporaneous response to routine engagement.
²³
Although their strength and mobility made the task difficult, allowing the Ch’iang to shift, reorganize, and resurge, they were eventually engaged in their heartland and vanquished. Apart from those slain, a number of prisoners were taken and two Ch’iang leaders sacrificed.

Despite the usual difficulties involved in apportioning the extant inscriptions to Wu Yi and Wen Ting, both fourth period rulers were noted for their aggressiveness, expansion of the standing forces, and love of hunting.
²⁴
Later (and therefore merely speculative) writings also claim that Wu Yi was brutal and repressive and thus provoked revolts among otherwise subjugated peoples.
²⁵
Wen Ting is generally known to posterity as Wen Wu Ting, the
wu
(meaning “martial,” just as in Wu Ting’s and Wu Yi’s names) indicating his penchant for military activity. As usual, clashes that resulted in the capture of Ch’iang prisoners are intermittently noted, indicating that Ch’iang groups continued to be troublesome until Wu Yi’s successor.
²⁶

Wu Yi’s lengthy reign of thirty-five years (1147-1113 BCE) was punctuated by a few campaigns of note, including one against the Chih-fang who, despite having been quiescent since Wu Ting’s era, now had to be vanquished by troops from the five clans.
²⁷
Similarly, the Fang-fang, previously suppressed by Wu Ting, began to make incursions from out of the north,
²⁸
prompting an active Shang response.
²⁹
Even members of the Yi dwelling in the northwest had to be targeted anew for repressive measures that carried Shang forces out into Sui territory.
³⁰
(The Yi presence in Sui is generally cited as proof of the proximity of the two groups, but their mobility and apparent mutual cooperation are more noteworthy, evidence that loose coalitions of contiguous states had begun mounting coordinated actions against the Shang.)