Ancient Chinese Warfare (16 page)

The severity and barbarous consequences of Han Chuo’s subversive actions, uncommonly attributed to antique periods, seem to reflect the excesses to which early ethnic or totemic clashes were apparently prone, as well as prefiguring those seen in later millenarian clashes and witnessed in the Cultural Revolution. Moreover, the ready adoption of Yi’s wives, an action symbolic of conquest that is further attested by the birth of two sons, suggests that his policy of currying favor within the inner palace may have penetrated far into Yi’s personal quarters, affecting his consorts as well as the personal retainers who murdered him.

Han Chuo’s attempts to exterminate the royal line’s remnants set the stage for the marvelous tale of Shao-k’ang’s survival, cleverness, and endurance:

Because of the differences in Hsia and Yi customs, the lengthy eightdecade interval during which the Hsia lost much, if not all, control of its territory may also be envisioned as a clash of peoples and cultures. Relations between the Yi tribal groups and the Hsia obviously waxed and waned over the dynasty’s four centuries depending on their relative power, just as those between the Shang and its contemporary states did in the next period. Peace, however coercive, essentially prevailed when the Hsia was strong and the Yi fragmented and thus coerced or forced into submission, but conflict arose when both were strong or the Hsia wavered, allowing incursions and rebellion.

The Yi, also called the Tung Yi and Nine Yi, encompassed nine main tribes reportedly composed of eighty-one clans: the Ch’üan,
²⁹
Yu, Fang (Square), Huang (Yellow), Pai (White), Ch’ih (Red), Hsüan (Dark), Feng (Wind), and Yang (Sun). There are also frequent references to the Huai Yi, a term that probably encompassed populations from two or more of the Nine Yi who happened to dwell in the fertile Huai river valley. Although they may have been individually incapable of withstanding Hsia supremacy, when allied they constituted the only power capable of challenging Hsia dominance and, in aggregate, certainly exceeded the Hsia in strength and extent.

Hou Yi, who initiated the revolt, was affiliated with a Yi clan group known as the Yu-ch’iung, and later traditions assert that “four of the Yi rebelled against the Hsia when T’ai-k’ang lost the state.” The
Bamboo Annals
seemingly confirm this by chronicling three additional encounters during Emperor Hsiang’s tortured reign. In his initial year, despite his much compromised and largely powerless position as a refugee in Shangch’iu (which intermittently served as the site of the incipient Shang state), he still attacked the Huai Yi with the prince of Shang’s support, no doubt to damage Hou Yi’s base of support. Remarkably, the next year he conducted “punitive expeditions” against the Feng Yi and Huang Yi, no doubt to the east and southeast.

Surprisingly, some five years later the Yu Yi visited as submissive guests, apparently signifying their temporary elimination as an immediate threat. However, only after Shao-k’ang’s son Chu conducted major expeditions in his eighth year as far as the Eastern Sea and San-shou did the Nine Yi essentially return to the fold.
³⁰
Thereafter, they are not mentioned until the end of the dynasty, when the next-to-last ruler, Emperor Fa, wisely strengthened the capital’s walls after various Yi reportedly came as submissive guests. Finally, in Emperor Chieh’s third year, the Ch’üan Yi entered Ch’i (where the Chou would later originate) and rebelled. However, Mo-tzu, who esteemed the Hsia, notes in addition that Emperor Yü died on the road after mobilizing his forces and venturing east to attack the Nine Yi, suggesting the dynasty commenced and concluded in violent entanglements with the Yi.
³¹

Relative peace punctuated by occasional campaigns against peoples such as the Huai, Ch’üan, Huang, San Shou, and Chiu Yüan, all reportedly members of the Yi, prevailed for some ten generations after Shao-k’ang and Chu restored royal power.
³²
However, in the Hsia’s final moments Chieh apparently pursued a policy of strong military activity that harmed the people, including a campaign intended to subjugate the recalcitrant Min-shan, a Yi proto-state, which ultimately undermined the state’s ability to defeat foreign incursions as well as further antagonizing the Tung Yi.
³³
Eventually the Shang revolted, destroyed the ruling house, occupied the state, and dispersed the populace, who then may have become the ancestors of the Chou and various steppe peoples, including eventually the Hsiung-nu.
³⁴

Shang Shu
and
Shih Chi
chapters describe a Hsia organizational structure that presumably integrated various Hsia peoples and submissive entities, whether tribal groups or proto-states, in a series of expanding rectangles within which the acknowledged degree of submission correspondingly declined.
³⁵
Naturally this schematized characterization has long been justifiably disparaged as a late, highly idealized portrait, just as the conflicts already discussed would require. However, it certainly expresses the underlying reality that those entities closest to the royal capital,
whether clan members or subordinate proto-states, formally enfeoffed or not, would have been the most susceptible to military coercion.

Hsia power projection capabilities would have correspondingly decreased with increasing distance from the core, inevitably allowing greater independence and self-assertion. Moreover, because the degree of dominance, though not presently ascertainable, would have depended on factors such as accessibility and logistical support, it could not have been uniform even throughout the generally acknowledged realm of maximum influence in the Yi and Luo river area or the irregular projections out to the west and down to Pan-lung-ch’eng.

The territory within the immediate vicinity of the capital, said to have encompassed 500
li
in all directions, forming a square 1,000
li
on each edge, was probably under the king’s direct control, since it is termed
tien
and was primarily responsible for providing the foodstuffs.
³⁶
The next 500
li
, depicted as the region of the feudal lords, has been traditionally understood as including the ministerial families within the first hundred, key Hsia supporters in the next hundred, and some larger states with their capitals in the remaining 300
li
.

The martial purposes of the next or third region, theoretically running from 1,000 to 1,500
li
out, merit note. Divided into just two zones, the first 300
li
were conceived as a transitional zone, the last civilized bulwark against the uncultured challenges threatening from without, where
wen
should be emphasized. The remaining 200
li
in this schema were to be devoted to “flourishing martial values (
wu
) and defensive activities” and must have comprised a border that differentiated Hsia terrain from hostile peoples in the two outermost regions designated as “
yao-fu
” and “
huang-fu
,” meaning something like “essential submission” and “barren submission,” or more realistically “barely submitting” and “the wilds,” respectively.

Particularly interesting within the context of Hsia-Yi conflict is the demarcation of the first 300
li
of the
yao-fu
as the Yi’s abode, thereby locating them within a ring 1,500 to 1,800
li
from the Hsia capital. The outer 200
li
of this fourth region were reserved for exiles, but the wastes of the immediately outer region, the first 300
li
of the fifth region or
huang-fu
, were supposedly populated by the very uncivilized Man barbarians. The most distant 200
li
were then designated as a repository for serious offenders banished beyond the pale of all society, whether
Hsia or foreign. Although this highly idealized delineation reflects later conceptualizations of harmonized order, it not only informed the traditional understanding of Hsia political organization, but was also an often advocated theoretical model for Imperial China’s foreign relations from the Han onward.
³⁷

It has long been asserted that the incipient origins of many bureaucratic organs can be traced back to the Hsia and that a sort of proto-bureaucracy is already discernible.
³⁸
Although important individuals could simply have been deputed to undertake specific responsibilities as needed, administering the realm would no doubt have required minimally defined bureaucratic positions with at least rudimentary authority. The early rulers presumably established a limited but basically effective core of officials under their direct control, a sort of working staff, with responsibility for crucial activities being broadly construed. Titles such as
ssu t’u
(“minister of agriculture”) and “chief archer” then presumably evolved from repeatedly assigned tasks.

The
Li Chi
, a late Warring States ritual text, claims that the Hsia had a hundred officials (
pai-kuan
), obviously a nominal figure for a group of proto-officials whose responsibilities were probably not sharply differentiated. Among those identified are the
ssu fu
(“four supporters”),
liu ch’ing
(“six ministers”),
ssu cheng
(“four rectifiers”),
ssu t’u
(“minister for labor”), and
t’a-shih
, a functionary who supported, advised, and supposedly criticized the ruler.
³⁹
The Hsia also reputedly had an official to oversee the chariots, a post initially held by Hsi Chung, but the absence of any evidence for chariots, carts, or even simple wagons makes its existence highly unlikely. Finally, the
chou shih
(who clearly was not a military functionary despite the implications of the term
shih
, which eventually came to signify “commander” or “general”) was responsible for the segmented administrative area known as a
chou
.

It has generally been claimed that the Hsia and its immediate predecessors were predominantly civil-oriented societies whose members acted as warriors whenever necessary, but reverted to their roles as farmers or artisans with the conflict’s termination.
⁴⁰
Insofar as this interpretation is based on the absence of symbols of power and martial achievement in graves from the period, any sudden efflorescence of weapons, especially when coupled with clear evidence of violence such as crushing blows and arrowheads embedded in bones, must mark a
transition to esteeming military prowess. These indicators began to appear in the mid- to late Lungshan, great axes symbolic of both punitive and military power suddenly being found in ever-increasing numbers.

Assuming power at the end of the Lungshan, the Hsia may be expected to have confronted a variety of martial challenges on an irregular basis. If it was ruled by a chieftain and the ruler’s clan dominated, the extended tribe would have been compelled to participate in combat.
⁴¹
According to later historical reports, disgruntled clans occasionally defected and even mounted physical challenges to the leadership, compounding the martial challenges. Rather than being philosopher kings in a peaceful land, Hsia rulers almost certainly relied on charisma, personal prowess, clan connections, and martial skill to prosper amid tribal infighting and external challenges. Even though most military historians confidently assert that the Hsia did not maintain a standing army,
⁴²
it would be highly unlikely for the ruler not to have been protected by a body of men with pronounced martial abilities who would form the core of any broader combat effort. However, the degree to which the martial dominated the civil remains unknown, though suggestions that the Hsia emerged because it embraced warrior culture seem more likely to accurately characterize the historical situation.

Whatever the size and organization of the Hsia’s military forces, some sort of training in the era’s weapons and coordinated action would have been required to field an effective contingent composed of highly individualistic warriors. Although hunting provided an opportunity to practice group action, and weapons training probably was undertaken within the family as part of normal upbringing, it has been suggested that the Hsia established organized schools (
hsiao
) dedicated to archery instruction, initiating an institution that would continue into the Shang (with the
hsü
) and Chou (with the
hsiang
).
⁴³
Even though archery may not have been any more difficult to master than effectively wielding a dagger-axe, this thrust would accord with traditional China’s esteem for archery’s complexity. These early “schools” or training academies need not have been particularly formalized to have played a significant role, one perhaps understandable in the context of the traditional view that they initiated education in China.

If the proto-bureaucracy cannot be known, the primarily ad hoc military structure is even more uncertain. However, it is generally believed
that all administrative positions, whether preassigned or delegated in exigencies, were dual in nature: anyone participating in clan power, already being a person of significance, would be expected to perform military functions. The initial words of the “Pronouncement at Kan”—“you men who have charge of the six affairs”—have prompted claims that the Hsia already had six armies because the term translated as “six affairs” is understood by commentators as “six armies.” However, this interpretation lacks justification, and even if they existed, probably being responsible for the six main administrative affairs of government, they would have simply been co-opted to act as field officers or commanders.