Ancient Chinese Warfare (17 page)

Ch’i’s harangue also indicates the existence of left and right forces: “If the left does not attack on the left you will disrespect my edict; if the right does not attack on the right, you will disrespect my edict.” Despite assertions to the contrary, rather than evidence for well-formed, integrated units such as regiments or armies, this more likely indicates an operational segmentation into left and right flanks. However, the edict certainly shows a presumption of the power to enforce military discipline and a willingness to execute the disobedient in untold numbers.

One other early passage has given rise to claims that the Hsia already had a structured military organization. The famous
Tso Chuan
account previously cited contains a frequently noted sentence indicating that the chief of the Yu-yü gave Shao-k’ang two of his daughters as wives, a town at Lun, one
ch’eng
of land, and one
lü
(regiment) from the masses. Depending on how the original text is construed,
lü
is understood as referring to a military unit that (according to very unreliable statements in the
Chou Li
) traditionally numbered 500 men. However, even if the Hsia’s military organization were founded upon the pyramid of fives frequently adopted in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, given the smaller population base and more limited resources, the
lü
may have only amounted to 125 men. Moreover, if based on the decade system as subsequently employed by several peripheral states during the Chou’s decline, it may have been a mere 100 men, the equivalent of a Warring States company, particularly if the squad/platoon/company structure had not yet evolved and it was a clan-based aggregation. However, this sentence is frequently cited as evidence that non-clan military forces already existed whose members were presumably drawn from the farmers or other workers who could be summoned for military service as necessary.
⁴⁴

6.

W
HEN ATTEMPTING TO reconstruct the history of the Shang one question looms large: how to evaluate and employ the traditional accounts and seemingly precise geographical statements scattered throughout various Spring and Autumn and Warring States texts, which, if actually based on now-lost records, may preserve vital information about the Shang. Many modern scholars simply reject all nonarchaeological material, but centuries of incisive reading have produced a detailed portrait of the Shang well worth pondering, a starting point to be proven or disproven by the many artifacts and numerous bamboo strips that continue to be recovered. This traditional account has not only influenced numerous generations of Chinese, but also continues to furnish core material for discussions in contemporary PRC media and China’s ongoing search for uniqueness. Whatever its reliability, cultural inertia will probably ensure that this account persists for several more decades, making the original materials worth pondering in themselves.

Despite unbroken reverence for the Hsia and the recent discovery of probable Hsia sites, most scholars continue to recognize the Shang as the first Chinese dynastic state because it remains the earliest to be documented by archaeologically recovered textual materials, many of which attest to the veracity of fundamental elements in Ssu-ma Ch’ien’s
Shih Chi
account. Slightly more than a century ago the now-famous “dragon” (oracle) bones were discovered; Anyang, site of the Shang’s last capital, was first explored just prior to World War II; and several
major Shang enclaves, not to mention numerous smaller sites among the many hundreds already identified, have been partially excavated over the past five decades.

Apart from excavation reports that have been torturously slow in being published due to PRC academic and political complexities, oracle bones provide the chief resource for reconstructing the life and nature of the Shang. Constantly increasing but currently numbering about 200,000, a quarter of them have been deemed reasonably informative. Unfortunately, they only cover the last nine kings from Wu Ting to Hsin (best known as the tyrant Chou), who ruled from Anyang during the dynasty’s final two centuries.
¹
Cryptic notes on inquiries made to Heaven and invocations to the ancestors on a wide variety of state and royal matters ranging from military campaigns to prospects for the harvest, these prognostications inevitably express the ruler’s perspective, are naturally selective, and were probably never intended to be preserved. Nevertheless, the extensive work, ranging from the necessarily tedious to the brilliantly insightful, completed since their discovery has now provided sufficient material to construct a tentative picture of the Shang.
²
In addition, the weapons, cauldrons, ritual jades, ceramics, and other items that have been recovered from tombs, hoards, and storage pits vivify cultural and psychological dimensions merely hinted at in the oracle bones as well as concretely documenting the process of technological evolution.

Although the exact nature of the Shang, even their very name,
³
remains a matter for debate, characterizations range from a large chiefdom of heterogeneous composition, through an increasingly bureaucratic territorial state, to a despotic monarchy.
⁴
Within China it has traditionally been regarded as a dynasty because the rulers succeeded each other and the clan maintained its authority, but it apparently began as a strong tribal chiefdom or self-contained clan state in a circumscribed location. Moreover, as the oracle bones reveal, it remained one entity among many throughout its rule, never able to completely dominate the ancient world in the fashion traditionally depicted. However, the Shang early on evolved a still imperfectly glimpsed, ad hoc administrative structure staffed by royal clan members and close subordinates of the king, who were entrusted with particular tasks for specific times that proved capable
of dealing with such focal issues as accepting tribute, opening up lands, organizing the hunt, and directing military campaigns.

The Shang reputedly moved their capital five times after conquering the Hsia. Aided by radiocarbon and other dating techniques, scholars have assiduously sought to identify archaeologically excavated sites with the Shang capitals discussed in such late written materials as the
Bamboo Annals
and
Shih Chi
, coincidentally attesting to the antiquity and continuity of Chinese civilization. After numerous articles and hundreds of pages of detailed and often highly prejudiced argumentation, a probable sequence can perhaps be hazarded for the various capitals that shows the evolving geostrategic situation as the Shang expanded and contracted, flourished and declined.

The earliest bastion was Yen-shih, just six kilometers from Erh-li-t’ou, the final capital the sprawling ritual and administrative complex at Anyang, with the most important intermediate site being Cheng-chou. These massive, expensive, and no doubt organizationally difficult shifts were probably undertaken to impose stronger political control or escape military pressure, but may also have stemmed from material causes, including the diminishing productivity of nearby fields, depletion of conveniently located copper veins, or religious reasons.
⁵
However, the Shang maintained its identity throughout the period and interacted with the proto-states and tribal peoples about it in a variety of ways as the dynasty continued to evolve, subjugating some, forming alliances with others, and treating the rest indifferently or antagonistically.

Throughout the Shang’s existence the king was a powerful, essentially theocratic chief whose personal charisma and authority underlay and sustained the ruling structure.
⁶
He apparently devoted great effort to performing divination and conducting sacrificial rituals to the ancestors and Ti, a still imperfectly understood deity on high, accounting for the tremendous number of ritual bronzes employed in court and religious life and the astonishing number of human victims—prisoners of war as well as subordinate groups—slain in their performance.
⁷
In fact, contrary to the idealized depictions concocted by later Confucian literati emphasizing that the Shang cultivated Virtue and implemented humanitarian policies among the populace, whatever their quasi-religious justifications, the royal elite were extremely brutal in asserting and maintaining
power. Their sites are littered with the tortured, often decapitated bodies of victims, sometimes singly, others in large groups, apparently intended to guarantee the auspiciousness of a building, solidity of a wall, performance of some rite, or protection of a tomb. Martial aspects often dominated in the latter, with at least some of the figures being expected to eternally stand guard even though family members, retainers, servants, and other unfortunates also accompanied the deceased in the afterlife.
⁸

The Shang has traditionally been depicted as compelled to vanquish the Hsia because the last ruler’s perversity adversely impacted the people, the only acceptable justification for overthrowing an acknowledged ruler. In contrast to the peaceful transitions exemplified by Yao yielding to Shun and Shun to Yü, the succession was achieved through military conquest. However, apart from any questions about material culture, two imponderables persist: How could an unknown clan or tribal group develop the military prowess and organizational structure necessary to gain victory over a presumably well-entrenched entity, however circumscribed its power, and what were the military dimensions of the process? Two focal issues in turn significantly impact any understanding of the conquest: the location of the Shang administrative center when they commenced whittling away the Hsia’s domain and the degree to which the eight early capitals might have provided residual support after having been abandoned.

Despite a myriad of vestiges in literary and archaeological records, perhaps because of a dearth of reliable material and the sometimes prevalent perception that they are of little consequence, the Shang’s incipient beginnings remain obscure and its early history nebulous. Moreover, in comparison with the Chou conquest of the Shang, an event that spawned centuries of intense speculation and continues to stimulate academic debate, the Hsia’s overthrow has aroused but minor interest despite important questions having been raised about the Shang’s origins; their relationship with the Hsia, Yi, and Chou cultures; the evolution of their metalworking techniques; and the administrative structure and methods that permitted them to dominate a considerable area.
⁹

In the absence of adequate archaeological materials, the main events in the Shang’s ascension have long been gleaned from historical writings of varying antiquity, ranging from the
Shang Shu
(
Shang Documents
) and
Shih Ching
(
Classic of Odes)
through the
Yi Chou-shu
(
Lost Chou Documents
).
¹⁰
Extrapolated, they yield a sequence of indeterminate reliability that has historically been accepted in China and therefore retains inestimable value for understanding Chinese self-perception as well as subsequent military thought. Moreover, despite contemporary skepticism and a thoroughgoing emphasis on archaeological materials, creative analysts continue to derive imaginative theories of origin solely from these traditional written materials and by demythologizing various ancestral legends.
¹¹

The
Shih Chi
’s “Yin Pen-chi” (“Basic Annals of Yin”), which was unquestionably accepted as providing a true account of the dynasty for nearly two millennia, indicates that the clan’s progenitor Ch’i assisted Yü in successfully taming the unruly rivers. For his efforts Emperor Shun appointed him Minister of Works and enfeoffed him at Shang, from where the clan presumably derived its name. The final shift of the ritual and administrative center to Anyang where Yin-hsü—the “wastes” or remnants of Yin—is located gave rise to the Shang being referred to as “Yin” from the Chou onward. However, as attested by oracle bones and contemporary inscriptions, members of the Shang never referred to themselves by this name.
¹²

Speculation about the Shang’s namesake has long centered on a location in northern Henan near the Shandong border now known as Shang-ch’iu, the “mound” or “hillock” of Shang.
¹³
As confirmation, however dubious, it is often noted that this area was once the site of the ancient state of Sung, where the vanquished Shang populace were allowed to maintain a vestigial state.
¹⁴
Although the reverse—that Shangch’iu may have derived its name from the proto-Shang people having moved there—seems equally possible, it also claimed that they retained Shang-ch’iu as their capital even after King T’ang’s conquest, wherever their administrative and military centers were. However, apart from being nebulous and unsubstantiated, given Yen-shih and Cheng-chou’s siting, advanced development, and opulence, it seems extremely unlikely that it would have somehow retained a role as either the functional or ritual capital during the state’s initial period of fluorescence.

It is variously theorized that the Shang, as manifest as the Erh-li-kang phase, developed out of Henan or Shandong Lungshan culture through various intermediates; originated among the Eastern Yi or Northern Jung; arose in the west or even south; or evolved out of the same cultural background as the Hsia, just as claims that they were descended from Yao basically assert.
¹⁵
However, the most frequently espoused view asserts that the Shang were primarily an eastern people whose name derived from an early location, whether simply a place-name or some sort of recognized fief.
¹⁶
Formulated by Wang Kuo-wei, Tung Tso-pin, Kuo Mo-jo, and other giants of ancient studies in the past century on the basis of traditional literary sources, this widely accepted theory still lacks archaeological substantiation. Moreover, none may be forthcoming, because any artifacts remaining from the most commonly proposed site, Shang-ch’iu in eastern Henan, are buried under twenty feet of Yellow River silt and thus essentially irrecoverable despite ongoing efforts.
¹⁷