Ancient Chinese Warfare (21 page)

Apart from being located in the Hsia heartland, the site could also control vital passes to the east and west and project power to the troublesome northwest, where the Shang would continually experience severe
challenges. Armies going east out through the Hei-shih and Huchien passes would move directly into the Hua-pei plains; marching westward through Han-ku Pass and T’ung Pass, they would cross into the critical Kuan-chung area; advancing northward, they would enter Chin and Shaanxi after fording the Yellow River; and going south on campaign through Yin-ch’üeh, they would move into the Ying and Ju river basins. From this single location all the military campaigns spoken of in
Mencius
and other writings, as well as any to the west and northwest, would have been feasible.
¹⁷

Thus, the identification of Yen-shih as T’ang’s first capital, in conjunction with Erh-li-t’ou being the last capital of the Hsia, seems well founded, particularly if Ta-shih-ku is considered to have been Po after being wrested from the Hsia or predynastic Cheng-chou fulfilled that role. Moreover, the discovery of wheel tracks on an interior road, though no longer evidence of the very first use, shows that by 1600 BCE the Shang was already employing primitive vehicles that would have provided considerably greater earthmoving capability than laboriously toted baskets. Molds, bronze fragments, charcoal, and crucibles indicate that a significant bronze workshop was operated on the site even though vessel production continued at Erh-li-t’ou. However, the bronzes and other items lack inscriptions and are generally simpler than those subsequently identified with the Shang, befitting an earlier, more martial site. The few tools and agricultural implements recovered indicate that rather than being a major production or economic center, Yen-shih depended upon the greater Shang domain for provisions and logistical support.

The now famous Shang capital at Cheng-chou, a city near the Luo River in Henan province in the middle lower course of the Yellow River area, has also been the subject of numerous excavations since its discovery.
¹⁸
Before Yen-shih was identified and explored, many scholars vociferously argued that Cheng-chou had to be the first Shang capital of Po, others that it was Ao or even a Hsia capital.
¹⁹
However, in contrast to Yen-shih’s comparative austerity, the extensiveness of its bronze and other production facilities, numerous opulent bronze cauldrons recovered, the stage of cultural and artistic development, and similar factors clearly indicate a more politically and economically developed stage.
Based on radiocarbon datings and an analysis of the underlying layers, the walls at Yen-shih were probably constructed some sixty to eighty years before those at Cheng-chou, vital evidence that the former was probably the Shang’s initial postconquest capital.
²⁰
Thus, even though many analysts still argue that both were initial capitals and should be identified with King T’ang, the defining Erh-li-kang manifestation of Cheng-chou may well have been erected as a new palatial and ritual center and assumed the functions of the Shang capital under Ta Keng.
²¹
Claims that Cheng-chou was most likely the capital of Ao, mentioned in numerous traditional texts such as the
Shih Chi
,
Bamboo Annals
, and
Shang Shu
associated with Chung Ting, are certainly balked by Cheng-chou’s lengthy occupation, the hundred years far exceeding the brief reigns associated with Ao.
²²

Exploratory excavations indicate that Cheng-chou was a vast site whose city walls encompassed some 25 square kilometers within their total length of 6,960 meters. Situated roughly along the compass directions on a height between two minor rivers, the city obviously functioned as a royal administrative center as well as the dwelling area for important members of the populace. Evidence of extensive royal quarters in the northeast portion of the city, apparently protected in part by an internal moat, has been uncovered, and several large production sites for bronze, bone, and ceramic products have been identified in virtually every direction outside the city.
²³
In both quantity and quality the artifacts unearthed at each site greatly exceed the limited amount recovered from Yen-shih and include rather specialized items such as wine vessels. The inscribed bronzes preserve evidence of the development of written language, and the ritual cauldrons that continue to be recovered, some as large as a meter high and weighing hundreds of pounds, are so magnificent as to be identifiable only with the royal household. They provide incontrovertible evidence that the markedly advanced cultural site of Cheng-chou, which obviously traded with other areas, must have been the Shang capital during its occupation.
²⁴

The originally massive and unusually high walls apparently towered some 10 meters over the outside terrain and had a formidable width of 20 meters at the base but just 5 meters at the top. (Excavated portions actually run from 1 to 9 meters high and 4.8 to 22.4 meters wide, with
the corners being about 30 meters thick.) More specifically, the eastern wall is 1,700 meters long, the western 1,870 meters, the southern 1,700 meters, and the northern 1,790 meters, with openings for gates in all but the eastern wall. Generally constructed over an unusually narrow excavated foundation of only 2.5 meters in width, but with the usual downward trapezoidal shape and pounded, leveled ground, the fortifications actually consist of a 10-meter-wide core wall to which protective waist walls of some 5 meters in width were appended on either side.

Constructed in 3.8-meter-long sections framed by wooden boards between 2.5 and 3.3 meters long and 0.15 to 0.30 meter high, the layers are clearly defined, well leveled, and generally uniform, being between 8 and 10 centimeters thick but occasionally dipping to as little as 3 centimeters and bulging up to 20. However, little variation is evident in their composition, all the layers being composed largely from a mixture of sticky red soil and grayish red sand pounded to maximum hardness. The tools employed, bundled rods roughly 2 to 4 centimeters in diameter, left permanent impressions up to 2 centimeters deep on the surface of each layer. The two external protective walls were similarly pounded, and the outer one was coated with a layer of protective pebbles, presumably to forestall erosion by falling rain and perhaps buttress it against floodwaters.
²⁵

More recent excavations have discovered remnants of another 5,000 meters of substantial walls that externally encircled the southern portion and an external ditch or moat. Discernible wall heights presently range from 1.2 to 2.3 meters, with widths in the various sections reported of 12, 17, and an expansive 25 meters, all constructed on an excavated foundation trench.
²⁶
In the northeast corner of the city, evidence of an even earlier 100-meter-long wall some 8 meters in width has also been reported. Together with artifacts from predynastic Shang and other cultures, it indicates that Cheng-chou was an important location even before it became a Shang capital, perhaps King T’ang’s initial city of Po.
²⁷

Assessments of late Hsia and early Shang sites generally differ in how they identify the fortified cities of Yen-shih and Cheng-chou rather than
in how they interpret the basic archaeological data. Whether Yen-shih was just a secondary capital or the first, primary capital of the Shang, though historically important, is somewhat less significant for military history than its definitive martial character. Moreover, when coupled with the evidence that Erh-li-t’ou is almost certainly Chen-hsün, the last capital of the Hsia, Yen-shih’s strategic function becomes obvious and virtually requires that Cheng-chou be viewed as the second Shang capital. This does not deny a martial function to Cheng-chou as well, especially since its role as a weapons production center has been clearly established by the discovery of numerous molds for casting bronze axes, halberds, and arrowheads in workshop ruins.

Being just six kilometers away from Erh-li-t’ou, Yen-shih must have been constructed to project power and consolidate control, to nullify the influence of the old Hsia center at Chen-hsün, which continued to flourish. In contrast, although Cheng-chou certainly retained an important military role in controlling people to the east and south, it has been characterized as a relatively open site that lacked the internal controls and defensive measures found at Yen-shih, and thus more of a ritual and administrative center.
²⁸
The walls, though massive, are also marked by gradually sloping protective waist walls, hardly a desirable feature against assaults.
²⁹

A simple comparison of the relative might of each of these sites will aid in differentiating their character and functions. As already noted, Yen-shih lacked the productive basis for independent existence and had only minimal workshops and agricultural fields. In contrast, Cheng-chou included not only numerous large, specialized workshops, but also loosely integrated agricultural fields in nearby areas, accounting for the recovery of farming tools. The area enclosed by Cheng-chou’s walls totals some 3 million square meters, whereas the original compound at Yen-shih, a citadel of 740 meters by 1,100 meters before expansion, totaled about 800,000 or slightly more than a quarter of Cheng-chou’s size.

Whatever the dating of their walls, both sites were occupied over long periods, suggesting that Cheng-chou, much as Ta-shih-ku, may have been a pre-Erh-li-kang site initially occupied by the predynastic Shang as they expanded out of their core area in Chi-chung and undertook
to subjugate the peoples in the nearby Luo-tung area, neutralize the Eastern Yi, and vanquish the Hsia’s last ally, the K’un-wu, over the four years chronicled by the
Bamboo Annals
.
³⁰
After overcoming the Hsia, the Shang required a new military citadel at Yen-shih to consolidate and impose its power in the Hsia heartland even as it continued to maintain its presence and project power in the east through some eleven additional campaigns.
³¹
Having completely subjugated the various Hsia groups, ensured the area’s security with a strong bastion, and expropriated the Hsia’s wealth, Cheng-chou was apparently fortified on a grand scale to become an opulent administrative and ritual center for the newly aggrandized rulers, Yen-shih functioning as secondary capital and strongpoint.
³²

Until recently many analysts believed that all the archaeological evidence pointed to a major disjuncture between the third and fourth periods of Erh-li-t’ou’s occupation, justifying the traditional accounts of the Shang emerging through military conquest rather than simple evolutionary displacement.
³³
The four distinct layers clearly visible at Erh-li-t’ou have generally been correlated with four stages of activity: establishment, expansion, flourishing, and decline. The first three display evolutionary continuity, but the fourth, in addition to the apparent abandonment of palace buildings and other evidence of contraction, suddenly shows an admixture of lower Ch’i-t’an Shang culture, very similar to that characterizing the first of Yen-shih’s three periods.
³⁴

However, further excavations and the publication of additional reports indicate not only that Erh-li-t’ou continued to flourish in phase 4 (now dated as 1564 to 1521), but also that a new palace surrounded by tamped earth walls and other buildings were constructed.
³⁵
In addition, the site seems to have continued as a major bronze production center until Erh-li-t’ou suddenly declined to the level of an ordinary village late in the sixteenth century, when much of the populace may have been forced to migrate to Cheng-chou.
³⁶

No evidence of a massive disaster or destruction by fire has yet been uncovered at Erh-li-t’ou. This coheres well with traditional, highly idealized accounts that the Shang targeted the chief miscreant, the one man, and that the actual fighting occurred away from the capital. Somewhat surprisingly, despite the importance of fortifications in Lungshan cultures and their derivatives, rather than enclosing the city with
protective walls, the Hsia had opted to rely on a fortified palace at Erh-li-t’ou.
³⁷
Perhaps the founders thought that the sheltering hills surrounding them and their location in the center of the Loyang basin would provide an adequate defense. In marked contrast, Yen-shih’s initial occupants immediately opted to construct the massive walls typical of Shang fortified cities even though Yen-shih equally enjoyed significant advantages of terrain, including Mt. Mang to the north and the Luo River to the south.

The unprotected city, with most of its population intact, was probably compelled to capitulate. Moreover, having refrained from vengefully destroying it, the Shang could then exploit Erh-li-t’ou’s productive capabilities with, as attested by the paucity of Erh-li-kang artifacts, only a minimal presence. However, they opted to impose significant control from the security of the nearby bastion of Yen-shih, perhaps because they felt Erh-li-t’ou to be indefensible given its lack of walls. Yen-shih’s initial period thus not only coincides with Erh-li-t’ou’s fourth period, but also displays some Hsia elements intermixed among predominantly Shang artifacts.
³⁸

A number of aspects clearly indicate an ongoing evolution in the capabilities and practices of material culture, particularly in the technology and styles of bronze casting, one of the hallmarks of Shang civilization. Although some magnificent ritual bronze vessels have been recovered, many of the artifacts discovered at Erh-li-t’ou are comparatively simple and, having been produced from an extremely high copper alloy, thin walled. Even allowing for the continuity that should be expected given that Erh-li-t’ou continued as a ritual production center for decades, the bronze vessels and implements found at Yen-shih early on show evidence of an advanced mixture that mingled tin and a large lead component while reducing the copper to approximately 80 percent, allowing larger, heavier, thicker objects (including weapons), marked by better curves and more refined surfaces, to be cast from multiplepart molds.