Ancient Chinese Warfare (25 page)

Another version of this event, recorded in the
Chan-kuo Ts’e
(
Intrigues of the Warring States
), which is even more explicit in asserting the inadequacy of terrestrial strategic advantages under corrupt governments and accurately describes the geographic features about Anyang, observes that Anyang had “Mount Meng-men to the left, the Chang and Fu rivers to the right,” and that “the Yellow River belted it to the front while it was backed by mountains to the rear.”
²⁸
Wu Ch’i then asserts that “it was marked by this precipitousness, yet because Yin didn’t exert himself in the practice of government, King Wu attacked him,” and boldly concludes that “the precipitousness and expansiveness of the rivers and mountains are not sufficient for security.”

No doubt a fabrication, the conversation of course reflects Warring States military science rather than Shang dynasty sentiment. Moreover, despite the enormous protective value of fortified walls (as attested by Sun-tzu’s admonition to avoid injudiciously assaulting them), Wu Ch’i pointed out that their own state of Wei had already vanquished several fortified cities. Nevertheless, Anyang was somewhat protected by the T’ai-hang mountains to the west and northwest; the Huan and Chang rivers respectively to the north, with the former flowing downward into the southeast where it joins the Yellow River; and the Yellow River itself running along the south.

In view of these purportedly strong defensive advantages, several analysts have recently cited additional Warring States military theory to argue for the city’s essential invulnerability. Traditional Chinese military thought early on emphasized discerning and exploiting inimical and advantageous features of terrain, eventually codifying them into
the proto-science of what might best be termed “strategic configurations of terrain.” The
Art of War
, traditionally attributed to Sun-tzu and the acknowledged progenitor of Chinese military thought, devotes two of its chapters to classifying terrain based on discernible features and correlated operational possibilities. Thereafter, Wu Ch’i analyzed the plight of field forces on difficult and constricted ground, and the
Liu-t’ao
(
Six Secret Teachings
) enumerated the tactics appropriate to employing component forces on various types of broadly categorized terrain.

Sections in the
Kuan-tzu
, also compiled in the Warring States period, preserve some general principles for locating cities in general. However, long before the advantages and disadvantages of locations were explicitly assessed, early settlement builders had already been exploiting natural water barriers by simply choosing to inhabit river- and lakeside areas for their access to water. Just as the
Art of War
would discuss, armies that attempt amphibious assaults find themselves not only hampered and discomfited, but also easy prey in midstream for archers arrayed on the shore.

Shang strategists probably pondered the question of topographical advantages in somewhat simpler terms, and Chou forces had little difficulty fording the Yellow River (albeit unopposed) some distance from Anyang when they launched the expeditionary assault that ended the dynasty. However, in antiquity it was axiomatic that one should “value high terrain and disdain low ground.”
²⁹
The T’ai Kung said: “Occupying high ground is the means by which to be alert and assume a defensive posture” and Sun-tzu admonished commanders, “Do not approach high mountains, do not confront those who have hills behind them.
³⁰
If the enemy holds the heights, do not climb up to engage them in battle.”
³¹
The eclectic
Huai-nan Tzu
added, “heights constitute life, depths constitute death. Mounds and hillocks are male, gorges and valleys female.”
³²
All these statements reflect the decidedly disadvantageous nature of mounting tiring uphill assaults that must ward off falling missiles and require soldiers to strike upward against enemies in a superior position. Even more foolhardy would be crossing a deep valley and then attempting to storm city walls with exhausted troops and reduced numbers, which would make it difficult to achieve the historically attested minimum of about five or seven to one required for an assault to prevail.

Cities that encompassed any form of higher terrain, such as moderate-sized mounds, were therefore considered strong, not easily approached or overwhelmed. Even if the walls could be penetrated, the heights would provide natural vantage points for the compressed defenders, particularly if large buildings remained that could serve as strongpoints for a concerted defense. However, Anyang was neither situated on high ground nor closely backed by formidable mountains, and no mounds or interior defensive structures have yet been discovered, only the foundations for palatial structures.

According to Sun Pin’s characterization of male and female cities, “female” or strategically weaker ones can, and by implication should, be attacked, but the stronger or male ones should be avoided rather than assaulted or besieged. However, Anyang’s features do not cohere with Sun Pin’s characterization of male cities, and the T’ai-hang mountain range is too far away to be of any defensive use even though it obstructed steppe raiders descending from the north and northwest, especially if the few passes were well blocked by fortified barriers. (Shang oracular inscriptions show the passes were repeatedly penetrated, virtual conduits for passage.) Conversely, Anyang most closely conforms to Sun Pin’s description of a female city, essentially confirming its susceptibility to attack.
³³

Furthermore, despite Wu Ch’i’s disquisition, none of the defensive advantages propounded under the rubric of “strategic configurations of terrain” are actually present at Anyang. Having been abandoned, even the formidable bastion of Huan-pei just north of the river afforded no protection. Instead, the site was exposed in almost every direction, bereft of protection apart from the minor rivers and a single artificial moat. Moreover, rather than difficult ground, the level plains about it constituted “accessible” and “tenable” terrain according to the
Art of War
’s classification: land highly suitable for military operations, devoid of natural features that might impede aggressors or obstacles that might be exploited as primary defenses. Even the expansive Yellow River that flows some distance from Yin-hsü itself, just beyond the intervening plains, was fordable at more than one location. Although well situated to project power and control the trade and transport routes into Shandong and the passes through the T’ai-hang mountains, Anyang’s
geostrategic advantages were thus clearly insufficient, particularly for a weakened state that had mounted a precipitous move.

A more likely explanation is that despite their internal problems, Shang leadership may have felt confident in the ability of peripheral fortified towns such as T’ai-hsi to blunt incursions in conjunction with external barriers and frontier posts of unknown size and strength. The forces deployed at dispersed bastions and concentrated in the secondary capitals that flourished at the end of the dynasty, especially Chao-ko, were presumably deemed sufficient to intercept enemy invaders and minimize the damage they might inflict, if not vanquish them. Since the Shang never suffered deep penetrations or damage of any consequence until the Chou invasion and effectively carried the battle to their enemies throughout the dynastic period, their confidence was not misplaced.

Multiple capitals would frequently be erected throughout subsequent Chinese history. Sometimes they were occupied sequentially, at others simultaneously, in which case one often functioned as the ritual center, the others as secondary administrative foci or seasonal residences.
³⁴
Generally referred to as regional, intermediate, or secondary centers by modern writers, they were often highly militarized or offered rulers, especially more pleasure-oriented individuals, an escape from the capital’s constraints. However, although never mentioned, another possible reason for administering the realm from a secondary capital would be the ruler’s ability to force the nobles to cater to his whims, to travel there from their more comfortable, older quarters, thereby psychologically solidifying his power while destabilizing them and depleting their fiscal resources, though no doubt at the cost of serious antagonism.
³⁵

Late Shang ancillary capitals included Han-tan to the north, an area previously occupied by predynastic Shang culture and subsequently the capital of the state of Chao as well as a crucial geostrategic location;
³⁶
Chao-ko to the south; and Shang-ch’iu, often said to have retained its importance throughout the dynasty as the original ritual center and the location of the oldest and thus most important ancestral temple. No doubt they were all envisioned as buttressing Anyang’s natural strategic advantages rather than acting as alternatives to Anyang. Although archaeological confirmation is lacking, minor residual forces may well have been retained at Yen-shih, Cheng-chou, and perhaps Yüan-ch’ü,
though P’an-lung-ch’eng and the bastion of Huan-pei just north of the Huan River had by then been abandoned.

Traditional historical accounts suggest that Chao-ko was located south of Yin-hsü, somewhere between the theocratic capital of Anyang and the extended boundary at Mu-yeh. Several sites have been proposed, with one in the district of Ch’i slightly to the southwest but still north of the Yellow River being the most likely. Local tales claim that Chao-ko was protected by three encircling walls that described a rectangle of about 1,000 by 600 meters, but no definitive remains have as yet been recovered.
³⁷

Chao-ko was probably conceived and functioned as a military bastion long before Emperor Hsin transformed it into an opulent pleasure center, thereby dissipating its essentially Spartan character despite the certain presence of significant military forces and his personal bodyguard. A single passage in the
Bamboo Annals
about his enlargement of the capital records his penchant for architectural grandeur: “During his reign King Chou considerably enlarged his city so that it reached Chao-ko to the south, occupied Han-tan in the north, and extended to Shang-ch’iu, erecting detached palaces and secondary structures throughout.” Chou dynasty accusations of debauchery and perversity generally identify him with Chao-ko, which remained a somewhat distant, freestanding city despite the
Annals’
exaggeration, and some accounts claim he futilely sought refuge there after being vanquished at Mu-yeh.

In addition to the time-honored but dubious traditional accounts, four “irrefutable” sources exist for studying the nature and evolution of warfare in the late Shang dynasty: fortifications, archaeologically recovered weapons, a few cauldrons with commemorative inscriptions, and the divinatory materials preserved on comparatively fragile turtle plastrons and animal bones already noted. Apart from a few characters preserved on early ceramics, these famous oracular inscriptions comprise China’s earliest written historical materials and thus the key source for any reconstruction of Shang activities.
³⁸

Despite their large numbers and the extensiveness of their subject matter, the inscriptions suffer from inherent constraints, including serious questions about their representational validity. Insofar as they only record activities significant or troubling enough to compel the ruler to query the ancestors or Ti—whether to shift responsibility, gain their sanction, or invoke their assistance—they are necessarily limited in scope. Many subjects no doubt fell outside the purview of such invocations or were simply too mundane to report to the ancestors. In addition, the vast number of oracle bones so far recovered may constitute only a small percentage of the total created during the process of divinatory inquiry, and further discoveries may reveal radically different concerns.

Debate also continues about whether they are records of real inquiries or simply charges to the spirits beseeching their aid or seeking confirmation of the moment’s appropriateness for some already predetermined course, an impression certainly conveyed by many explicitly martial inscriptions. Finally, although they were certainly regarded with respect, even viewed as numinous, and therefore collected for burial at designated locations rather than simply burned or discarded, there is no sense that they were intended to be preserved for posterity, to function as an archive of some sort, particularly as written records supposedly existed that have been lost or have disintegrated.
³⁹

The process of scrutinizing thousands of prognostications for over a hundred years, at first perfunctorily but now intensely and in detail, aided by fortuitous discoveries of significant groups and numerous inquiries on single scapula, has produced a number of valuable chronologies and useful topical studies. From the several thousand inquiries that focus on martial activities the outlines, though perhaps not yet the entire substance, of Shang warfare can be gleaned.
⁴⁰
In particular, the names of allies and enemy states,
⁴¹
the major campaigns, cycles of incursion and plundering, commanders, troop strength, component forces, and various vestiges of the military organization can be glimpsed. However, ignorance still prevails with regard to any tactics that may have been employed apart from straightforward assaults or perhaps two-pronged attacks, as well as actual battle sites, frequency of casualties, and numerous other questions integral to any serious study of military history. Similarly, despite much speculation and many views having been offered,
the nature and composition of the troops remain more a matter of conjecture than definitive knowledge.

Discernible motives for undertaking outwardly directed military activities range from a desire to react to incursions and thereby thwart or punish enemies that were encroaching upon the Shang or preying upon its allies; to consolidating the Shang’s position; to imposing or enforcing Shang will; and, less frequently, to simply projecting power. Although the oracle bones vividly depict a state beset by threats and responding to challenges, because martial events are great affairs entailing the lives of the populace and prestige of the ruler, they tend to be disproportionately emphasized in divinatory inquiries. In contrast, peace and tranquility can often only be inferred.