Ancient Chinese Warfare (27 page)

Several oracular inscriptions confirm that Wu Ting initiated an extensive southern campaign that required more than six months, was multipronged, co-opted the assistance of subordinate states, and proceeded through three routes of approach, including the now famous state of Tseng in the border region.
¹³
Nevertheless, rather than responding to actual incursions, the king seems to have been troubled by the threat potentially posed by proto-states in the “southern lands” (
nan t’u
) and their efforts to form alliances.
¹⁴
Ostensibly intended to reassert Shang authority over recalcitrant states and subjugate active enemies, the expedition almost certainly sought to regain direct access to crucial mineral resources in the middle and lower Yangtze and perhaps even marginally penetrate the upper Yangtze.

Several clan forces were mobilized and armies from the minor states of Tseng and Chü (located in Hubei, en route) enlisted for the effort.
Subordinate command was entrusted to two increasingly experienced leaders, Ch’üeh and Kung, but the king himself personally exercised overall authority from a forward position, reflecting the campaign’s importance.
¹⁵
Whether because of the difficulty of the terrain or to minimize awareness of their approach, the forces were divided into three contingents. The king and royal clan forces are identified as being located on the right in accord with Shang esteem for the right, while the contingents from Chü and Tseng were assigned to accompany Shang components in the middle and left, respectively.
¹⁶

The campaign’s initial target was the proto-state of Yü, located somewhere in the Chü river valley in Hubei in what subsequently became Ch’u territory. Although largely unmentioned in traditional sources, Yü’s forces must have constituted a formidable enemy because the king’s prognosticatory inquiries evince real concern over their ability to inflict serious harm upon Shang forces and imply little reticence on their part to mount aggressive attacks.
¹⁷
Nevertheless, Wu Ting subsequently sacrificed some one hundred Yi in a single ceremony, which suggests far more prisoners were taken. Apparently conquered in just two months, the Yü simply disappeared thereafter.

Attacks were subsequently launched against two other proto-states located in ancient Ch’u territory, Kuei
¹⁸
and T’ung (also transcribed as Yung). The first thrust, directed against Kuei, was initiated in the eighth month and the second, targeting T’ung, in the tenth. The king regarded the conflict with the Kuei seriously enough to offer sacrifice for victory, and his prayers seem to have been answered because the Shang were once again able to redirect their efforts in just two months.
¹⁹
However, the T’ung were not so easily subdued, and Shang expeditionary efforts continued into the second month of the following year, when a powerful strike under the king’s personal direction was planned that probably achieved victory, because the inscriptions begin speaking about “pummeling” them and Shang attention was soon turned to the Hu-fang.
²⁰

Although the T’ung required just four months to subdue, in contrast to many first period conflicts that saw one or another allied commander simply deployed, the overall southern effort exceeded a half year and entailed a major commitment of energy and forces, as well as the king’s personal participation. Throughout Chinese history the south’s numerous rivers, lakes, and marshes; dense entangling vegetation; and virtually
impenetrable mountain ranges would always challenge and could easily immobilize armies experienced only in plains warfare. Moreover, as nomadic invaders from the cold, arid steppe would discover during the Sung, the heat, humidity, and rampant diseases always present but even more intensely in the summer and in semitropical areas rapidly debilitated men and horses unaccustomed to such conditions. As well attested by one of their seasoned commanders succumbing to these miasmic conditions, Shang troops must have experienced significant misery during the campaign.
²¹

The warriors inhabiting these and other peripheral southern states were not just aggressive fighters who skillfully exploited the many features of their often inhospitable terrain, but also excelled in archery. (Members of the Yü/Yi were integrated into Shang campaign units after being vanquished because of their archery skills.)
²²
Conversely, the heat and humidity pervading the south could rapidly render bows fabricated from northern materials essentially useless and often compelled armies to discard their missile weapons and rely on close combat. Nevertheless, the Shang managed to so severely vanquish their opponents that they never reappear in Shang consciousness.

Another southern state, the Tiger Quarter (Hu-fang), was probably centered somewhere between Tung-t’ing and P’o-yang lakes, though their culture, particularly as manifest in ritual bronze vessels with stylized tiger motifs, extended over a wider area, encompassing the well-known sites of Wu-ch’eng and Hsin-kan.
²³
Situated in an area anciently noted for its numerous copper mines, the Hu early on developed a largely indigenous metal tradition marked by localized designs, unique weapon types such as a hooked
chi
and highly lethal arrowhead, and a far lower alloy content than that of the Shang. Even after the Shang method of employing ceramic molds for ritual pieces was adopted, the Hu-fang continued to use stone molds for utensils and weapons. Following the post Cheng-chou retrenchment, Shang decorative motifs were increasingly modified.

Because they were ethnically and culturally distinct, advanced enough to have their own basic writing system (composed from symbols apparently inherited from both the Hsia and Shang), and situated in an area of crucial mineral resources, the Hu were undoubtedly seen as a threat. However, the extent and course of their conflict remain unknown
because only one set of inscriptions actually speaks about attacking them. An entry for an eleventh month states that the king will order Wang Ch’eng and (the ruler of) Chü, a peripheral state in northeast Hubei on the river Chü who previously participated in the more massive southern campaign mounted under Wu Ting’s personal direction, to strike them,
²⁴
but three others record the king as reporting to the ancestors (no doubt in a quest for their blessing) his deputation of Chü alone.
²⁵
Whether Wang was victorious and the Hu submitted or the Shang beaten off and deterred from further action, as suggested, is uncertain.
²⁶

Wu Ting’s middle period saw the Shang grappling with and generally subduing more serious enemies, including the Lung and T’u, generally referred to as the Lung-fang and T’u-fang in the inscriptions. This was also the period in which the king’s famous consort, Fu Hao, became visible as the Shang’s most active and successful commander. Several states were still vanquished with armies as small as 3,000 men, after which their lands were turned into hunting areas or agricultural terrain, and at least one of them thereafter furnished horses and provisions in tribute. But to conquer the Lung-fang, T’u-fang, and other strong enemies, several forces and field efforts of up to six months rather than single, decisive clashes were required. Whether this was because the enemy avoided decisive battles, numerous engagements were required to defeat them in detail, or a combination of both remains unclear.
²⁷

These formerly, if nominally, submissive states rebelled one after another while the king was preoccupied with attacking the T’an in the seventh month.
²⁸
Provoked by an incursion in the sixth month, the Shang at first mounted a defensive effort against the T’an.
²⁹
The king initially contemplated leading the attack (or going westward),
³⁰
but seems to have deputed royal forces and then Ch’üeh that month, followed by others, including possibly Lin and Chih together.
³¹
Suppressing the T’an seems to have required a fairly short but intense period of activity
³²
that
produced a victory or two (as indicated by queries about capturing prisoners and the king being victorious) before Lin achieved the final conquest late in the eighth month. After this the T’an essentially disappear except for a final reference to Ch’üeh and Ko mounting an attack in the twelfth month, perhaps a residual effort to confirm the finality of Shang suppression.
³³

Various locations have been proposed for the T’an, ranging from a nebulous spot in the west to a rather specific site in the opposite direction in Shandong. Although proponents of the western site are in a majority, geostrategic concerns and historical antecedents argue strongly for the east.
³⁴
One inscription shows Wu Ting expressing concern that the T’an were about to inflict severe damage upon the pivotal state of Ts’ao, a Shang outpost reputedly established by King T’ang himself when the Shang vanquished the San-tsung.
³⁵
Archaeological evidence confirms an overwhelming Shang presence at a citadel near Ting-t’ao that was continuously occupied throughout the Cheng-chou and Anyang phases.
³⁶
Since Ts’ao served as a crucial control point in the east, any detrimental action undertaken by the T’an would naturally evoke Shang concern. It also well coheres with Hsüan aggression in the seventh month, because they would have been more likely to exploit a power vacuum resulting from Shang forces being deployed eastward than if the latter were operating in a contiguous western area and could then easily be diverted to strike Hsüan population centers while their fighters were externally deployed.

The conflict with the Hsüan, located about twenty kilometers west of Yüan-ch’ü,
³⁷
began when they and the Jung both rebelled late in the sixth month just after the campaign against the T’an had gotten under way. Whether their aggressions were merely opportunistic and independently conceived or part of a deliberate coalition action cannot be known.
³⁸
However, if only out of self-interest and survival, the peripheral proto-states must have been aware of local military developments and consciously undertaken efforts to acquire relevant intelligence as well as cooperate with contiguous peoples not otherwise embroiled in relationships of mutual antagonism.

The damage inflicted by their incursions prompted the king to ponder deputing various peripheral commanders and officers to subjugate
them. Suppressive efforts were initiated early in the seventh month while Lin coped with the T’an, and the Shang deputed the Wo and Ma to counter the Jung.
³⁹
However, their efforts must have proven insufficient because the rebellion continued into the eighth month and even inflicted damage upon the client state of Ku. Ultimately numerous commanders were considered for dispatch and several, alone or in combination, no doubt ordered forth beginning in the eighth month, including Ko, Yüeh, Ch’üeh, Chih Kuo, Lin, Ku, and others, as well as the Dog Officer. Ch’üeh, who was most often appointed to sole authority,
⁴⁰
seems to have requested the assistance of royal clan forces.
⁴¹

In the twelfth month the king dispatched Ko and the indefatigable Ch’üeh to attack the Hsüan, but about this time the Wo discerned an opportunity in the chaos to escape the Shang yoke and similarly rebelled. Nevertheless, the Shang managed to prevail because inscriptions suddenly begin to ask whether certain generals will “get” or “obtain” the Hsüan and Wo,
⁴²
including one pair that suggests Ch’üeh and Yüeh may have both been in action against them
⁴³
and others that show Ch’üeh pursuing and capturing the enemy.
⁴⁴

Even though they were still capable of inflicting damage upon Shang forces at the end,
⁴⁵
the Hsüan were eventually forced to capitulate, and their leader, who had previously served as a diviner for King Wu Ting, surprisingly was able to resume his role at the Shang court despite the severity of his defiance.
⁴⁶
Their continued loyalty thereafter is also evident from the Chou deliberately targeting them during the drive to conquest, though the strength of the fortifications discovered in this area no doubt enhanced their importance as a Shang strongpoint.

A campaign tentatively dated to 1211 to 1210 BCE targeting the Chi-fang, insightfully reconstructed from chronological information embedded in oracular inscriptions that show several, often simultaneous expeditionary strikes being mounted against discrete enemies, provides an example of Shang efforts late in the first or early in the middle period.
⁴⁷
In aggregate, even allowing for the likelihood that many queries merely reflect action contemplated rather than undertaken, the impression
conveyed is one of unremitting (though sporadic) efforts involving multiple armies immersed in virtually continuous conflict.

Stretching over some six months from the twelfth month of one year through an intercalary thirteenth month and into the fifth month of the following year, Shang suppressive efforts against the Chi-fang, whose leader was known as Fou, unfolded amid multiple ongoing efforts against the states of Hsi (also transcribed as Chou and Tzu) and P’ei (similarly identified as P’i and Pu).
⁴⁸
An initial though apparently futile inquiry sought to determine whether a strike mounted under the king’s personal direction would inflict damage upon Hsi over the coming fourday period.
⁴⁹
This was then followed by a more fruitful prognostication ten days later questioning if the Shang would be successful the following day, the militarily significant
chia-tzu
. A subordinate commander named Chu is then recorded as having prevailed through an attack that commenced late in the day and continued into the early hours of the next,
chia-tzu
. This clash is noteworthy for having been undertaken so late, perhaps close to dusk, and turning into a night encounter, showing that even though night battles were generally eschewed in antiquity, they sometimes occurred through happenstance or tactical acumen.