Ancient Chinese Warfare (19 page)

Effecting this sort of revolution would have required a lengthy period to accumulate essential materials, forge alliances, and gradually overcome nearby recalcitrant states. At what point King T’ang first became enamored of regal power is unknown, although
Mencius
suggests that Yi Yin may have been instrumental in persuading him to undertake an armed rebellion because Chieh’s odiousness was growing and the people were becoming increasingly disaffected.
³³
The first entry of importance
in the
Bamboo Annals
, for Chieh’s fifteenth year, indicates that King T’ang moved his people to a site called Po, a designation that has been interpreted as basically signifying any site the Shang central government occupied rather than a particular place-name. Presumably this was to position himself away from the Hsia’s immediate power and pernicious influence, contrary to postulates that Po was Cheng-chou or Chiao-tsuo, both within easy marching distance of the capital at Erh-li-t’ou. At this early stage the move must have been sanctioned by Chieh, insofar as he apparently had appointed the Shang as a
fang-po
or ducal state entrusted with military authority to act on behalf of the Hsia.

Thereafter, according to the
Bamboo Annals
, in Chieh’s seventeenth year the Shang dispatched Yi Yin to the Hsia, where he remained for three years before returning. Perhaps with an eye toward ultimately attacking the Hsia, commencing with Chieh’s twenty-first year the Shang began to exert its military power by conquering the Luo before going on to mount a repressive expedition against Ching in the south, subjugating them as well, possibly on behalf of the Hsia if traditional accounts are to be believed. Ta-shih-ku may also have been seized about this time,
³⁴
causing Chieh to become suspicious.

When King T’ang foolishly ventured to Chieh’s court in the twenty-third year he was imprisoned in the Summer Tower, where he remained for a year before finally being freed. Why Chieh shortsightedly failed to execute him is unknown, but immediately after his release many of the so-called lords ventured to T’ang’s court, where they were welcomed as honored guests.
³⁵
The king must have cultivated these and similar relationships with such eastern groups as the Yu-shih, Yu-jeng, Yu-hsin, and Yu-pi for some three years before initiating the campaign that exterminated the Wen.
³⁶

In Chieh’s twenty-eighth year the K’un-wu, no doubt perturbed by the specter of Shang power and, as another
fang-po
, perhaps acting as Chieh’s alter ego, attacked the Shang, with indeterminate results. After convening his allies, King T’ang went on to seize Wei and mount an unsuccessful assault on Ku, which proved unconquerable until the next year, presumably in another campaign rather than as the result of a protracted siege. (About this time, perhaps foreseeing imminent doom, the Hsia’s Chief Historian fled to the Shang, in itself a highly baleful omen.)
The Shang then mounted punitive expeditions against the K’un-wu in each of the next two years, finally defeating them after attacking the Chen-hsün by way of Erh in Chieh’s thirty-first year.

The final clash between the Shang and Hsia melodramatically unfolded at Ming-t’iao amid severe thunder and rain, well befitting the overthrow of one dynasty and establishment of another. However, King Chieh somehow managed to escape and found refuge among the San-tsung, compelling T’ang to march against the San-tsung and defeat them at Ch’en, eventually capturing Chieh at Chiao-men. Remarkably, according to the
Bamboo Annals
and many other accounts, King T’ang exiled Chieh to Nan-ch’ao in Anhui rather than executing him. Ironically, the last ruler of the Shang—historically portrayed as a perverse clone of King Chieh—would suffer a far more violent fate in essentially the same circumstances.

Certain aspects of these events as chronicled by the
Bamboo Annals
may be usefully amplified by other sources, insofar as they seem to have preserved vestiges of the events or became historically important thereafter. First, in particular, although Mencius frequently emphasized the power of Virtue attracting and conquering, one of his passages notes that a total of eleven different military actions were required before the Shang could subdue the Hsia and its allies, hardly the sweeping victory of Virtue unopposed! Irrespective of any hostile intent, some of these states probably had to be preemptively eliminated to preclude their exploiting the power vacuum created by the absence of Shang military forces.

Second, in a passage describing why the Shang attacked Ko that no doubt reflects the new theoretical concerns with ritual practice prevalent at the time of its composition in the middle Warring States period, the “welfare of the people,” thereafter the watchword of many military actions and theoretical writings, came to be emphasized:

This passage came to exert a formidable influence on court debates about military action, and the concept of not disturbing the people by campaigning solely against the chief miscreants, though rarely observed in practice, proved to be particularly important. It was also increasingly emphasized in such classic military writings as the
Ssu-ma Fa
as the carnage escalated dramatically in the Warring States period and was frequently raised during the chaos of subsequent millenarian revolts and dynastic overthrows.
³⁹

As to other aspects, the
Lü-shih Ch’un-ch’iu
, a late third-century BCE eclectic text, contains an expanded discussion of Yi Yin’s career that focuses on his activities as a spy rather than virtuous adviser. In essence, Sun-tzu’s assertion that, “in antiquity, when the Shang arose, they had Yi Yin in the Hsia. When the Chou arose, they had Lü Ya in the Shang,” canonized him as one of China’s first two spies.
⁴⁰
Nevertheless, writings such as the
Shang Shu
not only fail to sustain Sun-tzu’s opinion, but instead portray him as a recluse who deliberately sought out King T’ang and persuaded him to embark on the righteous course that could sweep away the Hsia.
⁴¹

The
Lü-shih Ch’un-ch’iu
preserves a dramatic passage that not only integrates the virtues of a moral paragon with the deviousness of a seasoned spy, but also shows that King T’ang created a painful cover story for Yi Yin:

This episode already incorporates many crucial elements of spycraft. First, from the outset Yi Yin was deliberately employed as a covert agent to gather critical intelligence about the Hsia and its ruler. Second, he was given a plausible pretext for seeking refuge with Chieh, an arrow wound emblematic of T’ang’s hatred. Third, Chieh had not only succumbed to licentiousness but also committed the fatal mistake of displacing his consort, who then acted as an archetypal slighted beauty by secretly revealing the king’s nightmare to Yi Yin. T’ang’s astonished reaction to Yi Yin’s initial report similarly indicates the importance of prophetic events, dreams, sayings, and phenomena in this era.

Encouraged to undertake otherwise dubious campaign measures, King T’ang scripted a scenario that would actualize Chieh’s secret fears, including an assault from the west. Although the choice of direction was dictated by the nightmare, it may have been tactically advantageous because the Hsia probably left the west comparatively undefended on
the assumption that any attack would originate in the east. Chieh’s downfall was also undoubtedly hastened because the hostile state of Min-shan had wisely exploited the debilitating power of women and sex by presenting two new concubines, intended to fascinate him and thereby deter further assaults on their small state.

A millennium after these events military theorists such as Wu-tzu would emphasize the need to probe the enemy with minor stimuli to accurately gauge personality and intent. An incident preserved in the
Shuo Yüan
, a first-century BCE thematic compilation, envisions Yi Yin as having advocated just this sort of probe:
⁴³

Whether the Hsia had degenerated to the degree attributed to Chieh, the Shang simply excelled as history’s first propagandists, or Chou and later spin doctors concocted the whole tale may never be known. However, it seems likely that Chieh’s behavior had so antagonized the Hsia clan states and other peoples that they welcomed an alternative under which they might enjoy greater freedom—or at least fewer burdens—and by being early supporters, perhaps more prestige and therefore independence.

King T’ang is portrayed as having visibly cultivated and consciously manifested an image of solicitude and righteousness. This would have attracted more distant peoples, especially those suffering under the yoke of Hsia tributary demands, and cemented nearby allegiances, creating the requisite foundation for attacking King Chieh. When the Shang
finally struck, their motivation was ostensibly righteous, and they apparently claimed that as Heaven (or Ti on High) sanctioned the change, the Hsia had forfeited its legitimacy. (At this moment the late concept of a “mandate of Heaven” had not yet been formulated, but the idea that the rulers could lose the blessing of Ti, to whom the Shang would constantly appeal in their divinations, and thus the right to rule, well coheres with subsequent Shang religious thought.)