Ancient Chinese Warfare (43 page)

Later writings envision the
yüeh
as having played a highly symbolic role in the initial years of the Shang and Chou dynasties. For example, the
Shih Chi
states that “T’ang grasped the
yüeh
himself in order to attack the K’un-wo and then Chieh, king of the Hsia.”
¹⁶
Similarly, King Wu of the Chou reportedly held a yellow
yüeh
in his left hand when his army proceeded against the Shang and employed it to chop off Emperor Hsin’s head after the Battle of Mu-yeh.
¹⁷
Hsin’s execution with a
yüeh
fully accords with the idea that in antiquity “they first employed armor and weapons in major punishments, next
fu
and
yüeh
.”
¹⁸
Furthermore, presumably as described in the
Liu-t’ao
ritual already reprised, Chou dynasty command authority was bestowed upon a newly appointed commander-in-chief through the symbolic passing of both a
fu
and a
yüeh
.
¹⁹

The
yüeh
’s comparatively broad face also presented an extensive area for elaborate decorations, including abstract patterns and three-dimensional figures such as animal heads highly symbolic of power that project one to two centimeters out from the upper blade. The addition of “incised” (intaglio) embellishments required parts of the blade to be thickened, resulting in otherwise identically shaped blades displaying different profiles when viewed edgewise.

As the result of new grinding techniques, by the middle Neolithic the utilitarian axe or
fu
had already moved beyond the earliest stages of flaking and percussive forming to be fairly well defined and comparatively smooth. Some of the earliest, essentially rectangular P’ei-li-kang examples that date to about 5300-5200 BCE, although still small at only
6 to 12 centimeters in length and simply lashed to a shaft without any binding holes, show extensive signs of use.
²⁰
Although a few specimens of comparable size from this era reached 3.5 centimeters in thickness, most are a rather thin 1.0 to 1.5 centimeters and some have a single hole in the blade to facilitate lashing.
²¹
Thereafter, even though smaller sizes for specialized purposes and exceptions that attain dimensions comparable to
yüeh
and presumably had a combat use continue to be recovered from individual sites,
fu
gradually became larger, more rectangular, and heavier.
²²

Despite being generally thought of as a comparatively late, regal weapon,
yüeh
already appear in the late Neolithic, especially in the south. A few clearly show evidence of use, but the many characterized by thin, nonfunctional stone blades and complete lack of discernible wear indicate that the
yüeh
must have already assumed a symbolic function even in classic Lungshan cultural manifestations. For example, even though the twelve stone
yüeh
recovered from a Hubei site vary in blade length from 11 to 22 centimeters and in width from 9 to 17.8, their thickness ranges from a mere 1.0 centimeter down to a useless 0.5, with many being about 0.8 centimeter, possibly a compromise between weight and substantiality.
²³
(One
yüeh
only 0.6 centimeter thick shows signs of wear, suggesting 0.6 centimeter might have been the lower limit for any sort of functional blade thickness.)
²⁴
The
yüeh
at this site already display three of the basic five shapes: rectangular, a gradually expanding blade, and the pinched waist or slight hourglass shape. All twelve have a large binding hole in the upper third of the blade but no tabs or other lashing slots. At another Hubei site whose
yüeh
has been termed a tool rather than weapon, the blade seems to have been inserted into the shaft before lashing in three directions.
²⁵

The greatest concentration of late Neolithic
yüeh
blades having been found in the Liang-chu culture, which was centered in Jiangsu province and flourished from about 3000 to 2000 BCE, suggests that developments in the south provided the impetus for the weapon’s adoption in the Shang, especially as Fu Hao’s
yüeh
(described below) is decorated with a southern tiger motif associated with the indigenous Hu culture. Furthermore,
yüeh
have also been recovered from an incipient Liang-chu cultural site at Ch’ang-shu that has been dated even earlier, somewhere
between 3500 and 3000 BCE. Nine of the fourteen graves there, including four of distinctively higher rank, contain a total of twenty-five specimens in four different styles that display little or no signs of use.
²⁶
Because some of the skeletons were incomplete and showed other signs of being casualties of war, the excavators concluded they had been brought back for burial and that the
yüeh
were symbols of martial power. Generally rectangular in shape and still small at only 12 to 14 centimeters in length, the relatively smooth, thin blades still had sharp edges.
²⁷

Another eleven
yüeh
have recently been discovered amid artifacts dated from 4500 to 3500 BCE at San-hsing-ts’un (not to be confused with San-hsing-tui), also in Jiangsu.
²⁸
Apart from a single jade specimen, they are all smoothly worked stone versions whose blades were affixed by partly inserting the top into a wooden shaft, allowing the unusual addition of a carved bone filial or cap along the shaft just above the blade. All the
yüeh
have medium to large lashing holes in the upper portion of the blade, and the shafts apparently once had end caps carved from bone or teeth attached. Recovered shaft remnants of 45 and 53 centimeters conclusively show that they were easily managed, single-handed weapons designed to be wielded with a well-controlled forearm motion.
²⁹

Six tombs dating to the late middle phase of Liang-chu culture, located somewhat more westward on the plains in the T’ai-hu area, contain a surprising nine
yüeh
among just thirteen stone objects.
³⁰
Both stone and jade versions were recovered, with the latter generally being more polished and symmetrical in shape than the stone specimens.
³¹
However, symbolic
yüeh
in both stone and jade have been found even farther afield, both to the north in Liaoning and along the coast in Fujian. A basically square jade specimen dating to the Hungshan culture, recovered in Liaoning, has a well-rounded blade, large center hole, and unusual small double hole with a connecting slot for binding near the top. Just 12.4 centimeters high, 10.5 centimeters wide, and an extremely thin 0.6 centimeter, it has been identified as a purely symbolic martial form that evolved from earlier tools.
³²
Neolithic examples recovered in Fujian dating to a distinctively late 2000 BCE are, however, still small and basically similar in style to the
fu
simultaneously discovered, much in keeping with the general trend of imitating Shang bronze weapons such as the dagger-axe in stone.
³³

The latest concentration of Liang-chu stone
yüeh
dates to somewhere between 2000 and 1700 BCE and thus falls within the predynastic Shang’s horizon.
³⁴
Twenty-eight
fu
and five
yüeh
have been discovered in just twenty-three graves at this Shanghai area site, evidence that they played an important role in this somewhat peripheral manifestation. Perhaps most significant but of uncertain meaning, a youth in one grave was accompanied by two
fu
and three
yüeh
. However, their interment is thought to be an expression of hope for the afterlife, because the inhabitants dwelled in a complex society that integrated agriculture, warfare, and hunting, one in which the
fu
and
yüeh
were both tools and weapons.
³⁵

Reconstructing the
yüeh
’s history in bronze is rendered somewhat difficult by the comparative lack of samples, only 200 or so having been recovered from the Shang and earlier eras in comparison with 1,000 spears and perhaps 2,000 dagger-axes, as well as the presence of anomalies and the persistence of older versions.
³⁶
Nevertheless, perhaps because of their uniqueness,
yüeh
are prominently mentioned in excavation reports, making it possible to discern certain trends in size and complexity, though not with any great linearity. The most basic forms were square and rectangular, but variants that gradually expand outward down the whole length of the blade quickly appeared. Further modifications included rounding the top somewhat, imparting curvature to the blade ranging from slight to extreme, reducing the middle portion to produce a sort of hourglass-shaped axe, and various combinations of these developments.
³⁷

The earliest heads were initially mounted by simply lashing the somewhat ill-defined blades to a shaft, thereafter by partially inserting them into a shaft and lashing with multiple bindings that passed through a two- to three-centimeter hole in the upper third of the blade. However, tabbed and socketed blades also quickly developed, the former utilizing a tab created by reducing the blade’s width at the top by about 50 percent to produce a rectangular portion that could be passed through a slotted shaft. As a result the outer portions of the blade pushed against the staff, while the lashing hole, frequently found in the protruding portion of the tab, and two additional binding slots in the upper shoulders ensured fastness. In some versions flanges provided additional surface area,
reducing wobble and preventing push-through. Socketed versions, which developed in the northwest, primarily relied on a tight mechanical fit between the interior of the socket and the shaft, both generally rendered somewhat oval to reduce blade rotation in use, but pegs and early nails were sometimes employed to augment the solidity.

Two rather simple bronze
yüeh
recently recovered from Erh-li-t’ou mark the actual inception of the cast form. The first one discovered, a rectangular blade some 23.5 centimeters long but only 3.1 centimeters wide, was originally (and it would seem correctly) termed a
fu
but has now been reclassified as a
yüeh
or possibly a
ch’i
. However, the second is decidedly less controversial, a sort of rectangle that splays out slightly at the bottom of the blade area, has a decorative band near the top, and would have been lashed through one moderately sized hole. Rather small, with a total length of 13.5 centimeters and a width that tapers inward from 7.6 at the blade edge to 6.1 centimeters at the top, it is marked by a low tin content of 5.7 percent and extreme thinness of 0.5 to 0.6 centimeter, evidence of being a symbolic embodiment.
³⁸

Although stone versions would continue to be produced throughout the Shang, bronze
yüeh
begin to be noticeable at Yen-shih and Cheng-chou, become somewhat more common after the government’s shift to Anyang, and then basically disappear by the end of the Chou. Increasingly an emblem of power, the bronze specimens discovered in the core domain and down at P’an-lung-ch’eng (dated to the upper Erh-li-kang) reflect the era’s vastly improved metallurgical techniques, including the ability to mold increasingly intricate designs in the walls of ritual vessels and onto
yüeh
blades, particularly in comparison with the more pedestrian
fu
that would always be found in vastly greater numbers.
³⁹

For example, although one of the three
yüeh
recovered from P’an-lung-ch’eng is plain, the largest
yüeh
discovered to date in China (at 41.4 centimeters long and 26.7 centimeters wide) displays a somewhat classic bell shape that tapers outward toward the blade, an unusually long tab without
any holes, two large rectangular binding slots but no flanges, and a rounded blade edge. It incorporates a very large hole in the center of the blade (as shown in outline), and an intaglio design decorates the border and the upper portion below the shoulder.

The second, considerably smaller
yüeh
, at 24.4 centimeters long and 13.3 centimeters wide, has more visibly pinched-in sides, a comparatively short but wide tab without any holes, an even larger center hole, and two binding slots on the shoulders. However, the third
yüeh
is a unique semicircle 22 centimeters high that flares upward into points, and has a huge beveled hole in the center of the blade, narrow shoulders, and a short tab but two large binding slots.

By the early reigns at Yin-hsü the
fu
and
yüeh
had basically realized their final form. However, rather than being produced in large quantities like the
fu
, individual
yüeh
were cast in extremely small numbers, often individually for specific people. They therefore lack the
fu
’s uniform weights and dimensions and embody far more complex, often extravagant decorations ranging from abstract, “incised” or intaglio
t’ao-t’ieh
motifs through raised depictions of animals, faces, and the pernicious grimace molded into China’s most famous
yüeh
, shown in outline below.
⁴⁰
Although trade and other forms of interchange resulted in examples of highly localized styles being disseminated throughout China, few socketed
yüeh
have been recovered at Yin-hsü, the majority (including in the early stage) employing centered tabs for mounting. A large bronze
yüeh
with an iron blade and another bronze
yüeh
decorated with an animal motif have also been recovered at T’ai-hsi.
⁴¹