Ancient Chinese Warfare (7 page)

Having been constructed with three different techniques, the walls at Hsi-shan are unusually complex. They consist of a tapered original core, a second outer wall added for additional strength, and finally a top
layer that extends across both of them and increased the overall height. (This top layer is said to be composed of looser sand, no doubt evidence of an urgent need to improve the fortifications in the face of external threats.) The core wall’s augmented portion encroached upon the original ditch, requiring that it be filled and another one cut further out, a highly laborious double procedure.

The inner wall, which was constructed atop a slight excavated foundation of perhaps 0.5 meter, stands about 1.6 meters high; the extended outer wall was built to a matching height; and the 4.35-meter-wide augmentation at the top raised the overall profile 0.74 meter, though current remnants vary between 1.75 and 2.5 meters. The fortifications average 3 to 5 meters in width, though the heavily strengthened corners expand to 8 meters and protrude slightly higher.

The walls were constructed from layers of pounded soil that had ash and fibrous plants intermixed in it for strength. The center section, which varies somewhat in width, and the other two portions used a total of three techniques. Rather than being continuously laid down within forms that were shifted after completing each section, the core basically employed a sectional block method. Although tamping had long been employed, Hsi-shan is said to be the first site to use forms to constrain the soil being compacted.
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Evidence of holes from the posts that retained the boards can still be discerned, but it is limited, and some parts of the wall were constructed by simply piling the dirt up and pounding it.

The boards also differed in size, resulting in a lack of uniformity in the extent and height of the individual layers. (They varied between 1.5 and 2 meters for the longitudinal portion and 1.2 meters for the cross-sectional portion, three blocks being required to create a core width of 5 meters.) Boards of 5-centimeter thickness and about 0.5 meter in width were apparently employed to create the core wall’s slightly laddered shape, but the layers within the individual sections vary from 4-5 centimeters thick in the well-pounded areas to 8-10 centimeters in the looser areas and outer wall.

Gaps for entrances punctuate the wall remnants on the north and east, a bridge originally spanned the moat on the west, and there was also a gap in the moat opposite the north gate. Although the opening
was about 10 meters wide, this potential weak point was shielded by a 7-meter-long protective wall centered in the gap but erected about 5 meters to the exterior, resulting in an advanced defensive device. Although only 1.5 meters wide, it had been pounded hard for permanence. The external ditch, generally described as a moat, was continuous except for a single break opposite the north gate. Reports of its extent vary, but it was at least 3.5 meters wide and had a minimally functional depth of 1.5 meters, though portions seem to have reached 7 meters in width and perhaps 4 meters deep.

Contrary to the rarely disputed view that large Chinese walled sites were deliberately created as military and administrative centers rather than the product of economic activity, Hsi-shan seems to have been based on trade.
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Several reasons have been offered for this conclusion, the most important being the town’s location near the Yellow River just where the mountains and plains intersect. Clearly advantageous for defense, the topography was equally conducive to communication, transport, and interaction with the numerous nearby settlements that it apparently dominated to some degree. Highly favorable to agriculture, the area was still marked by enough localized differences to ensure some diversity in indigenous products, a requisite for trade.

The presence of numerous well-constructed storage pits indicates that in addition to functioning as a trading center, Hsi-shan was a production site for ceramics. Both the size and number of the storage pits increased over time, coincident with the town’s walls being improved and refurbished, suggesting that prosperity was the driving force behind the augmented defenses. The several strongpoints visible around Hsi-shan provide further evidence of an ongoing need to thwart raiders and brigands.

Numerous Lungshan sites that have been identified in the middle and lower Yellow River and Yangtze basins similarly provide impressive evidence of fortification activity on a massive scale.
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Meng-chuang, located on the plains just south of the T’ai-hang Mountains and somewhat north of the Yellow River despite being in Henan, was established on a low terrace in an extremely wet area that continues to be marked by numerous springs, rivers, and very high groundwater levels even today. Inhabited from the P’ei-li-kang cultural strata onward, it was initially
fortified about 2400 BCE and then continuously occupied until about 2100 BCE, the end of the Lungshan period, after which it lay deserted for perhaps two centuries.
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Meng-chuang’s abandonment has generally been attributed to severe flood damage and its demise seen as evidence that great floods occurred toward the end of the twenty-second century BCE due to a brief climatic shift.
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Essentially a rectangle that extended 375 meters north to south and 340 east to west, the 14-meter-wide fortifications were constructed by excavating the soil to the interior and exterior of the walls and then pounding it between framed boards, traces of which have been found on the interior side. This produced an inner ditch some 6 to 8 meters wide and 2 to 3 meters deep and a 20-meter-wide moat marked by depths of 3.8 to 4.8 meters. The wall attained a maximum height of 4 meters in the east but apparently varied considerably, perhaps having been only half a meter high in the west at one time. Ten meters of open ground, sufficient for defensive purposes, interceded between the wall’s exterior and the moat.

The so-called Hai-tai Shandong Lungshan culture (2600 to 2000 BCE) was early on marked by an important innovation, the excavation and careful buildup of foundation trenches under the walls.
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Important sites include Pien-hsien-wang, Ting-kung, and T’ien-wang, but perhaps the most significant is Ch’eng tzu-yai on the lower reaches of the Yellow River, which dates to about 2500 BCE. The somewhat rectangular town was surrounded by hard-packed earthen walls that ran 450 meters from north to south and 390 meters east to west.
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Erected on the banks of an old river that also served as the moat’s water source, the walls once rose about 6 meters above ground level. Being just 13.8 meters wide at the base and 7 to 9 meters at the top, they are strikingly narrow for such height, especially as the interior had a gradual slope and only the outer face was nearly vertical.
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Moreover, the walls were constructed on top of an extensive foundation trench up to 3 meters deep and 13.8 meters wide that was composed of layers of dirt strengthened with intermixed stones. In addition, they were fronted by a sharply defined ditch around the outside from which much of the soil was taken, whereas the area outside the walls seems to have been given a slight downward gradient before construction began.

At Ch’eng tzu-yai the foundation consists of well-compacted, generally uniform layers approximately 12-14 centimeters thick. The walls all display identical construction techniques, each ascending layer being roughly 3 centimeters narrower, no doubt the result of placing the boards at the top of the previous layer, creating a ladderlike effect. Despite the somewhat greater irregularity in the density and thickness of the layers found in the outer portions of the wall, the technique of tamping earth between well-constructed forms was already somewhat advanced. Evidence that pounding tools 3 centimeters in diameter were employed remains visible on the major layer surfaces, but not on the multiple thin layers that almost indistinguishably comprise them.

In contrast with earlier plateau settlements (
chü-ch’iu
) that minimally improved the topography’s natural advantages and relied on relatively primitive barriers, Ch’eng-tzu-yai represents the new stage of so-called platform cities or
t’ai-ch’eng
, towns well fortified with significant walls. Unfortunately, Ch’eng tzu-yai’s dating is marred by discrepancies that affect its evaluation and detract from possibly identifying it as an early Hsia capital.
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However, the walls were probably first constructed around 2600 BCE and repaired and rebuilt numerous times thereafter.
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Furthermore, an older, somewhat larger Lungshan town underlies it, suggesting that the site had been occupied for centuries before it eventually reached some 200,000 square meters and was populated by tens of thousands. Some forty minor Lungshan sites have been discovered within a twenty-five-kilometer radius, most averaging about 20,000 square meters even though six fall between 30,000 and 60,000, evidence that Ch’eng-tzu-yai functioned as a significant focus of power.

Also located in Henan but along the middle reaches of the Yellow River is P’ing-liang-t’ai, a typical Lungshan fortified town (dated to about 4355 BP) marked by an interior that had been deliberately raised some 3 to 5 meters above the surrounding countryside.
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A slightly distorted square with rounded corners, its four 185-meter-long walls enclose a dwelling area of 34,500 square meters. The wall’s remnants show a height of between 3 and 3.5 meters and a width tapering from 13 meters at the base to between 8 and 10 meters at the top. Two gate openings have been discovered in the north and south walls along with evidence of small guardhouses built from unfired brick on either side of the south
gate. A stone road runs directly between the two gates, and ceramic drainpipes ensured the inner grounds would remain dry. A broad moat some 30 meters in width and with an original depth of approximately 3 meters (whose excavated soil was incorporated into the walls) provided a formidable initial line of defense.
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P’ing-liang-t’ai’s walls were apparently erected in an unusual twostage effort by first constructing a thin core wall 0.8 to 0.85 meter wide and 1.2 meters high from preformed blocks of brown clay interspersed with burnt clay fragments. The 15- and 20-centimeter-thick layers of yellow and grayish soil were pounded hard within frames built from small boards, marking the first site to use small rather than wide planking. (Surface impressions indicate that the round and oval pounding tools were bundled in groups of four.) An outer wall was then raised against this inner core with similar techniques until the top was reached, whereupon the conventional rammed earth process was employed to increase the height of the continuous wall now formed by the original core and outer-facing portion. Although somewhat more advanced, the technique is similar to that employed at Ch’eng-tzu-yai and therefore considered comparatively primitive.

Ching-yang-kang lies about four kilometers from the Yellow River’s present course at a sort of cultural crossroads in Shandong. Encompassing roughly 380,000 square meters within a slightly rounded but essentially rectangular enclosure, it constitutes one of the largest sites yet found in the Yellow River plains area. The perimeter totals roughly 1,150 meters, but the rectangle varies in width between 300 and 400 meters. The walls, which are about 19 to 20.5 meters at the base and taper to between 10.5 and 12.5 meters at the top, still retain a remnant height of 2 to 3 meters. (The site was continuously occupied right through the Ch’ing dynasty, the original fortifications being repaired and reconstructed about ten times over the intervening 4,000 years.) The walls, all erected on excavated foundations, consist of multiple layers made up of distinctive though repeated types of earth that range between 5 and 20 centimeters in thickness, the greatest variation being found at the top and bottom.
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Vestiges of concentric inner and outer walls define the important bastion of Pien-hsien-wang, strategically located on a terrace between
two old rivers in northern Shandong.
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However, the walls were neither constructed nor employed at the same time, the outer one having replaced the inner and even used portions of it to protect a greatly expanded area. Roughly 240 meters on a side, they encompassed 57,000 square meters within a somewhat irregular square marked by rounded corners and 10-meter-wide gate openings on all four sides. The fortifications were constructed from unusually thin layers a mere 4 to 10 centimeters thick and erected on excavated foundations that range between 7 and 8 meters wide.

The original, square inner compound of just 10,000 square meters was protected by 100-meter-long walls with a base width of 4 to 6 meters that were erected on a deep foundation trench. The pounding tools seem to have varied from oval to circular and been distinctively larger than at other sites, often 10 centimeters in diameter. The outer wall dates to about 1800 BCE, the inner one approximately a century earlier.
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The destruction of much of the latter during the outer’s construction provides an unusual glimpse into the dynamics of settlement expansion and the growth of power centers.

Located in Hubei near Ching-chou on the river plain formed by the Chiang and Han rivers, Yin-hsiang-ch’eng consists of a significant wall system that at one time underwent a major reconstruction.
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Although both of the wall’s phases date to early in the Ch’ü-chia-ling cultural phase, the site must have been strategically advantageous, because the fortifications were erected over a Ta-hsi Wen-hua cultural layer and the town was continuously occupied down through the Shang and Chou dynasties. Constructed on massive foundations that attain an expansive 46 meters on the eastern side, the walls generally vary between 10 and 25 meters wide. Even though major portions are missing, the 900-meter remnants suggest that the total length may have been 1,500 to 1,600 meters. Although presently standing only 1 to 2 meters over the raised interior platform, they tower 5 to 6 meters over the outer moat, forcing anyone who successfully negotiated the 30- to 40-meter watery span to confront a very formidable height.