Warfare in Ancient China

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Warfare in Ancient China

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1Fogies
Modifié : Nov 26, 2009, 9:47 am

A general in the time of Wang Mang (beginning of first millenium AD) responded to Mang’s order to mount a massive year-long campaign to crush the Xiongnu by proposing this strategy for quelling incursions of Central Asian nomads:
I have heard that the Xiongnu have been doing harm for a very long time. I have never heard of anyone in high antiquity who felt it necessary to bring them under control. Later the three houses of Zhou, Qin and Han tried to bring them under control, but none of them has devised the best strategy. Zhou devised a mediocre strategy, Han an inferior strategy, and Qin had no strategy at all with regard to them.
At the time of the Perspicuous King of Zhou, the Xianyun invaded as far as Jingyang. He ordered his generals to bring them under control. They went all the way to the border and turned back. Their view of barbarian incursions was to compare them to bites of mosquitoes or flies: just drive them away, that’s all. Thus everyone said they were smart. This is a mediocre strategy.
The Martial Emperor of Han sent hand-picked generals and crack troops, lightly equipped and with slender rations, invading deeply, far beyond the border regions (This is the expedition described in the poem in the thread Poems recalling the past.). Though he did accomplish much in the way of winning battles and taking captives, the Xiongnu retaliated immediately. War continued and disaster went on for more than thirty years. China was exhausted and impoverished, and the Xiongnu also took heavy casualties. Everyone said he was militant. This is an inferior strategy.
The First Emperor of Qin would not tolerate minor slights and cared little for the people’s exertions. He had the fastness of the long wall built, extending on and on for ten thousand li. The supply road along it began at the eastern seashore. When this boundary had been completed, China was used up, and thus his dynasty ended. This is to have no strategy.
Now the world feels the pinch of yang building up (they were in a severe drought); we have had hunger and famine for consecutive years. It is especially severe at the northwest frontier. To send out 300,000 men and assemble three hundred days’ rations could only be fully done by taking from as far as the sea and the province of Dai on the east and as far as the Yangtze and the Huai on the south. Reckoning how to do it, after a year we still won’t have got it together. The first units to arrive will have to camp out while building cantonments. The troops will be tired and their equipment worn out, not employable as a force. This is the first difficulty.
The frontierlands being uninhabited, they cannot supply food to the army. If it is requisitioned from the interior, no province is very near them. This is the second difficulty.
Calculating one man’s food for three hundred days, that will take 18 hu of dried rice. Nothing but oxen can haul that load. The oxen will also have to transport their own fodder. When we add 20 hu, that’s getting heavy. The sand and salt lands of the barbarians are mostly deficient in water and grass. Measuring by what has already happened, before the army is a hundred days out the oxen will be physically used up to the point of exhaustion, but there will still be a lot of food supplies which cannot be ported by men. This is the third difficulty.
The lands of the Northern tribes are extremely cold in winter and extremely windy in summer. If we tried to provide a lot of pots and pans and firewood and charcoal it would be too heavy to carry. If they eat only dried rice and drink water, passing four seasons in that manner would lead to pestilence among the expedition. That is why when our forerunners attacked Central Asia, it was never for more than a hundred days. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to go on longer, it was that their strength wasn’t up to it in that situation. That is the fourth difficulty.
If our baggage train accompanies us then our mobility will be reduced and we won’t be able to travel fast. The tribesmen can retreat at their leisure and our situation will prevent us from catching them. If we should happen to run into them we will still be encumbered by our baggage train. If we encounter a defile, going through single file, nose to tail, they will strike our front and rear in the constriction, putting us in no end of danger. That is difficulty number five.
To expend much of the people’s strength when success cannot be assured—I humbly object to that. Since arms have already been issued, it would be best to let the first to reach the enemy keep going, letting me and others go deep and strike a lightning blow aiming to inflict heavy casualties on the barbarians.

2jcbrunner
Nov 29, 2009, 9:52 am

Great selection!

As argued in Engels' Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army, oxen are slow and inefficient. In the ancient world, human carriers are just as efficient as draft animals.

A regular army will always be too slow to catch raiders - unless it employs economic warfare/genocide and destroys the raider's livelihood, cf. the US army's winter/spring campaigns against the Indians.

Another solution might have been an armed militia (Austria's Grenzer). Creating independent armed units, however, is inimical to most central governments (cf. Dong Zhou).

The text can also be seen as a testament that wars and expeditions into poor and undeveloped regions hardly ever produce gainful results but are likely to cause harm to the undertaking nation.

3Fogies
Modifié : Mai 21, 2010, 8:06 am

The excerpt in #1 illustrated Napoleon's remark about how an army travels. This excerpt from Legends of the Warring States illustrates his maxim about the relative value of the moral and the material in war. The army of Qin had won a huge battle with Zhao at Changping. The king wanted the winning general, Bai Qi, to attack again. ("Lord Military Security" (Wuanjun) was a title of nobility the king had bestowed on Bai Qi.)

"When the king had given his people a rest and had repaired his weapons, he again wanted to attack Zhao. Lord Military Security said, “It won’t do.” The king said, “Last year the state was bankrupt and the folk starving but you did not take our people’s condition into account when you asked for more troops and supplies to defeat Zhao. Now We have rested the folk so as to train soldiers, saved and stored grain for provisions and doubled the armies’ pay over what it was, yet you say it can’t be done. What is your explanation for that?” Lord Military Security said, “At Changping the Qin army won a big victory and the Zhao army took a big defeat. The Qin were delighted and the Zhao alarmed. The Qin dead were buried with honors and the wounded treated generously. We rewarded each other for our exertions by feasts and presents, using up our wealth. The Zhao dead could not be buried nor their wounded doctored. They cried for each other’s grief and labored at their common woe. They worked their fields frantically to build their wealth. Now even if Your Majesty sends out twice as many troops as before, I calculate the state of Zhao will have multiplied its defense by ten times. Ever since Changping, ruler and ministers have fretted and worried, going to court early and retiring late. By humble words and heavy bribes and marriage alliances with all neighboring states, they have drawn close Yen and Wei and have formed good relations with Qi and Chu. They have pooled their minds making plan upon plan with the object of preparing against Qin. Their state is firm within, their alliances complete without. At the present time, Zhao cannot yet be attacked. The king said, “I have already raised a force for this attack.”
He then sent the Wujiao official Wang Ling to be general in the attack on Zhao. Ling bungled the advantage in fighting the battle and lost Wujiao.
The king wanted to appoint Lord Military Security but he declined, pleading illness. The king then sent the Marquess of Ying to speak to Lord Military Security and take him to task in these words: “The land of Chu is five thousand li square and has a million spearmen. You, sir, have led tens of thousands into Chu, taking Yen and Ying and burning their ancestral temple, as far east as Jingling. The Chu were so terrified they fled east and did not dare look west.
Han and Wei egged each other on to raise enormous armies. You did battle with them at Yique and smashed the armies of both states, making enough blood flow to float their shields and cutting off 240, 000 heads although the levies you led could not have amounted to half their numbers. To this day Han and Wei call themselves eastern allies of Qin for that reason. This feat of yours is known to the whole world. Here we have the Zhao dead at Changping fully seventy to eighty percent. Their state is emptied and weakened. Therefore We will attack on a grand scale with many times the soldiers Zhao has. I want to appoint you as general; we will surely then be on the point of conquering them. You have won victory by attacking many with few as if by magic—how much the more so would you by attacking few with many!
Lord Military Security said, “At the time you mentioned, the king of Chu relied on his state’s being large and did not trouble himself about its government, so the ministers were jealous of each other’s accomplishments. Flatterers were in charge and good men driven away. The people’s allegiance wavered. The walls and moats were not kept in repair. He had neither good ministers nor prepared defenses. As to what I, Qi, gained by that, he withdrew his forces deep within the country, abandoned many of his forts and towns, opened dams and burned boats to concentrate people’s minds and pillaged his own countryside to eke out the army’s rations. At this time all in Qin felt as if while on military service they were at home and the generals and commanders were their parents. They needed no pacts to make them friendly nor prearrangements to make them steadfast. Being all of one mind they shared all the credit, nor did they flee from death. The Chu were fighting on their own territory, looking over their shoulders at their own homes. All were of a mind to disperse, none wanting combat. Thus I was able to win. At the battle of Yique, Han looked only to Wei, not wanting to put its troops into action ahead of them. Wei relied on the high state of Han’s training, urging them to act as spearhead. The power of the two armies that vied for advantage was not merged, so I was able to firm up my force in preparation, waiting for the Han to form up. I concentrated my army and combined my crack units, smashing into the unsuspecting Wei. When Wei had been defeated, the Han army decamped of its own accord and I took advantage of the victory to pursue the fugitives. This is how I accomplished that. I always worked out what would be the best position and how natural principles would apply. What is there magic about that?
Now Qin has smashed the Zhao army at Changping but did not go on to seize the occasion to take advantage of their panic and destroy them. Out of apprehension we let them escape to plow and sow, increasing their stores, to feed orphans and educate young men, increasing their manpower, to put their arms and armor in good order, increasing their strength and to heighten their walls and dredge their moats, increasing their defenses. The ruler bends over backwards to defer to the ministers; the ministers exaggerate their postures to honor the dead officers. This goes so far as the entourage of Lord Plains all sending their wives out to the route camps to mend the soldiers’ clothing for them. Ministers and men are of one mind, high and low unite their efforts, as it was in the time when Gou Jian was beset at Guiji. If you try to overwhelm them, Zhao will surely hold firm. If you challenge their army to battle, they will surely not accept. If you beseige their capital, you are sure to find it unconquerable. If you attack their other cities, you are sure to find them not yet to be taken. If you pillage their countryside, you are sure to get nothing. If our expedition accomplishes nothing, the other states will see an opportunity and their assistance to Zhao will follow. I see damage in this; no benefit appears to me."