A History of Traditional Chinese Military Science

The Status and Value of Military Science

Military affairs have always played an important role in social life and penetrated all the fields and levels of history in China. For example, the most advanced productivity often originated from the military field and transferred to science and technology later. This was the case as early as the pre-Qin era. The record of “using the good metal to make knives and swords…and bad metal to make hoes, axes, and ploughs”¹ shows how military technology represented the top productivity in society. Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, this has remained the yardstick in social production. The improvement of warship building, the progress of construction technology, the use of gunpowder and firearms, and the foundry of advanced steel weapons all epitomized sophisticated productivity in the corresponding periods and facilitated the technological improvement in other production fields.

The central position of military affairs in history is also manifested in the political sphere. In ancient China, the disintegration and unification of states, the transitions between dynasties, the struggle and strife among political forces, the uprisings of common people, and the integration of ethnic groups within the Chinese nation were mostly achieved through war. From the strengthening of centralized power, the improvement of institutions and systems to the implementation of major reform measures, the military often served as the main theme. The so-called centralized power was, above all, the concentration of military power, which could be clearly seen from the system change and administrative transformation through dynasties: the Qin and Han monarchs controlled the dispatchment of troops with tiger-shaped tallies, and the emperor of the Northern Song famously discharged the military power of commanders at a private banquet; Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, replaced the Five Military Commissions with the single Chief Military Commission, and the Qing Dynasty established the Grand Council (literarily “the Office of Military Plans”), the top decision-making body which allowed the emperor to control the government more efficiently. National legal systems and regulations often originated in the army and were applied to the whole society later. For example, the popular shi wu lianzuofa 十五连坐法 in the Warring States Period, i.e., a law that held the family accountable for an individual’s crime, and the system of 20 military ranks of honor in the state of Qin, both started as pure military practices and evolved into general systems of penalty that sought to regulate the entire society. In this sense, the military can be seen as a forerunner in the construction of the national system and holds the pioneering role in state politics. As for the major reforms in Chinese history, they were unanimously dominated by military contents. The system of shang shou gong 尚首功 in the Shang Yang reform, the system of baojia 保甲 and jiangbing 将兵 in Wang Anshi’s reform, and the measures to rectify the border in Zhang Juzheng’s reform are all typical examples.

The crucial importance of military affairs in world history is equally undeniable. Early Western history works, such as Herodotus’ The Histories, Thucydides’ The History of the Peloponnesian War, Julius Caesar’s The War in Gaul, and Xenophon’s The Persian Expedition were mostly military histories. This tradition prevails to this day and research on military history remains popular. Studies on war, strategy, army establishment, combat technology, armament, military geography, and military figures are productive and sophisticated, one of the representatives being The Cambridge History of Warfare edited by Geoffrey Parker. Correspondingly, military history is an important and influential division in historiography and enjoys a high academic status.

In the studies of military history, research on the evolution of military thought, i.e., military science, is the central focus, which is not surprising, since the history of thought is the most profound level of history, and only by understanding people’s motivations and reflections can one really understand the essence of human activity. As Professor Lin Dehong suggests: the sequence of history study starts from cultural relics, moves on to historical activities and finally enters the realm of thought. In other words, without reaching the level of human thought, one cannot possibly acquire a complete and essential understanding of human history.²

Military thought is the core and soul of the long-standing and well-established Chinese military tradition. As the spiritual epitome and philosophical sublimation of various military phenomena and the high-level abstraction of specific military issues, it regulates the entire military system and reveals the general law of military development. Therefore, it deserves to become the focus of military historiography and an important part in the general intellectual history.

Military thought, to use a more standardized academic term, is military science. Military science in ancient China refers to the school of thought in Chinese history that discussed basic military issues, the guiding principles and general methods of war, and the universal laws and major measures in military and national defense constructions. It emerged in the Xia, Shang, and Zhou Dynasties, became an independent theoretical system in the Spring and Autumn to the Warring States Periods, and made great progress in the Qin and Han Dynasties. The Song, Ming, and Qing Dynasties witnessed its further progress until modern Western military science took over in the late Qing.

The research topics of ancient Chinese military science mainly include the concept of war, principles in military management, strategy, and combat direction derived from diversified military activities in history, conveyed mostly by the many profound, diverse, and philosophical works represented by The Art of War. Military discussions in other classics was another important source: military contents in the canonical works of Shang Shu, Zhou Yi, Shi Jing, and Zhou Li; the pre-Qin and Han masters and philosophers’ military discussions recorded in Mencius, Laozi, Guanzi, Lv Shi Chun Qiu and Huainanzi; numerous military essays in histories, references, political treatises, and serial books; relevant discourse from scholars or essayists’ private works; the military strategies and practices of statesmen and strategists recorded in history books, such as “The Hanzhong Plan” and “the Longzhong Plan.”

Han Shu Yiwenzhi 汉书·艺文志, the oldest extant bibliography of ancient China, divides the pre-Qin and Han military science into four categories: Military Strategy 兵权谋家, Military Circumstance 兵形势家, Military Divination 兵阴阳家, and Military Technique 兵技巧家. Among them, the School of Military Strategy was the dominant group and it focused on strategic issues. Most representative military works in ancient China, such as The Art of War, Wuzi, Liu Tao, and Sun Bin’s Art of War belong to this category. The School of Military Circumstance was also important and it mainly involved the mobility of military operations and the flexibility of tactics. The School of Military Divination paid attention to the relationship between weather, geography, and the outcome of war. As for the School of Military Technique, it stressed weapons and equipment, methods of combat, and military training. Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, military science kept moving forward, but the basic content and feature did not exceed the scope of the above-mentioned categories.

Roughly speaking, the basic content of ancient Chinese military science is as follows. In terms of the concept of war, it advocated equal attention to civil and military affairs and endorsed the balance between the prudent policy on war and full preparedness in war. It had faith in the ultimate victory of just wars and insisted on stopping and eliminating unjust wars with just ones. At the same time, it sought peace and opposed militaristic policies. Accordingly, in national defense construction, ancient military strategists generally advocated building military strength and strengthening the country by rewarding military agriculture. They believed it necessary to maintain vigilance even in peacetime and proposed combining the civil and military measures. In terms of military management, the military schools recommended disciplining soldiers with laws and regulations and educating them with etiquette and codes of honor. Therefore, strategists in the past usually embraced the following principles: achieving victory through a strict discipline of the army; the prioritization of military laws and regulations; the concentration of military power; training an army before using it; fair rewards and penalties; alternating kindness and severity; selecting virtuous, brave, and resourceful commanders; locating a common goal for the upper and lower levels and achieving solidarity between officers and soldiers. In logistic support, they were in favor of gradually accumulating materials and wealth, transporting supplies from the home country, and acquiring food from the enemy; in military service, they insisted on uniting the soldiers and civilians and introducing reforms according to circumstances.

As for the strategic thinking and theory on military direction, they constituted the mainstay and essence of ancient Chinese military science. The core spirit was to make elaborate plans before war to achieve consummate victory, deploy the army with flexibility and keep adapting to the situation of the enemy. Some relevant issues or connotations revolved around the fundamental goal of seizing the initiative in war, or, to borrow Sunzi’s maxim, “controlling the enemy instead of being controlled by the enemy,” such as “knowing the enemy and yourself,” “conquering the enemy with intrigue or diplomacy,” “achieving victory by catching the enemy unaware,” “avoid the strong point and strike the weak,” “isolating the enemy and crushing it separately,” and “forestall the enemy operation.”

The Current Research Situation in Military Science

Compared to the research of other ancient schools of thought, such as Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, military science studies apparently lag behind. The quantity of research is modest to start with, and within the limited scholarship, high-quality, systematic, and perceptive achievements are rare. Most studies are the expansion and integration of entries from military dictionaries, yet not as scientific and accurate as them. In fact, they can almost be described as nondescript so that it is hard to trace the trajectory of military science development or distinguish the cultural spirit implied in the military thinkers or classics. Not surprisingly, it has become a marginalized subject in intellectual research.

However, one should not blame the unsatisfactory condition of military studies simply on scholars, since the real problem lies in the very nature of military science itself. After all, it is hard to make much out of little. In Han Shu Yiwenzhi, military schools are not included in the category of “philosophers and masters,” nor are works on warfare defined as theoretical or ideological discourse. To be sure, military science has its own division: bingshu (military treatise), which is close to the categories of “mathematics and astronomy” and “magic.” In other words, among the six categories of Yiwenzhi, the first three, i.e., “Confucian classics,” “philosophers and masters,” and “poems,” could be classified as the study of Dao, or the Way, whereas the next three, i.e., “military treatise,” “mathematics and astronomy,” and “magic” could be considered as the discussion of shu, or skills. The categories on Dao are philosophical, but the categories on shu are practical, which means they stress functionality and efficiency, denouncing the abstract and the metaphysical. As a result, their ideas are not sophisticated and scholarship thin. In fact, except a couple of books like The Art of War, the great majority of military works have negligible theoretical and intellectual content and provide little excitement for academic reflection.

This is not just the case in ancient times. Popular philosophic or intellectual histories of today seldom make room for military thought, and even if there are a few lucky exceptions, they are, more often than not, honorary mentions. Clearly, the very nature of military science obstructs research, and it would prove more or less disappointing if one hopes to derive metaphysical or abstract ideas or theory from a technical division.

Also, contrary to Confucianism, which kept updating its mechanism in response to the challenge of Daoism and Buddhism, military science was basically presented with the same set of mode. The technological means of war had not taken any dramatic leap and wars were pretty much dominated by the combat methods of the cold weapon era. Later, with the emergence of firearms after the Song and Yuan, especially in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the combat style gradually shifted to the combination of cold and hot weapons. However, even in this period, cold weapons still had central importance. Such physical conditions and background greatly restricted the renewal and development of military science, and the few changes or developments occurred in the technical fields. For example, the firearms in the Ming rekindled the attention to chariots and gave rise to works like A Hundred Questions and Answers on the Battalion of Chariots; similarly, thanks to the appearance of firearms, which brought about the combination of cold and hot weapons in war, works like The Essence of Fire Attack were compiled and relevant guiding principles in keeping with the new circumstances surfaced in military direction. Nevertheless, it needs to be pointed out that these partial, individual, and minor achievements did not lead to fundamental and revolutionary transformations in theory. In this sense, the Ming scholar Mao Yuanyi’s classic comment in A Record of Defense Preparations, i.e., “The Art of War encompasses everything that precedes it and surpasses everything that succeeds it,” on one hand reveals the unparalleled status of the military bible, yet on the other hand, implies the stagnant, conservative, and inward-looking characters of military theory as a whole.

Under these circumstances, it would be very hard to investigate the evolution of military theory from the perspective of disciplinary development and harder still to summarize and reveal the basic laws and main features of this evolution. In this regard, even the most authoritative Military Encyclopedia of China could do little but reiterate, under different dynastic entries, the same cliché of how just wars is distinguished from unjust wars and emphasize “avoiding the strong point and attack the weak” or “adapting to the enemy” in military direction time and again, so that the pre-Qin entry reads exactly the same as the Qin-Han and Ming-Qing entries. It is, in short, highly unoriginal and excessively dull. However, this is not an accident, but the logical concomitant of the stagnation and self-enclosure of the research object.