Civil-Military Relations in Chinese History

From Ancient China to the Communist Takeover

Kai Filipiak

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780415643566
• eBook ISBN: 9781317573432
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Modern studies of civil--military relations recognise that the military is separate from civil society, with its own norms and values, principles of organization, and regulations. Key issues of concern include the means by which – and the extent to which – the civil power controls the military; and also the ways in which military values and approaches permeate and affect wider society. This book examines these issues in relation to China, covering the full range of Chinese history from the Zhou, Qin, and Han dynasties up to the Communist takeover in 1949. It traces how civil--military relations were different in different periods, explores how military specialization and professionalization developed, and reveals how military weakness often occurred when the civil authority with weak policies exerted power over the military. Overall, the book shows how attitudes to the military's role in present day Communist China were forged in earlier periods.

1 The rise and fall of the system of rites and music and the evolution of the Zhou army

Huang Pumin (Translation: Gu Yao)

Military rites, organization, and warfare during the Western Zhou period

The Western Zhou period was an important historical stage that marked the priming of China’s classic feudal civilization. The Duke of Zhou’s act to make rites and music symbolized the pervasive influence of the rule of rites in social life as the civilization reached its prime, and the political system of the feudal nation state on the basis of the Chinese patriarchal clan had been completely consolidated. The full social maturity embedded in the spirit of rites and music manifested itself in a variety of institutional constructs: a well-field system to manage the distribution of basic production materials; an urban-rural hierarchy to normalize social control; a patriarchal clan system to regulate the internal relations of the ruling class; and the noblemen’s power-sharing system that established the ruling order in ranks.

Corresponding to the power-sharing system, all military activities were guided by the military rites, which prescribed specific political rules and moral values. The strong binding power of the rites might account for the principle that “they regard the manifestations of propriety as their basic strength, and benevolence as the foundation of their victory”;¹ the rule of rites found its overall expression in military leadership, army organization, power build-up, and military education and training. The war commanders held the military rites in high esteem.

In terms of war command and control, the Western Zhou period exercised power division by aristocratic ranking. The royal court observed the principle that “ritual, music and military campaigns are all initiated by the emperor”² by sharing power among the feudal lords and ministers who governed by dividing people and land.

The royal court of Zhou had two battalion troops under its direct control, one being the West Six Army stationed around Fenghao of Zongzhou, the other being the Chengzhou Eight Army based on Luoyi, which used to be the territory of the Shang state and was thus also called the Yin Eight Army.

It is interesting to observe that the activities of the Chengzhou Eight Army were often documented in bronze-inscribed artifacts, while the extant text documents kept much record of the West Six Army, such as the frequent deployment of the Six Army in the region of Mai.

To account for such a difference, one may speculate that the Duke of Zhou may often have taken charge of the Chengzhou Eight Army, so their activities were simultaneously inscribed on bronze artifacts. The compilers of such extant texts as the Shijing might have had a slightly different focus. The order of rites and music and the dominant role of royal power had been more emphasized since the Spring and Autumn Period, so the royal feats of the Zhou king as the commander of the West Six Army were naturally eulogized.

Parallel to the central army of the royal court, an individual feudal kingdom might organize its own respective army, the size of which would have been in accordance with its institutional status and role in the royal defense. This is why “a big kingdom has three armies, the medium-sized has two, while the small has but one.”³ According to the regulations of Zhou, top ministers were entitled to a certain number of private troops, with no more than one hundred horse-riders; this is why key ministers were expected to have a military obligation, take charge of a certain number of horse carriages, and of a certain acreage of land.⁴

During three pre-feudal dynasties, the organization of military leadership united the role of military officers with those of civil officials. For instance, in the Shujing, the noblemen who served in the royal court of Xia were also generals in charge of six facets of warfare. In the Shang Dynasty, some figures like Yi Yin were more theological clergymen than administrative officials, while Wu Xian was more of a clergyman than an officer. Fu Hao, one of the wives of Wu Ding, the 23rd king of the Shang Dynasty, attended many military campaigns and won prominence with heroic feats even though she had no clear-defined army titles. The term shi originally referred to army officers, but it also involves the duty of assistant secretary of the monarch.

By the Western Zhou period, the fusion of the civil function and the military role was commonplace. For instance, officials like qingshi liao and taishi liao could both lead the fighting, though the latter took charge of civil affairs. Bofumao, who used the Yin Eight Army to fight against the Dongyi, was a qingshi, while Shi Yu, the commander-in-chief against the Hui army in the time of King Zhao, was a taishi. The fact that “generals and commanders are all top ministers” shows that military command had not been fully separated from administrative affairs, even though the professional army had come into the fore.

This mingling of the civil office and the army before the Spring and Autumn period was mainly restricted to the top level of military leadership and command, and starting in the Shang and Zhou periods, the military administration had an independent system of civil officials who attended to the daily routines of army ministration.

The Western Zhou period had a number of lower-middle ranking army officials. For instance, the huchen was the general commander of the defense infantry of the royal court. The shishi was the local official of an army station town, while sima referred generally to officials in each order of the army, such as bangsima, hongsima, and lusima. Evidence shows that sima in general managed the taxation of the kingdom and towns and organized the drafting of suitable personnel for military exercise and the execution of martial laws, among many other duties.⁵

Under the norm of the rule of rites, the military service of the Western Zhou was actually temporary soldier-farmer recruitment based on patriarchy and ties of kinship, very much like in the Xia and Shang Dynasties. The binary system of urban and rural separation was imposed by the ruler, and meant that the ruling aristocracy of Zhou and their clans lived within capital towns and nearby suburbs while the ordinary masses from the conquered clans lived far beyond the town and outskirts. The capital towns and their nearby suburbs were called Guo, Du, or Xiang, and their residents were regarded as urban-dwellers, while the regions beyond the above areas were depreciatively called Bi, Ye, or Sui, and their residents were called shuren, namely country fellows. The gap between their political and economic status was also reflected by the system of military recruitment. This is what the principle “urban dwellers serve as soldiers, while the country people don’t” means.

The soldiers of the Western Zhou, guoren, “engaged in farming activities during three seasons, but in army training during the remaining one.”⁶ In times of war, they were obligated to “hold the weaponry in defense of their native land.”⁷ In the army, noblemen and warriors who acted as charioteers formed the army’s backbone, while ordinary urban folk served in the infantry. There was also a small group of family servants who followed the aristocrats to do odd jobs.

The military service of the Western Zhou state was drafted according to the ranking of local administration structure, liuxiang, which fully corresponded to the military order, featuring the union of farmers and soldiers. The system of national drafting required one young man (zhengzu) from each household of urban-dwellers to serve in the military, and other men who were called xianzu were available for the militia division. Draftees ranged in age from twenty to sixty.

The army was mainly composed of chariots and infantry in multiples of three and ten. Aristocrats received their military education and training from the six arts (liuyi), of which archery and charioteering were the focus. To achieve this, schools such as Biyong, Xuegong, Shelu, and Dachi were set up in the central region, while in the principalities and the domains of barons and high officers, schools such as Pangong, Xiang, Xu, and others were established, with the aim of ensuring a wide availability of military education and training. Ordinary people mainly participated in hunting to receive military training and schooling in the martial arts.

The military training in three pre-feudal dynasties was chiefly exercised through the field hunting called sou or xian. According to the Liji, young aristocratic males were obliged to receive their military training and learn specific skills when they were fifteen years old.⁸ The abilities of chariot-driving and archery correspond to the way of contemporary carriage fighting.

Ordinary urban-dwellers who engaged in both farming and soldiering took part in field hunting for adequate military training and exercise. “The system of field hunting aims to subject the ordinary folk to army training by the means of rewards and punishment,”⁹ and “field hunting could equip the people with wartime skills.”¹⁰ These training sessions usually took place outside of the peak harvest time.

Military training sessions were implemented during the seasonal interval, ranging from the spring collecting of seeds and the summer planting to autumn and winter hunting. The harvest from three years could not only provide soldiers with adequate food, but also nourish them upon their return. According to the Zuozhuan, “each year there would be four field hunting expeditions that acquainted the general and soldiers with the actual maneuver of chariots, archery, and infantry, so as to improve their fighting capacity.”¹¹ According to the Zhouli, each year’s seasonal hunting had its own focus, as can be seen from their respective titles, namely, zhenlü (launching the army), bashe (resting upon the grass), zhibing (weapon-making), and dayue (grand army parade).¹²

Of the four field hunting expeditions, the “grand parade” of the winter was the most impressive in scale; and that is why the first part of the Zhou discourses in the Guoyu ignored the other three seasonal trainings and set much more store on the winter parade as serious military activity.¹³ This is probably what is meant by “the farming in three seasons and soldiering in the winter.” The Shijing records that “on the second day of the activity, royal dignitaries and the common people alike attended the field hunting for army training to display military grandeur.”¹⁴

Adapting to the reality of war, the royal court and those concerned began to reduce the entertaining elements in the field hunting. Basic training was carried out to m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgments
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction: civil–military relations in Chinese history
• 1 The rise and fall of the system of rites and music and the evolution of the Zhou army
• 2 Military codes of virtue: aspects of wen and wu in China’s Warring States Period
• 3 The master of works (sikong) in the armies of the Qin and Han dynasties
• 4 Re-thinking the civil–military divide in the southern dynasties
• 5 Changes in the title systems for generals in ancient China
• 6 Origins and selection criteria of soldiers in different stages of the Tang dynasty (618–907)
• 7 The drum and wind palace music of the Tang and Song dynasty
• 8 The rise of the martial: rebalancing wen and wu in Song dynasty culture
• 9 Postcards from the edge: competing strategies for the defense of Liaodong in the late Ming
• 10 The adaptation of Chinese military techniques to Choson Korea, their validation, and the social dynamics thereof
• 11 Craftsmen and specialist troops in early modern Chinese armies
• 12 Military atrocities in warlord China
• 13 The military ascendant: the ascendancy of the Chinese military during the Resistance War 1937–1945 (and afterwards)
• Chronology
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index