Page 177 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol V

1954 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

internal conflict.Warfare also alternated with the yin and The Qin dynasty was short lived, lasting only until 206
yang of Chinese imperial power. Nomadic peoples never BCE.The Qin relied on peasant armies and iron weapons
have exceeded several percent of China’s population, and to overwhelm China’s foes and helped connect existing
while they might conquer China, they could rule only by city walls to protect settled China from horsed nomads.
Sinicizing themselves. Qin forces then began to move south of the Chang
China favored a model of warfare that combined mil- (Yangzi) River into present-day Fujian, Guangdong, and
itary arts with psychological factors, including an indi- Guangxi and northeast into northern Korea.
rect approach to battle, surprise, and deception. The
result is the classic Sunzi (dating to China’s Warring From Han
States era, 475–221 BCE) and some 2,500 years later, to Tang
the theories of Mao Zedong (1893–1976) on peasant Qin’s successor dynasty, the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220
revolution and unconventional warfare. Defense, espe- CE), rivaled Rome for power, and began a long effort to
cially the building of walls around towns (the most control the northern nomads, the Xiongnu, and to gain
famous such defense being the Great Wall), mattered control over the lands south of the Chang. To meet the
more than offense. Also, China has never glorified its barbarian threat, the Han valued cavalry more than their
warriors, and few left memoirs such as Caesar’s accounts predecessors. From 121 to 119 BCE, the Han battled the
of his battles in Gaul. Xiongnu in western China, using more than 100,000
We know little of warfare in China prior to 600 BCE. cavalry; they prevailed and gained control of profitable
China’s Zhou dynasty (1045–256 BCE) ruled largely trade routes to the west. The Han also moved into
through familial and semifeudal relationships, not awe- Manchuria and took over northern Korea to the Han
some military power. Sometime in the early eighth cen- River. In the first century CE the Han conquered the Tarim
tury BCE, the Zhou began to decline, and in 771 BCE Basin, seized Turkistan, and may have reached the
invading nomads allied with rebel leaders sacked the cap- Caspian Sea.
ital and killed the Zhou king, marking the end of what is But then the balance of power shifted in favor of the
known as the Western Zhou period. Thereafter China nomadic tribes. Revolts at home weakened Chinese
began several centuries of increasingly violent warfare, power, the Han lost control of Turkistan, and nomads on
culminating in triumph of the Qin dynasty and unifica- the frontiers penetrated Chinese defenses, terrorizing the
tion of China in 221 BCE. In this era, the Chinese relied settled peoples on the North China Plain. In 220 CE the
on the bow—a larger, more powerful bow than was used Han collapsed and a period of disunity followed, with
by Greek, Persian, and early Roman armies and their various regional states coexisting until China was
opponents—and much less on swords, javelins, and bat- reunited under the short-lived Sui dynasty (581–618 CE).
tle axes, perhaps reflecting China’s relatively slow transi- The Sui dynasty suffered from its attempt to do too much
tion from bronze to iron weapons. too soon. It pushed below the Chang watershed, and it
During the Warring States period that preceded Qin attacked Korea four times without much success; that fail-
unification of China, the chivalry that had supposedly ure encouraged nomadic horsemen to attack and capture
hitherto characterized warfare disappeared, and, with the the emperor.
onset of iron weapons late in the Warring States period,
armies grew larger, the role of nobles as warriors The Tang and
declined, and peasants figured prominently as foot sol- Song Dynasties
diers. China did not rely on cavalry formations; the num- The Tang dynasty ruled China from 618 to 907 CE.The
ber of chariots one commanded was the indication of Tang capital, Changan, was the world’s largest city and
one’s military power. attested to its great military power. Under the Tang, the