Layers in the Wu Chi Military Text (1)
		A Taeko Brooks, University of Massachusetts at Amherst WSWG 18, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 6 December 2003 Outline (#1) Preliminary I take as a starting point the following conclusions, some of which are adjusted from previous published versions: (1) The Sundz is an accretional text, originally in 12 chapters, and in that form completed c0314; (2) The Sundz was identified in WS times with Sun Bin, not Sun Wu, and even that association (via the "Sundz ywe" incipits) was claimed only in the middle and late chapters of the text; (3) Sundz 13 (Using Spies) was added in c0272, and this 13-chapter form remained standard afterward. Additional material was added during Han, some of it visible in the Yinchywe Shan tomb version, and much more recorded in the Han Palace Library catalogue, but even this material acknowledges the classic status of Sundz 1-13, and it is neither quoted nor annotated from Latter Han onward. (4) The Wu Chi (also called Wudz) is aware of the original form (chapters 1-12) of the Sundz (that is, not yet Sundz 13), and follows it in time. Description The Wu Chi (WC) is in 6 short chapters, each with its theme. The Han Palace Library catalogue mentions 48 chapters, but these are never heard from again, and it is probable that the Wu Chi, like the Sundz, was subjected to expansive additions in Han which were again excised from the text by later scholarly consensus. The contents are formally of three types: (1) expository paragraphs introduced by the formula "Wudz said;" (2) dialogues with Ngwei Wu-hou as interlocutor; and (3) some anecdotal material attesting the military and political achievements of Wu Chi, chiefly at the head and tail of the text. Theory I suggest that these formal divisions also define three layers, and that the text was compiled in stages over a period beginning in c0301 and perhaps extending into the Chin Dynasty. The "Wudz ywe" material exists only in five of the six present WC chapters, so the original work will most likely have had five sections, perhaps a gesture at the five-element theory which was beginning to be prominent at the end of the 04c. Test of the Theory This can be tested by examining the contents of the three types of material, to see if they are different in ways compatible with a hypothesis of different date. They prove to be very different, and to comprise intelligible stages in the evolution of military technique and theory. (1) The "Wudz said" pieces deal with the civil preconditions of military success, concerned with the training of the troops and treating them well, so they will not be disobedient which would lead to defeat in battle, prefer to win with the fewest battles possible, and emphasize ruler virtue as the source of social morale, in both civilian and military aspects. The advice here is tactically frugal and socially compassionate. It is at roughly the same level as that of Gwandz (GZ) 5. (2) The Lord Wu dialogues introduce technical advances absent from the Wudz ywe material, such as cavalry and the use of elite troops, and also envision a much bloodier sort of fighting. They seem to be substantially later than the preceding passages. The social prestige of Wu Chi is also higher in this layer (where he is an intimate advisor to a ruler) than in the preceding (where he is a military theorists without rulership connections), (3) The social level of Wu Chi in the framing anecdotes is higher still, since he not only advises but rebukes the ruler of Ngwei (as Mencius is made to rebuke the ruler of Chi in the inauthentic set of interviews which were later interpolated into MC 1). The content of the material thus supports the hypothesis of time difference. Suggestions About Authors and Dates Wu Chi is not mentioned in WS and later literature in places that would be expected to have mentioned him (Mencius, the Kungdz Jya-yw, and most interestingly the Han Dzvngdz text) if he had been a disciple of Dzvngdz. No story about him seems to be earlier than the middle 03c. We may take the 03c stories, plus the implicit claims of the WC text itself, as the grounds for testing the Wu Chi authorship claim. That claim clearly puts Wu Chi in the time of Lord Wvn and (chiefly) of Lord Wu of Ngwei, that is, in the early 04c. If there was a Wu Chi, he must have been of this period, and he must have been a military advisor to Ngwei in that period. But the WC core, the most likely contribution of a historical Wu Chi, is clearly posterior to the Sundz, and thus cannot be later than the end of the 04c. In addition, the character of the WC core advice is much like that of GZ 5, which other evidence shows to have been a late 04c work (it is less obvious that a third related text, the core of Shang-jywn Shu 10, is from that same period). The idea of civilian strengthening of the state before embarking on modern war is common to both, and to the common discourse of that period. An early hint of the concept which these texts explore in more detail is implied in MC 1B12, an original interview dating from c0310. All this puts not only the date, but the contents, of the WC core at the end of the 04c. This decisively rules out Wu Chi's authorship. The association of the text with him was probably to gain prestige for the text, by invoking a known military figure who was remembered as being earlier than Sun Bin. The second or Wu Hou layer of WC must follow the introduction of cavalry, which is agreed to be an 03c phenomenon, though it is not at present more exactly datable. This layer was probably in place when the WC was referred to in Sywndz (SZ) 15, from 0250, as a co-classic with the Sundz. Our present working date for this layer is roughly halfway between the first layer and this SZ 15 mention, or c0275. The framing passages are still later, and presumably were added to context the work historically as well as to add to the prestige of the claimed author, and thus of the work. The framing passages added to Shang-jywn Shu are of very similar character, and those passages at least can be referred to Chin or early Han. The Big Picture I will end by putting the two early military texts into what I see as the larger picture of 04c social and military evolution. The task of converting the state from an elite to a mass army was enormous, and it seems, on present evidence, to have had three rather well-marked phases. These did not occur at exactly the same time in all the states, large ones generally being earlier than small ones, and eastern ones earlier than western ones. But the large picture seems to be approximately as follows: (1) An early period, from c0360 down to c0312 in the more advanced states, when the chief concern was to motivate a previously agrarian populace to risk their lives in fighting for the state; a corollary is the creation of national sentiment among this larger populace. To this period belong the early Gwandz chapters (GZ 1-3, 7) and the Analects chapters which are in dialogue with them on such issues as teaching (motivating) the people (LY 12-13, and to a limited extent LY 2; and the original interviews of Mencius (MC 1). The difficulties of mounting campaigns, and of meeting their suddenly enormous costs, are of great concern. The Sundz falls within this period. So does the Dzwo Jwan, which wrongly projects back into Spring and Autumn times not only a hint of Sundzian field tactics, but of the new populist philosophy which was its civilian theoretical counterpart, at least among theorists at the Confucian end of the spectrum. (2) A second period, when a more comprehensive effort is made to prepare the entire civic order and administrative machinery to be able to sustain the effort of full time warmaking. This consolidates the best of the theories proposed in the previous period, but applies them consistently, and as the first order of business. To this period belong such myths as the state reform of Chi attributed to Gwan Jung (GZ 18 and its Gwo Yw counterparts), and such real-time recommendations as GZ 4-6, their echo in the western text SJS 10 (earliest of the Shang-jywn Shu documents), and the second generation of Mencian public philosophy (particularly MC 4A, the earliest document of the northern Mencian school). Warmaking in this period, as also in the previous one, is still essentially tactically frugal, and concerned with minimizing costs and maximizing gains. The WC core belongs to this period, as does the early group of Mician defensive treatises. (3) A third period, from approximately 0275 on, when the wealth of the state had been successfully concentrated on warmaking, when armies were larger, and thus when tactical frugality was no longer of first importance. Heavy losses could be tolerated for a sufficient result, and wars of attrition rather than quick campaigns entered the strategic repertoire. Butchery of enemy armies and populations, rather than surrender and incorporation, and terror tactics generally, came to be part of normal warfare. The military texts from this period include the Szma Fa, the second (Lord Wu) layer of the Wu Chi, and the later and more draconic group of Mician defensive treatises. SJS 15 and the rest of a group of SJS chapters which are probably to be related to the arrival of Fan Swei in Chin are also from this period. Here too is probably to be located the treatise on spying which now forms Sundz 13, as an eastern attempt to gain an advantage in the newer and more ferocious style of war by means which, though daring and costly, are still short of the sacrifice of entire armies. It will be seen that these roughly 50-year periods take us from the probable beginnings of the new popularly based and bureaucratic state (in Chi, c0360) to its final triumph in the Chin military consolidation of 0221. They also define a trajectory in which the new warfare is (1) The new warfare is first developed in the east, and specifically in Chi, whose early recognition of the advantages of size can already be glimpsed in the last decades of the Spring and Autumn period. The concerted push to convert decisively to the new warfare seems to have begun in c0360, and the Chi victory over Ngwei at Ma-ling in 0343, celebrated in the Chi Kingship claim of 0342, may be taken as the defining moment. (2) The initiative passes to the center. The transition may be said to occur in 0314, when allied armies of the center (Jau, Jung-shan) expel Chi from its occupation of Yen. The Chin conquest and absorption of Shu, which also falls at the beginning of this period, is a prescient response to the heightened military threat on Chin's eastern frontier. The expulsion of Chi from its conquest of Sung in 0285 by another coalition of central states is another defining event, coming near the end of this period. (3) The ascendancy of Chin, whose first major triumph was the conquest of the Chu capital Ying in 0278. Cavalry becomes a major arm at the beginning of this period. It ended with the final unification under Chin in 0221. No significant long-term military successes were registered in this period by any other state, least of all by enervated Chi, which had long since been bypassed both in population and in military technology by Chu and Chin. Appendix I add a note on the important schematic passage WC 2:1, for which see the following page.   All lectures and abstracts posted on this site are Copyright © by their authors.   26 Nov 2003 / Contact The Project / Conferences Page