Chinese Warfare: The Paradox of the Unlearned Lesson

By Ralph D. Sawyer

The author presented an earlier version of this paper at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA, on March 22, 1996, as part of the “Study of War Project” sponsored by the Triangle Institute for Security Studies. He takes issue with the traditional view that the Chinese outlook on warfare has been essentially pacifist, pointing out that during much of China’s history efforts forcefully and completely to vanquish the enemy predominated.

The author points out that this paper was written primarily for oral, rather then print, presentation, and is therefore organized somewhat informally. Further, he notes that space limitations have precluded a comprehensive examination of the presence and effect of Confucian values among the Chinese people. ~ Ed.

Introduction

In this paper I will address, from the perspective of twenty-five years of pondering China’s military history and writings, three questions suggested by Quincy Wright’s monumental work, A Study of War, first published by the University of Chicago Press in two volumes in 1942 (an abridged edition appeared in 1964 and a revision in 1965). The questions suggested relate to the causes, nature, and consequences of warfare.

However, I must begin by observing that the study of military subjects has for centuries been even more politically incorrect in the area of Chinese Studies than Western history, irrespective of the monumental effects that warfare wrought over the millennia. Apart from a new generation of Chinese scholars in the PRC—who have rediscovered it not so much as a field than as a source of national pride—only scattered individuals have studied it sufficiently to comprehend the fundamental issues. In fact, only one monograph—Chinese Ways in Warfare edited by Fairbank and Kierman¹ —appeared in the West between the Korean War and the much-delayed publication of Needham’s volume V, part 6, in the Science and Civilization in China Series late in1995 that focuses on technological questions within the purview of some initial orientations.² Therefore, the comments that follow largely reflect an internal perspective—the thoughts and conceptions of Chinese thinkers and military theorists through the ages—supplemented by my analysis of the tactical writings and impressions of significant historical trends and events.

Overview

From any reasonable perspective China’s continuity has been cultural rather than political, its heritage throughout one of incessant conflict as different peoples, states, and popular movements fought to control its populace and resources. These inescapable battlefield experiences eventually spawned a contemplative literature that sought to fathom the chaos of warfare and master the principles of its employment, whether offensive or defensive. Just as Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, the three great belief systems of China, the martial culture produced its own body of writings and evolved a systematized, ever-augmented tradition. Professional commanders and political leaders compelled to wrestle with perplexing military decisions studied and contemplated its books, but also—even if reluctantly—so did the intelligentsia because they encompassed tactics and strategic concepts suitable for the civilian realm as well as the battlefield.

Largely defined by the initial conceptions and principles formulated by the legendary Sun-tzu around 500 BC through his reflections on the ever-escalating warfare of the Spring and Autumn period, the extant corpus of some 400 Chinese military writings may be characterized as both cumulative and consistent. Moreover, despite the pronounced tendency of the literati to disparage the military profession, the Seven Military Classics—six Warring States works supplemented with a T’ang dynasty treatise made canonical in the Sung dynasty that thereafter furnished the official foundation for government examinations in military affairs, and thus provided a common ground for tactical and strategic conceptualization—garnered greater respect and were more widely studied than late dynastic writers have implied. Ironically, their impact not only continues undiminished, but has surged phenomenally in China, Japan, Korea, and even much of Southeast Asia. In fact, the various texts not only shaped the views of many Asian political and military leaders over the past century, but are now more widely read and appreciated for tactical knowledge and essential wisdom that can be applied in many contexts than at any time in history, including in the military academies and think-tanks of the PRC. Moreover, Sun-tzu’s Art of War, first translated some two centuries ago, has furnished numerous fundamental concepts and tactical principles for modern war fighting throughout the world, including the United States where recent army doctrine has heavily stressed maneuver warfare. Many contemporary manuals, such as the Marine Corps war fighting series, often read like quotations of the Chinese military writings themselves.

Fully cognizant of the tragic consequences of any conflict, the writings consistently emphasize that war should be avoided whenever possible and consequently stress that victory should be secured with minimal bloodshed, at the lowest possible cost for both combatants. Yet the authors equally condemn any failure to decisively extirpate evil and perversity, to vanquish tyrannical demagogues as heinous and inimical to any professed concern for humanity. However, the highest ideal in any conflict—whether actual or abstract—remains conquering without actually engaging the enemy or inflicting any bloodshed at all. This outcome can be realized by creatively shaping the total circumstances to bring overwhelming strategic power to bear—as in the 1991 Gulf War—and thereby subjugate an awestruck enemy with little or no fighting.

The Civil and Martial Traditions in China

Virtually from the earliest dynasties, and certainly from the Chou, China’s intellectual tradition consciously distinguished wen and wu, respectively the “civil” (or “cultural” ) and the “martial.” Apart from the entrenched, often hypocritical literati serving in the highest levels of bureaucracy, more realistic thinkers esteemed them equally, seeing in them, just as in the dynamically complementary yin and yang, the necessary counterparts for the development and preservation of the state, the means to civilization and a civilized life for the entire populace under the ruler’s benevolent and sagacious leadership. The military thinkers naturally focused upon the martial, perhaps in response to the deteriorating circumstances about them, but rarely over-emphasized it. Confucianism eventually became the recognized embodiment of the wen Tao, the Tao of culture, whereas the various martial arts, including the science of military tactics, organization, and command, were synonymous with wu Tao, the Tao of the martial, also known in Japanese as budo. King Wen, the first king of the Chou dynasty, is traditionally portrayed as the cultural king who fathered Chou civilization and nurtured its power, but it was his successor, King Wu, the martial king, who conquered the perverse and oppressive Shang state and thus established the Chou dynasty. Thereafter, the martial frequently engendered a renewal of the civil, while the civil, becoming extreme, fostered a return of the martial.

The Tao (or Way) of the martial delimited its own inner realm and made equal, if not more rigorous, demands upon its students because they had to perfect themselves not only in the theories of their art, but also in physical training and combat skills. Even the early Confucians adopted a realistic attitude while loudly espousing the new virtues of righteousness and benevolence. Confucius himself, generally considered the first private teacher, viewed the civil and martial as equally essential to the state, and would have all men practice the six arts—propriety, music, composition, mathematics, and the two essential skills of the warrior nobility, archery and charioteering—and stated that when the perfected man was compelled to extirpate evil and restore order, once having donned his armor, his visage would be terrible and his stature awesome. Moreover, he repeatedly emphasized the courage and demeanor of the perfected man, the highest ideal of Confucianism, in selflessly pursuing the true path, sustaining others, and disciplining himself to the Good. However, as with many initial visions, his original “warrior spirit” was enervated and obscured by subsequent interpreters, including Mencius.

Despite incessant barbarian incursions and major military threats throughout their history, except during the ill-fated expansionistic policies of the Former Han, the Sui, and even the Ming—all of whom sought to impose Chinese suzerainty on external regions, including Korea—or under dynamic young rulers such as T’ang T’ai-tsung during a dynasty’s founding reign, Imperial China—especially the Sung—sometimes became disinclined to pursue military solutions to external aggression. Ethnocentric rulers fell under the sway of ministers who preferred to believe in the myth of cultural attraction largely fostered by Mencius whereby their vastly superior Chinese civilization, founded upon virtue and reinforced by opulent material achievements, would simply overwhelm the hostile tendencies of the uncultured. Frequent gifts of the embellishments of civilized life, coupled with music and women, would distract and enervate even the most warlike peoples. If they were unable either to overawe them into submission or bribe them into compliance, other mounted nomadic tribes could be employed against the troublemakers, following the time honored-tradition of “using barbarian against barbarian.”

This climate of disdain derived mainly from Mencius, a prolific but unworldly figure who flourished in the middle of the Warring States period more than a century after Confucius. By default he became the chief interpreter and expositor of the Confucian viewpoint when Confucianism ascended to the status of the “orthodox state philosophy” two centuries later during the Han, with his writings becoming increasingly influential after the T’ang. His disproportionate importance in virtually defining the views of generations of literati as they struggled to learn classical Chinese through brute memorization of his text demands that we spend a few minutes examining his viewpoints on war. Simply put, Mencius vociferously opposed warfare, and therefore became much quoted whenever anyone desired to disparage professional warriors or oppose military activities.

Mencius’ basic premise was that human nature tends to goodness, while evil is a development brought about by external stimuli. Although he believed that perversity and surpassing brutality must be actively purged in the interests of humanity, and therefore sanctioned punitive expeditions undertaken by righteous authorities, in general he condemned combat and its practitioners. For example, he said: “Some men claim to be skillful at deploying troops, to excel at conducting battles. They are great criminals.”³ Moreover, in a famous passage where he claimed that Confucius himself would reject those “fervent to fight,” he concluded:

People engaging in combat over territory, slaughtering each other until they fill the fields, or fighting over a city until the city itself is filled with the dead, this is what is meant by leading the earth to devour human flesh. Death is an inadequate punishment for such crimes. Thus those who excel in warfare should suffer the most extreme punishment; those who entangle states in combative alliances the next greatest.⁴

Mencius zealously embraced the idealistic view that by practicing benevolence and righteousness—the Tao or Way of Virtuous government—even with only a minuscule territory any ruler not only could, but certainly and invariably would ascend to political dominance over the realm. Summarily phrased, the benevolent have no enemies⁵—a dictum frequently cited by later pacifists—although it should be remembered that one mark of benevolence is the continued nurturing of the people’s welfare, even at the expense of the ruler’s interests, thereby gaining their allegiance and willing support.⁶

Mencius’ view of history also exerted a strong influence upon later conceptualizing. He blatantly denied that the records of antiquity, supposedly edited by Confucius himself, contained any examples of “righteous” wars.⁷ A pivotal historical battle illustrates his distorted interpretation of major conflicts:

The benevolent man has no enemy under Heaven. When the most benevolent—King Wu of the Chou—was engaged against him who was the most the opposite—King Chou of the Shang—how could the blood have flowed till it floated mortar pestles?⁸

This is a truly remarkable interpretation of a battle commonly depicted as having been brief but intense, many of the Shang’s soldiers quickly abandoning the field after the initial onslaught, but others fighting valiantly and dying in great numbers. Moreover, because the Chou’s forces were vastly overmatched—perhaps some thirty thousand arrayed against 170,000 for the allied Shang armies—and had traveled from the far west in the dead of winter, it is unlikely the Shang forces would have easily collapsed.⁹

The Myth of Chinese Pacifism

While numerous general works—and even monographs in the field of Chinese studies devoted to other subjects—have frequently insisted that China’s viewpoint on warfare was essentially pacifist, the paradigm expression is probably Needham’s recent volume. Insofar as it may define the frame of reference for non-specialists for a considerable time, it merits a few brief, reluctantly critical, words. Essentially his lengthy introduction to Military Technology: Missiles and Sieges continues the tradition of Fairbank & Kierman, for while they all note that China has the most extensive battle records of any nation, they stress its longstanding reputation for pacifism; the absence of great heroes to emulate, such as Alexander; and the submission of the military to the civil for the past two thousand or more years. However, while perhaps characterizing certain periods in the last millennium— especially the Sung and much of the Ch’ing—in my opinion it hardly applies from the founding of the Chou through the T’ang when the civil and martial coexisted in an essentially complimentary partnership, but the military frequently predominated, particularly in the Warring States and Wei-Chin periods. Moreover, Needham’s assertion that Chinese strategic practices were more defensively oriented, attuned to victory without fighting and to implementing non-combat options because they fought “for something” rather than simply against their enemies¹⁰ is rather puzzling in the face of actual historical battles where massive armies clashed head-on in lengthy struggles of attrition.

Furthermore, the idea that China only had to contend with internal military problems after the rise of the Ch’in runs counter to all available records and evidence. While internal woes were numerous—including religiously inspired movements, popularly supported insurrections, and marauding campaigns mounted by dissident generals—apart from the ongoing steppe-sedentary conflict that began in the spring and autumn and persisted through the Ch’ing conquest, the Han fought several external enemies; the Three Kingdoms and subsequent Five Dynasties period saw the north and south bifurcated, with the northern dynasties largely being founded by barbarian or external conquerors, often in league with internal factions; the Sui and T’ang both sought to subdue Korea, sending forth expeditions of a million men on several occasions; the early Ming mounted five significant campaigns; and there were frequent efforts directed toward the southwest and southeast to subdue indigenous peoples and annex territory.

It would appear that Needham’s view, and frequently the ruminations of non-sinologists, stem from focusing on the extant theoretical treatises—in particular, the Art of War—without pondering the question as to what degree they were implemented in actual combat situations. A cursory examination of the Sung dynasty text known as the 100 Unorthodox Strategies—which reprises more than ninety-five battles to illustrate the selective application of various principles, including temporizing, to forcefully and completely vanquish the enemy—immediately dispels such notions. Furthermore, Chinese history is strewn with the political corpses of generals recalled because they temporized rather than fought, because they adopted defensive strategies that proved intolerable to the ruler or his chief ministers. Without question, during the Warring States period rulers dispatched armies of several hundred thousand for solely one purpose—overwhelming conquest by force of arms—resulting, for example, in at least a 100,000 deaths at Ma-ling; 240,000 at I-Chüeh; and 450,000 at Ch’ang-p’ing in 260 BC. (Even Herbert Franke, in Fairbank’s volume, previously pointed out that the Chinese generally found it useless to take prisoners in various periods, giving the lie to Needham’s acceptance of the abstract tactical principle not to press a foe nor exterminate him.)

I believe the assertion that neither deeds nor heroic individuals were glorified in any sort of epic Chinese literature also needs to be reconsidered. Several famous novels, such as The Three Kingdoms and Travels to the West, portray the focal figures in action, sweeping large across the pages of history, indulging in every sort of combat, virtually always emerging victorious. The great histories, beginning with the Shih Chi, all contain chapters devoted to outstanding deeds and dramatic figures, including heroes like Hsiang Yü, Liu Pang, the T’ai Kung, Chu-ko Liang, and Kuan Yü in the earliest periods. Their lives and deeds not only became the basis of spoken stories, but also operas, dramas, and poetry across the many centuries that followed, and the inspiration for peasant rebellions, such as the Boxers at the turn of the century. Furthermore Kuan Yü, the powerful general and irascible commander just mentioned, was eventually apotheosized as the god of war and, as Needham himself notes, eventually became the most popular local deity. (Temple scenes and carved reliefs on lintels also depict great battles, especially Kuan Ti’s—whether real or imaginary—with men and demons everywhere.) During the T’ang dynasty the T’ai Kung was also honored with an official state temple, apotheosizing him as the Martial Patron, much as the Duke of Chou was revered as the Civil Patron. However, his status was eventually denigrated through the machination of the Sung literati who condemned him as an unworthy figure.

At the same time there was a vibrant tradition of self-cultivation in the martial arts that developed from the Han onward, frequently being amalgamated with other intellectual and emotional edifices, such as Taoism and Buddhism, and often integrated into peasant revolutionary movements, being assiduously practiced as part of a prescribed self-discipline. Moreover, bravos and stalwarts often swaggered across the historical stage, being much admired by the people at large, although officially condemned as sources of discordant values and unruly examples of personal courage that frequently resulted in brigandage at the expense of state order and security. As James Liu remarkably documented in The Chinese Knight-errant nearly three decades ago,¹¹ they—and the assassins so dramatically portrayed by Ssu-ma Ch’ien in the Shih Chi—righteously disdained social convention and the lure of office—and thus remained images much to be admired, if not emulated, throughout most of Chinese history until being suppressed in the late Ming and Ch’ing. (This tradition, long romanticized in popular literature, has in recent decades been graphically exploited by the innumerable martial arts films produced in China, Taiwan, and Japan that portray both heroes and villains vigorously, even painfully, pursuing the highest combat skills as an end in itself, as well as to extirpate brutal oppressors on behalf of the weak and downtrodden just as they did two thousand years ago.)

If we ponder China’s martial heritage, especially noting the dominance of military values in the Warring States and Wei-Chin periods—eras when individuals maintained personal forces of retainers, great families carved up states, private armies were much in evidence, strength was esteemed, and armies proliferated, prompting men to seek escape in the mountains, religion, poetry, and wine—the sudden de-emphasis of the martial from the Sung on is truly astounding and not explainable by simply attributing it to the effects of a self-serving, insecure, often quaking civil bureaucracy groveling before effete, pleasure besotted rulers. While we cannot explore this topic in the present paper, it might be observed that this general impression of China as a pacifist (or weak) state of course derives from the writings and attitudes of these later literati, the men who controlled power and to whom the Westerners were mainly exposed. These same literati, nominally Confucian—if hypocritically so—of course produced the official histories and offered most of the memorials preserved in them, filtering all events through their own interpretative parameters.¹² (We might well imagine the consternation experienced by any true believers in the theory of the benevolent being unopposed who served in the Ch’ing—an alien, barbarian dynasty—as they wrestled with the fact that a Han emperor had been subjugated by uncultured nomadic peoples. (Being an alien dynasty, the Ch’ing of course actively repressed indigenous Chinese martial values as dangerous and seditious.) Moreover, from the Sung on, due to the effects of the examination system in dictating a family’s wealth and prospects, the civil came to dominate aspirations for office, resulting in family schools that stressed classical learning—the foundation of generalists rather than generals— and correspondingly disparaged as rough and uncouth any manifestations of strength and valor. The common people were not so inclined, but the dichotomization of culture along class lines results in records of pacifism rather than stirring visions of courage.

But What is Warfare?

My discussion so far has not indicated what I mean by warfare. Although I perused numerous books in contemplating the subject,¹³ I have no precise definition, but simply take it as subsuming a wide range of conflicts, from skirmishes between companies to massive encounters. As a working definition I consider warfare to be any armed clash, but especially sustained conflict, generally involving significant numbers of troops, and normally requiring the mobilization of armed forces for ostensibly political, as well as simply military purposes. Thus phrased, it equally subsumes a single firefight, a sequence of battles, the internecine strife of the Warring States, the interminable steppe sedentary conflict, millenarian revolts, and prolonged civil uprisings. Obviously I’m not concerned with a legal definition, especially as the Chinese certainly weren’t, although they did have formal, if internal, oath-taking ceremonies. However, the initiation of campaigns, often consisting of a single battle to achieve an immediate military or political objective, was rarely marked by declarations of war before actually attacking the enemy since it was considered extremely stupid to sacrifice the advantage of surprise.¹⁴ Baldly put, although “punitive expeditions” might announce the cause and measures to be taken, and so-called “righteous wars” might profit from similar declarations, the military ideal was essentially “strike first, justify afterward”—a lesson much emulated by students of Chinese methods.¹⁵

From antiquity through the Ch’ing the frequency of warfare in China was overwhelming—at least one armed clash large enough to be recorded every eighteen months; a major battle every few years; and a large-scale campaign or prolonged war every decade. Just discussing the major trends and recording the most important battles recently required nineteen volumes of Chinese text,¹⁶ one ten-page account of which became a sixty-page reconstruction and analysis in our translation of the Art of War.

Warfare is the Greatest Affair

All the military writers of course contemplated warfare’s impact and importance, but remarkably few others except for the Legalists, who often viewed conquest as a means to enlarge and profit the state, and the many arrayed in opposition who disparagingly condemned its practice. Sun-tzu’s incredibly famous Art of War opens with the following statement whose position emphasizes its fundamental importance: “Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Tao to survival or extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed.” The early Ssu-ma Fa equally emphasized that warfare cannot be neglected: “Even though calm may prevail under Heaven, those who forget warfare will certainly be endangered.”

Accordingly Sun-tzu stated:

If it is not advantageous, do not move. If objectives cannot be attained, do not employ the army. Unless endangered do not engage in warfare. The ruler cannot mobilize the army out of personal anger. The general cannot engage in battle because of personal frustration. When it is advantageous, move; when not advantageous, stop. Anger can revert to happiness, annoyance can revert to joy, but a vanquished state cannot be revived, the dead cannot be brought back to life.¹⁷

Causes

Even a cursory examination of the apparent “causes” of China’s innumerable battles and frequent wars yields a very extensive list, including revenge, shame, lack of recognition, greed, hatred, religious visions, oppression, inequities, political entanglements, anger,¹⁸ fear, temptation, jealousy, and weakness. In addition, the ongoing conflicts arising between a sedentary, agrarian-based China and its nomadic steppe neighbors were engendered by nomadic needs for grain and some industrial products as much as a reputed desire to exploit easily obtainable profits. Naturally class or interest distinctions might be perceived, particularly in the pursuit of power, with heroes such as Liu Pang and Hsiang Yü fighting on rather than divide the empire; conniving subordinates instigating conflicts when slighted or inadequately rewarded; and the common people being swept along, often entangled in regionalized hatreds, sustaining the effort to overthrow perverse, oppressive regimes, or willingly participating in millenarian quests to realize religious visions. While potential hegemons and kings also proclaimed righteous, benevolent motives in seeking to eliminate evil and unite the people under the banner of humanity—and many were no doubt so motivated—in general such quests were similarly expressions of a desire for absolute, uncontested power. However, simply to survive in the Warring States period, rulers were often compelled to wrest control over ever-larger areas through a series of “preemptive conquests” and thereby secure their borders against rapidly escalating threats.

As frequently conceptualized by the earliest military writers, warfare originated out of moral impulses, the justification for killing other men having been to protect lives and establish order. For example, the Ssu-ma Fa asserts that:

In antiquity, making benevolence the foundation and governing with righteousness constituted uprightness. However, when uprightness failed to attain the desired objectives, they resorted to authority. Authority comes from warfare, not from harmony among men.

For this reason—if one must kill people to give peace to the people, then killing is permissible. If one must attack a state out of love for their people, then attacking it is permissible. If one must stop war with war, although it is war it is permissible. Within, the government gains the love of the people, the means by which it can be preserved. Outside, it acquires awesomeness, the means by which it can wage war.

The Kuan-tzu surveyed ancient efforts to “profit the realm” and bring order to the people—the central vision—by repressing “barbarian” forces and seeking honor for the central states,¹⁹ concluding “their objectives were not territorial aggrandizement, but world order.” ²⁰ Later centuries thus conceptualized historical military activities in terms of Virtue having brought order to the world; therefore they asserted, in accord with Mencius, that the emperor merely needs to cultivate his virtue and righteousness, and all others will submit. Although many truly believed in this vision, particularly when bolstered with opulent material prods to stimulate decadence among one’s enemies (and perhaps covert actions to ensure objectives), it would eventually prove largely to be a luxurious delusion.

A Ssu-ma Fa chapter on the formal charges to be issued before conducting a punitive expedition against miscreants apparently preserves a list of nine major offenses—all violations of their ideals of order and morality—that would elicit a sanctioned response.²¹ However, as the Confucians, Taoists, and ordinary men all agreed, civilization had been characterized by moral deterioration ever since the golden age of antiquity; therefore, the tendency was an increasing reliance on force of arms, less the implementation of Virtue.²²

Not only were perversity and brutality justifications for embarking on punitive military campaigns, but they were also viewed as moral imperatives:

When action should be taken one who hesitates and is quiet, without advancing, seriously injures all living beings. Weapons are inauspicious instruments, and the Tao of Heaven abhors them. However when their employment is unavoidable it accords with the Tao of Heaven.²³

Beyond this vision of warfare as a corrective arising out of benevolent and righteous impulses was the frightening deduction that conflict is innate to both men and animals. Sun Pin’s view on the origins of weapons and warfare may be clearly seen in this fragmented passage:

Now being endowed with teeth and mounting horns, having claws in front and spurs in back, coming together when happy, fighting when angry, this is the Tao of Heaven, it cannot be stopped. Thus those who lack Heavenly weapons provide them themselves. This was an affair of extraordinary men.

Warfare was also thought to be inherent to civilization due to the existence and effect of human desires, including the irrepressible desire for power. A text from the early Han dynasty known as the Huai-nan Tzu preserves an eclectic, though subsequently popular, view:

Now whatever beast has blood and ch’i, has teeth and bears horns, has claws in front and spurs in back—those with horns butt, those with teeth bite, those with poison sting, and those with hooves kick. When happy they play with each other; when angry they harm each other. This then is Heavenly nature.

Men have a desire for food and clothes, but things are insufficient to supply them. Thus they group together in diverse places. When the division of things is not equitable, they fervently seek them and then conflict arises. When there is conflict the strong will coerce the weak, while the courageous will encroach upon the fearful. Since men do not have the strength of sinews and bone, the sharpness of claws and teeth, they cut leather to make armor, and smelt iron to make blades.

In antiquity men who were greedy, obtuse, and avaricious destroyed and pillaged all under Heaven. The myriad people were disturbed and moved, none could be at peace in his place. Sages suddenly arose to punish the strong and brutal and pacify a chaotic age. They eliminated danger and got rid of the corrupt, turning the muddy into the clear, danger into peace.

While this was a prevalent interpretation, China was actually characterized by a multiplicity of views. Although Confucius himself never discussed human nature beyond noting that men are alike at birth but differ in practice, a passage from the Hsün-tzu, explicates the “realist” or conservative Confucian position on the innate nature and source of conflict:

Man’s nature is evil; goodness is the result of conscious activity. The nature of man is such that he is born with a fondness for profit. If he indulges this fondness, it will lead him into wrangling and strife, and all sense of courtesy and humility will disappear. He is born with feelings of envy and hate, and if he indulges these, they will lead him into violence and crime, and all sense of loyalty and good faith will disappear.

Man is born with the desires of the eyes and ears, and with a fondness for beautiful sights and sounds. If he indulges these, they will lead him into licentiousness and wantonness, and all ritual principles and correct forms will be lost.

Hence, any man who follow his nature and indulges his emotions will inevitably become involved in wrangling and strife, will violate the forms and rules of society, and will end as a criminal.²⁴

War thus being inescapable, Hsün-tzu therefore subscribed to the view of the Ssu-ma Fa that righteous activity inevitably becomes necessary to eliminate human suffering and constitutes one of the unavoidable burdens of humanity and righteousness:

The benevolent man does indeed love others, and because he loves others, he hates to see men do them harm. The righteousness man acts in accordance with what is right, and for that reason he hates to see men do wrong. He takes up arms in order to put an end to violence and do away with harm, not in order to contend with others for spoil.²⁵

Another view that was widely discussed and remarkably influential in the Warring States period—but subsequently vanished from the historical stage— was that of the militant pacifist Mo-tzu. Succinctly put, Mo-tzu believed that human suffering arose not from desires or evil behavior per se, but from the creation of distinctions and partiality. The solution he advanced, known as “universal love” although much reviled by the Confucians as inimical to human relations and proper order, was less naive than might be apparent. While he lacked a method to induce universal love, he argued persuasively for following the behavioral dictates consequent to its existence, if only out of enlightened self-interest. In his most infamous chapter Mo Tzu said:

It is the business of the benevolent man to try to promote what is beneficial to the world and to eliminate what is harmful. Now at the present time, what brings the greatest harm to the world ? Great states attacking small ones, great families overthrowing small ones, the strong oppressing the weak, the many harrying the few, the cunning deceiving the stupid, the eminent lording it over the humble—these are harmful to the world. So too are rulers who are not generous, ministers who are not loyal, fathers who are without kindness, and sons who are unfilial, as well as those mean men who, with weapons, knives, poison, fire, and water, seek to injure and undo each other.

When we inquire into the cause of these various harms, what do we find has produced them? Do they come about from loving others and trying to benefit them? Surely not ! They come rather from hating others and trying to injure them. And when we set out to classify and describe those men who hate and injure others, shall we say that their actions are motivated by universality or partiality? Surely we must answer, by partiality, and it is this partiality in their dealings with one another that gives rise to all the great harms in the world. Therefore we know that partiality is wrong.²⁹

Mo-tzu also attempted to shatter the conceptual blindness that prevented men from recognizing the evilness of warfare:

If someone kills one man, he is condemned as unrighteous and must pay for his crime with his own life. According to this reasoning, if someone kills ten men, then he is ten times as unrighteous and should pay for his crime with ten lives, or if he kills a hundred men he is a hundred times as unrighteous and should pay for his crime with a hundred lives. Now all the gentlemen in the world know enough to condemn such crimes and brand them as unrighteous. And yet when it comes to the even greater unrighteousness of offensive warfare against other states, they do not know enough to condemn it. On the contrary, they praise it and call it righteous. Truly they do not know what unrighteousness is.³⁰

Nature of Warfare in China

End Notes and Comments

All translations from the Chinese military writings are by the author; standard translations of philosophers, when not by the author, are cited below. References to the various military works, all published by Westview Press in the History and Warfare Series, are as follows: The Seven Military Classics , encompassing Sun-tzu’s Art of War, the Ssu-ma Fa, the Wu-tzu, T’ai Kung’s Six Secret Teachings, theWei Liao-tzu, theThree Strategies of Huang Shih-kung, and the Questions and Replies between T’ang T’ai-tsung and Li Wei-kung ; Sun-tzu’s Art of War, an expanded single text translation with extensive historical introduction and analysis; Sun Pin’s Military Methods, translation with historical introduction and analytical commentary; the Hundred Unorthodox Strategies; and the Complete Art of War. [A compendium of important passages from the Seven Military Classics and the Military Methods, topically categorized for convenience, entitled The Art of the Warrior, Shambhala, 1996.]

1. Kierman, Frank A. Jr., ed., Chinese Ways in Warfare (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974).

2. Needham, Joseph, and Robin Yates, Science and Civilisation in China: Vol V, Part 6, Military Technology: Missiles and Sieges (Cambridge: The University Press, 1994). Vol V, Part 7 , Military Technology: The Gunpowder Epic , was previously published in 1986.

3. VIIB4. Also see VIIB1.

4. IVA14.

5. VIIB4

6. Note IA5.

7. “In the Spring and Autumn there are no righteous wars. Instances indeed there are of one war better than another. ‘Correction’ is when the supreme authority punishes its subjects by force of arms. Hostile states do not correct one another.” VIIB2 (Legge’s standard translation.) As a historical example Mencius was fond of citing the meteoric rise of King T’ang, founder of the Shang dynasty, who—when he overthrew the degenerate Hsia dynasty and undertook the task of pacifying the realm—was much murmured against by the surrounding oppressed peoples and minor states for not liberating them first, not unlike the captive peoples of the world looking hopefully toward the United States during WWII or the Communist reign.

His paradigm argument is encapsulated in a much cited reply prompted when King Hui inquired how to avenge an earlier loss of 700 kilometers of territory to the powerful state of Ch’in, the state that would eventually unify China under its first emperor:

With only a hundred square miles of territory one can become a true king. If a king implements benevolent government over the people, minimizes the employment of corporeal punishments and fines, keeps the taxes and impositions light, directs the people to plow deeply and weed thoroughly, and the strong and stalwart, during their leisure time, to become practiced in filiality, brotherly affection, loyalty, and trust, so that at home they will serve their fathers and elder brothers, and outside will serve their elders and superiors—then you will be able to have them make cudgels to strike Ch’in and Ch’u’s solidly armed, elite troops. (IA5, Sawyer translation)

While the concept of a well-ordered, instructed, and nurtured populace fundamentally underlies the view of all the military writers—and presumably the citizen soldier concept in the West—Mencius’ primitive troops would have stood little chance against Ch’in’s mighty warriors!

8. VIIB3. Legge. However, he also notes that “When King Wu punished Yin, he had 300 chariots of war and 3,000 elite guards.” (VIIB4)

9. They still retained enough fighting spirit to stage a major revolt just a few years thereafter, possible evidence of their tenacity. This battle is extensively discussed in the introductory material to our Seven Military Classics of Ancient China .

10. See page 37 ff.

11. James J. Y. Liu, The Chinese Knight-errant (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967).

12. Fairbank clearly recognized but dismissed this issue. See “Varieties of the Chinese Military Experience” in Chinese Ways in Warfare , p. 4.

13. Such as The Roots of War , Antique Drums of War , On the Origins of War, the optimistic Ride of the Second Horseman, the Pursuit of Power, A History of Warfare , and of course Quincy Wright’s A Study of War .

14. While some states were startled when they came under attack, communications and logistics being confined to wagons and line-of-sight, such surprise was uncommonly achieved between states.

15. There are certainly implications for the current Asian situation, given that the PRC apparently has nuclear missiles targeted at California while the U.S. lacks a defensive umbrella.

16. The Chung-kuo Li-tai Chan-cheng-shih compiled and revised over the two decades spanning the mid 1950s to 1970s by the Chinese Military Academy in Taipei.

17. “Incendiary Attacks,” the Art of War .

18. In “Waging War” Sun-tzu states: “What motivates men to slay the enemy is anger, what stimulates them to seizes advantage from the enemy is material goods.”

19. “Hsing Shih Hsia,” Kuan-tzu . The passage states:

In antiquity the three Sage Kings and Five Hegemons were all rulers who profited All under Heaven. For example, Shen Nung and Yü. T’ang and Wu attacked the perverse, executed the brutal, and slew the chaotic in order to bring profit to the people. Thus although these enlightened kings differed in their actions, they equally profited the people.

20. “One who excels in employing the military does not seek the enemy’s territory but punishes their ruler. He establishes his righteousness and effects it in his conquests, he attains awesomeness and realizes it with benevolence.” “Yu Kuan,” Kuan-tzu .

21. According to the Ssu-ma Fa:

Those who take advantage of weak states or encroach upon sparsely populated ones will have their borders reduced on all sides.
Those who murder the Worthy or harm the people will be attacked and deposed.
Those who are brutal within their state and encroach upon others outside it will be purged.
Those whose fields turn wild and whose people scatter will be reduced.
Those who rely on the strength of natural advantages to disobey orders will be invaded.
Those who harm or kill their relatives will be rectified.
Those who depose or slay their ruler will be exterminated.
Those who oppose orders and resist the government will be isolated.
Those who are chaotic and rebellious both within and without their borders, who act like animals, will be extinguished.

22. The Ssu-ma Fa states:

The Former Kings accorded with the Tao of Heaven; they established what was appropriate to Earth. They put the virtuous among the people into office, rectified names, and governed things. They established the states, defined the hierarchy of feudal positions, and apportioned emoluments according to rank. The feudal lords were pleased and embraced them. Those beyond the seas came to submit. Punishments were eliminated and the army rested. These were the attainments of Sagely Virtue.

Next came the Worthy Kings who ordered the rites, music, laws, and measures, and then created the five punishments, raising armored troops to chastise the unrighteous. They made inspection tours of the feudal lands, investigated the customs of the four quarters, assembled the feudal lords, and investigated differences. If any of the feudal lords had disobeyed orders; disordered the constant; turned his back on Virtue; or contravened the seasons of Heaven, endangering meritorious rulers, then they would publicize it among all the feudal lords, making it evident that he had committed an offense. They then announced it to August Heaven, and to the sun, moon, planets, and constellations. They prayed to the Gods of Earth, the spirits of the Four Seasons, mountains, rivers, and at the Great Altar of state. Then they offered sacrifice to the Former Kings. Only thereafter would the prime minister charge the army before the feudal lords saying “a certain state has acted contrary to the Tao. You will participate in the rectification campaign on such a year, month, and day. On that date the army will reach the offending state and assemble with the Son of Heaven to apply the punishment of rectification.”

The Ways by which the Kings and Hegemons governed the feudal lords were six: With territory they gave shape to the feudal lords. With government directives they pacified the feudal lords. With the rites and good faith they drew the feudal lords close to them. With men of wisdom and strength they pleased the feudal lords. Through strategists they constrained the feudal lords; with weapons and armor they forced the submission of the feudal lords.

By sharing misfortune with them, by sharing benefits with them, they united the feudal lords. They had the smaller states serve the larger ones in order to bring the feudal lords into harmony.

23. “Inferior Strategy.” The passage, from a late Warring States or early Han dynasty work entitled the Three Secret Teachings, clearly echoes Lao-tzu and the Taoist quietism associated with pacifism, but still expresses fundamental military thoughts and perspectives.

24. “Man’s Nature is Evil,” Hsün Tzu (Basic Writings of Mo Tzu, Hsün Tzu, and Han Fei Tzu, Burton Watson, trans. [New York: Columbia University Press, 1967]), pp. 157-8. Also see Hsün-tzu’s chapter entitled “A Discussion of Rites.”

25. “Debating Military Affairs,” Watson, pp. 68-69.

26. Chapter 46, D. C. Lau, trans., Tao Te Ching (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1982), pp. 67-9. The full passage runs: “When the way prevails in the empire, fleet-footed horses are relegated to plowing the fields; when the way does not prevail in the empire, war-horses breed on the border. There is no crime greater than having too many desires; There is no disaster greater than not being content; There is no misfortune greater than being covetous. Hence in being content, one will always have enough.”

27. Unfortunately, time constraints prohibit any exploration of the paradox of warrior monks and the samurai in Japan embracing Buddhism as their core philosophy.

28. This reverberates with echoes of “territoriality.” (We might also note the recent Greek-Turkish belligerency over some rocky island crags, and the PRC’s adamancy in asserting their claim to Taiwan, which 500 years ago was simply the refuge of pirates, and only brought under the sway of the Ch’ing after some exploitation by foreign powers, such as the Dutch and Portuguese, as well as Japanese occupation for the first half of this century.)

29. “Universal Love”, Mo Tzu (Basic Writings of Mo Tzu, Hsün Tzu, and Han Fei Tzu , Burton Watson, trans. [New York: Columbia University Press, 1967]), p. 39.

30. “Against Offensive Warfare”, Mo Tzu , Watson, pp. 50-1.

31. However, we should note that despite the rational thrust of this approach, unexpected results frequently arose when rulers changed commanders due to political whims—leading historically to the defeat of armies of 200,000 or more— or mounted campaigns out of overwhelming personal emotions, such as a desire for profit or revenge.

32. “The King’s Wings,” a chapter in the Six Secret Teachings, enumerates the staff and defines their functions.

33. An extensive list of equipment is also found in the chapter entitled “The Army’s Equipment” in the Six Secret Teachings.

34. “Against Offensive Warfare,” Mo Tzu , Watson, p. 53.

35. His justification as well for employing intelligence agents.

36. Watson, “Regulations of a King:” “He who lives by force must use his might to conquer the cities that other men guard and to defeat the soldiers that other men send forth to battle, and in doing so he inevitably inflicts great injury upon the people of other states. If he inflicts great injury upon them, they will inevitably hate him fiercely and will day by day grow more eager to fight against him. Moreover, he who uses his might to conquer the cities that other men guard and to defeat the soldiers that other men send forth to battle must inevitably inflict great injury upon his own people as well. If he inflicts great injury upon his own people, they will inevitably hate him fiercely and will day by day grow less eager to fight his battles. With the people of other states growing daily more eager to fight against him, and his own people growing daily less eager to fight in his defense, the ruler who relies upon strength will on the contrary be reduced to weakness. He acquires territory but loses the support of his people; his worries increase while his accomplishments dwindle. He finds himself with more and more cities to guard and less and less of the means to guard them with; thus in time the great state will on the contrary be stripped down in this way to insignificance. The other feudal lords never cease to eye him with hatred and to dream of revenge; never do they forget their enmity. They spy out his weak points and take advantage of his defects, so that he lives in constant peril.”

37. Chapter 30, Lau, p. 45-7 :

One who assists the ruler of men by means of the way does not intimidate the empire by show of arms. This is something which is liable to rebound.
Where troops have encamped
There will brambles grow;
In the wake of a mighty army
Bad harvests follow without fail.
One who is good aims only at bringing his campaign to a conclusion and dare not thereby intimidate. Bring it to a conclusion but do not boast; bring it to a conclusion but do not brag; bring it to a conclusion but do not be arrogant; bring it to a conclusion but only when there is no choice; bring it to a conclusion but do not intimidate…..

38. Chapter 31, Lau, p 47.

39. The state is impoverished by the army when it transports provisions far off. When provisions are transported far off, the hundred surnames are impoverished. Those in proximity to the army will sell their goods expensively. When goods are expensive, the hundred surnames’ wealth will be exhausted. When their wealth is exhausted, they will be extremely hard-pressed to supply their village’s military impositions. When their strength has been expended and their wealth depleted, then the houses in the central plains will be empty. The expenses of the hundred surnames will be some seven tenths of whatever they have. The ruler’s irrecoverable expenditures—such as ruined chariots, exhausted horses, armor, helmets, arrows and crossbows, halberd-tipped and spear tipped large protective shields, strong oxen, and large wagons—will consume six-tenths of his resources.

40. “Inquiries,” the Kuan-tzu . The text states: “Now military affairs are dangerous matters. Being victorious at an inappropriate time or acquiring things unrighteously have never proven fortuitous. When defeat results from the failure of plans the state will be endangered. If one is extremely attentive to planning, the state will be preserved.” Sun Pin’s strategy in defeating Wei twice in succession was of course founded upon two states mutually debilitating each other, for he could then exploit the resulting weakness to forge easy victories.”

41. “Yu Kuan.”

42. “The Five Vermin,” Han Fei Tzu (Basic Writings of Mo Tzu, Hsün Tzu, and Han Fei Tzu , Burton Watson, trans. [New York: Columbia University Press, 1967]), pp. 115-6.

43. “Audience with King Wei,” the Military Methods.

44. However, an additional implication for present day forces is simply that the mindset and honed reactions of warriors is radically dissimilar to that of policemen, peace keepers, or civilians. Therefore, to dispatch soldiers for tasks other than fighting and expect that they will be able to override previously ingrained training, rationally analyze situations, and be able to refrain from instinctively killing potential enemies, as in Bosnia, Haiti, and Somalia, is absurd. Moreover, current research into sticky goo and other non-lethal measures, while humanitarianly oriented, clearly requires men with significantly different training, and entails the risk that the enemy, observing such unwillingness to inflict suffering, will mobilize every deceit and ruse possible, and simply slaughter such troops so deployed. (For further discussion, see: Lt. Col. M. N. Stanton, “What Price Sticky Foam,” Proceedings , January, 1996, pp. 58-60.)

45. Hsün-tzu said:

Fire and water possess energy but are without life. Grass and trees have life but no intelligence. Birds and beasts have intelligence but no sense of duty. Man possesses energy, life, intelligence, and, in addition, a sense of duty. Therefore he is the noblest being on earth. He is not as strong as the ox, nor as swift as the horse, and yet he makes the ox and the horse work for him. Why? Because he is able to organize himself in society and they are not. Why is he able to organize himself in society? Because he sets up hierarchical divisions. And how is he able to set up hierarchical divisions? Because he has sense of duty. If he employs this sense of duty to set up hierarchical divisions, then there will be harmony. Where there is harmony there will be unity; where there is unity there will be strength; and where there is strength there will be the power to conquer all things. Thus men can dwell in security in their houses and halls. The reason that men are able to harmonize their actions with the order of the seasons, utilize all things, and bring universal profit to the world is simply this: they have established hierarchical divisions and possess a sense of duty.

Men, once born, must organize themselves into a society. But if they form a society without hierarchical divisions, then there will be quarreling. Where there is quarreling, there will be chaos; where there is chaos, there will be fragmentation; and where there is fragmentation, men will find themselves too weak to conquer other beings. Thus they will be unable to dwell in security in their houses and halls. This is why I say that ritual principles must not be neglected even for a moment. (“Regulations of a King,” Hsün-tzu, Watson, pp. 45-6.)

46. Not just a theoretical position, China has long manifested a disdain for high casualty rates, and presently trumpets its willingness to sacrifice millions in an encounter with Taiwan and the United States. In contrast, the U.S., whether due to small families, disparagement of military values, the heritage of the Vietnam war, selfish intents or other reasons, is simply unwilling to sustain a battlefield commitment once casualties arise. The PRC’s obliviousness makes the possibility that they would risk nuclear retaliation for an ICBM attack on the U.S. West coast much greater than any rational being would imagine, and in consequence their threat of nuclear force more effective and fearsome than perhaps previously experienced during the decades of assured mutual destruction with the U.S.S.R.

47. “Against Confucians,” Watson, p 129.

48. Here we might ponder whether the presence of a Star Wars-type anti-missile defense, or strategic umbrella as it is now termed, would not lessen the threat of nuclear blackmail from the PRC and possibly other renegade states who acquire ICBM capabilities?

49. “Moderation in Funerals,” Watson, p. 71.

50. See “Planning Offensives” in the Art of War.

51. “The Regulations of a King,” Watson, pp. 50-4.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mr. Sawyer, an international consultant who heads R. Sawyer, Inc., based in Orleans, Massachusetts, earned degrees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. He has studied and taught in Taiwan and was an instructor at Boston University and the University of Maryland. His most recent book is The Tao of Spycraft: Intelligence Theory and Practice in Traditional China (Westview, 1998).