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Research Paper
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Early Weapons Systems and Ethnic Identity in the Sino-Vietnamese Frontier

INTRODUCTION

John Keegan, perhaps the most influential of late 20th-century students of warfare, declares baldly and doubtless to some, shockingly, that "..warfare is a cultural activity."[1] Keegan also documents in some detail the failure of scholars in general to pay appropriate heed to war as a cultural activity. [2] This neglect is, however, not surprising. Members of virtually all cultures and probably most intellectuals in all cultures have seen war simply as the antithesis of peace. Confucian China, with its dichotomy between Wen, "civil culture" and Wu, "martial culture" is a felicitous example in this regard.

Whether it would be useful to pay more attention to war as a cultural activity in studying any or all cultures, I cannot say. But I have found it necessary to take war as an expression of culture quite seriously in my own studies[3] of the peoples of the Sino-Vietnamese frontier who are known in China as the Zhuang, and in Vietnam as the Nung. The Zhuang/Nung are literally a people forged in war. They have served for more than two thousand years as mercenary soldiers in both Chinese and Vietnamese armies (as well as in French and American ones, among others in the recent past). An important explanation for their continued survival as an ethnic group lies in the martial culture which has permitted them forcefully to resist assimilation by the Han Chinese and Vietnamese peoples when so many other peoples could not.

In this paper I have tried to analyze the early culture of the Zhuang/Nung, and particularly their relationship to the cultures of the Chinese Central Plain, by focusing upon weapons and warfare. I believe that this approach yields useful new information on both the Zhuang/Nung themselves and upon the early cultural processes on either side of today's Sino-Vietnamese frontier.

Most authorities, both classical and modern, agree that the antecedent peoples of the Zhuang/Nung were the "Bai Yue" peoples of China. The term Bai Yue, meaning literally "the One Hundred Yue" is a classical Chinese name for a variety of peoples believed to belong loosely to one group, the Yue. As stated in the classical Chinese text the Han Shu, "From Jiaozhi [present day Vietnam] to Guaiji [in present day Zhejiang] is seven or eight thousand li. The Bai Yue live everywhere."[4] The term Yue can also refer to a geographic region and to a feudal state as well as to the ethnic group. After their state was destroyed by Chu in 334 B.C.E., the Bai Yue continued to survive in their ancestral domain, the south and east of China, but lost their common identity; some were absorbed by the Han and others became disparate minority peoples after the unification of China by Han Wu Di (141-87 B.C.E.).

Recognizing the diversity of Yue groups, Chinese scholars usually divide them into a northern and a southern group. The Zhuang/Nung stem from the southern branch of the Yue peoples as opposed to the northern Yue coastal peoples and today are found primarily in Guangxi, across the border in today's Viet Bac (northern) region of Vietnam, and to a lesser extent in Yunnan, Guangdong, and Hunan. In addition to the Zhuang, many other groups which would ultimately be identified as Chinese minority peoples emerge from the southern Yue. Such groups have been said to include the Miao, the Yao, the Dong, the Buyi, the Shuiji and the Li.[5]

In order to see changes in the Yue culture over time, we begin with an early Yue site, a northern one. One of the most important such sites is a collection of 14 cliff burial tombs excavated in 1979 in Guiqi county of Jiangxi. The tombs are dug into the side of cliffs, three over land and eleven over water, a characteristically Yue style of burial.[6] The tombs yielded 37 coffin burials, sixteen sets of skeletal remains, bamboo and wooden artifacts, fabric, pottery, and proto-porcelain; 220 artifacts in all. C14 dating of wood artifacts provides dates of 2595 +/- 75 and 2650 +/- 125 B.P. or c. 600 B.C.E., that is, late Spring and Autumn or at the latest, early Warring States (476-221 B.C.E.)[7] Its location and characteristic artifacts define it as a Yue site.[8] While weapons are present in the Guiqi sites, they are largely symbolic wood representations rather than bronze or iron originals. Whether this indicates that metals were too valuable or simply that weapons as such had a lower place in life (and in the after-life) is unimportant; either conclusion suggests that the society was much less warlike than the later Yinshan society, discussed below.

Using the Guiqi site as a sort of index of the relative militarization of Yue society in the pre-Warring States period, we turn now to the southern Yue sites in later periods. Two of the earliest of the peoples which emerge as distinct from the welter of the Yue are the Luo Yue and the Xi Ou. These peoples existed in the period before the Qin invasion of the 3rd century B.C.E., and, some have argued, may well have had a highly developed state of their own. In trying to comprehend the later evolution of ethnicity in the region, we begin with the Luo Yue and the Xi Ou.

The Luo Yue lived in an area encompassing parts of southwest Guangxi and northern Vietnam---where they are known as the Lac Viet. The very broken topography of those regions influenced the development of human cultures to an unusual degree. The high mountains and many rivers made extensive agriculture and extended political organization difficult. The Yue peoples farmed grains, including rice, very early. Some Chinese historians celebrating the contributions of the Yue, credit them as the first rice-growing Chinese local culture,[9] though this award seems preliminary given the yet incomplete record. While local Yue peoples did farm irrigated rice in Guangxi prior to the Han intrusion, they more characteristically engaged in swidden culture of dry rice and millet.[10] Most people lived in relatively small groups in the mountain valleys or on small plains near rivers where farming was possible. The larger mountain valleys, later termed dong by the Han Chinese, were the centers of the Zhuang political system, and the term evolved to refer to the political system itself.[11] Agriculture in such mountain valleys could be quite productive and some areas supported populations of several thousands. There were a number of means of irrigating crops, including conventional ditching and diking coupled with water-raising devices to tap streams and rivers. Other technologies not open to low-land farmers were also used, such as bringing water from springs, streams, or holding tanks at higher elevations via elaborate systems of bamboo pipes and aqueducts, as observed among contemporary Nung farmers in Vietnam.[12]

The societies of the various dong were, not surprisingly, highly varied as to such material culture as clothing and hair styles, over the entire period of Luo Yue and subsequent Zhuang history. It is possible that even language varied from region to region. Such variations naturally led the Han Chinese (and many subsequent Western scholars) to emphasize these differences, often dividing the people into different ethnic groups. Han Chinese, for example, often spoke of them as bu luo or "tribes".

In order to see those peoples more clearly than did the Chinese themselves, we turn now to analysis of the relationship between their cultures and war. First we consider their weapons, richly distributed in the grave goods uncovered in the archaeological sites of the region. In examining their weapons, we want to understand the weapons systems which they used in the period before Han contact and then to see the changes wrought in those systems by the Han contact.

The indigenous weapons of the Yue were those of the late Neolithic and bronze ages found in archaeological sites in the region, and they are sufficiently distinct from types of the central plains to constitute an important indicator of cultural influence, and of change over time. The most recognizable of the commonly encountered indigenous weapons is the flat-bladed long bronze dagger.[13]


Examples of Bronze Duan Jian From a Vietnamese Site.[14]

These weapons are often called in Chinese sources duan jian or "short straight double-edged swords." This name reflects the fact that they are double-edged and straight, the quality which distinguishes the piercing or stabbing straight sword of China from the heavier, slightly curved, broad-bladed and single-edged dao, a cutlass-like sword used as a hacking or slashing weapon. But the unique broad-bladed construction of the duan jian and the fact that they are usually of bronze suggest rather that they should be thought of as a distinct weapon characteristic of the bronze age. Because of the inherent weakness of bronze weapons southern smiths cast them with a very heavy blade to increase their strength; some are nearly triangular in construction. This clearly distinguishes them from the Central Plains type which rather has an almost oval blade when seen in cross-section.[15]


Bronze Short Jian from a Vietnamese site.[16]

The problem with either of these attempts to remedy the inherent short-coming of bronze, its relative softness, is weight. A weapon of any length would have to be so heavy as to be unwieldy.[17]


Bronze Weapons from Nanyue Kingdom. #1 and 5 are jian (long jian) # 2,3,6,7,8,11 and 12 are duan jian.[18]

As iron superseded bronze, about the 5th century B.C.E., smiths abandoned the duan jian type and rather produced the longer and slimmer jian with greater reach, strength, and sharpness, although some few early iron examples of short Jian have survived. Shorter jian-type weapons of iron are double-edged or poniard-edged blades of a narrow construction, taking advantage of the greater strength of iron, and perhaps could properly be thought of as merely "short jian." Surviving later examples of the broad-bladed short jian made in bronze are usually very ornate; bronze, of course, being softer is far easier to work in fine detail or to inlay than is iron. Perhaps the bronze short jian were valued for beauty rather than utility after better long weapons became available. While the southern type is not entirely distinct from those of the Bronze-age Central Plain they are relatively easy to distinguish from Chinese specimens by the nature of their decorations and from their relatively common distribution in Yue sites. The fact that they lingered on among the southern Yue after being almost entirely displaced by the jian in the central plain might, however, be thought of as a cultural marker.[19]

Other indigenous weapons gave the Yue and the later Zhuang an arsenal appropriate to their military professions. These include the light cross-bow (a self-bow---that is, made of a one piece bowstaff as opposed to the heavy compound cross-bow of the central plain). The indigenous crossbow was often used with poisoned arrows which more than compensated for its relatively low velocity.

The Yue, however, were quick to adopt superior weapons and a willingness to do so would remain a characteristic of the descendants of the Yue while the Han Chinese often remained mired in the past because of the weight of their own military traditions. The cross-bow of the central plain is an example of such a superior weapon. That weapon, in examples to be seen at the Qin Mausoleum in Xian, incorporated struts into the bow which acted to increase the torque of the bow, as well as a compound bow-stave to increase its stiffness.






Crossbow from the Qin Museum, Xian

Such a bow could throw a variety of heavy arrows with a very flat trajectory well suited to aimed fire and the Yue quickly took it up, as revealed by the arrow-head distributions discussed below. The association of Yue warriors with yet another weapon, the ax (also yue), is so close that some have argued that their very name is cognate to the weapon. Some argue that the Yue-battle ax is characteristic of the Yue arsenals of the pre-Qin era.[20] A Yue-ax of a uniquely southern style was the pediform (shoe or slipper-shaped) ax said to be limited solely to the Yue.


A Pediform Ax.[21]

The distribution of weapons charted below indicates, however, that the Yue warriors preferred the symmetrical battle-ax to the unique pediform ax, presumably because its shape made it both more efficient, stronger, and cheaper to produce than the elaborate slipper-shaped ax with its long trailing, fragile blade.

The arsenals of the Yue can now be understood over a long time period which illustrates the social changes of the area and the increased contact with outside peoples. The earliest period for which we have bronze examples (unfortunately very few of them) is the Shang-Eastern Zhou era ( ends c. 453 B.C.E.) for which we have a Ge dagger-ax found in Guangdong but one of clearly foreign origins.[22] Both the increased violence of the following period encompassing the wars through the era of the early Warring States (c. 322 B.C.E.) and the richer number of sites have produced far more examples of weapons. This chart of types and numbers of weapons found in Yue sites follows Yang Shiting:[23]

TYPE Ge (dagger-ax) Mao (lance) Yue (battle-ax) Zu (arrow-head) duan-jian (short) Long Jian Yue (pediform ax)
Shang-Eastern Zhou 1
Spring-Autumn to early Warring States 12 34 56 163 21 5 1
mid-Warring States to Early Han 2 62 53 68 28 36 2

Several conclusions are suggested by the table above. The ratio of southern weapons to northern ones (short jian to long jian) changes abruptly during the period of the Warring States: southern soldiers are then utilizing northern weapons. These may have been their own, earned in mercenary service, or in many cases were crafted by southern smiths after northern examples. Certainly the far greater frequency of weapons found also indicates the higher level of military service. The Mao-lance, for example, is often said to be a southern weapon but it is relatively scarce in early periods, plentiful in later ones.

The arrows indicated by the find of caches of arrow-heads indicated above were primarily heavy cross-bow arrows with a triangular barbed head of about 13 centimeters in length. These were a very heavy man-killer called in the Han era, with soldiers' graveyard humor, the Fei Meng--- "Gadfly."[24]

The arrowheads found, as well as the ratio of some of the other weapons to each other, indicates some problems with the sample. It is highly unlikely that so many more arrows were in use in the early Warring States than in the later ones, as suggested by the table above. It also seems probable that far more Mao-lances were in service than long jian swords, though the grave finds suggest the opposite. The Mao was little more than a heavy cast bronze head on a long shaft (250-290 cm in examples found in Guangxi) and was doubtless the weapon of choice for both infantry soldiers who appreciated its long reach, and for their quartermasters, who found it cheap to produce. The jian, on the other hand, requires long practice to use skillfully, is expensive to produce, and ill-suited to combat against an armored soldier, or against one with a long weapon, for that matter. It was regarded as a secondary weapon, primarily defensive, and usually carried by officers. The distribution of the weapons in the graves in which they are found is doubtless influenced by class and status issues in ways which are not yet fully understood. Probably the graves which both survive and are discovered are far more likely to be the large and elaborate ones of the officer class---those who carried the jian-- than those of the common soldiers who wielded the long Mao-lance in the actual shock of front-line combat. The usual fate of the battle casualties of the rank-and-file of the Yue mercenary units was probably a hasty interment sans weapons in a common grave.

Lan Jiyong's careful study of distinctions between northern and southern weapons types found in Guangxi adds some additional important elements to our understanding. Lan argues that a critical date is that at which southern adaptations of northern weapon types begin to be clearly distinctive, in terms of local variations in shape and ornamentation, from northern originals. This indicates, Lan cogently argues, the period at which southern armies became formal organizations. This point occurred at the late Western Zhou era, c. 453 B.C.E.[25]

In addition to weapons found as grave goods, we have two other valuable sources of insight into the relationship between ethnicity and weapons systems in the Sino-Vietnamese frontier: cliff paintings and bronze drums. Perhaps the most extensive complex of early cliff paintings in the world is found along the Zuo River valley in southwest Guangxi. Cliff paintings of the Luo Yue have been found at more than 70 locations along its lower reaches and up its tributaries. Painted in a red-brown ferrous oxide (Fe2O3) the paintings depict more than 2600 human figures and a wide variety of animals and material objects.


[26]Guangxi Cliff Painting

The paintings were produced over a period extending from the Warring States to late Han (475 B.C.E.-220 A.C.E.). The largest of these groupings extends over an area of 50 by 170 meters. While some of the human figures are isolated ones from which it is difficult to generalize, many are in extensive groupings, some containing more than one hundred figures, one containing more than one thousand. The paintings depict a variety of shamanistic ceremonies from which much can be learned about Luo Yue culture.


[27]
Outline of Shamanistic Ceremony from a cliff painting.

The materials have been thoroughly analyzed by a joint work team of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Cultural Affairs Bureau and the Provincial Museum.[28]

The paintings were all clearly produced for religious reasons. Whether the paintings depict actual shamanistic ceremonies which were then memorialized in the paintings, or the paintings are themselves the ceremony and hence a symbolic depiction hardly matters. They clearly reflect real people involved in actual social ceremonies. While the dates of different sites are certainly arguable, as later groups were frequently added among earlier ones, it is possible to divide them roughly into three periods, based largely upon characteristic artifacts depicted. These periods, (I) Warring States to early Han (453-206 B.C.E.), (II) early to middle Han (202 B.C.E.-9 A.C.E.), and (III) late Han (26 A.C.E.-220 A.C.E.), encompass important changes in Luo Yue society which can be clearly seen in the paintings.

Although as we have said, the various Dong varied markedly in cultural practices, the cliff paintings demonstrate that they were united by a common religion. Moreover, this religion was also the central political institution of the dong in the early period.

The religion is best described as shamanism. The shaman, or shamaness (some few females are shown), is depicted in the early paintings as a gigantic figure often wearing a feathered headdress who clearly exercised life or death powers over his or her congregation. The shaman combined religious power and military power as well: Shamans are often depicted carrying sheathed swords or wielding them, while other figures are usually unarmed, unless clearly subordinate to the shaman and carrying out his or her orders.


Shaman wielding a Dao with another at his waist.[29]

Sometimes shamans alone are shown astride horses. Social divisions are suggested by size and placement of secondary figures, perhaps based on clan structures and/or social distance from the shaman.

Gender relations seem to be male-dominated. Almost all shamans are men, though shamanesses are depicted. Men are usually more powerful and more central than women in the groupings, though there are conspicuous exceptions. Ritualistic sexual couplings are indicated. Both male and female procreative powers were apparently worshipped. At least one armed shamaness is shown, indicating that the conflation of civic and religious authority held across genders.[30]

The central rituals depicted in the paintings were religious gatherings, usually dances, in which the climactic moment would seem to have been mass invocations with raised arms of the various gods being worshipped. Animals and not seldom people, including children, were sacrificed, apparently sometimes in numbers. Gods included those of natural elements such as the sun, rivers, mountains, storms, animals---particularly birds and frogs---and gods of land and place as well as malevolent spirits and demons. Artifacts such as bronze drums and hearths are not only part of the ceremonies but may have been objects of worship as well.[31] The gods were invoked both to propitiate them as well as to bring bountiful crops and victory in war.

Like the weapons found among grave goods, the cliff paintings give a number of indications of the progressive militarization of Luo Yue society. A commonly depicted ritual is a shamanistic invocation of divine support to obtain victory in battle. The central drama of these rituals would seem to be the presentation of captives by or before the shaman on the battlefield. All of those listed by Wang Kerong at Al. belong to the earliest period of the cliff paintings.[32] We therefore believe that these ceremonies are most characteristic of Lo Yue society prior to the major Han impact and indicate indigenous institutions. A representative grouping of these figures is that found at Ningming Hua Shan in the fourth site, ninth grouping.[33]



Ningming Hua Shan Cliff Paintings

The elements of the painting include a number of shaman-figures, though one is clearly superior as indicated by relative size. Prisoners are shown as child-sized figures, literally in the hands of their captors. Several bronze drums are depicted and one horse. Weapons are not readily apparent, so the ceremony is presumably a post-battle civic ceremony before the victorious population. We assume captives to have been enslaved for labor and military service as described below.

The cliff paintings are entirely dedicated to shamanistic rituals, so we do not see actual battlefields or armies as such. But there is a widespread occurrence of clearly recognizable weapon-types from which much can be learned. Some of the weapons depicted are clearly northern in origin and their widespread representation in the early murals are an indication of early outside influences. These types include the ring-handled dao (cutlass) and the chang jian (long straight-sword). While some of these weapons are being brandished or perhaps shown in use in sacrifice, most are simply carried at the waist of the shaman-figures. It is striking, however, that typically southern weapons such as pediform axes, short Jian, and light cross-bows are not associated with the shaman-figures. We believe that the weapons which are most closely associated with them, the dao and the long jian, are primarily symbols of authority precisely because they were from the central plains. This suggests that contact or familiarity with those northern cultures is also an attribute or indicator of power.

The later paintings are paradoxically much simpler than the earlier ones, which are the most detailed and the most extensive. It is also believed that the early ones show a greater mass participation in the ceremonies and the shaman seems of far higher status relative to the other participants.[34] In the later ones, the shaman is reduced to just another figure, discernible only because of characteristic regalia. The shaman has become a specialist figure, and it may be that the later paintings are themselves the ceremony, which has now acquired a reified symbolic significance, rather than a depiction of actual ceremonies. The reason for this shift is a change in political structure: militarization has produced a new type of leader, the war chieftain, who has displaced the shaman as the political leader. Political and religious leadership, in short, are no longer conflated.

The changes in Luo Yue society are further demonstrated by evidence drawn from the bronze drums. Much of the iconography of the cliff paintings is echoed in that of the bronze drums of the Luo Yue. The same birds and animals are frequently present, and the drums indicate that the shamanistic ceremonies were widely shared and quite conventionalized. However, the drums are more ornate than the cliff paintings because the bronze of the drum, like that of the short jian, could be worked in greater detail. The cliff paintings give a sense that the artists were primitive indeed; working in an often gigantic scale with ferrous oxide paint on a rough rock surface while clinging to a trapeze-like seat many meters above rock scree is evidently not conducive to artistic finesse. Because of their primitive air, Chinese analysts frequently make comparisons between the cliff paintings and foreign examples drawn from far earlier periods of human history. The drums, however, illustrate a much more artistic and, in the conventional view at least, a more highly developed culture.[35] Perhaps because of the plasticity of the medium, the bronzes also portray a much wider variety of events than the simple rituals of the cliffs, though the motivation behind the creation of the drums was also a religious one.

The drums are from a slightly later period than the earliest of the cliff paintings and reflect the changes in Luo Yue society. One immediate distinction between the human figures presented on the drums of the Luo Yue and those in their rock paintings is the apparently lower status of the shaman: either everyone pictured on many of the drums is a shaman as they all wear the characteristic feather head-dress of the shaman in the cliff paintings and all are shown in the same egalitarian human scale, or there is some distinction, not readily apparent, in the rituals presented.[36] It is possible that while religious and political leadership have diverged, certain elements of the symbolism of shamanism have continued to serve political purposes. [37] The main purpose of the feathered head-dress surely was to inspire awe and terror, emotions at least as valuable to a warrior as to a shaman, and the shaman's head-dress possibly became the warrior's feathered helm.

Some elements of Luo Yue weapons systems are only hinted at in the cliff paintings but fulsomely treated on the drums. One of these is the great importance of boats. The fact that the rivers and streams of the area are challenging obstacles to navigation stimulated the Yue to develop a large variety of water craft suitable for many different conditions.[38] As a consequence the later Zhuang were able to move rapidly both on land and water through very difficult country and became masters of riverine war.[39] Said to be one of the cultural markers of the Yue, the boats are presented in sometimes gorgeous detail on the drums.


A Yue boat with oarsmen wearing feathered headdresses as depicted on a bronze drum[40]

Some scholars have argued that one craft commonly depicted was a twin-hulled catamaran capable of deep-water ocean voyages, like the Polynesian craft it so closely resembles.[41] Many of these boats are war craft carrying tens of soldiers; the Yue, like the later Zhuang, excelled in riverine warfare.[42] The boats are probably so often presented on the drums because the drums themselves were important to the boats; many boats are shown with drums aboard. They were used, we presume, to mark time for the oarsmen and to communicate over distances with other boats, as well as for those many propitiatory ceremonies doubtless frequently called for on the water.

From the grave goods, cliff paintings, and bronze drums of the Luo Yue, then, we can see systematic changes in their culture, changes which are particularly visible as they bear upon weapons and war. By turning to an analysis of the Xi Ou, we get still a clearer picture of those changes, and the specific influences which brought them about.

THE XI OU AND THE INFLUENCE OF CHU

In turning from the Luo Yue to the Xi Ou we have an opportunity to gain perspectives not permitted by the nature of the evidence of the cliff paintings or the bronze drums. One of these is the precise source of foreign influence in the Warring States era, and the nature of Xi Ou society. Prior to 221 B.C.E., the primary source of Central Plains cultural influence upon the southern Yue peoples was the Yangtze valley state of Chu. Following Chu's defeat of Yue in 334 B.C.E., Chu intruded rapidly into the former Yue regions. Changsha was the southern-most city of the Chu imperium, though there were minor Chu outposts along river communication routes in Guangxi, as Chu moved into the southern coastal region via the West river.[43] However, the influence of Chu was to be relatively minor as Chu soon then entered into its fatal struggle with Qin. To 1982, known sites of Chu tombs were restricted largely to the provinces of Hubei where there are thirty such sites, and Hunan, where 23 are known. Honan and Anhui provinces each have eight sites. There is one site in Guangxi, five in Jiangsu, one in Zhejiang, and none in Guangdong.[44] Wolfram Eberhard has argued that it was precisely the intrusion of elites from Chu which began to provide southern peoples with a degree of social organization which had hitherto been lacking, a conclusion which seems not to fit present evidence.[45] Some historians of Chu have emphasized the high degree of sensitivity which Chu displayed toward the cultures and peoples of its multi-ethnic empire.[46]

An important Yue site which reveals the influence of Chu is the substantial Warring States era cemetery at Yinshan in Pingle county in Guangxi. The occupants of the tombs were Xi Ou or "Western Ou" peoples of the Yue.[47] This site contains 165 tombs, constructed predominantly in the late Warring States era (403-221 B.C.E.), but also some perhaps dating from the early Western Han (220-23 B.C.E.)[48] This very rich site was in an important communications corridor between Hunan and Guangxi which greatly facilitated the transmission of northern influences, particularly those of Chu, into Guangxi. The construction of the tomb and their contents have been closely analyzed. In the tombs both males and females were interred and the site permits fruitful comparisons with the earlier Guiqi cliff burials. Although it is not possible to be precise, the Yinshan sites are somewhat later than the cliff burials. There are some important distinctions between the two cultures revealed at these sites, distinctions which are most easily explained by changes in the historical context.

The most important of these changes is the much accelerated militarization of Yue society. Unlike the Guiqi sites discussed above, in the Yinshan graves, weapons were plentiful. The Yinshan graves can be divided into two types on the basis of their grave goods; one type contained weapons and tools, predominantly agricultural ones, and daily use items such as pottery containers. The other type contained not weapons but spindle-whorls used in weaving, plus tools and daily use items. This later society was not only far more militarized as the male occupants of the tombs were clearly soldier-agriculturists, but weaving had now become women's work, presumably because war had become men's. Both had become specialist activities. Women's products, like men's military labor, was exported. An important element of the later Zhuang handicraft economy was the weaving of cloth. By the Tang era, Zhuang brocades were a status indicator at the Chinese imperial court.[49] These changes are, of course, fully consonant with the simultaneous militarization of Luo Yue society and occur for many of the same reasons, though the closer proximity of the Xi Ou to the military labor markets of Chu make the process far more obvious among them.

The weapons of the tombs indicate a wide variety of provenances, though most were probably of local manufacture after northern models, indicating a highly developed metallurgy; mineral ores are plentiful in the immediate region. The weapons had been much used, frequently sharpened and polished. The names of some major Warring States' battles were carved onto several. The weapons were also quite sharply delineated by type. Spears, swords, and various archery implements predominate, all indicative of southern styles of warfare. The accouterments of cavalry or chariotry warfare, such as ge-dagger axes, chariot fittings or cavalry harness, are infrequently found. Because of the hilly and often-bamboo or brush-choked or forested terrain, southern soldiers were almost entirely infantry. The weapons and the accompanying agricultural implements all suggest a local society of soldier-farmers who served as mercenary infantry in the armies of Chu during the Warring States era. We can only speculate as to the process whereby the Xi Ou were drawn into Chu's service. It is easily possible that the same people had earlier served the Yue state and were simply incorporated into the victorious armies of Chu. More likely, Chu systematically recruited among the peoples to the south.

Chu influences are plentiful, both in the styles of the weapons, in accompanying bronze and pottery vessels, and in the construction of the tombs themselves. At the same time, there have been sufficient local adaptations to the Chu originals to show a society with distinctive local characteristics which had absorbed limited external influences.[50] The axes found in the tombs, for example, are metal versions of the shouldered stone axes of the southeastern late Neolithic. The similarities to other Yue cultures in the West river valley of Guangdong are pronounced, indications that a regional Yue culture has consolidated by this time, and that it developed from the southeast to the southwest and northwest, where it met the expanding Chu. But Chu, like the other Warring States, was fated to fall to the Qin barbarians of the northwest. By 221 B.C.E. Qin had defeated all its many adversaries and united China. Unification was to expose the southern branches of the Bai Yue to a sustained outside influence for the first time.

During the period from pre-Han impact to the Qin invasion, the society of the southern Yue peoples changed greatly. When the Qin invaded in 221 B.C.E., they were met by a highly organized and quite competent military structure which drove them into defensive perimeters and ultimately expelled them. That structure developed between the period of the earliest cliff paintings and the date of the Qin invasion.

War had emerged as a specialist's occupation and political power had shifted from a religious base to military force. Such a shift is not a surprising one. Others have argued that it occurred somewhat earlier in the northern societies of the Warring States era.[51] There would be many reasons why both shamanism and war would become specialist activities. One is certainly that some of the dong are expanding to forcibly incorporate neighboring peoples. A shaman, however "big" a man or woman, would find it difficult to control distant dong. A warrior, however, could, and without need to resort to abstract religious sanctions.

The militarization of Chinese society in general also greatly changed the practice of war among the Yue. Veterans have returned from the northern wars and brought their greater military sophistication with them. It may be that the northern weapons which the shamans wear on the cliffs were their own, acquired in mercenary service. Earlier raids over blood-feuds and rights to mineral-rich gravel beds or shell-fish mounds have given way to campaigns to control extensive territory, to tax shipping and commerce, and to enslave laborers. The new lords of the dong have also learned that a novel source of income was widely available: they could lease their young men as mercenary units to the warlords of the outside world, as shown below. This required in turn more manpower, easily acquired through military slavery, constant training, and frequent campaigning. Once began, the militarization of Luo Yue, Xi Ou, and later Zhuang society acquired a momentum which was to perpetuate it for more than two thousand years.

The militarization of the southern Yue was inevitable. Their territory was ringed on all sides by other states engaged in fatal contests for supremacy. In the early Spring and Autumn period (c. 772 B.C.E.) the Luo Yue and the Xi Ou were adjacent to Chu on their northern perimeter, Dian in Yunnan on the west, Nan Yue in today's Guangdong on their east, Wu and Yue on their north-east. There were no great geographic obstacles to contact with any of those powers, and all were recruiting mass armies. It is probable that Yue mercenary infantry served for and against each of them. Certainly by the later Spring and Autumn (c. 480 B.C.E.) each of those states had left some indication in local military artifacts of their contact with the Yue.[52] The question of how far south northern military influence may have penetrated is an open one, but certainly late bronze age weapons in Vietnamese sites show the same Central Plain influences as do the armories of Yue peoples in China proper.

War is, of course, more than superior or adequate weapons and the spirit to wield them. Mercenary service demands organization, drill, and discipline. Yue martial practices were quite flexible. The Yue and the proto-Zhuang adapted quickly to the needs of campaigns fought under particular tactical conditions, and to advances in military technology, so that their soldiers frequently were noted for their excellence from the Warring States period into the recent past---for more than two thousand years. The Zhuang/Nung continued to produce a wide inventory of weapons, perhaps because, like the Yue, their mercenary service acquainted them with the weapons systems of many opposing armies.[53]

For a web-based presentation (under construction) of Jeffrey Barlow's work on the Zhuang, see: http://mcel.pacificu.edu/as/resources/zhuang/welcome.html


References

[1] Keegan, John., A History of Warfare., New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993., xii)

[2] Keegan, 1993 89.

[3] Barlow, Jeffrey G. "The Zhuang Minority of the Sino-Vietnamese Frontier in the Song Period." Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. XVIII, No. 2, (Sept. 1987): 250-269. Barlow, Jeffrey G. "The Zhuang Minority in the Ming Era," Ming Studies, No. 28, Fall, 1989. pps. 15-46.

[4]. Liu Shizhong, Cheng Yinglin, and Xu Shifan, "Guiqi Yamu Sofanyingde Wu-I-Shan diqu Gu Yuezude Zuso Ji Wenhua Tezheng," [The Ethnic Customs and Cultural Characteristics of the Ancient Yue Peoples as Reflected in the Wu I Shan District Cliff Burials at Guiqi in Jiangxi.] Wen Wu, November, 1980. 1st Qi, #294. pp. 26-32. p. 26.

[5]. Jiang Bingzhao, Wu Nianji and Qin Tucheng, Bai Yue Minzu Wenhua, Shanghai: Xuelin Chubanshe, 1980., p. 314.

[6]. See Jiangxisheng Lishi Bowuguan, Guixixian Wenhuaguan, [Jiangxi Provincial History Museum and Guixi County Cultural Bureau] "Jiangxi Guiqi Yamu Fazhue Jianbao," [Report on Excavations at Jiangxi Guiqi Cliff Burials] Wen Wu, 11th Qi, #294, November, 1980, pp. 1-25. p. 1.

[7]. Jiangxisheng Lishi Bowuguan, Guixixian Wenhuaguan, 1980, pp. 1-25. p. 18.

[8]. Liu Shizhong, Cheng Yinglin, and Xu Shifan, p. 26; Jiangxisheng Lishi Bowuguan, Guixixian Wenhuaguan, 1980, pp. 1-25. p. 18

[9]. Chen Guoqiang, Wu Nianji, Jiang Bingzhao and Qin Tucheng, Bai Yue Minzu Shi, [The History of the Peoples of the Bai Yue] Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 1988. p. 32.

[10]. The Liuzhou region, for example, was transformed by Han Chinese deveopment of extensive irrigation projects as early as the Tang, but Zhuang were still practicing "knife-plow fire-plant" agriculture well into the Ming. Huang Xianfan, Guangxi Zhuangzu Jianshi [A Brief History of the Zhuang Peoples of Guangxi.] (Nanning: Guangxi Renmin Chubanshe, 1980). p. 55.

[11]. E.G. Pulleyblank, "The Chinese and Their Neighbors in Prehistoric and Early Historic Times." in David N. Keightley (ed.). The Origins of Chinese Civilization, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 430-431, discusses this term. The original term used by the Zhuang carried the meaning lung,3 and seems to have meant an area which had been ditched and diked for agriculture. Huang Xianfan, Nong Zhigao, (Nanning: Guangxi Renmin Qubanshe, 1983.), p. 4. In today's standard Wuming Zhuang dialect, the pronunciation of the Chinese characters Dong and Zhuang are quite close, congh and cuengh respectively. Sawlih Gun-cuengh, (Dong Gauj) [A Zhuang-Han Vocabulary], (Nanning: Gvanghsih Minzcuz Cuzbanjse, 1983.) There are many possible sources for Chinese confusion between the peoples themselves, their political systems, and the places where they lived. A similar system, termed muong, (muang) survived among the Tai peoples in recent Vietnam. John T. McAlister, Jr., "Mountain Minorities and the Viet Minh: A Key to the Indochina War," in Southeast Asian Tribes, Minorities and Nations, Peter Kunstadter, (ed.), 2 vols, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), II, p. 779. See also Ruey Yih-fu 1969. "Zhuang-ren Lai-yuan Qu-tan," [The Origins of the Zhuang, a Preliminary Essay.] Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology 39, Academica Sinica, 2:125-154. Taipei., p. 145.

[12] Lo Van Lo, "A Brief Survey of the Tay Nung," pp. 7-39 in Vietnamese Studies # 41, Ethnographical Data, Vol 3., Hanoi: n.d., p. 11. I have seen such systems in Guangxi extend over hundreds of yards while using entirely indigenous natural materials.

[13] Or so both Chinese and Vietnamese scholars argue. For the Vietnamese perspective, see Zhongguo Gudai Tonggu Yanjiuhui (Chinese Ancient Bronze Drums Research Society) (trans.) Yuenan Qingtong Shidaide Di yi pi Yiyi. (First Comments on Historical Remains of the Vietnamese Bronze Age) A translation of a Vietnamese Symposium held in hanoi in 1963. Published originally by Hanoi Scientific Publications society, 1963. Translated and Reprinted in Chinese by the Chinese Ancient Bronze Drums Research Society, 1982., p. 102-104. References to Chinese and Vietnamese types found at Wang Kerong et. Al. Guangxi Zuojiang Yanhua (Cliff Paintings of the You River of Guangxi.) Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe, 1988, p. 205-6. Lan Jihyong, in his very fine study, "Guangxi Xian Qin Yuezu Qingtong Bingqi Yanjiu" [research into Bronze weapons of the Guangxi in the Pre-Qin Era] pp. 251-256, in Chen Yuanzhang et Al.(eds.)Tonggu He Qingtong Wenhuade Xin Tansuo (New Explorations of Bronze Drums and Bronze Cultures) Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Ancient Bronze Drums and Bronze Cultures in Southern China and Southeast Asia. With English abstract. Nanning: Guangxi Minzu Chubanshe, 1993., does use the more specific Chinese term for dagger, Qishou, but agrees that the dagger-types of the Central Plains types andof southern Yue are easily distinguished.

[14] Wang Kerong et al., p. 205.

[15] For a good explanation of the type and clear schematics see Huang Zhanyue, "Lingnan Yueguo Chutude Qingtong Qi" [Bronze Wares Unearthed in the Lingnan Yue Kingdom] pp. 221-236 in Chen Yuanzhang et.al.,, p. 228 or Lan Riyong, "Guangxi Xian-Qin Yuezu Qingtong Bingqi Yanjiu," [Researches into the Bronze Weapons of the Yue in Guangxi in the pre-Qin Period.] pp 252-257 in Chen Yuanzhang et Al.(eds.), p. 251.

[16] Wang Kerong et al., p. 206.

[17] The trade off between weight and strength of the blade faces all sword makers, including later, Western ones. See, for example, XXX

[18] Huang Zhanyue, "Lingnan Yueguo Chutude Qingtong Qi" [Bronze Wares Unearthed in the Lingnan Yue Kingdom] pp. 221-236 in Chen Yuanzhang et.al.. p. 228. Of these blades, 1-4 are from a royal tomb in Guangzhou. This may explain the unusual length of the bronze jian # 1 & 5; they were not functional weapons. 6-8 are standard Yue short jian of bronze. # 11 & 12 show influence from the Dian kingdom of Yunnan as revealed primarily in the shouldered blades and the decorative motifs.

[19] Zhuang warriors carried two swords, one long and one short, throughout the pre-modern period; the shorter one might be regarded as a survival of the short jian.

[20] Lan Riyong, p. 255.

[21] Wang Kerong et al., p. 207

[22] Information on weapons and locations, unless otherwise noted is from Yang Shiting, Lan Riyong, or Huang Zhanyue, "Lingnan Yueguo Chutude Qingtong Qi" [Bronze Wares Unearthed in the Lingnan Yue Kingdom] pp. 221-236 in Chen Yuanzhang et.al.

[23] Yang's chart is of weapons found principally in Guangdong, but it follows quite closely the ratios of types and eras as detailed in Lang Riyong's study of similar weapons in Guangxi.

[24] Huang Zhanyue, P. 229.

[25] Lan Jiyong, p. 254.

[26] Gvangjsih Bouxcuengh Swcigih Minzcuz Swvu Veijyenzvei (The Ethnic Affairs Committee of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region) Bouxcuengh (The Zhuang People). Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe, 1988. Cover.

[27] Wang Kerong et al., p. 132.

[28] Wang Kerong et. Al. Guangxi Zuojiang Yanhua (Cliff Paintings of the You River of Guangxi.) Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe, 1988. The work is an excellent one not only because of its careful drawings, extensive photographs, and numerous essays, but because it contains a minimum of reductionist thinking. There are, for example, almost no references to such analytical evergreens as "matriarchal clan society" but rather close analysis based solidly on the evidence.

[29] Wang Kerong et al., p. 162

[30] Wang Kerong et. Al., p. 68.

[31] Wang Kerong et. Al., Chapter 6.

[32] Wang Kerong et. Al., p. 228. Time chart is on page 220.

[33] Wang Kerong et. Al., sketch of group found on p. 68, # 110. Analysis on p. 228.

[34] See the discussion in Wang Kerong et Al, at p. 217. My own conclusions differ somewhat from their reading of the evidence.

[35] For recent work done on the drums and the societies which produced them, see Chen Yuanzhang et. Al. (eds.), Tonggu He Qingtong Wenhuade Xin Tansuo (New Explorations of Bronze Drums and Bronze Cultures) Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Ancient Bronze Drums and Bronze Cultures in Southern China and Southeast Asia. With English abstract. Nanning: Guangxi Minzu Chubanshe, 1993; Guangxi Zhuang Zizhiqu Bowuguan (Museum of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region) Guangxi Tonggu Tulu (An Illustrated Catalogue of Guangxi Bronze Drums) Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe, 1991; Jiang Tingyu, Tonggu Yishu Yanjiu (Research into the Artistic Techniques of Bronze Drums) Nanning: Guangxi Renmin Chubanshe, 1988; Zhongguo Gudai Tonggu Yanjiuhui (eds.) (Chinese Ancient Bronze Drums Research Society) Gudai Tonggu Xueshu Taolunhui Lunwenji. (Proceedings of the Symposium on Ancient Bronze Drums) Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe, 1982. An example of a relatively open Chinese attitude toward Vietnamese work is Zhongguo Gudai Tonggu Yanjiuhui (Chinese Ancient Bronze Drums Research Society) (trans.) Yuenan Qingtong Shidaide Di yi pi Yiyi. (First Comments on Historical Remains of the Vietnamese Bronze Age) A translation of a Vietnamese Symposium held in Hanoi in 1963. Published originally by Hanoi Scientific Publications society, 1963. Translated and Reprinted in Chinese by the Chinese Ancient Bronze Drums Research Society, 1982.

[36] See, for examples, the collection of Luo Yue drums from the Guangxi Provincial Museum clearly reproduced in Guangxi Zhuang Zizhiqu Bowuguan (Museum of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region) Guangxi Tonggu Tulu (An Illustrated Catalogue of Guangxi Bronze Drums) Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe, 1991; P. 55-68.

[37] Among the specific dance which have been identified and in some cases tied to known or surviving dances are the Feather Dance, the Bronze Drum Dance, the Sun Dance, the River-sacrifice Dance and the Mask Dance. Wang Kerong et Al, p.216.

[38]. Chen Guoqiang, Wu Nianji, Jiang Bingzhao and Qin Tucheng, pp. 41-3.

[39]. As the Song era observer Zhou Qufei put it, the Zhuang "Go up and down mountains as though flying." Zhou Qufei, Ling-wai Dai-da [Prefatory Report from the Lingnan], Reprinted in Guilin Feng-tu Ji. [Recollections of Guilin Local Conditions and Customs.] Two vols. (Shangwu Yinshuguan. No date or place of publication.) Zhuan 10, p. 5R.

[40] Guangxi Zhuang Zizhiqu Bowuguan (Museum of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region) Guangxi Tonggu Tulu (An Illustrated Catalogue of Guangxi Bronze Drums) Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe, 1991. p. 56 This drum is a Han era example, but there are similar patterns in earlier drums as well.

[41] Shi Zhongjian, "Donggu Chuan-wen Zhong You mMiyou Guo Hai Chuan" (Whether or Not Sea-going Craft Are Present in the Boat-patterns of the Bronze Drums) pp 175-185 in Zhongguo Gudai Tonggu Yanjiuhui (eds.) ,1982.

[42] See examples at the collection of Luo Yue drums from the Guangxi Provincial Museum clearly reproduced in Guangxi Zhuang Zizhiqu Bowuguan (Museum of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region) 1991; pp. 55-68.

[43]. Li Xueqin Eastern Zhou and Qin Civilizations., (tr. K.C. Chang) New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985. p. 203.

[44]. Chu Wenhua Yanjiu Huipian, [Editorial Committee, Research into Chu Culture] Chu Wenhua Kaogu Dashiji., [Major Events in the Archaeology of Chu Culture.] Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe, 1984. pp. 174-6.

[45]. Eberhard, Wolfram. Social Mobility in Traditional China. Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1962. p. 200. The arguments of the late Professor Eberhard, a foremost student of southern peoples, must always be seriously examined, but these particular conclusions predate recent archaeological discoveries.

[46]. Gu Tiefu, Chuguo Minzu Shulue., [A Brief Account of the Peoples of Chu.] Hubei: Hubei Renmin Chubanshe, 1984. p. 33; Li Xueqin, "Chu Bronzes and Chu Culture," in Thomas Lawton, (ed.), New Perspectives on Chu Culture During the Eastern Zhou Period., Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1991., p. 21.

[47]. Jiang Tingyu, Cong Yinshankan Zhanguo Mu Kan Xiou, [An Investigation of the Western Ou Based Upon the Yinshanling Warring States' Cemetary] Kaogu, #2, 1980, pp. 176-177.

[48]. Guangxi Zhuangzu Zishiqu Wenwu Gongzuodui, [The Archaelogical Team of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region] Pinglo Yinshanlin Zhanguo Mu, [The Warring States-era Tombs of Yinshan in Pingle county, Guangxi] Kaogu Xuebao, #2, 1978, pp. 211-267. A related article is Jiang Tingyu, Cong Yinshankan Zhanguo Mu Kan Xiou, pp. 170-179. English summary in Albert E. Dien, Jeffrey K. Riegel, and Nancy T. Price (eds.) Chinese Archaelogical Abstracts, 3. Monumenta Archaeologica, Volume Ten. The Institute of Archaeology, The University of California, Los Angeles: 1985 , pp. 894-900. The first article is largely descriptive, wih excellent sketches and photographs of tombs and contents. The second article is largely interpretive.

[49]. In the Tang era the imperial court had prized the Zhuang brocades and the Emperor often wore them. Zeng Duhong, Qin Shuguan and Wei Hualing, Guilin Jian-shi. [A Brief History of Guilin.] (Nanning: Guangxi Renmin Chubanshe, 1984.) p. 23.

[50]. Guangxi Zhuangzu Zishiqu Wenwu Gongzuodui, 1978, pp. 249.

[51] This transition is sometimes also thought of as occurring as early as the Shang era.

[52] Lan Riyong, "Guangxi Xian-Qin Yuezu Qingtong Bingqi Yanjiu," [Researches into the Bronze Weapons of the Yue in Guangxi in the pre-Qin Period.] pp 252-257 in Chen Yuanzhang et Al.(eds.)Tonggu He Qingtong Wenhuade Xin Tansuo (New Explorations of Bronze Drums and Bronze Cultures) Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Ancient Bronze Drums and Bronze Cultures in Southern China and Southeast Asia. With English abstract. Nanning: Guangxi Minzu Chubanshe, 1993., p. 255.

[53]. See Ma Duanlin, Wen Xian Tong Kao [General Investigation on Important Writings] (c. 1308) in Qinding Siku Quanshu Huiyao Shibu, Vol 235, p. 395- 400.


Dr. Jeffrey Barlow is a specialist in the history of the Sino-Vietnamese frontier region and the author of four books and numerous articles published in the U.S., Taiwan, India, China, and Singapore. He has lived in East Asia for more than six years. He has received two Fulbright grants for study in Taiwan and is a frequent traveler to China, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Japan. He holds the Matsushita Chair of Asian Studies at Pacific University. He is the editor of the Journal of the American Association of History and Computing and the President of the Association of Asian Studies on the Pacific Coast (ASPAC). He is also the Faculty Coordinator of the Berglund Center for Internet Studies (BCIS).



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