Wu Ting’s middle period saw the Shang grappling with and generally subduing more serious enemies, including the Lung and T’u, generally referred to as the Lung-fang and T’u-fang in the inscriptions. This was also the period in which the king’s famous consort, Fu Hao, became visible as the Shang’s most active and successful commander. Several states were still vanquished with armies as small as 3,000 men, after which their lands were turned into hunting areas or agricultural terrain, and at least one of them thereafter furnished horses and provisions in tribute. But to conquer the Lung-fang, T’u-fang, and other strong enemies, several forces and field efforts of up to six months rather than single, decisive clashes were required. Whether this was because the enemy avoided decisive battles, numerous engagements were required to defeat them in detail, or a combination of both remains unclear.27
REBELLION OF THE HSÜAN, JUNG, AND WO
These formerly, if nominally, submissive states rebelled one after another while the king was preoccupied with attacking the T’an in the seventh month.28 Provoked by an incursion in the sixth month, the Shang at first mounted a defensive effort against the T’an.29 The king initially contemplated leading the attack (or going westward),30 but seems to have deputed royal forces and then Ch’üeh that month, followed by others, including possibly Lin and Chih together.31 Suppressing the T’an seems to have required a fairly short but intense period of activity32 that produced a victory or two (as indicated by queries about capturing prisoners and the king being victorious) before Lin achieved the final conquest late in the eighth month. After this the T’an essentially disappear except for a final reference to Ch’üeh and Ko mounting an attack in the twelfth month, perhaps a residual effort to confirm the finality of Shang suppression.33
Various locations have been proposed for the T’an, ranging from a nebulous spot in the west to a rather specific site in the opposite direction in Shandong. Although proponents of the western site are in a majority, geostrategic concerns and historical antecedents argue strongly for the east.34One inscription shows Wu Ting expressing concern that the T’an were about to inflict severe damage upon the pivotal state of Ts’ao, a Shang outpost reputedly established by King T’ang himself when the Shang vanquished the San-tsung.35 Archaeological evidence confirms an overwhelming Shang presence at a citadel near Ting-t’ao that was continuously occupied throughout the Cheng-chou and Anyang phases.36 Since Ts’ao served as a crucial control point in the east, any detrimental action undertaken by the T’an would naturally evoke Shang concern. It also well coheres with Hsüan aggression in the seventh month, because they would have been more likely to exploit a power vacuum resulting from Shang forces being deployed eastward than if the latter were operating in a contiguous western area and could then easily be diverted to strike Hsüan population centers while their fighters were externally deployed.
The conflict with the Hsüan, located about twenty kilometers west of Yüan-ch’ü,37 began when they and the Jung both rebelled late in the sixth month just after the campaign against the T’an had gotten under way. Whether their aggressions were merely opportunistic and independently conceived or part of a deliberate coalition action cannot be known.38 However, if only out of self-interest and survival, the peripheral proto-states must have been aware of local military developments and consciously undertaken efforts to acquire relevant intelligence as well as cooperate with contiguous peoples not otherwise embroiled in relationships of mutual antagonism.
The damage inflicted by their incursions prompted the king to ponder deputing various peripheral commanders and officers to subjugate them. Suppressive efforts were initiated early in the seventh month while Lin coped with the T’an, and the Shang deputed the Wo and Ma to counter the Jung.39 However, their efforts must have proven insufficient because the rebellion continued into the eighth month and even inflicted damage upon the client state of Ku. Ultimately numerous commanders were considered for dispatch and several, alone or in combination, no doubt ordered forth beginning in the eighth month, including Ko, Yüeh, Ch’üeh, Chih Kuo, Lin, Ku, and others, as well as the Dog Officer. Ch’üeh, who was most often appointed to sole authority,40 seems to have requested the assistance of royal clan forces.41
In the twelfth month the king dispatched Ko and the indefatigable Ch’üeh to attack the Hsüan, but about this time the Wo discerned an opportunity in the chaos to escape the Shang yoke and similarly rebelled. Nevertheless, the Shang managed to prevail because inscriptions suddenly begin to ask whether certain generals will “get” or “obtain” the Hsüan and Wo,42 including one pair that suggests Ch’üeh and Yüeh may have both been in action against them43 and others that show Ch’üeh pursuing and capturing the enemy.44
Even though they were still capable of inflicting damage upon Shang forces at the end,45 the Hsüan were eventually forced to capitulate, and their leader, who had previously served as a diviner for King Wu Ting, surprisingly was able to resume his role at the Shang court despite the severity of his defiance.46 Their continued loyalty thereafter is also evident from the Chou deliberately targeting them during the drive to conquest, though the strength of the fortifications discovered in this area no doubt enhanced their importance as a Shang strongpoint.
THE CHI-FANG CAMPAIGN
A campaign tentatively dated to 1211 to 1210 BCE targeting the Chi-fang, insightfully reconstructed from chronological information embedded in oracular inscriptions that show several, often simultaneous expeditionary strikes being mounted against discrete enemies, provides an example of Shang efforts late in the first or early in the middle period.47 In aggregate, even allowing for the likelihood that many queries merely reflect action contemplated rather than undertaken, the impression conveyed is one of unremitting (though sporadic) efforts involving multiple armies immersed in virtually continuous conflict.
Stretching over some six months from the twelfth month of one year through an intercalary thirteenth month and into the fifth month of the following year, Shang suppressive efforts against the Chi-fang, whose leader was known as Fou, unfolded amid multiple ongoing efforts against the states of Hsi (also transcribed as Chou and Tzu) and P’ei (similarly identified as P’i and Pu).48 An initial though apparently futile inquiry sought to determine whether a strike mounted under the king’s personal direction would inflict damage upon Hsi over the coming fourday period.49 This was then followed by a more fruitful prognostication ten days later questioning if the Shang would be successful the following day, the militarily significant chia-tzu. A subordinate commander named Chu is then recorded as having prevailed through an attack that commenced late in the day and continued into the early hours of the next, chia-tzu. This clash is noteworthy for having been undertaken so late, perhaps close to dusk, and turning into a night encounter, showing that even though night battles were generally eschewed in antiquity, they sometimes occurred through happenstance or tactical acumen.
An inquiry early the following year after Hsi’s subjugation indicates the king had been assessing the prospects for attacking P’ei and Chi-fang. He contemplated exercising command in both attacks, and a sequence of prognostications suggests that an unusually intense and prolonged clash with Fou unfolded early on at a place called Shu (or perhaps Hsün) under the king’s direction.50 However, he subsequently deputed responsibility for the Chi-fang to two well-known military figures, Ch’üeh and Prince Shang, who apparently mounted successive assaults against Fou in the second and third months.51
Particularly interesting is an inscription from the fourth month that clearly shows Wu Ting perceived a significant threat in the Chi-fang having begun work on external fortifications. (The query states: “We ought not [to allow] Chi-fang Fou to erect a wall. Prince Shang should destroy it.”)52The immediate result was an aggressive, essentially peremptory strike, perhaps the first known historical example of defensive augmentation having prompted aggressive military action. Some ten days later, in the fifth month, the prince apparently succeeded in damaging the wall, and there are indications that Fou was captured and sacrificed to the ancestors, concluding a campaign that stretched over six months and entailed multiple objectives under the direction of several commanders, including Ch’üeh, Lin, Tien, and Prince Shang.53 Whatever forces were employed, it probably typifies the sort of ongoing effort intermittently but persistently mounted against resilient enemies located in more distant quarters during Wu Ting’s middle period.
THE CH’IANG
The Ch’iang, also known as the Hsi (West) Ch’iang or sometimes even the Hsi Jung, were a strong, energetic people who supposedly numbered among those who had originally acknowledged King T’ang’s authority immediately after he conquered the Hsia.54 Encompassing several large clans or tribes, the Ch’iang were dispersed throughout an extensive arc of territory west and northwest of the Shang, ranging from the eastern part of Qinghai through Gansu, Ningxia, southern Inner Mongolia, northern Shaanxi, and eastern and northern Shanxi.55 Although southern Gansu was agriculturally productive,56 the semiarid conditions prevailing in many northwestern locations compelled them to intermix pastoral, hunting, and agricultural practices, the more distant generally being more nomadic. However, this integration no doubt contributed to their resiliency and adaptability over the centuries.
If, as traditionally claimed, their ancestors included Yü the Great and elements of the Hsia populace that had been compelled to disperse onto comparatively inhospitable terrain after being defeated by the Shang centuries earlier, the Ch’iang would have certainly been predisposed to view the Shang with enmity.57 Archaeological finds and inscriptional records show that, unlike the vanquished from almost all other groups, Ch’iang prisoners were enslaved or sacrificed as obliviously as cattle and pigs, in large numbers ranging from one through several tens to even three or four hundred.58 Moreover, in addition to being the most frequently named group in the oracular inscriptions, the Ch’iang were the most often sacrificed, giving the appearance of a virtual genocidal campaign, particularly as members of the Shang ruling clan and various officials deputed on military campaigns were specifically tasked with capturing Ch’iang prisoners.59 Those not eventually slaughtered in sacrificial rites were employed in farming, as household servants, and perhaps even in military posts, since one commander apparently came from the Ch’iang, though it is not known whether he had voluntarily emigrated to the Shang or was a slave or former prisoner.60
Prompted by Shang ferocity and perhaps inherent ethnic animosity, the Ch’iang (and particularly the Chiang clan with whom the Chou royal family frequently intermarried) eventually furnished important allies for the Chou, then similarly ensconced in the west.61 Later traditions further assert that the Chou were anciently related to the Hsia and had deliberately imitated Hsia administrative and agricultural practices, possibly another factor contributing to their mutual affiliation.62
Fiercely independent even as prisoners,63 like most steppe peoples they tended to be quiescent when the Shang was strong but readily exploited weakness and martial preoccupation to mount incursions that targeted both the core enclave and subordinated Shang peoples. Thus, the incipient dynamics of the steppe/sedentary or, as subsequently labeled by central government authorities, “civilized”/“barbarian” conflict that would plague Imperial China were already present in the Shang, the relationship between the two parties at any moment being defined by their relative imbalance of power. (Steppe aggressiveness thus becomes synonymous with imperial weakness rather than simply being a blind manifestation of inherent, anticivilized tendencies.)
Highly resourceful and tenacious, the Ch’iang proved troublesome throughout King Wu Ting’s era and continued to be aggressive throughout the Shang, being identified under the last rulers as one of the ssu pang or “four allied states.” Because of their remoteness, only minor clashes seem to have arisen during Wu Ting’s initial period, when the king was just beginning to reassert Shang authority. However, they apparently mounted noticeable raids, as they were frequently the subject of inquiry, and generals such as Ch’üeh and Chiang, who were dispatched both individually and jointly to quell them, took some captives.64 In contrast, Wu Ting’s middle period must have witnessed violent, extensive incursions, as the king mobilized the most massive response of his reign to quash them. For example, in one sequence Chih Kuo commanded the initial response in the tenth month; a second force under Shih Pan, dispatched in the twelfth month, undertook a pursuit that may have resulted in a significant victory; and yet a third effort under another commander captured prisoners in the first month of the following year.65
Nevertheless, perhaps because they were more dispersed than most of the Shang’s other enemies, subduing the Ch’iang seems to have been an almost insurmountable task that intermittently required maj or campaigns throughout Wu Ting’s era.66 Troops were conscripted in quantities of 3,000, and the largest aggregate force recorded in the oracle bones, some 3,000 troops under Fu Hao together with the royal army, which just this once numbered 10,000 (and presumably went forth under the king’s personal command), for a total of 13,000 men, was dispatched.67 Thus, it is hardly surprising that some thirty generals, nearly all those known to have been active in this period, would eventually participate in campaigns against the Ch’iang, including Fu Hao, Chiang, Kuang, Lung, Wu, Yüeh, Chih Kuo, Ch’üeh, Ko, T’u, Wang Ch’eng, Shih Pan, and a number of officials, though generally not the king himself.68
As indicated by frequent queries about generals such as Yüeh seizing prisoners, these concentrated efforts apparently deterred the Ch’iang from making incursions and may have compelled them to temporarily withdraw further into the steppe to avoid decisive engagements. Nevertheless, neither increased force levels nor significant victories barred them from launching further attacks in Wu Ting’s final period, particularly when the king was engaged in battling the Kung.69 However, these later incursions seem to have been mounted on a reduced scale, and key commanders such as Ch’in readily achieved local victories in which numerous Ch’iang prisoners were seized.70
THE HSIA-WEI
The struggle with the Wei or Hsia-wei located in the southeast required a major effort during King Wu Ting’s middle period,71 just when the Shang was preoccupied with multiple challenges from the Meng, Ch’ing, Lung, Pa, Yi, and T’u-fang.72 Wu Ting initiated countermeasures in the second month when he divined about ordering the Chief of Prefects to lead an attack against them in association with the well-known commander Wang Ch’eng.73 Whether this campaign materialized or not, the king levied 3,000 men shortly thereafter74 and then personally directed a field effort roughly a month later in which he was accompanied by Wang Ch’eng,75 who seems to have become somewhat of a specialist in Hsia-wei warfare.76
After unknown events over the intervening eight months, which included requisitioning support from the allied state of Hsing,77 Wu Ting ended the Hsia-wei threat in the eleventh month when, accompanied by Wang Ch’eng, he launched an expeditionary assault.78 Thereafter the king is noted as hunting in their lands79 and inquiring about their welfare.80 Apart from an incident in Ping Hsin’s reign, they seem to have remained quiescent, and Emperor Yi encamped there en route to attacking the Jen-fang. Nevertheless, a major effort had been required, whose importance is shown by the large number of pigs sacrificed for its success.81
Immediately after the Hsia-wei campaigns, one group of the Yi located in the west (as distinguished from the well-known eastern groups) was also targeted for punitive efforts under Fu Hao and other prominent commanders.82 Apparently they were quickly defeated or chose to acknowledge Shang suzerainty, because they are subsequently noted as participating in the coalition actions against the Pa-fang, described below.83
THE LUNG-FANG
Located between the Shang and the Ch’iang but probably considerably closer to the latter,84 the Lung or Lung-fang could not avoid becoming entangled in complex relationships with both powers. At times they were so subservient to the Shang that they undertook or participated in joint military actions against the Ch’iang, but at others they asserted their independence and mounted troublesome border incursions either by themselves or in alliance with the Ch’iang.85 In order to confront and defeat the Ch’iang, Wu Ting deemed it necessary to first subjugate the Lung, thereby securing the nearby perimeter and neutralizing a potentially lethal enemy before venturing past them on a distant campaign.
The king personally directed attacks that apparently deterred them somewhat in the early period.86 However, they retained the potential to be troublesome and continued to plague the Shang whenever Wu Ting became preoccupied with other peoples and areas, particularly late in the second period when the king’s attention was diverted to the Ch’iang, Yi, Pa, and others. Several inscriptions show that the Shang would have to mobilize its best commanders, including Shih Pan,87 Chih Kuo,88 Fu Ching,89 and others,90 and dispatch them in multiple campaigns that targeted the Lung alone and in conjoined assaults on the Ch’iang91 until they were defeated and apparently acknowledged Shang authority.92 Thereafter, Wu Ting ordered them to conduct a hunt93 and inquired about their well-being during a Shang campaign against the Ma-fang,94 presumably because they were furnishing troops or had previously participated in actions against the Ch’iang.95 Nevertheless, they apparently mounted at least minimal incursions late in Wu Ting’s reign while the king was embroiled in the lengthy campaign against the Kung-fang, requiring the dispatch of suppressive forces.96
T’U-FANG
Clashes with the T’u-fang, which probably commenced early in Wu Ting’s reign, continued sporadically until being resolved toward the end of the middle period.97 More than a hundred inscriptions record numerous levies and the deputation of several commanders to quell their opposition, attesting to the ferocity and swirling nature of their conflict.98 Believed to have been centered in the north, especially northern Shanxi and Hebei or about two weeks’ march from Anyang, the T’u-fang were predisposed to raid the northern and western parts of the Shang despite the immense defensive power concentrated nearby.99 No doubt the ready seizure of material goods and captives made plundering appealing, but an additional motivational factor may again have been the heritage of animosity engendered when their ancestors, the Hsia, were forced out into the semiarid steppe after being vanquished by the Shang.100
At least some of their incursions seem to have been mounted by surprisingly small forces, yet they proved to be extremely troublesome,101 compelling Wu Ting to mount a strong response.102 Apart from the king himself, who seems to have frequently exercised overall coalition command, 103Fu Hao,104 Yüeh,105 Wang Ch’eng,106 and especially Chih Kuo,107 leading between 3,000 and 5,000 troops each,108 were dispatched to attack T’u-fang forces over roughly a year and a half. Eventually the T’u-fang were defeated, their leaders slain, and numerous soldiers taken prisoner, prompting the remnants to either submit or move away to avoid decimation. 109 Their lands were then integrated into the Shang domain and opened for farming or maintained as hunting areas, resulting in a significant northern expansion.
Which inscriptions are deemed relevant and how they are arrayed can result in significant variations in the probable chronology of the T’u-fang campaign.110 However, a likely sequence that easily encompasses the many Shang efforts mounted to combat them finds the first significant measures being initiated just when the Hsia-wei and Kung-fang were also proving troublesome and the king levied troops in the eleventh month for a punitive campaign against the T’u-fang.111 In the twelfth month the king even deputed Chih Kuo in command of the San-tsu (three royal clan troops) to attack them,112 and the next month, the first of the new year, the noted commander Yüeh apparently managed to take some captives, a likely indication of having achieved a limited battlefield victory.113
Nevertheless, the T’u-fang must have still posed a serious threat because suppressive efforts continued into the third month, when another 5,000 men were summoned under the king’s direction, greatly augmenting the forces already deployed.114 In the fourth month the king himself, accompanied by Chih Kuo, launched an expeditionary attack.115 (Oracle records confirm that the king was sufficiently troubled by the T’u-fang challenge to offer sacrifice in the temple for the campaign’s success.)116 In the fifth month men were again levied, and the king’s illustrious consort, Fu Hao, was ordered into the field for an assault.117 However, even her efforts must have proved inadequate, because additional troops had to be called up yet again in the seventh month prior to the king initiating another attack.118 Thereafter, in the ninth month the king once again directed an attack.119
After nearly a year of multiple conscriptions and numerous planned assaults, some measure of success must have been realized because the oracle strips dating to the tenth month speak about “damaging” the T’u-fang.120 Little is known about the subsequent months, but the enemy could not yet have been completely quashed, because on the fourteenth day in the third month of the succeeding year, reports of multiple, apparently coordinated, Kung-fang and T’u-fang attacks were received, the most famous being from the esteemed commander Chih Kuo, which stated, “the T’u-fang have mounted a punitive attack121 on our eastern suburbs, seriously damaging two towns. The Kung-fang have also invaded the fields in our western suburbs.”122 The king apparently levied another 5,000 men for the campaign in this same month,123 but inimical reports were once again received in the fifth month.124 Accompanied by Chih Kuo, Wu Ting then mounted another assault against the T’u-fang.125 Perhaps it was this last effort that vanquished them, because they are rarely mentioned thereafter, even though some undated fragments speak about pursuing and capturing them,126 and the Shang reportedly built a citadel out in their territory.127
OTHER CONFLICTS
Several states active in Wu Ting’s middle period vacillated between being submissive (and accordingly entrusted with defensive functions) and rebellious, particularly in times of turmoil, and therefore aggressively targeted. One particularly visible group, previously mentioned, were the Ma-fang, located in the northwest,128 reputedly slightly south of the Ch’iang, as evidenced by attacks that simultaneously targeted them both.129 As attested by reports of Ma-fang activities and royal inquiries about the prospects for attacking them, a major clash apparently unfolded after the Lung-fang campaign during the winter.130 Apart from being entangled in Ch’iang activities, they also acted as a Shang perimeter force and are recorded as acting in conjunction with the Wo to capture the Jung and being ordered to undertake archery in the north.131
Finally, a concerted campaign was mounted against the Pa-fang at the end of Wu Ting’s middle years or early in the last period of his reign amid challenges simultaneously posed by the Yi, Lung, Meng, and Hsia-wei. 132 Pa-fang’s location remains a matter of controversy, for rather than Sichuan, site of famed Pa and Shu cultures, they apparently inhabited the near southwest, and numerous Shang artifacts have been recovered in the Ch’eng-ku region of Shaanxi, presumably evidence of campaigns into the general region of the Pa, Shu, P’u, and Ch’iang during the Shang.133
The campaign apparently commenced by deputing Chih Chia, presumably leading his own clan forces, to mount the initial response,134 but further measures proved necessary when they encountered difficulty.135 Queries indicate that rather than relying on the standing forces, men had to be levied and more than one general dispatched. The king asked whether he should attack the Pa in association with Chih Chia136 and, separately, a commander named Hsi, or whether Fu Hao should do so in conjunction with Chih Chia.137 (Two inquiries recorded on the same plastron close together indicate that the king was trying to decide between attacking the Pa with Hsi and the Hsia-wei with Wang Ch’eng.)138 This flurry of activity apparently vanquished the Pa, as inscriptions ask if the Pa are about to be defeated139 and suggest the final crushing blow was about to be delivered by the king in association with Chih Kuo.140