Plastrons that preserve several queries undertaken in succession, sometimes on a single day, others across a very few days, indicate that the king pondered various alternatives prior to commencing a campaign. Rather than deputing forces in a simplistic “up and at ’em” mode, threats were assessed, options evaluated, forces chosen, commanders appointed, and subject states co-opted, all based on incoming reports and previous experience.24 In addition, routes of march and means of advancing (especially if rivers were to be forded or boats employed) had to be determined and logistical support arranged. Dealing with major enemies such as the T’u-fang and Kung-fang almost always required the formulation of more ingenious and extensive measures.
When confronting multiple enemies that posed a threat, queries were closely initiated about each of them in an attempt to determine the most likely possibility for success. Whether an attack would be auspicious; which enemy to attack;25 whether the king should command in person; which ally or subservient state should be deputed or, later, which forces from among the army, lü, clans, or border defense units; who should accompany the king;26 who should be appointed as commander; 27 and how many forces should be employed were all matters for contemplation.
In this regard Wu Ting seems to have enjoyed greater flexibility, because he frequently employed armies from the subservient states to undertake punitive efforts rather than expending Shang core resources. Perhaps the most complex example dates to his era, when actions against four different enemies—the Pa-fang, Yi, Lung-fang, and Hsia-wei—were simultaneously pondered and at least two commanders, Wang Ch’eng and Chih Kuo, considered for overall leadership.28 The inscriptions closely recorded on another plastron similarly show four possibilities being weighed: Fu Hao attacking the Pa with Chih Kuo, Fu Hao attacking the Yi with Hou Kao, the king attacking the Chung, and Wang Ch’eng and others attacking the Hsia-wei.29
Even though the larger field contingents were cobbled together from several discrete components presumably capable of independent maneuver and battlefield redirection, the nature of the mission affected the forces to be mobilized and the tactics to be employed. Moreover, despite traditional claims that Shang martial efforts were focused on exterminating enemies and annexing land, the multilayered structure of Shang political relations resulted in objectives that ranged from chastisement to extermination. A few Shang forays appear to have been simple demonstrations of power mounted to cow nearby lords into remaining obedient and to overawe foreign peoples, but the majority were aggressive and specifically targeted. Even then, some attacks were simply coercive, being intended to persuade contiguous peoples or proto-states into submitting, then employing them as defensive screens or calling upon them to provide active fighting forces, roles they could effectively perform only if they had not been decimated.
Following the initial period of postconquest expansion and consolidation, a number of field efforts were undertaken to dominate resourcerich areas, but most were prompted by perceived threats. Numerous groups were targeted to reduce their military might or drive them further outward, and some even became the focus of punitive onslaughts designed to annihilate them. In addition, a few campaigns clearly had the sole objective of acquiring prisoners for long-term enslavement or sacrifice.
Insofar as Shang military planning suffered the constraints of uncertainty, its external campaigns must have been characterized by a high degree of operational flexibility. Shang expeditionary armies often consisted of multiple contingents that could be employed in segmented operations and limited maneuver, and field commanders probably had considerable freedom in selecting the actual tactics, however rudimentary. Furthermore, after being initiated, campaigns seem to have been largely opportunistic. Unplanned attacks pummeled the enemy and in contrast to immediately targeting two objectives, additional states were sometimes assaulted after the original objective had been vanquished.
The extended range of their expeditionary efforts and the vastness of the contiguous territory further complicated Shang military operations, inescapably affecting the choice of tactics. Even though the semimobile peripheral peoples might readily mount incursions against well-known, highly visible Shang targets, these aggressors had to be located before they could be engaged. The Shang probably had reasonably accurate information about their more permanent settlements, but their warriors might be deployed anywhere in the often hilly terrain, prompting uncertainty about where and how to engage them. Enemies who deployed minimal forward reconnaissance could easily avoid outwardbound Shang armies long before their own location could be discovered.
Despite archaeological excavations having recovered numerous weapons from the era, the actual nature of Shang dynasty combat remains a matter of speculation. Whether any sort of ritual preceded or governed the era’s battles, limiting the types of weapons and character of the engagement, is unknown, but from the proliferation of arrowheads and dagger-axes it can be concluded that they both played fundamental roles. Moreover, contrary to the Greek notion that employing missile weapons was cowardly, archery seems to have always been greatly esteemed in China. Embedded arrowheads and skeletal wounds clearly show that the era’s reflex bows possessed adequate power to impale bone and easily slay enemies who came within range.
Close combat was no doubt preceded by archers firing at enemies fifty to one hundred yards away, but their arrows would have been even more deadly at close range, right up to the point of engaging with longhandled dagger-axes and spears. The archers ensconced on the chariots would have enjoyed a sufficient height advantage to shoot unimpeded over any accompanying infantry and deployed forces, while the roving companies of a hundred, firing en masse, could also inflict great damage because the troops were only minimally protected by armor and carried comparatively small shields.
Piercing and shock weapons must have predominated once the forces moved forward and engaged individually. Spears and dagger-axes were the main piercing weapons, battle axes were the main crushing implements, and short daggers served as an extreme last resort. (Swords had not yet come into existence and thus were never employed, contrary to numerous claims.) To the extent that the two sides didn’t simply deploy before rushing headlong at each other, battlefield tactics at the outset were oriented to obtaining an advantageous position, achieving surprise, and concentrating forces for greatest effectiveness.
When formidable enemies thwarted initial efforts undertaken by single contingents of perhaps 3,000 troops, the Shang was compelled to resort to repeated or sequential attacks mounted by individual forces or to employing an augmented field force created by temporarily conjoining two or more individual units to inflict a crushing blow. These larger forces generally attacked in straightforward fashion and were thus operationally indistinguishable from a single army.
The different targeting and operational possibilities preserved on single plastrons further attest to attempts to formulate and exploit simple operational tactics. The two main tactical variants appear to have been having two or more forces—whether different types or simply components of the same type such as the left and right lü—meet at a designated, somewhat distant location before combining for a unified attack, and having two or more armies proceed separately before attacking from different directions, either simultaneously or sequentially. Conjoined force assaults and simultaneous, multidirectional strikes were probably structured to emphasize the element of surprise, whereas staggered but scripted sequential attacks were presumably designed to provoke the enemy into concentrating their forces against the immediate threat before penetrating the undefended areas with a second contingent, just as famously formulated in the Art of War and other Warring States military writings.30
A few instances appear to provide evidence that, in addition to surprise, the Shang had already begun to think about concealment and ambush, both integral aspects of the much practiced hunt. In one of several efforts that would be mounted against the Pa-fang, the king personally led a contingent from the east intended to provoke the enemy into responding in a predetermined manner so that they could be ambushed by Fu Hao and Chih Chia’s forces, already deployed in advantageous positions.31
Several terms denoting military action indicate that commanders were expected to employ various levels of aggressiveness from the outset. Attack methods ranged from ordinary strikes through harassing pursuits and strong punitive measures, though the simplest and most commonly seen was an assault or attack, fa. (The term also means “behead” in the context of ritual sacrifices and clearly entailed the idea that the enemy would be slain.) Two modes were possible, a direct strike mounted by a single force against a town or temporarily encamped enemy and an open field engagement, the latter primarily resulting when the Shang attacked forces in movement or enemies that came forth to resist.
A frequently noted variant was the punitive campaign or cheng, a term that came to describe “campaigns of rectification” that were mounted against the rebellious, especially external peoples who were viewed as “barbarians” in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. However, given that the oracular inscriptions sometimes employ the same term to record attacks by peripheral peoples on the Shang, cheng had not yet acquired a strongly punitive sense.
Terms that connote more destructive intent include p’u, tsai, shun, and t’u. The first of these can probably be translated as to “pound” or “pummel,” while tsai, to “damage” or “harm,” is normally understood as meaning to “hunt,” “damage,” or “wound with weapons.”32 Though sometimes synonymous with “attack,” tsai usually entailed an intent to inflict serious damage rather than just slay or capture and was even used when referring to the damage visited on two Shang cities by the T’u-fang.33 The term t’u, to “massacre” or “slaughter,” also means something like “punitively attack” but may have merely signified going out to resist the enemy or manifesting awesome power.34
Tun, which came to mean “substantial” or “solid” and even “to break” in Chuang-tzu, is perhaps best understood as to “pound” or “pummel.” Yü would later mean “defend against,” but in the Shang it seems to have referred to highly aggressive actions mounted on the periphery to extirpate the enemy. Armies were frequently dispatched to chui or pursue enemy contingents, implying that the latter had already been either defeated or scared off, whereas ch’ü, which simply means “to take” or “to seize,” is occasionally used in a field context to indicate the taking of a town or prisoners. Other terms less frequently seen include characters that seem to mean “to ram,” “capture,” “search out and destroy,” and a couple of uncertain but clearly aggressive meanings.35
The idea of reconnaissance, fundamental to any intelligence reporting system but also a separate function on the battlefield, had already appeared. Surprisingly, whether or not small numbers of scouts were forward deployed, it is large contingents that were dispatched to “look at” the enemy, though the term shih almost certainly includes the concept of assessment rather than simple observation. Late in the dynasty the shih (army) occasionally seems to have acted as a reconnaissance in force, either to probe (as later articulated in the Wu-tzu) or to provoke a meeting engagement.36
Apart from defending towns subject to border incursions, the shih (army) and other contingents that primarily engaged in combat missions could also be deployed to act as forward or defensive screens.37 However, as the dynasty progressed the concepts of segmentation and functionality evolved, and the various contingents were sometimes denominated as forward, center, and rear. For example, in one late case actions by an advance unit were immediately followed by an enveloping attack (chou fa) mounted by border defensive units (shu).38 However, even in Wu Ting’s era the dispatch of a single army or levying of a subject state’s forces was often a preliminary move, a strike that might achieve victory but would probably need reinforcement and therefore was only intended to open the way (ch’i).
Movements to surround enemies out in the field were also undertaken, sometimes by more than one army, and cases of enemy armies surrounding Shang units are similarly known, showing that steppe forces were not incapable of coordinated action.39 In addition to assaults on settlements, Shang attacks were attempted against fortified towns, but little is known about them and they are unlikely to have been frequent because the defenders would have enjoyed an overwhelming advantage as long as they remained ensconced behind the massive walls, siege equipment not yet having begun to evolve.
Evidence for their relative impregnability is clearly visible in Wu Ting preemptively attacking an enemy proto-state because it had commenced fortifying its town with walls. Even the Art of War subsequently compiled in the formative period of siege technology admonished commanders not to waste their resources in foolishly assaulting fortified enclaves because a third of the troops would perish.40 Fortunately for the Shang, pastoral practices predominating in the steppe precluded the seminomadic peoples from undertaking substantial, fixed defenses even though stone fortifications were employed for some villages in Inner Mongolia.