19.
IN CHINA, THE BOW AND ARROW apparently enjoyed at least limited use by 27,000 BCE, more than twenty millennia before the advent of the Neolithic civilizations with which our study begins.1 Thereafter, ancient sites contain increasingly numerous stone and bone arrowheads coincident with their growing impact in hunting.2 However, as agriculture emerged and began to flourish between 6500 and 5000 BCE, other tools appeared that assumed greater importance, though without diminishing the number of arrowheads.3 Even wooden ones dating back to 5000 BCE have been recovered, virtual throwbacks to the primitive arrows that were fashioned by sharpening and then heat treating the tip of the shaft to harden it.4
Early arrows were probably multipurpose, but the advent of clan conflict and tribal warfare stimulated the development of heads specifically designed for military purposes. These variants gradually came to equal and then quantitatively exceed all other designs, prompting the further evolution of numerous styles and multiple sizes with increasingly differentiated head characteristics (worthy of a lengthy monograph rather than the cursory examination possible here). The discovery of copper and ensuing advances in metallurgical techniques then allowed the Shang to produce bronze arrowheads in significant quantities. Nevertheless, they did not completely displace laboriously fabricated stone and bone points until late in the Western Chou, despite being efficiently cast in multiple-cavity molds.
The earliest Chinese bows must have been simple, minimally effective weapons created by adapting readily available saplings from wood species with the necessary characteristics of strength and flexibility. Nevertheless, legends claim that either the Yellow Emperor or the Archer Yi invented the bow, and that Yi shot down nine of the ten suns then scorching the earth.5 However, the Yi Ching credits Yao, Shun, and Yü with creating the first bows, but the Shan-hai Ching claims that two of the Yellow Emperor’s ministers, Hui and Mou Yi, were actually responsible, the former for crafting the first bow and the latter for fabricating the arrows.
In contrast with Western legends that portray knights slaying dragons with magical swords and vanquishing demons with axes, the bow seems to have been valued in China from its inception for its accuracy, power, and ability to destroy enemies at a distance in awesome displays of power. Not surprisingly, when first encountered in Shang oracle inscriptions and archaeological finds, bows and arrows are the weapons of the ruling clan and warrior nobility. In contrast with medieval Europe, where the sword became a highly romanticized, close combat weapon while the bow was condemned for its dastardly ability to kill anonymously and archers were reviled for fighting at a distance,6 archers and archery have always been highly esteemed in China, as well as in Korea and Japan. King Wu of the Chou even emblematically shot the already dead tyrant Chou (Emperor Hsin) with three arrows before decapitating him with a yellow axe.7
Later idealizations of antiquity envision late Neolithic and Shang leaders selecting their officers primarily because they excelled in martial skills vital to the battlefield and the hunt, abilities crucial for surviving amid hostile forces and the untamed environment. Even though these officers might subsequently be entrusted with administrative responsibilities, they were primarily warriors, and it was their “virtue” in wielding a bow rather than a shock weapon that distinguished them.8 This practice apparently continued in the early Western Chou, with formalized archery competitions intended to reveal both skill and character, the various nobles in attendance being penalized or rewarded based on the performance of their subordinates.
Although these claims need not be accepted in detail, the basic impetus to select men through their martial abilities, later understood as their “character,” appears to have been a core element in ancient practices. The Li Chi chapter on the archery ceremony states:
Anciently, the son of Heaven chose the feudal lords, the dignitaries who were Great officers, and the officers from their skill in archery. Archery is specially the business of males, and there were added to it the embellishments of ceremonies and music. Hence among the things which may afford the most complete illustration of ceremonies and music, and the frequent performance of which may serve to establish virtue and good conduct, there is nothing equal to archery; and therefore the ancient kings paid much attention to it.9
Contemporary bronze inscriptions attest to major archery competitions having being conducted under regal auspices from the Western Chou’s inception, implying that they were probably a common practice in the Shang insofar as the Chou adopted many Shang customs. For example, the Tso Po Kuei records that the Duke of Tso responded to King Chao’s challenge by hitting the target dead on ten times in a row in just such a contest, thereby garnering all ten of the gold pieces that the king had allotted for successful strikes.10
In addition to impromptu contests, four formalized archery competitions were routinely held during the Western Chou and perhaps the Shang. (Paradoxically, they would become less frequent despite the evolution of permanent armies and an escalating demand for bowmen.) Moreover, despite almost certainly having had their origins in hunting and purely military contests in which military prowess dominated, with the passage of centuries and the increasing pervasiveness of Confucian thought, these competitions would gradually evolve into a stifling, formalized exercise bereft of martial spirit.
At the end of the sixth century BCE Confucius deemed archery one of the six arts essential to self-cultivation, and bows and arrows were often bestowed as special marks of honor, particularly for military merit. King Wen’s appointment as Lord of the West during the late Shang was reportedly sanctified with a bow, arrows, and an axe, and numerous Western Chou bronze inscriptions record the conferring of a bow, often highly decorated and accompanied by a hundred arrows, on various people.11 The practice continued down into the Spring and Autumn, one Tso Chuan entry speaking about bestowing a red bow plus 100 arrows and a black bow with 1,000 arrows,12 another recording that the king awarded a red bow for martial achievement.13 Contrary to impressions that these bows may have been fragile and ephemeral, they were treasured, preserved, and frequently transmitted within families as valuable commemorative items. Thus the Tso Chuan notes the recovery of the great bow of the state of Lu that had been awarded for martial achievement generations earlier but stolen the previous year.14
Archery also played a significant role from the Western Chou onward in ordinary life, including in the Village Archery Ceremony (which will be discussed in detail in Early Chinese Warfare). In order to impress his potential wife with his manliness, one suitor in the Spring and Autumn merely shot two arrows, one each to the left and right.15 In another incident a noble who had received a bow as a gift and was seeking a pretext to hold a private discussion went outside to try it out,16 which shows that these bows were not intended for idle exhibition and that virtually everyone of rank remained skilled in their use.
Lacking reliable evidence for reconstructing the bows employed in the Shang and Western Chou, somewhat ahistorical recourse must be had to depictions preserved in such works as the Tso Chuan to infer the bow’s likely power, the archer’s capabilities, and archery’s general impact in combat situations. However, note might first be taken of a pointed debate that has recently arisen over whether arrows were ever effective at a distance, particularly near the limits of their range, where the angle of descent could be a severe 45 degrees or more. It has been forcefully asserted that because these steep incoming angles would have produced glancing rather than perpendicular blows, the arrows would have lacked the impulse necessary to impale, not to mention penetrate, the armor employed during the medieval era in the West.17 Similar questions may be posed about the comparative efficacy of Chinese arrows and armor for every era in which the age-old clash between offensive and defensive measures, symbolized by the spear and shield (mao and tun, which form the modern compound for “contradiction”), continued unabated.
Whether wielded to selectively target individuals in the Shang and Western Chou or provide the massed volley fire common in the late Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, the extant historical records show Chinese bows were always highly effective. An initial sense of their accuracy and power may be gained by examining the range and the size of the target employed in the Village Archery Ceremony described in the Yi Li, a Warring States ritual text. The contestants normally shot at a target hung an even fifty bow lengths (or paces) away, a minimum of 250 feet since the bow’s length then approximated a man’s height of 64 inches, roughly equivalent to the pace length of 5 feet or 60 inches in both China and the West.18 Even within the narrow confines of a hall, this must have been a distance easily attained; otherwise it would have been too difficult for the competitors to display the required decorum and master the formalities of ritualized movement while still achieving a respectable result. Although the exact shape and dimensions of the target remain controversial, it basically consisted of a large square marked off into three concentric zones, suspended between extended borders of horizontal material both above and below. To gain full marks an archer would have had to hit a square measuring slightly over 2 feet on edge, a size that realistically approximates the width of an armed soldier.19
This nominal ceremonial range of fifty bow lengths comprised but half the distance at which Chinese reflex bows were minimally considered capable of killing an enemy.20 Thus it is not surprising that archery contests, even highly ceremonial ones such as the Great Archery Ceremony described in the Yi Li, were also held at seventy and ninety bow lengths, though certainly outside the hall itself in the surrounding grounds. Somewhat larger targets were reportedly employed for these greater distances, even though maintaining the original fifty-pace target size would have more accurately approximated battlefield requirements. 21 However, tradition also suggests that the targets depicted various wild animals, no doubt part of the heritage of the hunt, in which case they probably would have taken their dimensions from real animals or consisted of actual skins stretched out in a field.
The Tso Chuan and later, less reliable writings contain numerous accounts of singular combat in Spring and Autumn battles that apparently provide evidence of the Chinese bow’s remarkable power and attest to the skill levels that might be achieved, although these accounts certainly were included because of their exceptional nature and no doubt were dramatically enhanced. (What percentage of ordinary combatants might have achieved such mastery is another question.) For example, at a critical moment during the Battle of Pi, one of the Tso Chuan’s six great conflicts, a warrior killed one soldier and then wounded and captured another with just two arrows. At the same battle a warrior successfully shot a deer from a racing chariot before offering it with great bravado to the pursuing enemy.22 Prior to the engagement two warriors raced forward to challenge the enemy and discharged their arrows, immediately slaying two of their transfixed opponents. In a lesser-known conflict, just three skilled archers managed to hold off an advancing force by killing a large number with their arrows.23
By similarly slaying two enemy soldiers with just two arrows at the famous battle of Yen-ling, a single archer reportedly deterred an enemy thrust.24 The king was also shot in the eye, and another arrow killed one of the enemy.25 Two arrows loosed by one strong fighter are said to have frightened Ch’u’s entire army when they glanced off the harness poles and became embedded in the king’s chariot.26 Furthermore, in an incident that unfolded prior to the battle that has often been inappropriately cited as evidence that traditional China emphasized virtue over martial power, Ch’u’s two best archers managed to penetrate seven layers of armor with their arrows. Although this was surely an auspicious precombat omen, their commander surprisingly disparaged the achievement because their efforts inappropriately emphasized might alone.27 Despite being a static test no doubt conducted against perfectly placed vertical surfaces, it still suggests the bow’s enormous penetrating power at short combat ranges. Numerous skeletons from the Shang and earlier with stone arrowheads deeply embedded in thigh and other major bones offer further confirmation of the weapon’s lethality.
One warrior proved so accurate at short range that he was able to skillfully shoot a man in the left and right shoulders and thereby persuade him to surrender by simply threatening him with an arrow to the heart, showing that bows were not employed just for open field fighting, but also at close range where they would be even more deadly.28 Early in the Warring States period the famous military administrator and commander Wu Ch’i suffered an ignominious death in the state of Ch’u when he was pursued through the palace and finally shot to death in the confined quarters of a large room, rather than being stabbed with a dagger or slain with a sword.
In yet another incident an archer killed the ruler with a single shot and then exploited his fearsome prowess to thwart multiple attackers simply by holding two arrows to the bow, ready to fire. Eventually he was killed in an exchange of archery fire with a warrior who arrayed his men behind a protective wall, but despite suffering a wound to his wrist, he still succeeded in slaying the latter before he died.29 Superlative skill is also visible in numerous tales of surpassing accuracy during hunts and the offhand shooting of smaller targets such as geese and pheasants.30
Apart from questions of power and reports of superlative ability in combat situations, there is a real issue of accuracy and its attainment. Exceptionally skilled archers could reputedly hit a flying bird at 200 paces, and superlative archers such as Yang Yu-chi in the Spring and Autumn period reportedly could hit a willow branch at 100 paces, giving rise to the phrase “penetrating a willow at a hundred paces” becoming praise for any extraordinary skill. Similar to the idea of a hundred victories in a hundred engagements, being able to strike a target one hundred times without a miss—pai fa pai chung—was another description for surpassing achievement. However, it was also known that these attainments were the result of strength and concentration, with defeat resulting if either wavered.31
Conversely, because it was viewed as an achievable skill rather than purely an innate talent, it was thought that high levels of expertise could be realized through study and practice, perhaps explaining the reported enthusiasm of late Chou dynasty students and contestants.32 Even though Mencius envisioned formal schools dedicated to archery, certain Shang officials were entrusted with the task of instruction, and Shang oracular inscriptions query the appropriateness of one or another individual training men in archery as well as “new archers” being sent to the battlefield,33nothing is actually known about Hsia and Shang archery training.
One method that may have been employed to achieve the ideal of one hundred hits in one hundred shots appears in the Archery Classic, composed in the T’ang dynasty, predating chapters on archery preserved in such imperial era military compilations as the Wu-ching Tsung-yao. According to this text neophyte archers who had been instructed in the proper stance and release methods were to start one chang away from the target, and when they could score a hundred hits in a hundred shots at this laughably close range, add another chang and continue repeating the procedure until they reached the desired distance of one hundred paces or somewhat more than sixty chang. Unfortunately, no estimates of the number that might be expected to advance beyond fifteen or twenty chang are ever mentioned.
The classic military writings not only emphasize the effectiveness of bows and arrows for open field combat, but also stress their importance in defensive situations. The Ssu-ma Fa asserts that “fast chariots and fleet infantrymen, bows and arrows, and a sturdy defense are what is meant by ‘increasing the army’” and adds that “to take advantage of terrain, defend strategic points. Valuing weapons, there are bows and arrows for withstanding attack, maces and spears for defense, and halberds and spear-tipped halberds for support.”34 Engaging aggressors at a distance from an ensconced position with harassing volley fire always proved highly effective in reducing their numbers and was generally advised even if it wouldn’t succeed in immediately repulsing them. City walls were to be defended with a hail of arrows and stones;35 arrows and crossbows had to be prepared for defense.36
It might seem that greater physical strength and dexterity would be required to wield a spear or dagger-axe than to shoot a bow. However, even though finger releases were employed as early as the Shang, presumably because of the strength and stamina that would be necessary to repeatedly pull and sustain a fully drawn position, experienced Chinese military thinkers reached the opposite conclusion. Thus the Wu-tzu asserted that “the basic rule of warfare that should be taught is that men short in stature should carry spears and spear-tipped halberds, while the tall should carry bows and crossbows.”37 In the Warring States only men who could “fully draw a bow and shoot while racing a horse” were to be chosen for the cavalry.38 Nevertheless, differences in stature were not completely ignored, because the K’ao-kung Chi describes three different bow sizes and the military writings note that the bow’s size must match the archer’s physique.
The bow was also viewed as an esoteric weapon of power because of its ability to kill suddenly, at a distance, often completely unseen, the very reason it was condemned in the west. Thus Sun Pin commented: “Yi created bows and crossbows and imagized strategic power upon them. How do we know that bows and crossbows constituted (the basis for) strategic power? Released from between the shoulders, they kill a man beyond a hundred paces without him realizing the arrow’s path. Thus it is said that bows and crossbows are strategic power.”39