War in Imperial China (Military History_

Introduction

Imperial China, beginning with the Qin unification of China in 221 BCE and continuing until the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911, has an extensive military history contained in vast troves of primary sources. Very few scholars have exploited these sources, however, leading many to assume that little was written about war in traditional China. The available primary sources are often bureaucratic and “official” in the sense of being written, compiled, and stored as part of the regular functioning of a dynastic government. Every imperial government transmitted and recorded vast amounts of documents related to every aspect of the exercise of state power, including war, the military, logistics, and personnel. Consequently, imperial Chinese sources are extremely strong on issues of organization, and on those areas that concerned government bureaucrats overseeing military actions. Chinese bureaucrats were also generally far more numerate than historians in other premodern cultures, leading to somewhat more reliable figures for troops and supplies than we would expect for comparable periods elsewhere in the world.

General Overviews

A handful of useful overviews of Chinese military history are available, making it possible to gain some grasp of the general course of that history. No single text has yet attempted to delineate a unified vision of Chinese military history. At this time there is also very little disagreement about what is known, or how to interpret it, a sure sign of the immaturity of the field. None of these works provides a detailed history of individual battles. Just as significant, from a historical and historiographical perspective, is that there are very few famous battles in Chinese history. This is a product of both traditional history writing and modern attitudes about military history. While Graff and Higham 2011 offers a useful selection of topics, the best approach would be to proceed from Graff 2001 to Lorge 2005, and then to Worthing 2007 or Elleman 2001.

Elleman, Bruce A. Modern Chinese Warfare, 1795–1989. London and New York: Routledge, 2001.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Usefully surveys the period from 1795 until 1989, with considerable attention to diplomatic as well military history. Should be read in combination with Worthing 2007.
Find this resource:
Graff, David. Medieval Chinese Warfare 300–900. New York: Routledge, 2001.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The fundamental discussion of Chinese military history from 300 to 900 CE. Unparalleled in any language for its coverage and insights.
Find this resource:
Graff, David, and Robin Higham, eds. A Military History of China. 2d ed. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2012.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The best general overview of Chinese military history available. Broad coverage of time and subjects, aimed at nonacademic readers.
Find this resource:
Lorge, Peter. War, Politics and Society in Early Modern China, 900–1795. New ed. London and New York: Routledge, 2005.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
General coverage of the period from 900 to 1795. More concerned with fitting military history into the social and political history of the time than with a providing an account of the wars, campaigns, and battlefield events.
Find this resource:
Worthing, Peter. A Military History of Modern China: From the Manchu Conquest to Tian’anmen Square. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The best military history of modern China in English. Clearly written and reliable. The best starting point for an overall perspective on the subject.
Find this resource:
Zhongguo ren min jie fang jun jun shi ke xue yuan 中国人民解放军军事科学院. Zhongguo jun shi tong shi (中国军事通史). 20 vols. Junshi kexue chubanshe. 1998.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A useful comprehensive overview of Chinese military history.
Find this resource:
Period Studies

The immaturity of the field of Chinese military history is most clearly evident in the shallow pool of period studies. For some periods, like the Tang dynasty, where extensive research is available in Chinese and Japanese sources, this merely reflects the state of the field in English, whereas for others, like the Song dynasty, there is very little available in any language. There are far more works for very early China and for late imperial history than for the intervening periods. The quality of work is high, however, most obviously in Di Cosmo 2004 and Wakeman 1986. Quite clearly, far more battle, campaign, and war studies along the lines of Swope 2009 or Perdue 2010 are necessary before we can begin fully to grasp the developments of Chinese military history.

Di Cosmo, Nicola. Ancient China and Its Enemies: The Rise of Nomadic Power in East Asian History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A brilliant, insightful investigation of the rise of the Xiongnu in northern China during the Qin and early Han dynasties. Convincingly overturning much earlier scholarship, this is required reading not only for anyone working in the period, but also for anyone working in any period of Chinese history.
Find this resource:
Dreyer, Edward L. Early Ming China: A Political History, 1355–1435. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1982.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This remains the best military history of the early Ming dynasty. The title is actually a cover for a primarily military history.
Find this resource:
Dreyer, Edward L. Zheng He: China and the Oceans in the Early Ming, 1405–33. New York: Pearson Longman, 2006.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The best study of the Chinese admiral Zheng He in any language. Argues that Zheng He’s voyages were not about exploration but about projecting military power and, hence, political prestige beyond the immediate Chinese sphere.
Find this resource:
Perdue, Peter C. China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia. Reprint. Cambridge, MA, and London: Belknap, 2010.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A magisterial narrative of the 18th-century Qing dynasty destruction of the Zungar Mongols, and the massive expansion of Qing territory westward. Essentially three or four books in one. Certain to remain the definitive account for a long time.
Find this resource:
Spence, Jonathan D. God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Not strictly speaking a military history, this is a highly readable account of the massive civil war that wracked Qing China in the 19th century.
Find this resource:
Struve, Lynn. The Southern Ming, 1644–1662. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Not a military history, but provides an examination of a rump regime after the fall of a long-established dynasty. The regime’s declining military fortunes played out in a fascinating shadow play among loyal officials facing the definitive end of their political world. Should be read in conjunction with Wakeman 1986.
Find this resource:
Swope, Kenneth M. A Dragon’s Head and a Serpent’s Tail: Ming China and the First Great East Asian War, 1592–1598. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An impressive history of Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea in the late 16th century, from the Chinese perspective. It is an important corrective to the previously Japanese-based discussions of the war.
Find this resource:
Wakeman, Frederic. The Great Enterprise: The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China. 2 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This massive study provides the unparalleled English-language account of the Qing conquest of China in the 17th century. Detailed, comprehensive, and authoritative, it is an essential study of the massive and contingent effort required to conquer China. Can be helpfully read in conjunction with Struve 1984.
Find this resource:
Collections

The small number of Chinese military historians and their distribution in research interest over all of Chinese history has led to important articles often ending up in edited volumes. Indeed, the field of Chinese military history in English can be said to have started with Fairbank and Kierman 1974, though very little happened in the field in the two decades after its publication. None of these collections are narrowly focused on a single aspect of military history or a single time period, however, leading to a certain diffuse quality. At the same time, although the quality of most of the articles is high, it is also uneven. These collections remain an important source of secondary scholarship on Chinese military history.

Di Cosmo, Nicola, ed. Military Culture in Imperial China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A collection of mostly solid articles on a very broad variety of topics related to military culture in China, spanning more than two thousand years. Most of the individual chapters are useful and reliable.
Find this resource:
Fairbank, John, and Frank Kierman, eds. Chinese Ways in Warfare. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The first serious effort in English to study Chinese warfare. Although some of the articles are now out of date, this is an important starting point for understanding the development of the major issues in the field.
Find this resource:
Lorge, Peter, ed. Warfare in China to 1600. Illustrated ed. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2005.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A brief overall introduction to the field as of 2005 is followed by a reasonable selection of previously published journal articles. Some of these articles are otherwise difficult to find.
Find this resource:
Swope, Kenneth, ed. Warfare in China since 1600. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2005.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A brief overall introduction to the field as of 2005, and a convenient compilation of important articles.
Find this resource:
van de Ven, Hans J., ed. Warfare in Chinese History. Boston: Brill, 2000.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A high-quality collection of articles from an international conference on Chinese military history. It is particularly useful for the English translations of research otherwise accessible only in Chinese.
Find this resource:
Wyatt, Don, ed. Battlefronts Real and Imagined: War, Border, and Identity in the Chinese Middle Period. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
DOI: 10.1057/9780230611719Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Another high-quality collection of articles on a variety of military and related topics, mostly from the Song dynasty.
Find this resource:
Military Technology

The study of military technology in China is primarily concentrated on the invention of gunpowder and the development of gunpowder weapons. The only academic works in English to discuss other aspects of military technology are Needham 1994 and Lorge 2011 (cited under Martial Arts). Yang Hong 1992, a translation of a study originally published in 1985, is an essential starting point for pre-gunpowder weapons. Gunpowder and guns are now an extremely active area of research, partly as a result of the overturning of Michael Roberts and Geoffrey Parker’s Military Revolution thesis in the field of Western military history. The main, and as yet unanswered, question is: Why did the Chinese fall so far behind in gunpowder technology after inventing it in the first place? Chase 2003 argues that the ability of certain cultures, European or Japanese, to adopt firearms was due to their preexisting military practice. Lorge 2008 in turn argues that while different cultures responded differently to firearms based upon their particular historical circumstances, no one response to the technology was by definition better than any other. Liu Xu 2004, an excellent work on gunpowder and guns, has vastly advanced the field, rendering earlier studies superfluous.

Chase, Kenneth. Firearms: A Global History to 1700. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A creative and insightful perspective on the history of guns in Eurasia. Chase argues that the reason that handheld guns were readily adopted in Europe and Japan, as opposed to China, was that they readily fit into the preexisting tactical methods.
Find this resource:
Liu Xu 刘旭. 中国古代火药火器史. Daxiang Chubanshe, 2004.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The best study of gunpowder and guns in China through the Qing dynasty.
Find this resource:
Lorge, Peter. The Asian Military Revolution. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511816598Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An examination of the different receptions and effects of guns and gunpowder on many cultures in Asia.
Find this resource:
Needham, Joseph. Science and Civilization in China. Vol. 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Important but extremely uneven. See Parts 6 and 7. Although Liu Xu 2004 has rendered Part 7 (“Military Technology: The Gunpowder Epic”) generally obsolete, and Chase 2003 and Lorge 2008 have superseded its analysis, it remains the only English source for much useful data. Part 6 (“Military Technology: Missiles and Sieges”), cowritten by Robin Yates, remains quite useful, though the section on military thought is deeply confused and should be avoided.
Find this resource:
Yang Hong. Weapons in Ancient China. Translated by Zhang Lijing. Weapons in Ancient China. New York: Science Press, 1992.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
(A partial translation of 楊泓. 中國古兵器論叢 (Mingwen Shuju, 1985; 2d ed.). The best study of pre-gunpowder Chinese weapons. Particularly good on the archaeology of ancient weapons.
Find this resource:
Studies of Military Thought

For many years the primary source of information on Chinese military thought was Sun Tzu’s Art of War in English translation. Sunzi (in Pinyin Romanization) is a critical text for understanding Chinese military thought, but it in no way represents the entirety of military thought. Sawyer and Sawyer 2007 (cited under Translations of Military Texts), a translation of The Seven Military Classics, dramatically changed the field by showing the English-speaking world that there was more to Chinese military thought than just Sunzi. The many translations of Sunzi have not been matched by a comparable number of broader studies of Chinese military thought. Much of the interpretation of Chinese military thought has been left to the brief and overly simplified introductions of the translators. The two most important current theories on Chinese military thought, Johnston 1995 and Wang 2011, are both by political scientists, and their approaches owe as much to debates within the political science community and its methodologies as to close readings of the texts.

Chen, Ya-tien. Chinese Military Theory: Ancient and Modern. New York: Mosaic Press, 1992.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The title is somewhat misleading, since Chen spends only one chapter on ancient military thought before turning to his main focus on Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong’s respective strategies. Not surprisingly, the ancient section is a schematized and conventional popular misreading of ancient thought.
Find this resource:
Johnston, Alastair Iain. Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A critically important, but methodologically flawed, work that argues that Chinese strategic culture had two strands, the Mencian strand, representing a symbolic strain of Confucian rhetoric with respect to war, and the “parabellum” or realpolitick strand, representing a purely pragmatic approach to war. Chinese military thinking demonstrated cultural realism within the bounds of its cultural perspective.
Find this resource:
Wang, Yuan-Kang. Harmony and War: Confucian Culture and Chinese Power Politics. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A direct response to Johnston 1995 that argues that Chinese strategic culture demonstrated strategic realism rather than cultural realism. As deeply flawed as Johnston, but less creative, this is an important statement of the other side of the strategic versus cultural realism debate.
Find this resource:
Translations of Military Texts

For most of the twentieth century the study of Chinese military history as a whole has been confined to the repeated translation of Sunzi’s (Sun Tzu) Art of War. While this has resulted in a series of solid translations of Sunzi, the analysis of Chinese military thought has remained fixed, largely derived from the explanation provided in Griffith 1963, a translation of Sunzi. The Western interpretation of Sunzi was powerfully influenced by B. H. Liddell Hart’s foreword to Griffith’s translation, in which Hart asserted that Sunzi set out an “indirect” method that contrasted with Western “direct” methods of warfare. Hart’s novel interpretation, which supported his own indirect strategy, continues to bias most Western approaches to Chinese warfare and military thought. Of the dozens of works on Chinese military thought available, however, only a handful have been translated, leading to a distorted image of the scope and trajectory of the intellectual tradition. On the other hand, an even broader perspective on early Chinese military thinking has become available in Milburn 2010, McNeal 2012, and Meyer 2012. The field remains beset by popular works aimed at the business and self-help community with little regard for the military purpose of their creators.

Ames, Roger, and D. C. Lau, trans. Sun Pin: The Art of Warfare. Edited by Sun Pin. New York: Ballantine, 1996.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A useful translation of the archaeologically recovered fragmentary text of Sun Pin’s Art of War.
Find this resource:
Griffith, Samuel B., trans. Sun Tzu: The Art of War. By Sunzi. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Griffith’s translation and interpretation of Sunzi have been tremendously influential in the English-speaking world. A former US Marine general who had served in northern China after World War II, Griffith’s reading of Sunzi was strongly affected by the successful communist insurgency and eventual conquest of China in 1949.
Find this resource:
Mair, Victor, trans. The Art of War: Sun Zi’s Military Methods. By Sunzi. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An excellent rendering of Sunzi by a noted translator and Sinologist. The strongest translation for the linguistic fine points of Sunzi’s language. Mair is also noteworthy for suggesting an alternative translation for bingfa as “Military Methods” rather than the less supportable “Art of War.”
Find this resource:
McNeal, Robin. Conquer and Govern: Early Chinese Military Texts from the Yi Zhou Shu. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2012.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A reconstruction and translation of an excavated text, The Remainder of the Zhou Documents, that presents a fascinating and very different perspective on early Chinese thinking about warfare.
Find this resource:
Meyer, Andrew Seth, trans. The Dao of the Military: Liu An’s Art of War. Edited by Liu An. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An important study of the military chapters of the Huainanzi, an encyclopedic text from the Han dynasty.
Find this resource:
Milburn, Olivia. The Glory of Yue. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2010.
DOI: 10.1163/ej.9789004179691.i-430Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An outstanding translation of the Yuejue shu compiled in the early 1st century CE. The sections on the military can be viewed in the context of broader discussions of other issues.
Find this resource:
Minford, John, trans. The Art of War. Edited by Sunzi. New York: Penguin, 2002.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The best translation currently available in English. In addition to his excellent translation of the main text, Minford also provides extensive translations of the canonical eleven commentaries, as well as excerpts from other relevant texts. Minford’s goal is to place Sunzi in the context of Chinese culture, rather than to discuss its military value, somewhat diminishing its value in treating it as a military text.
Find this resource:
Sawyer, Ralph D., and Mei-chun Sawyer, trans. The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China. Basic Books, 2007.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A popular translation of The Seven Military Classics, an important military textbook compiled in the late 11th century for the military exam system. Although the translation is marred by occasional errors, an idiosyncratic reorganization of the order of the constituent seven texts from the original work, and shallow analysis, it is nonetheless the only English translation of this critical text.
Find this resource:
Martial Arts

The martial arts hold a distinct place in Chinese culture, permeating Chinese society in ways that tie war, religion, and theater together. While historians have not usually included the martial arts in considerations of Western military history, it is worth including in studies of Chinese history. The challenge facing historians is distinguishing between history and myth, on the one hand, and modern biases concerning the place and character of the martial arts in Chinese society, on the other. Despite the martial arts’ tenuous connections to religious practice, or practices of self-cultivation before the late imperial period at the earliest, many modern practitioners assume these relationships to be ancient. Any consideration of the topic must begin with Henning 1999, a review article. Lorge 2011 provides a comprehensive academic introduction to the martial arts in Chinese history. Shahar 2008 provides coverage of the martial arts at Shaolin Monastery, and Wile’s works (Wile 1996, Wile 1999, Wile 2010) focus on the specific question of Taiji (Tai chi).

Henning, Stanley. “Academia Encounters the Chinese Martial Arts.” China Review International 6.2 (Fall 1999): 319–332.
DOI: 10.1353/cri.1999.0020Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A strongly worded and clear-eyed critique of the state of understanding of Chinese martial arts in 1999. Eviscerates widely held myths promulgated by respected scholars, and highlights the misinformation possible when modern myths permeate scholarly research.
Find this resource:
Lorge, Peter. Chinese Martial Arts: From Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139029865Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The first academic history of Chinese martial arts. Argues that the martial arts do have a history in China that can be accessed through primary sources and archaeological materials. Traces the changing practice, role, and place of the skills of trained violence in Chinese society from 1200 BCE to the present.
Find this resource:
Selby, Stephen. Chinese Archery. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2000.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An extremely important history of archery in China by a practitioner of Chinese archery. A useful perspective on what was the most important martial art for most of Chinese history.
Find this resource:
Shahar, Meir. The Shaolin Monastery: History, Religion, and the Chinese Martial Arts. University of Hawai‘i Press, 2008.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A useful academic study of the history and myths surrounding martial arts practice at the Shaolin Monastery. However, there is very little coverage of the practice of Chan (Zen) Buddhism at the site (for which it is famous), and the author is uncritical in his discussion of the mythical aspects of Shaolin’s legends.
Find this resource:
Wile, Douglas. Lost T’ai-chi Classics from the Late Ch’ing Dynasty. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A useful translation of late imperial texts on Taiji by a well-trained Sinologist and practitioner of Taiji. Primarily aimed at other practitioners, but still important and useful.
Find this resource:
Wile, Douglas. T’ai Chi’s Ancestors: The Making of an Internal Art. New York: Sweet Ch’i, 1999.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Further translations of martial arts texts, including a full rendering of General Qi Jiguang’s 16th-century Boxing Classic, the earliest extant text on boxing. The translation is compromised by Wile’s interest in tying earlier boxing techniques to later Taiji techniques.
Find this resource:
Wile, Douglas. Tai Chi Touchstones: Yang Family Secret Transmissions. 8th ed. New York: Sweet Ch’i, 2010.
Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A narrowly focused study of the history of Yang-style Taiji. Primarily aimed at practitioners of Yang-style Taiji, but useful for understanding the construction of modern martial arts history and paths of transmission.