Here too it is the enemy that uses chariots in war, and not the Shang.
Warfare was extremely lethal, and while we have no idea of the number of
casualties inflicted during the actualfighting or the fates of the captured
ordinary soldiers, the aristocratic enemies were clearly killed in a ceremo-
nial fashion for the benefit of the Shang ancestors. Moreover, many
wounds that were not immediately lethal during battle would have resulted
in a subsequent death given the poor state of medicine at that time. Despite
any superficial resemblances, warfare was not a sport.
Chariots were widely used by the Western Zhou, and the Zhou king
bestowed elaborate chariot accoutrements on favored individuals. Yet
these were also practical weapons of war and were subject to the pragmatic
need to succeed. Thus chariots were not used against the Huai Yi in the
many battles the Zhou fought against them because the terrain involved
was marshy. This continued into the Spring and Autumn period, where the
succeeding states located in the same region, Wu and Yue, faced the same
constraints. Chariots were a weapon of the Central Plains of China, mak-
ing them part of the Northern Chinese tradition of martial arts.
Massed chariot battles, supported by infantry, became a feature of
warfare in the second half of the ninth centurybce. A number of inscrip-
tions on bronze vessels record victories in battle in northern China result-
ing in the capture of dozens, and sometimes over a hundred, chariots.
These larger tallies of chariots were acquiredfighting the Zhou’s northern
competitors, showing once again that the direction of military technology
and martial techniquesflowed from Central Eurasia into northern China.
At the same time, Zhou successes demonstrate that Chinese aristocrats had
developed considerable skill in chariot warfare themselves.
The northern tribes drove the Zhou out of the Wei River valley in 771 ,
forcing the Zhou rulers to reestablish their main capital to the east at
modern-day Luoyang. During the Spring and Autumn period, which was
thefirst part of the Eastern Zhou ( 770 – 256 bce), the individual states or
fiefs that comprised the Zhou measured their military strength in the
number of chariots they couldfield. Battles between these states involved
hundreds of chariots. The state of Jin, for example, brought some 700
chariots to the Battle of Chengpu in632 bce. While the states were
measuring their strength by the number of chariots they couldfield, they
also began to employ forces of infantry armed with crossbows or spears.
Large infantry armies primarily composed of commoners would eventu-
ally be the backbone of Chinese armies, though that was centuries in the
future. Chariot warfare remained dominant in the Central Plains of China
until the advent of cavalry toward the end of the Spring and Autumn
24 Stone Age through the Spring and Autumn Period