population could just as easily resort to crime and banditry. The court
was concerned on several occasions about martial arts groups who
called themselves not just“Staff Societies”but also“No Orders Societies
沒命社,”“Hegemons and Kings Society霸王社,”and“Forgetting Orders
Societies亡命社.”^2 In 1041 , the court outlawed private martial arts teach-
ers in the vain hope of restoring order.^3
Although martial arts held a lower social status in Song China, we are
fortunate in the sorts of written records for martial practice existing for this
period–much more so than for earlier periods. In part, this is simply because
more material survived than from earlier times, and in part it resulted from
an effort to compile knowledge of military affairs. TheComplete Essentials
from the Military Classics(Wujing Zongyao) was completed in 1044 and
catalogued the entirety of military information available to the Song govern-
ment.^4 TheComplete Essentialswas illustrated as well, though it is unclear
whether the current illustrations are original, later copies, or later replace-
ments, and for thefirst time we have descriptions of weapons with matching
images. Because the compilers were trying to be comprehensive, most of the
weapons listed are archaic or marginal. The regular weapons of war
remained bows, crossbows, swords, and spears.
TheComplete Essentialswas also remarkable for providing thefirst
published formula for gunpowder in history. Although gunpowder weap-
ons were rudimentary in the eleventh century, during the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries true guns were developed in China. These were truly
a new kind of weapon, something chemically powered rather than
mechanically powered. Guns were in widespread use by at least the thir-
teenth century, being manufactured by the thousands in government
arsenals. Early guns were not technically difficult to manufacture once
the basic design was understood, and these weapons were in fact cheaper
and faster to produce than the steppe composite bows. No real“art”of
shooting emerged at this time, and it would take many more centuries
before wefind precise descriptions of shooting practice. Indeed, the most
careful descriptions of shooting with afirearm would emerge after differ-
ent weapons from outside China became available. It was then necessary to
formally record the foreign methods of shooting. From the thirteenth if not
the twelfth century onward, guns, both handheld and larger cannon,
became a regular and critical weapon of war. As we will see in a later
chapter, guns were so central to military practice that they were included in
the martial arts stories ofThe Water Margin.
The presence of guns in twelfth- and thirteenth-century China should
make it clear that any attempt to separate our understanding of Chinese
The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms and the Song Dynasty 119