complete, outfits of arms and armor, though even these high-born warriors
maintained martial skills similar to those of their low-born counterparts.
Unlike the commoners, the aristocrats were able to practice and maintain
their skills through regular hunting. Hunting required individual skill
with weapons, particularly the spear and bow, and the ability to coordi-
nate the activities of a group of hunters. In China, as elsewhere, hunting
and warfare were related activities. Weapons were practical tools of vio-
lence, and the goal offighting, like hunting, was to kill one’s target.
Changes in Warfare in the Shang Dynasty
Warfare changed over the course of the Shang dynasty, in some ways
more dramatically than it had from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age.
While many early Shang weapons were improved bronze versions of
earlier stone weapons, the introduction of the chariot in the mid to late
Shang would subsequently transform warfare. Archery also changed, as
more powerful composite bows were developed by perhaps the late Shang.
These developments speak to a growing differentiation in society and an
increasing specialization of martial skills within different groups. Martial
skills became not only socially stratified but also increasingly gendered by
the time of the Zhou dynasty (ca. 1045 – 256 bce). Men fought and women
did not; at present we know of no Zhou dynasty counterpart to Fu Hao.
The introduction of chariots into China changed aristocrats from
better-armed infantry, to mobile missile-armed warriors. Both archery
and chariot driving required a lot of practice to be done well; effective
archery from a moving chariot must have required years of training. Thus,
both the specific tools of aristocratic warfare and the time required to
use those tools effectively limited participation in battle to men of wealth
and their supporting troops. From thefirst half of the Zhou, called
the Western Zhou (ca. 1045 – 771 bce), through the Spring and Autumn
period ( 770 – 476 bce), clusters of poorly armed and trained infantry
supported these aristocratic chariot archers, though the infantry’s role in
massed chariot battles is unclear. The putative number of infantry accom-
panying a chariot also rose from the late Shang to the Zhou, from ten to
twenty-five, the reason for this being similarly obscure. Overall army size
increased, requiring more widespread martial skills. The number of cha-
riots participating in battle grew as well, extending the aristocratic mode of
warfare into the knightly class.
Specialized martial arts spread to broad segments of the population during
the Spring and Autumn period. It is also in this period that we begin to have
Changes in Warfare in the Shang Dynasty 15