course, but they are indicative of a conception of the heroic martial artist.
Unlike a dismissed government official, the exemplary martial artist could
try to take revenge or prove himself against the political order. At least in
the textual remains of the past, the martial world began to emerge as a
counterpoint to the authority of the civil bureaucratic state. Martial arts
empowered resolute men to resist the subordination of society to political
control. The martial hero was born as a counterpoint to the state’s monop-
oly over the licit use of force.
Conclusion
In the Warring States period, martial arts completely broke loose from its
function as a marker of the aristocratic class and became a tool of state
authority. Many of these skills, particularly archery, continued to retain a
positive association with nobility, however, and were connected to the idea
of self and group discipline, order, and self-cultivation. Warring States
armies were trained and controlled instruments of violence for the state
rather than chaotic assemblages of hotheaded, independent-minded war-
riors. Concomitant with that, military law was far harsher than civilian
law because its function was to order and direct the expression of violence
rather than simply suppress it. Where the martial world had previously
been part of the aristocratic milieu, it was now an officially separate
environment where controlled violence in service to politics was accept-
able. War and the martial arts were no longer ennobling, however, when
war was largely the province of commoners. A new ideology emerged,
arguing that serving the state through licit violence was a sign of morality
and self-control.
The controlled use of violence was necessary to create an orderly
society, but it created a basic tension within martial artists. A conscripted
soldier was usually reluctant to leave his civilian life, learn martial arts, and
participate in the dangerous activity of war. His main concern was to leave
the army and the practices offighting as soon as possible and return to his
former life. Most soldiers were conscripted from the ranks of the farmers,
and the ideal of the farmer-soldier, the man who did not want tofight,
remained the ideal for the rest of imperial Chinese history. Yet reluctant
farmer-soldiers did not make the best martial artists or soldiers. Conscript
armies were led and bolstered by specialized warriors and commanders.
These specialists were necessary for teaching martial arts, directing large
bodies of men, providing combat leadership, and generally forming con-
scripts into effective armies.
Conclusion 49