In the Warring States period we see for thefirst time, though it may have
begun earlier, a slight separation between war, and the skills and tools of
war. This separation was not great in the Warring States period, nor was
the separation marked between government official and army officer, or
soldier and warrior. Weapons were still a central part of court ritual, as
martial dances accompanied by music enforced and reinforced aristocratic
and political identity. The composition and weapons of armies changed,
however, and we do not know whether the weapons used in those court
rituals also changed or simply became archaic. At the same time, the new
weapons were being issued to large numbers of soldiers who were all being
trained in martial arts to use them. The rituals no longer matched the
military reality in terms of men, meaning or, perhaps, technology.
Martial arts made even commoners dangerous in ways they had not
hitherto been. Training could make anyone an effectivefighter. A capa-
bility that threatened the security of the state and society had to be con-
trolled by every means available–political, legal, cultural, and social. But
the martial arts were also necessary for the protection of society and the
state, and for the expansion of political authority internally and externally.
The martial arts now permeated society as a whole, changing the aristoc-
racy’s relationship to war and society, and calling into question many
previous political assumptions. What Confucius and many other thinkers
sought to do was to justify elite rule through moral superiority–an
intellectual project increasingly necessary since they no longer held a
monopoly on the martial arts.
The martial arts were central to the state’s control over violence, both in
peace and war. A new culture and ideology developed in the Warring
States period to accommodate this situation, and it involved both redefi-
nitions of previous social structures and the invention of new ones. The
martial arts were not unique in this, of course, as the Warring States period
was a golden age of Chinese thought in every area. Disciplined soldiers
replaced aristocratic warriors, and the interconnected martial arts that
linked aristocrats through ritual, military practice, and culture were sepa-
rated into individual functional categories. People saw new uses and
functions for the martial arts.
Archery in the Warring States period became perhaps thefirst martial
art promoted for the positive effects it had on the practitioner. This was not
just the instantiation of social harmony through the ritual reinforcement of
cultural hierarchy urged by Confucius, but also the development of a
superior mental state suggested by Liezi and Zhuangzi. A true archer
achieved a higher order of functionality that transcended the mere physical
Conclusion 51