arts were toofirmly embedded in society. One of the main entertainments
was martial arts performances.
The Qin response was not to prohibit martial arts but to prohibit the
private ownership of weapons, to cease regular military reviews at the local
level, and to promote wrestling. These practices were aimed at deflecting
the martial arts into less government-threatening routes. In a certain sense,
this was thefirst time that the martial arts, in the form of wrestling, were
officially separated from the military. Previously, all martial arts had had
a direct connection to war and hunting. This policy was tied to strong
central control and defeudalization. It was as short-lived as the Qin itself.
The Han did not continue the Qin policy and returned to a system of
militias more characteristic of the Warring States period. Only in the
second half of the Han dynasty, after the Wang Mang interregnum, were
ordinary farmers no longer trained in martial arts. Perhaps as a direct
result of the Han retention of widespread martial arts training, Han enter-
tainments also went beyond wrestling to include fencing, boxing, and
other martial arts as well as dancing and many nonmartial performances.
This would give rise to the Han dynasty“Hundred Events,”and through
that to the foundations of theater in China.
The shift of military reviews toward wrestling and other martial arts
performances for entertainment was simply part of a succession of changes
in the martial arts. Shang and Zhou aristocrats had hunted and fought
together to demonstrate their prowess and status, and then had watched
martial dances at court to recapitulate political legitimacy by recalling
actual battles. As martial arts moved out into the larger population, reviews
of troops sought to ensure that farmers were practicing martial arts for
state service. At the same time, the knightly class fetishized archery contests
to demonstrate their superior status and moral qualities through formalized
martial practice. All of these skills had practical uses on and off the battle-
field, but just as consistently, they were used in performance. By the Han
dynasty, then, it is clear that performance and battlefield martial arts were
fundamentally interlinked.
It is often difficult clearly to explicate martial arts practice on the battle-
field because of the nature of the sources. We are more fortunate in the
sources with respect to individual combat and the place of martial arts in
Chinese culture. This chapter therefore begins with thefirst emperor and
his would-be assassins, and then turns to Qin dynasty wrestling, the
contest between Xiang Yu and Liu Bang that resulted in the founding of
the Han dynasty, andfinishes with the development of martial arts along-
side the Hundred Events.
56 The Qin and Han Dynasties