This was not a simple matter of Chinese armies learning how tofight
steppe armies, or steppe armies learning how tofight Chinese armies. In
many battles, armies combined steppe cavalrymen with Chinese infantry,
and they mightfight similarly mixed opponents.
A new invention in the fourth century, the stirrup, shifted steppe and
Chinese cavalry practice, though its effects off the battlefield were much less
pronounced than in Europe. Heavily armored cavalry had appeared before
the invention of the stirrup in Southwest Eurasia and Central Eurasia, but it
appeared together with the stirrup in China.^3 Steppe cavalry used both
charges of heavy cavalry, with men and horses completely armored, and
mounted archery in battle. Heavy cavalry disappeared several centuries
later, at the end of the sixth century and the beginning of the seventh. The
reasons for this change, whether it was sudden or gradual, and when it
actually took place, remain unclear. The available records are simply insuf-
ficient to answer these questions definitively. It might have been linked to the
return of well-trained and armed infantry to the battlefield in the sixth
century. As with the chariot, well-trained mass infantry could effectively
neutralize heavy cavalry. Just as likely, cavalry practice changed as the
regime controlling sedentary Chinese territory fought against steppe groups
instead of groups within the Chinese ecumenefighting each other. Mobility
was vital in coming to grips with steppe-based groups. Although the causes
of this change are unclear, the change itself is not.
Martial arts were fundamental to distinguishing steppe people from the
Chinese, in the eyes of both groups. The ability to ride a horse and shoot a
bow while in motion, as well as dress and deportment, became an ethno-
graphic marker of steppe cultural allegiance. Most steppe cavalrymen
maintained these skills as part of their basic way of life, and then turned
them into a military profession as their leaders increasingly involved
themselves in Chinese politics. For the ordinary soldier, steppe martial
practice could not be separated from their identity, and those men who
shifted over to a sedentary lifestyle gave up both their skills and their
identity. In north China, for most of the Six Dynasties, it was the various
steppe groups that did all the seriousfighting, while the Chinese attended
to agriculture and other forms of production. Although the practice of
martial arts on the battlefield was generally confined to steppe people in the
north, in the south, northern Chinese émigrés brought martial skills with
them and marked themselves out through those practices.
The steppe aristocracy often attempted to maintain both an imperial
Chinese identity and a steppe identity. This required a very complex balanc-
ing of not only linguistic and behavioral displays but also accomplishment
74 The Six Dynasties