accomplished martial artists and poets. But most of the sympathies of
thefictional account lay with the state of Shu, where Liu Bei ( 161 – 223 ),
its ruler, and his generals, Zhang Fei ( 167 – 221 ) and Guan Yu ( 160 – 219 ),
were directed by the great strategist Zhuge Liang ( 181 – 234 ). Guan Yu’s
mythology would eventually elevate him to the officially recognized
position of god of war a thousand years later, a place he still holds in
Chinese culture. Zhuge Liang was transformed into the greatest strategist
(as opposed to strategic writer, like Sunzi or Wuzi) in Chinese culture. Of
course, most of the real contenders for power were warriors, and their
martial arts practice was central to their survival or failure on the
battlefield.
Battlefield weapon use was changing in the third century, continuing
trends begun during the Han dynasty. Two particular trends are clearly
visible in the Three Kingdoms period: the rise of the spear over the halberd,
and the identification of horse archery with steppe martial practice. A third
change, to the near exclusive use of the single-edged sword on the battle-
field, occurred near the end or shortly after the Three Kingdoms period.
These changes were incipient during the Three Kingdoms period, as the
halberd was still in widespread use, and Chinese horse-archers had long
been part of Chinese armies. The important distinction that needs to be
made here is that these trends began before the introduction of the stirrup
and heavily armored cavalry (contra Dien’s argument cited above). Thus,
martial practice was not driven by technology but by a set of choices of
modes of combat that often were connected to the particular group most
closely associated with that manner offighting at that time.
Lin Boyuan explains the increasing use of the spear over the halberd as a
product of steppe cavalry usage.^7 Cavalrymen used fairly long spears from
horseback,“cavalry spears,”^8 to gain the reach to strike infantrymen. The
infantry responded by also adopting long spears to increase their reach.
illustration 8.Bronze long sword, possibly Han Dynasty, Laufer
Collection. Courtesy of the Field Museum and Ernest Caldwell. Photo by Ernest
Caldwell.
78 The Six Dynasties