New Light On Ancient Chinese Military Texts: Notes On Their Nature and Evolution, and the Development of Military Specialization in Warring States China

This article studies the four categories into which military texts were divided in the Han Shu bibliography in the light of newly discovered materials in order to answer the following questions: when do military texts first appear in China, what is their relation to other contemporary texts, what is their rhetorical form, how do military concepts change over time, were there military specialists who formed a self-conscious group, and did their ideas influence philosophy and did their practices influence administrative and civilian bureaucratic techniques? It is concluded that military texts first appeared in ca. 500 B.C. and that the earliest extant text is the Sun-tzu ping-fa. Certain techniques and ideas, such as hsing-ming ("form and name") first appeared in military contexts and were later adopted by political philosophers. In rhetorical form, the Mohist works were the most introverted and directed at specialists within their own school, while all four types of military experts influenced later Chinese theories of war and are represented in technical manuals and military encyclopediae through the Ming dynasty. Finally, it is argued that the development of military specialization in the Warring States was an extremely important component of the cultural, administrative, and organizational evolution in China and directly influenced the form of the later Chinese state.