Closely related to the problem of armies was another category partially understandable in narrowly factual terms—political economy. The armies conditioned and set the pace, a slow one, for economic development. All financial projects were jeopardized by military rule, both by the exactions which the military might impose and by the constant threat that militarists, devaluating the currency or arbitrarily changing the political controls of economy, might alter the very economic system in which the project was being considered and fostered. Economic life in China could not continue through the traditional agricultural, guild, semicapitalist devices; Western trade and social dislocation prevented that. Yet no new economy could automatically replace the ruins of the old, since economic matters were part of a political economy subject to the extra-economic interferences which ideological change, military power, and halfway government could impose. One of the truly important achievements of the National Government at Nanking was the creation of a core for a twentieth century army. But all the military achievements in modern China pale before the staggering surprise of a managed currency, displacing a commodity and specie system which was older than all modern warfare.

One need not subscribe to either military or economic determinism to concede the relevance of military and economic matters in any society. In China there exists a peculiarly close correlation between the two. The absence of a class founded squarely on economic privilege and the subordination of the military to the bureaucratic elements in the imperial society were largely the result of the position occupied by the average nonacademic Chinese, who was typically a farmer capable of being a militiaman or a bandit. This duality of role strongly affected the development of government in China, and is a factor which still plays a great part. The Chinese owe many of their social and political peculiarities to the effectiveness of their mass action, which is able to take place with a minimum of formal leadership and coordination and with a maximum of secrecy and totality. In times when foreign conquest of China is no longer in the realm of the improbable, it is worth remembering that the Chinese are a people adamant in resistance to force and schooled in centuries of rebellion. Neither pacific nor military resistance could take place in the traditional Chinese way without the diffusion of military and economic power among broad masses of the population.

How, it may be asked, have the Chinese succeeded in being such a peaceful people, and yet a people so prone to popular uprising? How is it that, with their great talents for organization, they have let a shabby third-rate militarism sweep their land in modern times? The Chinese generals did not command the allegiance widely extended to even the meanest of South American despots; yet the people trembled before them. Not until the war lords lost power was there great popular enthusiasm for military ideals. If Chinese armies are considered solely as rough and primitive parallels to their European counterparts, paradox will follow paradox without rational explanation. To understand the Chinese military situation one must go back across the centuries and trace a system and a tradition which, at times obscure and frequently submerged, must come to the surface in the decisions upon which rest the question of national life or death for China.

[The Downfall of the Charioteers]

The Chinese have differed from other peoples not in being peaceful so much as in extolling peace. Not even in the Christian tradition of peace and love are there condemnations of war stronger than those of the Confucians. Yet, century to century, the Chinese have known war against the outside barbarians and with each other. Throughout historic times there are records of struggle and slaughter. H. G. Creel writes, "If we are to locate the traditional Chinese time of 'great peace' it must be far back in the Neolithic stage. Experts agree that in the earlier of the Neolithic sites known to us there is little evidence of warfare."[1]

At the very edge of history, about 1500 b. c., the Chinese appear as accomplished archers, using bows which were probably not dissimilar to those in use down to the twentieth century—heavy reflex bows, with a pull that was sometimes far greater than the longbow of the celebrated English yeomen of medieval times. The pellet bow, a form of slingshot, was also common in the earliest times. Armor was known in the earliest historic dynasty, the Shang, which by Chinese tradition is dated 1765-1123 b. c. The chariot, however, seems to have been less widely used than it later came to be.[2]

Under the Chou dynasty, in all Chinese history the most caste-bound, militaristic, and feudal (traditionally dated 1122-256 b. c.), the implements of warfare and the management of conflict fell into the hands of the ruling class. Previous to the Chou there was a relative military equality of all, despite the sharp lines between masters and men. After the Chou the great military states culminating in the warrior-bureaucrat tyranny of the Ch'in Shih Huang Ti (third century b. c.) tended to reduce war to mass movements, in which establishments, management, and broader considerations constantly increased. During this period the master class developed a scheme which was not as elaborately traced out in legal terms as Norman-English feudalism, nor as solidly grounded in outright military effectiveness as the Japanese system twenty-odd centuries later, but which amounted to a chivalric order within the limits of an ideology rooted in the family. The lords were the spiritual guardians and clan leaders as well as the earthly despots of their subjects. Standing above the law and invested with positions of high political dignity, their class nearly became a caste. Warfare—as apart from slaughter—was formalized and ritualized beyond all Western dreams of gallantry. According to Marcel Granet, who has brilliantly described public life of the period,

The battle is a confused mélée of boasts, generosities, homages, insults, devotions, curses, blessings and sorceries. Much more than a clash of arms, it is a duel of moral values, an encounter of competing honours.... The battle is the great moment in which each warrior proves his nobility, while in addition they prove to all present the nobility of their prince, their cause and their country.[3]

Our very word chivalry suggests horsemen; the Chinese nobles ruled their elaborate realm not from horseback but from chariots. The education of every patrician youth involved archery, music, writing, and reckoning, among other arts and virtues.[4] Archery was something which might be learned, after a fashion, by large numbers of common men; even peasants, with a bow and a lance or pike, might constitute light cavalry when provided, or providing themselves, with mounts. But the use of the four-horse chariot necessarily remained the exclusive privilege of the nobles. The chariot fighter had to have a driver and one or two others with him in his vehicle, which was itself costly, hard to obtain, and difficult to operate. A Chou noble driving forth to war thirty centuries ago was as technical a unit as an aviator in a combat plane today or a small group of men in a tank. Just as there is a democracy implicit in the light machine gun or the automatic rifle, so was there the potentiality of equality in vast masses of infantry, supported by light, cheaply armed cavalry. Aristocratic individualism meant something when wars were short and fought with elaborate equipment; but no noble could stand up against the mass forces which emerged and continued fighting until the feudal system lost any real significance and left the country open to the development of bureaucratic government and military power.