Despite a number of vehicles having been recovered from
graves and sacrificial pits, all aspects of the chariot’s employment in the
ancient period pose vexing questions, particularly whether they were deployed
by themselves as discrete operational units or were accompanied by either
loosely or closely integrated infantry. Because even the oracular inscriptions
for King Wu Ting’s well-documented reign provide few clues, and the tomb
paintings recently discovered that date to the Warring States and thereafter
mainly depict hunting scenes and parades, far more is known about the chariot’s
physical structure than its utilization. The chariot’s essence has always been
mobility, but prestige and displays of conspicuous authority rather than
battlefield exploitation may have been defining factors in the Shang.
Some traditionally oriented scholars continue to assert that
chariots played a significant role in Shang warfare; others deny that they were
ever employed as a combat element. The Shang’s reputed employment of chariots,
whether nine or seventy, to vanquish the Hsia is highly improbable given the
complete absence of late seventeenth-century BCE or Erh-li-kang artifacts that
might support such claims. However, Warring States writers idealistically
ascribed differences in conception and operational characteristics to the Three
Dynasties: “The war chariots of the Hsia rulers were called “hooked chariots,”
because they put uprightness first; those of the Shang were called “chariots of
the new moon,” because they put speed first; and those of the Chou were called
“the source of weapons,” because they put excellence first.”
The few figures preserved in Shang dynasty oracular
inscriptions, Chou bronze inscriptions, and other comparatively reliable
written vestiges indicate that chariots were sparsely employed in Shang and
Western Chou martial efforts. The chariot’s first recorded participation in
Chinese warfare actually occurs about seven to eight hundred years after their
initial utilization in the West, ironically just before the Near Eastern states
would abandon them as their primary fighting component due to infantry
challenges. King Wu Ting’s use of a hundred vehicle regiments for expeditionary
actions, already discussed, seems to have initiated their operational
deployment, though the only concrete reference to Shang chariots (ch’e) appears
in the quasi-military context of the hunt.
Chariots must have been extensively employed in the late
Jen-fang campaigns, but no numbers have been preserved. Thus the next semi-reliable
figure is the universally acknowledged 300 chariots that were employed by King
Wu of the Chou to penetrate the Shang’s massive troop deployment at the Battle
of Mu-yeh, precipitating their collapse. Some accounts suggest that the Chou
had another 50 chariots in reserve, while the number fielded by the Shang,
strangely unspecified in the traditional histories, could hardly have been less
than several hundred. King Wu reportedly had a thousand at his ascension, some
no doubt captured from the Shang, though others may have belonged to his allies
and merely been numbered among those present for the ceremony. Several hundred
were also captured from the Shang’s allies in postconquest campaigns, as well
as in suppressing the subsequent revolt.
Nevertheless, chariots seem to have been minimal in early
Western Chou operational forces. Scattered evidence suggests that field
contingents never exceeded several hundred, with as few as a hundred chariots
participating in expeditionary campaigns. Although one of their efforts against
the Hsien-yün resulted in the capture of 127 chariots from a supposedly
“barbarian” or steppe power, King Li’s campaign against the Marquis of E seems
to have been typical. Despite total enemy casualties being nearly 18,000,
inscriptions on the bronze vessel known as the Hsiao-yü Ting indicate that a
mere 30 chariots were captured in one clash, though a second force of 100 is
also mentioned. Somewhat larger numbers were deployed slightly later in
campaigns against the Wei-fang, but the maximum figure ever reported for the
Western Chou, the 3,000 supposedly dispatched southward against the rising
power of Ching/Ch’u in King Hsüan’s reign (827-782), is certainly exaggerated
despite the king’s reputation for having revitalized Chou military affairs, as
well as unreliable because it is based solely on an ode known as “Gathering
Millet.”
The chariot’s effectiveness in the Shang, early Chou, and perhaps
even beyond must be questioned in the face of the constraints discussed below,
the difficulties that will be examined in the next section, and the lessons
that can be learned from contemporary experiments with replica vehicles.
However, it should be remembered that although numerous reasons can be adduced
why chariots could not have functioned as generally imagined, voluminous
historical literature, both Western and Asian, energetically speaks about their
employment in battle. Ruling groups were still expending vast sums to build,
maintain, and employ chariot forces in the Warring States period, and the Han
continued to field enormous numbers against steppe enemies, incontrovertible
evidence that rather than being historical chimeras or simply artifacts of
military conservatism, they continued to be regarded as crucial weapons
systems.
Although all the Warring States military writings contain a
few brief observations on chariot operations, only two, the Wu-tzu and
Liu-t’ao, preserve significant passages. Primarily important for understanding
the nature of the era’s conflict, they still furnish vital clues to the
chariot’s modes of employment and identify a number of inherent limitations
that would have inescapably plagued the Shang and Western Chou, long before
chariots would explosively multiply to become the operational focus for field
forces.
Chariots were considered one of the army’s core elements:
“Horses, oxen, chariots, weapons, relaxation, and an adequate diet are the
army’s strength. Fast chariots, fleet infantrymen, bows and arrows, and a
strong defense are what is meant by ‘augmenting the army.’” Several passages
indicate that chariots were viewed as capable of “penetrating enemy formations
and defeating strong enemies.” Those used in conjunction with large numbers of
attached infantry and long weapons were said not only to be able to “penetrate
solid formations” but also to “defeat infantry and cavalry.” “When the horses
and chariots are sturdy and the armor and weapons advantageous, even a light
force can penetrate deeply.” “Chariots are the feathers and wings of the army,
the means to penetrate solid formations, press strong enemies, and cut off
their flight.” Before the advent of cavalry, they also acted as “fleet
observers, the means to pursue defeated armies, sever supply lines, and strike
roving forces.”
Passages in Sun Pin’s Military Methods and other works
indicate that somewhat specialized chariots evolved in the Warring States, the
basic distinction being between faster (or lighter) models and heavier chariots
protected by leather armor and designed for assaults. A few of even greater
size and dedicated function were thought capable of accomplishing even more:
“If the advance of the Three Armies is stopped, then there are the ‘Martial Assault
Great Fu-hsü Chariots.’” “Great Fu-hsü Attack Chariots that carry Praying
Mantis Martial warriors can attack both horizontal and vertical formations.”
Variants with a smaller turning ratio, known as “Short-axle, Quick turning
Spear and Halberd Fu-hsü Chariots,” might be successfully employed “to defeat
both infantry and cavalry” and “urgently press the attack against invaders and
intercept their flight.”
Chariots were deemed astonishingly powerful: “Chariots and
cavalry are the army’s martial weapons. Ten chariots can defeat a thousand men,
a hundred chariots can defeat ten thousand men.” The Liu-t’ao’s authors even
ventured detailed estimates of the relative effectiveness of chariots and
infantry: “After the masses of the Three Armies have been arrayed opposite the
enemy, when fighting on easy terrain one chariot is equivalent to eighty
infantrymen and eighty infantrymen are equivalent to one chariot. On difficult
terrain one chariot is equivalent to forty infantrymen and forty infantrymen
are equivalent to one chariot.”
These are startling numbers, all the more so for having been
penned late in the Warring States period when states still numbered their
chariots by the thousands. Even allowing for exaggeration, given that the
Liu-t’ao generally reflects well-pondered experience and is a veritable
compendium of Warring States military science, the era’s commanders must have
had great confidence in the chariot’s capabilities. Nevertheless, it might be
noted that the great T’ang dynasty commander Li Ching, upon examining these
materials in the light of his own experience at a remove of a thousand years,
concluded that the infantry / chariot equivalence should only be three to one.
Chariots were also employed to ensure a measured advance in
the Spring and Autumn, Warring States, and later periods when they no longer
functioned as the decisive means for penetration. Li Ching’s comments about his
historically well-known expeditionary campaign against the Turks indicate that
even in the T’ang and early Sung they were still considered the means to
constrain large force movements: “When I conducted the punitive campaign
against the T’u-ch’üeh we traveled westward several thousand li. Narrow
chariots and deer-horn chariots are essential to the army. They allow controlling
the expenditure of energy, provide a defense to the fore, and constrain the
regiments and squads of five.”
Although certainly not applicable to the Shang, chariots
could also be cobbled together to provide a temporary defense, particularly the
larger versions equipped with protective roofs. The authors of the great Sung
dynasty military compendium, the Wu-ching Tsung-yao, after (somewhat
surprisingly) commenting that “the essentials of employing chariots are all
found in the ancient military methods,” concluded that “the methods for chariot
warfare can trample fervency, create strong formations, and thwart mobile
attacks. When in motion vehicles can transport provisions and armaments, when
halted can be circled to create encampment defenses.”
Numerous examples of employing chariots as obstacles or for
exigent defense are seen as early as the Spring and Autumn period. The later
military writings cite several Han dynasty exploitations of “circled wagons”
being employed as temporary bastions, including three incidents in which
beleaguered commanders expeditiously deployed their chariots much as Jan Ziska
would in the West to successfully withstand significantly superior forces.
Sometimes the wheels were removed, but generally the chariots were simply maneuvered
into a condensed array.
Combat Issues – Chinese Chariots
Fighting from a moving chariot would have been difficult at
best, given the bumping and jarring, not to mention the fleeting moment when a
shock weapon could be brought to bear against nearby fighters on the ground or
used to strike warriors in an oncoming vehicle. Thus the exceptional
accomplishments attributed to racing archers may have been preserved precisely
because of their uniqueness. Furthermore, even if the chariots merely served as
transport to the point of conflict, fighters manning the compartment would have
suffered the discomfort of confinement.
Though seemingly spacious, the approximately 32-by-48-inch
compartment turns out to be highly limiting when occupied by three warriors
bearing weapons and garbed in rudimentary protective leather armor. Experiments
conducted over several years with martial artists well trained in such
traditional weapons as long- and short-handled halberds, battle axes, daggers,
and swords prove that they would have lacked the freedom of maneuver required
to fend off, let alone vanquish, attackers. The driver, who faces no threat
from the front where the horses block access, is mainly vulnerable to an
oblique attack. However, being pinned in the center with the horses and shaft
protruding in front of him, he is unable to contribute much to either the
attack or defense, whether in motion or at rest. But the other two combatants
are exposed from about 45 degrees right around to 180 degrees dead center at
the back, where neither shields nor any other form of protection was ever
affixed.
If the archer positions himself somewhat laterally on the
right side so that his shooting stance puts his arm toward the outside of the
chariot rather than to the inside against the driver, he can fire toward the
front or out to the sides with little interference. However, swinging around to
shoot to the rear is virtually impossible. Conversely, an archer standing on
the left, reputedly the normal Shang position, is badly hampered by the driver
(even if the driver is kneeling) as he tries to fit an arrow to his bow and
fire in any direction. Shots to the rear become possible if he stands laterally
facing outward and thus draws his bow on the exterior side of the compartment,
in mirror image to an archer positioned on the right side aiming forward.
Wielding the era’s preferred shock weapon, a dagger-axe with
a three-foot handle, is easily accomplished on the right side, particularly for
blows directed to the front or somewhat alongside, but when swinging outward to
counterattack perpendicular to the chariot’s forward orientation, care has to
be taken to avoid striking the archer standing on the opposite side on the
backswing. Blows directed to the rear that require swinging around prove
impossible without dramatically modifying the motion, as well as fruitless
because potential attackers, already at the limit of effective range, can
easily dodge any strike.
Even if solitary attackers might be thwarted, multiple
attackers, especially those bearing five-foot-long spears, would have been
easily able to slay the chariot’s occupants without being endangered, unless
the archer employed his bow at point-blank range. Whether armed with long or
short weapons, multiple attackers create chaos because the heavily confined
chariot crew, standing back to back and arm to shoulder, are unable to dodge,
bend, or deflect oncoming blows and can only rely on any shields they may have
carried or the protection offered by early body armor. Vulnerability would
therefore have been especially acute to the rear, though presumably somewhat
mitigated by the chariot’s forward battlefield motion.
A single occupant wielding a full-length saber or long
two-handed weapon fared far better in these admittedly static tests. Two men,
though sometimes impinging on each other or even colliding, still had
sufficient freedom of maneuver to fight effectively, even if the archer
occupied the left side as traditionally portrayed. Three men suffered the
difficulties noted; four became an example of “close packing,” all four being
totally incapable of wielding any sort of crushing weapon.
These problems apparently prompted the development of very
long-handled spears and dagger-axes in the Spring and Autumn that were
presumably intended for battling similarly equipped warriors in enemy chariots.
However, for the three chariot occupants this additional length simply
exacerbated the lack of maneuverability, particularly because the weapons
tended to be held at least a quarter of the way up the shaft rather than at the
very butt. (Grasping with two hands increases the power and control, but at the
sacrifice of maneuverability.) Even with these longer weapons, two warriors
riding fast-moving, converging chariots would only have had a moment to strike
each other—making it not impossible but highly unlikely to significantly
contribute to the battle’s effort. Rather than as conventionally depicted in
contemporary movies, the drivers probably slowed, even halted, to allow the
occupants to clash.
Experiments also revealed the height of the compartment to
be not just a detrimental factor but also highly puzzling. A horizontal pole or
rim that falls somewhere around the middle of the upper thigh provides adequate
stabilization for a warrior to maintain a fighting stance and would have
prevented falling over in sudden motion, but to provide real functional support
the height should rise approximately to a man’s waist. However, though not
entirely useless, Shang chariot walls would have risen to just above knee
level, a height that tended to cause modern fighters to lose their balance and
tumble out because the rail effectively acted as a fulcrum.
The axle’s high placement in a relatively lightweight
vehicle would have resulted in a high center of gravity, making stability a
crucial issue for any occupants trying to employ their weapons at speed. In
addition, there were no springs or any sort of suspension mounting for the
chariot box, even though late Shang models apparently began to employ the
cantilevered wooden junction called a “crouching rabbit,” which was obviously
designed to reduce the effects of the wooden wheels bouncing over the terrain
through its tensing and bowing action. The horses loosely coupled to the front
shaft and the weight of the three-man crew would have stabilized the vehicle
somewhat, but the traditional chariot would certainly have been inherently
unstable and rocked jarringly from side to side on the uneven terrain of
natural battlefields, just like a modern lightweight SUV.
The straw and moss padding spread on the compartment’s
wooden floor to provide additional damping proved to be minimally absorptive
while inducing further instability, just as sponge padding might on the floor
of an open pickup truck. (Comfortable when stationary, spongelike substances
tend to exhibit less desirable properties when the vehicle is in motion or the
fighter is active.) In some cases the floors were fabricated by interweaving
leather thongs, but their effectiveness in reconstructive experiments was
decidedly poor, particularly after they lost their initial tension, and they
could even result in the fighter’s stance becoming more tenuous. The use of
interior straps and efforts to improve the battlefield in the Spring and Autumn
period confirm that stability continued to be a problem: the warriors were
jostled about as the chariot moved at speed across the terrain.
