Located about 22 kilometers northwest of Cheng-chou and 13 kilometers south of the confluence of the Chi and Yellow rivers, Ta-shih-ku is roughly 70 kilometers east of Erh-li-t’ou. Mt. Mang lies just to the north, numerous small rivers and streams are found in the general area, and the Luo River now passes through the western part of the enclosure’s remnants, but sand deposits and the 30-degree declination of the
northwest corner wall suggest it probably once flowed somewhat outside the first walls. In the late Hsia, Ta-shih-ku would have occupied a forward position along the historically projected interaction zone with the nascent Shang cultures in the region between the Yellow and Chi rivers.
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However, it was too close to Erh-li-t’ou to take seriously current claims that it was King T’ang’s preconquest capital of Po.
Excavations have found extensive evidence of four Erh-li-t’ou cultural layers at Ta-shih-ku. The second and third layers show a flourishing site but diminished occupation thereafter, as well as the sudden intrusion of lower Erk-li-kang elements. This suggests that Shang forces probably occupied the city between Erh-li-t’ou’s third and fourth periods, coincident with the widespread eclipse of Erh-li-t’ou culture in other statelets and at Teng-hsia-feng and Meng-chuang. Ta-shih-ku’s loss must have been the result of a penetrating incursion, one that would have enabled the Shang to subsequently mount a direct strike on Erh-li-t’ou by passing between the Hsia allies of Ku and K’un-wu, one to the southeast, the other somewhat to the northwest.
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The interval between the city’s conquest and the Hsia’s final subjugation would therefore have been quite short.
The strongly fortified, rectangular city encompassed roughly 510,000 square meters, about one-eighth the size of Erh-li-t’ou. It was protected by a continuous wall that was further augmented by an external moat that apparently exploited a part of the Suo River’s course. (The river flowed along the lower southwestern portion of the southern wall before turning up through the city and then wrapping around well to the outside of the city complex.) Although somewhat varying dimensions have been reported, the overall site appears to have been just under 1,000 meters from east to west and 600 north to south. (A ditch in the north presently extends about 980 meters, and the wall on the south is about 950 meters. However, the last third or so of the western part tapers down in trapezoidal fashion to just 300 meters in extent.)
Even though the walls were apparently undamaged, postconquest the Shang embarked on an extensive building program intended to ensure the bastion’s security amid enemy terrain. Key measures included a deep ditch on the interior edge of the original moat that considerably widened it and added the surprise of sudden depth. Although these renovations have obscured the exact width in many places, the original
Hsia moat probably presented a watery expanse some 5 to 9 meters wide, marked by a functional depth of about 3 meters and a very uneven bottom contour about 3.25 meters wide. Subsequent Shang excavations then expanded it right up to the wall’s new foundation, for a width of between 13 and 14.55 meters, including a sharply defined innermost portion of 1.5 meters that had a formidable depth of 4 to 6.8 meters.
The original Hsia walls consisted of well-defined layers that had been carefully erected on leveled ground. Though the expanded moat cut into their exterior, overall the Shang’s layered additions still augmented them. The remnant walls presently protrude slightly less than a meter above the terrain but probably reached at least 3 meters in antiquity. Marked by the usual trapezoidal shape, they are about 7 meters wide at the top and 13 at the base. Some parts of the walls lie on alluvial sand deposits, others span refilled areas, and the entire configuration conforms to the terrain’s features.
Generally composed from seven discernible layers of fairly uniform tamped earth ranging from 4 to 10 centimeters in thickness, the walls utilized a complex mix of soils apparently excavated from different layers of the moat.
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The interior wall is somewhat unusual in having been erected by overlayering a sharp upward protuberance with a wider section that overcapped it and even extended out onto a new inner foundation in some areas before three outer sections were added. All the walls display a sloping contour indicative of a laddered construction created by staggering small boards with height increases.
The general thesis that the earliest Chinese states directly emerged as political entities rather than evolving out of suddenly burgeoning economic centers remains generally unchallenged despite the evidence from Hsi Shan. Nevertheless, the work of archaeologists more sensitive to questions of resource acquisition and control is gradually adding a new dimension to the otherwise fairly cohesive picture of how localized Lungshan chiefdoms developed into integrated, incipient states with well-defined economic and ritual centers capable of exercising broad administrative control.
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The Hsia and Shang were both agricultural-based economies in which animal rearing played a vital role, but the discovery of metals and development of metallurgical techniques, coupled with the difficulties of maintaining power and the demands imposed by externally oriented warfare, soon saw great emphasis placed on securing such crucial natural resources as copper, tin, and salt. Expansive productive activities had to be undertaken in order for the state’s workers to fabricate the requisite luxury, ritual, and military goods in sufficient quantity. Mines, smelting sites, transportation corridors, and fabrication facilities also had to be protected from local brigands and external marauders.
Evidence that the Hsia deliberately subjugated or otherwise colonized peripheral areas along the perimeter of the Yi-Luo river valley to ensure vital mineral production becomes prominent in Erh-li-t’ou’s third period, when copper-based metallurgy began to advance in the flourishing capital. The settlements vary in their extent and sophistication, but they clearly display evidence of an imposed presence. Most lay at the confluence of rivers or the mouths of valleys that provide access into nearby mountains and, apart from serving as transportation foci, operated as accumulation points and warehousing centers.
Even though the most extensive and sophisticated production facilities, especially those for ritual objects, were confined to the capital, large-scale craft facilities dedicated to manufacturing objects that fully utilized the indigenous resources are often found. Tung-hsia-feng and P’an-lung-ch’eng, two well-known sites that would have enhanced importance in the Shang, are prime examples. Both served as transport and production centers during the Hsia, though P’an-lung-ch’eng lacked walls in the Hsia.
The fortified town of Tung-hsia-feng in southern Shanxi controlled access to the somewhat dispersed mineral deposits found in the Chung-t’iao mountain area, primarily copper with important trace metals intermixed, including tin and zinc.
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Coincident with Erh-li-t’ou’s initial fluorescence, local Tung-hsia-feng graves suddenly begin to show the presence of definitive Erh-li-t’ou products, especially ceramics. Molds for identically styled arrowheads and axes have also been recovered, and a shift in the divination media from pig to oxen bones mirrored a change that occurred in Erh-li-t’ou’s second period. Although these items are
insufficient evidence in themselves, the swift, no doubt militarily based imposition of Hsia forces is confirmed by a sudden flourish of defensive activity.
Two basically concentric ditches 130 meters and 150 meters in diameter, separated by 5.5-12.3 meters, have been excavated. The interior ditch is approximately 5 to 6 meters wide, but the exterior only 2.8 to 4 meters. Precisely constructed laddered sides and depths of about 3 meters characterize both ditches. A dramatic increase is seen in the number of arrowheads attributable to this period and a concomitant shift to their being fabricated mainly from bronze rather than bone. Taken together, the evidence suggests that Tung-hsia-feng had been deliberately transformed into a military center designed to ensure the acquisition and production of the metals increasingly deemed vital to the ruling clan’s prosperity and dominance.
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5.
WARFARE IN THE HSIA
D
ESPITE THE DISCOVERY of numerous Lungshan and Erh-li-t’ou sites, the rise of the Hsia—variously labeled China’s earliest “monarchy” and its first slave society—remains an enigma. How one clan group, part of a widely disseminated culture, evolved until it could eclipse other cultures and politically dominate the many clans, tribes, and proto-states about it to a significant extent remains the subject of divisive speculation. A comparative examination of the cultural artifacts so far recovered within the context of China’s traditional historical records suggests that several important military events mark the Hsia’s history: the early subjugation of nearby peoples, especially the San Miao, in protracted conflict; infighting over the royal succession, resulting in a civil war; conflict with the Tung or Eastern Yi and Han Chuo’s subsequent seizure of power; Shao-k’ang’s dramatic restoration of the ruling house following a lengthy period of preparation; inexorable decline through decades of luxuriant peace; and finally immersion into the much-excoriated royal excesses that presumably allowed, as well as supposedly justified, the Shang to overthrow the “tyrannical” and “perverse” Hsia.
Unfortunately, these episodes have to be reconstructed by winnowing out and harmonizing numerous fragmentary glimpses preserved in such traditional records as the
Chu-shu Chi-nien
(
Bamboo Annals
),
Tso Chuan
, and
Shih Chi
, just as scholars have done over untold centuries. Even though many passages are dubious, others spurious, and some outright forgeries, they retain important secondary value in revealing how China has traditionally understood its history, as well as in grounding
concepts that remain an ineradicable part of contemporary general consciousness.
Nevertheless, obviously mythical events such as Yi shooting down nine extra suns and claims that lack any archaeological basis, such as the chariot’s much ballyhooed employment in Hsia warfare, though necessarily noted, must ultimately be rejected. Succinctly stated, combat in this period was conducted by men on foot, in loosely organized forces of limited strength, almost entirely with bows and arrows and crushing weapons such as axes, clubs, dagger-axes, and a few spears (but not swords) primarily fabricated from stone rather than metal.
Contrary to his image as a selfless individual who labored unceasingly on behalf of all the people, destroyed harmful weapons, and tore down his father’s walls to stifle rebellious discontent, Yü also quashed the San Miao and consolidated the clan’s power by reputedly executing the lord of Fang-feng for arriving late at a conclave.
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Moreover, he is traditionally credited with wielding bronze weapons and closely associated with metallurgy in general, the inception of the famous nine great cauldrons (for the Nine Provinces that he supposedly demarked) symbolic of legitimate rule sometimes being attributed to him. However, although metallurgy certainly developed in the Hsia, whether indigenously or through the importation of techniques via the steppe, in his era the nascent capabilities would have been limited to hammering out small knives.
2
The Hsia’s conflict with the San Miao, essentially a century-long process even though it is usually identified with Yü’s reign, is well attested by the pattern of recovered artifacts.
3
The San Miao were not just defeated but virtually extinguished; the few survivors scattered and their culture in its manifestation as Shih-chia-ho during the era of Yao, Hsun, and Yü in the Tung-t’ing and P’o-yang lake areas simply vanished. Rather than a gradual amalgamation, their definitive ceramic styles and totems were abruptly replaced in the late twenty-third century BCE in southern Hubei and Henan by late Lungshan artifacts. In fact, rather than simple tribal animosity, a quest for material goods, or a concerted effort to seize prisoners to impress as slaves or employ as sacrificial victims, their strongly dissimilar religious practices and totems may have caused their ongoing clash.
4
Furthermore, unlike the Tung Yi, who displayed an increasing affinity with Hsia culture, after the conquest the fragmented
and relatively isolated San Miao groups that survived retained their distinctiveness,
5
another indication of a fundamental clash in customs and views, not to mention political domains.
Animosity had marked relations between the Hsia and San Miao as early as their precursor cultures, late Yangshao and early Lungshan for the nascent Hsia and Ch’ü-chia-ling for the San Miao. The San Miao had been closely allied with the Tung Yi (Eastern Yi) of the Ta-wen-k’o phase, with whom they shared a number of cultural traits, including bird totems, and had cooperated with them in fielding coalition-type forces against late Lungshan antagonists, preventing the latter from dominating either of them.
6
It has even been suggested that the San Miao may have originally numbered among the Tung Yi before they were expelled because of their identification with Ch’ih Yu.
7
However, Tung Yi culture was itself gradually displaced by, or evolved into, late Shandong Lungshan and thus came to differ significantly from the San Miao’s later manifestation as Shih-chia-ho, inclining the former to identify more with the Hsia even though they had to forcefully oppose Hsia domination attempts. Furthermore, although the Tung Yi no longer supported the San Miao, they remained a significant power throughout the Hsia dynasty, and even the Shang felt compelled not just to neutralize them before attacking Chieh, the last Hsia monarch, but also to gain their support.
Materially and economically, the San Miao and pre-Hsia had also diverged with the passage of time. Perhaps due to their increased mastery of the rivers and early use of irrigation, the pre-Hsia had significantly expanded their agricultural yields over the centuries encompassed by the late Yangshao and third Wang-wan cultural phases, whereas the San Miao reportedly stagnated. This no doubt allowed them to accumulate the surpluses vital to developing specialized industries, diverting men to military activities, and to nurture sufficient royal clan power to dominate their own people, displacing communal or tribal leadership. (As the classic Chinese military writings would subsequently stress, economic prosperity underpins the possibility of military power.) The early Hsia’s increasing dominance from the twenty-third century onward culminated in what has traditionally been encapsulated as Yü’s legendary conquest of the San Miao, even though the scope of his actual achievement may be open to question.
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