Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The military history of China is marked by contradictory tendencies. This land of ancient rural civilization has suffered attack on numerous occasions by the nomadic peoples from the steppes of central or northern Asia. A symbol of the permanence of this threat was the building of the 1,900-mile-long Great Wall, which was frequently restored and improved between the third century bc and the seventeenth century AD. Such continuity in defensive preoccupations and strategy is exceptional and is evidence, also, of long periods in which Chinese military technique stagnated. However, the Great Wall has not always afforded China effective protection. She has been forced on a number of occasions to bow beneath the yoke of the invaders, such as the Khitan Mongols in the tenth century AD, the Mongol hordes unified under Genghis Khan in the thirteenth century and the Manchus in the seventeenth century. Most often, China has ended up more or less assimilating her active, but not particularly numerous, conquerors. It should be noted that southern China has most often formed a ‘breakwater’ against these invasions. From the beginnings of Chinese civilization, the soldier has enjoyed a special position within society, though that position has been variable. He was a well-integrated and prominent figure in the predominantly peasant society in the years when China was governed by a feudal system ... log in or subscribe to read full text