Study of Institutional Culture in Ancient Tujia Society—Military System Culture (III)
Section 3: Military Training System of the Tujia Army. Through long-term military practice, the Tujia army developed its own distinctive military culture—military discipline, battle formations, and war rituals—ensuring strong combat capability and high combat readiness. 1. Military Training and Discipline. Tujia chieftains valued military education and skills training for the Tujia army...
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Section 3 The Military Training System of the Tujia Army
In their long-term military practice, the Tujia army developed its own distinctive military culture, including military discipline, military formations, and war rituals, thereby ensuring that the Tujia army had relatively strong combat capability and a relatively high level of combat readiness.
I. Military Training and Discipline
Tujia chieftains attached importance to the military education and skills training of the Tujia army. At the chieftain's office seat, the chieftain established military sites specifically used for training the Tujia army. For example, "about two li west of the Yongshun chieftain's office, there is a Jiaochang Ping, where the local people often practice martial arts. Another five li to the northwest, there is a Boshe Ping, and another five li to the north there is a She Pu; the terrain is all spacious, and the local people often shoot there." The training methods the chieftains used for the Tujia army were extremely cruel. "Their soldiers were always practiced; upon hearing the sound of the horn they would assemble, and in peacetime each guarded their own passes and stockades. Their helmets weighed sixteen jin, lined with thick cotton, as large as a dou; the heavy armor weighed several tens of jin, so sharp arrows could not penetrate it, and fire guns could shoot a hundred paces. One man would wrestle a tiger, with twenty men assisting him, and the standard was that it must be killed; whoever released a tiger was severely punished, and the same applied to hunting other beasts. If one was captured, the one who went first received double reward... In pursuing the enemy they would scale cliffs and cross walls, and they were certain to capture them."
The training of psychological qualities was an important part of the military training of the Tujia army. The hunting activity called "ganzhang" by the Tujia people was like a military exercise. "Each winter they hunted, calling it 'ganzhang.' First they ordered the sheba, headmen, and others to observe where the tiger lived, then led several tens or hundreds of people to surround it with large nets, then cut the grass around it, and used dogs to track the beast; when the beast ran, they immediately killed it with bird guns, and not one escaped." "Ganzhang" was like war. Before setting out, careful preparations had to be made; the organizers assigned duties, and each led nets, knives, guns, and hunting dogs. Several tens or even hundreds of people went to the previously chosen hunting ground and took their positions. Whether blocking the paths, guarding the nets, or surrounding the mountain, all required resourceful and brave psychological qualities; otherwise one might be attacked by wild beasts. The "ganzhang" activity trained the Tujia army's combat qualities of remaining calm in danger and cooperating in unity, and also cultivated the Tujia army's fighting quality of daring to win when facing the enemy.
The military discipline of the Tujia army was very strict. In battle, charging forward was encouraged, and cowardice was severely punished. "Their control was extremely strict: they were only permitted to thrust and stab, and not permitted to cut off heads; violators and those who shrank back were beheaded." In this way, in battle everyone fought bravely and did not need to divide their strength contending for heads to claim rewards, which would have affected overall operations. "Their law of collective punishment was extremely strict, so the Tujia fought with their lives." According to historical records, during the Daoguang period, the Sangzhi, Zhongdong, and other chieftains once besieged Tian Shunnian in Qingtian Cave. Forced by the situation, Tian Shunnian ordered the Tujia headman Luo Wenhu to lead the Tujia army in breaking out and go to the central office to call for reinforcements. In this battle, Luo was extremely brave and died in battle after killing several tens of men. After the siege was lifted, Tian Shunnian beheaded two Tujia soldiers who had retreated first, to be buried with Luo. The strictness of military discipline was an important guarantee of the Tujia army's combat effectiveness. "Therefore in every battle they were sure to win, and no one dared to oppose them."
II. Military Formations and Weapons
The military formations of the Tujia army were relatively unique. Generally, 24 banners formed a formation, each banner having a unit of 25 men, with 1 banner head, arranged in order as 3, 5, 7, and 9 men, totaling 5 rows to form a pointed-cone-shaped troop, while the remaining Tujia soldiers were arrayed behind the formation. If the men in the front row fell, they were replaced in order so as to maintain the strictness of the formation. If the front row was defeated and fell, then the man in the center of the second row filled in, and the two wings did likewise. Victory or defeat was determined by the five rows; if all were defeated, there was no hope of victory. The banner leader and the commander-in-chief were both positioned behind the ranks of their own banner or office. If any soldier shrank back and did not advance, he was immediately beheaded. The banner soldiers were arranged like a pointed cone, and the 24 banners were arranged as an overall pointed-cone body.
When leading the Tujia army in battle, the chieftain was the great general and held the power of life and death. However, as a commander, the chieftain had to be "a good general, holding military authority and thoroughly versed in the law of repeated orders and injunctions, supervising the troops and understanding the diagram of the six-flower formation... repeatedly receiving orders and marching the troops without disorder, repeatedly going on campaigns so that provisions were not recklessly consumed, and achieving outstanding and remarkable merits."
This tower-style military formation of the Tujia army displayed extremely strong mobility and flexibility, advancing and retreating freely, and combining both offense and defense. When advancing, it was neat and strict, irresistible; when retreating, it was orderly and steady as Mount Tai; when attacking, it was invincible and swept all before it like a bamboo split; when defending, it was firm as metal and stone, safe and sound. This formation was meticulous and thorough, and was praised as the "key formula for those who use troops."
The types of weapons used by the Tujia army mainly included the Ba-style sword, Ba-style yue (battle-axe), and Ba-style ge (dagger-axe). The Ba-style sword was a bronze weapon; its blade was relatively wide, with the central ridge raised into a cylindrical shape, and relatively wide blood grooves on the sides of the ridge. The blade often bore tiger-skin patterns, semicircular patterns, three-petal flower patterns, and so on formed during casting, while its base was mostly cast with symbols commonly known as palm-heart, flower-calyx, tiger, bird, human head, and so on. The characteristics of the Ba-style yue were an arc-shaped blade and a long body, with the part near the socket flattened into shoulders; the socket opening was oval or hexagonal, and the body bore Ba-Shu symbols. According to the degree of inward curvature of the body, its shape was like a tobacco pouch. It was most commonly seen in Ba people's tombs and was a weapon commonly used by the Ba people. The main characteristics of the Ba-style ge were a relatively wide yuan (blade) body, no hu (pendant), a large round perforation in the middle of the yuan, and two small perforations near the lan (guard). It had a square nei (tang), and the perforations on the nei were round, pointed-peach-shaped, diamond-shaped, and so on. The end of the nei was either straight or formed a "w" shape. As the central dynasties strengthened control over weapons, the weapons used by Tujia soldiers increasingly tended to be the same as those used by the officers and soldiers of the central dynasties. The variety of Tujia army weapons became fewer and fewer. Of course, in some Tujia areas, the weapons used by the Tujia army still maintained regional characteristics. For example, the "hook, sickle, and spear" and other weapons of the Ming dynasty Tujia army were in essence variants of the Tujia army's farming tools and were unique to the Tujia army in the Tujia areas. Through repeated training in daily labor and production, the Tujia army reached a superb level in using these distinctive weapons, thereby ensuring that the Tujia army had extremely strong combat capability.
III. War Rituals and War Songs and War Dances
The war rituals of the Tujia army can roughly be divided into two kinds, namely pre-battle divination and war charms. Pre-battle divination was a commonly used war ritual in the Tujia areas. Whenever there was war, the Tujia leaders all had to ask a wizard to perform divination in order to predict victory or defeat. During divination, the chieftain and the tima (one who worships the gods, also called the Tulaosi, a spokesperson between gods and people) led all the warriors outside the city to sacrifice to Heaven, built an altar, and presented offerings of the five domestic animals. The wizard sang divine invocations and prayed, seeking the protection of the heavenly gods and ancestral gods for their own side and victory over the enemy. After the sacrifice, the wizard personally led a white water buffalo and tied it to the sacred tree in front of the altar. One warrior came out, holding a military knife, and cut off the buffalo's head, using the buffalo's advancing and retreating steps before death to predict the outcome of the war. If the buffalo advanced, it foretold victory; if it retreated, it foretold defeat; if the old buffalo first retreated and then advanced, it foretold defeat first and then victory. War charms had a relatively long history in the Tujia areas. Charms were mostly engraved on weapons, and their forms were the totemic sacred objects of the ethnic group, with no writing or with extremely simple writing. According to Ba people's bronze vessels unearthed in 1960 from a vertical pit tomb in the Dongdaqiao Dam area of Jingmen, Hubei, the war charms of the Tujia retained traces of primitive religious belief, implying the shamanic significance of the Tujia army using the power of the gods to inspire fighting spirit and defeat the enemy.
War songs and war dances refer to songs and dances used in military activities. The ancestors of the Tujia once used the "Bayu Dance" as a pre-battle dance to defeat enemy forces. "The Ba troops were brave and sharp; with songs and dances they overawed the Yin people, and the Yin people's front ranks turned their weapons around, so the world praised them." The performance of the Bayu Dance generally required wearing armor and holding shields, accompanied by drums and gongs, and the dancers had to sing Ba songs; their dance movements were mostly the striking and stabbing actions of battle. "The greatest influence of the Bayu Dance on later ages was the martial dance and the sacrificial dance; both had the nature of Nuo dance, and the martial dance may have been the precursor of military Nuo."
War songs and war dances were used many times in the military activities of the Tujia army and were still relatively prevalent until the Ming dynasty. According to records, in the sixth year of Jiajing in the Ming dynasty (1527), the governor of Liangguang, Wang Shouren, requisitioned the Tujia armies of the Yongshun and Baojing two xuanwei offices to go to Dateng Gorge in Guangxi to suppress a Yao uprising. Because the terrain was precipitous, the place could not be taken for a long time, and this kind of war song and war dance was also performed: "It is said that a certain chieftain, when campaigning in Guangxi in the former Ming dynasty, found a certain county city holding firm and could not take it despite repeated attacks. At that time a certain army camp was outside the south gate of the city, so he ordered his soldiers to dress half as women and sing loudly arm in arm, producing lascivious music. Thereupon the defenders unexpectedly gathered to watch, and were moved by the singing, becoming unsettled and losing their firm resolve. The other side then used elite troops to secretly approach another gate, leaped in, and thus took the city. After returning, they developed it into a dance piece, which also conveyed the meaning of celebrating military exploits in song and dance."
Although the Bayu Dance later gradually evolved into the folk Baishou Dance, we can still find the characteristics of war dance in it. In particular, the Great Baishou Dance mainly performs military exploits and battle events. When dancing, the dancers wear armor and hold weapons, making various stabbing movements and offensive and defensive formations; they sing ancient Ba-language songs or "Zhuzhi Ci" to boost morale and undermine the enemy's fighting spirit. It includes content such as charging into battle, capturing the enemy's weapons, and martial contests. Its performance is magnificent, and the scenes of bravery and skill in battle are vivid and lifelike.