{"title":"Riverine Warfare","authors":"James Bonk","doi":"10.1163/22127453-20231021","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This issue of the Journal of Chinese Military History features four articles exploring riverine warfare in premodern China. The articles show that rivers have played an important, but often overlooked, role in defensive and offensive warfare. Just as the distinctive qualities of water – flowing, nurturing, clear when still – helped to make it a “root metaphor” in Chinese philosophy, the watery qualities of rivers made them a fundamental part of military thought.1 In the military realm, successful armies took advantage of the potential of rivers to flow quickly, transport heavy objects, impede movement, and be stored, diverted, or released. Wicky Tse’s article, “The Tactical Role of Rivers in Early Chinese Warfare,” shows that many of these qualities were already integrated into warfare in Early China. Examples from Zhanguo ce, Mozi, and the Zuozhuan show that armies vied to control water for offensive, defensive, and logistical advantage. For instance, moats could provide defense for cities built next to rivers, but the same river could be diverted by besieging armies to flood the city or deprive it of access to supplies. In the realm of logistics, Tse shows that early Chinese regimes – much like later dynasties – used rivers to efficiently transport troops, weapons, and provisions. Tse also introduces a theme that runs through all four articles, that riverine warfare cannot be abstracted from the surrounding land. In the second part of his article, he analyzes “shore-based river-crossing campaign.” Rivers had to be crossed, but crossing at the wrong place, or in a","PeriodicalId":38003,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chinese Military History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.1000,"publicationDate":"2023-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Chinese Military History","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1163/22127453-20231021","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"ASIAN STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This issue of the Journal of Chinese Military History features four articles exploring riverine warfare in premodern China. The articles show that rivers have played an important, but often overlooked, role in defensive and offensive warfare. Just as the distinctive qualities of water – flowing, nurturing, clear when still – helped to make it a “root metaphor” in Chinese philosophy, the watery qualities of rivers made them a fundamental part of military thought.1 In the military realm, successful armies took advantage of the potential of rivers to flow quickly, transport heavy objects, impede movement, and be stored, diverted, or released. Wicky Tse’s article, “The Tactical Role of Rivers in Early Chinese Warfare,” shows that many of these qualities were already integrated into warfare in Early China. Examples from Zhanguo ce, Mozi, and the Zuozhuan show that armies vied to control water for offensive, defensive, and logistical advantage. For instance, moats could provide defense for cities built next to rivers, but the same river could be diverted by besieging armies to flood the city or deprive it of access to supplies. In the realm of logistics, Tse shows that early Chinese regimes – much like later dynasties – used rivers to efficiently transport troops, weapons, and provisions. Tse also introduces a theme that runs through all four articles, that riverine warfare cannot be abstracted from the surrounding land. In the second part of his article, he analyzes “shore-based river-crossing campaign.” Rivers had to be crossed, but crossing at the wrong place, or in a
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Chinese Military History (JCMH) is a peer-reviewed semi-annual that publishes research articles and book reviews. It aims to fill the need for a journal devoted specifically to China''s martial past and takes the broadest possible view of military history, embracing both the study of battles and campaigns and the broader, social-history oriented approaches that have become known as "the new military history." It aims to publish a balanced mix of articles representing a variety of approaches to both modern and pre-modern Chinese military history. The journal also welcomes comparative and theoretical work as well as studies of the military interactions between China and other states and peoples, including East Asian neighbors such as Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.