The Transformation Of The Southern Strategy During The King Of Western Zhou-zhao And Mu

The strategy in all directions of the Western Zhou dynasty is one of the key issues in the study of pre-Qin history,which is closely related to the study of the national governance,territorial structure and social relations of the early Western Zhou state.Thereinto,the southern strategy is particularly concerned by the academic because it involves the relationship between the Western Zhou state and the Han-Huai communities.This paper finds that the period of Zhao-Mu is the important period of transition of their strategy in the southern region.Based on the inscriptions on bronze ware,this paper firstly describes the process of Zhou-Zhao’s and Mu’s strategy in the drainage basin of river Han and Huai.Secondly,it analyses the differences between Zhou-Zhao’s and Mu’s southern policies in terms of strategic axes,methods and military mobilization.Thirdly,based on the “Center-Edge” theory and the conception of “Political legitimacy”,it attempts to analyse the institutional cause of their strategic transition.In the end,it inspects the southern factors for the land crisis and bureaucratization in the drainage basin of river Wei in the middle period of the Western Zhou dynasty.This paper finds that before the king named Zhao of the Zhou dynasty,their people steadily expanded southwards along the two axes,that is the axe transferred from river Han to river Ru and Ying.Besides,the political situation in the east was settled,so the center of strategy of the Western Zhou dynasty shifted from the east to the southern lands.According to the calendar written by inscriptions on ancient bronze objects,following the route from “Zongzhou,Nanshan,Shanghou and Junchuan,Han,Hu” to “Chengzhou”,the Zhou-Zhao conquered the region named Chujing in the sixteenth year of his reign.Three years later,he marched down south with royal janissaries named “Western Liushi” following the route from “Chengzhou,Fang,Deng,Zhou,Tang and Li,Zeng and E,Zhong” to “Southern Xiang”.Based on the analysis of Chujing,Yitun and Chu’s national power,it is acknowledged that the statement “the Zhou-Zhao conquered the state Chu” is difficult to set up.It is only by taking into account the change of regime in the southern territories and the diversity of communities that a holistic assessment can be made of the statement of “the Zhou-Zhao lost his military named ‘Western Liushi’ in the Han River.”The Zhou-Mu continued the political situation that the organizational system of military named“Western Liushi” had collapsed.In addition,the ethnic group in the drainage basin of river Huai,for example,the group called “Xurong and Huaiyi” started their aggression.That is why inscriptions on ancient bronze objects appointing officer appeared,which originated from the method of appointing military officer.By studying the appointment letters and war events which being recorded on the bronzes,it can be concluded that the military commanders called Maogong,Boxifu and Shiyongfu represented three stages of the Zhou-Mu’s southern strategy.To the middle period of the Zhou-Mu’s reign,the war in the south was steady along the route from “Tangshi,Yulin,Hu” to“Gushi”.Because of the State of Hu located in the front of “Huaiyi”,the political transformation from “being attacked by Zhou” to “resisting Huaiyi” had been completed by the Zhou-Mu and his army had been the backbone force to resist the barbarians.The results of the comparative study show that there was indeed a fundamental policy change between the Zhou-Zhao and Mu of the Zhou dynasty.Firstly,the strategic focus shifted from JiangHan to the Huai River,the Western Zhou replaced the warfare of Zhou-Zhao with the pilgrimage system,and troops poured into the region called “Ru-Ying”,which is in the upper and middle reaches of the Huai River.Secondly,people in the Zhou dynasty changed from southward vertical expansion to horizontal defense,in the middle period of the reign of the Zhou-Mu,the boundaries and defenses of the southern lands contracting towards the line of “Han River,Deng,Chuwangcheng,Tongbai mountain,Fangcheng,Tangshi,Yulin,Hu and Gushi”.Thirdly,in contrast to the strategic approach of relying on the dynastic army,which was used by the Zhou-Zhao,the Zhou-Mu started to use the previous alliance power whose surname was not “Ji” and the princes of the south as military defense force.According to the tracer results of inscription grouping,lead isotope and microelement,the Zhou dynasty did not aim to capture population and copper mines in the south.Zhong’s vessel and Zenggongqiu’s chime bells all indicate that the south was a land resource to be exploited in the people of the Zhou dynasty ’s perception.In fact,the reason that the Zhou-Zhao marched down south was a continuation of their tradition,which meant that they expanded their territory by force.This tradition can be summarized as the “Military-Land resources-Legitimacy” model,which through the military conquest of land to gain political legitimacy.The institutional contradictions of this model are: firstly,the need to maintain an uninterrupted military presence in order to exploit the land;and secondly,the fact that continuous expansion of the land would promote the formation of hostile forces.The land struggle between Zhou-Zhao and the Han-Huai groups was only the trigger for the transformation of the southern policy in the Western Zhou period,but there is the institutional contradictions of the construction of state legitimacy in the Western Zhou dynasty.While the transformation of the southern land scriptures during the Zhao’s and Mu’s reign of the Western Zhou dynasty meant the massive loss of the royal family’s ability to explore land,data on population development from cemeteries such as Zhangjiapo indicates that the noble population of the Wei River basin was still growing in the Mid-Western Zhou Dynasty.This phenomenon has led to the land crisis and the legitimacy crisis in the capital of a country after the Zhou-Zhao’s reign.We can find strong evidence from the division of “Zheng” land by the nobility,the proliferation of land litigation documents and the fragmentation and marginalization of the land rewarded by the King of the Western Zhou dynasty and so on.In order to ameliorate the crisis situations,the Western Zhou dynasty’s government set up a system with different levels called “Sanyousi and Official Historian” from the reign of the Zhou-Mu.As a result,they can enhance the fine-grained management of the limited land resources in the Wei River basin.And yet the systematization and hierarchy of the “Sanyousi officer” also contributed to the early bureaucratic process of the entire Western Zhou dynasty.