Medieval Chinese Warfare, 300-900 (Warfare and History)

Rating:
Summary: An indispensable reference, unless you can read Chinese
Review: This is, for now, the best survey of Chinese military history during the long fragmentation of 300-589, a formative period that saw the introduction of the stirrup, heavy cavalry and siege warfare techniques that later served the Tang army so well. It provides a clear and readable account of the many wars in this period, and indeed is often forced to devote more space to narrative than analysis because of the general readership's lack of familiarity with the subject matter.

David Graff is perhaps the only academic currently specialising in medieval Chinese military history, and his impressive and very helpful bibliography demonstrates the level of research that has gone into the book. Still, the format of a single book can scarcely contain the fruits of that research. The issue of whether the pivotal Battle of the Fei River was a mere myth, first suggested by Michael Rogers and largely ignored since then by experts in both China and the West, at least gets a mention but not the discussion it deserves. Similarly, the evolution of tactics and weapons in response to horse archery and armoured cavalry is briefly described, but not really placed in the context of the key battles narrated elsewhere. Where he does excel is in considering the different problems of logistics facing the cavalry-based North and the riverine South in the chapter "North versus South". In addition, the Introduction's overview of past historiography and scholarship (or rather the lack of it) in Chinese military history is sufficient to make this book a worthwhile read for readers who, like myself, always wondered why the field was so disgracefully neglected.

Graff does make some errors in transliteration, mostly in the tedious process of converting earlier English-language sources from the Wade-Giles system to Hanyu Pinyin. His maps are also too sketchy and few to help the reader much - those fluent in Chinese are encouraged to read Bo Yang's translation of the "Zizhi Tongjian" into modern Chinese (published in Taiwan) for the best available battle maps for this period. Nonetheless, David Graff must be credited for writing a long-needed introduction to early Chinese warfare for Western military enthusiasts. Anyone looking for richer historical detail would proabably have to learn Chinese and read the excellent series by Bo Yang.