A Study On Oracle-bone's Military Inscriptions Of King Wuding In Shang Dynasty

The military inscriptions of oracle-bones is the record of divination on all kinds of military actions, which contains of war preparedness, reconnaissance, fighting, defending and triumphant returning. "What important to a nation are of two affairs: one is offering sacrifices to gods or ancestors, the other is military." One of the two main parts about inscriptions of oracle-bones is the divining files about military issues. These files reflects the wars and states, military systems and ceremonies, army and high commanding officers in some extents. Therefore, it is an event of great significance on study of the military records about Wuding(武丁) in Shang dynasty.The function of study on the military records is in three aspects as follows. Firstly, after we gathered the military inscriptions about Wuding and we can create database which is help for other study depend on these materials. Secondly, we can find out the data of wars, officers, armies, military systems and ceremonies, so we can carry on research such issues to draw a conclusion which is much near to the fact. Thirdly, military inscriptions about Wuding remain the language features in Shang dynasty, therefore, these records is use for studying on language in Shang dynasty and contribute to research on the history of Chinese language.There are eight chapters in this dissertation.Chapter I is the introduction. In this chapter, it is making clear that why we chose this topic, what we know of classifying and division of history into periods, what the paper's research object, what about the king of Wuding's achievements in history books, what guide to the use of this paper.ChapterⅡis a study on the main wars in Wuding period. Discussion of war is relate to states of course, therefore, Mr. Chen Mengjia found out 30 states in Wuding period and 9 states lived in the south of Jin(晉) in those times; Mr. Wang Yuxin found out there were 17 states in that period; Mr. Fan Yuzhou found out 65 states waged war with the Wuding king. After gathered all the materials of the military inscriptions as far as possible, we found out there were 78 states and regions which waged war with the Wuding king. This thesis mainly discussed the war between Shang(商) and the state of Fang(方)or Gongl((?)),and expounded not only the time and scale of those wars, but also the site of the two states.ChapterⅢis a study on the main military officers in Wuding period. Except the king, we found 33 military officers who are loyal or noble, or heads of allied states. The paper mainly discussed Que(雀),Shipan((?)般),Zhigu(沚(?)),Wangcheng(望乘)and Fuhaoi(帚好)who were all representative officers in that period.Chapter IV is a study on the main army in Wuding period. This paper mainly discussed 3 military organizations:Sh(师),Zu(族)and Lv(旅).Research showed that Shi was rofessional military organization, which was not the rank of army but its General term; and showed that Zu and Lv were both non-leagues, which were the militia that farmed at farming time and trained at spare time, took part in fighting when war was coming; and showed that Lv was not the rank of army, too.Chapter V is a study on the main military ceremony in Wuding period. There are two aspects:one is Jiaoyuei(校阅)ceremony including train, chose and review troops by means of shooting and hunting; the other is War ceremony including offering sacrifice to the God, the Land god and ancestors, and commanding generals, diving and so on.Chapter VI is a study on the verbs in military inscriptions in Wuding period. We found out 66 verbs and 1 verbal fix phrase on military behavior. This paper study those verbs from 3 aspects as follows:Firstly, review the viewpoint and interpretation of those verbs, including their glyphs and semantics. Secondly, discuss the relations of the verbs from paradigmatic. Thirdly, discuss the valves of verbs to describe the properties of verbs by means of investigation of the number of noun structures that is arguments of verb.ChapterⅦis a study on the sentences of the military inscriptions in Wuding period. This paper researches sentences from two aspects:one is structure, the other is semantic role. In the first part, we described 18 single verb constructions,21 series verbal constructions,38 usual pivotal constructions and 7 compound constructions. In the second part, we discussed 7 semantic roles:agentive, patient, commutative, source, goal, time, locative.ChapterⅧis the conclusion. In this part, we concluded all points, main contents, research methods and problems of the dissertation.Appendix is the experiences and feelings of data collection and preparation of the research.