Study On State Affairs Of The Military Strategists In Pre-Qin Period

Pre-Qin is a period that Chinese culture goes from a bud to prosperous. It is of great meaning and value. As the period from Xia dynasty to Zhou dynasty is far from today, few messages can be come down. So the research of political culture in Pre-Qin period is focused on the Period of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States. The Period of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States connects Xia,Shang,Zhou dynasty with Qin dynasty, which also connects theocracy with centralism. During this period,the way of production and the modality of the society has changed. In this queasy age, various schools of thought brings forward their political line based on their research and thinking. Though their ideas are different, the aim is the same, that is the kingcraft.In a long time, academia pay main attention to the Confucianism, Taoism and legist's thought, while, the military strategists are lacking of attention. The military strategists mainly talk about military affairs, but their thoughts are also abundant in how to manage a state. Because the Period of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States is in a chaos caused by war, the ruler pays more attention to military affairs, and many scholars also talk about military affairs. At that time, most all the people are soldiers, so to manage the army is similar to managing the state. Particularly in the late Warring States period, as the war is furious and frequent, some states such as Qin, put the principles of managing the army to the whole country, the management has militarized. The war needs various factors such as political, economical and military to supply, so it urges the military strategists to-operate from a strategically advantageous position. Meanwhile, the school of military strategists is the most on-limits school, which is good at absorbing elite from other schools. As long as the thoughts or methods are benefit to management, the military strategists will use them. The school of military strategists also has plenty of dialectic thinking. They are neither extreme nor sequacious. They commit themselves to look for a balance point between virtue and laws. On the one hand, they see the advantages of war in saving a country or struggling to be a great power, on the other hand, they also know well about the disadvantages of war. So they are against to use all armed might to indulge in aggressive wars. They keep after the rulers to be cautious to war, and seek unmilitary ways to succeed. This kind of propositions aroused attention from the rulers. Some of the strategists assume the office of generals, counselors, propretor etc. Some of their opinions are implemented with effects. They have made great efforts to the development and unity.Their thoughts on how to manage a country mainly reflects in their books. In this article, we select six most famous military books, "Sun Tzu", "Wu Zi", "SiMaFa", "SunBin", "LiuTao", "WeiLiaoZi". These six books are proved to be true and were written in pre-Qin period after many textual researches. This article concludes the main opinions and charactors of each book, and also sums up the traits and values of the school of military strategists. Our research aims at introducing the value of this school, which used to be ignored, and viewing on the modern use for reference of their managing thoughts.