Qin View Of War Research

The outlook of war is the rational knowledge on the basic issues of war. The paper holds the idea that the pre-Qin outlook of war experienced four patterns: the destiny outlook of war, people-based outlook of war, utilitarian outlook of war, and the primary mergence of different outlooks of war. The destiny outlook of war, as an extension of the destiny outlook in the war field, prevailed in the dynasties of Xia, Shang and Zhou, and waned in the Spring and Autumn Period. At that time, "god", in people's view, was the basis to launch a war, controlling the course and deciding the result of the war. Many significant issues happening in the war had to be guided and solved by offering sacrifices to gods and practicing divination.After the Spring and Autumn Period, the destiny outlook declined gradually, and the people-based outlook appeared. Old ethical principles and rules were shaken, and spiritual shackles were smashed. This transformation apparently had deep impact on wars. The outlook of war, with destiny and gods as the guidance, developed in two directions: one was the rising of the people-based outlook of war, and the other was the rising of utilitarian outlook of war as the consequence of the awakening of utilitarian rationalism.The people-based outlook of war was formed in the Spring and Autumn Period. Its standpoint was to win the war. "Comforting people" was just a means while possessing was the real aim. In the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, the exponents of the schools of Taoism, Confucianism, and Mohism inherited and developed the people-based thought of the Western Zhou Dynasty, advocating caring for and respecting people, and taking people's living and health as the basic attitude towards wars. In their outlook of war, people were not only the means but also the aim. Since the exponents of the schools of Taoism, Confucianism, and Mohism had different views in philosophy, politics and the outlook of value, their outlooks of war were quite different, too.The utilitarian outlook of war was in favor of politicians and strategists who were in the center of political and military struggle. In the war activities of the pre-Qin period, the interest principle was always leading and influencing the war's launching,developing and ending. After the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, military strategists and Legalists inherited and developed the utilitarian outlook of war, making it both theoretical and systematical. The utilitarian pursuit in the war began to develop on a grand scale whether theoretically or practically.In the end of the Warring States period, the emergence of thoughts in academic field became a new phenomenon. The outlook of war, as an important part of academic thoughts, had an apparent tendency of emergence, showing in the following three aspects: the first was that Confucianism, with "benevolence" and "righteousness" as the core of war ethics, began to mix together with the outlooks of war of other schools; the second was that the schools of Confucianism and Taoism were not against or denied wars any more, and admitted the existing value of wars; the third was the appearance of Master Lu s Spring and Autumn Annals, an important book incorporating the strong points of different schools.Three contradictory ideas promoted the enrichment and development of the pre-Qin outlook of war.Firstly, the aim of war was to convince people and annex territory. The development of the aims of wars in the pre-Qin times experienced three periods: the first was the primitive tribal wars with the aim of fighting for living space and plundering property (which is not the concern of this paper); the second was the wars in the dynasties of Xia, Shang and Zhou with the aim of "convincing people"; the third was the wars in the Warring States period with the aim of "annexing territory". The aim of the wars in the Spring and Autumn Period was the transition from "convincing people" to "annexing territory".Secondly, the means of war put stress on the humanity and strength. The stress on the humanity had two levels: one was to remove violence and emphasize humanity, believing that the ethical means such as "benevolence and righteousness" were more effective and profound than the force of war, and consequently denying wars; the other was not to deny wars completely, but expecting to use ethnical means to restrain the overuse of the force of war. This kind of ethical construction was almost the idea of thinkers, instead of that of politicians and military strategists who did not basically approve or adopt it. Therefore, it had little impact on the war activities at that time.The stress on strength showed the rationalism of war, classified into soft strength and hard strength. Comparatively speaking, military strategists attached more importance to soft strength, especially the commander-in-chief's capability of resource and astuteness, and made a deep research into it, while Legalists paid more attention to hard strength, emphasizing its improvement, which was reflected in Legalists' combining the "cultivation" and "fight" closely.Thirdly, the monarchical power and the military power reflected the relationship between politics and military. Since the struggle for power among groups of various interests was quite fierce in the pre-Qin period, the relationship between the monarchical power and the military power was not a fixed pattern. To sum up, there were three periods: in the first period, the monarchical power directly controlled the military power; in the second period, the military power was separated from the monarchical power; in the third period, civil and military officials had different positions, professional commanders-in-chief appeared, and the monarchical power indirectly controlled the military power. This kind of transformation was the direct reflection of the political struggle among groups of different interests and of its consequences.In the development of the pre-Qin outlook of war, there were three remarkable features: the first is the development and transformation from the singularized destiny outlook of war to the pluralistic outlooks of war such as the people-based outlook of war and the utilitarian outlook of war, with the appearance of the emergence trend in the end of the Warring States period; the second is that the people-based outlook of war, though competing bitterly with the other outlooks of war, did not become the leading thought in the war activities from beginning to end; the third is that the military ethical thought with "kindness", "benevolence", "righteousness", and "rites" as its core, though gradually squeezed out of the practice of war, was fully developed in the theoretical field of thought. As a critical theory of war culture against the utilitarian outlook of war, it founded the ideological and theoretical basis for China's traditional military culture with the feature of emphasizing ethics.