Study Of China's Military Thinking Of The Ancient Northern Ethnic Minorities

The Principles and the Aim The purpose of this paper is to study military thought of ethnic minorities in noithern China from Qin and Han dynasty to the Opium War. During the writing process, from the beginning to the end, we stuck to the cardinal principles of historical materialism, to the practical and realistic attitude, and to the viewpoint of national equity-since all the nationalities helped each other and developed together all through the history. Theoretic innovations and breakthroughs of ideas are anticipated in this paper. Using the methods of comparing analysis and factor anah sis. we studied the origination, the development and evolution of military thought of the minorities. It is hoped mat the features and the rules thus revealed would offer some useful inspirations for our actual military constructions.Since most of the central regimes founded by minorities were on the Central Plains and the northland of China military activities on northland were high in frequency and broad in scale, which have made great influence on the war history both of China and of the world. Moreover, the minorities who had reunited China (that is, Mongolia and Man) were mainly resided in north China. Therefore, the paper is focused on the military thought of the minorities in ancient north China.The main earner of military thought is military works. However, among the extant military works, few concerned the history of military thought, while many of them concerned history of war. Those works dealing with military thought seldom concerned the history of military thought and the works concerning the history of military thought of the minorities were even fewer. Furthermore, no one is concerning with the general histoiy of minority military thought. Those works studying the military thought of minorities, such as Military Encvclopedia & .Military Thought in Ancient China, compiled by the Academy of PLA Military Science, Military Thought in Ancient China, compiled by Dr. 'fang Changhe, General Chinese Military History, compiled by the Academy of PLA Military Science, are confined in dynastic histories. These works laid particular stress on summarizing the military thought of the minorities who founded dynasties and regimes on the Central Plains, with' a focus on military stratagem. Comparatively, writer of this paper laid stress on economic types and production forms in order to study history of military thought development of ancient minorities in northland and researched on different content and style. Many works and essays abroad studying Chinese ancient minor ethnic military history, for example, Juvaini's The History- of World Conqueror, Grousset's L 'Empire des steppers, researched on Mongolic Yuan dynasty. Some scholars from former Soviet Union, Japan and other countries have depicted war history of Mongolian Yuan and Qing dynasties. After primary investigation, this writer discovered that among all the books studying Chinese military history, inland and worldwide, there was no one by now that studied Chinese ethnic military thought hisiory. It is a pity in the study of military history for such a multiracial nation. In order to remedy this regret, I wrote this paper.The Classification and Character of Military Thought of Ancient Northern Minorities Military thought is rational knowledge and scientific summary of military rules, so it is one of the core components of military science. It is derived from military activities, it is a subjective reflection of military activities and positive and negative military rules; conversely, it directs military practice as basic methodology. The writer divided the military thought of the minorities by economic types in order to study it more profoundly and meticulously. In ancient society of north China, there were four economic types of minority group. They were nomadic economy people, fishing and hunting economy people, farming economy people, and mixed economy people (including two or more types). The four types of economy produced respectively four types of milit...