Introduction to the Yi Zhou shu
Introduction to the Yi Zhou shu
Its Transmission and Reception
This chapter demonstrates that military power and its purpose of legalizing civil rule were topics of particular interest to intellectuals and statesmen from the fourth through first centuries BCE. Contrary to some long-standing characterizations of early Chinese thought as pacifist, there was a sophisticated and broadly based discourse during these centuries on the nature of warfare, its cosmological and moral underpinnings, its role in history, and its importance to the stability of the state. This discourse developed alongside a more technical discourse on such topics as mobilization, weaponry, defensive strategies, and deployment of formations—some of which were recorded in the early military treatises that survive to this day.
Keywords: military power, civil rule, Chinese thought, pacifist, warfare, mobilization, weaponry, defensive strategies, formation deployment
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