The Tang Dynasty (618-907)

A fully operational system of gentlemen/officers and farmers/soldiers was still in place at the beginning of the Tang dynasty (618-907). The Tang ruling

family along with many of the elites were themselves cultural hybrids of Chinese and steppe backgrounds.

The fubing system rotated farmer-soldiers for one-month tours at the capital or longer tours at the border. Ideally, this service was spread fairly over a large farming population without overburdening any area. Fubing troops were supposed to maintain their military training year-round, thus making martial arts training a regular part of the life of the male agricultural population. At least on paper, farmers practised archery daily, and would expect in wartime to fight with swords and spears while wearing armour. Battlefield tactics were drilled during the wintertime. Most fubing troops were infantry, though there was a smaller contingent of fubing cavalry. Tang dynasty cavalry, however, were predominantly steppe tribesmen serving under their own leaders.

On the surface of it, the fubing system decreed a uniform familiarity with the means of violence across the Chinese farming population. In practice, fubing units were not evenly distributed within the empire. The north-west near the border was heavily militarised, as were some localities with histories of strong military participation. There were also areas without fubing units. A given farmer's practice of martial arts and even violent military or security duties was highly contingent upon place and history.

Chinese sources assumed that steppe cavalrymen were highly adept at warfare, having grown up riding horses and shooting bows from horseback. Chinese farmers had to be trained to use violence as an added set of skills independent of their usual lifestyle. This was a highly effective military system at the beginning of the dynasty, demonstrating that the fubing units were fully functional as both offensive and defensive forces within China. Drawing troops from the same local area would have enhanced unit cohe­sion. Presumably continual service in fubing units also promoted social cohesion during peacetime. All adult men were required for service between the ages of 21 and 60, making for a long-term shared experience. This service would have mirrored that of the steppe cavalrymen, while also distinguishing the two groups sharply. Their practices of violence were conducted sepa­rately for the most part, and explicitly in culturally distinct ways. The specific martial arts each group practised reinforced their cultural separateness, while at the same time distinguishing the nature of their service and loyalty to the Tang state.

Soon after the Tang was established, however, border problems requir­ing primarily cavalry forces became more critical. Steppe cavalrymen posted on the border became more important for imperial security, and the military value of the fubing declined. Steppe generals on the border were loyal to the court until 755, when An Lushan rebelled and nearly destroyed the dynasty.^[438] Professional soldiers held the balance of power, as Han Yu (768-824) noted when he pointed out that in addition to the four original classes of people were now added soldiers and monks.^[439] Martial arts were increasingly professional skills and the military was a full-time occupation.

The response to the An Lushan Rebellion (755-63) and the subsequent Huang Chao Rebellion (874-84) increased the overall militarisation of China as the central government lost its monopoly on violence. When the Tang finally fell in 907, war became endemic in north China and the south broke up into individual kingdoms. What would later be called the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period (907-60) cemented the place of professional soldiers in the political and social order. Local militias still existed, and some farmers still practised martial arts for protection, but only professional military forces were useful on the battlefield.

Since professional soldiers now controlled the means of state violence, establishing and maintaining the loyalty of those professionals continued to be a critical problem. The Tang system had clearly failed. Ironically, the ethnic separation of fighting techniques and loyalties had also broken down in the late Tang. Soldiers dominated the unstable politics of the first half of the tenth century. Ultimately power was recentralised and a new dynasty, the Song, was established after decades of warfare and bloodshed. Unlike the Tang founding, which made significant use of farmer-soldiers, the Song founding was a wholly professional affair. The new dynasty had no interest in loosening its grip on the means of violence or empowering the farmers to threaten the state.