Yuri Pines 尤銳 is Michael W. Lipson Professor of Asian Studies, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Visiting Professor, Beijing Normal University. His research focuses on early Chinese political thought, traditional Chinese political culture, early Chinese historiography, history of pre-imperial (pre-221 BCE) China, and comparative studies of imperial formations worldwide.
His monographs include Zhou History Unearthed: The Bamboo Manuscript Xinian and Early Chinese Historiography (Columbia UP, 2020); The Book of Lord Shang: Apologetics of State Power in Early China (Columbia UP, 2017); The Everlasting Empire: The Political Culture of Ancient China and Its Imperial Legacy (Princeton UP, 2012); Envisioning Eternal Empire: Chinese Political Thought of the Warring States Era (Honolulu, 2009), and Foundations of Confucian Thought: Intellectual Life in the Chunqiu Period, 722-453 B.C.E. (Honolulu, 2002). He co-authored (with Gideon Shelach and Yitzhak Shichor) 3-volumes All-under-Heaven: Imperial China (in Hebrew, Raanana, 2011, 2013, and forthcoming);
Yuri Pines co-edited together with Michal Biran and Jörg Rüpke The Limits of Universal Rule: Eurasian Empires Compared (Cambridge, 2021), with Li Wai-yee Keywords in Chinese Culture (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2020) with Paul R. Goldin and Martin Kern the Ideology of Power and Power of Ideology in Early China (Leiden: Brill, 2015), and with Lothar von Falkenhausen, Gideon Shelach and Robin D.S. Yates the Birth of an Empire: The State of Qin revisited (Berkeley, 2014). He also published over 100 articles and book chapters.
The Earliest “Great Wall”? Long Wall of Qi Revisited
Yuri Pines, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
For the full text of the paper: http://yuri-pines-sinology.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Great-Wall-of-Qi-final.pdf
My paper traces the story of what may be the earliest well documented “long wall” (usually translated “Great Wall”) in China’s history, viz. the wall erected along the southern border of the state of Qi 齊 (northern Shandong). Textual sources about the date and the functions of this wall are greatly confusing, but they can be augmented by archeological excavations and most notably by the recently discovered paleographic evidence. The latter clearly suggests that the long wall of Qi was erected in the middle of the fifth century BCE. With the help of newly available evidence, my article tries to reconstruct the wall’s route, to evaluate its defensive role, and to trace its relation to military, political, economic, and administrative developments of the Warring States period (453-221 BCE).
Putting aside technical Sinological discussion about the wall’s precise dating and its exact route, the major points pertinent to our conference can be summarized as follows. Speaking of the wall’s military significance it should be noted, first, that its erection (and the almost parallel erection of the long wall in the southern state of Chu 楚) coincides with the transformation from the predominantly chariot-based armies to those in which infantry played an increasingly prominent role. Chariots could easily be blocked in narrow passes; there was no need to create walls against them along mountain ridges. Infantry, by contrast, was much more mobile and demanded a different type of protection. Second, the newly available evidence demonstrates that immediately since its construction, the Wall became a formidable obstacle facing Qi’s southern foes; hence those tried to condition peace with Qi by a clause that forbade it to repair the long wall. Third, the wall was not a standalone project. Rather its protection and maintenance required supplementing it with a system of fortified settlements along its route; this were among the earliest instances of permanent border garrisons in China.
Speaking of the Wall’s economic aspects, it is feasible that it improved Qi’s control over lucrative salt trade with its neighbors and even contributed toward the formation of a peculiar mercantilist outlook in the state of Qi. On this point, however, the evidence is still meager and rather equivocal. What is undeniable is that the construction of the long wall with its estimated labor investment of between 55 to 69 million work-days testifies to the highly improved mobilization power of the Qi government apparatus. No projects of a comparable scale are attested to in China before the fifth century BCE.
The construction of the Wall had also a considerable symbolic value. It clearly delineated Qi’s territory from those of its neighbors (elsewhere, the Ji and the Yellow River and the Gulf of Bohai served as the country’s natural boundaries). This turned Qi into a clearly identifiable territorial state, again one of the earliest in China’s history. We are still not in a position to evaluate how the Wall construction affected the formation of a separate Qi identity, but comparisons with other Chinese polities of the Warring States period indicate that walls contributed to a clearer separation of the world into “us” and “them,” aggravating centrifugal tendencies in the then Chinese world.
My final point concerns with the Wall’s strategic significance. Currently available evidence suggests that the erection of the Wall was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it clearly improved Qi’s defensive capabilities. On the other hand, it may have hindered Qi’s willingness to expand southward during a lengthy period (fourth to the early third century BCE) when such an expansion was feasible. Whereas the Wall did not become Qi’s borderline sensu stricto, and Qi did occupy from time to time territories to its south, overall the southward expansion was much less robust than could have been expected. Perhaps having invested heavily in a highly efficient defensive line, the Qi leaders were reluctant to commit similar resources for integrating new territories. This reluctance backfired, though. In the age of fierce military competition with its peers, Qi’s sluggishness in expanding its territories left it more vulnerable to its enemies, contributing to its eventual decline in the third century BCE.