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Abstract
Zhao Chongguo (137-52 BC), who rose to the rank of general in service to the emperors of China's Former Han Dynasty (206/202 BC-9 AD) and became one of the greatest soldiers in Chinese history, is best remembered for his "strategy of military farms (tuntian)," evolved during his famous victorious campaign of 61-60 BC against the Qianq people, presumed ancestors of the Tibetans, on the western frontier of China. Although future Chinese official historians would claim that this strategy of using infantrymen to grow crops on frontier lands was intended to solve the problem of supplying troops on distant campaigns with food and fodder, the article which follows, based on a careful reading of Zhao Chongguo's memorials to his emperor, demonstrates conclusively that the general's real reason for establishing the military farms was to deny crop and grazing land to China's frontier foes and thus "subdue the enemy without fighting," in the words of Sun Zi. A close examination of the career of this famous soldier also has much to tell us about civil-military relations in ancient China and the strategy and tactics evolved by China's soldiers in order to contain and ultimately defeat the formidable nomadic enemies on its frontiers.
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Editor's note:
The historical narrative you have before you has a history of its own. It was in the process of being revised for publication when its author, Professor Edward L. Dreyer, suddenly died in hospital on 29 June 2007. And there the story of the piece might have come to an abrupt end. Fortunately, an eminent fellow historian of ancient China's military past, Professor Rafe de Crespigny of the Faculty of Asian Studies of the Australian National University in Canberra, agreed to step into the breach. As the footnotes to this article will indicate, Rafe was already familiar with Ed's manuscript, having assisted him with advice during the peer review process. Graciously and without hesitation, Rafe agreed not only to undertake the revisions to the manuscript that Ed had not lived to make, but to check the whole manuscript and its lengthy glossary for errors that might have crept into the text. He worked closely with the Journal editorial staff over the many months since Ed's...