186 Chinese Clay Figures 



three armored men, — the charioteer in the middle, with a spearman on 

 his right, and an archer on his left. There were attached to it seventy- 

 two foot-soldiers and twenty-five other followers, one hundred men in all; 

 so that the whole force would amount to a hundred thousand men. 

 But in actual service, the force of a great state was restricted to three 

 armies, or three hundred and seventy-five chariots, attended, inclusive 

 of their armored occupants, by thirty-seven thousand five hundred men, 

 of whom twenty-seven thousand five hundred were foot-soldiers. l It 

 seems that body armor was restricted to those fighting from the chariots. 

 Another safeguard of the warriors was formed by shields decorated 

 with figures of dragons, or perhaps adorned with feathers. 2 The latter 

 affair presents a point of controversy among the commentators: the 

 one understanding that the feathers were fixed to the shield; the others, 

 that they were painted on it. Legge adopts the latter view, and trans- 

 lates, "the beautiful feather-figured shield." Also Couvreur is 

 inclined to think that feathers of different kinds were represented on 

 the shield. This opinion, however, is not very convincing. Whereas 

 it is perfectly plausible that designs of dragons, or, as in recent times, of 

 tigers were painted on the shields, and doubtless intended to guard the 

 wearer and to terrify the enemy, it is difficult to see what reasons could 

 induce man to decorate his shield with a pictorial pattern of feathers. 

 We are all familiar with the shields of primitive man adorned with real 

 feathers, particularly among the American Indians; and the primitive 

 man of the Shi king period, in all likelihood, may have done the same. 3 

 A document of the Han period brought to light by M. Chavannes 

 (see p. 189), in which pigeon tail-feathers are mentioned in connection 

 with a buckler, is very apt to corroborate this conclusion. 



The shield was combined with the spear, 4 while later in the Han pe- 



wheat and barley, tilling of the field by means of the plough drawn by an ox, methods 

 of artificial irrigation, cattle-breeding, employment of cattle as draught- animals, 

 the composite bow, the cart based on the principle of the wheel, and the potter's 

 wheel. 



1 Legge, Chinese Classics, Vol. IV, p. 626; Couvreur, Cheu King, p. 137. _ I 

 have abandoned Legge's inexact word "mailed" and substituted "armored" for it; 

 anything like "mail" was unknown in China during the archaic period (compare 

 Chapter IV). 



2 Legge, I. c, p. 194; Couvreur, /. c, pp. 135, 136. 



s The Tibetans had bucklers ornamented with feathers (seep. 256). An unsophisti- 

 cated mind may certainly be entitled to raise the question how the Chinese com- 

 mentators get at the "feathers" in the passage of the Shi king, as no direct word to 

 this effect is employed. The word meng (No. 7763), into which this meaning is read, 

 means "to cover, to envelop;" and the term mlng fa, after all, may simply mean 

 ' ' wooden shields covered with hide. " In this sense , the term m Sng tun ( ' ' hide-covered 

 buckler") is indeed utilized in later literature. 



4 For instance, Biot, Chou li, Vol II, p. 223. In the inscriptions on ancient 

 bronzes, as reproduced and explained in the Po ku t'u lu, the word sun ("grand- 



