228 Chinese Clay Figures 



of the latter sort x and their ability for making the best of the field of 

 operations or any accident of territory, are especially notable in the 

 fierce struggle against the army of Li Ling. On outpost and scouting 

 duty they were unsurpassed. The manner in which Moduk in an 

 unusually cold winter forced the army of the first Han Emperor, 320,000 

 men, mostly infantry, into a siege, enticing it on by feigning defeat 

 and flight and keeping his best forces in ambush, is a feat worthy of this 

 military genius. It is a deplorable loss that the details of this unique 

 campaign have not been recorded accurately. 2 



A "battle of the Huns" is preserved on the stone monuments of the 

 Hiao-t'ang-shan. 3 There we see them galloping on their sturdy ponies, 

 and shooting with bow and arrow. Others are equipped with long hal- 

 berds, and show us that the Huns charged in the same manner as the 

 cataphracti. One horseman makes an attempt to drag another out 

 of the saddle by means of a long lance with presumably hooked point. 4 

 A dismounted warrior, clad with a cuirass and with sword in hand, is 

 engaged in cutting off heads. Also some of the mounted archers have 

 donned an armor. Reserves waiting in ambush are kept in the back- 

 ground, shielded behind hilly ground or artificially thrown-up intrench- 

 ments. 6 The king of the barbarians is seated in front, giving instructions 

 to a man kneeling before him. 



1 It is interesting that there is a Turkish word for this manoeuvre, tulghama. This 

 practice was introduced by Baber into India, and is described in his Memoirs (Pa vet 

 de Courteille, Baber nameh, Vol. I, p. 194, and P. Horn, Das Heer- und Kriegs- 

 wesen der Grossmoghuls, p. 22, Leiden, 1894). The cavalry of the Moghuls, con- 

 sisting of armored lancers mounted on caparisoned horses, certainly is an offshoot of 

 the ancient cataphracti. 



2 A great setback to the study of military matters is the lack in the Chinese annals 

 of any descriptions of battles, such as we have in the classical authors. The annalists 

 are usually content to state the figures of the respective armies, the names of the 

 commanders, date and locality of the battle, and its final dry net result with the quota 

 of the slain and captives; but nothing, as a rule, is given out concerning the military 

 operations in the course of the battle. Only in the biographies of the prominent gen- 

 erals of the Han period do we occasionally encounter a somewhat detailed record of 

 the military evolutions of a combat, though these also are sadly deficient and pass 

 over in silence what we are most anxious to learn. The Confucian scholar never was 

 interested in the military side of the events. 



3 Chavannes, Mission, No. 47, and La sculpture, p. 82. In a poem of the first 

 century a.d. by Wang Yen-shen, descriptive of a palace in K'u-fu, the home of Con- 

 fucius, are mentioned representations of people from Central Asia (H u jen) depicted 

 in a group on the upper parts of the pillars. They were outlined kneeling in a reveren- 

 tial attitude opposite one another. "There they remained unmoved with their 

 long and narrow heads and their eyes in a fixed gaze like that of a bustard {tiao). 

 Over their lofty noses and deep eyes they lifted their highly arched eyebrows. They 

 looked sad as if in danger" (J. Edkins, in Chinese Recorder, Vol. XV, 1884, p. 345). 



4 Such lances are illustrated in Wu pei chi and other Chinese works concerning 

 military matters. 



6 M. Chavannes (/. c.) conceives them as going out of tents. This point of view 

 is possible, but the opinion as given above seems to be preferable. The outlines here 

 in question have hardly any resemblance to tents. 



