Zhao Chongguo: A Professional Soldier of the Former Han Dynasty

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.