Military Codes

A history of China told through the intertwined themes of war and geography, tracing the evolution, successes, and failures of Chinese military strategy over more than two thousand years. The new edition includes maps! The second book in historical writer Guo Jianlong’s “Code” trilogy, alongside Fiscal Code and Philosophy Code. Highly recommended by Yu Minhong, Liu Suli, Yu Shicun, Yang Bin, Shi Zhan, Luo Zhenyu, Li Shuo, Zhang Mingyang, and many others!

This book offers a detailed analysis of the military geography of ancient China, examining the most crucial geographical factors in the wars of each dynasty and how they shaped the fighting. Drawing on field research and historical sources, the author selects representative wars and military campaigns from different eras to explain how strategic centers of gravity shifted from the Guanzhong heartland to the Yangtze River basin and the frontier regions, alongside the unification, division, and expansion of successive dynasties. The book divides the more than two thousand years from the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods to the end of the Qing dynasty into five eras in the evolution of military strategy: the Guanzhong Era, the Era of Division (the Yangtze Era), the Era of Imbalance (the Second Guanzhong Era), the Central Plains Era, and the Yuan, Ming, and Qing Era. In chronological order, it explores the grand strategies of each era and analyzes the military logic behind major wars and their effects on the rise and fall of successive dynasties.