Back to Dunhuang

Life on the Han Defensive Lines

The evidence from the Han watchtowers and forts reveals a great deal about the military administration as well as the daily life of the soldiers. The chain of command ran from the Protector General to the regional commander in Dunhuang and then down to the sectional commanders along the wall, one of them vested with the specific responsibility for the "Jade Gate" controlling the main route westward. Companies of soldiers numbering as many as 145 were under the sectional commanders and responsible for a section of the wall that might include several watch towers. The soldiers more often than not came from distant provinces such as Shanxi and Hunan; most were probably infantry. Soldiers' duties were wide-ranging. There is documentation about their driving off parties of raiders. At particular moments of danger they received reminders about their duties to monitor the flow of traffic through the Gate (at times the concern was as much with controlling movement across the border from within as it was with external threat). Reminders and reprimands were sent concerning the lighting of signal fires, and posts were alerted when representatives of the higher command came on inspection tours. The soldiers had construction duties, including the making of the sun-dried bricks (anywhere from 70 to 150 per day) with which some of the towers were built and the plastering of the walls. They had to gather reeds and wood for the signal fires.

The state paid a salary, which for the junior officers at least was calculated in silver. Ordinary soldiers received an allocation of some six-tenths of a bushel of gran per day (in lieu of monetary salary?). Bonuses were provided for length of service and for the fact that the border service was a hardship post. There is documentation concerning requests for leave and what seem to be "passports" which those on leave would carry to show that they were authorized to be away from their posts. Among the equipment provided from the government stores were tents, tools, uniforms (the ordinary dress was black linen, but some soldiers seem to have had "dress" clothing of white silk), and weapons--a crossbow, sword and shield, with a normal issue of 150 arrows per man. Clearly there was some kind of regular medical care--the documents attest to treatments for accidents and prescriptions of medicine. A great deal of material evidence has been found, including tent pegs, measuring sticks, fire-starting sticks (with holes where friction drills would have ignited tinder), footwear, lacquerware, wooden locks, kitchen utensils....

The written records found at the watch-towers include fragments in a variety of languages and scripts, attesting to the fact that the road along and through the Han fortifications was truly an international thoroughfare. Among the more interesting evidence about literacy were the finds in several different locations of fragments from an important Han lexicographical treatise that was a popular school book beginning in the last decades BCE. At least one document contains a reference to a popular moralizing text, Biographies of Eminent Women. Given the amount of official correspondence that the garrisons had, it is no surprise that at one station Stein discovered an elaborate calendar tablet, based on official calendars issued between 63 and 57 BCE.

© 1999 Daniel C. Waugh