Rational Traitors, Honorable Cowards: Desertion in the Song Dynasty

• In Event: Cowards, Criminals, and Scapegoats: The Forgotten History of Desertion in East Asia

Abstract

Desertion was a perennial problem in the armies of the Song dynasty. Song soldiers were known to flee in the face of the enemy, thereby contributing to the Song army’s long string of humiliating military defeats. This phenomenon is usually explained by the low social level of Song troops: criminals, refugees, the poor, and other marginal populations. This study offers a different perspective by analyzing deserters’ actions and behavior as rational reactions to military policies and to social and material conditions in the army.
A unique Song measure against desertion was the tattooing of soldiers’ faces with the name of their unit. The tattooed deserters, unable to assimilate in local society, became bandits instead. Many deserters joined other military units that offered them sanctuary, monetary compensation, and even a fake identity. Soldiers, who often viewed their own superiors as the real enemy, even preferred to cross over to the enemy’s side in times of war. Deserters formed the nucleus of a criminal sub-culture hostile to the Song state and its representatives, the inspiration to heroic criminals of the famous Ming novel The Water Margin.
This study suggests that desertion was largely a reaction to the state’s own military policies: the hated military tattoos, exploitation and abuse by their superiors, hard and deadly labor assignments, and poverty and hunger. Underneath labels such as “treason” and “crime” are hidden more complex stories of lower class resistance to state authority and quest for survival.

Author

• Elad Alyagon, University of California, Davis