Guifang

Guifang was an ancient ethnonym for a northern people that fought against the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE). Chinese historical tradition used various names, at different periods, for northern tribes such as Guifang, Rong, Di, Xunyu, Xianyun, or Xiongnu peoples. This Chinese exonym combines gui (鬼 "ghost, spirit, devil") and fang (方 "side, border, country, region"), a suffix referring to "non-Shang or enemy countries that existed in and beyond the borders of the Shang polity."

Overview
Chinese annals contain a number of references to the Guifang. Earliest sources mentioning the Guifang are the Oracle Bones. Extant oracle bones record no military action between Shang and Guifang, yet Guifang have been interpreted as hostile towards Shang or not hostile.

The Bamboo Annals, interred with King Xiang of Wei (died 296 BC) and re-discovered nearly six centuries later in 281 AD (Western Jin dynasty) in the Jizhong discovery, state that:


 * In the thirty-second year of Shang King Wu Ding (fl. 1200s BCE), he attacked the Guifang, and stationed at Jing (荊); and in the thirty-fourth year, after a campaign of three years, the King's armies subdued the Guifang, and the Di and Qiang came as guests. Wu Ding's conquests against the Guifang are also mentioned in the Yi Jing "Book of Changes".

The oracle bones indicate that, following Wu Ding's conquest, the Guifang became Shang's subjects and even assisted the Shang against other polities, e.g. the Qiang. Gui officials even managed to achieve high statuses in the Shang court; for examples, a Gui official, Geng, was ordered to perform the gang sacrifice 剛 in the xiang 亯 sacrificial temple.


 * In the thirty-fifth year of the Shang King Wu Yi (i.e. 1119 BCE), Zhou leader Jili attacked the Gǔiróng in Xiluo (西落) and captured twenty Dí kings. Historians believe that the Guirong were identical to the Guifang.

Up to the time of Shang king Di Xin, Gui chiefs had been long-enfeoffed vassals of Shang and even participated in the Shang royal government. In Stratagem of the Warring States, Lu Zhonglian (魯仲連) related that Marquis of Gui (鬼侯) ranked among Di Xin's Three Ducal Ministers (along with Marquis of E (鄂侯) and Western Count [Ji] Chang (西伯昌)) and married his beloved daughter to Di Xin. However, Di Xin considered her detestably ugly (惡), so he killed her and boiled alive Marquis of Gui; Marquid of E sharply criticized Di Xin and was butchered. A parallel account in Shiji features Marquis of Jiu (九侯), his daughter (九侯女), and Marquis of E (鄂侯); Marquis of Jiu was identified with Marquis of Gui. Another parallel account in Taiping Yulan states Marquis of Gui's daughter disapproved of Di Xin's debaucheries so Di Xin killed her and her father; and Di Xin had Marquis of Xing butchered instead of Marquis of E.

Among the succeeding Zhou dynasty's bronze inscriptions, the Xiao Yu Ding (小盂鼎) –cast in the twenty-fifth year (976 BCE) of King Kang of Zhou (r. 1005/03–978 BCE)– mentioned the Guifang, probably located northeast of the initial Zhou domain. After two successful battles against the Guifang, the Zhou victors brought captured enemies to the Zhou temple and offered to the king. The prisoners numbered over 13,000 with four chiefs who were subsequently executed. Zhou also captured a large amount of booty.

No events involving the Guifang are reported after 650 BCE, which is also the last mention of the Northern Rong (北戎). They were replaced by a new group of Northern foreigners, the Di (狄).

The Guifang do not seem to have seriously challenged Chinese rule, they did not invade China, and on the contrary were the victims of Chinese expeditions. They may only have been an early people which was conquered by the Western Zhou, and ultimately disappeared from history.

Interpretations
As a result of phonetical studies and comparisons based on the inscriptions on bronze and the structure of the characters, Wang Guowei came to the conclusion that the tribal names in the annalistic sources Guifang, Xunyu, Xianyu, Xianyun, Rong, Di, and Hu designated one and the same people, who later entered history under the name Xiongnu.

Likewise, using Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian and other sources, Vsevolod Taskin proposes that in the earlier pre-historic period (i.e. the time of the legendary Yellow Emperor) the Xiongnu were called Hunyu; and in the late pre-historic period (i.e. the time of the legendary Emperor Yao and Emperor Shun) they were called Rong; in the literate period starting with the Shang dynasty (1600–1046 BC) they were called Guifang, in the Zhou period (1045–256 BC) they were called Xianyun, and starting from the Qin period (221–206 BC) the Chinese annalists called them Xiongnu.

Even so, Paul R. Goldin (2011) reconstructs the Old Chinese pronunciations of 葷粥 ~ 獯鬻 ~ 獯鬻 ~ 薰育 as *xur-luk, 獫狁 as hram′-lun′, and 匈奴 as *xoŋ-NA; and comments all three names are "manifestly unrelated". He further states that sound changes made the names more superficially similar than they really had been, and prompted later commentators to conclude that those names must have referred to one same people in different epochs, even though people during the Warring States period would never have been thus misled.

Other fang-countries
The Shang state had a system of writing attested to by bronze inscriptions and oracle bones, which record Shang troops fighting frequent wars with neighboring nomadic herdsmen from the inner Asian steppes. In his oracular divinations, a Shang king repeatedly showed concern about the fang (方, likely meaning "border-region"; the modern term for them is 方国 fāngguó "fang-countries"), groups of barbarians outside his inner tu (土) regions in the center of Shang territory. A particularly hostile tribe, Tufang (zh:土方) from the Yan Mountains region, is regularly mentioned in divinatory records. Another Chinese ethnonym for the animal husbandry nomads was ma (馬) or "horse" barbarians mentioned at the Shang western military frontier in the Taihang Mountains, where they fought and may have used chariots.

Seima-Turbino culture as "Guifang"
The Guifang may also correspond to the Seima-Turbino culture of the Altai Mountains. Several of the Shang dynasty artifacts of the Yin Ruins and from the tomb of Fu Hao (died c.1200 BCE), excavated in Shang capital of Anyang, are similar to Seima-Turbino culture artifacts, such as socketed spearheads with a single side hook, jade figurines and knives with deer-headed pommel. These Late Shang artifacts, visibly derived from the Seima-Turbino culture to the north, were made precisely at the same time the Shang reported intense protracted conflicts with the northern tribes of the "Guifang". This would suggest that the Guifang were the Altaic Seima-Turbino culture itself, and that their century-long conflict with the Shang led to the transfer of various object and manufacturing techniques.

Particularly, the introduction of the socketed spearheads with a single side hook seems to date back to the period of the Taosi culture, when the earliest and most faithfull Seima-Turbino types start to appear in China, circa 2100-2000 BCE. These early artifacts suggest that Chinese bronze metallurgy initially derived from the cultures of the Eurasian steppes. Soon however, China was able to appropriate this technology and refine it, particularly through its mastery of bronze casting, to create a highly sophisticated and massive bronze industry.

Northern tribes in the Late Shang period
The nomadic leaders depicted in Deer stones in Mongolia, dated to 1400-700 BCE, leading large-scale organized nomadic groups, may have affected the late Shang and early Zhou dynasties of China to their south.

They were equipped with weapons and instruments of war, such as daggers, shafted axes, or curved rein holders for their horses. They may not have ridden on horseback, but they are documented to have possessed horse-drawn charriots, with two or four horses, as shown in the drawings on Deer Stones and multiple finds of horse skeletons with heavy wear. These powerful nomadic leaders, leading large-scale organized nomadic groups capable of building monumental decorated stone tombs, may have being part of the nomadic challenge to the early Chinese dynasties. They may also be connected to the rise of the horse chariot during the Shang dynasty.

Siwa culture (1300–600 BCE)
The Siwa culture culture is sometimes proposed as being connected to the northern tribes which challenged the Shang and Zhou dynasties, but questions are raised against this theory because the Siwa sites are small with low subsistence levels, whereas the northern tribes, particularly the Xianyun, seem to have been more advanced, using bronze weapons and chariots. According to Feng Li, the archaeological remains of the Siwa culture suggest that they could not have sustained an advanced society capable of rivalizing with contemporary Chinese armies. The debate remains open.

Epigraphy
Comments about the conflicts against the Guifang appear in bronze inscriptions of the Western Zhou.