In addition, Mao Yuanyi (1594-1640), the composer of the greatest and most
comprehensive military encyclopedia, the Wubei zhi, who had extensive combat
experience in the field, includes in his section on “Prognostications” (“Zhan” 占)
a series of esoteric ritual performances and prayers (Yanrang 厭 禳) to counteract
baleful influences that a general might encounter in the course of his duties.
These, he says in his preface, are not matters that a gentleman (junzi) speaks
about (茅 子 曰 厭 禳 君 子 所 不 道 也). He describes a ritual to exorcize an
epidemic (ji 疫) which involves the burning of the heads of captured enemy
soldiers—we should not be surprised that such rituals were recommended by a
late Ming literatus (shidafu 士 大 夫) like Mao Yuanyi, since in contemporary
late imperial popular culture rituals to exorcize plague demons were quite common,
witness the cult of the military deity Marshal Wen 溫 元 帥 in Zhejiang
province analyzed by Paul Katz.57 Mao describes another of these rituals that
was intended to counteract the powerful influence of a royal qi emanating from
an enemy general.
厭 王 氣 法,敵 之 王 氣 久 而 不 衰 者,觀 其 氣 王 於
何 方,當 六 甲 旬 首 正 子 時,於 營 中 月 空 上,環
三 九 步,以 朱 畫 八 卦 壇 法 成 三 界,其 內 畫 十 二
辰,及 月 將 之 名,東 西 南 北 相 去 等,前 取 黑 狗
雞 各 一,大 將 披 素 服,左 手 仗 劍,右 手 按 二 畜,
北 面 立,默 誦 敵 將 名 氏,即 殺 之,埋 於 氣 王 之
方,深 三 尺,氣 衰 則 去 之。
The method of suppressing a royal qi (wang qi): When an
enemy’s royal qi has long endured and not declined, observe
the direction where his qi rules. Then just at the zi time at
the beginning at the Six Jia weekly cycle, in the middle of
the encampment beneath a moon in the void, circumambulate
in twenty-seven paces, with vermilion draw the model
of an altar of the Eight Trigrams, and create a triple boundary.
Inside draw the twelve chronograms (shier chen), the
name of the Moon General, the directions east, west, south,
and north separated from each other, and so on. In front of
the altar take each of one black dog and one black ****. The
general puts on plain clothing, and in his left hand brandishes
a sword, and in his right takes the two animals. He
stands with his back to the altar, chants the given name and
surname of the enemy general, and then kills the animals
and buries them three feet deep in the direction where the qi
rules. When the qi declines, you will be able to get rid of
it.58
This is a fascinating text that deserves a much fuller interpretation than I can
give it here. Suffice it to say that in such a period of disorder as the late Ming, it
was thought that a “royal qi,” evidently believed to be present independently in
the cosmos or generated by an individual’s morally correct behavior, could attach
itself to a rebellious general. A loyal general fighting on the side of the
Ming emperors could destroy this “royal qi” by creating a powerful cosmic centered
ritual space protected by the spirits of the Eight Trigrams, the powerful
spirits of the months that we see in Liu Ren, Qimen, and Dunjia divination tradition,59
and other astral deities, and, at the most auspicious moment and under the
influence of Yin powers, symbolically kills the enemy general and forces his qi
to dissipate. This cannot just be interpreted as natural magic leading toward
science, but must be analyzed within the context of traditional Chinese religious
and ritual beliefs and practices of exorcism, a burgeoning field of inquiry.60 The
late Ming general was, in fact, a powerful exorcist. We must analyze the actions
of traditional Chinese armies and the symbolic meanings that they gave to their
equipment if we are to understand what they thought that they were doing on the
battlefield and on parade.
~Robin D.S. Yates: The History of Military Divination in China