Township Archery Ceremony

During the Spring and Autumn Period, the kingship declined, rituals and music were broken, official schools declined, private schools rose, and the vassal states were in constant war.

People's attitude towards rituals was no longer the same as before. Archery rituals declined, while martial archery rose. People had a higher pursuit of the strength and accuracy of arrows. Yang Youji, Duke Ping of Jin, and Duke Jing of Qi were all famous for piercing seven armors. In view of this, Confucius proposed the idea of "shooting is not about the skin", aiming to educate the people on "rituals" through archery rituals, so as to achieve the goal of "ritual governance" and restore the unified social ruling order of the world.

The monopoly education model of "learning in government offices" was broken, and private schools rose. Confucius pursued the educational thought of "teaching without distinction", vigorously promoted the Six Arts in his private school, and taught many poor disciples cultural knowledge and skills such as rituals, music, archery, charioteering, books, and numbers, so that the archery rituals that were originally only available to the nobles entered the vision of the common people. The vigorous development of private schools made the archery ceremony go from the upper class to the lower class. Later, because the throwing pot ceremony was not restricted by venues and equipment, it soon entered the homes of ordinary people, making the archery culture rapidly popular among the people, and shifting from the original elegant etiquette of the aristocracy to the etiquette of the common people. Many of its rituals became the fixed patterns of archery in later generations.

The rural archery ceremony thus continued until the end of the Qing Dynasty. According to the "Rites of Rites·Rural Archery Ceremony", the rural archery ceremony was an archery ceremony held by the township doctor every spring and autumn. The host of the event was a local hermit who was highly respected and had not obtained an official position, called "Bin". The place where the rural archery ceremony was held was called "Xu", which was the local state school. The shooting position was in the hall, and the target was called "Hou", which was placed thirty feet away from the south of the hall. There was a small round leather screen in front of the left of Hou, for the target reporter to hide, called "Fa". Bows, arrows, counting sticks and various shooting tools were displayed in the west hall.

The archer selects six students from the state school and pairs them up into three groups of similar level, called "three pairs", namely upper pair, lower pair and lower pair, each pair has one upper archer and one lower archer. The core activity of the township archery ceremony is the three rounds of shooting competition between archers, called "three rounds of shooting". In each round of shooting competition, each archer shoots four arrows. The archer exposes his left arm, wears a ring and arm guard, puts three arrows on his waist, and holds one arrow in his hand, ready for the competition.

The three rounds of shooting in the township archery ceremony are as follows.

1. The first round of shooting is practice shooting, so the score is not counted. The archer first demonstrates the shooting instrument to the archer: first step the left foot on the shooting position symbol, face west, then turn the head to the south, look at the center of the bull's eye, concentrate, adjust the posture, and finally shoot the four arrows. After the demonstration, the two archers of the upper couple come to the hall. According to the instructions of the shooting master, the upper archer shoots first, and the lower archer shoots later. They take turns to shoot all four arrows. Every time an arrow hits, the person who sings the winning number shouts: "Win." After shooting, the archers hold the bow handle with their left hand and hold the string with their right thumb. They bow to each other and then go down. Then, the second and lower couples come to the hall and shoot in the same way. After the three couples finish shooting, the shooting master reports to the Sima. The Sima orders his disciples to take the arrows and put them on a rack for arrows. After confirming that the number is correct, the three couples take turns to take back their arrows.

2. Second round shooting The second round shooting is the formal shooting competition, and the score must be calculated. The guest, the host, and the doctor can also participate in the shooting competition. First, the three couples shoot in turn. Those who do not hit and penetrate the target will not be counted. If they hit, the person who releases the winning number will sit down and calculate. For each arrow hit, a counting stick will be placed on the ground to count. The counting sticks for the upper shot are placed on the right; the counting sticks for the lower shot are placed on the left. After the three couples finish the shooting competition, the host and the guest form a shooting couple, while the officials and scholars form a shooting couple, and the guests also form a shooting couple. They all expose their left arms, wear thumb rings on their thumbs, wear arm guards on their arms, hold the bow in their left hands, and go to the hall one by one to compete. The ceremony is the same as before. After the shooting, the person who releases the winner first counts the counting sticks for the upper shot, and then counts the counting sticks for the lower shot. The person who releases the winner reports to the guest. If the right side wins, he says: "The right side is better than the left side." If the left side wins, he says: "The left side is better than the right." If the left and right shooting is a tie, he holds a counting stick on each side and reports: "The left and right are equal." The winners all expose their left arms, wear thumb rings and arm guards, and hold the bow with the string on, indicating that they can shoot. The losers must put on their clothes, take off their thumb rings and arm guards, and put the unstrung bow on their left hand with their right hand, hold the bow handle with their left hand facing up, and then hold the bow handle with their right hand. Then, the loser stands and drinks, bows to the winner and leaves the hall.

3. The third round of shooting is a ritual shooting of ceremonial nature. The three couples, the guest, the host, the doctor, and the guests first take back the arrows, and the shooting officer announces that the rule of this round of shooting is "no drum, no release". This means that the arrows that hit the center of the bull's eye according to the rhythm of the music will be scored, otherwise no points will be scored. The three couples, the host, the doctor, and the guests shoot in turn according to the rhythm of the music. If the arrow hits the bull's eye, the winner will be released. The Sima orders people to count and the shooting officer reports to the guest: how many chips the winner has won, or the two sides are tied. Finally, the loser drinks. Then the couples take the arrows and bows in turn and hand them over to the officer, and the three rounds of shooting are over. The Sima orders his disciples to remove the target, arrow rack, counting chips, etc., and the archery ceremony ends here.

The local archery ceremony became a major way to select talents, educate the people, and cultivate the moral character of scholars. It occupied an extremely important position in China's education system and was not discontinued until the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty. With the advent of the era of hot weapons, the abolition of the military examination in the 20th year of the Guangxu period (1894) marked the demise of the archery ceremony. China's archery sport has since completely declined, and traditional archery activities are almost extinct.