Career
At the same time, a military revolution was being forced upon East Asia: the horse-drawn chariot, long a mainstay since its introduction from West and Central Asia in the late second millennium BC, was being upstaged by the horse-riding cavalry that was emerging among the northern barbarians. The lightly armoured barbarian bowmen proved superior in mobility and efficiency to the heavily armoured chariots used by the nobility and the slow-moving peasant infantry.
King Wuling decided to introduce cavalry, but he faced a cultural obstacle: the traditional loose dress worn by men, with its wide sleeves and skirt-like long gown, was ill suited for horse riding. Yet such clothing occupied a near-sacred place in Chinese culture. For example, when he was praising the Qi statesman Guanzhong for his successful resistance to the ‘barbarians’, Confucius chose to do so through a metaphor drawn from the traditional dress code. So King Wuling’s introduction of ‘barbarian’ trousers encountered strong upper-class opposition. In 307 BC, however, he convinced his noblemen of the dire necessity to strengthen the Zhao military and the need to adopt the narrow, short ‘barbarian’ dress, complete with trousers and boots.