Shang's grandson Ning no matter what, Dai Himself is a curse.
- Wang Tian
This is a famous saying of the Yuan Dynasty poet Wang Mian, which means that Dai Ji is an out-and-out misfortune.
So, who is DaiJi?
She is the favorite concubine of the King of Shang, in fact, she is the most favored one, it is said that the thousand-year-old fox essence was finally transformed into an adult after cultivation, she was as beautiful as a peach blossom, her posture was moving, charming, beautiful and colorful, she could sing and dance, and posterity liked to call her "a generation of demons". Her beauty has even reached a magical point, and people who have watched the TV series "List of Fengshen Gods" believe that they will not forget such a plot: when the Shang Dynasty was destroyed by the Zhou people, Dai Ji was tied up by five flowers and escorted to the execution ground, ready to be beheaded for public display. At the moment when he was ready to kill Dai Ji, the executioner was so confused by Daji's beauty that he could not bear to hack such a beautiful woman alive, and even pleaded with the warden, saying that he was willing to die for him. If it were not for the coercion of King Wu of Zhou's righteous qi in the end, it is estimated that Dai Ji would not have appeared in his original form, and of course, he would not have been caught and beheaded by Jiang Ziya. But after all, these are only our assumptions, our wishes. If we think of our own evil and viciousness at the same time, it is estimated that such an imagination will not flash in our minds.
From the books or TV series, we can find that all the bad things done by the King of Qiu were done at the instigation of Dai Himself. Whether it is setting up cannons, digging people's hearts, or dissecting pregnant women and sucking bone marrow, it is all your own idea. According to Sima Qian's record in the "Records of Yin Benji", king Yin Yi was "good at wine and lascivious pleasure, and was spoiled by women." Love yourself, and your words are from yourself." This means that the king of The King of Lu likes herself incomparably, and his ears are particularly soft, and he listens to her words the most, even to the point of "what she praises is noble, and what she hates" is obedient to what she says, and she will be rewarded for those who she likes to praise, and those who hate and hate her will be directly killed.
Of course, according to modern archaeological research, it may be exaggerated or impractical to say that the king of Qiu's crime of "only listening to the woman's words" to Daiji is somewhat exaggerated, or it is not practical at all. The reason is that the merchants attach great importance to superstition, and no matter what major measures or actions are taken, they must be finally decided by asking the gods for help, which is recorded in the oracle bones excavated in the Henan region at the exact time and place. Therefore, during the Shang Dynasty, the power that Dai Ji could influence at the political level was really negligible, and even negligible. Don't say it's himself, it's the King himself, maybe a lot of things are not his master, don't forget, behind him, there is also a supreme "Providence" existence in the underworld.
Therefore, the notoriety of Dai Ji is the result of the propaganda of Zhou Ren's discourse.
However, the above is only our modern research results and logical reasoning, in the "Fengshen Yanyi", a novel with strong mythological colors, Daji is indeed such a vicious adulteress image.
Daji has a serious "sadistic" tendency, she likes to watch the "cannon burn", and when she hears the miserable cries of prisoners, she laughs like she hears touching music. Because of this hobby of Dai Ji, the King of Gong abused the heavy punishment and sentenced people to this punishment at every turn in order to please Daji. The so-called "punishment of cannon burning" is to coat the copper pillar with oil and burn charcoal underneath, and the prisoner must walk on the copper pillar, so that the foot plate will naturally be burned, and it is inevitable to make a terrible cry. If you are not careful, if you fall into the fiery red charcoal below, you may die.
Is Daji really as bad as described above? Whether it is the history of barnyard officials, folk rumors, or even in the classics of the main history, Dai Ji has been described as a snake and scorpion beauty, who has done no evil, and can really be said to be the culprit of adultery throughout the ages. Such an argument has become a household name, and the image of an adulterous woman and a wicked woman like Dai Ji has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and almost everyone knows it, and no one knows it.
Lin Ziqiu, School of Humanities, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, once said: "In the eyes of the Chinese, Dai Ji is a standard 'red face and misfortune' and 'a generation of demon queens'; whether it is the right history or the wild history, whether it is literary works or historical works, Dai Ji has never survived positively; the formation of the negative image of Dai Ji is a typical process of 'being cursed by water' and 'being demonized'; in this process, the Confucian 'women's way' and the theory of becoming a king and defeating the king and the ancient literati have played an important role in the tradition of ancient irony and modern times." (Lin Ziqiu: "On the Formation of the Image of the Demon of Daji", journal of Sichuan Institute for Nationalities, No. 3, 2011)
Lin Ziqiu here explains the formation of the image of Dai Ji from the perspective of "women's Tao", which can be described as a unique vision. In traditional Chinese culture, there are two main types of female figures: the virtuous wife and mother type and the shrew adulteress type. Objectively speaking, in the male society, the so-called "virtuous", "good", "splash", "obscene" are judged from a male perspective, so when people praise them for "virtuous" and "good", the implication is that they have maintained the male norms; when people say that they are "spilled" and "obscene", the implication is that they are challenging the principle of male power.
In China, Confucian culture has been the mainstream culture in China since Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty "deposed hundreds of families and exalted Confucianism alone", in which the virtuous wife and mother are auxiliary roles. According to the principle of "those who follow us prosper, those who oppose us perish", if women can consciously uphold the principle of patriarchy, they can get considerable rewards. The beautiful talk of Meng Mu's three moves, the mother-in-law's embroidery, and the archway of the festival women and martyrs are all recognition and praise of such women by patriarchal culture. However, too much emphasis on the duties of motherhood and wifehood, combining them with the second sexual idea of "woman, fuye" (that is, the meaning of women to obey), as well as the moral norms of the three from the four virtues, will seriously suppress the richer life needs of women as human beings, and suppress the subjectivity of women as human beings.
The reason why there is a phenomenon of ugliness of women in literary creation is mainly because the author often starts from the single gender bias of men to deny women's reasonable life value and life pursuit. In history, the most famous adulteresses are Dai Ji in "The Evolution of the Fengshen Gods" and Pan Jinlian in "Jin Ping Mei". Her sin lies in her beauty. Because she was so beautiful, the King of Lu could not restrain his desire as soon as he saw her. In order to please the beauties, the king did many absurd things, and finally fell into exile. The internal logic of the phrase "red face and bad water" is that men do not have to be responsible for their own desires, and they do not have to be responsible for their absurdity. Responsible for a man's absurdity is the object of his absurdity, that is, a beautiful woman.
However, the reason why Daji in "Fengshen Yanyi" is an important character is not only because she is a typical "red face disaster water", but also because her sinister and vicious poison is far more than that of the King of Lu.
Perhaps, without her, the fall of the King of Lu would not have been so fast, and the Shang Dynasty would not have been overthrown by the Zhou Dynasty so quickly!
Therefore, in order to maintain the traditional ideological understanding of the patriarchal society, that is, it is not the emperors and generals who are harming the country and the people, but the red-faced women behind them, the author of "The Evolution of the Fengshen Gods" attributed the demise of the Shang Dynasty to The Head of Dai Ji.
Since Dai Ji was identified as the culprit of the sin of the subjugation of the country, it was naturally reasonable to define her as the "female number one" of the "Fengshen Yanyi".
Therefore, the real history is that perhaps Daji really looks like a heavenly immortal, and the King of Shangyi "collects three thousand favors" for her, but Daji is not so evil and vicious. The reason why later generations portrayed her as an evil woman with a heart like a snake and scorpion was entirely based on a kind of logical thinking of "red face and bad water" to find a reason for the demise of the Shang Dynasty. In other words, the end of the Shang Dynasty is ultimately blamed on a woman. As a result, the image of dai-self is demonized.