The history of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty began with a farce.
This farce is not a beacon theatre.
The story of the princes of beacon theatre is not unfamiliar to everyone. In order to please the little wife, the brain-dead leader planned to shake off the subordinates, and the subordinates were really deceived, so the leader and the little wife pointed at them and laughed happily, haha, you idiots. Later, the leader stalled the matter, and then called the subordinates to help, everyone was afraid of being deceived again, no one paid attention to him, the leader only had fun.
The plot is wonderful enough, the masses are happy to hear it, and they have also been endorsed by Sima Qian, a super historian, so it has been passed down from generation to generation, and everyone thinks it should be like this.
But, should it be so, must it be so?
Do not forget that experts are not witnesses of history, not even the most original sources.
We all know that after Qin Shi Huang unified the world, in order to control the people ideologically, many original materials except for the history books of the Qin State itself and practical books such as medical books and agricultural books were burned. Many historians have spent decades or even their entire lives to complete the historical materials, and in an instant, they are in vain.
In fact, the burning of books is not terrible, the terrible thing is that even the historical truth behind the books has been buried together.
At the time when Sima Qian compiled the "Records of History", nearly a hundred years after Qin Shi Huang burned books, the original materials were extremely scarce, and many things he supplemented and processed through field visits and collected "oral histories" passed down by the people in the places where historical events occurred. When we read the "Records of History", we can often see Sima Qian say that I have been to a certain place, and what the people there say after someone's biography or the expression of a certain event is completed.
The attitude of governing history by traveling thousands of miles is worthy of affirmation, but the authenticity of historical facts is debatable.
That is to say, the so-called Beacon Theatre Princes are likely to be just Sima experts who made a cameo appearance as a director of a historical drama, reprocessed the oral history that had already been processed, and created a drama with the effect equivalent to Luo Guanzhong's "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" written by Luo Guanzhong.
"Romance of the Three Kingdoms" Everyone knows that seven points are real and three points are virtual. The Beacon Theatre princes went further, most likely "pure fiction".
According to historians, the burning of beacons in the beacon tower to warn of the alarm was a patent invented during the Qin and Han dynasties in order to prevent the invasion of the Xiongnu, and Sima Qian, Zhang Guan, Li Dai impersonated, was completely infringing.
Stronger evidence comes from Tsinghua Jane.
Tsinghua Jane is a batch of 2388 pieces of Warring States Bamboo Jane donated by Tsinghua University in 2008, which was purchased by Tsinghua alumnus Zhao Weiguo from cultural relics dealers in Hong Kong and then donated to his alma mater. According to the identification of cultural relics experts, the age of Bamboo Jane is the middle and late Warring States period. Later, after carbon 14 dating, it was determined that the age of bamboo was 305 BC plus minus 30 years, which was consistent with the identification of experts.
Because the batch of bamboo was buried in the ground before Qin Shi Huang burned the book, this survived, and its record is mainly the content of the history of the classics, which is the first-hand original material for the study of the history of the pre-Qin, and the credibility is much higher than that of Sima Qian's "History".
Below, we will tell a different story based on the original historical facts recorded by Tsinghua Jian and combined with the records of the earlier discovered "Ancient Bamboo Book Chronicle" and "Chinese" and "Shang Shu" and other historical books.
The story has to start with King Zhou You.
In 782 BC, the eleventh Tianzi of Western Zhou, King Xuan of Zhou, died, and the fourteen-year-old crown prince Ji Gongne took the throne as King You of Zhou.
However, the old man's luck was too bad, and in the second year of his reign, a serious geological disaster occurred, "Qishan landslide, three rivers exhausted."
Qishan, located in present-day Qishan County, Shaanxi Province, was the land of Wang Xing in the Zhou Dynasty, and its political significance is self-evident. Now, crashed. In ancient times, when feudal superstitions were prevalent, this was definitely a precursor to the extinction of the country (the landslide and the river were exhausted, and the sign of the subjugation of the country was also).
More importantly, Sanchuan (Jingshui, Luoshui, Weishui) was a natural barrier for the Zhou Dynasty to defend the nomads in the northwest, and now the water level has been greatly reduced and almost exhausted (expert analysis, it should be that the earthquake caused the formation of a dammed lake upstream, blocking the source), completely losing its defensive role, making the capital Hojing (now Xi'an, Shaanxi) directly exposed to the nomadic soldiers, dangerous!
But what was surprising was that in that era when cattle, ghosts, and snake gods were flying in the sky, Comrade Himeomiya actually showed the scientific consciousness that only firm atheists possessed: This kind of trivial and ordinary thing, don't bother me! (Landslides and earthquakes, this is a common thing, why should we tell the truth?) ）
Totally inappropriate.
In the third year of King You's reign of Zhou (779 BC), Ji Gongne made a new decision to attack the state of Bao (in present-day Hanzhong, Shaanxi Province). The specific reasons are unknown, but the outcome of the battle is clear, and the country is obviously not an opponent, and in order to protect itself, it has resorted to the usual trick of the defeated country - to sacrifice beautiful women and ask for forgiveness.
This beautiful woman who acts as a victim of politics is a praisegiver.
How beautiful it is, the history books do not clearly record, anyway, it is very much loved by Comrade Ji Gongne (praise is favored). Soon, the two gave birth to a son, named Bofu.
This is broken.
Beauty, Aiko.
King You of Zhou finally made the mistakes that countless emperors had made, deposing the old prince and appointing a new prince.
The legitimate queen of King You of Zhou, known in the history books as Empress Shen, was the daughter of Marquis Shen of the State of Shen whom his father King Xuan of Zhou married for him. Shen Housheng's son was named Ji Yiusu, because he was a concubine, and was previously made crown prince.
Now, King Zhou You only wanted the new people to laugh, and regardless of the old people's crying, decided to abolish Ji Yiusu and make him the crown prince.
Of course, Ji Yiusu was not willing to sit still, and driven by his survival instinct, he immediately fled back to his grandmother's house Shen Guo (the prince went out of Ben Shen).
Shen Guo, roughly in present-day Nanyang, Henan, intermarried with the Zhou royal family for several generations, had strong economic and political strength, and was originally a powerful barrier used by the Zhou royal family to resist the barbarians in the south. But now, with the "efforts" of King Zhou You, he was about to turn into a terrible enemy.
King You of Zhou did not intend to spare Ji Yiusu because he had escaped, he demanded that Shen Guo hand over Ji Yiusu (The Shen of The Request) and wanted to kill him to avoid any trouble.
Shen Guo is quite backbone, no matter how you threaten, you just don't hand over your nephew.
King You of Zhou was furious and in 772 BC he rebelled against the State of Shen (王師失申).
Shen Hou was a wise man, knowing that he was not the opponent of the Heavenly Son's Master, and if he was it, he was afraid that he would not be able to get him, so he decided to find a helper.
After careful consideration, Shen Hou set his sights on the north of the Zhou Dynasty, which was the territory of the Inuyasha clan.
Inu rong is a collective name for ethnic minorities in the northwest, which generally lives in the area of present-day Shaanxi and Gansu, because it claims that its ancestors were two white dogs, and uses white dogs as a totem, so it is called inuyasha. The Inuyasha are mainly nomadic, so they have strong fighting power and have been the enemy of the Central Plains peoples since the Yellow Emperor period. During the reign of King Zhou You's father, King Xuan of Zhou, he fought a battle with Inu Rong at Qianmu (present-day Jiexiunan, Shaanxi), and as a result, he was beaten to the point of losing his armor and collapsing into an army (the division of the Southern Kingdom), known in history as the "Battle of Qianmu".
Since you can beat your father, you can certainly beat you.
Facts have proved that Shen Hou's judgment is accurate. In 771 BC, with the help of Inuyasha, a coalition of Shenguo, Inuyasha, and several other princely states fought a fierce battle against King You of Zhou under Mount Li. King You of Zhou and his precious son Bofu were killed, and Qiu Ji was captured by Inuyasha (姒姒) and later lost his whereabouts.
At this point, we can find that until the death of King Zhou You, there was no record of the princes of beacon theater. You must know that if there is a true matter, historians who are fond of summing up the lessons of history will never let go of such negative models.
Moreover, the Battle of Lishan was not a surprise attack war launched by King Inuyasha to take advantage of King Zhou You's lack of preparation, on the contrary, the war was provoked by King Zhou You's initiative in order to eliminate hidden dangers in the regime, and Inuyasha only came to help fight a counterattack at the request of Shen Guo. Therefore, even if there was a system of beacon warning at that time, King Zhou You, who was the main attacker, did not have the need to raise a beacon to warn at all.
In the final analysis, the reason why King Zhou You was killed was just a coup d'état triggered by the old trick of abolishing Concubine Lishu. This situation, in the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period, will be staged countless times.
The subsequent history, whether it is the "History" or the history textbook, tells us this: after the death of King You of Zhou, Ji Yiusu inherited the throne for King Ping of Zhou. The following year, that is, in 770 BC, in order to prevent the invasion of the nomadic peoples in the northwest, the King of Zhou Ping resolutely decided to abandon the old capital Ofhojing and move east to the new capital Luoyi, known in history as "King Ping moved east", and the Eastern Zhou Officially began.
Over time, we came to a consensus – that's how it should be.
But again: should it be so, must it be so?