The year 841 BC was the beginning of an exact chronology in the history of our country.
In this year, a rebellion occurred in the Western Zhou capital of Hojing, which drove out King Li of Zhou and became a turning point in the decline of Western Zhou. King Jihu of Zhou Li was a tyrannical monarch who, in order to plunder the people's wealth, implemented a "patent" policy of monopolizing mountains, forests, and rivers.
In this way, the livelihood of civilians, who constitute the majority of the "nationals", was restricted, which caused great public indignation. King Li of Zhou took high-handed measures, sending people to monitor the activities of the "countrymen" and forbidding the "countrymen" to talk about state affairs, and those who violated the law were to be beheaded. This method of terror can only be effective for a while. The "chinese people" were silent on the surface, but more resentful in their hearts.
The nobles led by Gong Bohe, including the craftsmen and guards belonging to the palace, all participated in the rebellion. King Li of Zhou fled in a hurry, crossed the Yellow River, and ran into hiding to Yan, where he later died. His son Ji Jing hid in the house of Zhao Gong. The "people of the country" surrounded Zhao Gong's residence and wanted to kill king Li of Zhou's son. Zhao Gong had no choice but to hand over his son and pretend to be Crown Prince Ji Jing before he could figure it out.
From then on, Zhou Tianzi's control over the princes began to waver. The "National People" riot showed the sharpening of class contradictions in the Western Zhou Dynasty.
In the fourteenth year of the Zhou Republic (828 BC), after the death of King Li of Zhou, Zhao Gong enshrined Prince Jing as the Son of Heaven, that is, King Xuan of Zhou.
Faced with the turbulent situation of internal and external troubles, King Xuanwang of Zhou adopted a series of measures to alleviate social contradictions and present a scene of temporary economic prosperity. First of all, politically, he made it clear that he would not engage in monopolies, and that he would consult with the ministers on something, and he urged officials at all levels not to oppress the people, not to be greedy for money, and not to drink alcohol, so as to reverse the corrupt style in the government. Secondly, economically, the patent policy of the Li Dynasty (all land, mountains, forests, and rivers and ponds were owned by the royal family) was abolished, and the control of mountains, forests, and rivers was relaxed.
King Xuan of Zhou also announced the abolition of the ceremony of nationality in the area of the Zhou royal family, which was the abolition of slavery and the system of land in the area of the Zhou royal family, which not only increased the financial revenue, but also eased the tense class contradictions formed during the reign of King Li. The land system was a system that allowed slaves to cultivate the land of the royal family and slave owners and nobles. Since the Western Zhou Dynasty, Zhou Tianzi and slave-owning aristocrats at all levels controlled large areas of fertile land, which were called public lands. Due to the low production technology at that time, thousands of slaves were needed to cultivate public land and carry out large-scale collective farming.
The slaves were not free, they ploughed at sunrise and rested at sunset, and their labor in the fields was whipped and supervised by the "warmth of the fields", and all the fruits harvested in the fields belonged to the slave owners and nobles. The slaves also had a small piece of their own arable land, and the harvest on this land was the bread on which the slaves depended, but the slaves could only manage their own private land if they had first harvested the land of the slave owners and nobles. The abolition of the land system was to distribute the public land of the nobles and the royal family to the slaves, let them cultivate it, and then the royal family received the fruits. This was a measure that the slave-owning aristocracy was forced to take under pressure.
With the abolition of the nationality field, the national field ceremony has become dispensable. Slaves collectively cultivate public land, the property obtained is the main source of the Economy of the Zhou royal family and the nobility, so the Zhou royal family and nobles attach great importance to the land, every spring ploughing season, Zhou Tianzi will hold a ceremony of the land, Tianzi personally dig a shovel of soil in the field, and then the hundred officials follow the digging, and finally let the slaves cultivate.
Although the ceremony of "Heavenly Son's Relatives Borrowing a Thousand Acres" was a showmanship, it actually had an exemplary and encouraging effect on a large number of hundred officials who led and supervised slave farming, making those "Tian Nuan" more loyal to their duties. King Xuan's measure of "not relying on a thousand acres" also transformed some slaves on state-owned land into "subordinate peasants", and the slaves who originally had no personality had a semi-independent personality and became "subordinate peasants", their enthusiasm for labor and production increased, and at the same time, the agricultural production that was seriously destroyed during the time of King Li also recovered.
Relying on his temporarily restored national strength, King Xuan began to conquer the outside world, and the northern expedition to Yanyu and Xirong, and the southern conquest of Jingman and Huaiyi, appeared in a "Zhongxing" situation. Since the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty, ethnic minorities have often committed acts against the Zhou, and in order to relieve the threat of these ethnic minorities and divert domestic attention, King Xuan of Zhou has successively launched conquests against the Yanyu people in the northwest, Xu Rong in the east, Chu in the south, and Rong in the west. In the second year of King Xuan of Zhou (826 BC), King Xuan began to wage war against Jingman in the south and Huaiyi in the southeast.
King Xuan of Zhou ordered Uncle Fang to lead an army to attack Jingman, ordered Zhao Hu to lead a division to attack Huaiyi, and ordered Yin Jifu to conquer Xu Rong, until 810 BC, after 16 years of bitter fighting, to conquer those tribes, so that the territory of the Zhou Dynasty expanded again. King Xuan of Zhou rewarded the newly conquered land to Zhao Hu, Shen Bo, Zhongshan Fu and other meritorious heroes, recovered from the minorities the land lost by the weakening of the state after the middle of the Zhou Dynasty, and also restored the relationship between the minorities on the frontier and the Zhou Dynasty, which was in stark contrast to the increasingly cold situation since King Gong of Zhou.
In his later years, King Xuan's continuous conquests of foreign countries caused great loss of national strength, and the "Sixth Western Division" and the Eighth Division of Chengzhou were attacked, and in the thirty-sixth year of King Xuan of Zhou (792 BC), King Xuanwang conquered Tiao Rong and Ben Rong, and suffered a tragic defeat. When King Xuan of Zhou conquered Xirong in the 39th year (789 BC), he had to transfer the "Division of the Southern Kingdom" to fight. However, in this battle, King Xuan was once again defeated, and the "Division of the Southern Kingdom" was completely destroyed by the Rong people. The severe lack of financial and manpower made King Xuan think of using the "subordinate peasants" who were not under the control of the state under the nobles at all levels to demand that the nobles engage in war and various kinds of labor according to the actual number of slaves.
This is what history calls "the people of Taiyuan". Before the implementation of this policy, there were "simin" in the royal family, who controlled the population figures of the world, and the number of people corresponding to military service and various kinds of military service in the state was also clear, but because slaves had no surnames and were not eligible to be included in the statistics, the nobles used slaves to open up private land for themselves and tried to hide the actual numbers from the royal family.
The implementation of the policy of the people has triggered contradictions between the royal family and the nobility, and of course it will be strongly opposed by the nobles. A minister named Zhongshan Fu once said to King Xuan: "The population of the people cannot be counted, and the exact number of statistics will expose the weakness of the Zhou Dynasty's population reduction and depletion of military resources, so that the princely states will deviate from the royal family and hinder the governance of the country." However, King Xuan of Zhou insisted on implementing the policy of "feeding the people" despite the objections of the nobles, although the number of people that the Zhou Dynasty could control increased, and the problem of the source of soldiers was temporarily supplemented, but because the slave dynasty of the Western Zhou Dynasty was no longer something that could be saved by one dynasty and one king, King Xuan's "Zhongxing" only delayed the collapse of slave society, and in the later years of King Xuanwang, this Zhongxing was a return to the light before the decline of the Western Zhou Dynasty.
At the critical juncture when the Zhou Dynasty was in turmoil and precarious, the foolish and faint King Zhou You ascended the throne after King Xuan.
After he succeeded to the throne, he not only did not take the necessary measures to reduce the burden on the people and ease internal contradictions, but instead reused xiao people such as Yu Shi's father as ministers at all levels, specifically plundering and exploiting the people, resulting in "exile at the rate of the people" and further intensifying various contradictions. At the same time, the Zhou royal family encountered natural disasters such as earthquakes and droughts, which plunged the people into deep water, and the once suppressed Rongdi tribe in the northwest took the opportunity to raise their heads and invade the Zhou chamber. The Zhou Dynasty completely slid into the abyss of internal and external difficulties and embattled, so the Youwang ruined Lishu as if throwing a fire on dry firewood, and the fire in the sky immediately burned, and the Chaos of Hojing inevitably occurred.
King You of Zhou played with fire and set himself on fire, serving as a martyrdom of the Western Zhou Dynasty. King You of Zhou was very fond of his concubine Qiu Ji (褒姒), and went so far as to be obsessed with it, flouting the tradition of "standing on a concubine without standing long", deposing the crown prince Yi Usu and replacing him with his son BoFu as the eldest son, and also wanted to kill Yi Usu and force Yi Usu to flee to his maternal grandfather Shen Hou. The King of You, who did not do two things, deposed Yi Usu's mother Shen Hou and made Yi Usu empress dowager.
The act of deposing the Concubine Lishu by the Youwang seriously violated the etiquette system, greatly intensified the internal contradictions of the royal family, and became the fuse for the outbreak of the Hokyo Rebellion. Shen Hou was the daughter of a zhou dynasty prince, Shen Hou, who saw that King Youyou had deposed Shen Hou and crown prince Yi Usu, and himself was demoted from marquis to earl, and his personal interests were damaged, and he was determined to help his grandson regain the right to inherit the throne. But he knew that he could not do this on his own strength alone, so he pinned his hopes on fighting for external forces. To this end, he colluded with The Marquis of Inuyasha and jointly united with Inuyasha in an attempt to invade Hokyo through Inuyasha and propel Yiusu to power, and Inuyasha was waiting for such an opportunity to come.
So the two sides hit it off and launched an attack on Hokyo. In the eleventh year of The Reign of You (771 BC), The Marquis of Shen and the Marquis of Jian invaded with a large-scale invasion, and the spearhead was directed at the Zhou ruling center of Hojing. There were no strong defensive facilities in the northwest direction of Hojing, and the main force under the direct command of the royal family, the "West Sixth Division", did not engage in a force battle, resulting in the long drive of the Rong troops to the outskirts of Beijing, and the hojing was besieged. The King of You, sitting in the city of Sorrow, had no choice but to pin his hopes for the liberation of the siege on the Qinwang troops of the princes. It is reasonable to say that if the divisions of the various Qin Kings came to the rescue, the siege of Hojing would still be full of hope, but the prank of the "Beacon Theatre Princes" of the Zhou YouWang in that year showed serious consequences at this time, which eventually led to the death of the Zhou Youwang and the collapse of the Zongzhou Sheji. At that time, King Zhou You was extremely fond of Herong, and in order to win the favor of Herong, he once played the game of "raising a beacon" rashly. "Beacon Fire" is a kind of alarm signal used in the ancient military of our country, which is used to inform the enemy and recruit troops, and once ignited, all the princes stationed around the capital must immediately bring people and horses to qin the king. It can be seen that it is a very serious and important facility in the national defense system. But in the case of a desolate and chaotic prince like the Youwang, the "beacon fire" has become a kind of "toy" for the pet concubine to laugh and relieve boredom. More than once, he randomly issued beacon alarms, mobilized the princes to lead troops to rush to the Beijing Division, provoked praise and laughter, and he also got great pleasure from it, directing a farce of "beacon theater princes", which sowed the seeds of future tragedies. The story of "the wolf is coming" is too much to say, and no one will easily believe it, so when Hokage is besieged and the Youwang really needs the princes to send troops to serve the king, the princes think that this is the entertainment provided by the Son of Heaven for the queen, and they are not willing to be teased anymore, and as a result, no one has ever sent troops to serve the king. The Ghost King's Beacon Alarm Communication System had completely failed at this point. Hokyo was besieged for a long time, and the division of King Le arrived indefinitely.
The Yu King made a desperate bet and sent Yu Shi's father to lead his troops out of the city to make a tentative attack, hoping to win by chance and boost the morale of the army. Who knew that after engaging the Rong soldiers, the Zhou Division was defeated, and Yu Shi's father was also killed by the rebels. Inuyasha and Shenhou's forces took advantage of the victory to pursue, swarming and attacking the city. After entering the city, the soldiers brutally slaughtered innocent residents, looted treasures, and set fire to palaces and houses. A majestic capital that lasted more than 250 years was completely destroyed and reduced to a scorched earth. After the soldiers entered the city, the Yu King panicked and had nothing to do.
Situ Zheng Boyou, in a crisis, commanded his subordinate soldiers to fight bravely and took advantage of the night to protect the King of You and the Queen to break through. After arriving at Lishan Mountain, the Beacon Tower was filled with smoke, but there was still no division of princes to come to the rescue, so they had to continue to retreat to the east in a hurry, but in the end, due to slow action, they were chased by the Inuyasha soldiers and were heavily encircled. Zheng Boyou led his troops to rush left and right, failed to break through successfully, died under the arrows, King You himself was hunted and killed by rong soldiers on the banks of the water at the foot of Lishan Mountain, the queen was captured, and the Western Zhou Dynasty was destroyed. When the news of the fall of Haojing and the killing of King You came, the princes realized that this time raising the beacon was no longer a game, so they organized the divisions of Qin Wang, of which the wei, Jin, Zheng, and Qin troops became the main force in the Qin King's coalition army, and they arrived at the capital of Hao and launched a counterattack against the Rong soldiers. After a fierce and brutal battle, the Qinwang coalition finally defeated the Rong soldiers, expelled them from the city, and recovered the hojing that had been praised by the soldiers.
At this point, the Battle of Hokyo was finally over. After the reconquest of Hokkei, the former crown prince Yibai, who had been taking refuge in the Shen kingdom, was made the monarch of the country, and was known as the Prince of Ping. Since Hojing had been destroyed and desolate and unable to gain a foothold, King Ping had to move the capital east to Luoyi (in present-day Luoyang, Henan) under the armed protection of Marquis Wen of Jin, Duke Wu of Zheng, Gongbo wei, and Duke Xiang of Qin, in 770 BC. Since then, history has entered the Eastern Zhou Period, and the Zhou Dynasty has gradually lost the power to control and control the princes of the four directions. "Li Le conquest from the Son of Heaven" changed to "from the princes" and "from the doctor", and the years of great turmoil came.
The outbreak of the Battle of Hojing and the demise of the Western Zhou Dynasty were not accidental, first of all, a general outbreak of various social contradictions in the Western Zhou Dynasty for a long time, and the maximum intensification of successive ethnic conflicts. "Frozen three feet, not a day's cold". It was precisely because the Ruling Clique of the Western Zhou Dynasty failed to properly handle internal relations at the root and skillfully defuse external pressures that once the time was ripe, they suddenly attacked both inside and outside, causing irreparable tragedies. As for the act of deposing the Concubine of the Youwang, it was nothing more than an opportunity to induce the incident.