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"History of the Ancient Han Peoples" series
120 Wen Wang returned to Zhou
As mentioned in the previous section, in order to plan the next three conquests of Yifang and prevent the Zhou state from adding chaos behind his back, Emperor Xin of Shang held a great ceremony in Guanzhong about 13 years after the first conquest of Dongyi and before the second conquest of Dongyi, and took the opportunity to bring The Zhou Marquis Jichang to the Shang King's capital and put him under house arrest.
It was a long house arrest of seven years. Later generations, there were two famous warlords on one side who had similar experiences to Ji Chang, namely Han Xin, one of the three masters of the early Han Dynasty, and Zheng Zhilong (Zheng Chenggong's father), the leader of southeastern maritime merchants in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. After Han Xin lost the throne of Chu, he was placed under house arrest in Chang'an for 5 years, and Zheng Zhilong was placed under house arrest in Beijing for 16 years after losing his military power in Fujian. Moreover, the final outcome of the two was killed by the imperial court.
Therefore, after Ji Chang was taken to the Shang Capital and placed under house arrest in Qiangli, he was panicked for a long time. During the long years of house arrest, Ji Chang did nothing, but thus learned the divination skills of the Shang people, and achieved little success, and the legend is that the classic "I Ching" of Gua Bu was written by Ji Chang.
Sima Qian's "Book of Baoren An" says, "Gai Xibo acted zhou yi, Zhongnier did spring and autumn, Qu Yuan exiled, Naifu left the riot, Zuo Qiu was blind, and there was Chinese..."
Originally, Ji Chang learned the art of divination, just to pass the boring and fearful time under house arrest, and put his energy into the endless spiritual world to divert his attention and try not to think about the final outcome of being placed under house arrest.
Because Ji Chang knew that the day Dongyi was conquered was the day of his own death.
However, in the seventh year of house arrest, emperor Xin of the Shang Dynasty released Ji Chang and allowed him to return to the Zhou Kingdom.
In addition, Di Xin also gave The Zhou Marquis Jichang a bow and axe, which meant that Ji Chang was granted the right to conquest by the Shang King, and could legally conquer the surrounding Fang states.
This change of events is also too sudden, but if we look at the time when Ji Chang was released, it will feel even more bizarre.
Ji Chang was released in the 20th year of Di Xin (41st year of King Wen, c. 1058 BC). This year was the year in which Di Xin conquered Yifang for the third time.
As mentioned earlier, the reason why Di Xin put Ji Chang under house arrest was to prevent the State of Zhou from firing cold arrows and stabbing knives in the back during the Shang Dynasty's Eastern Crusade. And now, he not only released Ji Chang, but also granted Ji Chang the right to conquest and give Zhou Guo the right to do things behind his back.
The explanation given in the "Records of History" is that the Shang King Di Xin is a typical example of absurdity and fainting. Therefore, during the imprisonment of the lord, the Zhou people desperately offered treasures and treasures, such as the beautiful women of the Xin clan, the BMW of Li Rong, the horses of the Xiong clan, etc., and bribed Fei Zhong, a courtier around Di Xin, to offer them to Di Xin, so that King Wen was released.
This statement is too absurd, insulting to the intelligence of ordinary people, we had better ignore it.
The Western Jin Dynasty's Imperial Century gives the explanation that Ji Chang's eldest son " Boyikao " took the initiative to go to the Shang Capital as a hostage , only to be killed by Di Xin and made into a meat soup , which was given to Ji Chang. As a result, Ji Chang did not know that this was his son's meat, and ate the meat soup, and Di Xin believed that Ji Chang did not have the qualifications of a saint and could not threaten the merchant's world, so he released Ji Chang.
"King Wen of Prison, the eldest son of King Wen, is the eldest son of King Wen, and the sage should not eat his son's soup." King Wen eats. Who is the Siber Sage? Eat its seed soup is not yet known also"
This theory was also adopted by the divine and demonic novel "Fengshen Yanyi" and became a household name with the broadcast of the TV series "Fengshen List".
From a common sense point of view, this statement is just as absurd. As a dark horse that turned out to be a black horse, the threat of the Zhou Kingdom was real, it was impossible to kill Ji Chang's eldest son, and Ji Chang ate the meat of the eldest son without knowing it, which meant that the threat of the Zhou Kingdom did not exist. Because this release of Zhou Hou Jichang is really insulting to the reader's IQ.
Therefore, some scholars have "restored" another statement on the basis of this statement.
This view is that the Shang people are a people who believe in ghosts and gods, which is very superstitious in layman's terms. At the site of Yin Ruins, archaeologists found a large number of remnants of living sacrifices. These foreign captives were buried alive, beheaded, amputated, dissected, and cooked by the Shang people in order to sacrifice their ancestor gods and "gods" .
In addition to these cruel living sacrifices, they even cooked the heads of human animals. In a bronze urn found in the ruins of Yin Ruins, there is a cooked human head.
That is to say, in addition to the cruel living sacrifices of the Shang people, there may also be a terrible custom of cannibalism. And this terrible cannibalism custom may be a sacred ritual for the Shang people.
Therefore, it is entirely possible that Bo Yikao was cooked and killed. However, Ji Chang did not eat the meat of his son Boyikao without knowing it, but ate the meat of Boyikao knowingly.
This eating means that Ji Chang fully agrees with the etiquette and beliefs of the Shang people, and through this ritual of eating human flesh, he officially integrates into the Yin Shang family and becomes a loyal courtier of the Shang Kingdom.
The superstitious Shang people, because of this, released Ji Chang.
From a certain point of view, this statement is really reliable. But calm down, this statement is only speculation, not empirical evidence.
First of all, there is no record of sacrificing the son of the leader of the Zhou people in the Oracle Bone Confession of the Di Xin period. Of course, some people may say that before the oracle bone was discovered, a large number of oracle bones were boiled into slag as Chinese medicine, and perhaps this record was boiled.
But what we have to say is that there is no evidence. Only when empirical evidence is found can it be confirmed that Bo Yi kao was sacrificed. If such a record really exists, and it was boiled into medicine slag in the late Qing Dynasty, then we can only say, doubtful.
Secondly, archaeology has found that among the sites of Yin Ruins, the most frequent and largest living sacrifices belong to the Shang King Wuding period. By the time of Emperor Xin of the Shang Dynasty, the sacrifice of living people had become very rare, and the scale of sacrifice had shrunk dramatically.
This discovery coincides with the inattentive sacrifice in the count of Emperor Wu of Zhou. The original text is recorded in the Shang Shu Tai Oath, "The god of the Buddha, the relics of the ancestral temple of the Ancestors".
That is to say, during the period of Emperor Xin of the Shang Dynasty, the Shang people were no longer the same as in the Wuding period, killing a large number of captives to sacrifice, and the atmosphere of bloodthirsty terror had faded a lot. Thus, the possibility of Bo Yi kao being sacrificed by merchants became very small.
But there are certainly some people who will say that the possibility of becoming smaller does not mean that there is none, the rare sacrifice of living people in the Dixin period does not mean that there is no, and Bo Yi kao still has the possibility of being sacrificed.
So, what if the author says that Bo Yi kao could not have been sacrificed by the Shang people at all, because he died early when he was a minor?
The evidence for this claim comes from the establishment of the Western Zhou Dynasty. In the early Western Zhou Dynasty, the heirs of King Wen of Zhou and the heirs of King Wu of Zhou were divided into various places to establish feudal states. Among them, the sons of King Wen of Zhou (that is, the brothers of King Wu of Zhou) had a total of sixteen fiefs, known as the "Zhao of King Wen". Among these sixteen kingdoms, there is no fiefdom of Boyikao or Boyikao's heirs, and if you search the history books, you will not find the fiefdom of Boyikao's heirs.
In other words, when Bo Yikao died, he did not leave any heirs.
Some people will also say that when Bo Yikao was sacrificed by the Shang people, he was not yet married, or did not leave male offspring.
Let's take a look at how old Bo Yikao was when Ji Chang was imprisoned.
As the second son of King Wen of Zhou, King Wu of Zhou died two years after the destruction of the Shang, leaving the eldest son, King Cheng of Zhou, who was still a minor, and needed the Zhou Gong to assist the government for seven years before he could personally govern. Therefore, when King Wu died, King Cheng of Zhou may have been only thirteen or fourteen years old. In this way, when King Wu of Zhou died, he may have been in his forties.
King Wu reigned for 4 years, king Wen was appointed king in the second year after he returned to the Zhou kingdom, reigning for 9 years, it can be deduced that when King Wen was released, it was 14 years before the death of King Wu of Zhou, when King Wu of Zhou, who was still serving as a prince, was about 30 years old. When King Wen was imprisoned seven years ago, King Wu of Zhou was also over 20 years old.
As the elder brother of King Wu of Zhou, Boyikao would only grow older. That is to say, when Ji Chang was just imprisoned by the Shang King, if Bo Yikao was still alive, he would already be in his 20s, and by the time Ji Chang was released, Bo Yikao would have been more than 30 years old.
For the ancients who got married and had children in their teens, 30 years old can probably be regarded as middle-aged. Bo Yikao lived to be sacrificed by merchants in middle age, and he did not leave any heirs before that, which makes no sense at all.
So there is only one situation that can be explained, that is, Bo Yicao died prematurely before he became an adult.
Since sending a beautiful woman to a BMW and letting Di Xin release Ji Chang is an insult to the intelligence of the masses, and Bo Yikao died prematurely, the merchants have no way to sacrifice, and the meat of his son Ji Chang cannot be eaten, so why did Di Xin release Ji Chang and give him the power to conquest?
If we put aside all the absurd historical data and infer from this result alone, there is only one possibility, that is, the western frontier of the Shang Kingdom is full of smoke.
In human parlance, something big has happened in the western part of the Shang Kingdom, which may be a foreign invasion or a rebellion by the Fang State.
Faced with this situation, it was preparing to continue to attack the Shang Kingdom of Dongyi, and was unable to divide its troops to deal with the troubles of the West. In this case, whether it was The Zhou Marquis Jichang taking the initiative to ask for help, or the Shang Emperor Xin was forced to appoint him, in short, only the appearance of the Zhou Marquis Jichang could help the Shang Kingdom solve the border troubles in the West.
This situation is similar to that of the Late Qing Dynasty after 2970. In the year of Xinhai, the fourteen provinces declared independence, the Qing court was powerless to "suppress the rebellion", and commanded the Beiyang New Army, only to reactivate Yuan Shikai, who had been removed.
At this time, the Shang Kingdom, which was unable to march westward, was like the Qing court that could not take the revolutionary army at that time, and the Zhou Hou Jichang, who was under house arrest at this time, was like Yuan Shikai, who was fishing on the HuanShui River at that time.
So, which fang states and tribes were the late Shang version of the revolutionary army?
There is an ancient text in the Warring States Chu Jian "Shangbo Jian", "Rong Chengshi", which records a passage:
"The Rebellion of the Nine Kingdoms, Feng, Pickaxe, Hao (舟), 鄨 (bì), Yu (邘), Lu (耆(黎), Chong, and Mishu clans. King Wen heard this and said, "Although the king has no way, does the subject dare to do anything?" Although the Father has no way, does the Son dare to do anything? Which son of heaven is the opposite? When he heard about it, King Wen asked Yan under xiatai, "Who can the Nine Kingdoms come from?" King Wen said, "Yes." King Wen then went to Su Duan to carry out the Nine Kingdoms. The seven states came to serve, and Feng and Pickaxe did not obey. King Wen is the master of XiangFeng and Pickaxe, and the three drums are marching forward, and the three drums are retreating, and the King of Wen is descending."
In the vernacular, it is the nine Fang states of Feng, Hao, Hao (Zhou), Yu (bì), Yu (邘), Lu, Qi (Li), Chong, and Misu who rebelled against the Shang state, and Zhou Hou Jichang took the initiative to ask Miao to go to quell the rebellion, and Emperor Xin allowed it, and eventually the rebellion of the nine Fang states was put down.
At this time, we can make sense before and after we can contact the record in the "Records of History" that Emperor Xin of the Shang Dynasty released Ji Chang and gave Ji Chang the power to conquer.
After Di Xin put Ji Chang under house arrest, there may have been a series of administrative and diplomatic mistakes that led to the rebellion of the western States against the Shang State. In addition, the house arrest of Marquis Jichang of Zhou also made some tribes in the west feel that there was an opportunity to take advantage of the opportunity to invade the Shang fang state in the Guanzhong region. All in all, there are border troubles in the west, and Di Xin has no way to deal with it.
In desperation, he could only release Ji Chang and let him return to the Zhou Kingdom to deal with the hostile forces in the west for the Shang Dynasty.
Some people may ask, isn't this just letting the tiger return to the mountain?
From the perspective of posterity, this is indeed a return to the mountains, but in the view of Emperor Xin of the Shang Dynasty at that time, although this was a helpless move, letting Ji Chang lead the Zhou State to negotiate with those hostile forces could not only temporarily delay the crisis on the western border, but also consume the strength of the Zhou State, and when the Shang State's ravage of Dongyi ended and the army marched west, it could stew the threats including the Zhou Kingdom.
This idea is not without reason.
Then, after returning to the Zhou Kingdom, Ji Chang, the Marquis of Zhou, who had gained the power to conquer, could he eliminate these rebel forces before Emperor Xin conquered Dongyi?
In addition, after all, the article "Rong Chengshi" comes from the Warring States of Chujian, which has been six or seven hundred years since the end of the Shang Dynasty, and the nine Fang States recorded in it are in line with the real situation?
We will continue to interpret this question in the next section.
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