Jiang Ziya's original surname was Lü, and his ancestors had great merits in assisting Dayu zhishui, so during the reign of Shun and Yu, they had to be sealed in Lüdi (in the area of present-day Nanyangxi, Henan), so Jiang Ziya was also named Lü Shang.
However, in Jiang Ziya's generation, the family has fallen into the middle of the road and has become a civilian.
(Jiang Ziya)
Jiang Ziya has done a lot of livelihoods, such as slaughtering cattle, selling wine... But these works did not make him enthusiastic, and he had a great ambition in his heart, that is, to become a talent of Wang Zuo and contribute to the construction of a beautiful country. In order to realize this wish, Jiang Ziya has been studying the strategy of governing the country and the way of military strategy, and has extensively studied astronomical geography and nongsang economy.
Jiang Ziya is a person who promotes "moral government." At first, because of her erudition, she was summoned by the King of Shang (Di Xin) to the capital city of HoJing as an official. However, his "moral government" proposition was not accepted by the King of Shang. Coupled with the fact that the King of Shangyi fought against Dongyi, Jiang Ziya believed that the King of Shangyi was not a Ming Jun, so he resigned his official position and lived in seclusion in the mountains from then on.
When Jiang Ziya was 72 years old, he finally met Ji Chang, who assisted Ji Chang in repairing morality, re-producing, and training soldiers and horses. As a result, Ji Chang's power was strengthened.
Jiang Ziya saw that the time was ripe, so he led his troops to the south to fight in the north. Because of his ingenuity, he is invincible. Seeing that the world was about to be unified, Ji Chang was seriously ill.
At that time, his eldest son Bo Yikao had died, and his second son Ji Fa became the heir.
(Ji Chang)
At this time, Ji Chang was worried. Jiang Ziya has a lot of prestige in the military, in case after his own death, he supports the army to stand on his own, then what to do?
However, this is the time to employ people. Besides, pingbai killed Jiang Ziya for no reason, and it was not possible that the army would be in turmoil and destroy the Great Wall. In any case, Jiang Ziya could not be killed, so he could only think of another way.
Thinking about it, Ji Chang decided to marry Jiang Ziya and let his son Ji Fa marry Jiang Ziya's daughter Yi Jiang.
Ji Chang's idea naturally made Jiang Ziya very happy, so Yi Jiang married Ji Fa.
After Ji Chang's death, Jiang Ziya helped Ji Fa destroy the Shang Dynasty and establish the Zhou Dynasty.
Ji Fa became the son of heaven of the co-lord of the world. Jiang Ziya's daughter Yi Jiang became the first queen of the Zhou Dynasty.
Originally, Jiang Ziya, who was named Lü Shang, but some people believed that Jiang Ziya's descendants had changed their surname to Xu again. What's going on?
This brings us to a legend.
When King Jichang of Zhou Wen went to invite Jiang Ziya out of the mountain, the two of them took the same car. On the way, due to the potholes in the road, the car could hardly move forward, Ji Chang saw that Jiang Ziya was old, so in order to carry forward the spirit of honor and charity, he took the initiative to jump out of the car and push the cart.
(Ji Fa)
Speaking of which, Ji Chang is a good villain, and it is said that Jiang Ziya should get out of the car and go along. Who knew that Jiang Ziya sat calmly in the car.
Ji Chang was displeased, but he didn't have a good seizure, so he had to push a little longer. Since I really had no strength, I stopped.
At this time, Jiang Ziya laughed and said, just now I secretly counted, you pushed the cart to a total of about 800 steps, this is the number of gas after you established the country.
As soon as Ji Chang heard this, he immediately went to the cart again.
Jiang Ziya waved his hand and said, The Mandate of Heaven is like this, and it is useless to push it again.
Later, in order to ensure the long-term fortunes of the Zhou Dynasty, Jiang Ziya asked Zhou Tianzi to hang his coffin on the beam after his death. He told Zhou Tianzi that if there was a rebellion on either side, he would turn his coffin towards which side, and his soul would quell the rebellion in that place.
In this way, the Zhou Dynasty lasted for 800 years.
Seeing that the 800 was about to arrive, Zhou Tianzi hoped that Jiang Ziya's coffin could continue to bless the Zhou Dynasty, so he ordered someone to take his coffin down, and wanted to re-knot the rope and hang it on the beam.
Who knew that after opening the coffin lid, there was no remains of Jiang Ziya inside, but 8 pigeons flew out from inside.
Without Jiang Ziya's protection, the Zhou Dynasty soon rebelled.
Zhou Tianzi was angry with Jiang Ziya's descendants, so he ordered that Jiang Ziya's descendants be beheaded.
After Jiang Ziya's descendants heard about it, they left their hometowns to avoid disasters, they hid their names, scattered, did not dare to use the original surname, plus they missed XuChang, so they took "Xu" as a surname.
Of course, this is just some folklore. Jiang Ziya was not a god, he did not have such a superpower himself, he not only failed to protect the Jiangshan of the Zhou Dynasty, but even his own Jiangshan was replaced by the "Tian surname" in advance. That is to say, Jiang Ziya's descendants should not have the surname "Xu", but changed their surname to "Tian".
(Reference historical materials: "Lü's Spring and Autumn", "Fengshen Yanyi", etc.)