According to historical records, after king Wu destroyed the Shang, the merchants' relics were divided into two branches, namely the Central Plains and the Joseon Dynasty. However, in recent years, both archaeological discoveries and documentary materials have shown that there are not only these two remnants of the Shang Dynasty, but even in Guizhou and other places in Guangxi in the southwest region, there are also merchant remnants, and one of them has been passed down to this day.
Since it was the "Xiaobang Zhou" that annexed the "Dayi Shang" and could not completely annex it, the Zhou people could only adopt a sub-feudal system, so they sealed Wu Geng, the son of the King of Sui, in Chaoge, and the state name was "Shao" (with the intention of the king to retire), ruling the remnants of the Shang Dynasty. After that, Wu Geng launched a rebellion, and Zhou Gongdan went on an eastern crusade to quell the rebellion. After the failure of the Wu Geng restoration rebellion, the Zhou people moved the remnants of the Shang clan to Shangqiu, commanded by the Shang clan's weizi Qi, and established the princely state of Song, and later Confucius and Mozi were all descendants of the Shang clan.
Archaeology has found that in the Laishui area of Hebei Province, a bronze vessel with the word "Shaobo" was excavated, and one of the seven instruments of Liangshan, Dabao Gui, recorded that "Zhao Gongyi was ordered to fight against the Rebellion of Luzi Sheng (Wu Geng)", combined with the history books that Wu Geng fled north after the failure of the restoration of the country, so Wu Geng should have led some merchants to flee to the Laishui area of Hebei province and continue to rebel against Zhou rule.
In the past, the history books said that King Wu of Zhou was sealed
Zhao Gongyi was in Northern Yan, but judging by Wu Geng's escape to the north to continue the rebellion, it should be
King Cheng of Zhou, in order to consolidate the northern territory, only then did he
Summoning Gong Yi to seal in Northern Yan.
Qinghua Jian records that Zhou Gongdan destroyed the Shang Dynasty in Qufu and migrated this group of merchants to the west, which later became the State of Qin. It is said that some of the shangyi people fled to Changzhou, Jiangsu, and another Shangxiang state was established in Changzhou.
According to other documents, around the time of the fall of the Shang Dynasty, Jizi, who had lost confidence in the King of Sui and the Shang Dynasty, led his people to migrate north to the Korean Peninsula, known in history as "Jizi Joseon".
In short, whether it is a documentary record or an archaeological discovery, the remnants of the Shang Dynasty should be scattered in the Central Plains north of the Yangtze River and the Jizi Joseon. However, according to the "History of the Source stream of Baiyue", a remnant of the Shang Dynasty fled to Guangxi and is now an ethnic minority in the southwest region, the Shui people.
According to the "History of the Origin of Baiyue", after the demise of the Yin merchants, some merchants migrated south from the Central Plains, gradually integrated into the "Luo Yue" of the Baiyue ethnic group, and then gradually developed into a single ethnic group - the Shui tribe. At that time, the Lingnan region and the southeast coastal area were inhabited by many tribes in ancient times, collectively known as "Baiyue" in historians, while "Luo Yue" lived in Guangxi, Yunnan-Guizhou, northern Vietnam and other regions.
After Qin Shi Huang unified China, he sent a large army to attack Baiyue, especially in Guangxi, the battle was very fierce, even the commander Tu Sui was killed, and later replaced by the commander Ren Hu to pacify Baiyue. When the Qin army attacked Baiyue, the ancestors of the Shui tribe did not choose to resist, but left Baiyue and flowed from the south into the Longjiang river, the upper reaches of the Duliu River, Guangxi and Guizhou to live, and have been living here ever since. After more than 900 years of life, it gradually developed into a single ethnic group in the Tang Dynasty. During the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, the shui tribe became the southwest toast, and after the new China, it officially became one of the 56 ethnic groups.
Guangxi and Henan are thousands of miles apart, and with the traffic conditions at that time, it is inconceivable to migrate from Henan to Guangxi, so why is it said that the Shui people are the remnants of merchants?
First of all, although the ancestors of the Shui tribe were in Baiyue, they called themselves "Sui people", and an ancient song circulated by the Shui people was "Drink Sui Shui, become Sui People", and Sui Shui is the only river that passes through Shangqiu, Henan. During the first year of the Tang Dynasty, Fushui Prefecture was set up in the Huanjiang area at the junction of Qiangui and Guizhou, so later the "Sui ethnic group" was changed to "water tribe".
Secondly, there are 56 ethnic groups in China, but only 17 ethnic groups have writing, and the Shui people are an ethnic minority with their own script. Their text is called The Water Book (pictured below), and the Water Book is called "Shui Sui" or "Le Sui", which retains the characteristics of compatibility with pictorial characters, hieroglyphs and abstract characters, and is now a national intangible cultural heritage. The main content of the water book is not history, but a legal book on primitive religious beliefs, just like the "old yellow calendar" of the Han people, divination, exorcism, dispelling ghosts, eliminating disasters and begging for blessings, etc. must find a basis from the water book.
Scholars of the Shuijia Society believe that the Shui tribe is a descendant of the Shang Dynasty by comparing the history of the Yin Shang Dynasty and many records in the water books, especially the language of the Shui tribe still retains many ancient sounds of the Central Plains, and the water tribe calendar has many similarities with the Yin Shang calendar.
Third, the belief culture of the Shui people belongs to the category of primitive religious beliefs, believing that all things have animism and worship polytheism, and the core is nature worship, ancestral spirit worship, and god worship, and the latter two are the core of Yin Shang belief.
Fourth, there is no record in the literature on how the Shui tribe traveled through countless tribes and migrated thousands of miles to Guangxi, but through modern archaeology, it can be seen that the Shang Dynasty forces have reached the south of Jiangxi. About 3,000 years ago, the ancestors of the Shui tribe traveled thousands of miles to Guangxi, seemingly breaking through the traffic conditions, but the Ganjiang Shang Dynasty Tombs, the Xingan Shang Dynasty Tombs found in Jiangxi, the Ruichang Tongling Shangzhou Copper Mine and Metallurgical Site (or the provision of bronze raw materials for Sanxingdui), etc., all show that the Shang Dynasty's sphere of influence has expanded to Jiangxi, and Jiangxi is not far from Guangxi. Therefore, the water tribe does have the ability to migrate to Guangxi, which may be slowly migrated by generations.
In addition, there are architecture, etiquette, musical instruments, crafts, etc., and still retain many characteristics of the merchant culture. In short, after the ancestors of the Shui tribe migrated to Guangxi, in the cultural exchange and integration with Baiyue, many Yin shang culture and Baiyue culture were passed down, which has become an important basis for understanding their history today.
The history of the Shui people tells us that some ethnic minorities in China may have a longer history than we think, and their ancestors may have a glorious history, but they had to withdraw from the Central Plains because of the failure of the ancient struggle. However, because of this, these peoples have passed on some ancient cultures.