Friends who like history are familiar with the fragments of Wu Wang's cutting, whether it is "Fengshen Yanyi" or cartoons like "The Legend of Nezha". The Zhou Dynasty has always been a symbol of justice, but the King of Shang was a very bad person, but he had done all the bad things that individuals had done. Only by studying history can we suddenly wake up to the fact that interpretation does not mean history. Not only was he not a bad man, he was also a good monarch who worked hard.
For example, in the Spring and Autumn Period, Zigong was upset with the King of Lu early in the morning, and he said that the King of Lu was not as people said, he could not make mistakes as an emperor, and a little mistake would be infinitely magnified by people, as if all the bad things under the sky had made him do. But in fact, he was indeed a subjugated king, and even if Di Xin did not become emperor, the country of the Shang Dynasty would be in ruins from the roots.
As the king of the Shang Dynasty, Di Xin was only destroyed along the current, and he also made a major rectification in order to change the situation, but he could not fight against the resistance, and finally the destruction of the Shang Dynasty began to double the speed, what tribulations did the later Di Xin encounter? Let's take a look.
Caught between the four sides, the situation is difficult
The problem of nomads has not been completely solved through many dynasties, and nomads have no fixed place to live, so nomads will have a struggle when they meet farming peoples, and if they win, they will be stationed on the territory of farmers, otherwise they will have to wander around. Because there is nothing, even if they lose to the farming peoples, they can't stand Shanghai, and they will continue to attack after a break, this kind of divine operation makes people cry and laugh, maybe in the eyes of the nomads, there is nothing to be afraid of. For the Shang Dynasty, the same was true of the ghost forces in the north, who robbed the Shang Dynasty's things when they confiscated the goods, and wanted to occupy the territory of the Shang Dynasty when the harvest was good, and from time to time they would launch attacks.
Located in the southern region, there are also barbarians such as Huaiyi and Hufang along the Jianghuai River. The southern region is crisscrossed by rivers and scattered terrain, so the regime has not yet been unified. Slave revolts sometimes occurred, but they did not affect the rule of the Shang Dynasty, but the political position of the Shang Dynasty was like a wall of grass, and the wind blew wherever it went.
The Dongyi tribe in the eastern part of the Shang Dynasty was the most troublesome. As early as many years ago, Dongyi had a special relationship with the Shang Dynasty, their ancestors were from some areas of present-day Hebei and Liaoning, and later the Shang Dynasty occupied the Central Plains, and Dongyi went to the coastal area. The Dongyi tribe that occupied the coastal area sat on the fishing profits, and at that time, the area where the Dongyi tribe was located used "shell coins" as the main currency, and the strength of Dongyi should naturally not be underestimated, and it was the second largest ethnic group after the Shang Dynasty.
Dongyi, who had grown up, did not pay attention to the Shang Dynasty more and more, and often clashed with the Shang Dynasty. Secondly, the Shang Dynasty was still a very good merchant nation, and the economy of the late Shang Dynasty was prosperous, often facing a shortage of shell coins. Therefore, as long as Dongyi in the east stops supplying shell coins to the Shang Dynasty, the economic system of the Shang Dynasty will collapse at any time.
Looking at the western region, because of the special structure of the North China Plain, most of the territory of the Shang Dynasty was concentrated in the north and south, so there were many enemies in the west, mainly the Qiang and Zhou people. The Qiang people grew up with the Central Plains people and belonged to the Yandi tribe, and the shanxi region of shanxi was once their sphere of influence. Qiang people look well-behaved and obedient, but in fact, they also have wolf ambitions.
All that remains is this Zhou ren who pushed the Shang Dynasty to its demise. The Guanzhong Plain in Shaanxi Province, at the foot of the Zhou people, has fertile soil and steep terrain. Later, the Zhou people moved to Xi'an, using the advantages of the Wei River to weaken many of the surrounding threats, and they became more and more powerful. Until the time of King Wen of Zhou, the Zhou people could look up to the Shang Dynasty, exposing their greedy nature.
Theocracy, clan power and kingship
First of all, in terms of theocracy, from the establishment of the Shang Dynasty, there was a belief in ghosts and gods. They firmly believed that their ancestors were born by eating the eggs of the xuanbirds, and that whatever the Shang Dynasty did was God's arrangement. Therefore, when the people of the Shang Dynasty encountered any major matters that needed to be decided, they would use methods such as burning turtle shells and ox shoulder blades to see if they were fierce or auspicious.
For the Shang Dynasty, after death, it was the same as before death, including The gods. The Shang Dynasty people greatly admired those ancestors who had passed away, and often burned incense sacrifices, so many times that you can never imagine. As soon as the situation develops very seriously, including the color and quantity of the coat used for sacrifice, it will be given a blessing.
In the Shang Dynasty, the high priests in charge of theocracy were usually able to determine the development of the country. Whenever divination is encountered, the high priest will carve the matter to be asked of the gods into the turtle's belly carapace or the ox shoulder blade, then chisel it to an impenetrable degree, and finally roast it on the fire, and when there is a crack, the high priest can judge the auspiciousness. Over time, how to burn the crack is also well mastered, and you can add your own opinions when interpreting the crack, control the king's power to a greater extent, and know the affairs of the country very well.
The second is the clan power, the Shang Dynasty is different from other dynasties, not what the emperor says is what it is, not only has the divine power but also the various nobles behind the dynasty, which also has a high status. How high is the status? As long as the emperor disobeyed, he could be overthrown at any time, and the reason why the Shang Dynasty moved the capital several times was that there was internal rebellion, and it was not until Pan Geng (present-day Anyang) that it was settled.
However, during the shang dynasty, the aristocratic power of Anyang became more mature. After the death of Emperor Yi's father, Wen Zhong took the lead in suppressing the new emperor and repeatedly put pressure on him, with the aim of elevating the king and taking charge of imperial power. Therefore, the King of Shang moved from Anyang to Chaoge City, just to escape the control of the nobles.
Finally, from the perspective of kingship, although the king was the head of a country, his position was not stable at all. In addition to Di Xin, Emperor Yi also had two sons, that is, Di Xin had two older brothers. All three brothers were born to a mother, but because they were not queens when they were born, they did not have the right to compete for the throne as sons. Another factor was that Emperor Yi was very dissatisfied with the divine power.
Emperor Yi once made a puppet and wanted to use the puppet to represent God and play a chess game with him. He asked his courtiers to play chess for him, and if heaven could not win him, it would prove that God was useless, and he could laugh at the gods. What a mockery? It is to make a sac of leather, fill it with blood, and then take the tip of the arrow and dip it into the sky, which means that the gods are killed.
Later, when Emperor Yi died, his greatest hope was to find a son who could oppose the divine power like himself to succeed to the throne and inherit his will. The eldest son, Wei Ziqi, is intelligent and capable, but from an early age, he has been indoctrinated with the greatest ideas of the gods. The second son, Wei Zhongyan, had mediocre seniority (too few historical records), which was not enough to be an emperor, but the younger son, Di Xin, was intelligent, learned five cars, and could write and fight, which was the most suitable.
After Di Xin succeeded to the throne, the two brothers were very unconvinced, because the historical records were not comprehensive, and we do not know the whole process of the "Nine Sons and Nine Sons" of the Shang Dynasty at that time. Judging from the neutral attitude of the eldest brother Wei Ziqi and Wei Ziyan when King Wu was cutting the Silk, his brothers were not satisfied with his younger brother's reign as emperor.
Large-scale rectification to eliminate threats
Indifferent on the surface, his heart was as clear as a mirror, and from the moment he ascended the throne, Di Xin had already sketched out a blueprint. The first step was to move to Chaoge, and the capital was not moved together, because there were still the old forces of the Anyang aristocratic clique left there. Later, he brought up some low-level nobles such as cockroaches and evil lai, and strengthened his own power, and in order to completely eliminate the divine power, he executed the high priest Bigan.
One after another, the great rectification touched many nobles, and just when the aristocratic forces began to stir, Di Xin used foreign wars to attract their attention. The two key points of launching an external war are to divert domestic contradictions and then use the armed forces of the nobility to resist external wars, which can be described as killing two birds with one stone!
Around 1070 BC, Di Xin personally attacked the Ghost Fang with 10,000 Yin Shang soldiers and 5,000 local subordinate soldiers. The Shang Dynasty army was well armed, with advanced weapons such as chariots and crossbows, and under the leadership of Di Xin, it won a five-year victory in the war. The ghost fang escaped to death, and some submitted to the Shang Dynasty as slaves.
After this war, the strength of the King of Sui increased greatly, coupled with the military power in his hands, so that the various aristocratic forces that had previously disobeyed him willingly served him. Taking advantage of this momentum, he pacified the Western Qiang, recovered Shanxi and Shaanxi, and incorporated the southern region of Gansu into the territory of the Shang Dynasty.
After the problems of the northern and northwestern regions have been dealt with, there are still zhouren and dongyi in the east and west. When the King of Shang launched his first attack on Dongyi, in order to avoid the Zhou people from taking this opportunity to defect, he arrested the leader of the Zhou people and was relieved to fight against Dongyi. Although the battle against Dongyi was won, it still failed to completely eliminate the Dongyi forces.
In vain, he was attacked by a sneak attack
In order to avoid the Zhou people's resentment towards the Shang Dynasty, after the war stopped, King Fei's brother Wei Ziqi advised him to let go of the Zhou leader Ji Chang. After Ji Chang fell ill and died, and after the Zhou people had no leader, the King of Qiu did not worry about the Rebellion of the Zhou people and directly attacked Dongyi. This time there was no victory, both sides were seriously damaged, and the strength of the Shang Dynasty was not as good as before.
Seeing that he was about to win but lost, Di Xin was not willing to decide to attack Dongyi for the third time. In the process of his attack, the traitor Jiaojiao, who was hiding in the Shang Dynasty, and his brother Wei Ziqi actually ran to report to the King of ZhouWu, and at this time, the King of Zhouwu could not take care of the Zhou people in the west, so the King of Zhou Wu led his troops to attack the city of Chaoge, which was empty at this time, overnight.
epilogue:
When King Huan did not expect to succeed immediately, he was secretly calculated by King Wu of Zhou, and his heart must have been angry and annoyed. When the King of Lu stood in Lutai looking to the east, he was either looking forward to the victory of the Crusade or whether there were any reinforcements coming. In the end, in the tongue of fire that swallowed the heavens, the King of Lu seemed to turn into a bird and flew into the sky, probably looking for his ancestors.