China's history has a long history, and because of its long time, many historical records have a lot of suspicions. Hundreds of years later, it is difficult to know the truth about the situation at that time, and this is also very normal. In order to know the truth, we can only speculate about a relatively considerable history through the existing texts.
According to the Book of Rites and the Eighth Son of King Wen, "King Wen ended with ninety-seven, and King Wu ended with ninety-three." According to this calculation, after King Wu laid down the song of the King of Shang, he established the Zhou Dynasty and died three years later.
That is to say, King Wu of Zhou led his troops to cut down the silk at the age of ninety, and after lutai set himself on fire, he also shot arrows at the corpse of the king of the king. To know that the ancient combat bow and arrow is no better than today's sports archery, the ancient bow and arrow to have a lot of strength to pull to move, for a long time, The Chinese martial generals have been able to pull how much "stone" weight of the bow, as a good criterion for martial generals.
1. 90-year-old leading soldiers to fight?
In the history of China, many people's ages are a confused account, and the older the age, the more confused they are. During the Period of the Three Emperors and Five Emperors, it is said that the Three Emperors and Five Emperors lived for thousands of years to hundreds of years, which belonged to the scope of stories and legends, and could not be studied as a canonical history.
From the Zhou Dynasty onwards, the process of "from god to man" began to appear in terms of age, and in many cases, the people who recorded history were also filled with stories and legends due to the shortage of information, and many things were not credible.
According to today's medical conditions, it is also impossible for a ninety-year-old man to lead troops to fight a war, compared with the period of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, many generals in our country could not lead the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea when they were more than 60 years old. When people are old, even if they are not sick and healthy, the energy and physical strength brought about by their old age can no longer be tested by major wars. Therefore, at the age of 90, he can still cut silk, which basically belongs to the beautiful imagination of the Zhou Dynasty in later generations.
Jiang Ziya, who is similar to King Wu of Zhou, was still nameless when he was seventy years old, and when he was 70 years old, he fished by the lake and met King Wen of Zhou through "straight hook fishing", and then he started his brilliant life. It was only when he was almost 90 years old that he defeated the King of Shang and overthrew the rule of the Shang Dynasty together with King Wu of Zhou.
According to the "Book of Dai Li", "King Wen was thirteen born Boyikao, fifteen and gave birth to King Wu", King Wen of Zhou gave birth to Boyikao and King Wu very early, and when King Wen of Zhou died at the age of ninety-seven, King Wu of Zhou was also eighty-two, plus eight years of war, and overthrew the Shang Dynasty at the age of 90.
According to the records, King Wen of Zhou had a total of eighteen sons, of which the eldest son Bo Yikao died in the early days, and there were a total of 17 left, plus King Wu of Zhou, who took the throne at the age of 90 and sealed sixteen brothers.
If King Wu of Zhou, as the second brother, is already 90 years old, then the youngest brother should not be less than 50 years old. Of the eighteen brothers, only the eldest brother died early, and all lived past the age of 50, which seems very difficult to do today.
2. The age of King Wu of Zhou in the Bamboo Book Chronicle
The historical records about the Zhou Dynasty are all recorded and passed down by people in the late Zhou Dynasty, and Sima Qian, who wrote the "History", was already a person of the Han Wu Emperor period, more than a thousand years have passed since the Shang and Zhou dynasties. Coupled with the speed of information circulation in ancient times, Sima Qian needed to travel through thousands of mountains and rivers to inquire about these things, and its untruthfulness is also understandable.
During the Two Jin Dynasties, a book of Bamboo Books was unearthed, which is a book of the State of Wei during the Warring States period that records what happened from ancient times to the Warring States period when the State of Wei was located. The things mentioned above are very different from Sima Qian's "Records of History", which is now considered by many people to be a more objective record of the situation in ancient times.
First of all, the "Bamboo Book Chronicle" is earlier than the time when the "History" was written, and to a certain extent, it is more credible. On the other hand, in the Warring States period, the Zhou Dynasty had lost power, and in the era of the Warring States Struggle for Hegemony, the Bamboo Book Chronicle should not be affected by the thought of the Zhou Dynasty.
Due to the book burning pit of the Qin Dynasty, many books from the Warring States period were destroyed by the Qin fire, so the specific situation of the last week is difficult to find. The Bamboo Book Chronicle is one of the few texts that escaped the Qin fire and is now recorded in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties.
There is a clear record of King Wu of Zhou in the Bamboo Book Chronicle: "King Wu of Zhou was fifty-fourth in the year of his reign. "So did King Wu of Zhou really live to be fifty-four years old?" Does his age match his experience?
III. Speculation and Confirmation of the Age of King Wu of Zhou
In 1976, a bronze vessel was unearthed in Shaanxi, which is a sharp vessel that served food during the Western Zhou Dynasty. It clearly reads the inscription "Wu Wang Cut Shang, Wei Jia Zi Period, Nian Ding." There is Shang, Xin Wei, Wang Zai guan shi, and gives Shi Li Jin. ”
The ancients recorded the year according to the location of Jupiter, and the ancients divided the week into twelve minutes, with a period of sixty years, and recorded the chronology on land by judging the position of Jupiter. Today we astronomers are reversing the time of the Wu King's harvest based on the astronomical records of the Western Zhou Dynasty, which is about the morning of January 20, 1046 BC.
Now knowing the time when King Wu was cut down, the engineering scholar Knows the time of the reign of Wen Ding and Emperor Yi, and then according to king Wen's father Ji Li was killed by Wen Ding (1102), and in the second year of Emperor Yi (1100), Emperor Yi and King Wen of Zhou were reconciled, and the reign of King Wen of Zhou was about 1101 to 1150.
If the Bamboo Chronicle is correct, King Wen of Zhou should have been born in 1112 at the age of 62. King Wen of Zhou died, King Wu of Zhou was 47 years old, two years later at the age of 49 Mengjin watched the army, at the age of 51 he led his troops to overthrow the Shang Dynasty, and died at the age of 54. In this case, it should be a reasonable number of years.
4. Summary
Due to its age, there are many fallacies in history, which is quite normal. But that doesn't stop us from liking history and studying history. We should be like a detective and understand what history really wants to elucidate.
We should sigh because of the breadth and profundity of history, and the vastness of history, and we should understand what the ancients want to leave behind for future generations, remove the fog of history, hold the skinny hands of the ancients, we try to find the essence of people's thoughts of thousands of years ago, this is the meaning of history.
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