Western Zhou, as a new era of Chinese historical development, refers to the end of the eleventh century BC when King Wu of Zhou destroyed Keshang and established the Zhou Dynasty. The capital was established in Ho (present-day southwest of Xi'an, Shaanxi) until 771 BC, when King You of Zhou was killed at Mount Li and King Ping of Zhou moved his capital to Luoyang. The Western Zhou Dynasty lasted for more than 280 years. On the basis of the Xia and Shang dynasties, the political culture of the Western Zhou Dynasty made brilliant achievements, becoming a "prosperous world" highly respected by Confucianism, the foundation period of ancient culture on the mainland, and having an extremely profound impact on the history of China for more than two thousand years. Confucius once said: "Zhou Jian yu second generation (Xia Shang), depressed Wen Zhao, I follow Zhou." ”
Experts who study the history of the Western Zhou Dynasty are all troubled by the history of the Western Zhou Dynasty for more than 280 years, first, the era is long, and the lack of records in the literature and classics has led to the confusion of the western Zhou Dynasty and the unknown military and national events. Therefore, the history of the Western Zhou Dynasty is based on the "Poems", "Books", "Rituals", and "Music" classics revised by the Confucians in the Warring States period that reflect the history of the Western Zhou Dynasty. However, due to the limitations of the Confucian school, many important historical materials have been deleted and have not been preserved. The second is to mainly rely on bronzes excavated underground after the founding of the People's Republic of China, which have inscriptions on them, which are important historical materials for the study of the history of the Western Zhou Dynasty.
The study of the history of the Western Zhou Dynasty is still so difficult, and how we spent more than 280 years on the coast of the East China Sea in the Western Zhou Dynasty is probably even more difficult. However, several major events that occurred in the early days of the founding of the Western Zhou Dynasty, such as the Wuwang Keshang, the Rebellion of the Three Prisons, the Dongyi Rebellion, and the Zhou Gong's Eastern Crusade, were all related to the land of the East.
In the Shang Dynasty, the whole territory of Jiangsu was the land of Jingman, the Huai River Valley was a place where Huaiyi lived, later Xuyi, and established the powerful Xu State, her initial capital, Yang Kuan believed that xuzhou in the Warring States era, southeast of present-day Teng County, Shandong, moved into Sihong. Today's northern Jiangsu and its bordering areas of Ju, Tan and Rizhao are the bird yi in Dongyi. The bird tribe is a small country in the coastal area, and the power of the human side is gradually strengthening. In the Wuding period, he conquered the human side several times and rebelled. Dongyi then "moved to Huaidai and gradually settled in Middle-earth"; until the end of the Shang Dynasty, You Houxi led an army of 100,000 people to conquer Dongyi, and after several major conquests, finally conquered many small states in northern Jiangsu, Zhuyi Dynasty Merchants, and the coastal areas belonged to the Territory of Shang. Although the Shang Dynasty conquered Dongyi many times, and even killed the leader of the human side, Wu, it did not really conquer Dongyi.
The Museum of Chinese History preserves a bronze artifact excavated from the Yin Ruins, "Like". The inscription reads "King and Man Fang No Xian Wang Shang Book Like Bei used as the Father's Honored Book." "It recounts a historical fact of such a crusade. The King of Shang killed the leader of Dongyi, Wu, and when he was finished, the King of Shang rewarded him with the book of Books, which was used to sacrifice his deceased father, Father B, to this man to write down the matter. This is a bronze vessel from the last years of the Shang Dynasty.
In 1040 BC, King Keshang of Zhou Wu and Lutai, king of Yin, set themselves on fire, and Shang destroyed the country. According to the custom at that time, the sacrifices of the Shang must be preserved, and the King of Wu made the prince Wu Geng a prince, dividing the shang land into three parts, and ordered his brothers Guan Shu, Cai Shu, and Huo Shu to supervise Wu Geng, which was historically called the Three Prisons. King Wu of Zhou died the following year after the destruction of Shang, and was succeeded by his son King Cheng, who was too young to administer the imperial government, and King Wu and his maternal brother Zhou Gongdan took the throne and acted as the ruler of the country. This political change aroused the suspicion of the upper nobles of the Zhou Dynasty, and the third uncle also took the opportunity to spread rumors that Zhou Gongdan wanted to murder King Cheng. Uncle Guan and Uncle Cai also enlightened Wu Geng to take advantage of civil strife to restore. At the same time, Uncle Guan and Uncle Cai also lured Dongyi, mainly the small states of Xiang in Dongyi, Pugu, and Xu in Huaiyi to rebel against Zhou.
This rebellion can be said to have had a great impact on the Western Zhou regime after the initial annihilation of the Shang, so Zhou Gongdan mobilized a large army to carry out the Second Eastern Expedition, and after three years of brutal conquest, according to the "Mencius Teng Wen Gongxia", "Drive away the lian in the corner of the sea and kill it, and destroy the country fifty", and finally put an end to the rebellion of the Three Prisons and the restoration of Wu Geng. The rebellion of the Dongyi countries was put down.
According to the Preface to the Book, the rebellion with the three prisons at that time was Huaiyi: "King Wu collapsed, and the three prisons rebelled against Huaiyi." "Huaiyi is one of the Eastern Yi and is the main body of the later Xu State. However, according to Mr. Guo Moruo's analysis, the people who participated in the rebellion were mainly Huaiyi, Renfang and Linfang. The relationship with the quotient is very close. The Book of Yi Zhou says that the Xiong Ying clan has seventeen kingdoms, which should be the human side. The Bird Yi in Dongyi is the human side. When in the area of present-day northern Jiangsu and Lunan. Overseeing his relationship with Huaiyi and Yin Shang, it was impossible not to join the anti-Zhou alliance. Wu Geng's rebellion failed, and his closest vassal Fei Lian fled to haiyu, seeking refuge from the human side as an important proof. The zhou gong's eastern expedition to the east of the army "drove lian to the corner of the sea and killed it" indicated that the western Zhou expeditionary army had reached the eastern coast. And this "sea corner", when referring to today's Yellow Sea coast, is the ancient Dongyi "human side" settlement.
History often has its coincidences. In November 1953, wang Ying and You Zhenyao of the Nanjing Museum presided over the excavation of two Western Zhou bronze tombs in Dacun, the owner of which may have been the leading general who "drove away the lian in the corner of the sea and killed it", and was buried on the terrace at the foot of the qingshan on the coast of the East China Sea after death or illness. More than 3,000 years later, it was seen again, witnessing this history that is vague in the history books.
In November 1953, the Jiangsu Provincial Cultural Relics Task Force excavated two Western Zhou tombs at the construction site of the Yuntai Dacun Reservoir. The tomb site has sunk into a vast reservoir, while the bronze artifacts unearthed from it silently tell us about a long-lost history. There are 7 pieces of bronze in this batch: 4 pieces of copper and 3 pieces of copper. Among them, the large bronze ding has a diameter of 48 centimeters, which is the largest bronze ceremonial vessel excavated from Jiangsu Province. It is still displayed in the exhibition hall of the Nanjing Museum. The other three copper dins are 28.5 cm in diameter and 40.2 cm in height. The production of copper ding is simple and pure, from the shape of the instrument and the general copper ding in the last years of the Shang Dynasty, but it is no longer as complicated as the Shang Dynasty copper ding, the plain surface accounts for a large proportion, the ornament is also very loose and simple, and there are common thunder belt patterns and string patterns on the body. The animal face pattern on the legs is also very simple, and its biggest feature is that the body and feet have prominent hooks and halberds to replace the general straight edge decoration. (Figure 3) The three coppers are 53.5, 54.9 and 52.3 cm high, respectively. The neck has two protruding strings, the upper and lower parts of the body are connected into one, the middle is missing barnyard, the feet are hollow, and the abdomen is tied up. It completely shows the characteristics of bronze ware in the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty. This batch of bronze artifacts was found in "Yuzhou" on the coast of the East China Sea, which may be related to the Zhou Gongyi in the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty. The late Zeng Zhao and Yin Huanzhang, presidents of the Nanjing Museum, in their article "Two Problems in the History of Ancient Jiangsu", believed that the bronzes excavated from the Western Zhou Tomb in Dacun and the bronzes excavated from Dantu Yandun Mountain and Yizheng Broken Mountain Pass and Jiangning Taowu Town were all bronzes from the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty, and directly pointed out that the bronzes unearthed in Dacun were "after the Duke of Zhou suppressed the rebellion of the Dongyi people, he may send his subordinates to lead troops to this town." Therefore, it is speculated that these two tombs probably belonged to the rulers sent by the Zhou royal family at that time. The bronzes in the tomb may have been brought by zhongyuan casting. ”
In the "Manuscript of Chinese History" edited by Mr. Guo Moruo, Omura Bronze Ding was selected into the book, as an important representative of bronze ware in the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty, which can show the important historical value of this batch of bronzes.