As a prominent figure on the occasion of the Shang Zhou Dynasty, King Wen of Zhou left countless legends, but also left many mysteries, one of which is how King Wen of Zhou treated the descendants of the Xia Dynasty.
During the reign of King Wen of Zhou, there were two main descendants of the Xia people in Shaanxi, namely the State of Chu and the State of Chong. The Zhou people considered themselves to be allies of the Xia Dynasty, and it is reasonable to say that when the Zhou people rebelled against the Shang, both the Chu state and the Chongguo were their natural allies, but in fact this was not the case.
The State of Chu was a princely state established by the descendants of Dayu, located south of the Qin Mountains and on both sides of the Han River, basically in the area of present-day Hanzhong City, who submitted to the Zhou people very early and participated in the Wu King's logging, and became the "leader of the Southern Kingdom (the princely states south of the Qin Mountains)" during the Western Zhou Dynasty.
Chongguo is a descendant of the Xia Dynasty royal family, located in the area of present-day Xi'an, but the "Records of History" records that the relationship between Chongguo and the State of Zhou was extremely bad, first Chonghou Hu slandered and framed King Wen of Zhou, and then King Wen of Zhou conquered Chongguo a year before his death, unfortunately, the historical records are too brief, only "Chonghou Tiger Said Xi Bo Yu Yin Yue", "Next year, Chonghou Hu", few numbers, let people confused the real relationship between Zhou and Chong.
So, what exactly is the country of Chongguo, what is the relationship with Yin Shang and the Zhou people, why did King Wen of Zhou arrange for the final attack, and the Zhou Chong's war is now being fought?
According to historical records, Chongguo is a country with a very long history, dating back to the era of the Three Emperors and Five Emperors, the Xia Dynasty "Lianshan Yi" said that "Cang feng yu Chong", the pre-Qin history books have "Chongbo Cang (father of Dayu)".
Modern scholars believe that "'Chong' is the descendant 'Song' (Song is a different text of Chong), that is, the area around song mountains near Dengfeng in henan, and the current Song County is obviously one of the places along its old name." ”
Coincidentally, in the area of Dengfeng City, Henan, archaeology has found the ancient city of Wangchenggang, which dates back about 4100 years. Regardless of the location, the situation of the ancient city, the excavated cultural relics, etc., the "Wangchenggang Ancient City" is highly consistent with the "Yudu Yangcheng".
Therefore, Chongguo was the fiefdom of the father of Dayu, who inherited Chongguo, the capital was the ancient city of Wangchenggang, and during the Xia Dynasty Chongguo probably existed as a core princely state, and during the Shang Dynasty Chongguo migrated to the area of Xi'an, Shaanxi.
The location of Chongguo in the Shang Dynasty is very critical, south of the Qinling Mountains, north of the Wei River, in the center of the Wei horizontal plains, guarding the throat of the Rongdi tribe in the Guanlong region into the Central Plains, so Chongguo is the key fulcrum of the Shang Dynasty to manage the western region. Geographically, Chongguo should have won the trust of the Shang king at that time, and Oracle also confirmed this.
During the Shang Dynasty, there were dozens of oracle bones related to Chonghou. According to the oracle bone records, the Chongguo state of Wuding was located west of the capital of wangdu, and Chonghou Hu, together with Wangcheng and Lan Jiao, participated in the conquest of the Fang states of Zhou, Qi, and Qiong, and was one of the three famous generals of the three hundred battles at that time. Judging from Chonghou Hu's deeds, Chongguo was a hardcore ally of Yin Shang at that time.
It should be noted that the "Zhou FangGuo" that Wu Ding conquered was not the later Ji Zhou, but another country, and the fief was most likely in Qishan Zhouyuan. Because Wu Ding kept conquering the Zhou State, and later the Zhou State declined, it was only a few years after the Ancient Gong Qi father (Zhou Wen Wang's grandfather) Qianqi, behind which it may be that the Ancient Gong Qi Father annexed the power of the Zhou Fang State.
But politics is a balanced art, after the decline of the "Zhou Fangguo" in the Wuding period, the western Chongguo had no restraining power, the Shang Dynasty was worried that the Chongguo would grow bigger, so it gave the land west of the Chongguo to the Ji Zhou tribe, and also married the descendant Tairen of Zuji (Wu Ding's son) to the Ji Calendar, and crowned its leader as Xi Bo, so once again formed a situation in which Zhou Chong's mutual conquest and mutual restraint, and the oracle bones have the relevant records of the Wending "Chonghou Fa Zhou".
During the Wending period, in order to curb the development of the Zhou people, Wending killed the Ji Zhou chief Ji Li (Ji Chang's father). In the second year of Ji Chang's succession, he sent troops to attack Yin Shang. However, after this, the Shang Dynasty chose to shake hands with Ji Zhou and make peace, and the history books record that "Emperor Yi (son of Wen Ding) returned to his sister", that is, he married his sister or daughter to Ji Chang, and the two sides achieved a joint marriage.
By the time of King Huan (the son of Emperor Yi), the Power of the Zhou people was getting stronger and stronger, and Chongguo was becoming more and more difficult to resist, so Chonghou Hu (who should be the same name as Chonghou Hu in Wuding's time) rumored to the King of Qiu that "Xi Bo accumulates good deeds and virtues, and all the princes are good and will not be conducive to the emperor", and then the King of Qiu imprisoned King Wen of Zhou and gave Chongguo room for development. Seven years later, the King of Shang released King Wen of Zhou, and the reason for this was by no means as simple as the bribery of beautiful treasures recorded in the "Records of History" led to the release of King Wen of Zhou, which should be related to King Huan's fear of making the country bigger.
Through the above historical data, it is not difficult to see that the more than a hundred years of war between Chongguo and Zhouguo are essentially for the interests of the ethnic groups, for the sake of living space, there is a fundamental conflict of interests between the two countries, which cannot be reconciled, and the basic strategy of Yin Shang in dealing with Zhou and Chongguo is "who is weak to support whom", which confirms the sentence "There is no eternal friend, only eternal interests", in order to keep the two countries balanced and mutually restrained, the object of Yin Shang's support can change at any time according to the situation.
However, the premise of playing the balance of power strategy was that Yin Shang should maintain strong national strength, but in the late Period of the King of Sui, with the escalation of the war with Dongyi, the national strength of Yin Shang was greatly depleted, so Yin Shang slowly lost control of the west.
After the King of Shang released King Wen of Zhou, with the assistance of Jiang Ziya, King Wen of Zhou began a new round of expansion, reaching "two out of three in the world", laying the foundation for the change of Shang and Zhou. But in the process of conquering the western yin shang, how did King Wen of Zhou solve the biggest obstacle to the country?
Zhou Benji: "The people of Yu and Rui are in prison and cannot be decided, but they are like Zhou." Next year, cut the dog. Next year, harvest the whiskers. Next year, the country will be defeated. Next year, cut the yarn. Next year, Fa Chonghou Hu. The next year, Xi Bobeng, the crown prince, was established as the King of Wu. ”
As can be seen from the figure below, King Wen of Zhou first attacked the States of Yu, Rui, Inurong, Misu, Li, and Qiong, cutting off the connection between Chongguo and Yin Shang, and forming a strategic encirclement of Chongguo before finally attacking Chongguo. Obviously, in the eyes of King Wen of Zhou, Chongguo is a hard bone to gnaw, so it was arranged at the end, which also confirmed the national strength and status of Chongguo.
What is puzzling is that the last war between the historical records against King Wen of Zhou only used the six words "Next year, Fa Chonghou Hu", which is so simple that it can no longer be simplified, so what is the truth?
Regarding the Zhou Chong's war, in addition to the "Records of History", "Shang Shu" and other brush strokes, there are three more detailed versions of the literature:
First of all, in the "Left Biography", Sima Ziyu of the Song Kingdom described the war to Song Xianggong, saying that King Wen of Zhou sent troops to attack Chongguo in the name of Chonghou Hu's loss of virtue, but Chongguo's ancestor Cang was the ancestor of the construction of the city, and the capital of Chongguo was built very strongly, which led to the war of King Wen of Zhou was very unsuccessful, and after three months of siege, "he retired from the religion and returned to the fallen, because of the fortress", that is, he piled up soil outside the city as a mountain, and then used this to break the city. Judging from the wars of King Wen of Zhou, Va Chong can be said to be the biggest military adventure of his life.
Secondly, in the Warring States Chu Jian Shangbo Jian (容成氏), it is recorded that after King Wen of Zhou sent his troops, he marched with three drums and retreated with three drums, saying: "I know that there are many people (zhì), one man has no way, what is the crime of the people? Then the people of Fenghao surrendered to King Wen of Zhou, in short, very mysteriously. The Wei and Jin Emperor Pu Mi said that "chongguo is covered between feng and pickaxe", so the so-called people of fenghao are actually chongguo.
Third, the Western Han Dynasty "Saying Garden" records that before the war, King Wen of Zhou declared that Chonghou Hu had five major crimes, and then in order to take care of the emotions of the descendants of the Xia Dynasty, King Wen of Zhou asked the army to enter Chongdu, "no killing, no bad room, no filling of wells, no cutting down trees, and no moving of six animals", followed by only seven words: "Chonghou people hear about it, because please surrender".
Combined with the history of Zhou Chong, the first version of the above three versions records the most authentic war process, and is also the largest military adventure of King Wen of Zhou, and the two or three versions only record the oath before the war, but deliberately omit the cruel war process, deliberately convinced the reader that "the benevolent are invincible", as if as long as the enemy surrenders immediately. Therefore, from a comprehensive three versions, King Wen of Zhou's pre-war oath did not make Chongguo submit, and then entered a brutal siege battle, and finally King Wen of Zhou "retired from the religion and returned to the re-attack, (Chongdu) fell because of the fortress".
In summary, in the historical tide of the shang and zhou dynasties, Chongguo was an unusually powerful princely state, which could once control the war situation, but due to the status of the descendants of the Xia people of Chongguo and the need to promote the "invincibility of benevolence and righteousness" of King Wen of Zhou, the history books under the leadership of Confucianism hid some content, resulting in people ignoring the biggest enemy before king Wu fell.
In fact, if we look at it according to the "Records of History", King Wen of Zhou was like a broken bamboo, and he conquered the western part of Yin Shang without a little resistance, but if you say so, King Huan and King Yin Shang let King Zhou Wen attack the west, and they became incompetent people who lacked basic intelligence, which obviously did not make sense. However, if we understand the process of Zhou Chong's struggle, we can understand that the strategic arrangement of the western region between Yin Shang and The King of Sui is not a big mistake, but the eastern front has excessively consumed the national strength of Yin Shang, and then the chain reaction has led to the collapse of the western strategy.
References: "History", "Bamboo Book Chronicle", etc