About the king of the Ring
Whether it is narrated in traditional ancient books such as "Shangshu" and "Historical Records" or in gods and demons novels such as "Romance of the Gods", King Su is basically described as the image of the number one faint tyrant in history.
During his reign of 30 years, he indulged in wine, lust, and indulgence, using wine as a pool and meat as a forest, making men and women naked, chasing and playing, and drinking all night for pleasure, which is absurd.
He especially doted on Daji, and in order to win the favor of beauties, he paid a generous tax to the money of Lutai, and the Su of Yingju Bridge.
At the same time, he was extremely cruel and murderous, favoring traitors such as Fei Zhong and Evil Lai internally, expropriating and extorting money externally, exploiting the people, and brutally suppressing opponents through harsh punishments and laws.
The most notorious is the method of cannon branding, which uses extremely cruel means to retaliate against ministers and princes who dare to speak out.
At that time, Ji Chang, Jiuhou, and Ehou Gui were the three dukes, and just because of disagreement, Jiuhou was punished (chopped into meat sauce), and Ehou was tortured (made into jerky).
Xibo Ji Chang was accused of sighing secretly, and was imprisoned in the palace by the king of Zhou, and later it was Ji Chang's ministers Hong Yao and others who contributed beauties, treasures, strange things and good horses to the king of Zhou, and the king released him.
And Confucius called the "Shang Dynasty Sanren" Bigan, Jizi and Weizi were also persecuted by suspicion, among which Bigan was disemboweled, Jizi pretended to be crazy to become a slave, and Weizi fled to Xibo.
In 1046 BC, King Ji Fa of Zhou Wu raised an army against the Shang Dynasty in the name of upholding the Mandate of Heaven, and defeated the Shang Dynasty army in one fell swoop in the Battle of Muye.
The soldiers of the king of Zhou defected one after another, and the army of the Western Zhou Dynasty attacked Chaoge, and the desperate king fled to Lutai and died of self-immolation.
Anyway, in the records of the Western Zhou Dynasty and later generations, King Xuan was such a debaucherous and cruel unscrupulous king.
However, history is a little girl who can be dressed up, especially an important political propaganda tool for future generations, and it is difficult to make an objective and fair evaluation in this case.
We can only restore the whole picture from the clues and some evidence that have survived at that time.
Regarding the king of Zhou, Sima Qian has this record in the "Historical Records of Yin Benji":
"The emperor is quick to discern diseases and is very sensitive to smell; The material strength is outstanding, and the hand is fierce; Knowing is enough to refuse admonishment, and words are enough to disguise wrong..."
"Xunzi" describes the king of Xuan as:
"She looks beautiful, the best in the world, her strength is super, and she is the enemy of a hundred people."
From the above materials, it is known that the historical King of Xuan is actually a beautiful man who is physically strong, intelligent, and able to write and martial arts.
At the same time, in the last years of the Yin Shang Dynasty, there was a very grand historical event that operated the southeast and unified Dongyi and the Central Plains, which was also the greatest historical achievement of the king of Zhou.
And all this was almost wiped out by Confucian historians after the Zhou Dynasty, compared with the Western Zhou Dynasty's destruction of the Shang, the southeast is more important and great for the integration and unification of the Chinese nation.
King Zhou's crusade against the southeast, and the indigestible "annexation of the same amount of the country" gave King Wu of Zhou the opportunity to take advantage of the situation
From 1061 BC, the Shang king raised troops to attack Dongyi (the area of the Huaishui Valley in the south, mainly centered on Xuzhou, also known as Xuyi), and after years of warfare, the Shang king finally pacified the place.
Prior to this, the Shang Dynasty's Wangji region was relatively limited, and there were not only vast "ownerless wastelands" between the Shang Dynasty's vassal states, but also many hostile states, which made the Shang Dynasty's territory appear to be dotted.
Therefore, the Shang king was extremely difficult in the process of crusading against Dongyi, for example, in 1061 BC, he fought for half a year, and then returned to the dynasty, and five years later, the king of Shang went out again, and fought for another nine months, and so on and so on, and so on, until a few years before the battle of Makino.
Fortunately, King Su finally pacified Dongyi, successfully connected the southeast and the Central Plains, and at the same time spread the advanced Central Plains culture to the Huai River and Yangtze River basins, promoted the economic and cultural development of the southeast region, and consolidated the unity of the Central Plains and the southeast.
However, the negative impact of this war is also obvious, it greatly consumes a lot of manpower and material resources of the Shang Dynasty, increases the tax burden of the people, and loses a large number of young and middle-aged laborers.
The withering of the young population forced the king to fill the army with a large number of prisoners, and to what extent were the captives at that time?
According to the Book of Shang:
"There are hundreds of millions of people, and there are also detached virtues; There are ten rebellious ministers remaining, with one heart and one mind. ”
In other words, the captives of Dongyi had formed the foundation of the Shang Dynasty's ruling group and became the main source of troops for the army.
You must know that the population size of Dongyi is almost the same as that of the central power of the Shang Dynasty, and the Shang Dynasty could not digest it in a short period of time.
In this decisive battle that would determine the fate of both countries, these captives from Dongyi and other conquered countries already harbored a grudge against the Shang dynasty because of the ruin of their country.
Therefore, on the battlefield, almost all of them defected, and used their own actions to send a final protest to the king of Zhou, and finally the Shang Dynasty was completely destroyed.
It can be said that the Emperor of Zhou contributed to the expansion of the territory and the promotion of unification, but the poor captivity policy made him suffer the consequences.
However, the king of Xuan was able to be civil and martial, and he made outstanding military achievements, but in the end, he ended up with a death and the destruction of the country, not only because the prisoner policy was not done well.
The rebellion of the slave-owning aristocracy led to the fall of the Emperor
As the saying goes, "a fortress is easiest to attack from within", and the strength of the enemy is often based on the division within one's own side.
In addition to being dragged down by Dongyi, the biggest problem facing the king was the loss of the support of the slave-owning ruling group, and the main opposition was Bigan, Weizi and Jizi.
These three are known as the three sages of the late Shang dynasty, and they are the backbone members of the Shang royal family and the representatives of the slave owners and nobles.
The Shang Dynasty's material and financial resources were greatly consumed, which aroused strong opposition from the slave owners and old nobles in the country, but the king seemed to be determined to fight these nobles to the end.
In internal affairs, he opposed theocracy, reformed old customs, boldly recruited new people from the middle and lower classes, and promoted a group of non-worldly officials, such as Fei Lian, Evil Lai, Fei Zhong, etc.
Of course, due to the bad reputation of the king, these people are also notorious in history, and they properly have the image of traitorous villains.
The Emperor's series of actions made the contradictions between him and the upper ruling group more and more acute, especially in Bigan and Mizi, with the result that the former was stripped of his heart and the latter lived by pretending to be crazy.
However, the king still ignores the existence of microns, and microns are definitely the first traitor in history.
On the surface, he kept a low profile, communicated with foreign countries behind his back, provided various insider information to King Wu of Zhou, and finally took advantage of Chaoge's weak defenses to defect to the Zhou tribe.
Two years before the Battle of Muye, King Wu of Zhou had arrived at the 800 princes of Mengjin Huimeng, and the princes all thought that the time had come to crusade against Zhou, and only King Wu of Zhou returned to China on the grounds that the Mandate of Heaven had not arrived.
The so-called Mandate of Heaven has not yet arrived, that is, the internal opposition of the Shang Dynasty has not moved, until two years later, Weizi came to defect, and King Wu of Zhou waited until the strong internal response.
When he learned that the royal retainer Bigan had been killed and Jizi had been imprisoned, he decided that the ruling group of the king had fallen apart, so he led the princes to join forces to attack the merchants.
It was in this situation of internal and external difficulties that King Wu suffered a fatal blow from King Wu, resulting in his death and the destruction of the country.
However, for Weizi, a traitor who sells his lord for glory, King Wu is not at ease, and after the establishment of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the princes were divided, and even Wu Geng, the son of the king of Xu, was made a marquis, but Weizi did not.
It wasn't until Wu Geng, together with Uncle Guan and Uncle Cai, launched a rebellion and was suppressed, that Weizi was sealed in the Song Kingdom.
And the situation of Mizi was not much better, he led his subjects all the way to the north, to the then Liaodong and the Korean Peninsula this barren land to reclaim, from then far away from the center, unexpectedly became the founder of Korea.
Of course, the king was not a British monarch, although he contributed to the promotion of national unity, but he was still a complete tyrant.
He extorted tyranny from the people, used harsh punishments and harsh laws to suppress his ministers, and his subordinates were physically destroyed at the slightest opposition, and the degree of brutality was outrageous.
Therefore, when King Wu was defeated, King Wu was already a traitor and a lonely person, and King Wu did conform to the will of the people.
It's just that the king is not a useless and dumb king, but the propaganda machine of the Zhou Dynasty is too powerful, and it has pressed the king of Zhou on the pillar of shame in history for thousands of years.