There is still a mystery in the Shang Dynasty! The bamboo slips disgusted by tomb robbers turned Chinese history on their head?
In the Western Jin Dynasty in 279 AD, the famous tomb robber "Pǐ Biāo" attacked the tomb of King Xiang of Wei during the Warring States Period at night and looted all the gold, silver and jewelry in the tomb.
A total of ten cars of bamboo slips are all pre-Qin characters, Sima Yanzhi hurriedly organized the Western Jin Dynasty historians to translate and decipher, and the content detonated subversive history once it came out.
One of the most important volumes is the 13 historical books recorded by the Lu people, called "The Bamboo Book Chronicle".
One. What is the Bamboo Book Chronicle?
The Bamboo Book Chronicle (also known as the Chronicle of the Tomb and the Chronicle of Ancient Texts) is a chronicle history book, which was discovered by tomb robbers in the first year of Taikang in the Western Jin Dynasty, and has high historical value for the study of pre-Qin history.
According to expert research, this book was completed in the Warring States Period (475-221 BC), more than 300 years earlier than the well-known "Historical Records", mainly recording the history from the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties to the Warring States Period, and the content was compiled by the Jin and Wei people.
In the incident of Qin Shi Huang's "book burning and pit Confucianism", because the "Bamboo Book Chronicle" was still buried in the tomb of King Wei Ansheng (one should be "King Xiang of Wei"), it was able to avoid the destruction of the chaos at the end of Qin.
For this reason, the Bamboo Book Chronicle is the only complete preserved chronicle of ancient China that has not been recorded by the Qin Dynasty.
2. The Bamboo Book Chronicle subverts the original history
Compared with other historical books, which often imperceptibly infiltrate Confucian morality and etiquette in the process of compilation, the historical truth recorded in the "Bamboo Book Chronicle" is too different from it, and it can almost be said that it breaks through the ancient Confucian historical system.
1. Yao Shun's accession to the throne is not a Zen concession
According to the records of the "Historical Records", the throne of the three generations of Yao Shunyu was completed by mutual Chan, and this history has been widely circulated as an ancient story.
And the record in the "Bamboo Book Chronicle" is obviously different, and it is out of a palace change.
The quote is as follows:
The translated meaning of this passage is: Yao was old, and his dominance over power declined, so Shun immediately staged a coup d'état, seized the throne and imprisoned Yao, and imprisoned Yao's son "Danzhu", strictly forbidding the two to see each other.
Looking at this passage alone, the record of this "palace change" seems to be a little implausible, but in the other two ancient books, similar statements are also revealed in a few words.
"Han Feizi Says Doubts" describes it like this:
"Shun forced Yao, Yu forced Shun, Tang Fangji, King Wu cut down, these four kings, people and ministers killed their monarchs."
That is to say, in Han Feizi's view, Shun, Yu, Shang, and Zhou, the four founding monarchs all successfully rebelled as courtiers and established a new dynasty.
The description of the Danzhu Mausoleum in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas and the Classic of Hainan Neijing" is as follows:
Calling Danzhu "emperor" means that Yao has passed the throne to his son, so Shun's means of succession will naturally not be the Zen of a sage.
According to historical records, Shun is the eighth grandson of the Yellow Emperor, while Yao is the fourth grandson of the Yellow Emperor, and what is even more strange is that Yu also said that he was the fourth grandson of the Yellow Emperor when he ascended the throne.
If Shun is really the initiator of the coup, you might as well boldly guess that Shun is not a descendant of the Yellow Emperor at all.
It was only after the successful coup d'état that he found a distant identity to rationalize his throne in order to confuse the public, and Yu was able to continue the Yellow Emperor's lineage after regaining the throne from Shun through a coup d'état.
2. Hou Yi seized the throne of Dai Xia
Since childhood, my understanding of Hou Yi came from the myth and legend of shooting the sun, and I always felt that this was just a fictional character.
But there really is a person about "Hou Yi" in the "Bamboo Book Chronicle", which records the history of his seizure of the throne of Daixia.
After Yu passed the throne to his son Qi, China's first dynasty, the Xia Dynasty, was established.
After Qi's son Taikang succeeded to the throne, he indulged in wine all day long and was drowned in the government, and the leader of the poor clan of the Dongyi tribe "Houyi" raised troops to attack the city and seize the throne, which was known as "Taikang lost the country" in history.
But Hou Yi did not establish himself as king, but instead cultivated a puppet "Zhongkang".
After old age and decline, Hou Yi was killed by the tribesmen.
This incident is not recorded in the "Historical Records".
3. The virtuous minister Yi Yin established himself as the king
Yi Yin, known in history as the "First Emperor of China", was the teacher of Tang, the founding monarch of the Shang Dynasty.
According to the records of the "Historical Records", after Tang established the Shang Dynasty, Bai Yiyin was the prime minister. After Shang Tang died, Yi Yin successively assisted the three generations of Shang kings, namely Wai Bing, Zhong Ren, and Tai Jia, who were extremely virtuous.
But after Taijia succeeded to the throne, he did not abide by the ancestral teachings at first, and belittled Yi Yin willfully, in order to educate him, Yi Yin locked him up in the "Tong Palace" and thought about it.
It wasn't until seven years later that Taijia reformed and Yi Yin personally welcomed him back and continued to assist.
It is precisely because of this that Yi Yin was praised by later generations as the first "virtuous minister" in the ages.
However, this period of history recorded in the "Bamboo Book Chronicle" is very different from the content of the "Historical Records":
The simple translation is: the courtier Yiyin exiled Taijia to Tonggong and established himself as the king, until Taijia secretly absconded seven years later, and only then did he get the bloody enemy and regain the throne.
4. The republican government is actually a kingdom established by princes and kings
During the reign of King Zhou Li of the Zhou Dynasty, social contradictions were further intensified, and the rulers implemented tyranny, causing popular riots to be driven away.
It's just that although King Zhou Li fled, the country could not be left without an owner for a day, and the crown prince was still young at that time, and the government of the Zhou Dynasty was jointly controlled by Zhou Gong and Zhao Gong.
It was not until 14 years later that the crown prince of King Zhou Li (that is, King Xuan of Zhou in history) grew up and succeeded to the throne, and the period of "republican governance" in which Duke Zhou and Duke Zhao jointly assisted the government was over.
In the records of the "Historical Records", Sima Qian praised the Duke of Zhou and the Duke of Zhao, but the description in the "Bamboo Book Chronicle" is different.
The Zhou Dynasty had a vassal state called "Gongguo", (now Huixian County, Henan Province, China), its princes were of the rank of "earl", and the name of the monarch was "He", and the so-called "republican governance" meant that he took advantage of the chaos of the Zhou Dynasty to seize power and govern himself.
5. The truth of the juxtaposition of the two kings
In the Western Zhou Dynasty, that is, during the reign of King Zhou You, he was too favored and praised, abolished the prince Yijiu throne, established Bofu as the crown prince, and abolished the precedent of the heir.
The grandfather of the former prince Yijiu (also known as the monarch of Shen Guo), in order to protect the interests of his grandson after getting the news, privately united with the dog Rong to attack Haojing, but he did not expect that the dog Rong was difficult to control, and directly rushed into Haojing to kill King Zhou You, and plundered in the city.
In order to save the situation, Shenhou immediately reported to the various vassal states, and sent troops to rescue Zhou through the four kingdoms of Wei, Qin, Jin, and Zheng.
However, after driving out the dog Rong, there were different opinions in various countries on the question of who to appoint as the new king of the Zhou Dynasty.
A large number of nobles of the Zhou Dynasty, led by the State of Yu, supported the establishment of Ji Yuchen, the younger brother of King You of Zhou, as the new king.
They believe that since Yijiu has been deposed and King Zhou You is dead, theoretically the original prince is not qualified to succeed to the throne again.
The people led by Shen firmly supported Yi Jiu's succession, and the people of Zheng, Qin, and Jin also held the same view.
The two forces checked and balanced each other, so in the history of the Western Zhou Dynasty, there was a situation of "two kings standing side by side", that is, Zhou Ping Wang Ji Yijiu and Zhou with Wang Ji Yuchen were each kings.
The situation of "two kings standing side by side" lasted for 21 years, and it was not until the Jin State killed Zhou and Wang Ji Yuchen out of their own interests that the farce ended.
In 771 B.C., King Ping of Zhou moved his capital to Luoyang, which was the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, and Chinese history began to enter the turbulent Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.
It is worth mentioning that the king of Zhou at that time had been solved by the Jin Kingdom.
And the reason why the only monarch, King Zhou Ping, moved eastward had nothing to do with the fact that the dog Rong captured and killed King Zhou You, burned Hojing to ruins with a fire, and destroyed the palace of the city.
The root cause is that his throne is not recognized.
Based on this historical event, we can have a deeper understanding of the records in the "Zuo Chuan" and the "Spring and Autumn Period".
"Zuo Chuan" was written in the first year of Lu Yin, which is what most people believe to be the time when King Zhou Ping moved eastward, that is, the time when the Spring and Autumn Period began.
But when King Zhou You was killed, it was during the reign of Lu Xiaogong, and then it experienced the 46 years of Lu Huigong's reign.
But what is unreasonable is that the state of Lu, as a ceremonial power, is very secretive about the history of the past 46 years and has not left any records.
Combined with the content of the "Bamboo Book Chronicle", we guess that Lu Xiaogong and Lu Huigong supported the accession of King Zhou to the throne out of clan etiquette, rather than a deposed prince.
However, they did not expect that King Zhou would be killed by the Jin State, and openly supported King Zhou Ping, and the deposed prince became the legitimate heir to the throne of the Great Zhou Dynasty.
So the state of Lu deleted the history of supporting King Zhou after the end of the "two kings standing side by side", and directly began the year from the first year of Lu Yin.
3. Understand history with the double evidence method and take a correct view of the "Bamboo Book Chronicle"
The Bamboo Book Chronicle was written in the Warring States Period, and it is the only history book of other countries that has not been preserved by the "Qin Fire", and in the eyes of many people, its authority is far greater than that of the Historical Records.
In particular, the "Bamboo Book Chronicle" is the "official history book" of the Eight Classics.
However, in the process of writing historical records, Sima Qian constantly referred to books collected from the people, such as "Spring and Autumn", "Zuo Chuan", and "Chinese", which were inevitably mixed with personal opinions.
However, the authority of the "Bamboo Book Chronicle" has its premise: that is, after the bamboo slips were discovered, the historians who did translation research in the Western Jin Dynasty restored the original meaning of the thirteen articles of the "Chronicle".
In other words, the "Bamboo Book Chronicle" may also have been altered.
After all, the text used in the "Bamboo Book Chronicle" is the text before Qin Shi Huang unified the small seal, and no one can guarantee whether the Western Jin Dynasty scholars can accurately translate it.
It is worth being cautious that the central idea of the "five subversive histories" mentioned above is inseparable from the "seizure of power", and Sima Yan was able to establish the Western Jin Dynasty by seizing the power of Cao Wei.
Then it is not impossible for Sima Yan, in order to whitewash the legitimacy of his own regime, to imply or explicitly indicate that scholars have tampered with the content of ancient books and deliberately amplify the story of the ancient seizure of power.
In addition, after the publication of the "Bamboo Book Chronicle", it was resisted and banned by the rulers of many dynasties, and it even disappeared mysteriously in the Tang and Song dynasties.
Although it reappeared in the folk during the Ming Dynasty, it was verified to be a forgery, that is, the "Bamboo Book Chronicle".
During the Qing Dynasty, the historian Zhu You proposed that since the "Bamboo Book Chronicle" had been discovered in the Western Jin Dynasty, later generations would inevitably cite it when compiling historical books.
Therefore, starting with him, through the relay cooperation of many historians such as Wang Guowei and Fan Xiangyong, they found out the content related to the "Bamboo Book Chronicle" in the vast historical materials and compiled it into a volume, that is, the "Ancient Book Bamboo Book Chronicle".
In other words, even the "Bamboo Book Chronicle" we see today is still just a few words.
The truth of history cannot be found only by one or two history books, after all, the written record is written by the victors, and the cultural relics are more honest than those of the victors.
Only when the history books cooperate with a large number of unearthed cultural relics to corroborate each other, can the history of "double evidence supporting each other" be more comprehensive and objective.