Zhou Gonghongtu: Divide the princes to guard the world
Without the Zhou Dynasty, China would never be the China it is today. If the Xia Dynasty consolidated the territory of China, and the Shang Dynasty brought sacrifices and rational divination to China, making China unique, then the Zhou Dynasty injected the soul into China - etiquette, which China has called itself and known as the "State of Etiquette" for thousands of years, all thanks to the Zhou Dynasty.
The front-line commander who injected this soul was Zhou Gong. Zhou Gong, Mingdan, in order to show his fanatical respect for him, we call him "Zhou Gong".
Duke Zhou was the elder brother of Ji Fa the Prince of Wu, and a few years after the destruction of the Shang Dynasty, Ji Fa fell ill and died, and his son Ji Shu (King Cheng) was only twelve years old, so the Duke of Zhou, who had always been known for his virtuousness, did not allow him to assist the government. In fact, this is a zen concession in disguise, when the supreme leader can not carry out his own will, there will be people who follow the tradition and push those who have the ability to govern to the front, and Zhou Gong is such a person.
Ji Fa destroyed the Shang, relying not only on his own strength, but also on the strength of various princes, the Shang Dynasty had a vast territory and strong strength, Ji Fa seized its capital by beheading, although it destroyed its name, but it was not destroyed. In the eastern battlefield, the main force of the Shang Dynasty was still there. Even in areas that have already surrendered, potential insurgency remains. During Ji Fa's reign, he worked hard and always struggled with the old forces of the Shang Dynasty.
After his death, the Duke of Zhou faced a major crisis. When Ji Fa reigned, he could not completely destroy the power of the descendants of the Shang Dynasty, so he temporarily divided the strongest of them into princes, and this strongest guy was Wu Geng of the Yin Kingdom. In order to monitor Wu Geng, Ji Fa deliberately divided his three younger brothers into princes, and the three princes formed a tight defensive line to the west of Wu Geng, which could both monitor Wu Geng and protect the central government in the west. After Ji Fa's death, the Duke of Zhou pushed Ji Shu aside and took power himself. This led to ill-intentioned suspicions among Ji Fa's three brothers, who believed that The Duke of Zhou had usurped power and would kill Ji Shu in the near future. Wu Geng took advantage of the void and the four princes united to rebel. The eastern side of the Zhou Dynasty was suddenly out of control.
The four princes not only declared independence and autonomy in the east, but also claimed to attack the central government, and the momentum was so great that it frightened the Duke of Zhou out of his body. He first ran to Ji Shu and cried, saying that he did not have any selfish intentions, but only temporarily ruled, and then gathered the Ji family royal family and tearfully asked them to make decisions for themselves. In the end, the central government reached a tight unification, unanimously determining that Ji Fa's three brothers were traitors and Wu Geng was a thief. After Zhou Gong stabilized his interior, he had the courage to go on a crusade.
Ji Fa's three younger brothers, strong soldiers and strong horses, coupled with the support of Wu Geng, the Battle of Zhou Gong was difficult. However, Heaven blessed China, and after a difficult three-year war, the Duke of Zhou won a decisive victory. This war made Zhou Gong an achievement, and his prestige was as unshakable as the sun.
Zhou Gong was a great politician who cherished power and prestige, he would not lie on the merit book and enjoy himself, and after three years of victory in the war, Zhou Gong immediately began to draw a blueprint for China.
First of all, Zhou used the Mandate of Heaven to justify his name and convince the remnants of the Shang Dynasty. He said to the Shang remnants, "Don't think that we destroyed you in Zhou, but in fact, Heaven destroyed you by our hand." Just as the Mandate of Heaven wanted to destroy the Xia Dynasty, under the guise of your hands. The Mandate of Heaven was transferred from the Xia Dynasty to you, and now to us. If we don't make an effort, it will still move elsewhere. We are the same as you, only temporary holders of the Mandate of Heaven, why should we hate us? When you took over the Mandate of Heaven from the Xia Dynasty, why did the remnants of the Xia Dynasty hate you? One day, the Destiny will pass from our hands to others, and we will not hate others. For in the final analysis, the Mandate of Heaven is in the hands of those who fear it and treat the people well. ”
When the merchant remnants listened to this passage, they vaguely felt right and wrong, in short, this was an unspeakable feeling. Zhou Gong's words lowered his posture, compared Zhou and Shang, and did not talk about Zhou and Shang themselves, but talked about the Mandate of Heaven, which invisibly made the inferiority and resentment of the Shang remnants disappear.
Then, the Duke of Zhou hoped that the Zhou Dynasty would work together to jointly safeguard the Zhou Dynasty. He placed the remnants of the Shang Dynasty alone, searched everywhere for the remnants of the Xia Dynasty, gathered them up and placed them separately, and then said to the people of his own dynasty: "You see, their country is broken and their families are ruined, if it were not for our benevolence, they would have become ghosts under the sword." If we can't work together to fight for the dynasty, we will become like them in the future, if we are unlucky and meet those who accept the mandate of heaven, we will be exterminated, can we not work well! ”
The people of the Zhou Dynasty were shocked and immediately threw themselves into the great cause of building the dynasty, vowing to contribute all their strength to the Zhou Dynasty, with children and grandchildren.
After Zhou Gong got these two things done, he immediately embarked on the plan to keep the Mandate of Heaven in the Zhou Dynasty forever, which we called "Zhou Gong Hongtu".
In the first step, the rebellion of some stubborn remnants of the Shang Dynasty in the east made Zhou Gong feel uneasy. It is particularly noteworthy that there were many shang remnants in the east of the dynasty, and the capital of the Zhou Dynasty was in Hojing (present-day Xi'an, Shaanxi), far from the east, so the Zhou Duke built the eastern capital Luoyi (present-day Luoyang, Henan) and forcibly moved those shang remnants who violated the yin and yang to Luoyi. This "two-capital model" is very suitable for China, which has a large number of people, so until the Ming Dynasty established in the 14th century, the two-capital model of "Nanjing" and "Beijing" was still adopted.
In the second step, a large number of new princes were sealed in the east, south and north in order to echo the royal family in the west, such as the two princely states of Qi and Lu in the present-day Shandong region in the east, the Yan state in the north, and the Jin state in the southeast of present-day Shanxi.
Don't think that the Duke of Zhou only divided the princes in the east, in fact, all the places in China that could be known at that time, the Duke of Zhou was divided like crazy. Judging from today's geography, the princes of the Zhou Dynasty at that time were divided from western Shaanxi in the west, shandong in the east, the Yangtze River in the south, and Hebei in the north, and the princes of the Zhou Dynasty were scattered, and there were more than one hundred and thirty princely states that could be examined. Such a reckless division of the seal laid a super mine for the chaos of the Later Spring and Autumn Warring States.
The Zhou Dynasty stipulated that the princes personally came to the central government once a year to make a pilgrimage to the King of Zhou, and paid tribute to the various places, and then the King of Zhou gave lessons to the princes, and the content of the course was the meaning of the division and the mission of the princes. The new leaders of the princes must be formally canonized by the King of Zhou, otherwise it is considered illegal, and if any princes do not listen to the King of Zhou, the King of Zhou can recruit other princes to fight against them.
The Zhou Dynasty divided the princes, and thus gave birth to a system that was most suitable for the situation at that time- feudalism, which means "feudal state building". The feudal system lasted for nearly a thousand years from the founding of the Zhou Gong to the unification of the Qin Dynasty. Later county dynasties, such as the Western Han Dynasty, the Jin Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty, all used to adopt "one country, two systems" (the county system and the feudal system coexisted).
The emergence of this system was actually forced, and the Zhou Kingdom made its fortune from Shaanxi, with the help of various princes, and quickly conquered the heart of the Shang Dynasty with the action of decapitation. The material and human resources of the country are not enough to adopt the centralized system. In other words, the situation at that time could only be divided. Therefore, the Zhou Dynasty was nothing more than a grand alliance of various tribes. Although the Duke of Zhou sent a central official to various tribes to supervise political affairs, after the decline of the royal family, this official became an ornament.
China will eventually become a country of etiquette and order
With the birth of the feudal system is the patriarchal system, "Zong" is the meaning of "ancestral temple", the Chinese at that time from the Shang Dynasty, the ancestors were sacrificed, we must pay attention to this, this is the characteristics of the Chinese nation - sacrifice of ancestors, or ancestor worship. This way of worship is an important embodiment of the idea of "the unity of heaven and man" in Chinese: when our ancestor was alive, he was a man; after he died, he became "heaven" (another world), and we invited their tablets home, please return to the human world, this is "man", this is the unity of heaven and man.
However, Zhou Gong believed that due to the difference between nobles and relatives, the ancestors sacrificed could not be the same, and who should sacrifice what kind of ancestors, Zhou Gong formulated a set of strict and unified laws and regulations, orderly, and historically called "patriarchy". Therefore, the patriarchal system is the regulation of the Zhou Dynasty nobles to inherit and sacrifice ancestors.
According to the patriarchal system, Zhou Tianzi sacrificed the founding fathers (King Wen and King Wu), and his throne was inherited by the eldest son, even if the eldest son was a fool, he could not violate it. The brothers other than the eldest son were divided into princes and called "Emperor Dazong". Among the children of "Emperor Dazong", only the eldest son has the right to inherit the position of "Emperor Dazong", and the ancestor they want to sacrifice is the ancestor of their own fiefdom. For example, the ancestor of the State of Lu was Bo Yan (the eldest son of Zhou Gongdan and the first monarch of the State of Lu), so his eldest son and all subsequent successors sacrificed him.
By analogy, everyone follows this pattern. Zhou Gong believed that the world would always be peaceful. Because when sacrificing ancestors, people have only one thought: what people do in the world must not embarrass their ancestors, and once they have this thought, they will do good, at least not evil.
In addition to worshiping ancestors, Chinese began to worship Sheji, "She" is the god of the land, "Ji" is the god of grain, and the Zhou people take agriculture as the lifeline, so they pay special attention to these two gods. Later, a similar religious worship was formed, such as "Jiangshan Sheji" and "Patriarchs".
The feudal system and the patriarchal system are the clever creations of the Chinese people, which politicize the family and make the political family, so that the whole world becomes a big family, and the whole big family becomes the world. Therefore, among all the peoples on the earth at that time, the word "state" was only available to the Chinese nation. The home is the smallest country, the country is the largest home, it is thousands of homes, so the home and the country are intertwined, and later the concept of "qi family ruling the country" and the feelings of home and country in Chinese thought have come out of this.
The greatness of the Zhou Gong is here: the unification of the country and the family into one.
After the top-level design was completed, Zhou Gong began to know the unity of action, that is, "making ceremonies and making music".
"Etiquette" is not only a national and social system, but also a code of conduct for individuals. With "etiquette", people's behavior can be followed, and social order can enter the normal track. It's hard to imagine what a country would be like if it didn't have laws, and it's unthinkable just to be on the bustling streets without traffic lights.
The purpose of Zhou Gong's "ritual system" is to order, so that fathers and sons, brothers, husbands and wives, upper and lower, respected and inferior, and noble and inferior all act according to their standards, and this standard is all kinds of etiquette. Zhou Li is particularly cumbersome, and the various etiquettes of eating alone can exhaust people to death, but they have deep meanings behind them.
For example, wine ceremony, Zhou Gong knows human nature, wine is loved by everyone, can not be prohibited, then engage in some etiquette, every time you offer wine, there are many etiquettes between guests and hosts, you have to worship each other a hundred times, a glass of wine can be drunk. Therefore, if someone drinks one night, he will not get drunk, and naturally he will not drink and make trouble.
As for "music", it is music and dance that accompanies various "rituals". This is the cleverness of Zhou Gong, the "ritual" is too cumbersome and will make people tired, so use music and dance to neutralize, so that in a pleasant atmosphere (music), the "ritual" is executed. In China's later scholar-doctor class, after studying hard in the cold window, they had to engage in some piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, which was the best combination of serious affairs (etiquette) and leisure (music), and it was also a two-in-one of political life and artistic life.
Therefore, the officials of ancient China were all artists, not that they deliberately wanted to learn art, but that they pursued a pastime after reading, and as a result, they became artists.
The greatest function of Li le is to maintain order, Chinese has always paid attention to order, respect and inferiority, never inviolable, and the other function is to cultivate people's temperament, remove the rough and indulgent behavior in life, sublimate people's spirit, and thus affect behavior. Chinese the highest evaluation of a person is "polite and polite". This kind of person can only be forged by liturgy.
The Zhou Dynasty created the Chinese characteristics of "Li Le ruling the world", and education is the only means to achieve this feature, the Zhou Dynasty began to set up schools, "Guoxue" is a university, teaching people self-management, subjects are Li, Music, Shooting, Imperial, Book, Number; "Xiangxue" is a primary school, teaching people to sweep and respond, respect the elderly and love children. But the students were the children of nobles, and commoners and slaves had no right to study. Hundreds of years later, this situation was changed by Confucius, the first sage of China.
China is known as the "state of etiquette", which is the credit of the Duke of Zhou. Therefore, some people say that the merits of the Duke of Zhou are far above that of Yao, Shun, King Wen of Zhou, and King Wu of Zhou.
Therefore, the Xia, Shang, and Western Zhou dynasties have made great contributions to China, especially the Western Zhou, which can be said to be the newcomers since the Yellow Emperor established the concept of "Zhonghua", Yao established the virtue of "humility", Shun established family ethics, and Dayu saved China. His greatest contribution is to unite the country and the family, establish a system of liturgy, and make China a country of etiquette and order.
For these great figures, someone once asked Wang Yangming: "Yao and Shun are great sages, why don't you make ceremonies and music, and wait until the Duke of Zhou comes to make ritual music?" ”
Wang Yangming replied: "Anyone who does things needs to adapt to the general trend at that time, if it is not in line with the general trend at that time, even if they know that something is very good, they will not do it." In the Yao Shun era, what people urgently needed was not Li Le, but to fill their stomachs, so they did not need Li Le. In the Zhou Gong era, people were already able to fill their stomachs and establish a good order, so zhou gong made ceremonies and music. ”
Dare to take responsibility when you should do this, that is, the unity of knowledge and action.
——Excerpt from ——
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Knowledge and Action Unity 15000 Years: Du Yin Shan Speaks Chinese History ¥34.9 Purchase
Author: DuYin Mountain
Title: "The Unity of Knowledge and Action in 15,000 Years: Du Yin Shan Lectures on Chinese History"
Publisher: Jiangsu Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing House
Classic General History of China (16 volumes) ¥188 purchase
5000 years of Chinese history,
In the final analysis, it is actually a practical history of the unity of knowledge and action.
Reading history should not only be wise, but also clear-sighted.