The rise and fall of Yin Shang - Pan Geng moved to Yin

Pan Geng moved to Yin. "Shang Shu Pan Geng Shang" says: "Pan Geng moved to Yin." The ancient "Chronicle of the Bamboo Book" says: "From Pan Geng's migration to Yin, to the extinction of the Silk, seven (two) hundred and seventy-three years, let alone the capital."

Regarding the land view of Yin Ruins, the "History of Xiang Yu Benji" Yun: "Xiang Yu nai and (Zhang Handan) period Huan Shui Nan Yin Void." More than 80 years of archaeological excavations since the excavation of Yin Ruins in 1928 have also proved that the location of The capital of Pangeng is in the area of Xiaotun, five miles northwest of Today's Anyang City, Henan Province.

Covering an area of about 30 square kilometers, the Yin Ruins have not only found the royal palace area and the Shang King Mausoleum area, but also various handicraft workshops, a number of noble cemeteries, and a large number of oracle bones.

The Royal Palace Area and the Jongmyo Area are located in the center of the ruins, around present-day Xiaotun Village. A total of more than 50 building sites have been cleared out, and they are divided into three groups from northeast to southwest: A, B and C. The northeast of the palace area has the Huan River as a natural barrier, and the west and south are the trenches that communicate with the Huan River, which constitute the protection of the palace area, and its range is about 700,000 square meters. A number of sacrificial pits have also been found here, and the remains of these sacrifices indicate that some of the buildings here are zongmiao.

The Shangwang Mausoleum Area is distributed in the northwest of Houjiazhuang, or the north of Wuguan Village, located 2.5 kilometers northwest of the palace area, and the area of the mausoleum area is about 450 meters long from east to west and about 250 meters wide from north to south. There are thirteen large tombs with burial passages, which are distributed in two districts, east and west. These large tombs are mostly "sub" glyphs and "medium" glyphs, with a grand burial chamber and a long tomb passage, often there are a large number of people martyred, human animals, such as M1001 tomb, the tomb found in the people martyrdom, human sacrifice up to 225 people, although most of them are seriously stolen, in the surviving tomb M1004, there are still excavated bronze ceremonial vessels placed in four layers, a large number of weapons and some jade and stone tools, such as the famous niu ding and deer ding. Those eight large tombs with four burial passages are certainly the tombs of the Shang kings.

The Shang Shu's account of "Pan Geng QianYin"

Outside the Wangling area, there are many pieces of cemeteries in Yin Ruins, among which there are both "medium" or "A" shaped tombs with cemeteries, as well as rectangular small and medium-sized tombs, and the right front of large tombs often has carriage and horse pits. This reflects the fact that the dead in the cemetery were both nobles and ordinary commoners.

Yin Xu also found a number of handicraft workshop areas, among which, the copper casting workshop has nursery north land, Xiaomin Tun West land, Xiaotun northeast land, etc., bone making workshops have Dasikong Village South Land, North Xinzhuang and Xiaotun neighborhood, etc., pottery workshops have nursery north land, Xiaotun neighborhood and so on.

Curiously, until the end of the 20th century, although the Yin Ruins had been excavated for 70 years, there was never any sign of the city site. So much so that some scholars have proposed that Yin Ruins is not the location of the capital of the Yin Dynasty.

This situation was not until 1999, when the ruins of a capital city with an area of 4.7 million square meters were discovered in the northeast of Yin Ruins and named it "Huanbei Shangcheng", that the mystery of Yin Ruins being the capital city of Pangeng was finally solved. Located about two meters deep underground in the northeast of the Anyang Yin Ruins site, this shopping mall overlaps slightly with the old "Yin Ruins" in distribution, but the whole is on the north bank of the Huan River, so it is called Huanbei Shangcheng. The mall is slightly square in plan, with a length of 2,200 meters from north to south, and a width of 2,150 meters from east to west, with a total area of about 4.7 million square meters. The direction is thirteen degrees east-north. In the southern section of the north-south axis of the city site, it has been confirmed that there are palaces and temples. Among them, the base site of the No. 1 Palace Zongmiao temple in Huanbei Shangcheng, sitting north and facing south, 173 meters from east to west, 90 meters deep from north to south, with a total area of 16,000 square meters, is the largest and most complete preserved Shang Dynasty palace zongmiao base site found in China so far. The base site plane has a "hui" glyph structure, similar to today's quadrangle. In the middle is an open courtyard, surrounded by houses, divided into several parts: the north main hall, the northwest side hall, the west hall, the south hall and the gate courtyard. Huanbei Shangcheng found the remains of large city walls and palace areas, which are undoubtedly the capital of the Shang Dynasty. According to research, its age coincides with the age of Pan Geng's migration to Yin and the age of Xiao Xin and Xiao B, so it is very likely that it was the capital of Yin that Pan Geng moved to Yin. Some scholars believe that YinDu has undergone a change from "Pan Geng Zhi Yin" (Huanbei Shangcheng) to "Wuding Zhi Yin" (Xiaotun Yin Ruins).

As for the reasons for Pan Geng's migration to Yin, Han Dynasty scholars believe that it is "to go to luxury and simplicity", modern scholars believe that it is to avoid river troubles, and modern scholars explain it from the aspects of intensifying contradictions between nobles and commoners, dealing with threats from northern ethnic groups, and changes in the natural environment. It is worth noting that some scholars believe that it is to resolve disputes within the royal family due to the struggle for the throne. Pan Geng mainly wanted to weaken the political status and ruling power of the slave-owning nobles who had the power to compete for the throne through migration. In fact, since Pan Geng moved to Yin, it ensured that the throne was hereditary by the father and son of a family, so that the Shang King was able to strengthen his internal affairs and martial arts rule, so the Shang Kingdom after Pan Geng had sufficient development and ushered in the prosperity of the Wuding period, known in history as the "Wuding Prosperous Era".