King Mu of Zhou was the fifth king of Western Zhou after King Wen of Zhou destroyed the Shang Dynasty, with the surname Ji Man and the world name "Mu Tianzi", and was one of the most legendary emperors in ancient Chinese history.
The myths and legends of Mu Tianzi are often found in the Classic of Mountains and Seas and the Novels of the Six Dynasties.
"Liezi • King Zhou Mu" records: King Zhou Mu was not sympathetic to the people's feelings, did not get close to his subordinates, indulged in long-distance travel, ordered people to build the Eight Juns Divine Car, traveled overseas, and once went to Xitian Yaochi as a guest, and received the hospitality of the Queen Mother of the West. At that time, the Queen Mother of the West feasted and drank with King Mu of Zhou on the top of the Yao Pond, and personally played the Yaoqin, and king Mu of Zhou led a high song and a song of mourning.
Volume 74 of the Taiping Imperial Records quotes the Baopuzi as saying: "King Mu of Zhou marched south, and his army was exhausted. A gentleman is an ape for a crane, and a little man is a worm for sand. ”
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If these records only appear in the Classic of Mountains and Seas and the Six Dynasties Novels, it is strange that many pre-Qin history books actually mention this matter.
Then, it cannot be viewed in terms of myths and legends alone.
"Chinese • Zhou Yushang" records: Inuyasha often paid tribute to the Zhou royal family in the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty. During the reign of King Mu of Zhou, inuyasha did not pay tribute in time, and there was a state of neglecting the Zhou royal family. King Mu of Zhou then led his troops to carry out a conquest, "won his five kings, and then moved Rong to Taiyuan", and moved some of the Rong people to Taiyuan (in the area of present-day Zhenyuan, Gansu).
Soon, King Mu of Zhou attacked Xu Rong from the east, meeting the princes at Tushan (tushan, southeast of present-day Huaiyuan, Anhui), consolidating Zhou's rule in the southeast. And formulated five penalties for ink, sword, stomach, palace, and dapu, and its detailed rules amounted to as many as 3,000.
The "Twelve Years of Zuo Chuan Zhaogong" also records that King Mu of Zhou "wanted to run his heart and travel the world", determined to make the roads of the world printed with his own ruts and horse tracks. That is, King Mu of Zhou was not only a politician and a military man, but also an ambitious traveler.
The "History of Qin Benji" mentions that the father of the emperor was good, and he obtained the Eight Jun, and King Mu made a driving tour of the west.
The "History of the Zhao Family" further says: "See the Queen Mother of the West, happy, forget to return." ”
It can be seen that King Mu of Zhou's journey to the west is not a wood without roots.
However, the Classic of Mountains and Seas, the Novels of the Six Dynasties and many pre-Qin history books only mention this matter in a few words, and do not record it in detail, which makes people feel like clouds and fog, and they have no point.
The detailed and complete record of King Mu of Zhou's journey to the west is the Biography of Mu Tianzi.
In the early years of the Western Jin Dynasty (280), the people of Ji County (present-day Ji County, Henan) stole the ancient tomb of King Xiang of Wei (said to be the tomb of King Wei Anli) during the Warring States period, and found a batch of bamboo janes sealed for 500 to 600 years, with dozens of cars and more than 100,000 words. After systematic collation by people of insight, it was written into 75 articles, the most famous of which are the "Bamboo Book Chronicle" and "Mu Tianzi Biography" ("Mu Tianzi Biography" is the only one that can be completely preserved to this day).
The Biography of Mu Tianzi records that King Mu of Zhou was born to Empress Fang, and his father was King Zhao of Zhou. King Zhao died on the way to the south, and King Mu was fifty years old when he succeeded to the throne, reigned for fifty-four years, and lived for one hundred and four years.
When King Mu was young, he longed to cultivate Daoist techniques such as immortals, and wanted to learn the famous mountains and rivers that the Yellow Emperor rode on horseback.
King Mu of Zhou twice led an army to the west, defeated the tribes of Xirong, and cut the road to the western region.
After careful preparation, King Mu of Zhou began a mighty journey to the west in 964 BC. With the Good Emperor's Father as the coachman, he rode 8 thousand-mile horses, led 7 teams of selected warriors, carried a large number of treasures for rewards along the way, and marched east along the Water and crossed the Yellow River through Mengjin.
On the banks of the Yellow River, King Mu captured a white fox and a black raccoon to sacrifice to the river god. When his car reached the edge of the weak water where even the feathers could not float, the fish, turtles, and crocodiles in the river automatically floated up and paved the way for him to build a bridge to allow the vehicle to pass.
After crossing the Yellow River, advancing north along the western foothills of the Taihang Mountains, reaching the foot of the Yin Mountains, turning west to reach the Kunlun Mountains, and then walking thousands of miles to the west, arriving at a beautiful country, that is, the legendary Queen Mother Country of Kunlun Mountain.
The Queen Mother of the West combed her fluffy hairstyle and wore a drooping leopardtail costume to feast at Yaochi.
King Mu presented a large number of Central Plains specialties and brocade silk.
The Queen Mother of the West gave back all kinds of rare treasures to the West Heavens.
The two men drank and chanted poems and celebrated friendship together.
After the banquet, the Queen Mother of the West invited King Mu to visit the scenic spots in Zhongshan River, her country.
On the large stone on the top of the mountain, King Mu carved five big characters of "The Kingdom of the Queen Mother of the West" as a memorial.
After more than three months of waiting, it was time to return.
The Queen Mother of the West set up a banquet to send off, and also sang affectionately at the banquet: "The white clouds are leisurely, the road is long, and countless mountains and rivers will block us from each other. But you will live forever, and we will meet again in the future. ”
King Mu sang with sorrow and infinite sorrow, "When I return to the homeland of Shenzhou, I will make all the countries of China live in harmony and all the peoples live an equal and prosperous life, and at that time, I will come to see you again." ”
Then, King Mu continued westward into the Great Wilderness, hunted many rare birds and beasts, and turned around and returned to the east, returning to Luoyang.
The western tour lasted 543 days and traveled more than 35,000 miles, and the countries along the way were warmly received by the local people.
When King Mu ascended the Kunlun Mountain, he drank the sweet spring in the cracks of the stone of the Bee Mountain, ate the fruit of the jade tree, climbed the Jade Mountain where the Queen Mother of the West lived, and obtained the Taoist technique of soaring clouds and prolonging his life.
Because the deeds recorded in the "Biography of Mu Tianzi" have such a romantic and majestic color, posterity mostly attributes it to mythological novels such as the "Classic of Mountains and Seas".
The Qing Siku Guanchen considered the Biography of Mu Tianzi to be "not contained in the classics" and included it in the category of novelists.
However, when discussing the nature of the Biography of Mu Tianzi, the Compendium of the General Bibliography of the Four Libraries said: "Although the books are full of exaggerations and exaggerations, the so-called Queen Mother of the West is only the monarch of a Western country; the so-called hanging gardeners are only for the food and drink of birds and beasts, for the garden of the great wilderness, and there is no such thing as the strange things of the gods and immortals." The so-called Hezong clan is only the name of the country, and there is no such thing as the change of the fish and dragon. It is particularly close to the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" and "Huainanzi". "I think that "The Biography of Mu Tianzi" is not comparable to the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" and "Huainanzi" and other mythical novels.
In recent years, more and more rigorous historians have considered the Biography of Mu Tianzi to be a work of historiography, written by a historian of the Zhou royal family.
There are five reasons for this:
I. The Biography of Mu Tianzi records that King Mu of Zhou set out from Zongzhou Xiangshui, passed through the line of present-day Taihang Mountain in Shanxi, crossed the Jingxing Mountain in present-day Hebei, crossed the Tuotuo River, exited Yanmen Pass, entered the Yinshan Hetao area of present-day Inner Mongolia, and then crossed the river west, passing through present-day Ningxia, Gansu, and Qinghai, into present-day Xinjiang, and arrived at the Junggar Basin, that is, the "Northwest Great Wilderness", staying for three months. Then return to the east, take the southeast, pass through the Hexi Corridor, pass through the present-day Gansu and Ning Deserts, return to the Yin Mountains, and follow the road back to Zongzhou. Most of the mountains and rivers, Zexue, Dayuan, tribes, and states (especially the land of the Western Regions) that he has visited are not found in other documents, and only those who have experienced it will have such detailed records, and moreover, King Mu of Zhou has a specific time, place, start and end, and stay recorded throughout the western expedition and the eastern tour, which can only be recorded so clearly and clearly by the accompanying historians.
Second, among the many pre-Qin literature, the information about the ancient ethnic groups in China is the most abundant in the Classic of Mountains and Seas. But most of them are myths and legends, and the strange absurdity is not enough to believe. However, the biography of Mu Tianzi appears to be true and credible, objectively and in detail describing the settlements, customs, distribution and migration of various ethnic groups in the northwest during the Western Zhou Dynasty, and most of them can be confirmed from the historical books after the Qin and Han Dynasties.
Third, the customs and customs of the countries along the Western Expedition and the Eastern Tour of King Mu of Zhou are very different from those of the Central Plains, but they have been examined in history, and the specific dates recorded in detail and completely are unique in the pre-Qin literature, close to the notes on the living of the emperor. Moreover, the ritual system and calendar contained in it all use Zhou Zheng, with the month of Jianzi as the first year, indicating that the Biography of Mu Tianzi was written in the Western Zhou Dynasty, rather than the Spring and Autumn Warring States period when Xia Zheng had been used.
Fourth, the text of the whole book is simple and cold, the penmanship is monotonous and clumsy, and the writing of people's notes is flat and straight, not similar to the texts of the sons of "Spring and Autumn", "Zuo Chuan", "Chinese", and "National Policy", but it is similar to the style and words of the three chapters of "Junya", "Yuanming" and "Lü Punishment" directly related to King Mu of Zhou in the "Book of Shang • Zhou", and there are many similarities in the style and words of the three chapters of "Junya", "Yuanming" and "Lü Punishment" in the "Book of Zhou", and many places in the book retain ancient special grammar phenomena, then this book was written in the Western Zhou.
V. Around the activities of King Mu of Zhou, the book describes a series of ceremonial systems closely related to it, including the ceremony of feasting, the ceremony of sacrifice, the gift of giving, etc., which have become the real materials for posterity to study the ritual system of the Zhou Dynasty.
People have questioned the actual record of the Biography of Mu Tianzi, mainly from the following two aspects:
1. According to the "Biography of Mu Tianzi", King Mu of Zhou traveled a total of 12,100 miles from Hojing to the state of the Queen Mother of the West. In this way, it is difficult to imagine that the kingdom of the Queen Mother of the West should be in West Asia or Europe. But at a 1992 academic symposium between China and Japan on the Biography of Mu Tianzi, scholars pointed out that the Chinese Qin Dynasty's pre-Qin li refers to short li, which is only 77 meters long today. Therefore, the kingdom of the Queen Mother of the West should be in the area of present-day Xinjiang in Gansu, with Xining and Lanzhou as the forecourts, Xinjiang as the backyard, and the center in the area of Dunhuang and Jiuquan. This view is consistent with Ban Gu's account of 12,300 li of Kangju in the Chang'an-Syr Darya Valley in the Book of Han and the Tale of the Western Regions.
Second, the state of the Western Queen Mother described in the book is obviously close to the state of myth and legend; the West Queen Mother and her people are close to the image of mythological figures. Historians believe that this is likely to be the phenomenon of additions, deletions, and blackmails in the process of copying the "Biography of Mu Tianzi". In fact, the fluffy hairstyle and leopard-tailed clothing of the Western Queen Mother described in the book have been confirmed in the excavated cultural relics. There is a dance pot unearthed in the northwest of our country, and there are three groups of dancing scenes in the basin, each group of five people, with their hair combed on their heads, and the dance clothes droop from behind, like a leopard's tail. Therefore, the state of the Queen Mother of the West is actually a tribe of a matrilineal clan system. According to relevant historical materials, this tribe was expelled by the Wusun people after the Spring and Autumn Period, and avoided the cold Qinghai Plateau, mixing with other Qiang tribes and being called "Wu Qiang". Later, he went south to Tibet and formed a large tribal alliance with the Tang Qiang and Yak Qiang of the Tanggula Mountains, known as "Tang Yak". Because of the still queen and female official system, the "Book of Wei Tuhun" and the "Book of Sui" are both contained in the name of "Female Kingdom". At the end of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the empress dowagers supported the chieftains of the Fa Qiang (also western Qiang) to unify the Tibetan plateau and establish the Tubo Kingdom.
In addition, in the 1930s, archaeologists found Caucasian skulls in Anyang, excavated ancient relics from the pre-Qin period in the Xinjiang area, and, in 1980, the Fufeng area of Shaanxi Province unearthed white heads from the Western Zhou Dynasty. These findings show that the passage between China and the West was opened as early as the Western Zhou Dynasty.
In summary, "The Biography of Mu Tianzi" is by no means a fictional novel of Xiangbi, but a documentary essay that records the Western Expedition of King Mu of Zhou and the Eastern Tour, and is a historical document with high historical value.