About 3,000 years ago, King Wu of Zhou led 50,000 soldiers and horses to defeat the King of Shang in one fell swoop in the Battle of Muye, invading Chaoge and destroying the Shang Dynasty. For the king of Lu who burned himself to death, King Wu of Zhou stood on the car and shot three arrows, then stabbed him with a light sword, cut off Di Xin's head with a yellow sword, and finally hung the head of the king of Lu on a large white flag, and expressed the punishment of the cruel king with four processes: archery, sword stabbing, huang yu beheading, and hanging his head.
Subsequently, King Wu of Zhou divided his troops into four routes and attacked to the southeast, requisitioning the remnants of Yin Shang and Yin Shang's hardcore allies, and fought as far as the coast of the East China Sea, where they carried out a long period of conquest, slaughter and plunder. During the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, Mencius believed that King Wu of Zhou was a teacher of benevolence and righteousness, and that there was no fierce war at all, let alone bloodshed and pestle, but there were relevant records in the Book of Yi Zhou and the Prisoner of the World, showing off the strength and achievements of the Zhou army, that is, killing 180,000 merchants, taking 330,000 prisoners into slavery, capturing more than 10,000 tigers, bears, rhinos, deer, etc. belonging to the king, and also looting a large number of jewels, only peiyu reached 180,000 pieces, and so on.
It can be said that King Keyin of Wu is not as benevolent as we think, and a large number of Zhou people from Di Rong cannot be the master of benevolence and righteousness, and all indications show that the Shang and Zhou dynasties were full of blood and massacres. So, for the successor patriarch of the Shang people, Wu Geng, the son of King Huan, how did King Wu of Zhou treat it, and what was the final outcome?
After King Wu of Zhou destroyed shang, he was not satisfied, but was worried and could not sleep at night, and said to his fourth brother Zhou Gongdan: "Wei Tianjian Yin, whose name is three hundred and sixty husbands, does not appear and does not perish, so that today." I'm not sure, what a sleep! ”
That is to say, although a great victory was won in the Battle of Makino, the Shang forces were still very strong, and the unconquered area was still very vast, just like in the Ming and Qing dynasties, after the Qing army entered the customs and occupied Beijing, the Southern Ming still had a large area and had a strong war potential. However, with the number of Zhou troops and the transportation at that time, King Wu of Zhou could not eliminate the remnants of the Shang clan in one fell swoop. For the newly born Zhou Dynasty, the most urgent thing at that time was: on the one hand, to use the harvest of the war to actively arm itself, and to divide and disintegrate the remnants of the Shang clan, etc., on the other hand, to appease the Shang forces in order to buy time, so King Wu of Zhou let Wu Geng, the son of the King of Zhou, manage the Yin people, that is, the Yin people ruled Yin, so "the Yin people were very happy".
Of course, King Wu of Zhou did not let Wu Geng go unchecked, but stationed an army at Chaoge City, the "Eighth Division of Yin", and at the same time divided the former land of Gyeonggi in Chaoge into three places, namely bèi, yōng, and Wei, in order to divide and resettle the remnants of Yin Shang, and to seal Wu Geng, the son of Emperor Xin of Shang, in Yindi, and called the State of Shao. The character 邶 is interpreted from the meaning of the word, from the north of Yi, the place where the king rules is the palace, the palace is to the south, and the place where the king rests after the retreat of the dynasty is north, so it is called Shao, so the word Shao indicates the place where the king lived after his abdication. Among the three prisons, the third brother of King Wu of Zhou, Guan Shu, was stationed in the guard area, the fifth brother Cai Shu was stationed in The Land, and the Eighth Brother Huo Uncle was stationed in the Land of Shao, and these three men led the army to monitor and deter the remnants of Yin Shang and Wu Geng, known in history as the "Three Prisons". Obviously, King Wu of Zhou was deeply wary of Wu Geng and the remnants of the Shang Dynasty.
After the death of King Wu, Zhou Gongdan had full authority to take charge of the regency, and the old third uncle guan believed that Zhou Gongdan wanted to usurp the throne, so together with Uncle Cai and Uncle Huo spread rumors that "the gong will be unfavorable to the king", which led to chaos within the Zhou Dynasty. At this time, the remnants of the Shang Dynasty, who could not be contained, united with the three prisoners under the leadership of Wu Geng to rebel against Zhou.
Traditional history books believe that the three prisons colluded with Wu Geng to rebel against the Zhou, but this statement is difficult to believe, the reason is very simple, the three prisons are princes with the surname of Ji, there are Zhou Dynasty one glory and one loss, they have no reason to overturn the Zhou Dynasty this big ship, Wu Geng gave them no more benefits than the Zhou Dynasty gave them, the three prisons are dissatisfied with Zhou Gongdan, does not mean that they want to overthrow the Zhou Dynasty rule at the expense of others and harm themselves. After the new century, the "Qinghua Jian Zhi Nian" was published, which recorded that "King Wu of Zhou was ke yin, but set up three prisons in Yin." Wu Wangzhi (武王陟), Shang Yixing rebelled, killed the Three Prisons and Li Zi Geng (武庚) "Revealed the truth, it turned out that it was the remnants of Yin Shang who killed the Three Prisons, and then established Wu Geng as king. As for the Three Prisons, they either colluded with Wu Geng (but not to the extent of anti-Zhou), or because of the political struggle at the top, they were nailed to the column of shame of history.
Therefore, the real situation at that time should be that the Three Prisons spread rumors, leading to internal chaos in the Zhou Dynasty, and then the remnants of Yin Shang and Wu Geng took the opportunity to raise an army and killed the Three Prisons to sacrifice the banner, and the "Year of the Bamboo Secretary" said that "in the second year, the Yan people, Xu Ren and Huai Yi entered Yu Shao to rebel", which should tell that the remnants of Yin Shang took the opportunity to oppose the Zhou. However, Wu Geng's army did not last long, and was soon extinguished by Zhou Gongdan, "Zhou Gonglin Wei Zheng (Zheng) Yin, Yin Da zhen collapsed", the "Records of History" and other records that Zhou Gongdan killed Wu Geng, Guan Shu, let Cai Shu, degraded Huo Shu, moved the chaoge "Yin Stubborn" to Luoyang to discipline it, let the Brother Wei zi of the King of Sui inherit Yin Qi, and founded the country in Song Di (present-day Shangqiu, Henan), known in history as the State of Song, and the country of Yin seems to have nothing but "Song". Later, the Zhou Dynasty assigned the three lands of Shao, Shao, and Wei to the Wei state, and enfeoffed the ninth brother of King Wu, Kang Shu Yu Wei, in order to lead the "Yin Yumin".
What is less known is that Wu Geng also has an ending, and in the Yi zhou Shu Zuo Luo, it is said that "Prince Lu's father runs north", of which Lu Father is Wu Geng. That is to say, when the remnants of Yin Shang rebelled against Zhou, although Wu Geng was defeated, he actually led a group of men and horses to escape. The question is, is this claim credible? In fact, from the perspective of historical materials and archaeology, Wu Geng is very likely to escape.
First of all, the "Zuo Biography" records that "Su Shen, Yan, Bo, Wu Bei Tu Ye". There are four interpretations of "Bo" in modern Chinese, namely place names (the capital of the Shang Dynasty), the state established by Xi Rong in the Western Zhou Dynasty, and the contemporary Anhui Bozhou and surname. Obviously, what is recorded in the Zuo biography should be the name of the country, but it cannot be the country of Xi Rong, which is related to the history of Wu Geng's north running, then "Bo" should represent the country established by Wu Geng, that is, Wu Geng, in order to remember the glory of his ancestors, still uses "Bo" as the name of the capital.
Secondly, in the Laishui area of Hebei Province, a number of bronzes engraved with the words "Shaobo" have been excavated, "Bo" means not the title of the boss, and the famous scholar Wei Jianzhen believes that the location of "Prince Lu's father running north" is the Laishui River Basin, and the Shao kingdom moved north. The existence of Shaobo bronze ware shows that the Shao kingdom of Wu Geng did not perish, but continued to be passed down in the Laishui area of Hebei Province, adjacent to the fiefdom of Zhao Gongyi - Yandi.
Third, dabaogui (see pictured above), one of the seven instruments of Liangshan discovered during the Qing Dynasty, has an inscription that Zhao Gongyi (大保) was ordered to fight against the Rebellion of Luzi Sheng, of which Luzi Sheng was Wu Geng. That is to say, after Zhou Gongdan quelled the rebellion, Wu Geng fled to laishui to continue to confront the imperial court, so King Zhou Cheng ordered Gong Yi to be summoned. But it is clear that Zhao Gongyi did not destroy the State of Shao, and the two sides formed a long-term confrontation.
When the state of Shao in the Laishui Valley fell, the historical records are unknown, some say that it was during the period of King Kang of Zhou, and some say that it was during the period of King Xuan of Zhou, but it can be roughly confirmed that the state of Shao was passed down for at least more than a hundred years, and was destroyed by the Western Zhou coalition led by the State of Yan.
Because of Wu Geng's special status, his anti-Zhou behavior has a strong influence and appeal, the Zhou Dynasty will certainly not publicize with great fanfare, and later after several blows, the remnants of yin merchants have not become a climate, so the Western Zhou imperial court regarded it as a rebellion of local forces, and did not pay too much attention, so the history handed down by Wu Geng and Shao Guo was extremely rare, almost silent.
Perhaps, just as a popular saying now, that is, "when the times abandon you, even do not say hello", in the late Shang Dynasty, there were many internal contradictions, and it was impossible to fight the Zhou people after the accumulation of weights, not to mention that the Zhou people had a greater advantage after breaking through the Chaoge, and Wu Geng's spirit of not accepting defeat against the Zhou Fu Shang was commendable, but it was doomed to be difficult to succeed, and in the end he could only be abandoned by the times.
References: "History", "Yi Zhou Shu", etc