Most people who mention the demise of Yin Shang will blame the absurdity and cruelty of the Shang King. Under his rule, the people did not have a good life, so they would cause various countries to rise up and attack it, and eventually be replaced by Western Zhou.
But is this really the case? Was the demise of Yin Shang self-inflicted and unsustainable, or was there another reason? Was it the Western Zhou or someone else who ended the fate of the Shang Dynasty? In fact, before the Western Zhou Dynasty, the Shang had been waging war against one of its subordinate Fang states for many years, and even when the Western Zhou Dynasty launched a large-scale attack on the Shang, its main forces were still stationed in that Fang State, that is, Dongyi.
What did this Dongyi, who contributed to the demise of the Shang Dynasty, do that made the Shang Dynasty monarch so angry that he sent 100,000 troops to conquest for many years, and even risked allowing the Western Zhou Dynasty to gradually grow and not willing to give up?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="258" > the land of Dongyi</h1>
In the pre-Qin dynasty, the Huaxia Dynasty in the Central Plains referred to the tribes scattered in the northern part of the Central Plains as "Di", the Western tribes as "Rong", the southern tribes as "Barbarians", and the eastern tribes as "Yi". People often say that the "barbarian land" refers to the uncivilized area along the southeast coast of ancient times.
The Dongyi tribe was mainly distributed between the ancient Yellow River and Jishui, as well as in the area south of Mount Tai, including today's Shandong, Anhui, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other places. Legend has it that the Dongyi people like to wear hair tattoos, and they do not like to cook with fire when eating, and often eat raw meat cold food. Therefore, compared with the gentle and thin people of the Central Plains, the people of the Dongyi ethnic groups are strong and strong.
According to historical records, the Dongyi people made a living from fishing, hunting and gathering in ancient times, and by the time of the Yellow Emperor, they had developed into a powerful tribal alliance. The Dongyi people were also the first to invent the bow and arrow, a very important weapon in ancient times, making long-distance attacks possible.
During the Yellow Emperor's reign, the nine ethnic alliances of Xuan You, who fought the Battle of Zhuolu with the Yellow Emperor, were distributed in the Dongyi region. After the defeat of Xuanyu, Dongyi was also forced to be subject to Zhongyuan Yanhuang, but in fact they never really surrendered.
Dongyi has always existed outside the jurisdiction of the Central Plains Dynasty in a free state. Because Dongyi is close to the sea, the Huaxia Dynasty is beyond the reach of the whip, which gives Dongyi the opportunity to grow secretly. By the time of the Xia Shang period, Dongyi was already a large tribal group that could stand on three feet with the Xia Shang.
According to the distribution between the tribes at that time, Dongyi was equivalent to the guardian army of the Xia Dynasty. Therefore, the Shang king accepted the advice of the counselors and designed to divide the Xia Dynasty and Dongyi. Under the plot of the Shang King, the Xia Dynasty cut off the supply of talents and technology to Dongyi, and Dongyi also turned against the Xia Dynasty and turned to the Shang to destroy the Xia, and the three-legged Dingli became a confrontation between the two powers.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="260" > second, people's livelihood needs</h1>
Dongyi is located in the lower reaches of the Yellow River, close to the coast, and is rich in natural resources, especially the production of gold, jade, copper and other minerals and sea salt and other necessities of life. And these are all things that the Shang Dynasty needs to maintain the normal operation of the country.
The Shang Dynasty was rich in bronze, and copper, lead, tin and other metals were needed to refine bronze. In order to make bronze artifacts for sacrifices and bronze weapons for soldiers, the Shang Dynasty needed a large amount of metal ore. The Shang king has always been known for his poverty and luxury, and luxury goods such as jade and shells were also favored items by the royal family. Therefore, in order to obtain these materials, the Shang could only send troops to Dongyi in a big way.
According to some oracle bones excavated from the tomb of Yin Xu's women, Wu Ding, the king of Shang, sent women to Send Troops to Dongyi many times to "take jade". Other remains of the archaeological Ruins have also found that the smelting sites are all bronze casting workshops for bronze artifacts rather than copper smelting workshops that extract metals from ores. Therefore, it can also be proved that the Shang Dynasty attacked Dongyi in order to obtain more metal ore.
Not only that, in order to reduce transportation costs, the Shang Dynasty not only sent troops to Dongyi to requisition, but also built a copper smelting base in Dongyi, which could directly refine the mined ore into coarse copper and then transport it back to the Shang Dynasty for further production. Therefore, in addition to the requisitioned troops, it is also necessary to send additional soldiers and horses to guard the copper smelting base. This made shang invest a lot of manpower and material resources into the Dongyi area.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="262" >3, Dongyi Rebellion</h1>
It can be said that in the first period, the relationship between the Shang Dynasty and Dongyi was very peaceful. After joining forces to eliminate the Xia Dynasty, the Shang Dynasty did not point the spearhead at Dongyi, but instead adopted the policy of Zhao'an, dividing its leaders into princes, making Dongyi a vassal state of the Shang Dynasty. After a battle, the Shang Dynasty took most of the countries and tribes of the land of Shenzhou under its command at the least cost.
Such a harmonious scene did not last long. Dongyi is rich in natural resources, but because the minds of the tribesmen have not yet been civilized, the use of materials is very limited. With the growth of the tribal population, the original territory can no longer meet the survival needs of the Dongyi people. In addition, the dongyi chieftain was ambitious, always looking at the Central Plains Dynasty, and even took the initiative to provoke the Central Plains many times.
After zhongding, the tenth monarch of the Shang Dynasty, succeeded to the throne, the relationship between the Shang Dynasty and Dongyi took a sharp turn for the worse. Among them, one of the Dongyi tribes called "Renfang" was the most rampant, and in the existing oracle bone records, there were many cases of people attacking and even plundering the population in the hinterland of the Shang Dynasty.
By the time of the Shang Dynasty, all the countries had broken away from the Shang Dynasty because of the tyranny of the Shang Dynasty. In order to quell the rebellion, the King of Lu decided to summon all the princes, and the leader of Dongyi not only disobeyed the order, but even did not send a single soldier during the Shang conquest, which also laid the groundwork for the King of Dongyi to send troops.
After stabilizing the surrounding small States, king Huan implemented a policy of gentleness toward the rising Western Zhou, marrying western Zhou to maintain a superficial calm between the two countries. Later, he even put Ji Chang, the King of Zhou, under house arrest for seven years to balance the expansion of Western Zhou.
At the same time, the King of Sui mobilized the strength of the whole country to conquer Dongyi. In the last ten years of the Shang Dynasty, most of its troops and energy were devoted to the war with Dongyi. Such a long conquest not only weakened Dongyi's power, but also hurt the foundation of the Shang Dynasty even more.
Western Zhou also saw this opportunity and sent troops to attack the Shang Dynasty. The Shang Dynasty, where most of its troops remained in Dongyi, could only send slave soldiers to fight against Zhou. As a result, it is conceivable that the slave soldiers were defeated without a fight, the Western Zhou army successfully invaded Chaoge, and the king of Shang, who was attacked by the enemy, chose to commit suicide in ashes, and the Shang Dynasty fell to the ground.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="264" >4</h1>
Wars between kingdoms are like this, with no eternal friends and no eternal enemies, only eternal interests. The consequences of excessive pursuit of profits are often like the Shang Dynasty, which is destroyed by the Eastern Empire.
However, historical events are often two-sided, and the successive years of war between the King of Shang and Dongyi have also led to the rapid development of transportation from the Central Plains to the southeast coast. The culture from the Central Plains also gradually spread to the eastern region, and the local people could use more advanced farming and weaving technology to develop production, paving the way for the later Qin unification of the world, which can also be regarded as benefiting future generations.