In 1048 BC, the ninth year of the reign of King Wu of Zhou, he used the Guanbing Huimeng Alliance as an excuse to reach the last natural barrier for merchants to defend against the Western Soil, the Yellow River crossing Mengjin (present-day Mengjin, Luoyang, Henan), with the intention of testing the reaction of various states to the conflict between the Shang and Zhou. There were as many as 800 tribal leaders of the large and small Fang kingdoms who joined the alliance, showing that the King of Zhou had won the support of everyone and achieved the "Mandate of Heaven".
In 1046 BC, King Wu united with the tribes of Yong, Shu, Qiang, Máo, Lú, Peng, and Pu (pú), personally leading 300 chariots, 3,000 Tiger Ben, and 45,000 Jiashi. After the Zhou people defeated the Shang army in the Battle of Makino, they invaded Chaoge, and the Shang perished, and the history called King Keyin of Wu. Both the Shangshu Mu Oath and the Yi zhou Shu Shi Prisoner Xie have detailed records of the time of this incident, and in 1976, the Lintong District of Xi'an City unearthed a bronze vessel from the Western Zhou Wu Dynasty, and the inscription "Wu Wang Zheng Shang, But Jia Zi Dynasty" confirms the authenticity of the relevant records.
There were many reasons for the defeat of the merchants at the Battle of Makino, and in terms of the way of fighting, the Zhou-led coalition set a precedent for the first large-scale use of chariots in the war, and exerted great power in battle. The Shijing Daya Daming records that at that time, "Makino Yangyang, Tanche Huanghuang, Yuán (Yuán) Peng Peng, Wei Shi Shang Father". As a new way of fighting, car warfare, under the impetus of Zhou Ren, stepped onto the stage of history and gradually became the protagonist on the battlefield.
Schematic diagram of the Western Zhou Dynasty carriage
The "Record of Zhou Li and Examination Workers" says: "The people of Zhou are still public opinion, so there are many vehicles in one instrument and many people who gather together." The chariots of the Western Zhou Dynasty were one-wheeled carriages, and the basic structure was one balance, two yokes, one reel, two wheels, and one axle, and the horses used in this chariot were even. Heng is the horizontal wood at the front of the yoke, and its main function is to bind the yoke. The yoke is a "human" glyph-shaped horse-riding instrument tied to the balance, which is placed on the shoulder of the horse, so that the animal power can lead the vehicle forward through the balance. The yoke is the most basic load of ren wood on the car, which is connected to the balance and yoke in the front, and fixed with the axle and the car (that is, the carriage) in the back. The upper part of the axle is connected to the public opinion, and the wheels are placed at each end.
Common bronze car components are yǐ, luan bell, copper (wèi), copper jurisdiction, copper heel and so on. The hub is mostly worn on the scale, the main body is generally long barrel-shaped, used for balance, the barrel body is equipped with holes to fix the scale with nails; the upper middle is equipped with a pair of copper rings placed left and right, which are used to wear ropes and tie the yoke. The two large rings on the scale are used for the runover, and the scale generally has one piece on the left and right, and the symmetrical device. The bronze bell is also fixed to the scale, the bell body is mostly a flat circle or a round sphere, with a bell ball in the hollow, and a rectangular high seat inserted above the scale. Luan Bells are paired, relying on the shaking pronunciation when driving, giving passers-by a sense of shock. The earliest excavation of Luan Bell is the Zhou Yuan, whose popularity coincided with the rise of the Zhou Dynasty and was common in the Western Zhou Dynasty. The shaft is installed at both ends of the axle to enclose and protect the shaft head of the part, the shape is slightly long barrel, gradually thinned from the inside to the outside, the outer end is sealed, and the inner end of the shaft is equipped with a grooved perforation, which is installed to fix on the shaft head. The jurisdiction is flattened rectangular and can be inserted into the jurisdiction hole on the stalk; there is a nail hole in the lower part, which is used for latching pins or leather to fix it so that it does not fall off. The Shang Dynasty was already made of copper, and at that time, mostly wooden jurisdiction was used, and copper jurisdiction was rare; copper jurisdiction was widely used after the Western Zhou Dynasty. During the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the wooden tail part was often exposed outside the trunk, and this place also happened to be a place where the feet had to be stepped on when boarding the car, which was easy to damage. During the Shang Dynasty, a set of copper heels was added to the tail for protection; the copper heel section in the early Western Zhou Dynasty was horseshoe-shaped, and the copper heel gradually disappeared after the Spring and Autumn Period.
Banana leaf 夔龙纹軎 and tiger head jurisdiction In the early Western Zhou Dynasty, the Xi'an Museum collected
Ge is a unique weapon in ancient China, which was originally used for pecking, and later gradually evolved into hook killing, also known as "hook soldiers". The bì (bì) we see now in Godadu has decayed, leaving only the copper tip of Go. The so-called coffin is actually the long wooden handle of the weapon, with a bump on the top of the rim and a copper upset at the bottom end. Each part of the head of the go has a special name, the front part of the blade used for killing is called "aid"; the blade part that turns down is called "hu"; the extension part of the aid that is embedded in the wooden coffin is called "inside"; the end of the aid and the side of the hu are ridged in order to fix the wooden tree, called the diaphragm, and the edge of the diaphragm is provided with a top-down piercing (piercing, hole, handle used to fix the utensils), which can be worn through the rope to tie the go to the coffin.
Qu Nei Bronze Ge Early and mid-Shang Dynasty, Xi'an Museum collection
King Keshang of Wu died two years later, leaving the young King Cheng unable to govern alone, and was assisted by the regent of King Wu's younger brother Zhou Gongdan. Guan Shuxian and Cai Shudu, who remained in the Central Plains, out of suspicion and dissatisfaction with the Duke of Zhou, joined forces with Wu Geng, the son of king Shang, and Xu, Xiang, and Haogu in the east to rebel. Zhou Gongdan personally led the army to fight the rebellion, and it took three years to achieve victory. In order to calm and strengthen his rule over the East, the Duke of Zhou succeeded King Wu and built Luoyi (present-day Luoyang East), also known as Chengzhou, on the east bank of the Water of Ying (chán), and the word "China" also appears in the bronze inscriptions related to Yingjian Zhou. After the completion of Luoyi, there was an eighth division stationed in the army, which was the "Yin Eighth Division" often mentioned in the Book of Poetry and jinwen, which together with the "Western Sixth Division" stationed in Gyeonggi constituted the standing army of the Western Zhou royal family, and the Zhou army at this time had formed a combination of long-handled halberds, spears and short-handled ge and bow arrows, suitable for the combination of vehicle combat weapons for staggered hub fighting.
The Zhou people's innovation and improvement of weapons are particularly eye-catching, and Hu Qingtongge is one of the more common weapons. The appearance of Hu realized the hook killing function of Ge, which can achieve the killing effect of sweeping a piece in the car battle, and after the Western Zhou Dynasty, Ge Hu has a tendency to gradually lengthen, and the short and medium Hu Bronze Ge is not seen in the Shang Dynasty, which is indeed the innovation of the Zhou people. For example, the fishbone pattern bronze go, the main body of which is very similar to the triangular green steel (kuí). The triangle aid bronze sword is a common weapon of the Sichuan Shu people in the late Shang Dynasty, and there are Shu who participated in the coalition army when the King of Wu was cutting the silk, and the fishbone bronze ge should be the product of the absorption and improvement of the Zhou people. Another distinctive weapon is the Knife Androd, which is actually a knife cast at the upper end of the Go. This weapon is sharp in the front, and the downward gohu of the reinforcements and the vertical knives that are divided upwards have blades. There is a lateral appendix and perforation between the top and the bottom of the beard, which is convenient for binding the gordon. It has many functions such as hooking, pecking, and slashing, and is an improvement of similar weapons of the Shang Dynasty by the Zhou people. Other weapons include copper cymbals, copper axes, and bore knives, which together constitute the Zhou people's combat weapon system.
Knife and Ge Fusion Halberd In the early and middle period of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the Xi'an Museum collected
"Gu Liang Biography, Zhuang Gong, Twenty-five Years" says: "The Son of Heaven saved the day, placed five horses, Chen five soldiers and five drums." Fanning's note: "Five soldiers: spear, halberd, cymbal, rafter, bow and arrow." This is a combination of weapons used by high-ranking nobles of the dynasty, while ordinary nobles will vary in the number and type of five soldiers because of their status and wealth. The Western Zhou Dynasty's Ge, Halberd, and Qi were often decorated with animal faces, tigers, dragons, snakes, etc., and most of the ornaments had their faces facing the blades or forwards of the weapons to create a strong visual intimidation to the enemy. The warriors were heavily armed before they died, fighting the enemy to the death on the battlefield, and burying the weapons they had used with them after death. In the Guanzhong area, nearly half of the Western Zhou tombs and carriage and horse pits had the custom of destroying soldiers, especially Ge, and a considerable number of them were smashed or even broken.
During the Western Zhou Dynasty, a division of about 10,000 people, the army used chariots as combat units, each with two horses, two handlers, and ten apprentices (infantry). Officers were held by nobles at all levels, car soldiers, that is, armored soldiers, who were served by the countrymen, and disciples were recruited from among the commoners. The armies of the "two divisions" followed the King of Zhou in his southern expedition to the north, and they had both the joy of victory and the joy of returning to their hometown, but also the grief of the whole army being destroyed and buried in other places. According to the "Bamboo Book Chronicle", in the nineteenth year of King Zhao of Zhou (977 BC), when he personally led a large army to conquer Jingchu in the south, he encountered a natural disaster and earthquake, and the Western Sixth Division was killed. King Zhao himself died in Hanshui on his way back to the division. The Xi'an Museum has a bronze guizhou related to the Southern Expedition of the Zhou Dynasty, the Yan Concubine Gui. The phoenix pattern of this bronze guise is more eye-catching. The ears are a pair of round carved phoenix birds, with a high crown and a hooked beak, which is vivid and realistic. There are two small animal heads in the front and back of the neck, decorated with a weekly hanging crown to look back at the small phoenix; the abdomen is decorated with two hanging crowns to look back at the large phoenix; the upper and lower edges of each side of the square seat are decorated with long-tailed bird patterns, and the two sides are decorated with small standing birds. The bottom of the abdomen is cast with an inscription, 3 lines and 18 characters: "Only in September, Uncle Gong Falcon recruited Chu Jing from the king, and only (in) Chengzhou, Yan Concubine Cha (Zuo) Baogui." "It was specially made by Uncle Gong Falcon (i.e., Concubine Yan) to commemorate the conquest of Chu Jing by the King of Zhou.
Concubines in the early Western Zhou Dynasty, in the collection of the Xi'an Museum
The phoenix bird of the concubine is beautiful and gorgeous, with its head raised and its wings fluttering, giving people the enjoyment of beauty, which represents a different social and cultural orientation from the gluttonous pattern. The bird was revered by the Zhou people because of its abandonment by the ancestors who sheltered the Zhou people with its wings, but it was different from the merchant's bird that represented God, but a phoenix bird that flew into the world to protect people. The appearance of the phoenix not only reflects the "courtesy" nature, but also reflects the Zhou people's idea of "respecting heaven and protecting the people", which heralds the arrival of a new era.