The earliest record of Lü Shang's deeds is found in the Book of Poetry, Daya Daming:
"Makino Yangyang, Tanche Huanghuang, Donkey Pengpeng." Wei Shi Shang Father, Shi Wei Ying Yang, Liang Pi Wu King. Wantonly cutting down big businessmen will be clear and clear! ”
This passage tells that in the Battle of Makino, Lü Shang was like a soaring eagle, assisting King Wu of Zhou in his conquest of the Shang Dynasty, and the next day he won the victory at dawn. Why emphasize that Lu Shang is like an eagle? In the "Yi zhou Shu Ke Yin Xie", it is said that King Wu of Zhou sent Shang Father and BoFu to "send a teacher", that is, Lü Shang, Bo Fu and the merchant generals singled out, and Lü Shang of course won a great victory, so he was praised by the Book of Poetry.
As the honor of Zhou Taishi, why did Lü Shang personally go down to the spot? In the wars of the three ancient generations, this is the most normal thing. At that time, the military salute paid attention to the duel between the two armies, so it was also very admirable for personal force. As the highest military commander of the Zhou Dynasty, Lü Shang's personal strength value was more exciting. Of course, this does not mean that Lü Shang is just a pure martial artist, in fact, at that time, there was no distinction between literature and martial arts, and Taishi was equivalent to the prime minister. The "Qi Taigong Family" says that "the world is divided into three parts, the second belongs to the Zhou, and the Plot of the Taigong is the majority", which shows that Lü Shang should have also participated in a large number of plots for the Zhou Dynasty to destroy the Shang.
But then that comes the problem. From "Qi Taigong Family" to "Fengshen Yanyi", whether it is the main history or the novel, it is said that Lü Shang was an old man when he entered the Zhou, how did the old man go into battle and single out, is Lü Shang really a divine protector? Of course not, in fact, the real image of Lü Shang is unlikely to be the elderly strategist mentioned in the later literature, but should be the middle-aged hero in the original historical material "Book of Poetry". It can be corroborated that Lü Shang's daughter Yi Jiang married King Wu of Zhou, and Lü Shang's son Lü Ling assisted King Cheng of Zhou and King Kang of Zhou, which means that Lü Shang may be a contemporary of King Wen of Zhou, and even a little younger, in short, it is definitely not an old man with a broken candle.
If the historical Lü Shang is not an old man, then it raises a more important question, what is his identity before he met King Wen of Zhou? Although the history books do not explicitly say, we can reasonably speculate.
As we mentioned earlier, the "clan" began to disintegrate during the Warring States period, and the previous families and individuals were attached to the existence of the "clan". "Clan" is both a social subject and a political subject. On the one hand, the head of the family is the king of his own clan (state), and on the other hand, he often holds certain positions on behalf of his own clan in a larger community (power comes from subordinates); this is completely different from the later monarchical society, where individuals can come and go (power comes from superiors). Specifically, the Jiang surname Lü is a long-term intermarriage with the Ji surname Zhou, so in the Zhou Dynasty clique, Lü Guojun should also hold a high-power position!
So who was this Lü monarch at the end of the Shang Dynasty and the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty? In addition to Lü Shang and Lü Ling's father and son, the Yi zhou Shu Shi Prisoner Xie records Lü Ta who conquered the Yue opera side in the south after king Wu's conquest, and Qinghua Jian's "Feng Xu's Order" records Lü Ding who was sealed in Xu Guo. There is no doubt that whether in terms of status or fame, Lü He and Lü Ding cannot be compared with Lü Shang. Therefore, the real Lü Shang in history is likely to be the monarch of the State of Lü himself! Then he was not born in the East China Sea at all, nor had he ever been to the Shang capital Chaoge, and had been living in the Lü Kingdom from beginning to end, existing as a powerful ally of the Zhou people!
After the Zhou Dynasty destroyed the Shang, there were three rulers at the pivot of the central government of the Zhou Dynasty at this time, namely Taishi Lü Shang, Taifu Zhou Gongdan, and Taibao Zhao Gongyi, of which Lü Shang represented the forces of the in-laws surnamed Ji, Zhou Gongdan represented the forces of the sons of King Wen, and Zhao Gongyi represented the forces of the old clan surnamed Ji. After the death of King Wu, Zicheng Wang took the throne, Zhou Gongdan became the regent as Wang Uncle, after which Wu Geng, Sanjian rebelled with Dongyi, and Zhou Gongdong rebelled against Wu Geng and Sanjian, and advanced the battle line to Dongyi. At this time, Lü Shangcai was sealed in the qi state of the former Pugu's hometown, which is also the origin of the legend of Later Generations that Lü Shang was a "person from the East China Sea", in fact, Lü Shang was only a later Shandong person.
If we admit that Lü Shang's prototype was originally the monarch of the State of Lü, then how can we explain the records in later literature that Lü Shang was poor and saw King Wen of Zhou?
This must be combined with the social characteristics of the Warring States period. As mentioned earlier, the "clan" disintegrated during the Warring States period, and the hundred sons and hundreds of families were able to travel from country to country and propagate their political ideas for profit. But no matter which one, one thing that should be common is that they want the monarch to be virtuous, so that they can be promoted from the bottom. So in this era, there are a large number of civilians, hermits counterattack legend was praised. Many of the important courtiers around the Saint Jun were portrayed as follows: for example, Yao Youshun, Shang Tang had Yi Yin, Wu Ding had Fu Shu, Zhou Wen, King Wu had Lü Shang, Duke Huan of Qi had Guan Zhong, Duke Mu of Qin had Baili Xi, King Zhuang of Chu zhuang had Sun Shu'ao, and so on.
Why can these monarchs claim hegemony? Didn't he boldly promote these sages! Of course, such a statement, which we can only treat as a political allegory, does not conform to the characteristics of the three generations of the Spring and Autumn Period. It can be confirmed that such legends, in fact, do not have a fixed template, and they are often contradictory to each other. Let's take a look at what the situation of Lü Shang in the works of the Warring States Sons is.
Regarding the encounter between Lü Shang and King Wen of Zhou, of course, we are most familiar with lü Shang's poor and old age as stated in the "History of the Family of Taigong Qi", so he caught King Wen in Weishui, which is the most dramatic and easiest to spread. This is similarly recorded in "Lü Shi Chunqiu", "Han Feizi", and "Warring States Policy", not only that the "Warring States Policy" also says that he was "Qi Zhi Zhi Fu, Chao Ge's Abolition tu, Zi Liang's chakra, Thorn Jin's Chicken is not mediocre", that is to say, in the Qi State, he was driven out of the country by his wife, and he could not continue to be a butcher in the shang Dynasty capital City, Chao Ge, and later defected to Zi Liang was also suspected of being fired, and finally had to sell himself in Thorn Jin but no one wanted it.
But such stories were not the only ones circulating at the time. In "Mencius Leaving Lou Shang", it is said that Lü Shang and Bo Yi are both highly respected "elders" in the world, which translates to the elder, and I heard that King Wen of Zhou respected the elders and came to defect. Because Boyi was the prince of the Lone Bamboo Kingdom, it seemed that Lü Shang was not a poor and poor person. Moreover, Mencius was written earlier than the Warring States Policy, but this statement lacked storytelling and was not circulated. However, there is a similar story in the "Family of Taigong of Qi", saying that Taigong once served the King of Shang, but because he left without a way, and the princes were not reused, so he went west to king Wen of Zhou.
In addition, there are also articles such as "Chu Ci Departure", "Chu Ci Tianwen" and other articles, mentioning that Lü Shang sold beef in the vegetable market and attracted the attention of King Wen of Zhou because he was holding a slaughtering knife and drinking. According to the commentary of the Han Chinese Wang Yi, Lü Shang declared that "the next slaughter of cattle, the upper slaughter of the country", thus being requisitioned by King Wen. In this theory, Lü Shang was also from a humble origin, but he met King Wen while selling cattle. However, this statement was not included in the "Qi Taigong Shijia", which lists three other theories, saying that Lü Shang was originally living in seclusion on the seashore, and when King Wen of Zhou was imprisoned by King Shang, He Wasan Yisheng, Hong Yao and others found him and plotted to rescue King Wen of Zhou.
It can be seen from this that during the Warring States period, at least four different theories have been produced about Lü Shang's origin and encounter with King Wen of Zhou, so that when Tai Shi Gong wrote the "Family of TaiGong of Qi", he also had to seek common ground while reserving differences and lay out all the theories. This proves even more that these are only ancient historical legends circulating during the Warring States period, rather than real historical facts. But in any case, Lü Shang was spread from a high-ranking nobleman and a middle-aged hero to a low-level commoner and an elderly courtier, and his image has undergone its first major change.
Lin Wu Gongzi was a writer of literature and history, specializing in the history of the pre-Qin, Qin, and Han dynasties. He is the signed author of today's headlines, the signed author of Wukong Q&A, the columnist of the surging history, the columnist of The History of NetEase, the co-author of Baidu Ta, the co-author of the whole history, and the published three kinds of physical books such as "Pre-Qin Ancient Guozhi", "Wu Yue Chunqiu of the Pre-Qin Ancient Guozhi", and "The Complete Painting Collection of Mountains and Sea Classics", and his works are scattered in "National Humanistic History", "Advancing together in the same boat", "Beijing Evening News", "Crazy Reading", "Awakening Lion Guoxue", "Hundred Forums", "Weihai Evening News" and other newspapers, magazines and self-media. Thanks for reading, welcome to pay attention!