The Wu King's cutting of the Shang Dynasty was a famous change of dynasty in Chinese history, and unlike the stubborn resistance before the fall of each dynasty, the destruction of the Shang by the Wu King was quite smooth.
The Book of Zhou and Wucheng records that king Wu of Zhou sent troops from Hojing (Xi'an, Shaanxi) in January to a decisive battle in February, which took only 32 days, and was not even blocked by the Shang Dynasty defenders along the way.
The Battle of Makino between the Shang and Zhou armies was carried out with great "ease", according to the Western Zhou bronze vessel Ligui inscription unearthed in Lintong, Shaanxi in 1976, it took king Wu of Zhou only one morning to win the decisive battle of Muye and overthrow the Shang Dynasty.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="4" > was it true that the Shang Dynasty military during the reign of King Huan had really decayed to such a vulnerable point? </h1>
I'm afraid not. In addition to the "royal" army (guard unit) stationed in Wang Qi, there were also royal concubine troops such as the "many sons", "three ethnic groups" and "five ethnic groups", as well as the armies of princes and Fang states that were subordinate to the Shang, and the troops were very strong.
The oracle bones unearthed from the Yin Ruins show that in the 500 years from the founding of the Shang Tang Dynasty to the reign of the King of Sui, the Shang Dynasty fought wars with the surrounding Fang states all the time, and the Bing Peak reached as far as Shu and Jing. As the saying goes, "the great affairs of the country are in the worship and the rong", the shang dynasty monarchs did only two things after succeeding to the throne: sacrifice and war.
When King Huan succeeded to the throne, the pace of the Shang Dynasty's external conquests did not stop. In the fourth, tenth, fifteenth, twentieth, and twenty-fifth years of Di Xin, the Shang Dynasty army achieved a series of military victories in Yifang. Some scholars estimate that the total population at the end of the Shang Dynasty was about 7.8 million, and according to this calculation, the number of troops that the King of Sui was able to directly control and recruit was at least 200,000 people.
However, when the combined forces of princes under king Wu of Zhou arrived in Muye, they were not confronted by the central army of the Shang Dynasty, nor the tribal army and the princes loyal to yin shang, but a ragtag group of slaves and prisoners.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="29" > so where is the regular army of the merchants? This has to start from the "international" situation in the last years of the Shang Dynasty. </h1>
In the early and middle period of the establishment of the Shang Dynasty, the main direction of the Shang King's military use was the Tufang and Qiangfang in the west, and by the time the 11th monarch Zhongding succeeded to the throne, the Relationship between Shang and Yi deteriorated, and since then, the main military direction of the Shang Dynasty has begun to shift to the Dongyi tribes.
The Yin Ruins Oracle records a large number of Emperor Yi and Di Xin (陳王) father and son period, Yin Shang's conquest of Renfang (Yifang), especially during the reign of Emperor Xin, the war against Dongyi was not only frequent, but also lasted a long time, and the time span of a trip to Yifang was 6 to 8 months.
Obviously, it was precisely because King Huan transferred the main force of Yin Shang to Dongyi that the country's troops were empty, so that when the Western Zhou coalition army arrived, king Huan could not even send a decent army to resist.
But the problem comes, Western Zhou's hostility to Yin Shang has a long history, as early as the reign of King Wu of Zhou's grandfather Ji Li, as a Yin Shang prince, Western Zhou used troops against Yu Wu (in present-day southeastern Jin) without authorization, because Yu Wu was close to Yin Shang's capital city of Anyang, Henan, which caused the vigilance of King Huan's grandfather Wen Ding, who ordered Ji Li to be executed.
After Ji Li's son Ji Chang succeeded to the throne, his intention to open up the territory and expand the territory did not relent, and the king of the Chongguo state, Chonghou Hu, secretly reported to the King of Qiu: "Xi Bo has accumulated good deeds, and all the princes will be unfavorable to the emperor", and the King of Ji has imprisoned Ji Chang in Qiuli for 7 years.
After Ji Chang was released, he did not become a vassal of himself as he promised, but instead conquered the states of Misu, Ruan, and Gong, and his power had expanded to the hinterland of Yin Shang's rule: central Henan.
In the second year of King Wu's succession, that is, in Mengjin (mengjin County, Henan), he made an alliance with the eight hundred princes, and the soldiers pointed directly at the capital of the King of Qi, Chaoge, and Mengjin was less than 500 miles south of Chaoge.
Mengjin was the main crossing of the Yellow River, and King Wu of Zhou was here to observe the troops of the princes, and his intention was self-evident, and even if he fainted, he could definitely perceive the military pressure from Western Zhou.
Two years later, in 1046 BC, King Wu of Zhou again set out from Hojing to cross the Army, and in the gap of two years, why did King Huan turn a blind eye to the military operations of Western Zhou and did not make any defensive arrangements?
There is the following passage in the Zuo Biography: "Shang Yi is Li Zhi zhao, dong yi rebelled" (king Huan paraded in the state of Li, dong yi rebelled). The state of Li, west of Yindu, was the main prince defending against the military threat of Western Zhou, and the intention of the King of Sui to parade troops here and deter Western Zhou was very obvious, but unfortunately, Dongyi rebelled again.
The specific time of the military parade of the King of Li in the State of Li should be before the second military crossing of the Western Zhou Dynasty. Therefore, when King Wu of Zhou first allied with the princes, the princes shouted "Shu Ke Fa Yi", but King Wu of Zhou chose to retire under the pretext of "the female does not know the Destiny of Heaven, and Wei Ke Ye" chose to retreat.
In fact, the reason why King Wu of Zhou withdrew was not that the time had not yet arrived, but that there were two possibilities: one was that the main force of Yin Shang had not yet been transferred to the east, and the other was that the king of Zhou had urgently transferred back the main army from Dongyi to deploy defense, so King Wu of Zhou had to withdraw.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="35" > two years later, when King Wu of Zhou crossed The army crossed Mengjin for the second time, the marching speed was significantly faster. </h1>
From the arrival of Mengjin in the afternoon of February to the arrival of Makino in February, it took only 6 days, even if the rain fell from the sky and the soldier fell ill, even when the military division advised that "the death is sick, please rest", king Wu of Zhou this time left the so-called heavenly time behind and forced the march. Obviously, King Wu of Zhou's intention was very clear, that is, to capture Chaoge before the main force of Yin Shang returned to help.
Since he succeeded to the throne, king Huan has always faced a two-sided battle with Western Zhou and Dongyi, and Dongyi's threat to Yin Shang is no less than that of Western Zhou, and there are repeated records in history books that "Dongyi is immersed in prosperity and gradually moves into Middle-earth".
Faced with this situation, it seems that the King of Lu wanted to devote himself to a battle, first to completely solve the Problem of Dongyi, and then to return to the division to fight a decisive battle with Western Zhou, so as to avoid the dilemma of "transferring troops to the west and then rebelling against Dongyi". Unfortunately, Western Zhou did not give the King of Lu this opportunity.