The story of "Playing with the princes with beacon fire" comes from Sima Qian's "Historical Records". According to the description in "Historical Records", King You of Zhou was stupid and unethical. In order to win a smile from his admirers, he ordered the beacon tower to be lit,

The story of " Beacon Fire Plays with the Princes" comes from Sima Qian's "Historical Records". According to the description in "Historical Records", King You of Zhou Dynasty was stupid and unscrupulous. In order to win praise Si's smile, he ordered the beacon fire to be lit. Taiwan attracted the princes from all walks of life to rush to Haojing. Bao Si couldn't help but laugh when she saw the confused expressions on the faces of these princes who had arrived. And the beacon fire drama princes also contributed to the demise of in the Western Zhou Dynasty.

However, more and more evidence proves that "playing the princes with beacon fire" is just a legend.

Qian Mu analyzed the war drama on princes in " Outline of National History " and pointed out that this is the talk of a villain in the back alley. Based on this information, we can see that the war drama on princes is false. The fundamental reason for the demise of the Western Zhou Dynasty was due to the collusion between the deposed prince and the Marquis of Shen the Quan Rong rebellion. Coupled with natural and man-made disasters and the gradual decline of the Zhou royal family, the demise of the Zhou Dynasty had nothing to do with the beacon fire princes, and Bao Si was just a woman who was pulled out to take the blame.

So there are at least three things that prove that "Beacon Fire Plays on the Princes" is false:

First, the historical documents before the Qin and Han Dynasties do not record the construction of the Great Wall and beacon towers in the Western Zhou Dynasty. It was not until the Qin and Han dynasties that there was the earliest record of the Great Wall of Qin Of course, this does not deny that the Great Wall or beacon towers were being built during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period;

Qin Great Wall

Second, even if King You of Zhou lit the beacon tower, the Jin Kingdom, the vassal state that was closest to Haojing at that time, was far away Hao, the farthest city, would have taken a month or two to arrive. Could it be that King You of Zhou and Bao Si had to sleep in the open beside the beacon tower for more than 370 kilometers? With the transportation capacity at that time, the Jin army could not reach Hao. It will take nearly a week in Kyoto. How long will it take to wait for the armies from various vassal states to arrive?

Third, according to historical records, the war of annihilation in the Western Zhou Dynasty was initiated by King You of Zhou, and it was not the Quan Rong who attacked first.

In early 2012, when Tsinghua University in Beijing was sorting out the Warring States bamboo slips ("Tsinghua Slips ") received as a gift, they found that the description on the bamboo slips was inconsistent with "Beacon Fire Plays on Princes". The bamboo slips of the Warring States Period collected by of Tsinghua University record that King You of Zhou took the initiative to attack Shen, the original home of the Marquis of Shen. Marquis Shen contacted the Rong people to defeat the King of Zhou, and the Western Zhou Dynasty perished. There is no story on the bamboo slips about "Playing with the Princes by Beacon Fire".

In short, we can conclude that "playing with beacon fire on the princes" was not the cause of the demise of the Western Zhou Dynasty. We can even conclude that this story is simply made up. Of course, it is not necessarily made up by Sima Qian. Maybe Sima Qian just heard it through hearsay.