The period of transition from slavery to feudal system was full of blood and cruelty, and war was a manifestation of social influence at that time. People's scope of self-awareness is also very narrow. The main reason is that not all residents of their own country are considered foreigners, so they must be occupied and attacked.
At that time, social civilization was still in its infancy, and people put survival needs first, so they naturally had no time to take into account the improvement of the spiritual world. Shang Dynasty was the first slave dynasty in my country, and its ruling methods were still mainly based on competition and war.
At that time, there were many ethnic groups active around the Shang Dynasty, and they all became the targets of the Shang Dynasty's conquest. Among them, the attack on Qiang was the most prominent in the Shang Dynasty war, but unlike other ethnic groups, the Shang Dynasty treated Qiang people more cruelly.
Shang Dynasty defeated Qiang
Shang destroyed Xia and established the country, which was to win by force, so their monarchs throughout the dynasty were all warlike. After the establishment of the Shang Dynasty, foreign wars never stopped. Therefore, during the Shang Dynasty, their territory was much larger than the previous Xia Dynasty .
According to historical records, the territory of the Shang Dynasty reached Liaoning in the north, Hubei in the south, Shaanxi in the west, and coast in the east. However, judging from the historical environment at that time, these scopes of the Shang Dynasty were only rough and were not actually controlled by the territory.
In fact, the Shang Dynasty can only directly control the northern and central areas of Henan Province, and other areas are managed by other countries . However, there are many countries active in the surrounding areas of the Shang Dynasty. The more powerful ones are the tongue square, ghost square, , earth square and Qiang square in the northwest region.
Some of them surrendered to the rule of the Shang Dynasty, while others did not obey management, so those who were disobedient naturally became thorns in the Shang Dynasty's eyes, such as Qiang .
In fact, the Shang Dynasty has been in constant civil unrest after its founding. At that time, the capital was frequently moved. It was not until Wu Ding succeeded to the throne that it ushered in the first prosperous era after its founding. But the Wuding period was also the most intense conquest of the countries. At that time, they launched many large-scale wars against the northwestern countries.
At that time, the Qiang people lived in western Guanzhong, Shaanxi and southeastern Gansu. Archaeological data showed that the Qiang people lived in the area where they lived was actually very far from the actual control of the Shang Dynasty and belonged to the western border area.
Other Fang countries are closest to the Shang Dynasty's capital, and it is understandable that the Shang Dynasty goes to conquer them. However, the Qiang people still cannot escape the fate of being conquered by the border thousands of miles away, and they posed no threat to the Shang Dynasty, which is really incredible.
From many oracle bone inscriptions unearthed from the Shang Dynasty, we can see that the Shang Dynasty launched many wars against the Qiang people, and the war lasted for at least hundreds of years. There are many records of "Qiang Fang" in oracle bone inscriptions, and words such as "destroying Qiang" and "supering Qiang" appear.
From archaeology, we learned that the Shang Dynasty treated the captives of the Qiang people very cruelly. Because he still believed in the way of sacrificing living people, a large number of Qiang people became sacrifices for the Shang Dynasty, some chopped their heads down; some chopped them up; and some split them in half.
The number of sacrifices used by living people in the Shang Dynasty was also very shocking. According to statistics, the number of sacrifices reached more than 5,000 during the Wuding period. Since sacrificial sacrifices of living people have become a norm, merchants are naturally unwilling to use their own people to do it. The only way is to obtain prisoners through war and use them to complete the ceremony.
However, some people have put forward different concepts, saying that the Shang Dynasty arrested Qiang people to be sentenced to death, not to sacrifice, but to another reason. Later, archaeology gave a truth.
The origin of the Qiang people
If the Shang Dynasty really liked to use prisoners to sacrifice, then not only the Qiang people, but other ethnic groups should also suffer this kind of torture. However, the Qiang people recorded more frequently in history, and the people of other countries seemed to be "survived".
If this is not the case, then why did the Shang Dynasty kill the Qiang people? The Liu family tomb in Fufeng, Shaanxi, my country is recognized as a site of Erligang Business Culture. This place was also judged by archaeologists as a remains of the Qiang people.
Scholars have clarified these northwest branches of Xia culture through the unearthed cultural relics such as tripods, basins, beans, and folded shoulder jars. This also a question arises, that is, are the Qiang people descendants of the Xia people?
my country's pre-Qin scholar Yang Guoyong also mentioned that the Qiang people who lived here probably fled here after the Shang Dynasty destroyed Xia. Because they were full of national hatred and family hatred, they were always unwilling to recognize the existence of the Shang Dynasty and form an opposition to it.
The speculation here is actually based on historical materials. There is a record in " Mandarin ": the ancestor of the Qiang people, Siyue , was named Lu Di and given the surname Qiang because of his contribution to assisting Dayu in controlling floods. There is also the allusion of "Yu's release of Xiqiang " in "Records of the Grand Historian" and " Book of the Later Han ".
From this we can infer that the Qiang people were one of the vassal states during the Xia Dynasty and had assisted the Xia Dynasty for all dynasties. They were of the same clan as the Xia Dynasty. When the Xia Dynasty was destroyed by the Shang Dynasty, these people had to escape to other places. In order to kill all the people and eliminate the roots, the Shang Dynasty traveled thousands of miles and spent a lot of national strength to pursue the Qiang people and capture them back to worship their ancestors.
In the war against the Qiang people launched by the Shang Dynasty, Fuhao defeating the Qiang was the most classic battle. In order to eliminate the Qiang people, Fu Hao led more than 10,000 people to conquer them, and finally the victory ended.
The Qiang people who had been fighting against the Shang Dynasty for many years also declined through this battle. Some of them were captured by the Shang Dynasty, while others fled to more remote places. Some people in later generations have suspected that the world-renowned Sanxingdui civilization was established by this group of fleeing Qiang people.
The ending of the Qiang people
If the Qiang people are descendants of the Xia people, it would make sense that the Shang Dynasty would conquer them no matter what. After all, there was an irreconcilable hatred between the former and the latter, and coupled with hundreds of years of war, the hatred had grown into a towering tree.
Although Fu Hao's battle greatly damaged the Qiang people's vitality, they did not completely eliminate them. The escaped group survived, but they did not forget the national hatred and family hatred, but buried their hatred for the Shang Dynasty in their hearts, waiting for the opportunity to take revenge. More than 0 years later, King Zhou was brutal and extremely violent aroused public grievances. When King Wu Zhou ordered the heroes to go to conquer, the Qiang people finally waited for this day. They joined King Wu of Zhou and followed them to push the Shang Dynasty into an abyss that would never be restored.
According to archaeological research, when the Shang Dynasty entered its decline period, the power of the Qiang people continued to increase, and it expanded to the entire Guanzhong area. The fourth phase of cultural archaeological discovery of the Yin and Shang sites, the area that originally belonged to the Qiang people became the pre-Zhou period.
You can see the Western Zhou culture in the strong Qiang culture, but this is not a compulsory surrender to the war, but a willing integration. This may be because King Wu of Zhou was grateful for the strong help of the Qiang people during the attack on Zhou, so the two ethnic groups formed a fusion through mutual exchanges.
Now, the Qiang people have disappeared into the 56 ethnic groups in New China with the torrent of history, but in some places, some ancient traditions and customs of this nation are still retained. Nowadays, there is an ancient ethnic group called Qiang in , Sichuan, and the Qiang people originated from this.
