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Among ancient Chinese mythological literary works, there are many popular works. In addition to the novel "Journey to the West" about gods and demons, there is also the historical romance "Fengshen Yanyi" in the alternating period of Shang and Zhou .
Nezha, Yang Jian, Taiyi Zhenren and other images in Fengshen Romance are still an important force dominating China's animation culture industry.
Although "The Romance of the Gods" is a novel about gods, demons and monsters full of mythology, it is relatively restorative of the general trend of history.
is just based on the traditional concept of excessively promoting the "justice" of King Wu of Zhou . After all, it is a literary work, and it is inevitable that some will be used to profile . Generally speaking, King Wu of Zhou is just, and King Zhou of Shang is evil.
But literary works are literary works after all, mixed with too many personal preferences. Even the history recorded by Zhou Dynasty people will inevitably fall into the trap of successful kings and defeated bandits.
After all, those who dared to speak well of King Zhou of Shang have long since died, while those who praised King Wu of Zhou for his great achievements have continued for as long as eight hundred years.
In the many times of dissemination, things like a white horse but not a horse, calling a deer a horse, and three people becoming a tiger can happen. It is not difficult to turn King Zhou of Shang into a black man.
The Shang Dynasty fell, and there were other reasons
With the discovery and research of oracle bones in the Shang Dynasty in modern times, we have mastered more and more first-hand historical information. Coupled with some historical materials that have been handed down, we are increasingly discovering that the demise of the Shang Dynasty does not seem to be as simple as it originally seemed to the public.
There are more deep-seated reasons in it. There are quite a lot of contingency, and of course there is also a certain degree of inevitability.
The demise of a dynasty must have its internal reasons. Even if it is wiped out by foreign invasion, we can summarize the fundamental reasons for the demise of the dynasty from the perspective of God in later generations.
To say it sounds good is to draw lessons from it, but to say it sounds bad is to say it as an afterthought. In fact, when King Zhou of Shang took over the throne of the Shang Dynasty, the Shang Dynasty was already facing big problems.
The situation of King Zhou of Shang Dynasty is actually a bit similar to that of Emperor Chongzhen of Ming Dynasty. He inherited a mess when he came to the throne.
Since the Ming Dynasty is relatively close to us, there is a lot of information that can be accessed, and a lot of it has been introduced in TV series and other literary and artistic works, so we will not go into details today.
Let’s just take a look at what kind of bad cards King Zhou of Shang and Emperor Xin took over.
The Shang Dynasty was a slave dynasty with relatively decentralized power. Due to limitations in productivity and transportation, the actual area that the Shang Dynasty could control was actually around today's Henan and Hebei.
Although the surrounding Fang Kingdom belonged to the Shang Dynasty, it was actually just a very loose political and military alliance and could not rule very effectively.
This is why there are often wars with some Fang countries in the oracle bone inscriptions unearthed in the Shang Dynasty.
However, these intermittent small rebellions in Fang Kingdom could not actually shake the foundation of the Shang Dynasty. The root cause of the Shang Dynasty's problems actually lay within its ruling class.
Family power
The Shang Dynasty was a slave-owning aristocratic political dynasty. Although the Shang kings had great power, they were far less powerful than the emperors under centralized power in later generations.
Even the later imperial power was often interfered with by prime ministers, relatives, etc., not to mention the Shang Dynasty more than three thousand years ago.
The politics of the Shang Dynasty seemed to be controlled by the King of Shang, but in fact it was the unified will of the entire Shang Dynasty nobles. After all, the King of Shang was just a lonely man, and the real beneficiaries were these great nobles.
These great nobles own a large amount of farmland and slaves, and even have their own military forces. When the country is fighting a war, these nobles will contribute their own military power to carry out military wars.
It’s okay that King Shang is obedient. These troops can naturally be driven by King Shang, but once the etiquette of the noble class is hurt, no one will shoot themselves in the foot.
The example of nobles revolting in rebellion was not unique in the entire history of the Shang Dynasty, and it was common even in later generations. In order to reduce the power of the nobility, the Shang Dynasty often used a very simple and crude method-moving the capital.
As long as the capital is moved, the power of the old slave-owning nobles in the old capital will be greatly reduced. After all, the land is real estate and cannot be moved.
In the recorded migration records of the Shang people, there is a saying of "the first eight and the last five". That is to say, during the Xia Dynasty, when the merchants were still a small country, they experienced eight capital moves.
After the founding of the Shang Dynasty, there were as many as five times. The last great migration was the most famous "Pangeng moved to Yin" in history.
When King Zhou of Shang succeeded to the throne, many years had passed since the last time Pan Geng moved to Yin, and the old aristocratic forces in the court were already quite entrenched.
So if we follow the habits of our ancestors, King Zhou of Shang would still have to move the capital to solve this problem.
But those old nobles are not fools. They all know that once King Zhou of Shang moves the capital, their power will be greatly reduced. Maybe the day when the capital is moved is the day when these old nobles rebel.
King Zhou of Shang, who had just succeeded to the throne, certainly could not take this risk. However, although he did not move the capital on the surface, in fact, his daily political activities and daily life have been moved to Chaoge City, south of Yindu .
This position is not only out of the control of the old aristocracy, but also does not make the nerves of the old aristocracy too sensitive. It has to be said that it is a very clever method.
The same is true for our later Tang Dynasty. The Li family of the Tang Dynasty wanted to get rid of the influence of the Guanlong aristocratic group.
Although the official capital is in Chang'an in the Guanzhong Basin , in fact, the daily office space has been in the capital Luoyang for a long time.
As a result, the conflict between royal power and clan power was slightly circumvented by King Zhou of Shang, but it was not actually resolved, but the power of clan power was slightly weakened.
The Internet aristocratic group represented by Taishi Wen Zhong still continues to influence the decision-making of King Zhou of Shang, but the right to speak is no longer so important.
Theocracy
Different from the struggle between imperial power and prime ministerial power in later generations, the Shang Dynasty was more of a struggle between divine power and royal power. After the Zhou Dynasty , China's rulers actually didn't believe in these stories of gods and ghosts except when they were pursuing immortality.
Although they all claim to be the emperor, most of them adhere to the idea of "respecting ghosts and gods and keeping away" passed down by Confucius and doing their best to obey the destiny of heaven. Heaven is more like a rule than something that can influence people's decision-making.
But the Shang Dynasty was different. The Shang Dynasty culture originated from Dongyi and Northeast Yi, and the color of witchcraft was very strong. No matter what kind of big or small event it is, the King of Shang will perform divination.
"The major events of the country are sacrifice and military service." The divination of the Shang people is to ask the ancestors who have ascended to heaven whether the activities they are about to perform are auspicious.
As for the divination method, one of the divination methods we are now familiar with is that the wizard carves the requested questions on oracle bones .
Then a hole that seems to be pierced but not pierced is cut out on the oracle bone, and it is thrown into the fire and burned. Wait until cracks appear on the turtle shell, and then the wizard or priest will interpret the good or bad fortune of this hexagram.
Of course, these rituals back then must be much more complicated than we imagined, but due to the lack of cameras of that era, we can only speculate on some clues from the rough archaeological records.
This kind of divination, for those of us who are firmly materialistic , is nothing more than a combination of temperature, chisel strength, direction, oracle bone growth conditions and other factors.
But for devout believers, this is God's will, which will have a great impact on decision-making.
And our high priest of the Shang Dynasty, although he seems to be just a person in charge of temple etiquette and divination, he actually uses his professional skills to influence the decisions of the Shang King.
After all, the high priest may have found some rules in burning turtle shells for many years. He can intervene in the divination results through the strength of the chisel, the language method of questioning, probability, etc., and then achieve the divination results he wants.
The well-known God of Wealth Bigan was the high priest during the period of King Zhou of Shang Dynasty, and he was also the uncle of King Zhou of Shang Dynasty.
Therefore, whether in terms of mastering the divine power or in terms of seniority, Bigan was extremely powerful in the entire Shang Dynasty aristocratic group with the surname Zi.
was even able to threaten the throne of Emperor Xin, King of Shang Zhou for a time. After all, there were many examples of brothers becoming brothers throughout the history of the Shang Dynasty. Bigan inherited the position of his elder brother Emperor Yi .
In fact, as early as the period of King Zhou 's father, Emperor Yi, he had already challenged the divine power: Emperor Yi had no way and was a puppet. He called himself a god and fought with him. When people are asked to do something, the gods are overwhelmed, so they kill and humiliate them, fill their blood into an apple sac, and shoot them upwards. They are ordered to shoot into the sky.
Only when you are in the position can you truly feel the feeling of being restrained by the divine power. After Emperor Zhou ascended the throne, Emperor Xin wanted to reform the ancestral temple and divination.
But every reform will touch the cheese of many people. How can those with vested interests agree to let you cut their flesh with peace of mind?
Therefore, Bigan, the high priest who had the power to communicate with gods and ghosts, reacted particularly fiercely to King Zhou's series of reform measures.
So King Zhou of Shang Dynasty "killed relatives for righteousness" and operated on his uncle, killing the chicken to show the monkey. Knocking on mountains and shaking tigers severely weakened the status of theocracy in politics.
But religious habits are not a problem that a stupid pope can solve. The general public and nobles have been observing the old etiquette of gods and ghosts for a long time.
Shang King Zhou was so one-size-fits-all and even killed his uncle, he had already lost part of the people's support.
Coupled with the subsequent imprisonment of Jizi and the appointment of lower-level aristocrats to fight against the old aristocrats, the dissatisfaction of the old aristocratic interest groups is increasing day by day.
Conclusion:
Therefore, although the starting point of this reform of King Zhou of Shang was very good and very progressive, these reforms hurt the foundation of the Shang Dynasty and made the already loose tribal alliance become like a piece of loose sand under the backsliding morals of the old nobles. In the end, they were crushed by the Zhou people and perished quickly.
