The Mystery of the Capital City of the Western Zhou Dynasty Archaeological overturning historical re

Mondo History Updated on 2024-01-20

Lü's Spring and Autumn Period recorded that Confucius's student Nangong Kuo (not Nangong Kuo at the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty) said to Lu Mugong, "The monarch does not hear that the king of Zhou will become the king of Zhou", and Nangong Kuo said that the king of Zhou will be "Cheng Zhou". The so-called "Chengzhou" is in the area of Luoyang today, also known as "Xinyi" and "Luoyi".

Sima Qian believes that "scholars are all called Zhou Fa Xuan, Juluoyi, but in fact, it is not", and after King Cheng of Zhou sent Zhao Gong Buju and others, "Fu Du Feng Hao" (Hao Jing, also known as "Zong Zhou"), until King Zhou Ping moved east, the Zhou Dynasty was not set to "become Zhou".

The problem is: the historical records record that King Wu of Zhou once said that "Luodi is not far from the capital of heaven, and the capital will be set in Yuzi in the future". The historical records denied that the king was set to become a Zhou, and the Lü Spring and Autumn Period bluntly said that the king was a king to become a Zhou, and there is also a record of Zhou Gongdan's "Ling (make) from the king to the Zhou (Xinyi into Zhou)", so did the king of the Western Zhou Dynasty decide to become a Zhou? Archaeology overturns historical records. More importantly, archaeology has also discovered why the Zhou people made the capital of Zhou, and why the Central Plains was called "China" in ancient times!

After King Wu Keyin, he was not ecstatic, because Feng Ho was far west, it was difficult to control the eastern land, and it was difficult to deter the old Yin Shang clan, so he couldn't sleep at night. For this reason, King Wu of Zhou looked at Santu in the south, looked at Yue in the north, observed the Yellow River Yiluo, and finally thought that the capital of the Xia Dynasty was conducive to the construction of a new capital, so he made a preliminary plan for the new capital, and Shi Shuyun "camped Zhou to live in Luoyi (Luoyang) and then go".

After the auxiliary government of the Duke of Zhou, large-scale construction began, and the Book of Yi Zhou recorded that "Horifang is 1,702 zhang, and the party is 77 li." thought that the world was a big one" and so on. In the fifth year of King Cheng of Zhou, in 1039 BC, the construction of Cheng Zhou was completed, and King Cheng sent Zhao Gong to come to worship, etc., so after that, did King Cheng of Zhou move the capital to Cheng Zhou?

In the 60s of the last century, in Baoji County, Baoji City, Shaanxi Province (now Chencang District, Baoji City), a farmer dug up a Western Zhou bronze in the soil, which was a sacrificial vessel made by a Western Zhou nobleman named "He", so it was called "He Zun". There are 12 lines of inscriptions and 122 characters on the inner bottom of the statue, but these 122 characters are of great historical significance, so they have become the first batch of cultural relics in China that are prohibited from being exhibited abroad.

When the inscription shows that Zhou Cheng was king, there were two core contents: first,At the beginning of the inscription, it is said that "only the king moved to Chengzhou at the beginning", indicating that the king of Zhou Cheng set the capital in Chengzhou, which obviously overturned the historical records, and as for when the Western Zhou Dynasty moved the capital to Haojing, there is no credible clue now; The Zhou people recalled what King Wu of Zhou said, "Yu Qi Zhaizi China, Zizhi 乂 (yì, stability) people", in which "Zhaizi China" is the earliest written record of the word "China".

King Wu of Zhou decided to make the capital Luodi, there must be many considerations, military, geographical, political, etc., but one of the factors is important, this is history. According to the "Historical Records", King Wu of Zhou Dingdu Luodi had a close relationship with the "Heavenly Chamber" (not far from the Emperor of Heaven) and the "Residence of Summer". Surprisingly, archaeological discoveries have found that the area around Luodi has an extremely long history.

Yangshao culture, about 7000-5000 years ago, spread a wide range, east to eastern Henan, south to western Hubei, west to Ganqing, north to Hetao, but the core area of Yangshao culture is in Sanmenxia, Henan, from Luoyang is only about 100 kilometers.

The site of the double locust tree, located in Gongyi City, Zhengzhou (adjacent to Luoyang Yanshi), about 5300 years ago, its civilization was inherited by the Xia, Shang and ZhouExperts and scholars call it "the embryo of early Chinese civilization", the taproot of Chinese civilization. The site was a central settlement with the nature of a tuyi, and it was the central force of the major tribes in the region at that time, so it was also called the "Heluo Ancient Kingdom".

Erlitou ruins, Luoyang Yanshi**, Zhengzhou**, etc., belong to the capital of the Xia and Shang periods, concentrated in Luoyang, Zhengzhou, the scale, specifications, cultural relics, etc. are extremely amazing, has long been widely known, the author will not repeat.

From these archaeological discoveries, it is not difficult to see a fact, that isFor 4,000 years before the Zhou Dynasty, Luoyang and its surroundings were the political center for a long time, the core of the "Kingdom of the Son of Heaven". In ancient times, these powerful political forces, subject to astronomical and geographical knowledge, would take themselves as the origin and divide the east, south, west and north outwards, believing that they were the closest to the capital of the Emperor of Heaven, in the center of the world, living in the "middle of the world", and belonging to the "** country" (that is, "China").

Eventually, this historical memory was transmitted to the end of the Shang Dynasty and the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty, so King Wu of Zhou chose Luodi to build the capital, calling the former "Kingdom of the Son of Heaven" "China".

The West emphasizes bloodline, China emphasizes inheritance, and many things of Chinese civilization, if you trace back to the roots, can more or less find "so so", which is the case with the Zhou people who built the capital Luoyi and the ancient name of "China" in the Central Plains, which is incomparable with Western civilization.

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