In our past story, the king felt that it was more important to deal with the Yi people in the east, where there were many good things to use for war. In order to snatch these treasures and enhance his strength, he endured Zhou Guoyin and tried to win them over. But he didn't expect that this Zhou Guo was like a stab in the back. When he led a large army on an expedition to Dongyi, he suddenly launched an attack. This can catch the king by surprise and easily overthrow the rule of the Shang Dynasty.
But is the reality of history really that simple?
In fact, the places where the Shang Dynasty went to attack Dongyi in the last years were not like the stories we usually tell. The king of Shang led hundreds of thousands of soldiers, waving flags and shaking the sky with gongs and drums; Groups of soldiers with swords, guns, swords, and halberds, and the carriages were lined up, rushing to the east to fight. The crusade in real life may not be such a lively and spectacular appearance, and the situation at that time should be quite different from what we imagined.
In the late Shang Dynasty, when they went to attack Dongyi, it was more like taking some of their elite guards with them. Then unite the forces of some friendly princes in the East, and work together to make some quick and effective military attacks. These actions are like mowing the grass with a sickle, cleaning up a part of Dongyi's forces. Then, the newly laid land was divided among the little kings in the east. As for the Shang king himself, he would bring the captured prisoners and the good things he had grabbed back to Anyang, the capital at that time. I went to report to my ancestors and told me what was going on this expedition.
In the late Yin Shang period, the Dongyi forces in this part of Shandong were no longer as strong as before. Many Shang cultures and states began to expand eastward, slowly establishing their own territory. It lasted from the Middle Shang period to the Late Shang period. After several wars, Dongyi's territory is getting smaller and smaller, and in the end it can only nest in the Jiaozhou Peninsula for that generation.
Therefore, when the Shang Dynasty later attacked the east, it did not always use a large number of troops to fight a big battle. It was more about consolidating the management and influence of the eastern region, that is, to make the newly occupied places listen to the Shang king, rather than sending troops to fight on a large scale every time.
In the tenth year of his reign, he led his army in a great battle against a tribe in the east called the "Renfang". This battle is historically known as the "Ten Rituals and Expeditions", which means that he carried out a conquest during his reign of ten years. The war lasted for 281 days, starting in August of the tenth year of his reign and continuing until May of the eleventh year. Archaeologists have found a lot of material about the war from ancient records, including 41 pieces of tortoise shell and cow bones engraved with text, which record 124 different pieces of information and 104 related war events.
In the fifteenth year of Emperor Xin, he launched another war against the barbarians in the east. After this war, there was a special treasure that remained, and that was a bronze vessel called "Little Minister's Rhinoceros". This treasure is engraved with some words, in the modern Chinese vernacular: that is, on the day of Ding Si, the king of Shang inspected a place called "And" in Kuidi. Then, the king came back from the battle and was in a good mood. As a reward, he gave the shell money he got from Kuidi to a small ** under his hand, named Xiao Chen. This is like saying that when the king returned triumphantly, he did not forget to give some "performance awards" to the meritorious ministers.
The great battle against Dongyi in the 15th year lasted from October of the 14th year to April of the 15th year, and the total battle was fought for more than nine months. Scholars used to argue about what the human side was all about. For example, Mr. Guo Moruo believes that Renfang is probably in that part of Shandong; Mr. Chen Mengjia thinks that Renfang may be located in the Huai River basin; There is also Mr. Li Xueqin, who once speculated that Renfang's location may be in Shaanxi.
The new information on the oracle bone inscription that has been sorted out recently has helped us find the clues that the "human side" lives in **, and it turns out that they are likely to be in the area of the Shandong Peninsula. These ancient handwritings tell us that the "human side" also attacked the eastern kingdom. The Shang king not only canonized the leader of the "Renfang" as a marquis, but also let him manage other tribes and small kingdoms. This shows that the Shang king's conquest of the eastern peoples was not random, but planned to integrate and control the forces in that region.
Later, the Shang king's record of fighting against Dongyi in the east was not very much. Therefore, we can speculate that during the reign of King Shang, mainly in the tenth and fifteenth years, he concentrated his forces on fighting Dongyi. These two big battles with Dongyi were not the reason for his fiasco in Makino.
The Battle of Muye, in which King Wu overthrew the Shang Dynasty, took place in the thirty years of Emperor Xin's reign, and this time was separated. This shows that it cannot simply be said that because Di Xin led his troops to the expedition to Dongyi and could not come back, the Shang Dynasty lost so badly in Muye. Not only can't it be said that it is the main reason, but even the secondary reason is not enough. In other words, there should be no direct relationship between these two things, each of which is its own thing.