The experience of Chaogecheng and the tragic death of the eldest brother obviously caused irreparable mental wounds to King Wu. He couldn't get rid of insomnia and nightmares for the rest of his life.
Weekly Restoration
After returning from Chaoge, Lao Zhou Chang was very optimistic about the career of the merchants. His idea was finally echoed by his son and his clansmen, who saw the rift within the merchants, and also won the Qiang allies represented by the Taigong. Coupled with the various omen shown by the hexagram - the tribesmen do not understand such a profound mystery at present, but they will be impressed by it sooner or later - the great cause of the merchants is destined to have a bright future.
Zhou Chang even added the throne to himself according to the pomp and circumstance of the court song. Since then, he has become a king equal to the king of Shang and the "King Wen of Zhou" in history. Of course, this is just within the small scope of the Zhou people, quietly hiding from the eyes and ears of the king of Shang.
King Wen of Zhou in Ming Zhu Tianran's "Praise of the Ancients of the Past Dynasties".
After returning from Chaoge, King Wen's body was still healthy, but his memory was rapidly declining. Later, the epic of the Zhou people said that he "didn't know what to do, and he obeyed the emperor's rules", which was actually a typical symptom of Alzheimer's disease ("The Book of Songs, Daya, King Wen").
None of this mattered, because of his limited time and intelligence, he had already devoted himself to the work of calculating the Bagua into sixty-four trigrams, which was perhaps the only way for him to relieve the pain of losing his son. The source of food and clothing for later generations of hexagram masters - "Zhou Yi" was born from this.
But this did not help the business of the merchants, and the specific work was carried out by the sons. In addition to Bo Yi Kao, who died in the Shang capital, only Zhou Fa and Zhou Dan are now adults. For the cause created by Lao Zhou Chang who insisted on going his own way, they still regard it as a daunting path.
Compared with the huge and developed Shang Dynasty, the power of the Zhou people was too weak after all. Zhou Dan (Zhou Gong) has a weak temperament and never dares to question his father's decision-making, but he is also not qualified for too much constructive work. Zhou Fa worked hard to take on this business, which should be an important reason why he was appointed as the heir by King Wen.
Zhou Chang's father and son's business career has been told countless times by ancient scholars and modern historians. They moved to the plains, which were more suitable for agricultural cultivation, and took advantage of the title of "Xibo" granted by the king of Shang to win over and unite the surrounding Qiang people and other tribes, and conquer the tribes and Fang states that were unwilling to obey by force.
The Zhou people expanded very rapidly, and their power even began to extend beyond Guanzhong. The vanquished provided food, clothing, and goods, so that the men of the Zhou tribe could be freed from the toils of subsistence and toil, and formed an armed force of all the people. The traditional clans and family branches of the Zhou people were scattered, and the young and middle-aged people were reorganized in military units.
In the process of expansion, the Zhou people also founded the "university", also known as Biyong or Mingtang. The business of this earliest university was not to study and study culture, but to conduct military training for all Zhou men, the most basic compulsory course was archery, and the most advanced and difficult was to drive chariots to fight.
Painted by Li Qianlang, Beijing Guozijian Piyong.
In the description of classical literature, Biyong is a tall building surrounded by water, but it is actually an armed fortress surrounded by a moat. King Zhou and his sons lived in the fortress. This Biyong became the source of the Zhou people's power to conquer the north, south, west and east:
Hojing Piyong, from west to east, from south to north, unconvinced. The Emperor! - The Book of Poetry, Daya, King Wen's Voice
After returning from Chaoge, King Wen Zhou Chang lived for another nine years. After his death, Zhou Fa ascended the throne and proclaimed himself King Wu, but still continued the chronicle of King Wen. According to his explanation, his father's spirit in heaven still guides the great cause of the merchants.
Zhou Gong interprets dreams
But Wuwang Zhou Fa has always lived in fear and anxiety.
The experience of Chaogecheng, especially the tragic death of his eldest brother Bo Yi Kao, caused him an unhealable mental wound. Coupled with the pressure of his career and the fear of failure, he could not escape insomnia and nightmares for the rest of his life.
In the Book of Yi Zhou, there are many chapters with the title of "寤", all of which record the nightmare pain of King Wu ("寤儆", "He寤", "Wu 寤", "Wu 密"). He often tossed and turned all night and couldn't sleep, and suddenly fell asleep at dawn, but he dreamed that the plan of the merchants was leaked, the merchants were angry, and the allies who had contacted him did not dare to resist, and the entire Zhou clan was immediately wiped out
Woohoo, plot to vent! Today, there is a business surprise. If you want to have nothing, you want to attack without mediocrity, and if the king is insufficient, the ring is not prosperous, and you are worried about it! - Yi Zhou Shu
Every time he woke up from his fear, he would send his ministers to invite his younger brother Zhou Gong to tell him about the tragic situation in his dream and his worries about whether he would succeed in his business venture. The Shang family has sacrificed to God for generations, and they will definitely be blessed by the heavens.
For this kind of nightmare, Zhou Gong can only try to alleviate it with dreams. He was relieved that their mother, Da Ji, had dreamed that the Shang capital was full of thorns, which was a sign of the dying of the merchant from heaven. Although God has enjoyed the sacrificial offerings of the Shang kings of the past, he should not favor the Shang kings because of this small benefit.
Zhou Gong in Ming Zhu Tianran's "Praise of the Ancients of the Past Dynasties".
In order to complete his explanation, the Duke of Zhou played and explained again and again: the king's mission should be to make all people in the world live in peace and justice, which is the so-called "virtue". God should bless only those who are virtuous, replace kings or dynasties that do not have virtue, and replace them with virtuous people. As long as King Wu worked hard to cultivate "virtue", he would definitely be able to defeat the King of Shang with God's blessing ("Taiping Yulan" quoted in "Zhou Shu Cheng Liao", "Yi Zhou Shu Da Kai Wu, Xiao Kai Wu").
King Wu was never convinced by this explanation, and the nightmare accompanied him until he succeeded in destroying Shang and died. If there really is an all-knowing and all-powerful God, why did the eldest brother Bo Yi Kao still die tragically in Chaoge?
He prefers to believe that strength is everything. Only by completely eliminating the Shang army on the battlefield could the Zhou people be freed from fear. Therefore, it is the father-in-law who really trusts and reuses King Wu. Every night, he and his father-in-law were plotting various plans to enrich the country and strengthen the army, and various strategies to win over the surrounding small states and divide the top businessmen.
But after the conspiracy is over, he will still toss and turn and cannot sleep, the scenes of the Chao Ge Festival linger in front of his eyes, and the ghost of his tragic death brother will descend on his bedroom at any time. Every time I woke up from a nightmare, the window had begun to turn white, and my younger brother Zhou Chengcheng was waiting by the couch.
The name of Zhou Gong is "Dan", and the glyph is a half-round sun rising from the horizon, which means early morning. He was indeed the first person that the Martial King saw on every nightmare morning. King Wu's guards accompanied him - "Little Zi Yu" has long been accustomed to it, and when he sees him suffering from insomnia and nightmares, he will ask Duke Zhou for help without waiting for instructions.
Bronze knife in the collection of the National Museum of China in the Western Zhou Dynasty.
Bronze Ge Collection of the National Museum of China of the Western Zhou Dynasty.
So, King Wu cheered up a little in the comfort and encouragement of Duke Zhou and started a new day's work. There is no record in the history books of whether Zhou Gong himself escaped the entanglement of nightmares, and whether he himself believed those teachings about "virtue". But every moment before dawn when he was summoned by his brother, he was as calm and sober as day. Zhou Gong had apparently seriously considered his position: he could not afford the righteous and crazy cause that his father had started, nor could he avenge the death of his eldest brother. But this mission and the pressure it brings are destined to be borne by the two brothers.
His interpretation of "virtue" is only the good wish of ordinary people: they do not want to be killed or killed for no reason, they only want to live in stability under the rule of a holy king. But unlike all ordinary people, his brother Zhou Fa must become the "virtuous" king. Otherwise, the entire Zhou clan will die without a place to be buried.
If King Wu's mission is to become an emperor, a merchant and build order in the world, then his mission of Zhou Gongdan is to be the emperor's psychological counselor, to shape and maintain his image of a great man, so that it is enough to wish.
Makino Eagle Yang
Two years after King Wen's death, King Wu finally gathered his forces and launched an attack on the Shang Dynasty.
However, when they reached the Yellow River, they suddenly stopped their march and retreated. The first expedition ended hastily.
Neither the Zhou nor the allies understood King Wu's thoughts. In fact, King Wu had secretly discussed with Taigong and Duke Zhou many times: with the existing strength of the Zhou people, it was completely impossible to fight against the Shang army, and if he wanted to recruit more tribes as allies, he would inevitably reveal the strategy of the Shang Dynasty, which was obviously a dilemma
Yu Shu is in business at night, the secret is not obvious, who is with? (Yi Zhou Shu Da Kai Wu).
After a long trade-off, King Wu finally decided to take the risk: to openly break with the Shang dynasty and launch a limited tentative attack. This is his call to all the tribes ruled by the Shang Dynasty: The time has come for someone to take the lead in raising the rod and showing your position!
When the tyrant is triumphant, it seems that everyone succumbs to his obscenity. But as soon as the first and second opponents stand up, an army of followers will immediately emerge behind them. The tribes that had been devastated by the bloody human sacrifice for a long time rushed to join the Zhou people. The "princes" who joined the Zhou army along the way—tribes and small states—were actually mostly no more than Neolithic-level agricultural settlements—numbered as eight hundred.
These rabble, untrained in uniformity, are incapable of fighting. So King Wu retreated to Guanzhong in time. It will take time for him to forge these new allies into a much larger army.
The Shang King was supposed to punish the Zhou people for their rebellion with the fury of the thunder, just as he had arrested King Wen twelve years earlier. But he immediately discovered that his authority was rapidly declining, even within the Shang dynasty. There are more and more ** and relatives who are openly dissatisfied with him, and a conspiracy to overthrow him is brewing in the court. He was busy extinguishing the opposition in Asahatajo, executing his uncle Bigan and imprisoning more people. More and more Shang courtiers defected to Zhou, bringing with them cries for help from the Chaoge opposition.
After hundreds of sleepless nights, King Wu of Zhou launched a real expedition. The Western Coalition Army advanced along the road where King Wen was captured and entered into the court.
The king of Shang, who had just suppressed the domestic opposition, also gathered a large army, preparing to wipe out the Zhou people and all the rebellious nationalities in one fell swoop. The two sides assembled in Makino, the field outside Asaga, and were about to launch a decisive battle.
Schematic diagram of the Battle of Makino.
This day that completely changed Chinese history and rebuilt Chinese civilization came in the early morning of February 1, 1046 BC, thirteen years after King Wen Zhou Chang was captured and sent to Chaoge. Troops from both sides assembled overnight to prepare for battle. Bonfires lit the night sky, and the noise of people and livestock kept going all night long.
The harsh winter is coming to an end, and a faint morning mist drifts through the fields, and the dead grass is condensed with shiny frost. When the sky turned a deep blue, the moment the warrior king awoke from a nightmare, the armies of both sides were arrayed.
the Zhou and their allies, a total of forty-five thousand; As for the army assembled by the king of Shang, it was as many as a forest that could not be counted, "the journey of Yin Shang, it will be like a forest" ("The Book of Songs, Daya, Daming"), and later said that there were 700,000 people. And new troops are still coming.
It is said that opponents within the merchants had agreed to turn their back and attack the king before the two armies engaged. But as the two armies got closer and closer, they did not move. Perhaps they were also frightened by the sheer strength of the merchants themselves.
The Zhou allied forces formed a phalanx and walked towards the jungle of Yin Shang's spear halberds. They were getting more and more crowded because of their nervousness, their shields clashing against each other, and they had to stop and regroup with every few steps. The face of the enemy in the front row became clearer and clearer, and the tension suddenly increased, and the allied soldiers could no longer move.
One side is the master who has ruled the Central Plains for 600 years, and the other side has provided human and animal sacrifices for the master for generations, which will be a ** with a huge disparity in strength. The weaker party can break down and run in fear at any time.
King Wu's final pre-battle mobilization:
Today's events are only six steps and seven steps, but they are all together, and the master is reluctant! - Historical Records, Zhou Benji, Shangshu, Pastoral Oath
In the midst of this brief and silent confrontation, a small group of coalition soldiers squeezed out of the queue and walked towards the Yin Shang army formation. Leading these 100 people to the forefront is Lu Shang, a powerful sorcerer who is over seventy years old and is known for his old scheming and deep calculation. No one knows why he suddenly abandoned all intrigues, tricks, and tricks, and rushed straight to the enemy like a martial artist.
King Wu is defeated. Maybe he just wanted to change the fate of the Qiang people as human animals, he had seen too much in Chaoge.
In the epic of the later Zhou people, Taigong turned into an eagle hovering over Makino in the early morning. The enemy array in front of him instantly disintegrated and turned into a crowd of people fighting each other. King Wu's troops were immediately activated, and three hundred and fifty chariots rushed to the place where the banner of the Chinese army of Shang was ......
When the faint sunlight pierced through the morning mist and sprinkled the corpses across the fields, the six-hundred-year-old Shang Dynasty had come to an end.
Master Wei, Shi Weiyingyang. King Liangbiwu, ravaging the big merchants, will be Qingming. - The Book of Poetry, Daya, Daming
Although there are many masters, they have no heart to fight, and they want the king of martial arts to enter. The divisions all fell to fight to open the king. The king of martial arts galloped, and the soldiers all collapsed, and the side was destroyed. Go ......—Historical Records: Zhou Benji
New businessmen
The Zhou people and their allies marched into the city of Chaoge.
The king of Shang has died in despair**. With the exception of the princes, all the forces found satisfaction in his downfall. The warehouses of the palace were empty, and it is said that the king piled up all the treasures around him and lit them for burial, but only a few pieces of "Tianzhi Jade" were found from the ashes. The prince advised King Wu not to track down the whereabouts of the treasures: most of the merchants and dignitaries who surrendered to Cheng were mercenary, and they should be treated. The Zhou army continued to march to various places to conquer the recalcitrant Shang army, and the rebellious Shang nobles acted as guides.
It was not a problem to pacify the entire territory of the Shang Dynasty, but what King Wu of Zhou, Duke of Zhou, and Duke Taigong were anxious about was to make the upper echelons of the Shang Dynasty accept the fact of being conquered. In the previous secret contacts between the two sides, the upper echelons of the merchants only regarded this war as an expedient move to jointly eradicate the merchants, and the merchants after that would still retain their own dynasty. At this point, the Zhou people obviously will not admit this.
Bird Zun Collection of Shanxi Museum of Western Zhou Dynasty.
Bird cover human foot bowl collection of Shanxi Museum of the Western Zhou Dynasty.
Under the auspices of the Taigong, who was familiar with the merchant ceremonies, King Wu held a ceremony to offer sacrifices to God in Chaoge, and as in all previous ceremonies of merchants, the severed head was a gift to God, but this time the head was replaced by the charred Shang King, his concubines and cronies, and the offering prayer was replaced by King Wu of Zhou, the younger brother of the human sacrifice Bo Yi Kao thirteen years ago.
After that, King Wu gave a lecture to the Shang courtiers, announcing that the Shang Dynasty would be replaced by the Zhou Dynasty, and that the god who had enjoyed the rituals had also become the protector of the Zhou people.
King Wu used the transaction logic that merchants are most familiar with to argue: God's move was not a whim, although it was sacrificed by the Shang kings in the past, but the grain in the sacrifice was cultivated by the ancestor of the Zhou people, Houji, the son of Jiang Yan, so God has long favored the Zhou people in his heart, and entrusted the world of merchants to the Zhou people:
In the Shang Xianzhe King, worship God, and also maintain the Yuan Valley of My Houji, use the Xuan He, use the Xu diet, the Shang Xianzhe King, Wei Ji, Si Yong Xian Tu! - Yi Zhou Shu Shang Oath
Shang's son, Wu Geng, was appointed as the new Shang king. A few months later, the Shang land gradually stabilized, and King Wu left three young brothers who had just come of age - Uncle Guan, Uncle Cai, and Uncle Huo to be stationed in the Shang capital, monitor the Wu Geng court, and bring the main team to the west.
The head of the king, and all the courtiers he had reused, were escorted to Guanzhong. King Wu held a ceremony to worship the heavens again in his capital city of Hojing, announcing that he had officially pacified Middle-earth and became the only ** person of God in the world.
King Wu wants to comfort his father's humiliation and his eldest brother's tragic death. In fact, in the process of taking revenge on the merchant, he has turned into an out-and-out new merchant.
The ritual was also performed exactly as was customary for the merchants: 100 of the king's fortunate ministers were escorted to the altar, where they cut off their hands and feet with axes, and left to roll and struggle in the blood. The louder they shouted and the more they struggled and rolled, the richer the sacrifice to God.
There were also the forty patriarchs of the core clan of the merchant who resisted on the battlefield of Makino, who were stripped naked and thrown into the boiling water of the Great Ding (Yi Zhou Shu Shi Prisoner).
Then, King Wu wore the clothes of the Son of Heaven and walked up to the altar in the sound of **, reporting the process of destroying Shang to God and the spirits of the ancestors. The raw, cooked human bodies were carried to the altar and formally offered to God and the ancestors of the Zhou people. The heads of the kings and their wives and concubines, and the ears of the enemies who had been killed in battle, were piled on top of huge pyres and burned, and the scorched smoke was God's favorite food—according to the merchants.
In addition to these terrifying sacrifices, the gods of the mountains, rivers, heaven and earth also had to enjoy some slightly normal food: five hundred and four cows were slaughtered and sacrificed to God and the ancestors of Zhou; There were also two thousand seven hundred and one pigs, sheep, and dogs as offerings to the gods of the mountains, rivers, and land.
Pig Zun Collection of Shanxi Museum of the Western Zhou Dynasty.
The collection of the Western Zhou Shanxi Museum.
After all the ceremonies were performed according to the rituals of the merchants, King Wu Zhou Fa became the new ruler of the world reasonably and legitimately.
But he still couldn't shake off insomnia and nightmares.
He once again toured the newly conquered territory, trying to find signs that God would bless him, but he never succeeded. When King Wu climbed the West Mountain and overlooked the Song Castle, he found himself still living in the memories of the horrors of the past. His health deteriorated, and at the end of the year of the destruction of Shang, he finally became ill.
When King Wu experienced a long night of insomnia again, the boy appeared in front of the couch with Zhou Gongdan. King Wu talked about the business he hadn't had time to complete:
Those merchant ministers and tribes who had followed the king to do evil had not yet been completely eradicated, and could be launched at any time**; His eldest son, Zhou Yu, was not yet ten years old, and the rest were still in infancy, unable to govern the emerging dynasty at all; Except for the Duke of Zhou, all the younger brothers are still young, and only the Duke of Zhou can take over the governance of this new dynasty. There is no other option for this, so there is no need for even divination.
Moreover, after the accession of the Duke of Zhou, the city of Chaoge must be destroyed, which is the stronghold of sin; The sufferings and tears of the fathers and brothers there will be buried together. King Wu had already chosen the site of the new capital city for the Duke of Zhou: on the Henan Plain, which is in the middle of the world, surrounded by a small hill, and in the basin where three rivers converge. King Wu even gave the name of this new city that was still in his mind: "Duyi", the transitional city where the Zhou people ascended from the earthly world to heaven.
In the past, when comforting the martial king who woke up from a nightmare, Zhou Gong always quoted scriptures and classics, but this time he couldn't say a word, so he could only kneel in front of the couch and lean over and cry, letting his tears wet his clothes ("Yi Zhou Shu Duyi").
The specific process of the negotiation between the two has been annihilated. But when King Wu died, the successor to the throne was still the young king, Zhou Chan. As an assistant to his uncle, Duke Zhou announced the decision to build Duyi, but renamed it Luoyi—he realized the insurmountable boundary between the heavenly realm and the human world. All the inhabitants of Chaoge City, from nobles to artisans and poor people, had to migrate to this earthly new capital (present-day Luoyang City).
Zhou Dynasty migration map.
Zhou Gong system
Rebellion immediately broke out in the East. The three brothers, Guan, Cai, and Huo, questioned that Zhou Gong ostensibly pushed the throne, but in fact controlled the real power of the imperial court, and this kind of hypocritical trick can only deceive a child.
The three of them are a generation of newcomers who grew up after the tragedy of the Wen Dynasty song, and they did not have the sad experience of the frightened bird back then, and took the world of the Zhou people for granted. The song of the dynasty is prosperous and rich, and the life is much more comfortable than the old land of the Zhou people, and the palace and all kinds of pomp and circumstance of the Shang king should be enjoyed by them, how can it be easily burned? They united with the new merchant king Wu Geng to raise an army to keep the last paradise of this merchant.
The Duke of Zhou and the Zhou people in Guanzhong's hometown had already anticipated the merchants' revolt, but they did not expect their youth to be assimilated so quickly by the Eastern world. The army again headed east. The corrupt army was vulnerable, Uncle Guan was defeated and died, Uncle Cai and Uncle Huo were captured, and Wu Geng fled to Rongdi in the north.
The castle was razed to ruins. All the nightmares of King Wen, Bo Yi Kao, King Wu and Duke of Zhou are buried forever.
The Duke of Zhou began to issue his new decrees. The starting point of all the new policies is the words of "virtue" that he enlightened his brother in the early mornings of the past. These claims had never had a medicinal effect on King Wu, but Duke Zhou now had the opportunity to fully implement it.
The practice of murderous sacrifice was strictly forbidden, and even no more than twelve cows and sheep could be slaughtered. Zhou Gong began to build New Luoyang, and the sacrifice at the time of laying the foundation was only two oxen; The next day, he worshipped the god of the land, and used an ox, a sheep, and a pig.
Not only that, but Zhou Gong also wants to destroy everything related to Chaoge, and the nightmares that he and his brother have suffered will be buried forever. Since they can't kill all the remnants of the Yin Shang, they can only modify their memories to make them think that they are no different from other peoples. The oracle bone archives of the Shang kings have long been burned with the song of the court; Various other documents were also secretly censored and destroyed.
Dragon pattern jade ring collection of Shanxi Museum of the Western Zhou Dynasty.
Dragon and phoenix pattern jade gui shape ornament Western Zhou Shanxi Museum collection.
Zhou Gong also began to recompile history. The new Zhou Gong version of the history says: There is no difference between merchants and other ethnic groups, and their dynasties are also built by the mandate of heaven, and the Shang kings and Zaifu of the past dynasties are benevolent, wise, and conscientious. It was only the madness of the king of the last days that led to the end of the Shang Dynasty. As for the Zhou people, they naturally did not have the stain of acting as the first for the Shang Dynasty.
The bloody atrocities of the merchants for hundreds of years were attributed to the king alone, who carried the sins of millions of people, and was smeared as a completely irrational madman, so much so that Zigong, a student of Confucius, suspected that many of the theories about the tyranny of the Shang dynasty were fictions of later generations
Zigong said: "It's not good, it's better to be worse." It is a gentleman who is evil and is indecent, and all the evil in the world is returned. —The Analects of Zizhang
Confucius five hundred years after the Duke of Zhou is a descendant of merchants, and what he and Zigong and other ** inherited is the knowledge that has been modified by the Duke of Zhou. People may feel that the legend of the evil deeds of the king is too false, but they do not know how terrifying the hidden truth is.
This was the purpose of Zhou Gong, he did not want future generations to live in fear and hatred, although he and his brother could not get rid of it for the rest of their lives.
In addition, the national divide must be broken. Intra-clan marriages of merchants were strictly forbidden, and all nobles were not allowed to marry within their own clans, but were to marry with the upper echelons of other tribes and kingdoms. In order to consolidate the new Zhou dynasty, the Duke of Zhou also divided the Zhou and Qiang people into the newly occupied east, allowing them to establish new vassal states in various places. Merchants were also dismantled and distributed to these new states, where they would intermarry and assimilate with the indigenous peoples of each region to form a new hereditary ruling class.
Mixed-race, unified. First, the new Chinese nation of openness was born. The division of the Zhou, Shang, and Qiang people will forever become history.
Jade Drum Collection of Shanxi Museum of Western Zhou Dynasty.
Zhou Gong continued to refine his moral ideals. He formulated various etiquette in the hope that people would learn to control their desires and discipline society to be kind, modest, and orderly. These teachings and norms formed a variety of Confucian scriptures, collectively known as the "Zhou Li".
The gossip and sixty-four trigrams that inspired his father at the beginning should also be reinterpreted to eliminate those elements of ambition and speculation. It is said that the "Dictionaries" of "Zhou Yi" was written by the Duke of Zhou, which is very different from the "Dictionaries" under the name of King Wen, and no longer encourages any speculation and non-trivial thoughts, but is all inspirational preaching on how a gentleman should be careful to fulfill his social role. The Zhou brothers never understood their father's craze for gossip. Although the reckless move was huge, it brought too much suffering and risk to their families and nations. If they were faced with this choice again, they would probably not have the courage to commit to it.
The theory of merchants and gods making deals also needs to be completely revised. Sacrifices to the gods and ancestors are only an expression of pious reverence, and do not require and are not allowed to be infinitely rich. The gods are no longer insatiable bloodthirsty and hungry ghosts, but the highest arbiter who blesses the virtuous and punishes the unvirtuous, maintaining the human moral system advocated by Zhou Gong.
After the utilitarianism, bloodshedness, and brutality of the merchants had reached their peak, Zhou Gong created a new culture: temperance from desires, kindness to others, self-denial, and diligence and restraint. This is the exemplary character of the new Huaxia people that is being formed.
Zhou Li" Zhou Gong also led by example, every time he met his young nephew Cheng Wang, he trembled as if he were Yan Father, although he was the de facto guardian of Cheng Wang. Every time he expressed his opinion to King Cheng, or listened to King Cheng say every word, Duke Zhou had to touch the ground with his head and kneel for a long time.
As for the growing king, like all young people, he began to develop a rebellious mentality, and gradually became dissatisfied with these red tapered etiquette and moral teachings. Moreover, Zhou Gong has always held great power, which in the eyes of opponents is undoubtedly a manifestation of hypocrisy and inconsistency between words and deeds. It is said that for several years, King Cheng ordered the Duke of Zhou to live in Luoyang and not to receive the pilgrimage to Guanzhong. In the end, it may be that after Zhou Gongfeng returned to the government and handed over all power, he reconciled with his nephew and returned to his fiefdom to spend his old age.
He was unable to explain to his nephew his almost pathological dependence on morality: it was an unbearable pain in the lives of him, his father, and his brother, and it was impossible to talk to the younger generation, just as the cause of Bo Yikao's death could not be touched.
The Duke of Zhou died shortly after his return to power and was buried next to the tombs of King Wen and King Wu. In the last years, the relationship between him and his nephew Chengwang is completely unknown in the history books, but judging from the loneliness at the time of his death, it is clear that the nephew still has a grudge against this moral model.
Jade Collection, Shanxi Museum of the Western Zhou Dynasty.
Was Zhou Gong's moral career a success or a failure? I'm afraid everyone has different words. But his efforts to completely bury the memories of Shangdu were undoubtedly successful, at least until archaeologists' shovels unearthed the Yin ruins.
Epilogue
After more than ten years of blank historical records, the 35-year-old King Zhou Cheng suddenly fell seriously ill and died, and his life hung by a thread.
But he still struggled to freshen up, put on the most solemn crown clothes, sat upright on the court, and gave a final speech to the courtiers in accordance with the rituals of the Son of Heaven. He counted the exploits and teachings of his grandfather, King Wen, and his father, King Wu, and warned the prince and his ministers to always be diligent and not to lose the great business of their ancestors.
In the eyes of the ministers, this scene suddenly reborn Zhou Gong.
Obviously, after going it alone, King Cheng gradually understood some of his uncle's intentions:
The king said, "Woohoo! The disease is gradual, but a few, and the disease is getting worse day by day. Since he is dying, he is afraid that he will not be the heir of the oath, so he is hereby given a trial and training order: the former king Wen and the king of Wu Xuan Chongguang, and the Dian Li Chen Sect will not be violated, and he will use Ke Da Yin and set his life. In the later Dong, respect the power of the sky, the heir of the text, the martial arts, dare not faint beyond the ......"Shangshu Gu Ming".
At the end of his life, the ministers withdrew. King Cheng struggled to take off his gown and returned to the sickbed. The next day, King Cheng died and was succeeded by the crown prince, King Kang.
The history of China continues to follow the revised trajectory of King Wu and Duke of Zhou until today.
Four sheep party respect businessend