Originating the Shang Dynasty What does Shang mean? Yin Jianzhi Shi 04 The past and present life o

Mondo Technology Updated on 2024-02-26

The Divine Destiny Bird descended to give birth to business.

——"The Book of Poetry, Shang Song, Xuanniao"——

Hello everyone, I'm Ji Weiyi.

In the first two episodes, we get a brief look at the people and events of the Emperor of the Shang Dynasty, the deceased king of the Shang Dynasty. But for King Wu of Zhou, what he wanted to overthrow was not only the unrighteous and helpless ** of King Zhou, but the ultimate goal of the Zhou people was to destroy the rule of the entire Shang Dynasty and realize the great cause of the Shang Dynasty.

But at that time, the Shang Dynasty was a behemoth for the Zhou people. What was the rise and fall of this 600-year-old dynasty, which had mastered advanced cultures such as bronze, divination, and writing, but also had cruel, barbaric, and bloody rule?

To understand the history of an ancient people, if there is a lack of first-hand written information, then clues can only be found in their ancient epics. Although most epics can only be passed down by word of mouth, and they are inevitably mixed with various myths, they condense the most distant collective memory of this ethnic group.

Fortunately, most of the epics of the Shang Dynasty have been preserved in the five articles of the "Ode to Shang" in the "Book of Songs".

And at the beginning of the article "Xuanniao", there are clues of the ancestral origin of the Shang Dynasty:

The Divine Destiny Xuanniao, descending to give birth to business, the house is full of earth and mangmang. ("Shang Song, Xuanniao").

This poem is not only very well-known, but also easy to understand.

In other words, in the epic poems of the Shang Dynasty, their distant ancestors were not humans, but Xuanniao.

In the Western Han Dynasty, Sima Qian may have thought that the myth of "Xuanniao Shengshang" was too false to be used as an official history, so he combined with the relevant pre-Qin legends to trace the Shang Dynasty back to one of the earliest ancestors, whose name was Qi, which is the Yin Qi in the "Yin Benji". However, according to the convention of ancient Chinese mythology, Yin Qi's father could be Xuanniao, but his mother had to be human. So, after Hua Xu stepped on the footprints and gave birth to Fuxi, Qingdu saw the red dragon and gave birth to Di Yao, Jiang Yan also stepped on the footprints of giants by mistake and gave birth to Houji, a woman named Jian Di became pregnant, gave birth, and gave birth to Yin Qi, the ancestor of the Shang Dynasty, after swallowing the egg of the Xuanniao by mistake.

Yin Qi, the mother is called Jian Di ......Seeing the bird fall its eggs, Jian Di swallowed it, because of the pregnancy contract. ("Historical Records: Yin Benji").

For modern people, this kind of myth seems absurd, but it is precisely the characteristic of the ancient matriarchal clan society of "knowing the mother but not the father". Therefore, we can boldly conclude that the earliest maternal family of the Shang Dynasty is basically determined to be the Youyu clan, and Yin Qi's unknown father probably came from a primitive tribe with Xuanniao as a totem.

Later, as the wheel of history drove into the patrilineal clan society, Confucian scholars gradually abandoned the myth of the birth of the gods, and incarnated the god emperor in the primitive religion into a human being, becoming the common father of Emperor Yao, Emperor Zhi, the ancestor of the Zhou family, Houji, and the ancestor of the Shang family, Yin Qi.

However, the Shang originated in the east and the Zhou originated in the west, and the two tribes had a long history, but they became homologous relatives in the Confucian context. The life-and-death life of Zhou Ge has also been weakened into a brotherly dispute, which is suspected of the work of the Zhou people, but it has lost the original face of history.

In this case, or is the myth of Xuanyao in the epic of the merchant more pure, so what kind of bird is Xuanniao?

There are two main theories about the interpretation of Gentori during the Warring States period.

Lü's Spring and Autumn believes that the so-called Xuanzi is a black swallow. The egg that was conceived by Jian Di was supposed to be the bird's egg.

There are two maidens in the Lou family, and for ninety percent of the platform, the diet must be drummed. Emperor Lingyan looked at it, and he was like a pass. The two daughters love and fight, covered with jade. Less selection, and then look at it, swallow left two eggs, flew north, and did not return. The second daughter composed a song, and finally said: "Yanyan flies". The beginning of the real is the north sound. ("Lü's Spring and Autumn Period: The First Chapter of Yin").

In the southern state of Chu, Xuanniao was given a more romantic interpretation.

Qu Yuan's "Lisao" has clouds, "Looking at the sloppy of Yaotai, seeing the ...... of a maiden."The phoenix bird is ridiculed, and I am afraid of Gao Xin before me. ”

In Qu Yuan's view, the Xuanniao is not a swallow, but a phoenix.

However, whether the Xuanniao is a swallow or a phoenix, the Shang people use the bird as a totem, which has to make people have another association. In ancient times, bird worship was almost the preserve of the Dongyi people. Dongyi is the collective name of the various ethnic groups living in the East, "Zuo Chuan, Zhaogong Seventeenth Year" mentioned that when the ancestor of the Dongyi people, Shao Haozhi, was in power, "the phoenix bird is suitable, so it is recorded in the bird, and the bird is named for the bird master." Therefore, scholars represented by Guo Moruo believe that "born from birds, is the characteristic of the legend of the Yi people", and the Shang people can naturally be classified as a branch of the Dongyi people, and this statement has gradually been confirmed by archaeology.

The reason why the Dongyi people believe in birds is inseparable from their sun worship.

For modern people, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. However, the ancients did not know the principle of the earth's rotation, so they believed that the cycle of the sun needed to be completed with the help of the messenger of the Emperor of Heaven, a three-legged sun god bird.

Legend has it that there are ten suns in the sky, rising from the Fuso tree in the east and resting on the Wakagi tree in the west. One day is on the top branch, and on the ninth day is on the bottom branch, one sun rises, and one sun sets, and these ten suns are carried by the golden crow.

There is a buttress in the soup valley, one day to arrive, one day to come out, all contained in Wu. ("The Classic of Mountains and Seas, The Great Wilderness East Classic").

There is Fuso in the Yugu, a ten-day bath, in the north of the black tooth. In the water, there is a big tree, which is on the lower branch for nine days, and the upper branch for one day. ("The Classic of Mountains and Seas, Overseas East Longitude").

Most of these legends are recorded in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas", and they have not been taken very seriously by historians of previous dynasties. However, relying on the development of archaeology, Sanxingdui unearthed the bronze god tree, and the Jinsha site unearthed the gold ornaments of the sun god bird, which perfectly restored the myth of the ancient sun and the three-legged golden crow in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas", which can be described as beautiful and earth-shattering.

Coincidentally, in the worldview of the Shang people, the sun also occupies a very important position. In the merchant's calendar, there is a ten-day chronological method, from Jia to Gui, a total of ten heavenly stems, which just confirms the legend that there are ten days in the sky. And we also said when introducing the king of Zhou, the Shang Dynasty sacrificed to the first prince, the first king used the name of the day, representing the ancestors can enjoy ten days after death, this kind of ritual with a strong sun worship, once again proves that the Shang people are deeply influenced by Dongyi culture.

To sum up, I have a bold and violent argument-

What kind of bird is a black bird? Maybe it's not a swallow, it's not a phoenix, but a three-legged golden crow that carries ten days of rising in the east and setting in the west.

The king of the merchant is the descendant of the Xuanniao who carries the ten days, and after his death, he naturally matches the sky with the name of the day and enjoys the sacrifice.

By the way, the black bird is a black bird, what color is the crow?

Well, after talking about the origin and totem of the merchants, and finally briefly talk about the meaning of the Shang people's family names, what does the "Shang" of the Shang Dynasty mean?

The name of an ethnic group is often related to geography.

Therefore, there is a saying that the Shang people originally originated in a river called "Xun", so they took Shang as the name, and there is also a saying that the Shang took the mulberry forest as an altar, and the Shang and "mulberry" were similar in pronunciation, hence the name. There is some truth to these claims, but they are not in the mainstream view. Regarding the origin of the name of the Shang people, the ancients were more inclined to look up and look for answers in the sky.

In the pre-Qin period, people generally believed that the Shang people were named Shang from the stars in the sky, that is, the Shang stars.

Shang Xing is located in the east, and belongs to the Antares of the Seven Nakshatras of the Twenty-Eight Oriental Canglong, and from the astrological point of view, Antares is located in the heart of Canglong. Shang Xing is the brightest star in Antares, and it is also the star that the Shang people attach the most importance to. In Western astronomy, Shang is known as the star Scorpio, a famous red supergiant star that is very bright.

Because of the fiery red color of Shangxing, the ancients also called it "Dahuo", or "Dachen".

The pre-Qin people attached great importance to the Great Mars, and often used this observation to determine agricultural activities based on the position of the fire in the sky. If one night suddenly no fire can be seen, that is, the great Mars sets with the sun, then the ancients set this day as the first day of the year, which is the beginning of spring. From spring to summer, Mars gradually rises to the highest altitude until midsummer has passed, the weather becomes cooler, and Mars will gradually sink westward, which is the "July Fire" mentioned in the Book of Songs, indicating that autumn is coming.

In ancient times, astronomy and geography were interconnected, and there were stars in the sky, and there were naturally divisions on the earth.

So what is the place corresponding to Shangxing? The answer is - Shangqiu.

Zuo Chuan: The Ninth Year of Xianggong records that the fire of the Tao Tang clan is living in Shangqiu and sacrificing to the Great Mars. This Yan Bo is the ancestor of the Shang Dynasty, Yin Qi. Merchants moved their capitals frequently throughout history, and soon moved away from Shangqiu, but after that, no matter where the merchants set their capitals, they would be named Dayi Merchants or Tianyi Merchants. Until after the death of the country, the remnants of the Shang Dynasty were sealed in the Song State by the Zhou people, and the capital was Shangqiu.

The fire of the Tao Tang clan is living in Shangqiu, worshipping the fire, and the fire is timely. Because of this, the merchant owner caught fire. ("The Ninth Year of Xianggong").

Du Fu has a poem that says, "If you don't see each other in life, you move like participating in business." ”

The star in the poet's pen is precisely the one who comes and goes with the Shang star in the sky and never sees each other. In the Spring and Autumn Period, Zheng Guo's descendants believed that Shang Xing was the main star of merchants, and Shen Xing was the main star of Xia people. With the weakening of the Xia kingship, the people from the Eastern Heavenly Destiny Xuanniao are about to become the new masters of the Central Plains.

Moved to Shangqiu, the main Chen, the merchant is because, so Chen is the business star. Qianshi Shen in Daxia, the main ginseng, the Tang people are because, its Ji Ye is called Uncle Tang, so the ginseng is Jinxing. ("The First Year of Zhao Gong").

Okay, let's talk about this today, I'm Ji Weiyi, "Eight Hundred Years of the Great Zhou", to be continued.

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