In the previous article, we talked about the chaos within the Zhou royal family, and there is a widely circulated story about this chaos, the princes of Zhou Youwang. "Historical Records" said: "Xiang Ji is not funny, and the king wants him to laugh in all directions, so he doesn't laugh." The king of Yousu is a beacon drum, and if there is a Kou Zhi, he will raise a beacon fire. The princes knew about it, but there was no sorrow, and the concubine laughed. The king of Youwang said that he raised several beacon fires. After that, if they don't believe it, neither will the princes benefit. What does this mean? said that King Zhou You had a lady named Bao Xi, an iceberg beauty, who didn't like to laugh, so King You tried to make her laugh. Once, King You used a beacon fire to summon the princes and kings. As a result, nothing happened after the princes came. Bao Xi saw that the princes had been deceived and laughed. King Zhou You felt that he could make his wife laugh with this method, so he lit a beacon fire several times to summon the princes, and the princes ran over with rolling belts, but they were fine. After a few times, the princes stopped coming.
Is this story true or false? There is a high probability that it is fake, and the beacon fire transmission is only available in the Western Han Dynasty. The truth of this matter is not discussed, the death of the Western Zhou Dynasty is indeed related to Bao Xi. The Book of Songs says, "Hehe Zong Zhou, praise and extinguish it". The great Zong Zhou perished because of Bao Xi alone. In fact, this incident was due to the confusion of the royal family about the selection of an heir. We know that at that time, it was the primogeniture inheritance system, but King Zhou You favored Bao Xi, so he wanted to make Bao Xi's son the prince. This offended the queen, offended the queen, and offended the queen's mother's family. And the queen's maiden family could not afford to offend, it was a very strong country next to the Western Zhou Dynasty at that time - Shen State. Because King You abolished his grandson, Shenhou united with some other forces to destroy King You of Zhou.
After the death of King You of Zhou, the Western Zhou Dynasty collapsed. Later, King Ping of Zhou, that is, the son of Bao Xi, succeeded to the throne as the king of Zhou, but in the capital, it was the pickaxe capital at that time, and the area of Shaanxi now could not stay, so King Ping moved the capital to Luoyang, Henan Province, called Cheng Zhou, and later called Eastern Zhou. It marks the official beginning of the Spring and Autumn period. The once powerful Zhou royal family is declining, and there is a situation where there is no owner in the world.
In addition to the chaos in the Spring and Autumn Period, what other chaos was there in the royal family? We'll move on to that in the next article.