Sketchy History

Shang Dynasty

The Revolt of Shang

Hello everyone! We begin the story of the Shang Dynasty with the waning years of its predecessor, the Xia.

Now I know you got here after reading through two other grueling blog posts because, of course, you read things in order. But I’m glad to inform you now that we are officially stepping from a possibly not mythical dynasty to a definitely not mythical dynasty!

The Rise of King Tang

Sometime during the reign of Jie, the final Xia Son of Heaven (天子), as the preeminent ruler of all the land was known, Jie began to fear the growing influence and power of Tang, King of Shang. So, to get rid of him, he hatched a genius plot.

After Tang’s arrest, his officials set out to free him. Tang’s government sent some troops to kidnap a beautiful woman (which has to be the stingiest move ever) from a neighboring state and sent her to Jie along with copious amounts of gold and silver to secure Tang’s release. Jie naively obliged.

Once again, Jie makes a fatal error because of his hormones!

A few years later, Tang became powerful enough to defeat Jie and took for himself the title Son of Heaven.

It is said that Tang’s reign was marked with peace and prosperity. But, like all records about this time, there are no significant records of what specific (and likely quite boring) policies he took to achieve such prosperity.

The reign of the Shang Dynasty saw many great inventions. The first evidence of bronze-making in China came from this time. Shamanism using oracle bones and turtle shells also became popular, about which there are surprisingly extensive ancient texts. But personally, I don’t really find these things that exciting. So, let’s just do a quick run-through of some basic Shang Dynasty facts.

Shang Dynasty (商朝)

Founding Date: Still debated, around 140vw BC
Duration: About 500 years, but varies depending on the source.
Capital: Yinxu (殷墟), though it changed multiple times throughout the dynasty’s reign.
First Ruler: King Tang (商汤)
Final Ruler: King Zhou (商纣王)

King Zhou and the Fall of the Shang Dynasty

I’m now going to skip a few hundred years of history to the final years of the Shang Dynasty, to the rule of King Zhou of Shang. Let’s see if what I’m about to say sounds familiar.

After about 500 years of rule, the Shang Dynasty was on the decline. But it still had the most powerful military in all of the Yellow River Valley. So basically, if any nation (most of whom paid tribute to the Shang king) tried anything funny, the Shang Dynasty would beat them up.

But unfortunately, King Zhou kept having “genius” ideas like this:

King Zhou also built for himself a luxurious building called the “Deer Terrace Pavilion.” Lavish spending wasn’t his only crime, however. Once, King Zhou saw an old man who walked with the health of a man half his age. Wanting to know the secret to keeping healthy leg muscles, he did the most logical thing possible: LITERALLY CHOPPING THE GUY’S LEGS OFF!

Combine this with the Shang Dynasty’s endless military campaigns against western nomadic tribes, and it becomes pretty clear why many powerful officials and most vassals began defecting to the cause of a rival king, King Wu of Zhou (周武王).

The Ji family, which ruled the state of Zhou, had been building up strength for generations (as also noted in that box about King Wen Wu Ding.) Meanwhile, King Zhou of Shang was still quite…“preoccupied.”

When King Wu of Zhou had gathered support not only from other vassal states of the Shang, but even from many nomadic tribes that were the bane of the Yellow River Valley, he set out to capture the Shang capital. King Zhou, having sent the bulk of his army on another one of those campaigns against the nomadic tribes, was suddenly left with no army with which to defend his capital. He thus immediately ordered that all slaves and prisoners within the capital be released and armed. With this massive army of reluctant fighters, he set out to face the incoming threat at the fields of Muye (牧野).

The plan went as well as you might expect.

The Shang army surrendered en masse to the advancing Zhou forces. King Zhou of Shang, seeing his army crumble before his eyes, realized that his reign, and his dynasty, were finally coming to an end. Under the scorching sun, through sepia soil, he raced back to his capital alone. All the officials that had sung his praise were now nowhere to be seen. Only now did King Zhou realize how alone he was, and how alone he had always been.

As the Zhou army neared his capital, King Zhou thought about the king he had modeled his reign on: King Jie. He realized that he had made the same mistakes as Jie did. Now, if he was captured alive, he would die the same way too.

Deep in these thoughts, King Zhou ascended his “Deer Terrace Pavilion,” which he now realized had given him so much empty joy yet had subjected his citizens to so much real suffering. In that moment of realization also came a moment of decision, something which was so fleeting during the other years of his extensive reign. King Zhou wanted, in death, to bring with him the structure that cost the wise King Tang his dynasty, and which cost himself the throne.

Seated atop his massive pavilion, which towered over all other buildings in his capital, he saw in the distant west mountains of dust rising, as tens of thousands of Zhou cavalry rushed towards the capital gates. King Zhou had left them open. There was no need to stop the unstoppable, halt the unhaltable.

The sun setting in the west cast a dark shadow behind the Son of Heaven. The warmth, the natural warmth, was alien to him, yet it was the most comforting thing he had felt in his life. The king now reckoned that if the heat of one ray of sun could bring him such joy, then if that warmth was multiplied a thousand, a million-fold, then the comfort instilled would be the most satisfying known to man.

All of his stress melted into the crimson dusk. King Zhou waited until he could see the enemy commander emerge from the sandstorm, then set the entire pavilion alight.

TO BE CONTINUED…