Chapter 498: Yin Shang
Sima Qian felt the atmosphere was stagnant.
But he was a little puzzled. Although the Luo family was a great noble family with the surname Ji, and although the Shang Dynasty was destroyed by the Bang Zhou, even the Bang Zhou had been destroyed for more than a hundred years. So what records of the Shang Dynasty's history were there now?
Luo Bai asked in a deep voice: "Taishigong, how much do you know about the history of the Shang Dynasty?"
Sima Qian had served as the Grand Historian for many years, and the Sima family also had a deep knowledge of the subject, so he recounted the genealogy of the ancestors of the Shang Dynasty one by one, and talked about how King Tang of Shang conquered King Jie of Xia, and the revival of the Shang Dynasty. Finally, he said that King Zhou was cruel and was overthrown by King Wu.
Luo Bai and Luo Qing looked at each other. Sima Qian's story was very consistent with people's imagination of the Shang Dynasty. After King Su trampled on the Shang Dynasty, after thousands of years of development, people had come to believe that there was not much difference between the Shang Dynasty and Bang Zhou, it was just a change of royal family.
But that is not the case!
Luo Bai said in a deep voice: "Taishigong, the dramatic changes from the fall of Zhou to the rise of Qin were not far from you, so you can see the drastic changes.
But you don't know that the demise of the Shang Dynasty and the rise of the Zhou Dynasty were even more dramatic than the fall of the Zhou Dynasty and the rise of the Qin Dynasty!"
Sima Qian couldn't help but feel his scalp tingling.
The dramatic changes between the fall of the Zhou Dynasty and the Qin and Han Dynasties saw the old aristocracy almost destroyed, the feudal system existed in name only, counties and prefectures were completely established, the royal power became stronger than ever before, and the changes were simply too numerous to count.
Gongzi Bai actually said that the changes between Shang and Zhou were even greater!
Sima Qian felt that he might be about to learn a secret buried deep in history.
Because Emperor Su Wang's trampling on the Shang Dynasty and destroying its culture was extremely thorough, the world could only get a glimpse of that era from sporadic news.
He was able to fully narrate the lineage of the Shang Dynasty, which made him one of the people who knew a lot in that era. Without this level of knowledge, he would not have been able to write a history book.
However, the only ones who really knew the history of the Shang Dynasty were the Luo family. Given the style of King Su and the Luo family, even if they completely destroyed the culture of the Shang Dynasty, they would definitely leave some backups.
Luo Bai and Luo Qing looked at each other, and then Luo Bai said, "Taishigong, please follow me to see the ancient artifacts left by the Shang Dynasty. These are all the objects left by King Su when he followed King Wu to defeat the Shang Dynasty."
Only a few people know that there is a house in Luo's house that is specially used to store objects from the Shang Dynasty. In modern terms, it can be said to be a Shang Dynasty Cultural Museum.
Sima Qian followed Luo Bai and Luo Qing through twists and turns and came to a dark place in the deepest part of Luo Palace. As soon as he got here, Sima Qian felt as if he was being stared at by a wild beast. He vaguely saw many warriors guarding this place with swords in hand, their eyes as sharp as real swords.
Luo Qing comforted him, "This is one of the family's forbidden areas. The guards are quite strict. Don't worry, Taishigong."
“Brother!”
The gatekeeper turned out to be a member of the Luo family!
Luo Bai responded, "Axi, are you on duty today? I'll bring some people over to take a look at the Shang Dynasty artifacts."
The land of Shang Dynasty relics was guarded by the Luo family members in turn. Luo Xi opened the door and said, "Brother, please come in."
Luo Bai and his companions walked in, and Luo Xi sat down in the room again and started reading.
The few of them walked in less than ten meters when a chilly air came out, making people shiver. Wang Wenjun had been here before. She would most likely be the mistress of the house in the future, so she would always have to know some things.
Luo Bai felt his arms being tightly embraced in an instant, and a soft and delicate body with a faint fragrance came up to him. The body as soft as jade leaned against him. He patted Wang Wenjun's soft hands and whispered, "Don't be afraid, Qiang'er, your husband is here."
Wang Wenjun looked at Sima Qian, who still had a confused look on his face, and couldn't help but shudder when she thought about the scene she was about to see.
She even felt a little sympathy for Sima Qian, who still knew nothing, especially since Sima Qian's description of the Shang Dynasty was quite positive, with a sage king, wise ministers, and a ruler who revived the Shang Dynasty, but which eventually perished because of a tyrant.
I wonder what Sima Qian would do after seeing the real Shang Dynasty?
Wang Wenjun looks like a cool and elegant lady, but deep down she is actually a sinister person. She wants others to experience the same suffering she herself went through.
Then several people walked in completely.
The first thing that caught Sima Qian's eyes was the rows of bookshelves. Compared with the historical materials from the early Zhou Dynasty, the historical materials here were much less, even only one percent at most.
But this was completely beyond Sima Qian's expectations. After all, his family didn't have even a single volume of historical materials on the Shang Dynasty. He opened his mouth in shock and couldn't help muttering, "There are so many."
Then Sima Qian saw that behind the bookshelf, there seemed to be a lot of metal, and it seemed to be bronze. Luo Bai and others walked straight forward, Sima Qian followed them, and then he saw a cylindrical bronze object directly.
A word flashed through his mind almost instantly - the punishment of burning with fire!
Pao Lao is so famous that as one of the symbols of King Zhou of Shang's cruelty, it appears in almost every classic of the various schools of thought.
This kind of punishment has even been completely associated with tyrants, and later kings have never dared to use it.
Then Sima Qian saw all kinds of objects that he had never heard of or seen before.
"This stone plate once carried an ancestor of my Zhou clan, Bo Yikao!"
Luo Bai pointed to a stone plate. Sima Qian looked over and saw that it was a stone plate. Next to it was a bronze tool used for pounding medicine.
Zhou clan.
It's a name I haven't heard for many years. It seems to bring people back to the Shang and Zhou dynasties in an instant, when two major ethnic groups fought on the land of Xia, and in the end the Zhou tribe won.
Until now, the Luo family is probably the last group that still retains the memory of the Zhou clan, and the others have all become Han people.
Carrying the ancestors of the Zhou clan?
Sima Qian was a little confused, but he knew Bo Yikao, who was said to be the elder brother of King Wu of Zhou.
"Does Taishigong know how Bo Yikao died?"
Taishigong pondered and said, "It is said that he was killed by King Zhou of Shang."
Luo Qing gnashed his teeth and said, "He was killed by King Zhou of Shang, but the way he was killed was completely different. This is not a story of a subject being killed by a king.
It’s a sacrifice!”
Since ancient times, there have been countless ministers killed by kings. It is very normal that Bo Yikao died at the hands of a tyrant like King Zhou of Shang. Sima Qian never thought about it much. This is just a proof that King Zhou of Shang was unpopular.
King Zhou of Shang even killed his own uncle Bigan, so what was the point of killing Bo Yikao?
But sacrifice?
Sima Qian was a little confused. Bo Yikao was the crown prince of the Zhou clan, and the Zhou Kingdom was a great noble family during the Shang Dynasty. Who could offer sacrifices to him and who was qualified to offer sacrifices to him?
Could it be King Zhou of Shang?
Sima Qian knew that there was a custom of using people for sacrifices during the Shang Dynasty, but wasn't it a bit too sensational to use nobles?
How could the nobles agree to sacrifice a high-ranking noble?
Luo Qing reached out and took a book from the bookshelf next to him, and said bitterly: "Taishigong, the human sacrifices of the Shang Dynasty must be completely distinguished from the human sacrifices of the Zhou Dynasty.
The scale of human sacrifice was extremely small and the system was complicated. Except for foreign countries such as Qin and Chu, human sacrifice within the Ji and Jiang clans had to strictly follow the ritual system.
Because the rituals regarding human sacrifice were too complicated, the number of human sacrifices decreased significantly.
This was not the case with the human sacrifices of the Shang Dynasty. The frequency of sacrifices was too high, and even the captives captured through war were not enough.
Then the Shang clan asked the surrounding states to offer sacrifices to them.
The Zhou people had been oppressed by the Shang people before, and they captured Qiang people from the west to serve as sacrifices. If they failed to hand in enough sacrifices, they would be attacked by the Shang people.
The Shang clan also believed that the more noble the status of the person offering sacrifice, the more pious he was, so a large number of Shang nobles were sacrificed. The crown prince Bo Yikao of our Zhou clan was sent to the altar because of his noble status, which was enough to show the Zhou clan's loyalty to the Shang clan.
Historical books record the process of Bo Yikao being sacrificed. After the sacrifice, the merchants used sharp weapons to cut open his skin and flesh, and then made sacrificial meals and distributed them to the nobles who participated in the sacrifice.
The Shang people believed that participating in sharing the sacrificial offerings would bring them good luck and the blessing of their ancestors. Sima Qian, you know very well that in the later period of the Shang people no longer offered sacrifices to the natural heaven, but only to their own ancestors.
These items are the tools that merchants used to handle sacrificial offerings.”
After listening to Luo Qing's story and looking at these objects again, Sima Qian couldn't help but shudder. A feeling of nausea instantly rushed to his throat. Almost every one of these objects in front of him was soaked in blood and flesh.
"Taishigong, do you know why we are not allowed to read the history books of the Shang Dynasty?
Why did King Su want to trample on the culture of the Shang Dynasty so ruthlessly, confiscate all the information, and then burn it to make everyone forget it?"
Sima Qian nodded numbly. Some crimes should be sealed in history to prevent them from resurfacing.
The extremely horrific human sacrifice should be completely eliminated from the civilization of the Xia Dynasty. In order to achieve this goal, even if some things are destroyed, it is worth it. This is probably what King Su thought at the time.
"How should Qian record the history of the Shang Dynasty? The most important thing in recording history is fairness!"
————
The transition from the Shang Dynasty to the Zhou Dynasty was a great progress in civilization, especially the formulation of Zhou rituals, which gradually freed the ancestors of the Xia land from the bloody and cruel human sacrifices. No matter how cruel human sacrifice was, it was more advanced than human sacrifice, and no matter how strict the rituals were, they were more civilized than primitive ghosts and gods.
The greatness of the Zhou Dynasty was all-round and unmatched by any other dynasty. Because of the emergence of the Zhou Dynasty, talents were given the meaning of human beings, and the civilization of the Xia Dynasty completely became a civilization that pursued reality.
The rise of the Suwang Shanghuangtian belief is precisely the constant pursuit of reality, because this god has the characteristics of the natural god Haotian and integrates the ancestor god pursued by the sage king. He is the source of the complete transformation of all this. Following the path of this supreme god, everyone is like a god. ——"The Beginning of Civilization at the Turn of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties"
Recommended: "The Sword of Shang" and "The Politics of the Eastern Jin Dynasty's Aristocratic Clan"
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
