Zhou Wang's title is a critical and derogatory evaluation of him by later generations. According to historical records, Shang Zhouwang indulged in debauchery and debauchery.
It is said that Zhou Wang likes drinking very much. He carved the ground into a wine pool, filled the net pool with wine and sailed on the wine. Zhou Wang, his concubines and relatives were boating and drinking in the pool.
He erected some wooden stakes in the palace, like a forest with cooked or roasted meat hanging on it, and then let handsome men and beautiful women chase and fight naked in the meat forest. Eat when you are hungry, and play when you eat. There is no day or night.
He also spent seven years and made great efforts to build a deer platform. This Lutai foundation is 3 miles square and 100 feet high. He gathered all the gold, silver, jewels and beautiful women on the stage, feasting and reveling, often for seven days and seven nights, and the ministers and concubines forgot the time.
He also committed another crime, that is, he was cruel and tyrannical and poisoned the whole world. He carried out the punishment of branding. This cruel punishment is to burn the hollow copper column red with charcoal, then let the criminals he thinks crawl on it, and finally burn it to a pulp and die miserably.
It is also said that in order to observe the appearance of the growing fetus, he cruelly let people cut open the pregnant woman's stomach and watched her bleed to death in pain; In order to know why farmers who cross the river barefoot are so afraid of freezing in cold winter, he had their feet cut off and bone marrow examined.
He also prized treacherous court officials, undermined loyalty, reused villains, disrespected ancestors and other crimes, and the list goes on. In this way, he lost the hearts of the people and was finally defeated by King Wu. He set himself on fire, and Queen da ji was guillotined by King Wu.
Is Zhou Wang really so cruel? Is Shang Zhouwang really so cruel in history? Legend has it that Zi Gong, a student of Confucius, doubted this and thought that someone deliberately put all kinds of cruel evils in the world on his head. After studying more than 70 crimes committed by Zhou Wang, modern historians find that these crimes have increased with time. In other words, many of these crimes were fabricated by later generations. This greatly reduces the authenticity and credibility of Zhou Wang's tyranny. So, why do people deliberately vilify Shang Zhouwang? The first reason is that his political opponents have ulterior motives and do propaganda. For example, tyranny and debauchery, extravagance and corruption, suppression of rebellion and cutting off dissidents are actually the characteristics of all emperors, not unique to Shang Zhouwang. But why are Shang Zhouwang's performances so shocking and angry? To be sure, his political opponents are deliberately vilifying propaganda.
Losers are always in the wrong. The imperial literati who destroyed Emperor Shang Zhouwang could say anything about him, so they created such a cruel Zhou Wang.
Secondly, I want to lead the evil to women. Da ji is one of the spoils after the Soviet Union was destroyed, and it is also a plaything. However, Biography of Women in the Year after the Attack of King Wu 1000 blames all the sins on da ji, which has always been the theory that women are a great disaster to the country. In fact, in feudal society, men are superior to women. If the emperor is cruel and bossy, he will not be influenced by a woman. However, in case of national subjugation and chaos, how can women become scapegoats? Xia Jie has sisters-in-law, Shang and Zhou have Ji, Zhou Youhou has a compliment, and Tang has Yang Guifei, as if without these women, they would become saints. Therefore, in Zhou Wang's story, blaming da ji for the crime is not only the spice of the novel, but also the dark psychology of feudal literati to excuse the bad king and fool the people's cognition.
Third, the future rulers want to obliterate Zhou Wang's real historical achievements. According to historical records, Shang Zhouwang was tall, muscular, knowledgeable and quick-thinking. His cleverness lies in making quick and accurate judgments on complex problems; He is strong enough to kill a tiger with his bare hands. Legend has it that he grabbed the tail of nine cows in one hand and pulled them back, so the nine cows had to retreat. He led his troops to defeat Dongyi, and expanded the territory to the southeast of China, thus developing the Yangtze River basin.
At that time, Dongyi often attacked the Shang Dynasty and treated many Shang people as slaves, which was a threat to the Shang Dynasty. Zhou Wang's father Di Yi also fought against Dongyi, but failed to win. After Zhou Wang acceded to the throne, he ordered the casting of enough weapons and personally led an army to attack Dongyi. Although the tribes of Dongyi United to resist, they could not stop Zhou Wang's attack.
Under your command, the arrow on the business side is made of bronze, which is exquisite and sharp, with long range and greater lethality. So the two armies confronted each other, and the troops of Dongyi soon fell in batches, and the Shang army stormed and surrounded them layer by layer. As a result, most of the soldiers in Dongyi were captured by Shang. Legend has it that the army of Shang army swept the leaves in the autumn wind, chased them to the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, conquered most tribes in Dongyi, captured thousands of people in Dongyi and won a great victory. Since then, the traffic between the Central Plains and the Southeast has also developed greatly, and the relationship between the Central Plains and the Southeast has become closer and closer. The culture of the Central Plains gradually penetrated into the southeast region, making people there learn to use superior natural and geographical conditions for production. In all fairness, these historical achievements should be attributed to Zhou Wang. Of course, these are mostly legends. What is the real Shang Zhouwang like in history? This needs further study by historians.
Related links da ji: The first resentful woman in ancient and modern times, the most vicious story of China's past dynasties is da ji, the favored concubine of Shang and Zhou Dynasties. In the Romance of Gods, da ji was possessed by a thousand-year-old fox spirit, and was ordered by Nu Wa to bring disaster to Shang Dynasty, which made Zhou Wang so weird and cruel and did those inhuman things.
This is a superstitious statement, and no one believes it. Da ji must have been possessed by a fox. According to Jin dialect, Su Shi took da ji as his daughter when he conquered the Soviet Union.
This means that da ji is the trophy of Zhou Wang's victory after the war. This Su tribe takes the nine-tailed fox as its totem, so it has this attachment in the Romance of the Gods. Although da ji was not possessed by a fox, he could still fascinate Zhou Wang and make him do what da ji said.
But is da ji really that bad? Da ji is described as a femme fatale, which can be said to be the chief culprit of lewdness through the ages. It is recorded in both official historical classics and biographies of unofficial history. This argument has been deeply rooted in people's hearts and is well known, but is this the real situation in history? Let's start with Shang Zhouwang. For thousands of years, he has been symbolized as a tyrant, but the fact may be that this historical image is far from his true image. Zi Gong, a student of Confucius, once said: Better be poor than poor! It is a gentleman who lives in filth, and later generations say that evil will be rewarded.
In the Spring and Autumn Period, the legend of Zhou Wang's crime was limited to fighting and death; By the Warring States period, Bigan's death was rich and vivid. Qu Yuan said that he was drowned by being thrown into the water, but the public servants in Lv Buwei said that he died by cutting his abdomen. By the time Sima Qian wrote Historical Records in the Han Dynasty, there was a more concrete and vivid interpretation, saying that Shang Zhouwang cut open his heart to satisfy da ji's curiosity and wanted to see if the saint's heart was seven; In the Jin Dynasty, because Huangfu Mi was a doctor, he was inevitably guilty of occupational diseases when writing some articles on literature and history. In order to further infer, Zhou Wang, egged on by da ji, dissected the pregnant woman's stomach according to the shape of the fetus. Zhou Wang, no matter how bad it is, it's not that poisonous. Later generations of literati processed and deduced according to their personal likes and dislikes, and passed on the wrong information. Isn't it strange that the fallacy is not big? At the same time, Zhou Wang's image is brutal, while da ji's evil and vicious image is gradually escalating. From the sentence of the king of Wu in Shangshu, listening to women's words, to the Jin language in Mandarin: da ji was favored, so he died of yin.
Then, I didn't know until I came to the Spring and Autumn Period of Lu that the Shang Dynasty was in chaos and da ji was in power, and there was no reward or punishment.
These are not too outrageous inferential evaluations. For future generations, the older they get, the more imaginative elements they have, and the more vivid records they write as historical materials. You will come back to the novel "Romance of the Gods" in the future, because there is no concern about historians' recording history, and it will be even more carried away by integrating many materials handed down from ancient scholars. Therefore, the sin of "evil girl" through the ages must also be worn on her head.