War background
The Shang dynasty was founded after the Shang Tang and the Xia. After more than 600 years, when the throne was passed down to the thirty-first king, Emperor Xin (Shang Zhou), it was already in crisis. According to the "Records of the Historian·Yin Benji": Di Xin "has been able to argue quickly for illness, and is quick to hear and see; he has great talents and beasts of hand; knowing enough to refuse advice, words enough to disguise wrongs; Sounds, thinking that all are under oneself", but "good wine and obscene pleasure are for women." The political gods spent huge sums of money to build the deer terraces, the moment bridges, and the wine ponds and meat forests, leaving the treasury empty. Favoring the beloved concubine Daji and Fei Lian, Elai and other gangs of ministers, they arbitrarily killed the royal family's important ministers and imprisoned Jizi, causing the princes and subjects to rebel. The military god Xin devoted himself to using troops to the Yi people in the southeast. Although the war won and captured "hundreds of trillions (millions) of Yi people", Di Xin was also known as "100 grams (victorious in a hundred battles)", but the merchant army The main force made an expedition to Dongyi, leaving the Shang Dynasty Chaoge (now Qi County) empty and no soldiers to defend.Zhou was originally an ancient tribe swimming in the Wei River. It lived in some areas of central Shaanxi today and developed gradually depending on the superior natural environment. When he arrived in Jichang, he used Lu Shang, San Yisheng, Taidian, Hongyao, Nangongshi and other wise ministers internally, and the national power became stronger; Jichang promoted moral education to the outside world, actively mediating disputes between the various countries, so that the princes depended on them. . Ji Chang took the opportunity to engage in a united front, and because the countries demanded suppliers to attack the Dongyi army and supplies, they were jealous and restrained by the king of the Shang. He was already miserable, and of course he was willing to move closer to "Xibo." According to the "Historical Records": "The world is divided into three parts, and the second is returned to Zhou. Most of the Taigong's schemes."
War preparation
In 1055 BC, Ji Chang sent troops to fight the dogs. In the following year, he attacked the dense beard that invaded neighboring countries, and relieved the worries of the traders. In 1053 BC, Ji Chang sent troops eastward to attack Li (southwest of Changzhi City, Shanxi Province); in 1052 BC, he attacked Nie (now Qinyang City); in 1051 BC, he attacked Chonghouhu, the king of Shang’s favor. country. After the victory of these three wars, Zhou severed the ties between the Shang Dynasty and the western countries. In the same year, Ji Chang moved his capital to Yufeng (now the southwest corner of Xi'an, Shaanxi Province), making the country less susceptible to Rong Di's intrusion and more conducive to marching eastward. So far, Ji Chang’s strategic deployment has been basically completed.
After the war
Mengjin Meeting
In 1050 BC, Zhou Wen Wang Jichang died of illness, and his son Ji Fa succeeded to the throne, namely Zhou Wu Wang. After Wu Wang succeeded to the throne, he was still adhering to the Wen Wang's destiny and continued to expand eastward by taking advantage of the Shang Dynasty’s temporary lack of time to go west. In 1048 BC, two years before the Battle of Muye, King Wu of Zhou once watched soldiers in Mengjin (now Mengjin County). The "Historical Records" said that "the eight hundred princes who would meet allies and Tianjin unexpectedly" were not "unexpectedly meeting". According to the Oracle, there had been contacts in this troop dispatch, and many countries between Guanzhong and Jianghan participated. But there are probably not as many princes as eight hundred.
At this time, fierce civil unrest occurred in the Shang Dynasty. Di Xin killed his uncle Bigan and imprisoned another uncle Jizi. Other implicated nobles, such as the trinity, judged the situation and went to Zhou. King Wu undoubtedly obtained a lot of confidential information about Chaoge from the Yin Shang nobles who ran away. When the time was right, King Wu decided to send troops to attack merchants, and at the same time informed the princes in Mengjin to send troops together.
The strategic plan of the Shang Dynasty was: while the main force of the Shang Dynasty was stranded in the southeast, the elite troops penetrated Wangji with lightning speed, defeated the defenders of the Chaoge, captured the Shang Capital in one fell swoop, occupied the political center of the Shang Dynasty, and disintegrated the Shang Dynasty. The regime leaves the remaining merchants and their affiliated countries without a leader, and then defeats them individually. This incident is described in "The Book of Songs Daming", which is called "suppressing (sneak attack) Dashang" or "wild attack (rapid attack) Dashang", which is quite similar to the German "blitzkrieg" of World War II.
Pastoralist
In the early morning of the 27th, in the pasture, King Zhou Wu solemnly vowed to his teacher: "As the saying goes, the hen Sichen is a misfortune in the family. Now King Zhou only listens to the words of the woman, and even the ancestor's sacrifice has been abandoned. He does not use himself. The brothers of the royal family, but let the escaped slaves hold important positions, let them harm the nobles and disturb the Shang Dynasty. Today, my Ji Fa is to carry out the punishment from heaven!... Warriors, work hard!" Morale of the generals of the Zhou army Dazhen is the "herd oath" recorded in "Shangshu".
The result of the war
On the second day, King Wu, surrounded by several generals, held a grand ceremony of "acceptance of orders" in the Shang Palace to express the success of the revolution. But conquering Yindu does not mean the end of the war. The more important task is to eliminate the remnants of the Shang Dynasty in the east. According to the pre-planned strategy, the coalition forces immediately divided into four groups and marched southeast to conquer the remnants of the merchants and the loyal states. The remaining commercial army had lost the base area in the rear and was surrounded by hostile barbarians in the front. It was in fact two-sided enemy. After fierce fighting, most of them were also defeated. According to history, the Zhou army expelled the Shang dynasty general Wei Lian (the legendary Huang Feihu in later generations) and killed him on the seashore, which shows that the battle line has stretched to the East China Sea.
The coalition forces from Rongdi carried out a long period of massacre and plunder. "Yi Zhou Shu · World Prisoner" stated that: King Zhou Wu won a complete victory in the battle of Muye. As many as 180,000 merchants were killed and 330,000 were taken into slavery. Not all such a large number. Soldiers, as well as a large number of civilians, Zhou people still hunted on the merchant’s land. Tigers, bears, rhinos, deer and other animals were hunted down to more than 10,000 heads and plundered a lot of jewels under the name of King Wu. Fortune, the jade is worth 180,000 yuan.
In less than two months, the main battle was over. Mid-April. King Wu established a sacrificial room in the capital of Shang Dynasty to win victory against the ancestors. The location of the sacrificial chamber was chosen in Muye. It was this place that established the great cause of the Zhou Dynasty for eight hundred years.
However, the Battle of Muye did not completely eliminate the Shang Dynasty. Part of the original territory of the Shang Dynasty was used as the fief of Emperor Xin's son Wu Geng and the Yin Kingdom was established. As a continuation of the Shang Dynasty, the army of the Shang Dynasty's southern conquest was not completely eliminated. After the death of King Wu of Zhou, Wu Geng joined forces with Uncle Guan, Uncle Cai, and Uncle Huo in the Zhou clan to launch the "Three Supervisors Rebellion", which was finally quelled by Zhou Gongdan and Zhou Cheng, and the remaining forces of the Shang Dynasty were completely wiped out.
At dawn on the 28th, the coalition forces marched into Muye. "The Book of Songs" records: "Muye Yangyang, Tan Che Huanghuang, Pioneer Peng Peng. Master Wei Shangfu, Shi Wei Yingyang. Liang Bei Wu Wang, wantonly attacking the Great Merchants, will lead Qingming.".
Makino Battle
Regarding Chaoge, the first batch of emergency military information just came to the front, and the coalition forces followed by themselves, and they were really caught off guard. There are not enough elite soldiers in Chaoge City to break the enemy, and there are no available tanks. With infantry alone, it is difficult to compete with the powerful tank formation, not to mention the morale of the Zhou army. Di Xin was shocked by the Zhou army's attack, so he hurriedly armed a large number of slaves, prisoners of war, and the army guarding the capital, went to Muye to fight. According to the "Records of the History", the total force dispatched by Emperor Xin was 700,000, and other documents recorded 170,000. "The Book of Songs Daming" said: "Yin and Shang Journey, the meeting will be like a forest."
"Yi Zhou Shu · Ke Yin" records: Zhou Jun first led by Lu Shang led hundreds of elite soldiers to challenge, frightened the merchant army and disrupted its position, then Zhou Wu Wang personally led the main force to follow up and kill, completely disrupting the opponent's formation . The slaves and prisoners of war in the merchant army had no fighting spirit and turned back one after another. Since Di Xin forced these slaves and prisoners of war on the battlefield, they would naturally be escorted by trusted troops in the rear to prevent them from rebelling or fleeing. These few loyal guards were also the last cards in Di Xin's hand. However, the disciples in front ran back in a panic under the powerful impact of the Zhou army, and were blocked by elite soldiers from the rear. Heroes do not have many enemies. Under the impact of the crowd, these samurai are also unstable. In order to escape for their lives, the slaves were pushed by the crowds behind, so they turned to each other and fought wildly. Coupled with the successive attacks of allied chariots, soldiers, and infantry behind him, Di Xin's last line could not be defended, and he had to rush to flee the battlefield. The remaining resistance of the merchant army continued for a day, but it was unable to save the situation. When Emperor Xin saw that the situation had gone, he returned to Chaoge and boarded the deer platform, "cloaked with jewels and jade, burned to death by fire", the Shang Dynasty officially perished. When Zhou Wu rushed to Lutai, he stabbed Emperor Xin's body with "Qing Lu", and personally decapitated his head and hung the flag for public display. In addition, more than one hundred ministers and nobles of the Shang Dynasty were captured. They will be taken back to Zhoujing and killed as a sacrifice to the ancestor of King Wu.
The result of the war
The next day, King Wu, surrounded by several generals, held a grand ceremony of "acceptance of orders" in the Shang Palace to express the success of the revolution. But conquering Yindu does not mean the end of the war. The more important task is to eliminate the remnants of the Shang Dynasty in the east. According to the pre-planned strategy, the coalition forces immediately divided into four groups and marched southeast to conquer the remnants of the merchants and the loyal states. The remaining commercial army had lost the base area in the rear and was surrounded by hostile barbarians in the front. It was in fact two-sided enemy. After fierce fighting, most of them were also defeated. According to history, the Zhou army expelled the Shang dynasty general Wei Lian (the legendary Huang Feihu in later generations) and killed him on the seashore, which shows that the battle line has stretched to the East China Sea.
The coalition forces from Rongdi carried out a long period of massacre and plunder. "Yi Zhou Shu · World Prisoner" stated that: King Zhou Wu won a complete victory in the battle of Muye. As many as 180,000 merchants were killed and 330,000 were taken into slavery. Not all such a large number. Soldiers, as well as a large number of civilians, Zhou people still hunted on the merchant’s land. Tigers, bears, rhinos, deer and other animals were hunted down to more than 10,000 heads and plundered a lot of jewels under the name of King Wu. Fortune, the jade is worth 180,000 yuan.
In less than two months, the main battle was over. Mid-April. King Wu established a sacrificial room in the capital of Shang Dynasty to win victory against the ancestors. The location of the sacrificial chamber was chosen in Muye. It was this place that established the great cause of the Zhou Dynasty for eight hundred years.
However, the Battle of Muye did not completely eliminate the Shang Dynasty. Part of the original territory of the Shang Dynasty was used as the fief of Emperor Xin's son Wu Geng and the Yin Kingdom was established. As a continuation of the Shang Dynasty, the army of the Shang Dynasty's southern conquest was not completely eliminated. After the death of King Wu of Zhou, Wu Geng joined forces with Uncle Guan, Uncle Cai, and Uncle Huo in the Zhou clan to launch the "Three Supervisors Rebellion", which was finally quelled by Zhou Gongdan and Zhou Cheng, and the remaining forces of the Shang Dynasty were completely wiped out.
War evaluation
The Battle of Muye is a famous battle case in Chinese history where the weaker wins the more, the weaker wins the strong, and the preemptive battle. It is also a famous battle case in the early days of ancient Chinese car wars. It ended the 600-year-old Shang Dynasty, established the rule of the Western Zhou Dynasty, and paved the way for the full prosperity of ritual and music civilization in the Western Zhou Dynasty. The strategy and art of combat embodied in the Battle of Muye are of great significance to the development of ancient Chinese military thought.
Over time, the battle of Makino has also been covered with layers of mystery. According to the records at the time, Di Xin was still a hero with serious defects. However, in later generations, the "King Zhou" became a shameless, cruel and unconscious tyrant, and he was sprinkled with more and more sewage. Correspondingly, the War of Muye, a "blood-drifting war of conquest", has become a just battle against tyranny to slay the people. In the Confucian legends of later generations, the Zhou army "singed before and danced afterwards". Without killing a single person or shed a drop of blood, the Shang dynasty collapsed on its own. With the support of the people, King Wu ascended to the throne of the emperor, and from then on he was put into the treasury. , Ma Fang Nanshan, the world is peaceful. Of course, such a myth will still be played out one after another in later generations, but it has never been as successful as the Battle of Makino.
