Chapter 11 10 Slave defection

After King Wen of Zhou died, his son Ji Fa came to the throne, King Wu of Zhou.King Zhou Wu worshiped Taigong Wang as his teacher, and asked his brothers Zhou Gongdan and Zhao Gongshi (sound shi) as his assistants to continue to rectify the internal affairs, expand the army, and prepare to crusade against Shang Zhou.In the second year, King Wu of Zhou sent his army to Mengjin (now northeast of Mengjin, Henan) to hold a review. More than 800 princes from small countries came to Mengjin to join forces.Everyone proposed to King Wu, asking him to lead everyone to conquer merchants.But King Wu thought that the time had not come, so he returned to Fengjing after the review.

At this time, Zhou's tyranny became more and more severe.The aristocratic princes Bigan, Jizi and Weizi of the Shang Dynasty were very worried and tried hard to persuade him not to continue such nonsense.Not only did Zhou not listen, but he got angry and killed Bigan. He even asked someone to cut Bigan's chest open and pull out his heart, saying that he wanted to see what kind of mind Bigan had.Jizi pretended to be crazy, and finally escaped death. He was punished as a slave and imprisoned.Wei Zi saw that there was no hope for the Shang Dynasty, so he left Bedu Chaoge. Around the eleventh century B.C., King Wu heard a report from spies and knew that Zhou had turned his back on his relatives. He believed that the time was right, so he sent 50,000 troops, and asked Taigong Wang, who was proficient in the art of war, to be the marshal and march across the Yellow River.When they arrived in Mengjin, the eight hundred princes joined forces again.King Wu of Zhou held a swearing-in meeting in Mengjin, announcing Zhou's crime of harming the people, and encouraging everyone to fight against Zhou with one heart.

On the way of King Wu's army, one day, two old men blocked the way of the army and wanted to see King Wu.Someone recognized that the two were originally the two sons of the king of Guzhu Kingdom (in today's Lulong, Hebei). The elder brother was Boyi and the younger was Shuqi.King Guzhu loved Shuqi very much and wanted to pass on the throne to him. Boyi knew his father's intention and left Guzhu voluntarily: Shuqi didn't want to accept the throne that his brother gave him, so he also hid.When King Wen of Zhou was alive, the two of them fled to Zhou State together and settled down.This time when he heard that King Wu was attacking Zhou, he came to stop him.

When King Wu of Zhou received them, the two took the reins of King Wu's horse and said, "King Zhou is the Son of Heaven, and you are a subject. How can a subject attack the Son of Heaven? This is a great treason." The soldiers around King Wu were very angry when they heard these words.Some drew their swords and wanted to kill them. Tai Gongwang knew that these two people were just two nerds, so he told the left and right soldiers not to embarrass them, but to pull them away.Unexpectedly, these two people couldn't think about it, and later, they hid on Shouyang Mountain (in the southwest of Yongji, Shanxi Province) and committed suicide on hunger strike.

King Wu of Zhou's army of chasing Zhou was full of morale, and they were invincible along the way, and soon reached Muye (now southwest of Qi County, Henan Province), which was only 70 miles away from Chaoge. When Zhou heard the news, he immediately assembled 700,000 horses, led by himself, and went to Muye to fight.He thought, King Wu's army is only 50,000, and 700,000 can't beat 50,000? However, more than half of the 700,000 merchant troops were temporarily armed slaves and captives captured from Dongyi.They had been oppressed and abused by Zhou on a daily basis, and they hated him to the core, and no one wanted to sacrifice their lives for him.On the Muye battlefield, when the Zhou army attacked bravely, they turned around and turned back one after another. A large number of slaves cooperated with the Zhou army to attack the Shang army.The 700,000 merchant army fell apart in an instant.Tai Gongwang commanded the Zhou army, took advantage of the situation and pursued them all the way to Chaoge, the capital of Shang.

Shang Zhou fled back to Chaoge. Seeing that the situation was over, he hid in Lutai that night, lit a fire, jumped into the fire and committed suicide. King Wu of Zhou destroyed the Shang Dynasty, moved the capital from Feng to Haojing (now west of Xi'an, Shaanxi), and established the Zhou Dynasty. In order to consolidate the rule of the Zhou Dynasty, starting from King Wu of Zhou, he divided his relatives and heroes into various places and established vassal states. Yan country.It is said that from King Wu to his son Cheng Wang, a total of more than 70 vassal states were sealed. Although the Shang Dynasty perished, the nobles and slave owners it left behind still had some influence in society.In order to appease these people, King Wu named Wu Geng, the son of King Zhou, the Marquis of Yin, and stayed in Yindu. He also sent his three brothers Guan Shu, Cai Shu and Huo Shu to help Wu Geng.In name it is to help, but in fact it is to monitor, so it is called "Three Supervisors".