In my Chinese Civilization class, we discussed the fall of the first three Chinese dynasties: the Xia, Shang, and Western Zhou. While the actual stories for how the dynasties fell are different, history does seem to echo. King Jie of Xia (桀), King Zhou of Shang (紂王), and King You of Zhou (周幽王) are all depicted as excessively cruel. King Jie of Xia built his favorite concubine a lake of wine and would only drink if he was riding on the back of someone else, King Zhou of Shang one upped him by not only building a lake of wine but by making an island with trees made of sticks of roast meat, while King You of Zhou got away from the wine he did mobilize the Zhou military because his wife thought it was funny. While the Chinese scholars traditionally accept the reports of ancient historians, the Doubting Antiquity School of Chinese thinkers and Western Sinologists have come to question the accuracy of the ancient Chinese historians. While the Doubting Antiquity School would accept that there was likely historical a King Jie, King Zhou, and King You they would question whether they actually did what they were reported as having done. Usurpers who wanted to cement their claim to the throne would need to show that the previous dynasty lost the mandate of heaven by being bad rulers, one way to do that would be to make your court historian write mean things about the previous emperor. Chinese thinkers and sages, like Confucius, would use the stories of old kings to show the current emperors how not to behave, so might have made exaggerated stories of old kings to make a point. While Jie and Zhou might have been alcoholics, You liked to play pranks on his vassals, and all of them might have been ineffective tyrants, later peoples made them look worse to suit their own purposes.
1 Comment
Dad
3/19/2017 02:36:04 am
So what's wrong with a lake of wine? Sounds like a wise leader to me
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AuthorI am a junior at Juniata College spending a year studying abroad at East China Normal University. Please feel free to join my on my journey to China and beyond. Archives
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