The swaying Zhou Dynasty will help you understand who was at fault when King Wu conquered Zhou.

A big country in the east, a city-state in the west

After King Wu of Zhou defeated Zhou, he established the Zhou Dynasty and made Haojing its capital. It was called the "Western Zhou" in history.

In fact, there was King Wen of Zhou before King Wu of Zhou. When King Wen was on the throne, he laid the foundation for the power of Zhou Dynasty. However, King Wen died before he caught up with the good times. It was so easy for his son King Wu to overthrow the Shang Dynasty. In addition to Shang Zhou's own unflattering internal reasons, it also benefited from King Wen's careful cultivation of King Wu.

The Zhou Dynasty had a vast territory of 1.5 million square kilometers and a population of tens of millions. How big could Athens, the most powerful European country at that time, be? Can it be bigger than Beijing? Definitely not. 'The European countries at that time were called city-states. A city was a state, and the population was not much. Sparta is said to have had nine thousand households. Everyone knows that the three hundred Spartan warriors are equivalent to their king leading 300 people to fight. This matter is equivalent to the work of a company commander in our Zhou Dynasty. In our Zhou Dynasty, there are more than 300 eunuchs in the palace.

However, at that time, the European king could lead 300 men to fight, which was a lot. Although it was possible that this was the king's guard and the main force was not dispatched. But no matter what you say, his 9,000 households, calculated as a family of ten, are only 90,000 people. In contrast, the Zhou Dynasty was a superpower that Westerners could not imagine. They could not imagine the concept of 1.5 million square kilometers and tens of millions of people, just like people who are used to eating fried pork shredded pancakes do not know the concept of a Manchu-Han banquet. , and the Zhou Dynasty at that time was already a Man-Han banquet.

The "city people" drove away King Zhou Li

In the 9th century BC, during the reign of King Zhou Li, there was a riot among the Chinese. King Li is obviously a critical posthumous title. Killing innocent people is called Li. The inner city is called Cheng, and the outer city is called Guo. There is a line in Wen Tianxiang's "Crossing Jinling Station" that "the scenery of mountains and rivers remains the same, but half of the people in the city have changed", which shows that the city and the city are the same thing. The largest city in Guo is the capital. In ancient times, the capital was called China. Apart from the capital, everything was not China. Later, China generally referred to the Central Plains region and Chinese civilization. The ancient texts talking about China are absolutely different from our concept of "China" today. China, as a representative of the Chinese nation, happened after the Republic of China. Therefore, the people who live in the city are the Chinese, and the riots by the Chinese are the riots of the people in Haojing City. It is the riots of the citizens of the capital, not the riots of the whole country.

There is something wrong with King Li’s worldview. He thinks that everything in the world belongs to him. That’s not a problem. The key is that he doesn’t let the people pick and hunt, saying that you can’t eat raccoons in the mountains or fish and shrimps in the river. Everything is "solitary". What's even more ridiculous is that anyone who dares to talk about him or say bad things about him in private will be put to death once reported. As a result, the people in the city have complaints and dare not express their opinions. They can only look at him in public. In the end, the people in the city rioted and drove the king away, causing King Zhou Li to die in a "foreign country". After there was no king, the two ministers Duke of Zhou and Duke of Zhao jointly ruled, and Zhou and Zhao made peace. 841 BC was the first year of the First Peace at that time. The two ministers had been in power for several years. King Zhou Li's crown prince succeeded him as King Xuan. He was a good man.

Whose fault was it for the Western Zhou Dynasty to be destroyed?

When King Xuan of Zhou was on the throne, the country was once prosperous and powerful. This was the famous King Xuan’s Zhongsheng in the history of the Zhou Dynasty. It's a pity that when King Xuan died, his son King You succeeded to the throne. King You, you will be depressed when you hear the name. He started offering sacrifices to chaos and often called You. As soon as King You succeeded to the throne, the Western Zhou Dynasty perished. This King You is a person who "quite likes going to the theater" and favors the beautiful woman Bao Si. Bao Si had a mental disorder and would not be happy. In order to please her, King You said that they should watch a play together and perform a beacon show on the princes to create some difficulties for the country.

It doesn’t matter if he favors Bao Si, the key is that he wants to make Bao Si’s child king, and he is not afraid of the genetic problem of mental disorder and deposes the original prince. The prince's grandfather was anxious and said, "Okay, I will bring you Quanrong" when you are in the first year of junior high school and I will be fifteen. The people of the Central Plains are called Huaxia, and the name is very nice. Hua means beautiful, and Xia means big. A big and beautiful nation. The first big and beautiful country was called Xia Dynasty, and it was surrounded by barbarians and Rongdi.

"Barbarian Rongdi" is already a bad word. It's already miserable enough for you to say, but isn't it miserable enough? We need to add a dog in front of Rong!

As a result, this group of miserable dog soldiers destroyed the Zhou Dynasty. This was the first Chinese regime to be wiped out by ethnic minorities. Of course, there will be others later, including the Northern Song Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty, but the first one to set an example was the Western Zhou Dynasty, and no one could compete with it. In 771 BC, Quan Rong attacked Haojing, the capital of the Western Zhou Dynasty. King You of Zhou died and the country was destroyed. The Western Zhou Dynasty was destroyed. King Ping moved the capital to Luoyi, which was known as the Eastern Zhou Dynasty in history. This means that the Western Zhou Dynasty started and ended from 1046 BC to 771 BC, which lasted 275 years before it finally came to an end. In the Zhou Dynasty, there was a popular saying, "Everything in the world is not the land of the king; on the shore of the land, is it the king's ministers". The popularity is similar to some of our real estate slogans today. These two catchphrases, which are easy to learn and remember, undoubtedly spread among the people from top to bottom, because they emphasize the issue of land ownership in the country. All land in the world belongs to the Emperor of Zhou. Individuals have no right to own it. If they have money, they want to buy it. No (this is true). Unless the emperor entrusts it to you, after receiving the enfeoffment, you can enjoy it from generation to generation (this is possible), but it cannot be transferred or sold.

In addition, we still have small property rights for the land obtained from enfeoffment, with only the right to use it and no ownership. And you can’t get it for free. You have to have a group of people farm the land for you and pay the tribute. This system is called the well field system.

Compatible with the well-field system is the enfeoffment system. The king of Zhou granted land and people to the royal family, meritorious officials and nobles of the past generations. According to Xunzi, King Wu of Zhou enfeoffed 71 vassal states, among which 53 were surnamed Ji, and some people have verified that the number is 40. Ji's surname is the same as the emperor's. The emperor's brothers, uncles, and nephews are enfeoffed. After the relatives are enfeoffed, the meritorious officials can be enfeoffed. This order cannot be messed up.

The person who made the greatest contribution to the establishment of the Zhou Dynasty should be Jiang Ziya, so Jiang Ziya’s descendants were named Qi. After that came the nobles of the previous generations, such as Wei Zi, the uncle of King Zhou of Shang Dynasty. This buddy was very aware of current affairs and submitted to the Zhou Dynasty, so Weizi was named the king of the Song Dynasty. Moreover, Wei Zi's status is very high. Wei Zi is a Duke, while Jiang Ziya is just a Marquis. The nobles of the previous generations, including the descendants of Yao, Shun and Yu, were all named kings, whether it was true or not.

Of course, after the land is allocated to you, you must obey orders, contribute property, and fight with him. In the final analysis, the Zhou Dynasty's enfeoffment had to be in line with its productivity level. At that time, it would have taken a year to walk from Haojing (Xi'an) to the current Beijing, because its productivity level was low, transportation was underdeveloped, the distance was long, and there were no roads. Driving a carriage from Haojing for a hundred miles, we encountered a swamp and had to drain the swamp before moving forward; if we encountered a virgin forest, we had to cut down all the trees before moving forward. As soon as there was no road, trees had to be cut down. As a result, the trees were cut down and the cars were scattered. Therefore, Europe was all small city-states at that time, in order to adapt to the fact that productivity levels were low.

The Zhou Dynasty covered 1.5 million square kilometers in the world. Such a vast area was the royal territory, but the king could not manage these royal territories. If he did not rely on the feudal system to manage, he would have to work alone for two months. You have to be exhausted. As a result, the king decided to only control "China", that is, those areas around the capital, and the other lands were given to the princes. You must sweep away the snow in front of your own door and take care of your own land.

Mainstream weapons are big sticks

However, you have to remember that land ownership belongs to the king, not you, so you have to obey orders, contribute property, and send troops when the emperor goes to war. Follow up, it's your duty. The most important obligation is of course to obey orders, and you need to go to Haojing frequently to pay respects to the emperor and perform pilgrimages. It's your turn to come, but if you don't come, this matter will be serious: If you don't go to court, you will lose the title, and the Duke, Prince, and Prince will be demoted to the fifth rank. The Duke will be reduced to Marquis, and the Marquis will be reduced to Earl. It's your turn to come, but if you don't come, most people don't do this. If you are brave, 300 miles of 600 miles of land will be cut off for you; if you don't go to court three times, the Sixth Division will move it. If you don't come the third time, stop messing around. The emperor will directly send troops to beat you.

The system of the Zhou Dynasty was: the emperor's troops had 14 divisions, 8 divisions from Zongzhou and 6 divisions from Chengzhou. Zongzhou is Haojing, with a division of 2,500 people and a total force of 20,000.

There are 6 divisions in Luoyi, each division has 2,500 men, and the total number is 15,000. The emperor's army has 35,000 soldiers. Then there are three divisions from the Great Country, two divisions from China, and one division from the Lower Country. A big country can support three divisions of troops, with 7,500 men, and it only needs this few soldiers. At that time, there were very few countries that could afford so many soldiers. It is estimated that these 7,500 people cannot be separated from production at ordinary times. Their main task is to farm, and then they improvise when fighting. They are similar to militiamen, wielding wooden sticks and going up.

Among the five weapons in ancient China, the first one is called "". It has a nice name, but it is actually a wooden stick, and its workmanship is worse than a baseball bat. There are other beautiful words to describe it:. What is extreme? Wood stick. There is also a pestle. King Wu defeated Zhou and the pestle floated in the blood. It is still the wooden stick floating in the river of blood, but the metal will not float. Until the Spring and Autumn Period, the main equipment of the army was still wooden sticks. As soon as the war started, a group of ordinary people rushed forward with big wooden sticks. At that time, when we talked about armed forces and boasted about ourselves, we always talked about thousands of military chariots. A military chariot with a thousand chariots means 3 people per vehicle. Behind each chariot are 72 people holding wooden sticks, plus 25 support personnel. These 100 people are counted as one chariot. Thousand times is 3,000 soldiers, plus 97,000 staff and logistics buddies. This was how it was calculated at the time. In fact, there were not so many people during the war. This 100,000 includes the entire population of the country, including those who can fight and those who cannot. Those who have no money use ordinary sticks, those who have money drive a nail on the stick, and those who have more money use plated sticks. A gold, no matter how high or low, everyone comes to make up the number to reach 100,000. It cannot be calculated based on today's population, so Emperor Zhou's army of more than 30,000 people was already very impressive at the time, and they were probably all gold-plated sticks.

The existence of the enfeoffment system and the well-field system made the number of people, armed forces and wooden sticks possessed by each vassal state adapt to its level of productivity, which consolidated the rule of the Zhou Dynasty to a considerable extent.