Why did King Zhou lose in the Battle of Makino? What was the root cause of the failure of the Battle of Makino?

Why did King Zhou lose the Battle of Makino? What was the fundamental reason for the failure of the Battle of Makino? I will give you a detailed introduction below, and then read on~

Military The theorist Clausewitz has a famous saying, "War is the continuation of politics." Sun Wu, a military strategist in the Spring and Autumn Period of my country, also said something similar, "Therefore, the classics are based on five things, the correction is based on planning, and the feelings are investigated: The first is called Dao, the second is called Heaven, the third is called Earth, the fourth is called General, and the fifth is called Dharma. The Dao makes the people agree with the superior, so they can live with it and die with it without fear of authority. The "Tao", the direction of people's hearts, actually refers to politics. Predicting the outcome of a war and the nature of the war mainly depends on the political foundation of both parties involved in the war. If one side of the war has a solid and broad political foundation, then this side will be relatively stronger and have a higher chance of winning. Of course, we cannot deny that accidental factors in war, such as weather, terrain, the quality of generals, and the formulation of strategies and tactics, can sometimes make the weaker side turn defeat into victory, win with less, win with more, and win with weakness. powerful. But in general, political factors play a major role. More than 3,000 years ago, King Wu defeated Shang. Before the Battle of Muye, King Wu of Zhou and King Wen of Zhou had done a lot of political work. Therefore, the victory of King Wu of Zhou was not so much a military victory, but rather a high-level political strategy. Go out of business to be better than Zhou.

After reading "Historical Records of the Yin Dynasty", we often hide the book and wonder: why in the ninth year of King Wu, during the alliance between Meng and Jin, the princes all said: "Zhou can be defeated!" King Wu of Zhou used " She refused to attack Shang Zhou on the grounds that she did not know the destiny of heaven. Is it because of the celestial phenomenon? "After crossing, there was a fire from above and back to the bottom. As for the king's house, the flow was like a black cloud, its color was red, and its sound was cloudy." Could it be that because of this natural celestial phenomenon, King Wu thought that Shang Zhou's death had not yet come, so he "returned his master"? If it was because of "the destiny of heaven", that would not be justified. Because before that, when King Wu was crossing the river, a white fish jumped in King Wu's boat. This was an excellent sign. Later Confucian scholars wanted to exaggerate that King Wu of Zhou's defeat of Shang was "a punishment from heaven" and an act of justice. This allusion to white fish is often cited. Therefore, "mandate of heaven" is probably not the reason why King Wu of Zhou did not immediately attack Shang Zhou. King Wu and Grand Duke Lu Wang had other considerations. So what was the reason that made them postpone the date of conquering Shang? What opportunity were they waiting for? Perhaps we can find the answer from the following records in "Historical Records·Yin Benji".

"In the second year of the second year, I heard that Zhou was in chaos and violent, so he killed Prince Bigan and imprisoned Jizi. The Grand Master Zan and the Young Master forcibly took their musical instruments and ran to Zhou." After hearing the news, Zhou King Wu then told the princes: "Yin has serious crimes and must not be conquered." This is thought-provoking. Could it be that King Zhou was fond of drinking and having sex before, using wine as a pond and meat as a forest, setting up cannons and burning, and killing Jiuhou's daughter, Jiuhou, and Zhu'ehou? Isn't this a serious crime? Only by answering this question can we solve the problem. The answer to why King Wu of Zhou delayed his attack on Zhou. King Zhou's extravagant behavior and excessive dissatisfaction with the people have made the princes dare to be angry and dare not speak out. In this way, the princes "better alienated" King Zhou, and "many rebelled against Zhou and returned to Xibo." In other words, the princes who were originally led by King Zhou The more radical faction (this radical is relative to the clan of Shang Zhou) has now drawn clear political boundaries with King Zhou. King Wen and his son of Zhou easily won over these forces; but the surrender of these vassal states did not The strength that represents the Shang Dynasty has been fundamentally weakened, so the opportunity King Wu and Lu Wang are waiting for may be the rebellion of King Zhou. Bigan and Jizi were undoubtedly relatives of King Zhou and loyal supporters of the Shang Dynasty. Together with Taishi Zan and Shao Shiqiang, they could be said to be outright conservatives among the middle class at that time, bent on maintaining the old politics. system, but King Zhou actually offended even these most loyal supporters. He has essentially become a "lonely man." American politician Samuel P. Huntington pointed out in "Political Order in a Changing Society" that "the departure of intellectuals is a sign of revolution" and that Lu Wang and King Wu, who "conspired to cultivate virtue in order to influence business and politics", are waiting for Of course this is the time, and of course what I want to see most is this time. King Wu of Zhou did not launch an attack on Chaoge with the Mengjin Alliance, probably because he saw that the time was not yet ripe. Firstly, the conservatives in the Shang Dynasty still supported King Zhou, and secondly, some vassal states did not dare to completely break with the Shang Dynasty. Some are still supporting Shang Zhou. There is a quantitative difference between the "eight hundred princes" and the "Xianhui of princes" in the later Battle of Muye.

King Zhou, who was completely isolated politically, was actually defeated. Coupled with Lu Wang's correct military command, the defeat of the Shang Dynasty could be described as devastating. Although the invention of the chariot was in the Shang Dynasty, there is a lot of evidence that the first real large-scale use of the chariot was in the Battle of Makino. Later generations recorded Lu Wang's book "Six Tao" on the art of war. Among them, "Wen Tao" said: "The key to using military force is to have chariots and cavalry, to gallop into the formation and attack the front, and to attack when you see something vulnerable." He also said: " Chariots are the wings of the army, so they are trapped in a strong formation to force the enemy to retreat to the north. "In this battle, the princely states sent out 4,000 chariots, and the Western Zhou Dynasty had 300 chariots and 3,000 warriors and soldiers. Forty-five thousand people. The formation of troops at that time was mainly divided into three armies: left, center and right. From the historical records, "King Wu sent his masters Shangfu and Baifu to attack the divisions, and defeated the emperor and Zhou's divisions with large numbers of soldiers." It can be inferred that Lu Wang's tactical guidance was to first use The brave and skilled Huben and chariots attacked the center of Shang Zhou's army, breaking through from the center, or outflanking from both wings, followed by infantry, completely defeating the enemy.

In ancient times, combat was fought with cold weapons, and the morale of soldiers was very important. "Sun Tzu's Art of War: Nine Transformations" says: "Fight at the dead end." "Nine Places Chapter" also says: "If you fight quickly, you will survive; if you don't fight quickly, you will perish." It also says: "If you go deep, you will be specialized, and the master will not be able to conquer it." "When the Western Zhou Dynasty went deep into the outskirts of the Shang capital to fight, they had to be determined to die and unite as one, otherwise they would die without a burial place. Therefore, King Wu of the Zhou Dynasty understood this battle psychology very well. Before the war began, he gave an impassioned swearing-in speech to the Western Zhou troops. The first sentence was to clearly tell the Western Zhou soldiers about the "death place" where they were now: "The people of the Western Zhou Dynasty are far away." , the subtext is that now we are far away from home and deep into the enemy's hinterland. If we fight quickly, we will live, and if we do not fight quickly, we will die. Then it is explained that the battle to be carried out now is a just war, and then the discipline is affirmed. After the propaganda and agitation of King Wu of Zhou Dynasty, I believe that the warriors of the Western Zhou Dynasty at that time must have been "Shang Huanhuan! Like a tiger, like a beast, like a jackal, like separation!" On the other hand, Shang Zhou was not only politically unpopular, but also militarily unable to take early precautions. When he heard that King Zhou Wu's troops were marching to Muye, he hastily armed hundreds of thousands of slaves, plus the standing army, with a total of 700,000 people (I'm afraid this number is exaggerated), but these hundreds of thousands of troops were no more than It's a rabble. Sure enough, "King Wu galloped forward, and all the soldiers of Zhou collapsed." There are two views in history about whether the battle was fierce or not. One is that since Zhou Shi defected, King Wu of Zhou should have captured Chaoge without a single blow; the other is based on the "blood flow drifting pestle" recorded in "Shangshu", which believes that the battle was very serious. Tragic. No matter which case it was, it was Western Zhou who achieved a major victory in the end.

Looking back, let’s think about why the Shang Dynasty was so vulnerable? Shang Zhou’s brutality was only a subjective reason, the objective and fundamental reason was The reason is that the political system of the old semi-primitive, semi-slave society was no longer adapted to the development of productive forces at that time, or in other words, it was no longer adapted to the "modernizing society." The emergence of bronze ware has greatly developed social productivity and greatly expanded the areas where people can conquer and utilize nature. In this context, in the ideological field, people began to prefer humanistic care from respecting ghosts and gods. The political ideology of "respecting heaven and protecting the people" in the early Western Zhou Dynasty was essentially different from the Shang Dynasty, which relied on divination for everything and the integration of politics and religion. On the one hand, the impact in the ideological field driven by productivity liberated people from the deified world. Common people and princes no longer believed that the kings of the Shang Dynasty were political and religious leaders sent by heaven and possessing inviolable divinity. , they are more inclined to identify with a king who cares about humanity and safeguards his own rights and interests. Therefore, after Shang Zhou killed the nine princes' daughters, minted the nine princes, made meat ponds and wine forests, burned them with cannons, and appointed the sycophants Fei Zhong and Erlai, Only then did they dare to alienate Shang Zhou and submit to the Western Zhou Dynasty; on the one hand, the old theocratic system of the Shang Dynasty could not flexibly and correctly absorb and organize the differentiated classes in the reformed society into the political activities of the Shang Dynasty. The confused and tyrannical Zhou Wang's various perverse actions have deepened this class contradiction.

To summarize the above, it can be concluded that the failure of Shang Zhou’s Battle of Muye was first of all a military failure, and the military failure was due to political chaos, and the political chaos was due to the old The political system cannot mobilize new social groups to participate in political activities, and the emergence of new social groups is due to the development of social productive forces. Therefore, the decisive factor in winning or losing a war lies in who is the representative of advanced productive forces.