Chapter 1455: King Wu defeated Zhou, singing before and dancing after
For example, Qu Yuan's "Tian Wen" records: "Everyone in the three armies of King Wu is happy to fight. They drive and gallop together to fight for the enemy. They sing in front and dance in the back, and they cheer loudly";
"Shangshu Da Zhuan" records: "King Wu defeated Zhou and stopped in the suburbs of Shang. At night, the soldiers all sang and danced happily to prepare for the day."
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"Bai Hu Tong·Rites and Music" records: "King Wu raised his troops, singing before and dancing after..."
Based on these records, it can be seen that when King Wu of Zhou sent troops, it was accompanied by dances and songs;
In Makino, the night before the battle, the soldiers also sang and danced all night long to wait for dawn;
During the battle and charge, there was still singing and dancing and cheering.
Dances and songs generally mean happiness and relaxation.
A war that is accompanied by dance and song from beginning to end, if it is not an artistic expression in Yin San movies, it must be an extremely holy battle of justice.
But if we look at history with a calm and objective attitude, we will find that "King Wu defeated Zhou, singing before and dancing after" is very unreasonable.
Without the sacred halo given by later generations, the Battle of Makino was essentially a field battle between the main forces of the two armies.
Fighting with a "dance before singing" attitude, and even winning, the only possibility is that the opponent is really weak and vulnerable.
But the Shang Dynasty army faced by King Wu of Zhou's army was by no means a mob.
"The Book of Songs, Daya, and Ming Dynasty" records: "The journey of the Yin and Shang Dynasties was like a forest, but it was lost in the wilderness."
Even the Zhou people had to admit in their epic poems that during the Battle of Muye, the Yin and Shang armies were arrayed in the wilderness like a dense forest. They were a neat and powerful force.
This rejects the possibility that the Yin Shang were weak.
You must know that King Wu's defeat of Zhou was a real revolution.
The earliest use of the word "revolution" was to describe Shang Tang's destruction of Xia and King Wu's destruction of Shang. This is the famous "Tang-Wu Revolution".
The founding leader of our country once said: "Revolution is not a dinner party." This is an eternal truth.
Even the revolutionary work of three thousand years ago required bloodshed, sacrifice, and brave fighting. Revolutionaries also had to plan carefully and act cautiously. How could they sing and dance during the war?
Just imagine, two armies are facing each other, one side is singing and dancing, and the other side takes this opportunity to rush over. Wouldn't it be like a wolf entering the flock of sheep, destroying everything?
It may be difficult to convince people by using reasons such as "winning the hearts and minds of the people" and "high morale".
No matter how popular the people are and their morale is high, they will never behave in such a frivolous and careless manner during a war.
After all, it was the "small state Zhou" who fought against the "big city merchants". It was a small battle against the big one, with the weak fighting against the strong.
Being cautious is not enough, and it is better than Meng Lang to carry out literary and artistic work before the two armies.
Therefore, scholars have always been full of doubts about the record of "singing before dancing and dancing afterward".
And if we look at other historical materials, we will find that King Wu of Zhou, the leader of the Battle of Makino, was not in a mood to sing or dance, but was extremely cautious.
"Shang Shu Mu Oath" records the instructions given by King Wu of Zhou Dynasty to the troops before the Battle of Muye: "Today's matter, do not hesitate at six steps, seven steps will stop, Qi Yan. Master Xu Zai! Don't hesitate at four expeditions,
Five cuts, six cuts, seven cuts, then it stops and ends."
King Wu of Zhou asked his soldiers not to mess up their steps in the battle formation. They should take a few steps and fight a few rounds, and they should be aligned with the people around them, and they should not mess up the formation.
Such a rigorous and neat formation, with strict requirements on footwork and strikes, shows King Wu of Zhou's cautious attitude towards this battle.
In this case, how could he send an art troupe to sing and dance on the battlefield where the two armies were facing each other?
The solution to this problem is attributed to the famous ethnologist and historian Wang Ningsheng.
Mr. Wang published a very short article in the early 1980s.
This article is "Explanation of "King Wu Sings and Dances Before Defeating Zhou". He only used about two or three pages to answer this difficult question.
This involves the Shu people. Among King Wu of Zhou's coalition forces were the "Sichuan Army" who immigrated to Western Shaanxi.
"Huayang Guozhi·Ba Zhi" records: "Ba Shi was brave and brave, singing and dancing to impress the Yin people, but his former disciples turned against him."
"Ling" means to invade and attack.
"Singing and dancing leads to victory", which means that the Ba army in King Wu's coalition charged into battle with singing and dancing.
This kind of singing and dancing is a noisy and exaggerated fighting style similar to singing and dancing, rather than singing and dancing for artistic and aesthetic purposes.
By the time of Liu Bang, the great ancestor of the Han Dynasty, the Ba people still had this custom. They once served as the vanguard of the Han army and were "vigorous and happy to dance", which was also praised by Liu Bang, a dance enthusiast.
By observing the war customs of ethnic minorities in southwestern China in modern times, Mr. Wang came up with the idea of explaining "King Wu defeated Zhou, singing before and dancing behind".
The Jingpo people in the Dehong area on the other side of Nanyun Province and the Yi people in the Liangshan area of Sichuan Province all have the custom of "singing and dancing to support themselves" before the war.
Before the battle began, their vanguard held a sword in one hand and a shield with vivid colors and terrifying patterns in the other.
[To be honest, I have been using Yeguoyuedu to read and catch up on books recently. I can switch sources and read aloud with many sounds. Yeguoyuedu is available for Android and Apple.]
They wielded swords and guns while roaring, creating a tense and terrifying atmosphere, and then led their troops to charge into the enemy's battle formation.
This behavior is essentially a pre-war preparation to boost morale and intimidate the enemy.
It's just that the movements are more exaggerated and the sound is louder.
Therefore, people who are not familiar with this custom and culture will think that this is singing and dancing before battle.
Just like the Chinese nation beating drums before battle, its function is also to boost morale and unify the pace, but drums can also be used as musical instruments.
Just imagine, if a person who is completely unfamiliar with Chinese national customs sees this kind of war custom, he will probably think that our ancestors played a drum before fighting.
The suspicion of "singing before dancing and then dancing" cannot be said to have been completely resolved at this point.
But Wang Ningsheng’s explanation is a different one, which can be said to be a very convincing point of view so far.
The Yuwu Revolution is indeed not a dinner party, and the Battle of Makino is not an Insan movie interspersed with large-scale music and dance.
If we could go back to that Jiazi day three thousand years ago, what we would see would be a very tense, terrifying, and cruel scene.
Anyway, Chen Wenzhe, who was very relaxed about watching the movie at first, soon became nervous because he saw the heavy rain and the blood flowing everywhere.
For a modern person like him, this scene doesn't look like treating guests to a meal.
As festive and funny as the previous singing and dancing scenes were, how cruel the war scenes at this time were.
How cruel was the Battle of Makino, or how harmonious was the Battle of Makino? This is a question that has troubled our people for thousands of years.
For a long time, because people were willing to believe that King Wu's defeat of Zhou was a just and holy revolution, the Battle of Makino was also described as an almost bloodless battle.
For example, "Historical Records of the Zhou Dynasty" records: "Although there were many Zhou soldiers, they all had no intention of fighting, and they wanted King Wu to rush in. The Zhou soldiers all turned down their troops to fight in order to defeat King Wu. King Wu galloped towards him, and all the soldiers of Zhou collapsed beside him.