Chapter 1,456 Heavy rain and blood flowing everywhere
The two armies fought without much fighting before the Yin and Shang armies switched sides.
King Wu of Zhou drove straight in, and King Zhou of Shang betrayed his relatives and left.
This seems to fit our imagination of a holy battle.
However, "Historical Records" is a classic of the Han Dynasty after all, and its description of the Battle of Muye a thousand years ago may not be accurate.
In earlier documents, although there are many descriptions of the Battle of Makino, there is a lack of description of the specific process of the battle.
For example, "Shang Shu Mu Oath" only records King Zhou Wu's pre-war mobilization, and the whole article ends with King Zhou Wu's oath;
The description of the war process in "Book of Yi Zhou·Ke Yin" contains only this sentence: "The king took an oath, used his tiger to fight, and drove his chariots to the merchants, and the merchants collapsed";
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"The Book of Songs, Daya, and Ming Dynasty" only generally records the might and majesty of the armies of both sides, without saying a word about the battle process.
In the historical materials of the Western Zhou Dynasty and the early Spring and Autumn Period, the records of wars tend to describe the causes of the wars in detail, the preparations before the wars, and generally spend little time on the war process.
The record of the Battle of Makino is no exception.
But this time, Chen Wenzhe saw the real situation.
So, how did he determine that this was the Battle of Muye, the key battle for King Wu to defeat Zhou?
In fact, in addition to the previous reasons, there are many factors.
There are many later researchers about this battle, such as the situation before and after the station, the weather conditions at the time, and the clothing of the soldiers at the time and other factors.
Even because of this war, an idiom appeared, that is, blood flows and drifts.
Obviously, the word here is not just an exaggeration, but there must be a reason.
Nowadays, there are people who are studying this professionally. For example, there are still restoration pictures of warriors from the Western Zhou Dynasty. These documents are from "Ancient Chinese Military Costumes".
The style of the warrior's clothing, sash and wader in the picture comes from "New Order of Three Rites".
The shape of the stomach is based on the actual object unearthed in Changping, the capital of China.
The style of armor is based on the actual objects unearthed from Pudu Village, Chang'an, Western Shaanxi Province;
The style of weapons is based on the actual objects unearthed from Fangshan, Shendu.
Although thousands of years have passed, what happened will definitely leave clues in history.
Now even the clothes worn by soldiers back then can be restored with reference to the past.
So can the process of the Battle of Makino be judged?
Of course you can. Through a few words, you can actually understand the cruelty of the war at that time.
For example, "Mencius·Jinxinxia" contains: "Mencius said: "It is better to have no books than to believe in books. I have only taken two or three strategies from "Wucheng". A benevolent person is invincible in the world, and even if benevolence is defeated by unbenevolence, how will the blood be shed?
A drifting pestle?'"
Mencius' original intention was to refute the errors in the "Wucheng" chapter, but he accidentally preserved for future generations a line from the long-lost "Shangshu Wucheng" chapter, "Blood flows and drifts in the pestle."
The Battle of Makino recorded in "Wucheng" was not without bloodshed, nor was it peaceful and elegant.
Instead, they went through an extremely brutal fight, which eventually resulted in blood flowing all over the ground and even causing the wooden pestle to float up.
Corresponding to the records in the "Book of Yi Zhou: Prisoners of the World", King Wu "lost hundreds of evil ministers" in the battle against Zhou.
"There are nine out of one hundred and seventy-seven thousand and seventy-seven hundred million prisoners, and there are two hundred and thirty out of three hundred million prisoners."
This shows that there were hundreds of Shang ministers captured.
There are 230 out of 300 million other captives, and 9 out of 107,770 out of 100 million killed.
There were so many people captured and beheaded, which corresponds exactly to the record of "Blood Flows Drifting on the Pestle".
Of course, there must be some exaggeration here, which is similar to the history recorded by Asan.
It's just that our ancestors still didn't dare to think or do it. It's too exaggerated.
In Asan's case, tens of millions of people can take part in a war, and even billions of people can be killed at one time.
It is a pity that "Wucheng" has long been lost. Today we can no longer see this precious historical document and do not know what the real history is like.
Of course, although we can't see it, the ancients saw it.
During the Eastern Han Dynasty, "Wucheng" had not yet been lost. Wang Chong read "Wucheng" and made very accurate comments.
"Looking at the chapter of "Wucheng", the battle of Muye was full of blood, and the ground was red for thousands of miles. From this point of view, the Zhou Dynasty's capture of Yin was the same as that of the Han and Qin Dynasties, and the Yun Dynasty's capture of the Yin Dynasty, the soldiers were not bloody, and the virtue of King Wu was beautiful.
In fact, the gain is."
Changes of dynasties are often accompanied by large-scale wars.
Large-scale war means large-scale destruction, which is the same principle in ancient and modern times.
It should be said that the same was true for King Wu's destruction of the Shang Dynasty. It was only because later generations continued to deify it for political purposes that a narrative system emerged that changed dynasties without any bloodshed.
But if we think more deeply, we will come up with the idea of "negation of negation".
First of all, the records of the number of prisoners and the number of people killed in "Prisoners of the World" must have been greatly exaggerated.
Hundreds of thousands were killed and wounded in World War I, and it only appeared in the middle and late Warring States Period, during the Qin Unification War.
During the Battle of Makino nearly a thousand years ago, our country's socioeconomic level and population were far inferior to those during the Warring States Period.
How could the scale of the war's destruction be so huge? This was completely inconsistent with the reality at the time.
Secondly, even if the war kills a lot of people, it will not be a "bloodshed".
There has always been some controversy over what the pestle is. Some people say it is a shield, while others say it is a spring rice utensil.
But it must be some kind of wooden product, and it has a certain size.
Makino is an open and flat wilderness, and in order for the wooden pestle to float, it requires tens of centimeters of water depth.
The blood in an adult man's body is only five to six thousand milliliters, and even the blood of one hundred thousand people is only a few hundred cubic meters.
If this amount of blood is spread on the vast plain, it is impossible to accumulate blood dozens of centimeters deep.
As Wang Chong said: "King Wu attacked Zhou in the wilderness of Mu. The ground in Hebei was high and the soil was not dry. The soldiers were suddenly bleeding, and they were often dry and buried in the soil. How could they be able to float with pestles?"
Since "Blood Flows Drifting Pestle" is so unreasonable, why did "Wucheng" record such specific and vivid details as "Blood Flows Drifting Pestle"?
Recently, some scholars have re-examined this issue and proposed new explanations.
This is "On the Historical Truth of "Blood Flood".
First of all, when King Wu defeated Zhou, there should be a continuous heavy rain.
"Guoyu·Zhouyu" records that "the king used the Guihai night formation in the second month of the month, but it rained before it was completed";
"Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals" records that "it rained day and night, and King Wu kept moving quickly";
"Six Tao" contains "King Wu's expedition to the east, and when it came to the river, there was heavy rain and thunder."
There are many similar records in other classics.
Based on these historical data, we can know that there should indeed be a heavy rain before and after the Battle of Makino, and even the battle was carried out in the rain.
Secondly, since Makino was close to the Yellow River at that time, the armies of both sides were probably deployed near the river.
There are many benefits to arranging a formation near the river, the most important of which is that it can prevent the opponent from sneak attacks from the flanks.
During the heavy rain, they fought near the river, and the blood was washed into the river by the rain.
It is possible that a large number of people were killed in a short period of time, and that the blood dyed the river red.