hello everybody, and welcome to a new episode of five-minute history! last time we talked
about the mysterious and possibly fictional Xia Dynasty, and today, we will be talking
about the Shang Dynasty, so let's go for it!
according to the xia shang zhou chronology project, the shang dynasty ruled from about
1600 BC all the way up until about 1046 BC, and unlike the xia Dynasty, we have plenty
of archaeological evidence to back it up.
the best evidence that we have today are the Yin Ruins in today's Henan province, which
are the remains of the Shang's last capital city and also home to the discovery of China's
oldest form of writing: the Oracle Bones.
The ruins and the oracle bones provided archaeologists with the final evidence that the Shang dynasty
was indeed real.
They gave us the names of several Shang dynasty rulers, important sacrifices that were made
to them, important information about battles, and lots of other information that helped
archaeologists establish kind of a rough chronology of the dynasty and prove that it was, in fact,
real.
Events of the shang dynasty can be found in the bamboo annals and also in Sima Qian's
records of the grand historian, though they do convey the main details and don't really
provide a comprehensive picture of this time period.
They tell us of a society that occupied the Yellow River Valley, constantly battled outsiders,
and for the first time in written history, worshipped.
There was a centralized government and a hierarchical society which was broken down into different
classes, depending on that person's contributions to society.
They break down the events themselves.
I only have five minutes, so let's stick with the highlights.
Last time, we talked about Jie, what a dick he was, and how he was overthrown by Shang
Tang.
After his victory, shang tang became the ruler of this newly-established dynasty.
He was considered a good ruler because he seemed to have a genuine concern for his people.
He lowered taxes, lowered conscription rates, and also, in a particularly difficult situation,
gave out money to poor families.
He was eventually succeeded by his son, although this is disputed, and shortly after that,
the Shang Dynasty entered its Bronze Age.
Religious vessels, tools, weapons, and more were made out of bronze, and even today, if
you go to many of China's museums, you can see the remarkable bronze work of the Shang
dynasty.
Traditional sources tell us some very interesting stories such as the emperor tai jia, who was
so bad when he first became emperor that his own prime minister banished him for three
years and after he came back and started ruling again, he was so awesome that archaeological
evidence has found that some people worshipped the prime minister for hundreds after that
whole event happened.
How crazy of a story is that? one of the most highly recorded and unique rulers during this
time period was wu ding, and there were a lot of reasons for that.
First, he did something that not very many Chinese emperors did, and that was that he
actually went out and lived among common people.
He did that so he could get to know people's daily needs, their problems, and their concerns.
Later, he married into neighboring tribes in order to get their allegiance.
He wrote articles on ritual sacrifice, and he led his armies to many, many victories
before he died in the 59th year of his rein.
Unfortunately, after the rule of Wu Ding, the Shang dynasty went into decline.
None of his successors ever ruled as long, as popularly, or victoriously as he did, and
I'm going to tell you two stories to illustrate that point.
An emperor named Wu Yi was said to have built a little statue of the god of heaven, played
several games of liu bo with it, made lose many times in a row, and then later destroyed
it.
Another time, he filled up this leather bag with blood, hung it from a tree, show it with
arrow, and created what he called his "shooting heaven."
Talk about a guy with issues, right?
He was later killed by lighting on one of his hunts, and this was later interpreted
as the gods killing him because of his irreverance.
The last emperor, zhou wang, was the craziest of them all.
As a younger man, he was supposedly immensely strong, compassionate, good, and intelligent.
As he grew older, he took kind of a turn to the dark side.
He started torturing people for his own and his wife's arousal.
He wasted money, he composed all kinds of irreverent songs, he hosted orgies and all
kinds of bad stuff.
He built a wine lake and a meat forest.
A giant pool was filled with wine and a mountain was built and the trees were built made of
meat skewers.
He would float around with his concubines on a boat, and when they were thirsty, they'd
drink the wine from the pool, and when they were hungry, then would grab the meat off
of the trees.
Obviously, that's not okay, so Jiang Ziya led an army against zhou wang.
The Zhou trips overwhelmed the Shang dynasty's poorly trained soldiers, and many of them
defected to fight for the zhou troops.
When it became apparent that he was going to lose this battle, zhou wang adorned himself
in his finest clothes, finest jewels, went up to his terrace pavilion and BOOM - set
himself on fire, thus ending the Shang dynasty. all right, and about wraps it up for the shang
dynasty.
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if you haven't, please subscribe, and I hope I'll see you next time with the zhou dynasty!