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84-532: Fox spirits and nine-tailed foxes appear frequently in Chinese folklore, literature, and mythology. Depending on the story, the fox spirit's presence may be a good or a bad omen. The motif of nine-tailed foxes from Chinese culture was eventually transmitted and introduced to Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese cultures. The nine-tailed fox occurs in the Shanhaijing ( Classic of Mountains and Seas ), compiled from

168-510: A Chenggu -style dagger-axe at Xiaohenan demonstrates that even at this early stage of Chinese history, there were some ties between the distant areas of north China. The Panlongcheng site in the middle Yangtze valley was an important regional centre of the Erligang culture. Accidental finds elsewhere in China have revealed advanced civilisations contemporaneous with but culturally unlike

252-648: A nine-tailed fox god which was able to navigate through higher realms of tiān . A handful of Huli jing also appear in Wu Cheng'en's late 16th-century novel, the Journey to the West: The fox cult survived in northern China in the 20th century, but was suppressed during the anti-superstition Socialist Education Campaign . Shanhaijing The Classic of Mountains and Seas , also known as Shanhai jing ( Chinese : 山海经 ), formerly romanized as

336-725: A black bird and subsequently gave birth miraculously to Xie . Xie is said to have helped Yu the Great to control the Great Flood and for his service to have been granted a place called Shang as a fief. The period before the Shang dynasty was established is known as the " Predynastic Shang " (or "Proto-Shang"). In the Annals of the Yin , Sima Qian writes that the dynasty was founded 13 generations after Xie, when Xie's descendant Tang overthrew

420-502: A date first established by Sima Qian . Attempts to establish earlier dates have been plagued by doubts about the origin and transmission of traditional texts and the difficulties in their interpretation. More recent attempts have compared the traditional histories with archaeological and astronomical data. At least 44 dates for the end of the dynasty have been proposed, ranging from 1130 to 1018 BC. The oldest extant direct records date from c.  1250 BC at Anyang, covering

504-635: A disciple of Mozi , named Sui Chaozi, during the Warring States period . The book is not a narrative, as the "plot" involves detailed descriptions of locations in the cardinal directions of the Mountains , Regions Beyond Seas , Regions Within Seas , and Wilderness . The descriptions are usually of medicines , animals, and geological features. Many descriptions are very mundane, and an equal number are fanciful or strange. Each chapter follows roughly

588-431: A few hundred humans and horses as well to accompany the king into the afterlife, in some cases even numbering four hundred. Finally, tombs included ornaments such as jade, which the Shang may have believed to protect against decay or confer immortality. The Shang religion was highly bureaucratic and meticulously ordered. Oracle bones contained descriptions of the date, ritual, person, ancestor, and questions associated with

672-479: A force of about a thousand troops at his capital and would personally lead this force into battle. A rudimentary military bureaucracy was also needed in order to muster forces ranging from three to five thousand troops for border campaigns to thirteen thousand troops for suppressing rebellions. The earliest records are the oracle bones inscribed during the reigns of the Shang kings from Wu Ding . Oracle bone inscriptions do not contain king lists, but they do record

756-467: A fox appearing as a beautiful girl and a young human male. In the fantasy novel The Three Sui Quash the Demons' Revolt , a huli jing teaches a young girl magic, enabling her to conjure armies with her spells. Belief in fox spirits has also been implicated as an explanatory factor in the incidence of attacks of koro , a culture-bound syndrome found in southern China and Malaysia in particular. There

840-462: A fox is thousand years old, it ascends to heaven and becomes a celestial fox. In Duìsúpiān (對俗篇) of the Baopuzi , it is written: Foxes and dholes both can be eight hundred years of age, and when they are five hundred years old, they become enlightened and are able to take up human form. 狐貍、豺狼皆壽八百歲，滿五百歲，則善變為人形。 In a Tang Dynasty story, foxes could become humans by wearing a skull and worshipping

924-462: A height of 8 m (26 ft), and formed a roughly rectangular wall 7 km (4 mi) around the ancient city. The rammed earth construction of these walls was an inherited tradition, since much older fortifications of this type have been found at Chinese Neolithic sites of the Longshan culture ( c.  3000  – c.  2000 BC }. In 2022, excavation of an elite tomb inside

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1008-579: A jiao ritual. It can transcend yin and yang. The fox spirits encountered in tales and legends are usually females and appear as young, beautiful women. One of the most infamous fox spirits in Chinese mythology was Daji , who is portrayed in the Ming Dynasty shenmo novel Fengshen Yanyi . A beautiful daughter of a general, she was married forcibly to the cruel tyrant King Zhou of Shang . A nine-tailed fox spirit who served Nüwa , whom King Zhou had offended, entered into and possessed her body, expelling

1092-473: A large labour force that could handle the mining, refining, and transportation of the necessary copper, tin, and lead ores. This in turn created a need for official managers that could oversee both labourers and skilled artisans and craftsmen. The Shang royal court and aristocrats required a vast number of different bronze vessels for various ceremonial purposes and events of religious divination. Ceremonial rules even decreed how many bronze containers of each type

1176-504: A manner similar to a poltergeist. "Hauntings" by foxes were often regarded as both commonplace and essentially harmless, with one seventeenth-century author commenting that "Out of every ten houses in the capital, six or seven have fox demons, but they do no harm and people are used to them". Typically, fox spirits were seen as dangerous, but some of the stories in the Qing dynasty book Liaozhai Zhiyi by Pu Songling are love stories between

1260-526: A noble of a certain rank could own. With the increased amount of bronze available, the army could also better equip itself with an assortment of bronze weaponry. Bronze was also used for the fittings of spoke-wheeled chariots , which appeared in China around 1200 BC. The Shang dynasty entered into prolonged conflicts with northern frontier tribes called the Guifang . Bronze weapons were an integral part of Shang society. Shang infantry were armed with

1344-470: A quintessential part of the late Shang ritual complex. Chinese historians were accustomed to the notion of one dynasty succeeding another, and readily identified the Erligang and Erlitou sites with the early Shang and Xia dynasty of traditional histories. The actual political situation in early China may have been more complicated, with the Xia and Shang being political entities that existed concurrently, just as

1428-507: A single master. At the time there was a figure of speech saying, "Where there is no fox demon, no village can be established." In the Song dynasty , fox spirit cults, such as those dedicated to Daji , became outlawed, but their suppression was unsuccessful. For example, in 1111, an imperial edict was issued for the destruction of many spirit shrines within Kaifeng , including those of Daji. On

1512-564: A small army. According to these legends, he founded a state known as Gija Joseon in northwest Korea during the Gojoseon period of ancient Korean history. However, scholars debate the historical accuracy of these legends. Before the 20th century, the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BC) was the earliest that could be verified from its own records. However, during the Song dynasty (960–1279), antiquarians collected bronze ritual vessels attributed to

1596-533: A variety of stone and bronze weaponry, including spears, pole-axes, pole-based dagger-axes, composite bows, and bronze or leather helmets. Although the Shang depended upon the military skills of their nobility, Shang rulers could mobilise the masses of town-dwelling and rural commoners as conscript labourers and soldiers for both campaigns of defence and conquest. Aristocrats and other state rulers were obligated to furnish their local garrisons with all necessary equipment, armour, and armaments. The Shang king maintained

1680-472: Is a book written during the classical era, but it is not written by Yu the Great and Boyi . Many people also believe that the book was written by the descendants according to a map, which is the text description of the map named "Mountains and Seas". Zhu Xi from the Southern Song dynasty and the scholar from Ming dynasty Hu Yinglin believed that the book was written by a curious person during

1764-652: Is mention of the fox spirit in Chinese Chán Buddhism, when Linji Yixuan compares them to voices that speak of the Dharma , stating "the immature young monks, not understanding this, believe in these fox-spirits..." Fox spirits were thought to be able to disguise themselves as women. In this guise, they seduced young men who were scholars or merely intelligent to absorb "life essence through their semen". This allowed them to actually turn into humans, then huxian , and then, after 1,000 years, it would turn into

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1848-410: Is unknown what criteria the diviners used to determine the response, but it is believed to be the sound or pattern of the cracks on the bone. The Shang also seem to have believed in an afterlife, as evidenced by the elaborate burial tombs built for deceased rulers. Often "carriages, utensils, sacrificial vessels, [and] weapons" would be included in the tomb. A king's burial involved the burial of up to

1932-532: The Bamboo Annals , a text whose history is complex: while originally interred in 296 BC, the authenticity of the manuscripts that have survived is controversial. Throughout history, the Shang have also been referred to as "Yin" ( 殷 ). The Shiji and the Bamboo Annals each use this name for both the dynasty, as well as its final capital. Since Huangfu Mi 's Records of Emperors and Kings in

2016-607: The Shan-hai Ching , is a Chinese classic text and a compilation of mythic geography and beasts. Early versions of the text may have existed since the 4th century BCE, but the present form was not reached until the early Han dynasty . It is largely a fabulous geographical and cultural account of pre- Qin China as well as a collection of Chinese mythology . The book is divided into eighteen sections; it describes over 550 mountains and 300 channels . Since Sima Qian ,

2100-554: The Zuo Zhuan . From the sources available to him, the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian assembled a chronological account of the Shang as part of the Shiji ( c.  91 BC ) official history. Sima describes some Shang-era events in detail, while others are only mentioned as taking place during the reign of a particular king. A slightly different account of the Shang is given in

2184-707: The Ba snake , the Bi Fang bird , the qiongqi ("thoroughly odd", one of the Four Perils ), the tiangou (heavenly dog), the zouyu , etc. Shang dynasty The Shang dynasty ( Chinese : 商朝 ; pinyin : Shāng cháo ), also known as the Yin dynasty ( 殷代 ; Yīn dài ), was a Chinese royal dynasty that ruled in the Yellow River valley during the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding

2268-636: The Big Dipper . They would try multiple skulls until they found one that fit without falling off. The Youyang Zazu made a connection between nine-tailed foxes and the divine: Among the arts of the Way, there is a specific doctrine of the celestial fox. [The doctrine] says that the celestial fox has nine tails and a golden color. It serves in the Palace of the Sun and Moon and has its own fu (talisman) and

2352-600: The Classic of Mountains and Seas was written by Yu the Great and Boyi , during the classical era around Xia dynasty . Wang Chong and Zhao Ye in the Eastern Han dynasty also identified the author as Boyi in their works, and was modified by later generations in the process of spreading. In Zhao Ye's Spring and Autumn Annals of Wu and Yue , Guo Pu 's Preface of Classic Mountains and Seas , and Yan Zhitui's The Yan Family's instructions ,' all of them supported

2436-476: The Han dynasty (202 BC – 9 AD; 25–220 AD), the development of ideas about interspecies transformation had taken place in Chinese culture. The idea that non-human creatures with advancing age could assume human form is presented in works such as the Lunheng by Wang Chong (27–91). As these traditions developed, the fox's capacity for transformation was shaped. Describing the transformation and other features of

2520-640: The Warring States period to the Western Han period (circa fourth to circa first century BC). The work states: 靑丘國在其北其人食五穀衣絲帛其狐四足九尾。 The Land of Blue Hills lies to the north where the inhabitants consume the Five Grains , wear silk and worship foxes that have four legs and nine tails. In chapter 14 of the Shanhaijing , Guo Pu , a scholar of the Eastern Jin dynasty , had commented that

2604-649: The Warring States period . Hu Yinglin recorded in his Shaoshi Mountain Room Pen Cluster that the book was by "a curious man in the Warring States period", based on the books Tale of King Mu, Son of Heaven and Tian Wen . On the basis of summarizing the research achievements of the previous dynasties scholars, Bi Yuan of the Qing dynasty further proposed that different sections of the book were written separately by different authors. He claimed that

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2688-620: The Xia dynasty and followed by the Western Zhou dynasty. The classic account of the Shang comes from texts such as the Book of Documents , Bamboo Annals and Shiji . Modern scholarship dates the dynasty between the 16th and 11th centuries BC, with more agreement surrounding the end date than beginning date. The Shang dynasty is the earliest dynasty of traditional Chinese history firmly supported by archaeological evidence. Excavation at

2772-505: The "Mountains Classic" was written by Yu the Great and Boyi , the "Overseas Classic" and "Inside Seas Classic" were written by people from the Qin dynasty , and the "Great Farmland Classic" was produced when Liu Xiu revised it. Moving to the 20th century, some scholars put forward that the author of the book was Zou Yan in the Warring States period . This theory originated from Liu Shipei, who in his research on "A Study of Zou Yan's Theory on

2856-497: The "nine-tailed fox was an auspicious omen that appeared during times of peace." However, in chapter 1, another aspect of the nine-tailed fox is described: Three hundred li farther east is Qingqiu Mountain, where much jade can be found on its south slope and green cinnabar on its north. There is a beast here whose form resembles a fox with nine tails. It makes a sound like a baby and is a man-eater. Whoever eats it will be protected against insect-poison ( gu ). In one ancient myth, Yu

2940-535: The 3rd century AD, "Yin" has been frequently used to refer specifically to the latter half of the Shang. It is also the name predominantly used for the dynasty in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, being rendered as In , Eun and Ân in Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese respectively. The name seems to have originated during the subsequent Zhou dynasty ; it does not appear in oracle bone inscriptions—which refer to

3024-582: The Duke of Song , with its capital at Shangqiu . This practice was known as 'enfeoffment of three generations for two kings'. The dukes of Song would maintain rites honouring the Shang kings until Qi conquered Song in 286 BC. Confucius was possibly a descendant of the Shang Kings through the Dukes of Song. The Eastern Han dynasty bestowed the title of Duke of Song and 'Duke Who Continues and Honours

3108-533: The Grand Historian . According to the Records of the Grand Historian , the Shang moved their capital five times, with the final move to Yin in the reign of Pan Geng inaugurating the golden age of the dynasty. Di Xin, the last Shang king, is said to have committed suicide after his army was defeated by Wu of Zhou . Legends say that his army and his equipped slaves betrayed him by joining the Zhou rebels in

3192-473: The Great encountered a white nine-tailed fox, which he interpreted as an auspicious sign that he would marry Nüjiao. In Han iconography, the nine-tailed fox is sometimes depicted at Mount Kunlun and along with Xi Wangmu in her role as the goddess of immortality. According to the first-century Baihutong ( Debates in the White Tiger Hall ), the fox's nine tails symbolize abundant progeny. During

3276-722: The Plurality of Literature in the Western Han Dynasty" inferred that, according to records in Mozi , the book Biographic of the Great Yu was a combined version of Records of the Grand Historian: Biography of Dawan and the Classic of Mountains and Seas , which supports the idea that the book was written by Zou Yan. In addition, some scholars also believe that the author of the book is written by

3360-491: The Shang King in exchange for military aid and augury services. However these alliances were unstable, as indicated by the frequent royal divinations about the sustainability of such relations. The existence of records regarding enemy kills, prisoners and booty taken point to the existence of a proto-bureaucracy of written documents. Shang religious rituals featured divination and sacrifice. The degree to which shamanism

3444-572: The Shang era, some of which bore inscriptions. In 1899, several scholars noticed that Chinese pharmacists were selling "dragon bones" marked with curious and archaic characters. These were finally traced back in 1928 to what is now called Yinxu , north of the Yellow River near Anyang , where the Academia Sinica undertook archaeological excavation until the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937. Archaeologists focused on

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3528-592: The Shang joined the Rebellion of the Three Guards against the Duke of Zhou , but the rebellion collapsed after three years, leaving Zhou in control of Shang territory. After the collapse of the Shang dynasty, Zhou's rulers forcibly relocated "Yin diehards" and scattered them throughout Zhou territory. Some surviving members of the Shang royal family collectively changed their surname from the ancestral name Zi to

3612-414: The Shang kings were viewed as the best qualified members of society to offer sacrifices to their royal ancestors and to the high god Di, who in their beliefs was responsible for the rain, wind, and thunder. The King appointed officials to manage certain activities, usually in a specified region. These included agricultural official, pastors, dog officers, and guards. These officers led their own retinues in

3696-527: The Yellow River valley in Henan as the most likely site of the states described in the traditional histories. After 1950, the remnants of the earlier walled settlement of Zhengzhou Shang City were discovered within the modern city of Zhengzhou . It has been determined that the earth walls at Zhengzhou, erected in the 15th century BC, would have been 20 m (66 ft) wide at the base, rising to

3780-459: The Yin' upon Kong An, because he was part of the legacy of the Shang. This branch of the Confucius family is a separate branch from the line that held the title of Marquis of Fengsheng village and later Duke Yansheng. Another remnant of the Shang established the vassal state of Guzhu (present-day Tangshan ), which Duke Huan of Qi destroyed. Many Shang clans that migrated northeast after

3864-399: The afterlife. Perhaps for the same reason, hundreds of commoners, who may have been slaves, were buried alive with the royal corpse. A line of hereditary Shang kings ruled over much of northern China, and Shang troops fought frequent wars with neighbouring settlements and nomadic herdsmen from the inner Asian steppes. The Shang king, in his oracular divinations, repeatedly showed concern about

3948-489: The barbarians living outside of the civilised regions, which made up the centre of Shang territory. In particular, the group living in the Yan Mountains were regularly mentioned as hostile to the Shang. Apart from their role as the head military commanders, Shang kings also asserted their social supremacy by acting as the high priests of society and leading the divination ceremonies. As the oracle bone texts reveal,

4032-495: The book different orientations according to various research directions and theories. Due to the introduction of Western anthropology, folklore/ etc., many scholars regarded the book as a synthesis of various disciplines, using it as a reference for analysis and summarizations. The mythological creatures first described in Shanhaijing appear in many historical and modern stories and art based on Chinese mythology; for examples,

4116-610: The city walls yielded over 200 artefacts, including a gold face covering measuring 18.3 by 14.5 cm (7.2 by 5.7 in). In 1959, the site of the Erlitou culture was found in Yanshi, south of the Yellow River near Luoyang . Radiocarbon dating suggests that the Erlitou culture flourished c.  2100 BC to 1800 BC. They built large palaces, suggesting the existence of an organised state. In 1983, Yanshi Shang City

4200-425: The conduct of their duties, and some grew more independent and emerged as rulers of their own. There was a basic system of bureaucracy in place, with references to positions such as the "Many Dog officers", "Many horse officers", the "Many Artisans", the "Many Archers" or court titles like "Junior Servitor for Cultivation" or "Junior Servitor for labourers". Members of the royal family would be assigned personal estates;

4284-540: The debate about the author(s) of the book has been going on for more than two thousand years. The earliest records of the Classic of Mountains and Seas can be found in Sima Qian 's "Records of the Grand Historian - Biography of Dawan". The author of the book was first clearly identified in "The table of the Classic Mountains and Seas" written by Liu Xiu in the Western Han dynasty . Liu Xiu believed that

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4368-641: The decisive Battle of Muye . According to the Yi Zhou Shu and Mencius the battle was very bloody. The classic Ming dynasty novel Investiture of the Gods retells the story of the war between Shang and Zhou as a conflict with rival factions of gods supporting different sides in the war. After the Shang were defeated, King Wu allowed Di Xin's son Wu Geng to rule the Shang as a vassal kingdom. However, Zhou Wu sent three of his brothers and an army to ensure that Wu Geng would not rebel. After Zhou Wu's death,

4452-460: The depiction of him in the Classic of History . Earlier Chinese scholars referred to it as a bestiary , but apparently assumed it was accurate. In fact, the information in the book is mythological. It is not known why it was written or how it came to be viewed as an accurate geography book. Ancient Chinese scholars also called it an encyclopedia of geographical knowledge and a strange work with

4536-454: The divination. Tombs displayed highly ordered arrangements of bones, with groups of skeletons laid out facing the same direction. Chinese bronze casting and pottery advanced during the Shang, with bronze typically being used for ritually significant, rather than primarily utilitarian, items. As early as c.  1500 BC , the early Shang dynasty engaged in large-scale production of bronzeware vessels and weapons. This production required

4620-529: The dynasty's collapse were integrated into Yan culture during the Western Zhou period. These clans maintained an elite status and continued practising the sacrificial and burial traditions of the Shang. Both Korean and Chinese legends, including reports in the Book of Documents and Bamboo Annals , state that a disgruntled Shang prince named Jizi , who had refused to cede power to the Zhou, left China with

4704-531: The earliest layers of the Wucheng culture predating Anyang have yielded pottery fragments containing short sequences of symbols, suggesting that they may be a form of writing quite different in form from oracle bone characters, but the sample is too small for decipherment. The earliest securely dated event in Chinese history is the start of the Gonghe Regency in 841 BC, early in the Zhou dynasty,

4788-599: The early Zhou , who established the successor state of the Shang, are known to have existed at the same time as the Shang. It has also been suggested the Xia legend originated as a Shang myth of an earlier people who were their opposites. The Erligang culture centred on the Zhengzhou site is found across a wide area of China, even as far northeast as the area of modern Beijing, where at least one burial in this region during this period contained both Erligang-style bronze utensils and local-style gold jewellery. The discovery of

4872-656: The eve of the Jurchen invasion, a fox went to the throne of Emperor Huizong of Song . This resulted in Huizong ordering the destruction of all fox temples in Kaifeng. The city was invaded the next day, and the dynasty fell after five months. In late imperial China, during the Ming and Qing dynasties, disruptions in the domestic environment could be attributed to the mischief of fox spirits, which could throw or tear apart objects in

4956-453: The fox, Guo Pu (276–324) made the following comment: When a fox is fifty years old, it can transform itself into a woman; when a hundred years old, it becomes a beautiful female, or a spirit medium, or an adult male who has sexual intercourse with women. Such beings are able to know things at more than a thousand miles' distance; they can poison men by sorcery, or possess and bewilder them, so that they lose their memory and knowledge; and when

5040-408: The idea that the book's authors are Yu the Great and Boyi . However, scholars after the Tang dynasty raised doubts about the authenticity of assigning the book's authors as Yu the Great and Boyi . Chen Zhensun's Zhizhai Bibliography , Zhu Xi 's Annotations on Chu Ci: Dialectical Differentiation of Chu Ci , Hu Yinglin's Shaoshi Mountain Room Pen Cluster and others have acknowledged that it

5124-437: The impious and cruel final Xia ruler in the Battle of Mingtiao . The Records of the Grand Historian recount events from the reigns of Tang, Tai Jia , Tai Wu , Pan Geng , Wu Ding , Wu Yi and the depraved final king Di Xin , but the rest of the Shang rulers are merely mentioned by name. In the last century, Wang Guowei demonstrated that the succession to the Shang throne matched the list of kings in Sima Qian's Records of

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5208-416: The initial scientific excavations during the 1920s and 1930s, and over four times as many have been found since. The inscriptions provide critical insight into many topics from the politics, economy, and religious practices to the art and medicine of the early stages of Chinese history. Several of the Chinese classics discuss the history of the Shang, including the Book of Documents , the Mencius and

5292-399: The invention of many musical instruments and celestial observations of Mars and various comets by Shang astronomers. Their civilisation was based on agriculture and augmented by hunting and animal husbandry. In addition to war, the Shang practised human sacrifice . The majority of human sacrifice victims mentioned in Shang writings were war captives taken from the Qiang people, who lived to

5376-417: The king provided them with pre-determined public works such as walling cities in their regions, distributed materials and issued commands to them. In turn, their estates belonged ultimately to the king's land, and they paid tribute to the king as well as reporting to him about conquered lands. More distant rulers were known by titles translated as marquess or count, who sometimes provided tribute and support to

5460-508: The last Shang capital Yinxu , near modern-day Anyang , uncovered eleven major royal tombs and the foundations of palaces and ritual sites, containing weapons of war and remains from both animal and human sacrifices. Tens of thousands of bronze, jade , stone, bone, and ceramic artifacts have been found. The Anyang site has yielded the earliest known body of Chinese writing , mostly divinations inscribed on oracle bones —usually turtle shells or ox scapulae . More than 20,000 were discovered in

5544-563: The main palatial complex, there were underground pits used for storage, servants' quarters, and housing quarters. Many Shang royal tombs had been tunnelled into and ravaged by grave robbers in ancient times, but in the spring of 1976, the discovery of Tomb 5 at Yinxu revealed a tomb that was not only undisturbed, but one of the most richly furnished Shang tombs that archaeologists had yet come across. With over 200 bronze ritual vessels and 109 inscriptions of Fu Hao 's name, Zheng Zhenxiang and other archaeologists realised they had stumbled across

5628-443: The most myths that records ancient China's "history, philosophy, mythology, religion, medicine, folklore, and ethnicity", reflecting a wide range of cultural phenomena and also involving "geography, astronomy, meteorology, medicine, animals, plants, minerals ..." Contemporary academia has three main different arguments for the nature of the book: During this period, the contents of the book were considered authentic and reliable. All

5712-437: The mountains, rivers, strange objects and creatures recorded in the book are credible. Through this period, the book was regarded as a fictional work. Due to people's increasing cognition of the world and the prevalence of novels in the Ming dynasty and Qing dynasty, the credibility of the Classic of Mountains and Seas gradually decreased. More people started to believe in the Novel Theory. During this period, researchers gave

5796-417: The name of their fallen dynasty, Yin. The family retained an aristocratic standing and often provided needed administrative services to the succeeding Zhou dynasty. King Wu of Zhou ennobled Lin Jian ( 林堅 ), the son of Prince Bigan , as the Duke of Bo'ling. The Shiji states that King Cheng of Zhou , with the support of his regent and uncle, the Duke of Zhou , enfeoffed Weiziqi ( 微子啟 ), a brother of Di Xin, as

5880-418: The northwest of the Shang. Using skeletal isotope analysis, a group of Shang sacrifice victims at the Zhengzhou site was also found to most likely have been war captives. Skulls of sacrificial victims have been found to be similar to modern Chinese ones (based on comparisons with remains from Hainan and Taiwan ). Cowry shells were also excavated at Anyang, suggesting trade with coast-dwellers, but there

5964-500: The oracle bones by posthumous names . The last character of each name is one of the 10 celestial stems , which also denoted the day of the 10-day Shang week on which sacrifices would be offered to that ancestor within the ritual schedule. There were more kings than stems, so the names have distinguishing prefixes such as da ('greater', 大 ), zhong ('middle', 中 ), xiao ('lesser', 小 ), bu ('outer', 卜 ), and zu ('ancestor', 祖 ), as well as other, more obscure ones. The kings, in

6048-421: The reigns of the last nine Shang kings. The Shang had a fully developed system of writing, preserved on bronze inscriptions and a small number of other writings on pottery, jade and other stones, horn, etc., but most prolifically on oracle bones. The complexity and sophistication of this writing system indicates an earlier period of development, but direct evidence of such is still lacking. Other advances included

6132-433: The sacrifices to previous kings and the ancestors of the current king, which follow a standard schedule that scholars have reconstructed. From this evidence, scholars have assembled the implied king list and genealogy, finding that it is in substantial agreement with the later accounts, especially for later kings. According to this implied king list, Wu Ding was the twenty-first Shang king. The Shang kings were referred to in

6216-408: The same formula, and the whole book is repetitious in this way. It contains many short myths, and most rarely exceed a paragraph. A famous ancient Chinese myth from this book is that of Yu the Great , who spent years trying to control the deluge . The account of him is in the last chapter, chapter 18, in the 2nd to last paragraph (roughly verse 40). This account is a much more fanciful account than

6300-513: The settlement at Anyang, such as the walled city of Sanxingdui in Sichuan . Western scholars are hesitant to designate such settlements as belonging to the Shang. Also unlike the Shang, there is no known evidence that the Sanxingdui culture had a system of writing. The late Shang state at Anyang is thus generally considered the first verifiable civilisation in Chinese history. In contrast,

6384-445: The state as "Shang" ( 商 ), and to its capital as "Great Settlement of Shang" ( 大邑商 ; Dàyì Shāng ) —nor does it appear in any bronze inscriptions securely dated to the Western Zhou ( c.  1046  – 771 BC). The founding myth of the Shang is described by Sima Qian in the Annals of the Yin . In the text, a woman named Jiandi , who was the second wife of Emperor Ku , swallowed an egg dropped by

6468-469: The tomb of Fu Hao, Wu Ding's most famous consort also renowned as a military general, and mentioned in 170 to 180 oracle bone inscriptions. Along with bronze vessels, stoneware and pottery vessels, bronze weapons, jade figures and hair combs, and bone hairpins were found. The archaeological team argue that the large assortment of weapons and ritual vessels in her tomb correlate with the oracle bone accounts of her military and ritual activities. The capital

6552-551: The true Daji's soul. The spirit, as Daji, and her new husband schemed cruelly and invented many devices of torture, such as forcing righteous officials to hug red-hot metal pillars. Because of such cruelties, many people, including King Zhou's own former generals, revolted and fought against the Shang dynasty . Finally, King Wen of Zhou , one of the vassals of Shang, founded a new dynasty named after his country. The fox spirit in Daji's body

6636-411: Was a central aspect of Shang religion is a subject of debate. There were six main recipients of sacrifice: The Shang believed that their ancestors held power over them and performed divination rituals to secure their approval for planned actions. Divination involved cracking a turtle carapace or ox scapula to answer a question, and to then record the response to that question on the bone itself. It

6720-557: Was apparently occupied for less than a century and destroyed shortly before the construction of the Yinxu complex. Between 1989 and 2000, an important Shang settlement was excavated near Xiaoshuangqiao , about 20 km (12 mi) northwest of Zhengzhou. Covering an intermediary period between the Zhengzhou site and the late capitals on the Huan River , it features most prominently sacrificial pits with articulated skeletons of cattle,

6804-508: Was discovered 6 km (3.7 mi) north-east of the Erlitou site in Yanshi's Shixianggou Township. This was a large walled city dating from 1600 BC. It had an area of nearly 200 ha (490 acres) and featured pottery characteristic of the Erligang culture . The remains of a walled city of about 470 ha (1,200 acres) were discovered in 1999 across the Huan River from the well explored Yinxu site. The city, now known as Huanbei ,

6888-559: Was later driven out by Jiang Ziya , the first Prime Minister of the Zhou dynasty , and her spirit condemned by Nüwa herself for excessive cruelty. Popular fox worship during the Tang dynasty has been mentioned in a text entitled Hu Shen (Fox gods): Since the beginning of the Tang, many commoners have worshiped fox spirits. They make offerings in their bedchambers to beg for their favor. The foxes share people's food and drink. They do not serve

6972-422: Was the centre of court life. Over time, court rituals to appease spirits developed, and in addition to his secular duties, the king would serve as the head of the ancestor worship cult. Often, the king would even perform oracle bone divinations himself, especially near the end of the dynasty. Evidence from excavations of the royal tombs indicates that royalty were buried with articles of value, presumably for use in

7056-823: Was very limited sea trade since China was isolated from other large civilisations during the Shang period. Trade relations and diplomatic ties with other formidable powers via the Silk Road and Chinese voyages to the Indian Ocean did not exist until the reign of Emperor Wu during the Han dynasty (202 BC – 221 AD). At the excavated royal palace in Yinxu, large stone pillar bases were found along with rammed earth foundations and platforms, which according to Fairbank, were "as hard as cement". These foundations in turn originally supported 53 buildings of wooden post-and-beam construction. In close proximity to

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