The Colorful Fall of China's Shang Dynasty

A History of Mankind (49)

(This post is a sequel to this earlier post. The previous post on Chinese history is here. To see all older posts in a list arranged by subject, click here)

Many of the same reasons that kept Assyria from becoming a unified empire kept the so-called second Chinese dynasty, the Zhou, from forming a true Chinese empire even at the height of its political power – which, in any case, wasn't very high, nor lasted very long.

The Zhou state started off as one of many vassals of the Shang Dynasty, located on the strategically important Wei River valley where much of early Chinese civilization had risen. Tradition has it that the rulers of Zhou took advantage of their position at the edge of the Shang domain – Anyang, the Shang capital, is around 600 kilometers away from Fenghao, the old Zhou capital located in modern Xi'an, later to be China's imperial capital for a long time[1] – to get in touch with barbarians from the Gansu region.

These barbarians provided the Zhou with good horses and superior chariots, including a new kind of harness with four horses abreast that may have trigger panic among enemy infantrymen, as well as better techniques for body armor; as in Mitanni a few centuries earlier, the Zhou state organized chariots into squadrons of five, and brigades of five squadrons[2]. The Zhou also appear to have had superior bronze-casting technologies, likely influenced by those Gansu contacts in indirect touch with other parts of Eurasia.

By the mid 11^th century BC, the decaying Shang empire was ruled by King Di Xin, an intelligent man of many talents who eventually became a byword for elaborate cruelty and decadence in Chinese history: to the point that it's hard to believe that all the legends and sayings about him can be true – they would surely make him one of the most despicable men to ever live – and the suspicion must be that his sins were exaggerated to turn him into an example for future generations. The evil influence attributed to his main wife Daji, for example, fits perfectly with many other stories about awful Chinese consort queens.

In his pampered middle age, Di Xin supposedly gave himself over to drinking and orgies with friends and women; his concubines were said to create songs with erotic lyrics and poor rhythm[3], even as the king found ways to get ever deeper into perversion with the help of Daji.

One of the most famous forms of entertainment Di Xin and Daji enjoyed was the "Alcohol Pool and Meat Forest," perhaps inspired by the earlier tales of depravity attributed to the mythical last king of the Xia Dynasty: a large pool, big enough for several canoes, was constructed on the Palace grounds, with inner linings of polished oval shaped stones from the seashores. This allowed for the entire pool to be filled with alcohol[4]; and a small island was constructed in the middle, where trees were planted with branches made of roasted meat skewers hanging over the pool.