Page 448 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

[1020-1000 b.c.] The End of an Era 385

itself so. Admittely, its eastern border marched with the Shang
empire, and the Shang kings had claimed a general suzerainty
over the land, but the Shang dominion was not enforced and
was hotly denied by the court at Feng.
King Wen’s mother had been a Shang princess, and it was
said that she had never reconciled herself to living among what
she considered to be western barbarians, and filled her son with
tales of the splendors of Shang and the glories of its empire. Cer­
tainly the prince grew up with a determination to show that
Chou was superior to Shang in every way. And indeed all Chou
knew that the kings and nobles of Shang lived a life of decadent
luxury, and that their own hardy and frugal farmers were, man
to man, worth two of the soft winebibbers of the lower river.
When the prince ascended the throne in 1045 b.c., he made
no secret of his ambitious plans to conquer Shang and extend

his rule as far as the mouth of the Yellow River, the eastern sea,
and the sunrise. And to that end he set to work to train and
equip a large army, and at the same time instituted a rule of
austerity, forbidding the use of wine except for sacrifices and at
certain festivals. But King Wen’s reign had been short, only
seven years, and in that time he was unable to complete his
preparations, though he campaigned against the nomad chariot­
eers to the west, exercising his army, capturing the horses that his
heavy chariots would need, and at the same time securing this
frontier in his rear.
When his son, King Wu, had succeeded just eighteen years
ago, he naturally prepared, as a good son should, to carry out the
wishes of his father. Even so, nine years had passed before he
felt that he was strong enough to venture against the mightiest
empire in the known world. And then it was only a probe, a
swift thrust across the Yellow River which formed the boundary

between the kingdoms.
Two years later, in 1027 b.c., his father’s spirit finally in­
formed him by means of the oracle bones that the time for attack
had come. He had gathered his chariots and those of his allies
and struck home. It was nearly four hundred miles from Feng to
the great city of Shang, and over half this distance was through
enemy territory. But the army of Chou was irresistible, and the