Shang Dynasty existed from about 1600 BC to about 1046 BC, with a history of 554 years.

Shang Tang, the leader of the Shang tribe in Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, led the vassal states to be destroyed in the Battle of Mingtiao and established the Shang Dynasty in Bohai. After that, the capital of Shang Dynasty moved frequently, and it was not until its descendant Pan Geng moved to Yin that it was founded in Yin for 273 years, so Shang Dynasty was also called Yin or Yin Shang.

The Shang Dynasty experienced three main stages. The first stage is the pre-negotiation stage; The second stage is the early business; The third stage was the late Shang Dynasty, from 17 to 3 1 Wang, which lasted for more than 500 years. Di Xin, the last monarch, set himself on fire after being defeated by Zhou Wuwang in the battle of Makino.

The excavation of Yin Ruins confirmed the existence of Shang Dynasty in China. The Shang Dynasty was in the heyday of slavery, and slave owners and nobles were the ruling classes, forming a huge bureaucratic ruling institution and army. Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Jinwen are the earliest systematic characters in China. In Shang Dynasty, there were also developed non-Central Plains civilizations in the Yangtze River basin.

Because there is no recognized direct evidence of the existence of the Xia Dynasty, such as the characters and cultural relics of the same period of the Xia Dynasty as self-evidence, people in the field of modern history have always questioned whether the Xia Dynasty really existed. If the Xia Dynasty did not exist, then the Shang Dynasty was the first dynasty in China.

The origin of Shang dynasty's title

At the end of Xia Dynasty, the influence of merchants developed from the lower reaches of the Yellow River to the middle reaches, penetrated into the ruling areas of Xia Dynasty, established a powerful tribal alliance, and began to transition to slavery. According to legend, Qi, the ancestor of Shang, helped Yu to control water and was named Shang. Later, Shang was called his tribe. As a result, his descendant, Shang Tang, died, taking Shang as the country's title and making Bo its capital.

After that, the capital of Shang Dynasty frequently moved to Pan Geng and then moved to Yin. Since then, the capital has stabilized and been established here for 273 years, so the Shang Dynasty is also called Yin or Yin Shang.

Documents handed down from ancient times, such as Shangshu and Historical Records, called Shang Dynasty Yin, but early documents, such as Ancient Bamboo Book, called this dynasty Shang, and other documents, such as Modern Bamboo Book, called it Yin Shang. These three appellations can be found in the documents of the pre-Qin period. However, there are no Oracle inscriptions that can be interpreted as yin in Oracle Bone Inscriptions unearthed at present. Businessmen in Dayi or Tianyi are businessmen's opinions on the capital of Yin Ruins. In the war, he called his army businessmen. It is not clear whether businessmen refer to the whole country or ethnic groups.

In Shang dynasty, mysterious birds were regarded as totems. According to Yin Benji's historical records, Zhu Die, surnamed female, swallowed the eggs of a mysterious bird and gave birth to a contract. The poem praises Xuanniao for doing business, saying: Xuanniao is born by fate, and business is born by bloodline.

Consistent with historical records.

Shang dynasty politics

bureaucratic apparatus

There were two kinds of official positions in Shang dynasty: Chinese and Korean official positions and foreign official positions. Among the internal officials, there are external court administrators and internal court administrators. The chief executive, also known as A, Bao and Yin, assisted the Shang king in making decisions.

The senior officials of the dynasty were collectively called Qing people. The "three publics" are honorifics set by people, and they are not permanent. In addition, there are: History of Divination and Sacrifice Record, Divination Records, Pray for Gods and Ghosts, Record and Keep Ancient Books, Teacher of Military Attachments, Teacher of Musicians, Shao Shi and so on.

The court official is an official who serves the royal family, mainly the general manager and the trusted minister. I manage all the specific affairs of the royal family, including the director in charge of all kinds of work, in charge of grain collection, animal husbandry, hunting, wine, king cars, serving king cars, guarding military officers, guarding Asian travel, educating aristocratic children and taking care of the elderly from other places. Officials abroad mainly include the leaders of Fang, Hou Bo, people who serve the imperial court and people who guard the border.

When the Shang Dynasty implemented the tribute system, there were also servitude and rent assistance, that is, farmers were asked to help plow the common land, and all the income was obtained by the rulers, accounting for about one tenth of the farmers' income. Yin collected taxes to enrich Lutai and the giant bridge.

In the shadow of theocracy, the rulers of Shang Dynasty still respect ghosts and gods. The highest political principle pursued is to govern the country according to the will of the gods and ghosts.

law

The guiding ideology of the legal system in Shang Dynasty was further developed on the basis of the legal concept of punishing evil by offering sacrifices to heaven in Xia Dynasty, and more emphasis was placed on the role of gods, especially ancestors. Under the influence of this concept of destiny, businessmen are very superstitious about ghosts and gods. The Shang king claimed to be the son of God, even the lower emperor was called the son of heaven.

Therefore, the history of divination plays an important role in the social life of Shang Dynasty.

In the view of divine right, the laws of Shang Dynasty were also made in the name of God in one day. If there are many crimes in summer, the fate of heaven will be added to one person, and the punishment of heaven will be given to him! I don't believe in anything. I don't eat. If you don't keep your oath, you will be killed and you will not be forgiven. Smash summer in the name of heaven.

Xunzi's correct name includes the criminal name from Shang Dynasty, which shows that the legal system of Shang Dynasty should be more mature.

Zuo Zhuan and Zhao Gong were in chaos for six years, and the punishment for making soup was the same as that in Xia Dynasty. It is also a code name named after Tang by later generations to commemorate Tang.

Besides Tang Punishment, there are chapters such as Yi Xun by Pan Geng, which are also effective legal documents in Shang Dynasty.

land

In Shang and Yin dynasties, farmers in every other commune could only obtain their own land through their own commune. Because land ownership belongs to the king in law, the surplus labor force of farmers in each commune belongs to this highest unity.

Because the ownership of commune is generally divided into public land and private land, in this commune, the surplus labor force of commune farmers appears in the form of cultivating public land. Teng Wengong of Mencius said that "only helping the commons and raising the commons together" evolved from the land of the original commune, meaning that the commons of the commune were cultivated collectively by the peasants of the commune.

tax

The harvest on public land is a tax paid to slave owners and nobles.

This is what Mencius called the seventy auxiliary methods of Yin people.

According to Mencius, this auxiliary method is to draw the ground into a well shape and divide it into nine regions; The eight districts are distributed among eight people and are called private fields; One of them, eight families farming together, is called commons.

So Mencius said: help, borrow. The loanword in China ancient literature should be _, which was later mistaken as a book. _ that is, to borrow words, the power of farmers in _ commune to cultivate for themselves is called _, and the word Lei means that it is related to farming. Therefore, Zhao Qi and Mencius noticed that it is also called "borrowing, borrowing and using people's strength to cultivate public land". When Zheng Xuan indicated in the Book of Rites that the commons is borrowed without tax, he also said: By saying that the commons is governed by human power, beauty and evil are taken here, and the people are autonomous without tax.

state capital

During the five or six hundred years of Shang dynasty, the capital was moved many times, and the capital was mostly in Henan. Yin Ruins were discovered in Anyang City, Henan Province, and Shang cultural remains were also found in Shangqiu City, Zhengzhou City, yanshi city, wen county, Huixian County, xinzheng city and other places.

Most of the information about Shang Dynasty comes from the historical records of Sima Qian in Zhou Dynasty and Han Dynasty, as well as the bronze inscriptions of Shang Dynasty and the records of Oracle Bone Inscriptions in Anyang. Among them, the records of Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Jinwen are the earliest systematic characters in China.

After the discovery of the ruins of Yin Ruins in Anyang in the first half of the 20th century, Oracle Bone Inscriptions unearthed from Yin Ruins almost completely confirmed the Shang Dynasty recorded in Sima Qian's Historical Records, and the excavation of Yin Ruins confirmed the existence of Shang Dynasty in China.

Yin Ruins is the first capital ruins in China history, which has been confirmed by archaeology and Oracle Bone Inscriptions. Unearthed cultural relics in non-Central Plains areas, such as Sanxingdui culture centered on Chengdu and Guanghan, and Tanheli site in Ningxiang, Hunan, also prove the existence of developed civilization in the Yangtze River basin in Shang Dynasty.

Shang Dynasty

According to Records of the Historian and Biography of Wuqi, the territory of Shang Dynasty is Mengmen on the left, Taihang on the right, Changshan in the north and great rivers in the south. The territory of Shang Dynasty was from Liaoning in the north, Hubei in the south, Shaanxi in the west and the seashore in the east.

In addition to a part of Hubei, Henan, Anhui, Shandong, Hebei, Shanxi, Beijing and Tianjin, Jiangsu and Shaanxi, it may also include a part of the remaining land in Shaanxi and Jiangsu, Liaoning, Gansu, Hunan, Zhejiang and Sichuan.

According to "Shangshu Shangshu", from contract to soup, Tang moved to Bo after eight times. There have always been different opinions about the location of the eight major movements. Generally speaking, it is in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, not out of the northern and central parts of Henan Province and the southwestern part of Hebei Province. Some people think that Zhengzhou Mall and Yanshi Mall may both be soup capitals in the West. In the summer, he moved to Pan Geng five times and began to live in Yin.