According to popular recounting, King T’ang established the Shang as China’s preeminent power fourteen generations and eight shifts of their capital after their putative founding. Despite the momentousness of their conquest, the Shih Chi characterized the engagement in a single sentence, the Grand Historian opting not to offer any explanatory passages despite the materials presumably at hand. Fortunately the Shang Shu, Mencius, and various other Warring States works, all composed at least twelve to fifteen centuries after the Hsia’s overthrow, contain extensive, albeit scattered and fragmentary, material on their clash. However imaginative or inaccurate they may appear today, because there was little reason to doubt their veracity in antiquity, the traditional accounts derived from them and the Shih Chi were fervently embraced from the Han onward. As political and military thinkers integrated them into their theoretical constructs, they therefore came to affect court discussions, the image of Virtue, and the very conceptions of revolution and warfare.
For virtually everyone the essential facts were few but dramatic. When the Hsia became oppressive and debauched, the Shang cultivated its own Virtue, developed key alliances, and reluctantly assumed leadership of the disaffected lords before engaging in the decisive confrontation in which they easily vanquished King Chieh, the tyrannical last ruler. The Shang Shu, subsequently deemed one of the original five Confucian classics, came to provide the fundamental impetus for interpreting King T’ang’s assault not just as a righteous action mounted on behalf of all the people, but also as a punitive effort undertaken with Heaven’s sanction, even its mandate.
The chief document cited in justification is “T’ang’s Oath,” essentially a proclamation of purpose issued by King T’ang just before the campaign to elicit (or otherwise coerce) the requisite support:23
Come you multitudes of people, all of you listen to my words. It is not I, the little child, who dares practice what can be termed rebellion. Hsia is guilty of numerous offenses, so Heaven has ordered that he be destroyed.
Now you multitudes are saying, “Instead of having compassion on us, our lord makes us abandon the work of harvest to cut off and rectify Hsia.” I have indeed heard the words of you multitudes, but the chief of the Hsia has committed offenses. Because I fear Shang Ti, I dare not but punish him.
Now there are those among you who say, “What do Hsia’s offenses have to do with us?” The king of the Hsia has utterly exhausted the strength of his masses, everywhere wearing them down in their towns. His masses have all become lazy and will not cooperate with him. They are saying, “When will this sun expire? We will all perish with you.” The Hsia’s virtue being so, I must now go there.
I pray you will assist me, the one man, to bring about Heaven’s punishment. I will greatly reward you. Do not let there be any disbelief among you for I will not eat my words. If you do not obey the words of my pronouncement, I will exterminate your entire families, there will be no pardon.
Although the “T’ang Shih” was probably composed no earlier than the Western Chou, prompted by traditional belief that King T’ang gave a stirring invocation before the campaign, it has assumed immense importance throughout imperial Chinese history.24 From the contents, vestigial or not, it appears that T’ang’s own people not only lacked enthusiasm for undertaking the campaign but also even murmured against it, implying that even “virtuous” rulers had to motivate the people before they would disrupt their lives and engage in military activities.25
Perhaps because other Shang Shu authors in the fourth century CE felt it necessary to buttress the king’s claim—and similarly that of King Wu of the Chou, equally guilty of regicide unless Heaven had sanctioned his revolt—of having acted righteously, another section of the Shang Shu depicts King T’ang as personally questioning the validity of his actions by ruefully saying, “I am afraid that in future generations, I will fill everyone’s mouth.”26 This device allows one of his righteous ministers, Chung Hui, to then justify his actions as both virtuous and necessary:27
Truly, when Heaven gives birth to the people they have desires. Without a ruler they would certainly become chaotic. Truly, Heaven spawns wisdom and intelligence in the father for the era.
The ruler of the Hsia had confused virtue, the people had fallen into mud and ashes. Heaven made a gift of courage and wisdom to you, our king, so that you might visibly rectify the myriad States and continue Yü’s ancient responsibilities. You just acted in accord with its methods, upholding and executing the mandates of Heaven.
The king of the Hsia was guilty of offenses, contorting and distorting the intentions of Heaven in order to disseminate his commands among the people. Ti accordingly condemned him and employed the Shang to receive its mandates and you to enlighten its armies.
King T’ang again condemns the Hsia in another late section, entitled “T’ang Kao,” which purportedly preserves his pronouncements upon returning to the capital. However, the lines most frequently cited in subsequent centuries, whether to simply recount the glorious Shang conquest or justify some divergent course of action, are again attributed to Chung Hui:28
When the earl of Ko treated those bringing provisions as enemies, King T’ang’s punitive campaigns began with Ko. When he campaigned in the east, the Yi in the west complained. When he campaigned in the south, the Ti in the north complained, “Why does he make us, alone, last?” Wherever he ventured, the people congratulated each other in their households, saying, “We have been waiting for our lord. Our lord has come and we have respite.”
In the absence of oracle bone or other contemporary records, the ancient spin masters simply fleshed out the rumors and legends transmitted from antiquity. The tale then assumed a life of its own as a true portrait of events, with the exemplary King T’ang reluctantly assuming the awesome yet baleful responsibility of executing Heaven’s will and restoring the people’s welfare. Thus the Shang Shu portrays King T’ang as a paragon of virtue: he is devoted to his task, oblivious to licentious distractions, effective in action, and focused in deed. Unfortunately, the Shang proved to be a brutal theocratic state throughout its reign, long before perversity and licentiousness purportedly doomed it to extinction.
By drawing on numerous fragmentary records, traditionally oriented scholars have pieced together a fairly comprehensive picture of the conquest that merits consideration in itself, as well as a potential composite from which the historical outlines might be gleaned.29 In summary, the Shang began to flourish after removing to a strategically advantageous, semiremote position somewhat north and east of the Hsia capital, where they would be reasonably free from immediate interference though still nominally submissive;30 established their own network of allies and client states, presumably through Virtue, but more likely by emphasizing their evolving power while championing the idea of benign and beneficent government (which certainly would have translated into policies toward the elite and chiefs more than the common people, whose interests would be critical only in a military crisis); coercively expanded their power base through local conquests, some (according to the Shang Shu) ironically undertaken on behalf of the Hsia (such as against the Yu Yi), just as the Chou would centuries later on behalf of the Shang; maintained close relationships with the Tung Yi to gain their support and preclude their enmity; probed the strength of the Hsia and fidelity of its subject states; held a preliminary assembly of its own allies to determine the intensity of their commitment; defeated and otherwise neutralized the Hsia’s allies;31 gathered general intelligence and exploited the ruler’s paranoia by attacking the capital from an auspicious direction, forcing his flight; and finally defeated the K’un-wu, the Hsia, and even the San-tsung, where Chieh had sought refuge. Throughout these efforts King T’ang reputedly employed insightful advisors such as Yi Yin, a figure to whom sacrifices were still being offered during the dynasty’s last centuries at Anyang, attesting to his perceived importance.32
Effecting this sort of revolution would have required a lengthy period to accumulate essential materials, forge alliances, and gradually overcome nearby recalcitrant states. At what point King T’ang first became enamored of regal power is unknown, although Mencius suggests that Yi Yin may have been instrumental in persuading him to undertake an armed rebellion because Chieh’s odiousness was growing and the people were becoming increasingly disaffected.33 The first entry of importance in the Bamboo Annals, for Chieh’s fifteenth year, indicates that King T’ang moved his people to a site called Po, a designation that has been interpreted as basically signifying any site the Shang central government occupied rather than a particular place-name. Presumably this was to position himself away from the Hsia’s immediate power and pernicious influence, contrary to postulates that Po was Cheng-chou or Chiao-tsuo, both within easy marching distance of the capital at Erh-li-t’ou. At this early stage the move must have been sanctioned by Chieh, insofar as he apparently had appointed the Shang as a fang-po or ducal state entrusted with military authority to act on behalf of the Hsia.
Thereafter, according to the Bamboo Annals, in Chieh’s seventeenth year the Shang dispatched Yi Yin to the Hsia, where he remained for three years before returning. Perhaps with an eye toward ultimately attacking the Hsia, commencing with Chieh’s twenty-first year the Shang began to exert its military power by conquering the Luo before going on to mount a repressive expedition against Ching in the south, subjugating them as well, possibly on behalf of the Hsia if traditional accounts are to be believed. Ta-shih-ku may also have been seized about this time,34 causing Chieh to become suspicious.
When King T’ang foolishly ventured to Chieh’s court in the twenty-third year he was imprisoned in the Summer Tower, where he remained for a year before finally being freed. Why Chieh shortsightedly failed to execute him is unknown, but immediately after his release many of the so-called lords ventured to T’ang’s court, where they were welcomed as honored guests.35 The king must have cultivated these and similar relationships with such eastern groups as the Yu-shih, Yu-jeng, Yu-hsin, and Yu-pi for some three years before initiating the campaign that exterminated the Wen.36
In Chieh’s twenty-eighth year the K’un-wu, no doubt perturbed by the specter of Shang power and, as another fang-po, perhaps acting as Chieh’s alter ego, attacked the Shang, with indeterminate results. After convening his allies, King T’ang went on to seize Wei and mount an unsuccessful assault on Ku, which proved unconquerable until the next year, presumably in another campaign rather than as the result of a protracted siege. (About this time, perhaps foreseeing imminent doom, the Hsia’s Chief Historian fled to the Shang, in itself a highly baleful omen.) The Shang then mounted punitive expeditions against the K’un-wu in each of the next two years, finally defeating them after attacking the Chen-hsün by way of Erh in Chieh’s thirty-first year.
The final clash between the Shang and Hsia melodramatically unfolded at Ming-t’iao amid severe thunder and rain, well befitting the overthrow of one dynasty and establishment of another. However, King Chieh somehow managed to escape and found refuge among the San-tsung, compelling T’ang to march against the San-tsung and defeat them at Ch’en, eventually capturing Chieh at Chiao-men. Remarkably, according to the Bamboo Annals and many other accounts, King T’ang exiled Chieh to Nan-ch’ao in Anhui rather than executing him. Ironically, the last ruler of the Shang—historically portrayed as a perverse clone of King Chieh—would suffer a far more violent fate in essentially the same circumstances.
Certain aspects of these events as chronicled by the Bamboo Annals may be usefully amplified by other sources, insofar as they seem to have preserved vestiges of the events or became historically important thereafter. First, in particular, although Mencius frequently emphasized the power of Virtue attracting and conquering, one of his passages notes that a total of eleven different military actions were required before the Shang could subdue the Hsia and its allies, hardly the sweeping victory of Virtue unopposed! Irrespective of any hostile intent, some of these states probably had to be preemptively eliminated to preclude their exploiting the power vacuum created by the absence of Shang military forces.
Second, in a passage describing why the Shang attacked Ko that no doubt reflects the new theoretical concerns with ritual practice prevalent at the time of its composition in the middle Warring States period, the “welfare of the people,” thereafter the watchword of many military actions and theoretical writings, came to be emphasized:
Wan Chang inquired, “If Sung, which is a small state, were to implement benevolent governmental practices, Ch’i and Ch’u would detest it and attack it. What can be done?”
Mencius replied: “When T’ang dwelt in Po the duke of the neighboring state of Ko had discontinued offering sacrifice. When T’ang dispatched an envoy to inquire why he did not offer sacrifice the duke replied, ‘I lack the means to provide sacrificial animals.’ T’ang accordingly had oxen and sheep sent to him but the duke ate them and still did not offer sacrifice.
“T’ang again dispatched an envoy to inquire why he was not offering sacrifice, to which he replied: ‘I lack the means to supply the ritual vessels of millet.’ T’ang thereupon dispatched the masses from Po to go and plow the fields on his behalf and had the young and old convey provisions. The earl of Ko led the populace to intercept them and seize the wine, edibles, millet, and rice, slaying anyone who wouldn’t turn them over. They even killed a youth and seized his provisions of millet and meat. When the Shu states, ‘The earl of Ko treated those who would supply him with food as enemies,’ this is what it means.”
“Since King T’ang mounted his punitive expedition because the earl had killed this youth, all within the four seas said: ‘It isn’t because he seeks the riches found under Heaven, but to avenge an ordinary man and ordinary woman.’37 [As the Shang Shu states,] ‘When T’ang initiated his punitive efforts, he commenced with Ko.’ After eleven campaigns he no longer had any enemies under Heaven. When he faced east and went forth, the Yi peoples in the west murmured; when he faced south and went forth, the Ti in the north complained, ‘Why does he put us later ?’ The people looked to him just as if longing for rain during a severe drought. Those venturing to market didn’t stop, those working in the fields continued their weeding unchanged. In punishing the ruler but consoling the people he was like a seasonal rain falling. The people were greatly pleased. As the Shu Chingstates, ‘We have been waiting for our lord. When our lord comes, will we not be free from punishment!’”38
This passage came to exert a formidable influence on court debates about military action, and the concept of not disturbing the people by campaigning solely against the chief miscreants, though rarely observed in practice, proved to be particularly important. It was also increasingly emphasized in such classic military writings as the Ssu-ma Fa as the carnage escalated dramatically in the Warring States period and was frequently raised during the chaos of subsequent millenarian revolts and dynastic overthrows.39
As to other aspects, the Lü-shih Ch’un-ch’iu, a late third-century BCE eclectic text, contains an expanded discussion of Yi Yin’s career that focuses on his activities as a spy rather than virtuous adviser. In essence, Sun-tzu’s assertion that, “in antiquity, when the Shang arose, they had Yi Yin in the Hsia. When the Chou arose, they had Lü Ya in the Shang,” canonized him as one of China’s first two spies.40 Nevertheless, writings such as the Shang Shu not only fail to sustain Sun-tzu’s opinion, but instead portray him as a recluse who deliberately sought out King T’ang and persuaded him to embark on the righteous course that could sweep away the Hsia.41
The Lü-shih Ch’un-ch’iu preserves a dramatic passage that not only integrates the virtues of a moral paragon with the deviousness of a seasoned spy, but also shows that King T’ang created a painful cover story for Yi Yin:
Because Emperor Chieh of the Hsia dynasty was immoral, brutal, perverse, stupid, and greedy, All under Heaven quaked in fear and were greatly troubled. However, reports of his deeds were contradictory and confused, so it was difficult for anyone to fathom the true situation. Availing himself of the emperor’s awesomeness, prime minister Kan Hsin was brusque and insulting to both the feudal lords and the common people. Because the worthy and outstanding ministers were all anxious and resentful, the emperor killed Kuan Lung-feng to stifle rebellious stirrings.
The common masses, in consternation and confusion, all wished to emigrate elsewhere and, being afraid to speak directly about the situation, lived in constant terror. Although the great ministers shared the same worries, they dared not cooperate to mount a revolt. Meanwhile Emperor Chieh increasingly regarded himself as a great worthy, boasted of his transgressions, and even viewed wrong as right. The imperial way was blocked and stopped, the populace in total collapse.
Terrified and troubled that the realm was not at peace, T’ang wanted Yi Yin to go and observe the mighty Hsia. However, he feared that Yi Yin would not be trusted so he personally shot him with an arrow. Yi Yin then fled to the Hsia. After three years he reported back to T’ang at his enclave at Po: “Earlier Chieh was befuddled and deluded by his consort Mo Hsi and now loves his two concubines from Min-shan so he doesn’t have any concern for the common people. The will of the people does not support him, upper and lower ranks detest each other. The hearts of the people are filled with resentment. They all say that Heaven fails to have pity on them, so the Hsia’s mandate is over.”
T’ang exclaimed: “What you have just said is much like a prophetic lament!” They then swore an oath together to evidence their determination to extinguish Hsia.
Yi Yin went again to observe the mighty Hsia where he learned from Mo Hsi that “the previous night the emperor had dreamt there was a sun in the west and a sun in the east. When the two suns engaged in combat, the western sun emerged victorious and the eastern sun was vanquished.” Yi Yin reported this to T’ang. Although the area was suffering from a severe drought, T’ang still mobilized their forces in order to keep faith with the oath he had sworn with Yi Yin. Thereafter he ordered the army, after proceeding out from the east, to make their advance into Hsia territory from the west. Chieh fled even before their blades had clashed, but was pursued out to Ta-sha where he was finally killed.42
This episode already incorporates many crucial elements of spycraft. First, from the outset Yi Yin was deliberately employed as a covert agent to gather critical intelligence about the Hsia and its ruler. Second, he was given a plausible pretext for seeking refuge with Chieh, an arrow wound emblematic of T’ang’s hatred. Third, Chieh had not only succumbed to licentiousness but also committed the fatal mistake of displacing his consort, who then acted as an archetypal slighted beauty by secretly revealing the king’s nightmare to Yi Yin. T’ang’s astonished reaction to Yi Yin’s initial report similarly indicates the importance of prophetic events, dreams, sayings, and phenomena in this era.
Encouraged to undertake otherwise dubious campaign measures, King T’ang scripted a scenario that would actualize Chieh’s secret fears, including an assault from the west. Although the choice of direction was dictated by the nightmare, it may have been tactically advantageous because the Hsia probably left the west comparatively undefended on the assumption that any attack would originate in the east. Chieh’s downfall was also undoubtedly hastened because the hostile state of Min-shan had wisely exploited the debilitating power of women and sex by presenting two new concubines, intended to fascinate him and thereby deter further assaults on their small state.
A millennium after these events military theorists such as Wu-tzu would emphasize the need to probe the enemy with minor stimuli to accurately gauge personality and intent. An incident preserved in the Shuo Yüan, a first-century BCE thematic compilation, envisions Yi Yin as having advocated just this sort of probe:43
T’ang wanted to attack Chieh but Yi Yin said, “Let’s reduce our tribute and observe his actions.” Enraged, Chieh mobilized the armies of the Nine Yi in order to attack the Shang. Yi Yin said, “It is not yet possible. If he is still able to mobilize the Nine Yi armies, the offense lies with us.” T’ang then acknowledged his offense and asked to be allowed to submit and again forward the requisite tribute. However, the next year, when he again did not forward the required tribute and Chieh, enraged, tried to mobilize the armies of the Nine Yi, they did not respond.44 Yi Yin then said, “Now it is possible.” T’ang mobilized their armies, attacked and destroyed the Hsia, and removed Chieh to Nan-ch’ao.
Whether the Hsia had degenerated to the degree attributed to Chieh, the Shang simply excelled as history’s first propagandists, or Chou and later spin doctors concocted the whole tale may never be known. However, it seems likely that Chieh’s behavior had so antagonized the Hsia clan states and other peoples that they welcomed an alternative under which they might enjoy greater freedom—or at least fewer burdens—and by being early supporters, perhaps more prestige and therefore independence.
King T’ang is portrayed as having visibly cultivated and consciously manifested an image of solicitude and righteousness. This would have attracted more distant peoples, especially those suffering under the yoke of Hsia tributary demands, and cemented nearby allegiances, creating the requisite foundation for attacking King Chieh. When the Shang finally struck, their motivation was ostensibly righteous, and they apparently claimed that as Heaven (or Ti on High) sanctioned the change, the Hsia had forfeited its legitimacy. (At this moment the late concept of a “mandate of Heaven” had not yet been formulated, but the idea that the rulers could lose the blessing of Ti, to whom the Shang would constantly appeal in their divinations, and thus the right to rule, well coheres with subsequent Shang religious thought.)
If these traditional accounts hold any validity, the Shang’s strategy was complex, its incubation lengthy, and its final measures brilliantly executed as they consciously exploited a newly created tactical imbalance of power and Chieh’s psychological weakness through covertly gathered intelligence. King T’ang can therefore be seen as having exemplified Sun-tzu’s subsequent concept of first creating the circumstances in which one cannot be defeated (by neutralizing potential enemies, especially the Eastern Yi, who could have easily exploited the power vacuum created by the conflict) and then those for achieving victory (by forming alliances, including with the Yüeh-shih, and acquiring true knowledge of the enemy), thereby gaining victory essentially unopposed over a crumbling foe. Even though this is a somewhat romanticized portrait, one remarkably and no doubt deliberately similar to the Chou’s conquest of the Shang centuries later, to the extent that Chieh was flawed and terrified and King T’ang had to confront certain military realities to gain victory, it may contain some degree of truth.