A tomb of Daji from the Shang Dynasty has been unearthed in Henan province, and some netizens say she is innocent, why do you say so?

At some point, a mound of earth was found on the bank of the South Qi River in Qi County, Henan Province, and a monument was erected next to it, which reads "Tomb of Su Daji". According to experts or the popular saying on the Internet today, Su Daji is actually an ordinary concubine, not a vicious woman who helped the evil in the legend. Is this true? I'll tell you what I think.

Mystery of the tombstone

From the pictures of the tombstone that have been circulating on the Internet, we can clearly see that the words on the tombstone are actually in italics. This makes me very curious, when did regular script become popular in the Shang Dynasty in the age of oracle bones?

To this end, I deliberately looked up the oracle bone inscriptions of the three characters of Su Daji, but unfortunately I couldn't find any. However, if the word "da" is split into the words "female" and "dan", plus the word "己", the three words of the The oracle bone inscriptions are as follows.

The oracle bone script of the character "苏" is not found, but we can refer to the evolved small seal script and official script.

The Regular Script, which evolved from the Official Script, was first formed in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and according to historical records, the earliest Regular Script was created by Wang Zizhong. Accordingly, if this tombstone is real, it was erected for him by someone after the Eastern Han Dynasty.

Is Daji really innocent?

According to online sources, from the information of Daji's tombstone, it is understood that she was just an ordinary consort of King Zhou of Shang Dynasty, a woman obtained by the king in his crusade against the Arisu tribe, and she did not instigate the king to do those unconscionable things. The story about Daji's destruction of the country actually comes from the novel "The Feudal Reign of the Gods".

So, is it really true?

According to the Zhou Book of Pastoral Oaths, the king said, "The ancients had a saying: 'The female chicken has no morning; the female chicken's morning, but the family's solicitude.' Today, the king of the Shang Dynasty is subjected to but the woman's words are used ......". King Wu of Zhou pointed out very clearly that King Zhou of Shang only listened to the words of a woman at the swearing-in ceremony before the Battle of Makino, and this woman could not be Queen Jiang who had already been brutalized, could she? Obviously, she was Daji.

In fact, about Daji's identity, the history books never cover up, she is the daughter of the Arisu clan, and no one said it is not ah?

But let's not overlook the six words that follow, making the Qiong Room and setting up the Jade Gate. According to documents, King Zhou built the Qiong Room, Deer Terrace, Jade Gate, Wine Pool and Meat Forest and other activities in Chaoguo. So, wasn't Chaoguo built for Daji? Does this still not reflect King Zhou's favor to Daji, and thus embarked on the road of arrogance and luxury?

Who buried Daji?

According to the Records of the Grand Historian, King Wu of Zhou beheaded King Zhou and Daji and then left. So who would collect their bodies and bury them? Only King Zhou's son, Wu Geng. This is because after King Wu of Zhou established the Zhou Dynasty, he partitioned Chaoguo (formerly Shuyi, present-day Qi County, Henan Province) to King Zhou's son, Wu Geng. It was only after Wugeng's rebellion that Weizi was instead enthroned in what would become the state of Song.

After Wu Geng's rebellion, Song moved its capital to Shangqiu

For Wu Geng, although he hated what King Zhou and Su Daji had done, it was after all his father, and the dead were the greatest, and it was even more unlikely that he would have stood in the shoes of the Zhou people, and criticized their wickedness vociferously in the documents in the tomb. Therefore, in Daji's tomb information only a brief description of his life and did not find its evil related information, is too normal.

As for the simplicity of Daji's tomb, it is easy to understand that under the supervision of the Zhou royal family, could Wu Geng have made a big fuss over his former concubine? A hasty burial would have made more sense.

Daji's tomb

Conclusion

Daji's tomb unearthed in Henan Province, where documents seem to cry foul to the world, she took the blame for the downfall of the Shang Dynasty for thousands of years. However, the writing on the stone monument in front of the tomb is incomprehensible. Why do the italicized characters, which appeared after the Eastern Han Dynasty, appear on tombstones at the end of the Shang and the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty?

The record on the Bamboo Book Chronicle proves to the world once again that the city of Chaogou was indeed built by King Yue to curry favor with Daji. The most likely person to have buried King Zhou and Daji was Wu Geng, the son of King Zhou, who was partitioned in Shuyi, and who could not have criticized them in their tombstone documents, but under the watchful eye of the Zhou royal family, the only thing that could have been done was to bury them hastily.